"THE BRAIN TRUST"

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 21, 25 July 1933, Page 10

"THE BRAIN TRUST"

A WASHINGTON VIEW

ROOSEVELT'S ADVISERS

PROPHETS OF NEW EEA

Docs a Brain Trust exist at "Washington? writes "A Washington Observer" in the "Review of Reviews and World's work." The young and idealistic professors supposed to compose this 1933 edition of the "best minds" answer the question with a somewhat indignant negative. The politicians on Capitol Hill, in slightly contemptuous tones, insist that President Boosevelt depends upon such an agency for inspiration and formulation of those revolutionary and social measures which we call the New Deal. Eightly or wrongly, the public seems to be convinced that the Chief Executive spends most of his tirrie in a huddle with a collection of embodied'brains, and that they give entire character and direction to his programme. Although the President's attitude towards this controversy is not definitely known, he appears to be amused at this quarrel over terminology. If he were to speak his opinion, it is probable that he would say: "I use brains wherever I can find them." And that is the whole story of the origin and operation of a group of men now as well known as Teddy Roosevelt's' "tennis cabinet and Woodrow Wilson's "kitchen cabinet." It is nothing more than an assemblage of trained minds which have ■1 striking aptitude for applying their ideas —and laboratory theories —to society and government. They did not come into being as an administration agency, individually or collectively, on March 4. Mr. Roosevelt got to know some of them during the years of his illness, and some while he was Governor of New York. A great reader, he became interested in their theories as expressed in books and magazine articles —and these men are prolific writers—and he summoned them to Albany or Hyde Park to talk with them. Louis Howe, the President's confidential aido for twenty years, collected several members of this "mental zoo," as Congressmen cynically refer to the so-called Brain Trust. Through acquaintanceship with one professor Mr. Roosevelt came to know others of similar social and intellectual bent. They worked with him while he was Governor of New York, and they helped to prepare the material for his speeches in the 1932 campaign. Immediately after election —some say before — they set to work to translate their joint ideas into legislation. This "advance planning," a favourite phrase with them, explains why so many major measures went from th» White House to Capitol Hill at such a rapid pace during the' recent session of Congress. HARD-HEADED EXPERTS. It is a mistake to assume that a clique of academes is running the Government under Mr. Roosevelt. Not a single member of,the Brain Trust —we will use the' phrase for the sake of intellectual convenience—looks or acts like the traditional college professor. They may be dreamers, but even their dreams are realistic. They are slightly cynical, hard-boiled, and practical. If they have any illusions they are of a kind shared by the majority which placed Franklin D. Roosevelt in the White House. These men, briefly, think that the old order must change—or be changed —and give way to a new era in which a rounded, planned, and organised state shall supersede the jungle code of "rugged individualism." Tho industrial socialism which has developed so slowly and quietly in the last twenty years, they seem to feel, must be supplanted by a form of State Socialism. Government must become more than a ruthless, umpire, as President Hoover so often nrged; it must become an active- and sympathetic participant in the serious business of living and letting live. Most of these professors have had an opportunity to apply their theories in one way or another. On farms, in classrooms, in corporate law, jn labour union disputes, in finance they have tested out their' ideas, and found them good. It is one of the dramatic features of their present role that their laboratory and their classroom is now the United States of America, and that 120,000,000 people have taken the places of some thousands of college students. The professors have become Assistant Secretaries of State and Agriculture, and special adyisers to the Reconstruction Finance Corporation or other agencies of Government. There is another consideration of the utmost importance in the actual operation of the , Brain Trust. There, may be, probably -^ have been, times and circumstances under which their suggestions may not have been practical or susceptible of legislative action. But between them and Congress stands one of the world's most consummate politicians and ablest students of government—Franklin D. Roosevelt. Before submitting any proposals to Congress in the form of Bills and resolutions, the President reframes and redrafts and reconsiders each document through to the ultimate period. Moreover, Mr. Roosevelt, as numerous events since March 4 have demonstrated, possesses the magic quality of being able to dramatise, and even sensationalise, the professional proposals. He may idealise intellect, but he can keep his Brain Trust on the ground and on the front page. THE LEADING FIGURES. In seeking to enumerate the leading figures of the Brain Trust, one discovers how quickly the theory of an intellectual entity hovering around the White House breaks down. The group grows constantly, one of ' the latest acquisitions being Professor William E. Dodd, of Chicagoj now Ambassador to Germany. Mr. Dodd, obviously, cannot serve by standing and thinking on the fringe of the Executive offices. He was chosen solely because of the President's confidence-in his understanding of world problems. Nor does one find that Brain Trust cligiblcs are exclusively professors. The best-known members, of course, are three young members of the Columbia University faculty—Raymond I. Moley, Assistant Secretary of State; Rexford Guy Tugwell, Assistant Secretary of Agriculture; and Adolph Augustus Berle, jun., special adviser to the R.F.C. But the list must be expanded to include Henry C. Wallace, Secretary of Agriculture; Henry Morgenthau, jun., Farm' Credit Governor; Miss Frances Perkins, Secretary of Labour; William C. Bullitt, adviser in. the State Department; and M. L. Wilson, Chief of Wheat Production. From one or all of these people the President has been obtaining help and advice for many years, and it is their philosophy which is in process of execution on so many social, economic, and industrial fronts. In the popular mind Mr. Moley is held to bo the head of the Brain Trust, and this is fairly close to fact, Mr. Howe met him when he was director of the New York State Crime Survey, and immediately attached him to the.then Governor Roosevelt's intellectual train. Through Mr. Moley the other two of the professorial trio —Messrs. Tuawell land Berle —became Rooseveltians. Their j

