The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1938-05-19
It's Time Wasted

Washington, May IA
A day or so ago, Mr.. John W. Hanes
newly appointed Assistant Secretary
of the Treasury, whose ambitious and
somewhat overadvertised efforts to
bring together the President and the
big-business leaders fell slightly short
of the advance notices, paid another of
his frequent visits to the White House.
This time he conferred at great
length with Mr.. James Roosevelt, the
Assistant President, whose very lucra-
tive side line is insurance. Later, it
was stated that Mr.. Hanes again is
sounding out" the business leaders
with the idea of having them submit
practical suggestions" to the Presi-
dent and was much encouraged"
Now, greatly as cooperation between
Government and business is to be de-
sired, it is not good news that Mr..
Hanes is to make another attempt.
This is said not to discourage the eff
fort, but merely as a matter of ex-
perience.
The cold fact is that, over period
of four years, every effort of the sort
has resulted not in more cooperation
but less. Most of the time the business
men either have been kicked in the
pants by Roosevelt in order to convince
his Left Wing intimates that he was
not going to "let the people down." or
they have been made to look silly by
ensuing Administration acts and
words. Take, for example, what fol-
lowed Mr.. Hanes' carefully staged
presentation some weeks ago of the
signed statement by sixteen very con-
spicuous leaders "pledging coopera-
ton" One thing that happened was
that the President Immediately sent
a message to Congress urging that
authority be given the SEC for an
investigation of the insurance COM
panies.
1t seems hard to believe that Mr..
Hanes knew Mr.. Roosevelt contem-
plated such a move when he got his
sixteen signatures, as at least two OF
the sixteen were heads of big insur-
ance companies. But if he didn't know
it, one would think he would feel a
little panied No one seems to have a
clear idea of why insurance compan-
les should be investigated now, nor
what it is hoped to discover as re-
suit of investigation, though it is true
that among certain of the more adj
vanced New Dealers there has always
been an itch to regulate" insurance
companies. Some of them believe that
under such an investigation they can
again drag in the Morgan firm, make
out case of "money monopoly and
give what they call good show"
They have rather elaborate plans
along these lines. 1t can hardly be
considered cooperative move.
#**
Another thing that followed Mr..
Hanes' big cooperative splash was the
totally unexpected lecture read the
banks by Mr.. Jesse Jones, who warned
that if they wanted to keep credit in
private hands they had better be more
liberal in lending. Coming from any
one else in the Administration this
would have been more or less true to
form and not mattered much, but COM
ing from Mr.. Jones it was a shock to
business men and bankers from which
they have not yet recovered. For one
thing, they know Mr.. Jones knows
better.
They know he knows that banks
have much more idle money than they
want and are only too anxious to lend
at lower interest than anyone can re-
member.
They had every right to believe he
understood the situation and was I'M
sympathetic with unfounded criticism.
They also say that Mr.. Jones' own
bank in Houston is no more liberal
than any other Liquid" bank. They
were sorry to have him talk that way,
but say they suppose he has to every
once in a while"
Various other homeopathic
moves upon the part of the Admins
tration, following Mr.. Hanes' widely
heralded cooperation plan, could be
cited if there were space. The point is
that these staged "get-together" eff
forts all end the same way. The thing
has been tried and failed enough times
to make it's futility clear. Mr.. Roose-
welt still believes he can spend his way
back to prosperity. Despite gigantic
failure, costing sixteen billions; de-
spite his own recorded words and de-
spite the practically unanimous disap-
prevail of big and little business men,