The Wilmington morning star., 1940-10-10

those Of the author and may not
always harmonic with Its posi-
tion.-The Editor.
NEW YORK, Oct. 9-Well, as
was saying, I emerged from my
political childhood into a~dolescenc
about the time of Mr.. Roosevelt's
first election, for which l was re-
sponsible to the extent OF n vote,
and this spell or rather high-strung
emotional confusion lasted through
the campaign of 1886, when l voted
for him again.
That election was just a for
mality. anyway. The republicans
weren't in shape, and you could
tell they were only going through
the motions when they nominated
ALT Landon. Sometimes you seea
parallel in baseball when a good
old club is wedding out veterans
who are over the hill and wasting
a season on reorganization. The
republicans were getting rid OF
their Jim Watsons and the like,
and had changed managers, too,
and it wasn't their year and they
knew it.
Maybe you have seen games IN
which the skipper of a major
league club sends in some stranger
to pitch who has nothing but some
hometown clippings and a high
school curve and leaves him in
here. running the outfield ragged,
rather than waste a better mans
arm on a game that can't be
saved, anyway.
Not So Bad
Even So, the returns weren't as
bad as we all have been thinking
in our careless way. In claiming
their overwhelming mandate and
the virtual reputation of the two
party system in the United States
the New Deal emphasized the cleo
toral vote, which was 523 to 8, and
the fact that they carried 46 out
OF 48 states. But, after all, even
with Landon in there, the republic
ans ran up a of about 16 IL
to MI. Roosevelt's q 3-4 in the
popular vote, which brings the ra-
ito down to much more respectable
trim.
Anyway, I was still voting for
Mr.. Roosevelt in 1886, and this
time I think I was more against
his enemies than for him. He had
tangled with Huey Long, who was,
to my way of thinking, a really
bad man, and Father Coughlin was
yapping and snarling in a way
that seemed to me to portend some
terrible disturbance and no good
result. I thought he ought to be
slapped down. He certainly was,
too, because his guy, a fellow by
the name of Lemke, if you remem-
Der, drew only the nuts and dolts
less than 900, 900 all told.
1t isn't for me to say-although
I have my private opinion-wheth-
er I have now come to political
maturity, stood still or slipped
back into rompers. But during this
second term of the new deal I
have been wondering how long it is
going to take our President to get
hot about recovery and re-employ-
ment, which you may remember
were his missions back in the very
beginning. He was going to put
people back to work, and they
ere going to spend their earnings
buying the stuff which their neigh
bors had manufactured and grown.
But in this term we have heard
less and, lately, nothing about re-
covery. And unemployment, ex-
cept in the munitions trade and
other lines incidental to rearma.
ment, is off the program entirely.
I never heard President Roose-
welt say a kind word for business
by which I mean private business
and have come to the conclusion
that, if he ever did mean to try to
achieve recovery through re : en-
ployment in private industry, he
has abandoned the idea. 1 don't
believe he was totally against bust
ness in the beginning, but think
he finally came to the conclusion
that the state-meaning the gov
ernment-must become the great
boss of us all.
Give the government total con-
troll of business, .discredit business
men as a class, keep money out of
private investment so that the gov
ernment's bonds become the only
investment, make business come
to the government for orders and
loans, and you have a system not
much different from Adolf Hitler's.
I want to see private business
revive, because experience certain
ly shows that wherever the en-
ployers are only straw bosses
working for the government no.
body has any liberties. Our labor
leaders are very shortsighted, be-
cause they ought to realize that in
such a situation their unions, like
the German unions, would become
government auxiliaries and soon
lose their entity altogether. l GER
tainly don't claim to know whether
MIR. Willkie could revive private
business and employment, but |
am convinced that President
Roosevelt either doesn't want to or
thinks it is impossible and not
worth the effort. /!
G. O. p. MEETING
LENOIR. Oct. 0-(P-Er,pL DIT