Evening star., 1944-02-25
Relief for The Greedy
Is Latest Of Sharp
Roosevelt Phrases

FTeSluenC ROOSEVELT has often used
sharp and well-remembered phrases
to help him rise politically. So per-
haps IT Is only the working of aver
ages that he should come a cropper
on the phrase, relief not for the
needy but for the greedy which
Senator Barkley quoted when he
resigned as Senate majority leader
In protest against the tax bill veto
The label for the Administration
itself, New Deal" came from a
Roosevelt speech and for II years
has facilitated the Administrations
Identification both by its friends and
by its enemies. The tag was coined
IN Mr.. Roosevelt's first acceptance
address at Chicago July 2, 1882,
when he told the delegates to the
Democratic National Convention
that II pledge you, I pledge myself,
to a new deal (then written In lower
case) for the American people"
This new deal" was to benefit the
forgotten man."
The phrases during the first
Roosevelt Administration years had
a sort Of uplift and good will quality
about them, but Mr.. Roosevelt began
to employ tags tipped with vitrol in
1885. That year the Supreme Court
ruled that the National Recovery
Act was unconstitutional. Com
menting on the decision at a press
conference on May 81, 1885, the
President said:
I'VE have been relegated to the
horse-and-buggy definition of inter-
state commerce"
Phrase Irritated Many.
The "horse-and-buggy" phrase
aroused many articulate Americans
to express irritated displeasure with
Mr.. Roosevelt, and the label became
a sort of rallying point for his op-
ponents. However, the Supreme
Court granted extended limits to
the interstate commerce clause and
Mr.. Roosevelt was twice reelected.
Mr.. Roosevelt's first inaugural
speech, delivered on March 4, 1888,
contained the phrase good neigh
bor,' which ever since has been the
covering tag for the administration s
Latin American policy. Thus pop
'llar usage has provided specific
application for a phrase which Mr..
Roosevelt used in a general way.
for he proposed that the United
States act the good neighbor" In
its relations with all countries, not
with the Americas alone.
In the first inaugural address.
he struck another reassuring chord
by telling the public that "the only
thing we have to fear is fear it.
self" Most of the country was glad
to hear that at time when en-
ployment was counted in the many
millions and the banks were on the
verge of closing or were closed.
Breathing Spelr' Recalled.
The one phrase Mr.. Roosevelt has
coined which showed a definite at
titude of conciliation toward in
dustry was "the breathing spell"
which he said he favored when he
wrote to Roy Howard, the publisher,
in September, 1885. That was a
period of relative good times and
the President was lured by the
chimera Of prosperity into making
remark which has lasted and
which he probably regrets. When
the rising economic index was called
to his attention. Mr.. Roosevelt ex-
ultantly said, "We planned it that
way"
During the recession" of 1887.
his opponents made ironic use of
the phrase.
The phrase that touched off Sem
htor Barkley is in many ways re-
lated to a tag President Roosevelt
brought forth in his second ac-
ceptance speech at PHILADELPHIA
June AZ, 1936-"economic royalists."
Then, as in the mot needy but
greedy" line, Mr. Roosevelt wanted
to show a concern for the mass of
people. What was politically safe
IN 1886, however, may be shown to
be the ultimate in unwisdom In
1914, and in 1896 Mr.. Roosevelt was
attacking what he previously had
called "the princess of privilege" and
not attacking Congress. The 1896
sentence ran:
Out of this modern civilization
economic royalists carved new dy-
nasties."
Churchill as Phrasemaker.
In a positive display of his in
terest for "the forgotten man." Mr.,
Roosevelt during the 1886 campaign
coined his phrase "one-third of a
nation" when he said that that
fraction of the countrys popula-
ton was "ill-fed, ill-housed. ILL
clothed"
Two OF Mr.. Roosevelt's phrases
quarantine the aggressors." made
IN speech at the dedication of a
highway system in Chicago in 1887,
and stab in the back" enunciated
when Italy went to war with pros
trate France in June, l940-have
had wide currency throughout the
world.
During the war Winston Church.
III has overshadowed Mr.. Roose-
velt as a phrasemaker. The Presi-
dent coined The -Four Freedoms, )"
but in recent years the issues have
not been drawn so sharp and pre-
else as they were during Mr.. Roose-
velts first five or six years on the
national scene.
ArmY's Super-fortress