respective ages are 46, 41, and 38, but their activity and imagination give them a more youthful expression. TREMENDOUS WORKERS. Their stories read like Horatio Alger novels. Each has risen in his profession like a comet. How they found time to write and work and lecture and take part so prominently in public affairs is a constant mystery; they really ought to reveal their secret of energy and persistence. But it explains wliy both Mr. Moley and Mr. Tugwell yearn for the peace and quiet they will never attain—the first to sit in a shack in the south-west whero he can sleep and watch the sun rise out of screwed-up eyes, the second to lie in a hammock under au apple tree. They long for such quiet, philosophic hours, but they will never come upon them. Mr. Berle is an example of perpetual motion. Fishing and mountain climbing are his means of amusement and recreation, but even those are not taken as distractions. If he were stranded on a South Sea island, he would lose no time in putting the natives to work at cutting a transportation system through the thickets. A Mayor of an Ohio town at 21, a school teacher from 20 to 28, and an assistant professor of politics at.Western Reserve from 1910 to 1919, Mr. Moley leaped at the first chance to set at closer grips with life. He took over the directorship of the Cleveland Foundation, and became an expert on such problems as criminal justice, immigration and allied subjects, municipal government and its many implications. In that work, and in subsequent labour in the same field in other States, he got a knowledge of politics that exends deep into social and economic roots. As a matter of fact, he publicly testifies that ho has great admiration for politicians, and he knows how to work with them —whether they know it or not. He is quiet, shrewd, seemingly shy, and quite cynical. In talking, his eyes become slits out of which he gazes with a rather quizzical expression. He is given to long silences even wjjen sitting with a crowd, as if he did not care to express an opinion haphazardly. Indeed, this is one key to his character, for he deals in facts. A frequent basement-door visitor at the White House, his advice to the President is always based on a careful, objective study of the facts in any given problem. He smokes a heavy, dark pipe* constantly, nnd, for all his reticence and apparent shyness, he likes best to sit around with old friends and talk. " A REPUTED "RED." Mr. Tugwell is not so well known, but he rauks high in the professorial hierarchy. He is quiet in manner, but easily interested, and a charming conversationalist. His mind for ever seems to be examining things, turning them oveu, accepting, rejecting. There are times when his ordinarily expressive face and bright eyes disappear as if behind a curtain, as if there were mental jobs to be done even in the midst of noise and people. He appears to be more the thinker and philosopher, and not so worldly as Mr. Moley in some respects. Mr. Moley, for instance, regards himself as a practical politician, whereas Mr. Tugwell seems to feel that the politician's task is to arrange, to translate into . legislation, lessons learned by others. Congressmen have attacked him as a Red, largely because of his books and his interest in Russia's experiment in government. To'ultra-conservatives tho social order which these men envisage may bo radical, but Mr. Tugwell 'a extreme sanity shows in everything he says and does. Perhaps he has expressed it best in his latest book, "The Industrial Discipline and the Governmental Arts." In that he says: "Liberals would like to rebuild the station while the trains are running;" radicals prefer to blow up the station and forgo service until the new structure, is built." In seeking to apply realistic economics to the agricultural