Evening star., 1940-05-03
Lewis Douglas Warns
Chamber Isolation
Would XIII Democracy
Ex-Budget Head Says
Government Would Plan
Production, Consumption

Lewis w. Douglas, first budget
director under President Roosevelt,
warned last night that a retreat
to the cyclone cellar" of isolation
from foreign affairs means, ulti-
mately, to establish a totalitarian
state at home"
This course" he declared at the
closing dinner of the United States
Chamber of Commerce in the Will
lard Hotel, means ultimately the
creation of government here
vested with sufficiently broad and
arbitrary powers to restrict our pro-
duction to our internal demands, to
plan our consumption so that it
meets our production ="
Mr.. Douglas, former Representa-
tive from Arizona who resigned as
director in disagreement with ad-
ministration policies and is now
president of the Mutual Insurance
Co. of New York, said it would
lead to a central planning agency
"dispensing favors here, subsidiz-
ing efforts there, directing the pro-
duction Of synthetic articles" and
expansion of national defense.
U. S. Held Involved in War.
"Unlike so many, I venture the
assertion that the mold in which
our future is to be shaped will be
cast by developments abroad"
Our vital national interests are
deeply involved in the outcome of
this great struggle. The American
way of living will be changed be-
yond recognition if a glorified per-
sonal state, faithful only to saw
age force as the arbiter Of man
kind is to dominate the world.
Whether we like it or whether
we don't, our destiny is in
evitably linked to those powers that
cherish the fundamental values that
have characterized this Republic
since the day Of its BIRTH"
This is not merely another Eu-
ropean war, he said, but struggle
between two wholly contradictory,
two clashing ways Of life" I'VE
cannot escape the consequences OF
its outcome" he added Should
the lands of Rousseau and Burke
succeed, it will be difficult enough
to reconstruct a peaceful world. 1t
will be impossible should they fail"
Advises Businessmen.
On the home front he declared
that the mere fact that rules may
be made by the people or by their
elected agents docs not necessarily
provide an assurance of the preser-
vation of the institutions that dis
tinguish a democratic system from
Others"
For one of the cardinals facts
disclosed by human experience, he
said, "is that all forms OF govern
ment and social organization pos
sess, and far too frequently exercise,
the power to destroy themselves"
AS business leaders, he cautioned,
1t is up to them ito demonstrate
that we possess a capacity to re-
solve conflicts in terms of the ma
tional good at the expense, If need
be, of our pocketbooks."
I'VE must root out of our own
procedure those practices which i'm
pinge on a free market, for private
monopoly leads with an almost grim
inevitability to public monopoly"
Yesterday James Scott Kemper,
81, president of the Lumbermen's
Mutual Casualty Co. of Chicago and
vice president of the chamber, was
elected president for a one-year
term. succeeding w. Gibson Carey,
jr., 43, president of the Yale &
Towne Manufacturing Co.. who de-
clined a second term. Robert v.
Fleming, president and chairman of
the board of the Riggs National
Bank, Washington, was reelected
treasurer.