Evening star., 1940-06-26
Pointing the Wuy

aeTDert hoover, In his penetrating
analysis of the fundamental weak
nesses Of the New Deal at Philadel-
phia last night, made a notable con-
tribution to his country and to his
party. In clear and forceful terms
he pointed to the only way in which
America can recapture the sturdy
qualities Of great Nation. And in
equally vigorous language he stated
his conviction that the Republican
party has no reason to hope for
return to power unless it Is prepared
to take an unequivocal stand against
the enervating economic fallacies of
the New Dealers.
The former President, in a single
sentence, put his finger on the real
evil which has grown out of the
domestic policies followed by the
present administration. THE New
Deal" he said, "has contributed to
sapping of our stamina and making
us soft"
We are in truth a soft Nation. We
are the victims of philosophy that
the state is the permanent guardian
of the people. We have been taught
to forget that the state should be
the ward of the individuals who COM
pose it. This is philosophy which
numbs the will and destroys the
moral fiber of the citizen; it is re-
sponsible for the long succession
of national deficits, for the economic
planners whose endless and aimless
tinkering with our industrial ma
chine has all but paralyzed it.
Mr.. Hoover probed deeply below
the surface when he said that we
must have either free or a dictated
economy, that they cannot be mixed
That is one explanation of the failure
of the New Deal, despite it's prodi-
gious expenditures, to lead this
country out of the depression. 1t
has crippled our free economy with
out setting up truly dictated
economy, with the result that the
people, as well as their present ma
tional leaders, have grown soft and
confused. We have survived a sue
cession of experiments that have
failed but, as Mr.. Hoover put it, we
cannot continue to follow indefinitely
the "totalitarian liberals" who have
battled against all the natural forces
of recovery and succeeded in stabil-
izing depression.
There is, in fact, a deadly parallel
between our present domestic policies
and the policies which have led other
democracies into the darkness of to-
talitarianism. This was clearly per-
ceived by Mr.. Hoover when, in speak
ing of these other nations, he said:
Frustrated and despairing, these
hundreds of millions of people volun-
tarily voted the powers of govern
ment to the man on horseback as
the only way out"
1t is toward that same despairing
and desperate way out" that Amer
lea, in Mr.. Hoover's experienced
Judgment, is blindly cropping. And it
Is to the task of reversing this trend,
to charting the way to a return to a
governmental philosophy that en-
courages free enterprise and indi-
vidual initiative instead of destroying
these pillars of liberty, that Mr..
Hoover seeks to rally the Republican
party.
No one understands better than he
that elements in the Republican
party have contributed to the in
ternal weakening of America, that
they have succumbed too readily to
the lure of bigger and better Govern
ment handouts, that they have
yielded without a real struggle to one
or another of the many pressure
groups that infest the Capitol. But
Mr.. Hoover has shown them the
danger of that course and he has
pointed with, compelling logic to the
only way out. If the Republicans
will heed his counsel, if they will
abandon any purpose to out-deal
the New Dealers, America may yet
be preserved for the American way
of life.
On the momentous question of
our foreign relations, Mr.. Hoover
asked his party to face the fact that
isolation is myth. He foresees and
understands the economic menace to
this country which will arise from
an Impoverished Europe reduced in
its standards of living, and, above all,
armed with totalitarian- directed ex-
ports and imports" He proposes,
realistically, that we fight the dicta-
tors on that field with something
approaching their own weapons, and,
as first step, he believes that we
should facilitate "in every way" the
sending Of munitions and other
materials to the nations fighting for
their freedom against the dictators,
subject only to the limitations that
we must act within the law and re-
frain from any action which might