The Waterbury Democrat., 1939-03-20

IS.
 We have heard the Presidents promise of mo more taxes = the Hopkins "appeasement" speech-the lifting of the plague on both your houses" in the effort to have the c. I. O. and the A. F. of L. smoke the pecce pipe, and a current Capi- tai rumor that the present mono- poly investigation will be quietly demobilized.
 The reasons for this new and even sudden shift of the admipis- tration to policy of aiding bisi- ness are fairly obvious.
 First of all, for the first time, the administration has become acutely aware of the facts:
 1. That recovery is utterly im- possible unless private investment revives and,
 2. That private investment has almost wholly collapsed.
 The Administration, its critics say, has done some good things. But they declare the good things have not been on the side of re- covery. For instance, social security is a good thing. But social security laws. while aiding the worker for a while, do not prevent hard times. They help man for a limited time when he loses his job, but they do not create new job for him. There fore, while approving what has been done in the way of social justice, the critics say that these measures of social justice have not been sup plemented with measures of practi- cal economic recovery.
 The facts about private invest ment have suddenly burst upon the consciousness of the people with 8 good deal of shock. For instance, money has piled up in the banks during the past six years of depres- sion so rapidly that now there is as much money in the banks as there was in 1929 at the peak of the great boom.
 But while money has piled up in the banks it has not gone into in- vestment. The evidence of this is found in the figures about bank loans. While bank deposits now are as great as they were in 1929, bank loans are 20 billion dollars less. While bank deposits have increased by IS billion dollars since 1883, bank loans have actually decreased by a billion.
 The banks have not loaned the money. For a long time the admin istration blamed the banks. They said 1t was the bankers trying to sabotage the administration-ba on a capital strike. But that argu- ment is no longer tenable. Because all bankers are not anti-New Deal- CTS. MT. Jesse Jones' bank in Hous- ton, for instance, has not made any more loans than any other bank in fact, not as many. This is not the banks fault. The loans are not available. ...
 MT. Hopkins in his speech laid stress upon the fact that three avenues of investment beckon to us the utilities, the railroads and construction. He admitted that the key to recovery lay in finding out why people would not invest in these things and how they can be induced to do so.
 Moreover, 1940 looms ahead. By the time the political conventions meet next year the United States will have completely exhausted its legal debt limit of 45 billions. If private investment does not revive by then, the President will face the necessity of another tremendous debt deficit.
 But Congress is ready to refuse to increase the debt limit. The party cannot afford to go before the country next year with another de- ficit and the promise of still another for the following year. It needs re- covery as 8 political necessity now and needs 1t desperately. Therefore the administration has turned to business as it's one great hope.
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 Right Turn.