The Waterbury Democrat., 1938-01-06

Washington, Jan. 6.-Roosevelt fully approved of the f1re-eating speeches by Assistant Attorney General Robert H. Jackson and Secretary of the Interior Ickes, which livened the holidays and stirred the ire of Democratic and other conservatives.
 The president, in his message to congress, reiterated practically everything Jackson and Ickes had said-in a nice, polite way.
 The first of these facts is known to the inner circle of presidential advisers and suspected by all acute observers. It ought to be obvious to every one.
 The second fact is plainly wis., ible to anyone who lays the Jack son-Ickes speeches side by side with the presidential message. Noth- ing about the message has been more surprising than the extent to which commentators in congress have missed or ignored this similar ity-and even insisted that the op- posite was true.
 Pulls His Punches
 It may also seem surprising that the president and his friends should seek to cover up or blur these very essential facts and that the presi- dent, if he fully agrees with Jack son and Ickes as to monopoies, con- centrated economic power and strikes of capital" against the ad- ministration, should choose much softer words and fail to show simi- lar belligerence.
 But Roosevelfs words were
 much too strong for his more con- Servative advisers, whose inf1u-
 ence at the White House is again
 on the wane, and even stronger
 than some of his liberal advisers
 were willing to counsel
 One influential group of liberals advised him he couldn't afford to fight Wall street openly" unless Ehe could get from congress the eight or ten billion dollars which he was told would be required in such a struggle if the fight were to be successful. Wall street was too powerful and wealthy to chal- lenge, this group said.
 Fighting Speech" Soon
 So the softer words were partly compromise with that group. But they were also a prelude to Roose- velt's Jackson day dinner speech, in which, his more left-wingish ad- visers were told, the president would really come out in a fighting speech" with some heavy emphasis on alleged similarity between his present position and that of Andrew Jackson in the latter's famous struggle with Nicholas Riddle and the Bank of the United States.
 Above the presidents desk in the Lincoln Study at the White House there has long hung a clus- ter of pictures of ships. A few days ago Roosevelt replaced the central picture with a portrait of John Paul Jones, in which the fa- cial expresSion-as Roosevelt noted is reminiscent of that old sea war rior's reply to demand for sur- render-"I have not yet begun to fight"
 Same Tune-Different Key
 In congress, probably all this news Is pleasant to the small groups of progressives only. Nevertheless, 1t appears to be the news.
 If selfish suspension of the en- ployment of capital" which Roosevelt assailed, means any, thing different than strike of capital" which Jackson and Ickes used and were accused of "imagin- ing" one is hard pressed to explain how.
 Concentration of economic
 control to the detriment of the
 body pOlitic," Quoting Roosevelt)
 was what Jackson and Ickes were
 talking about. Even references
 to controls by "a very small nu-
 merical group" and "a small
 group" were patterned faintly but
 designedly on the flamboyant att
 tacks of Ickes on "the Sixty Fam
 ilieS."
 Less demagogic, less specific, less reckless. nevertheless the voice of Roosevelt appears to be the voice of Jackson and Ickes, even though pitched in another key. Roosevelt wants cooperation with business, almost entirely on his own terms. AS congress draws nearer the primaries and elections he hopes 1t will pay less attention to his business opposition and more to him and his demands. l (CnnvriUhf 1O2Q NEA C~u.,t.~ Y-N