Evening Post. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 1934. THE ROOSEVELT TECHNIQUE

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 109, 5 November 1934, Page 8

Evening Post. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 1934. THE ROOSEVELT TECHNIQUE

The New Zealand Parliament, which at the "General Election in 1931 was elected for the term of three years fixed about fifty years ago has, with no more, formality than that required for the simplest of routine measures, extended firsl its own term, and then the term of future Parliaments, lo four years; and, so far as the second of these changes is concerned, it has done so with no hint of authority from the electors. The opposite extreme to this unchecked facility is represented by the position of the United Slates Congress. Nearly 150 years ago the term of the Senate was fixed by the Constitution at six years, with onethird of its members .retiring every second year, and the term of the House of Representatives at two years. The arrangement, is highly inconvenient but no change could be made except by constitutional amendment, and the process of carrying such an amendment is at the best very difficult, and in the absence of overwhelming support virtually impossible. It is therefore not unlikely that an inconvenience of which a British or a New Zealand Parliament would have made short work may still be tolerated in the United States after the lapse of another 150 years. The elections held in the United States on November .8, 1932, represented as. near' an approach lo a General Election as that country ever makes. There were a President, a third of the Senate, and a complete House of Representatives to be elected. The inconvenience to which we have referred did not arise then, but it may arise tomorrow. The name of Franklin Roosevelt will not be on any of the ballot papers. His term of office does not expire- till March 4, 1937, and nothing that the electors may do can shorten it by an hour. But the quality of his work, the question whether he can continue lo give the people the same kind of service that he has given them hitherto must depend in very large measure upon the kind of Congress that emerges from ihe polls tomorrow. The gravity of the issue is well stated by Mr. D. W. Brogan in his article on "The President and Politics" in the July "Fortnightly": If. they (the electors) give him a Congress of his own mind, bound to him by party or personal allegiance, he ■will, at any rate, have the necessary legislative and financial backing. If Congress is hostile.or even indifferent, the Government o£ the United' States will be hamstrung, and both President and. Congress will spend the next two years in, mutual suspicion and in political manoeuvring. Presidents,. before now, have thought that it was a pity that the middle of their terms should be interrupted by these partial elections, which can never be decisive enough to bring about a positive change (for they leave the President in. office), but which may negatively render that office barren, of achievement—but the Constitution insists. It is surprising that, with so much at stake, our usually full and vivid reports have left us right up to the eve of the poll without any guidance on the progress of the campaign. One reason' probably is that, except for the clever settlement or postponement of the textile strike, and, presumably others,'by his industrial truce, .and the serious threat that it received from the drastic action of the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company in closing down 300 of its, * stores in Cleveland, Ohio, which was cabled •on Thursday, there has been not much of importance to report; and that, with the strikes out of the way, the political campaign is proceeding smoothly. From the President's standpoint it is probably moving still more smoothly since the announcement which was also reported on Thursday. It -was announced today (October 31) ] that full restoration of United States Government pay cuts, to become effec- \ tive as from July 1, '1935/ will bo recommended by President Roosevelt. July 1 is a long way off,, but Novem-1 ber 6 is very near, and the happy timing of the announcement gives ] those concerned convenient time for. thinking and talking it over. The "Nation" said of the President's last Message to Congress that it contained more politics than all its predecessors put together. Since then there have been frequent complaints of his j free use of the spoils fof electioneering purposes—complaints of which, it is safe to say that they are grossly exaggerated, that they have no solid foundation, and that his critics did just the same when they had the chance. Jobs have been freely used by Mr. Roosevelt, says Mr. Brogan in the article above quoted, as they have been used by all Presidents to enforce party discipline, but the growth of jobs has been, too rapid for rational use, and few good Democrats have had reason, "tired of knocking at Preferment's door," to forsake their Congressional friends. t But, quite apart from this indispensable lubricant of American politics, Mr. Roosevelt has shown all his old dexterity as a politician. The skill which he (had' shown-in that*

capacity both as Governor of New York State and as a candidate for the Presidency was such that the statesmanship which he revealed from the moment of his inauguration was a surprise even to his intimate friends. As virtually a candidate at tomorrow's polls Mr. Roosevelt has reverted to his previous role with conspicuous success. In the "Nation" of September 26, its Washington correspondent (Mr. Raymond Gram Swing) complains of his shirking a-straight issue between Liberalism and Conservatism, and continuing "to pitch his voice on two levels, oftener up on the radical pitch, but sometimes down." The Green Bay speech, which set the keynote of the present campaign on August 9, was regarded by Professor Raymond Moley as too radical to be wise.. Mr. Swing's comment is that "evidently the President was intuitively better aware of what might happen in California and Maine than the often very perceptive professor." Yet from this dangerously radical speech Mr. Swing is able to. quote an admirably reassuring paragraph: This Government intends no injury to honest business. The processes we follow in seeking social justice do not in adding to general prosperity take from the one and give to the other. In this modern world tho spreading out of opportunity ought not to consist of robbing Peter to pay Paul. Wo are concerned with more than mere subtraction and addition. We are concerned with the multiplication of wealth through co-operative action—wealth in which all can share. This "neat example of the Roosevelt technique," says Mr. Swing, will be praised by the Conservative Democrat as the really important passage in the speech, while the Left-Wing New Dealer will be delighted by the statement that the New Deal has come to stay. Mr. Swing suggests that "the President" may be waiting to be precise in two years," but admits that "certainly the present vagueness is politically safe." The normal "swing-back in the mid-term elections works out, he says, at ,79 seats. He does not think that, the Republicans can win more than 50. According to the first of those estimates the Democratic majority in the new House would be 38; according to the second, 96.