Evening star., 1945-04-13

readjustments were made. He sum-
moned Congress into special session
to implement by law a national
recovery program that shattered
precedents. One hundred days later
virtually his every request had been
granted and he held powers never
before intrusted to a President in
peacetime.
Controversial Steps.
Many of the steps he took were
disputed at the time, and later, on
economic, social, moral and consti-
tutional grounds. Some were sue
cessfully contested in the courts, but
others stood the test of time.
The National Industrial Recovery
Administration was set up by Con-
gress in response to the Presidents s
request for machinery to obtain
wider unemployment, shorten the
working week, pay decent wages for
the shorter week and prevent unfair
competition and overproduction."
The Agricultural Adjustment Ad-
ministration was designed to help
farmers through crop control meas
ures. Laws were passed to insure
bank deposits and to provide Gov
ernment aid for home owners facing
mortgage foreclosures.
The Constitution was amended to
repeal national prohibition. Social
security benefits were provided by
legislation. A wage-hour law was
enacted for labor. A good neigh
Dor" policy was established for the
Western Hemisphere.
Congress Stiffens.
alphabet agencies" were created
in profusion. Such letter combina-
tions as NRA, RFC, AAA, CCC,
IVA, WPA, PWA, HOLC, FHA and
many others became familiar house.
hold terms.
i The New Deal also represented
bigger Government budgets, larger
deficits, heavier taxes and abandon
ment of the gold standard. In the
beginning there was a brain trust"
whose college professor members
were credited with formulating many
of the Roosevelt policies.
There was swift acceptance by
Congress of early reforms, then a
gradual stiffening against White
House recommendations and an
abortive purge" in which the Chief
Executive tried in 1888 to get the
political scalps of legislators he con-
sidered too conservative. He failed
in all but one instance.
1t was to hold aloft the New Deal
banner for a second term that the
President was unanimously renom-
mated by the Democrats in 1886
and overwhelmingly defeated Re-
publican nominee Alf NJ Landon,
then Governor of Kansas, in The
election.
Acts Against AggresSOrs.
Unquestionably Mr.. Roosevelt had
caught glimpse of war on the hori-
zon. AS early as 1887, in Chicago
speech, he demanded the "quaran-
tine" of "aggressor nations"
He repeatedly advised America to
prepare for any emergency. He
urged repeal of neutrality law
that banned shipment of arms to
warning nations. He said opponents
of this step were gambling" that
there would be no second world war
In January, 1899 the President
called for measures short of war
to defeat aggreSsors. He declared in
his third-term campaign the next
year that Americas objective was to
fend of aggressors from the Western
Hemisphere. To fathers and mothers
he gave solemn, repeated assur-
ance-which was hurled back at him
later-that your boys are not going
to be sent into foreign wars"
Europe went to war in September
1889. and MI. Roosevelt watched the
Axis run roughshod over country
after country. The President took
realistic steps.
arsenal of Democracy"
! He and his congressional support
ers remodeled the Neutrality Act to
allow ashland d-carry" purchase OF
arms by belligerents-a step favor
ing the Allies, since Germany
couldn't get through the British
blockade.
/ After the Nazis swarmed through
Holland and Belgium in 1910, Mr.
Roosevelt set up a billion dollar
emergency arms program and a
National Defense Advisory CON-
mission which evolved later into
the War Production Board.
He laid down the principle that
the preservation of Britain and the
British Navy were necessary to
American safety, and in September
1910, traded so old destroyers to
Britain for naval and air base sites
in the Western Atlantic. The next
month. selective service became law
A new Army was drafted.
Naval and air programs were ac-
celerated. industry put on a wartime
basis, and America became the
arsenal of democracy"
Japan's Treachery.
In March, 194l, the dollar sign
was wiped from munitions for the
Allies in a multibillion lease-lend
program. And. on May 27, l941, a
few months after his third term
began, the Chief Executive declared
an unlimited national emergency
The United States had watched
uneasily the victorious sweep of
japanese arms through the South
west Pacific and had attempted to
check it by persuasion.
But suddenly Japan, borrowing a
technique of surprise and treachery
from her Axis partners, struck
Pearl Harbor with planes and sub
marines on that fateful Sunday
December 7, 1941-at the very mo-
ment when her emissaries in Wash
ington deceitfully talked peace with
Secretary of State Cordell Hull The
attack left many United States
warships sunk or seriously damaged
and caused more than 5000 casual
ties.
1t was a DAY. Mr.. Roosevelt de-
clared. (which will live in infamy.'
The Survival War"
President Roosevelt called World