Evening star., 1939-07-23
End Of Regime Now
Foreshudowed
By ODen L. Scott.


gime. Individuals and groups long held
in line by loyalty to the President, now
are beginning to clash openly with one
another. Mr.. Roosevelt for the first
time appears unable to maintain what
might be called discipline among his
followers
There is sharp under-cover firing at
Frank Murphy, the Attorney General.
Reason: Mr.. Murphy is accused of being
a bit too ambitious and Is criticized for
failing to pronounce with SUFFICIENT vigor
his enthusiastic support Of President
Roosevelt for a third term.
An outburst of violent inside opposi-
ton greeted the Presidents choice Of
Paul McNutt to be Federal Security ad-
ministrator. That opposition and cha
grin appears to grow rather than to
diminish. Then the supposed guardians
of the New Deal have tried to read Sec
retary of Agriculture Henry Wallace out
of the party because he failed in 1898 to
join in the attempted purge of Senator
Gillette Of Iowa.
What amounts to fanaticism has char
acteriZed the attitude of the palace
coterie, whose members have demanded
absolute loyalty to the ideas and projects
of Mr.. Roosevelt-or of themselves-as
the price of their tolerance.
The choice of Mr.. McNutt-a man of
doubtful New Deal loyalty-to assume
key Government post dazed and embit-
tered the group that has been trying to
lay down strict party line" Here was
signal that the President did not share
the view of this group that an individual,
to qualify for White House standing,
must subordinate all personal views to
the views Of the group.
Apparently Mr.. Roosevelt, much to the
chagrin of the coterie led by Tom Cor
coran has decided to give head to the
whole bevy of ofiicials and Congressman
who want to try for his job.
The Presidents signal came at time
Of much internal confusion.
Obvious to any one acquainted with
them Is recent great loss Of enthusiasm
for President Roosevelt and for the New
Deal on the part of many of the young
officials who have risen in Government
service during recent years. There is
growing tendency to criticize the Presi-
dent for falling to lay down line of
policy and to stick to that policy. Many
ofiicials who have had a part in running
the New Deal now are concluding that
the venture, as built by Mr. Roosevelt, is
an overall failure.
Criticism is directed at the White
House failure to avoid contradictory pol
icies in the field of economics and to
drive ahead with the reforms that are
considered necessary to produce re-
covery.
So there is breaking of front among
the men who really made the first New
Deal. and who have sought to induce
the President to push ahead The result
is growing impression of oficial in
stability at the center of things here.
That impression is heightened by the
fact that Congress no longer tries to hide
the fact that it is getting rather tired of
the New Deal-and. in some instances. of
the President. Mr.. Roosevelt scarcely
hides the fact that he is rather tired of
Congress and its growing insistence upon
gaining local advantage regardless of
national needs.
In TACT. 1t is interesting to note that
Robert Jackson, Solicitor General and
the first choice of the inner New Deal
coterie as a successor to Mr.. Roosevelt,
now has come around to the point of
suggesting that what the country needs
is third term for the Roosevelt ideas"
even If not an actual third term for Mr..
Roosevelt himself. Mr. Jackson earlier
had been an enthusiastic advocate of
third term.
Thus the conviction is spreading that
the President really does intend to get
away from it all in January, 194l. The
state Of the New Deal itself bulwarks
that conviction. w. P. A. is destined
to have pretty much Of the life squeezed
out of it during the next year, unless
Congress decides otherwise. Mr. Roose-
welt finally is convinced that, if the Ma
ton must permanently bolster private
industry. the bolstering should be done
through heavy public works rather than
through work relief w. P. A. involves
direct Government employment and
myriad problems that grow from large
scale employment of this character in
peacetime.
With w. P. A. contracting, there will
be less political support from that quar-
ter The work relief problem is simply
reflection of the Presidents failure to
solve the problem Of depression-a
failure that would hardly be an asset
in any third-term venture Along
with the failure to overcome depression
goes the failure to bring the Federal
Governments finances under control.
Here the failure must be shared with
Congress. The present session has DEM
onstrated that Republican and Demo-
cratic members of Congress-as whole
are even more addicted to the spend
ing habit than is the President.
In view of these failures, and in view
of the fact that the Supreme Court now
has interpreted the Constitution broadly
enough to permit almost any type of
Federal Government activity, many of
the more intelligent young Government
officials have argued that the President
should come forward with a broad new
recovery program to be sold to the coun-
try on its considered merits. They feel
that experience of recent years has re-
vealed how such program might be
built.
The most that Mr.. Roosevelt would ac-
cent however is a new program of pub