programrae now in operation, Mr. Tugwell does for that field what Mr. Moley does for the broad world problems —tariffs, debts, currency —that come within the jurisdiction of the State Department. The ihiri of these three important ganglia, Mr. Berle, is both a practical and intellectual economist. He is both lecturer on corporation law at Columbia and a member of a law firm specialising in corporation law. An expert en capital structure, he helped to draft the railroad bankruptcy Act —the one designed to put railroads "through the wringer." He is known as one of the world's best-versed students in tropical law, which is different in many fundamentals from Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence. He is one proof that "boy prodigies" sometimes turn out well. A Bostonian by birth, he emerged from Harrow at 18, and a few years later had his M.A., as well as his B.A. Like so many young men now engaged in- public or semi-public life, he practised law in Justice Brandeis's firm. At 24 he was an economic adviser to the American delegation at the Paris Peace Conference, but he quit in protest against the Versailles Treaty. He feels that events have' justified his protest, and one of his great ambitions is to rewrite major provisions of that historic document. Small, quick of motion, he walks as a wrestler moves about the ring. He has an upright carriage, and a head set deep between his shoulders. A dynamic person, he talks at a lightninglike rate. It seems that his mind works much too fast for his tongue, that he fears life will bo too short for him to say —and do—all the things ho wants to. In view of the energy and activity of these three professors, one wonders how they will occupy themselves if and when the social and economic organism is reorganised close to their mind's desire. SOME V/JELL-KNOWN FIGURES. Tho part which Miss Perkins, Mr. Morgenthau, and Mr. Wallace have played in Mr. Roosevelt's household, both before and since election, is well known. What the public does not sense is that all three have had very practical experience in the fields of industry and agriculture. As New York Industrial Commissioner under ex-Gover-nor Alfred B. Smith and Mr. Roosevelt, Miss Perkins became an acknowledged expert in industrial problems. For many years before that appointment, she had been active in social work, applying the ideas and fdeals now motivating the New Deal as it touches her vast dominion. In the agricultural field Mr. Morgenthau and Mr. Wallace have had a definite place for years. The former, once a student at Cornell, has kept in contact with new developments and experiments, and has transformed his successfully operated farm into a field laboratory for testing academic discoveries. Many years ago Mr. Wallace conducted experiments in growing com, and with such success that the West knows him as the man responsible for the fact that corn grows that tall out in MI-ow-ay." Both are publishers of farm magazines, and likewise are noted agricultural economists. Mr. Bullitt and Mr. Wilson—"M. L." to his friends —are not so well known to the general public. The former is a member of one of the three wealthiest an,d most socially prominent families of Philadelphia, the others being the Biddies and Drexels. But he once wrote a novel entitled "It Isn't Done," dragging out old Philadelphia skeletons, and his childhood friends look upon him as a "black sheep." "Bill" wanted to live his own life after graduation from Yale in 1912, and he did. He accompanied Henry Ford on the famous peace ship, and wrote some excruciatingly funny articles for the Philadelphia "Ledger." He, too, was an adviser at Versailles; and, like Berle, he quit in disgust. It was his testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee which .blocked ratification of the