Evening star., 1938-01-23
Presidents Role That
of a Quarterback.
BY OVEN L. SCOTT.


The President must run an extremely
complicated team, backed by few powers
| Of discipline. No head of any other major
| nation has quite such q difncult job.
The same has to be played with 531
| players, no two of whom think or act
alike. These players, Representatives
and Senators, are listening, in turn, to
pressure groups back home and to lobby
lists and to personal prejudices and per-
sonal interests. Any move they can be
induced by the President to make must
be under the watchful eye Of nine other
men sitting on the side lines, rule book
| in hand, and armed with power to call
of the play.
It Is against this background that Mr..
Roosevelt must do his maneuvering.
4 \
Disinterested presidential advisers are
| in close agreement on what needs to be
done by Govrnment to turn the tide Of
tn present setback in business. The
President accepts most OF their diagnosis
and approves Of the proposed remedies.
But his problem only starts At that
point. He Immediately is faced with q
clash between politics and economics.
The downturn in business activity and
the rise of unemployment brought out
the opposition In full cry, ready to press
the Roosevelt depression" for what it
was worth. Here flanking movement
was required, and Tom Corcoran came In
to dress up speeches to be given by Har-
old Ickes and Robert jackson. These
speeches served as a demonstration of
the kind of counter ATTACK that could be
launched If the other side wanted to
fight on that basis. This one move
served It's purpose effectively
While the shock given by Ickes and
Jackson still was being felt. Mr.. Roose-
welt offered to cooperate with his one
time big business enemies.
The idea OF cooperation seemed all
the more attractive for the earlier as
sault AS matter Of fact. the Presi-
dent long has been convinced that the
country's antitrust laws are antiquated
and unworkable. He never has foresaken
the original principle of N. r. A. as
means of solving business problems
through careful adjustments, participate
ed in by Government. Henry Wallace.
Mariner S. Eccles, Donald Richberg and
many other Of his close associates agree.
Yet trust-busting has strong hold
on Congress. John Garner. the Vice
President and real leader of Congress, is
trust-busting enthusiast from way
back. He represents tho feeling of the
South and the West that the combina-
tions of big business and finance, con-
centrated in the East, are milking the
resources OF the rest of the Nation to
the great enrichment of few COM
panies and relatively few individuals.
So Mr.. Roosevelt turned loose a bar
rage against trusts and holding COM
panies and concentrations of economic
power. intending thereby to gather add
ed support in Congress and to get more
modern antitrust laws. But, in the
process, he intends to obtain some ma
chinery for working out major problems
In industry without resorting to unlimited
competition. The principle of N. R. A.
might come back in with revised laws
against monopoly.
Furthermore, II there are to be quick
adjustments of the kind that are needed
to get the business machine back In gear,
those adjustments must come through
agreements with the big bankers and big
industrialists and big labor leaders who
dominate an important part of that ma
chinery. This is true because it requires
between two and five years to make q
single adjustment through use of the
antitrust laws.
But the sight of economic royalists
talking in the White House worries many
left-wingers in Congress on whom the
President must depend for support. This
naturally leads to select gathering of
radical Senators in the Presidents study
to hear from Mr.. Roosevelt himself that
he is abandoning none Of the reform OBJ
jectives and is as interested as ever in
the underprivileged To confirm that
position, there is a new crack at utility
holding companies, which happen to be
the pet aversion of these left-wing Sen
ators.
Likewise. in the process of turning the
trend of business, there is agreement that
the Government must provide the initial
stimulus through some step-up in ex-
penditures or through some other posi-
tive gesture.
Yet the President is committed politi-
cally to strive for balance in the Gov
ernment's budget. The country is wor-
ried over the size Of the national debt.
AS result, President Roosevelt has q
difficult time politically in doing what
he Is told it is necessary to do. A naval
building program comes in handy at this
point, since the taxpayers who are most
concerned about spending rather like the
idea Of big Navy. At the same time,
defiation is pressed at other points, on
the apparent theory that, by urging cuts
in expenditures, Congress can be held
responsible politically for future increases
that may prove necessary.
Even when trying to be conservative,
the President runs into difficulty pleas
ing the conservatives.
It now Is accepted by the most con-
servative economists that some wages
and some prices in industry got out of
line, upsetting the recovery applicant
Presidential planning calls for maneuvers
to try to get these prices and wages back
more nearly in line. But John L. Lewis,
cycling his union in the steel industry
with its high hourly wages and William
Green, cycling his unions in the building
industry, do not like that idea Neither
do representatives Of some of the coun-
try's biggest bankers and biggest indus
trialists. who have appeared at the White
House to urge an end to price cutting
talk on the ground that it is disturbing,
They indirectly suggest that imitation Of
depressed wages and prices must be less
painful than dedation Of inflated wages
and prices
And 50 1t goes.