Evening star., 1938-08-02
Futility Of Spendthrift
Policy Stressed.

To the Editor of The Star:
WHEN the country was thrifty, pros
porous and nearly out Of debt CAL
vim Coolidge, President of all the people,
went West quietly and unostentatiously.
A chair in Pullman car was good
enough for him, as it afforded ample
view of busy people, their homes and
the plenty scattered DER smiling land
He sought no favor. He campaigned for
no favo-ite. A political, partisan tour
was beneath him because he considered
himself President of all the people, not
merely the political leader of his own
party.
A few years later when great Roose-
welt depression was added to period OF
hard times because they planned 1t
that way" when the national debt was
the greatest ever known. the deficit un-
paralleled, the idle millions outnumber-
ing the total population of Canada. the
poor oppressed by mounting taxes, IN
dustry crippled, the rich exploited and
abused. Franklin D. Roosevelt, President
of part of the people, went West in
10-car special train in pomp and oSten-
tation, seeking political preferment Tor
his partisan favorites-a campaign Jaunt
at the expense of the poor; plowlng
under money as he did corn and wheat
when people were hungry.
We write first of a patriot. President
of all the people; second. OF politician
of the Tammany type, President OF part
of the people; one prudent and thrifty,
the other visionary spendthrift. From
the day he became Governor OF New
York through the years to the present
moment Mr.. Roosevelt has piled deficit
IN deficit-always in the red, and he
saws he is proud of it. There has been
no move toward economy notwithstand-
ing the fact that the cities and States
that have balanced their budgets have
done so by economizing. Gov. Lehman
has naid the 100000 900 Roosevelt New
York deficit and has built up surplus
of several millions. When the admins
tration was spending money like
drunken sailor, adding billions to bill
lions of national debt, billions to billions
of deficit, spending daily twice its In
come. Son James, economic royallSt OF
insurance fame, told an audience the
Wav to balance the budget was to spend
more-chip Of the old block!
laundering, socialist administration
and an unidentified Congress that ad-
iourned without solving single social
or economic problem has just put our
moor old Uncle Sam in the COMICS made
him try to lift himself by his boot straps
to imagine prosperity will result by
spending his own money to buy his own
goods, that consuming wealth Is the
same as creating wealth. A few years
ago the European countries played the
same trick on him, borrowed his money
to buy his goods, making him think he
was doing a great and prosperous buSi-
ness. with the result that in the end they
had both the goods and the money with
poor Uncle holding the bag.
Instead of common n-senSe business
methods, thrift and economy the ad-
ministration has created one bureau
after another, investigating committees
too numerous to mention, added pay
rolls to pay rolls, substituted collective
dependence for manly self-reliance, de-
stroyed confidence, mortgaged the fu-
ture, discouraged the ambitious, glorified
extravaganza, impoverished everybody
and started the foundation for Fascist
state.
Facts are not changed by calling the
hoary old deal the New Deal, the ma
tional retarding act the National Re
covery Act, the social insecurity act the
Social Security Act, the old era the new
era, the Roosevelt depression the recess
sion. The new era bogey has raised Its
head with every new generation for the
past three thousand years. In 1923 q
distinguished Yale economist wrote that
we had entered q new era. Prices were
not too high, prosperity would continue.
Within q week Of the publication prices
x,,,.hiad vrJ,a erasIo eaAea And then an.