Evening Post. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 1937.

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 59, 7 September 1937, Page 10

Evening Post. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 1937.

ROOSEVELT'S DOUBLE CURSE

Can .a man serve two masters? Possibly not; but, in appropriate circumstances, it is not perfidious to try. A referee in a football match serves two conflicting masters, but is helped by a fixed code and by moral authority. So also a politician who has made general promises to Capital and to Labour serves two masters, but is weakened by the fact that not only is there a big gap (not controlled solely by the politician) between promise and performance, but there is also ample room for dispute as to the interpretation of promises. The referee can appeal to a more specific code than the politician can appeal to; yet is the referee not always successful; and the politician, be he Prime Minister or United States President, is still more open to attack upon his judgment and upon his integrity; When a President of the United States promises to hold the balance evenly between Capital and Labour—or words to that effect —he has promised everything and nothing. He .will not escape the charge of being a balancer and a fence-sitter.

If die economists were able to produce a book of economic truth as specific as the Rugby rule-book, the whole public (whether Capital or Labour) would have something that the politician as well as the referee could be pinned down to. But so long as economic rules contain, as many exceptions and limitations as they contain letters, the public will be at a loss to pronounce definite judgment, and even the economists will differ. The public can but listen1 to Labour charging the President: "You promised this" (Red); and to Capital charging the President: "You promised this" (Blue). If, after listening to charge and counter-charge by partisans, the public come to the conclusion that the President's real colour is a bit of Red and a bit of Blue, and a good deal of heliotrope, this finding may be about as near the truth as it is possible to arrive. As President of the United States, Mr. Roosevelt may be chargeable, on a Labour interpretation of promises, with what Mr. John L. Lewis (C.1.0.) was reported as saying in yesterday's cablegrams. But the perfidy, if it exists, is not different in quantity or quality from that which usually attends balanceholding political promises. It is the perfidy which is inherent when such unspecific promises are made. President Roosevelt holds the balance between employers and C.1.0. even up to the point of pronouncing an equal curse. Using Shakespeare on the motor and steel strikes, the President said: "A plague o' both your houses." To this Mr. Lewis, as leader of the C.1.0. break-away from the American Federation of Labour, and as head of the organisation which includes in its weapons the stay-in strike, takes the strongest exception. He has no time for equal curses—and from this it may be guessed that he is not too tolerant of equal blessings. "To curse with equal fervour Labour and its adversaries" is, says Mr. Lewis, an evil thing in the President Mr. Roosevelt should be cursing, the obstinate employers far more, and (inferentially) blessing them less. Rubbing it in, and alleging ingratitude on the President's part for favours received, Mr. Lewis says that such impartiality in the bestowal of cursesT "ill becomes one who has supped at Labour's table." This taunt seems to be, in Shakespearean language, the unkindest cut of all. It is a reference not only to millions of Labour votes last November, but to hundreds of thousands of Labour dollars—a C.1.0. donation to the Roosevelt campaign fund (1936) of 500,000 dollars. Did Labour pay this price to buy—an equal curse? The Presidents reply to Mr. Lewis is to publish a statement which, Mr. Roosevelt says, was written before the publication of the Lewis remarks, but which still stands and covers the situation. "Note," says the President in effect, "that my statement maintains that tone of neutrality concerning which Mr. Lewis complains." In short, the curse remains balanced; and neither of the twins, Capital and Labour, is yet spanked more than the other. "Mistakes have been made by both sides in current Labour disputes." Dictator Lewis can no more drive the President out of his neutrality to domestic class war than Dictator Hitler and Dictator Mussolini can drive the President out of his neutrality to all war. But, apart from all arguments about perfidy and the ingratitude of those who sup, there are practical limits to neutrality. Neutrality is beautiful until something requires to he done. And it will hardly be denied that in the recent session Congress added very little to the actual achievements of the Roosevelt Second Term. Defeat of the President's drive against the United States Supreme Court (with regard to which neutrality would have paid him better) postponed the New Deal itself. So great was the demoralisation resulting from the clash of President and Congress that Mr. Lewis is able to point to the degradation of "members of Congress hiding in order to prevent a quorum acting on Labour measures." These tactics seem to amount to something less than holding the balance, and are hardly worth a contribution of half a million dollars to the Democratic campaign. In the C.1.0. view, the President cannot be acquitted of blame for defaults of Democratic Congressmen.. A Labour publication believed to be inspired by C.1.0. recently wrote: We staked on the President in the last election, not on his party. It is even truer to say: We staked on the President despite his party. Is President Boosevelt politically done for? 'He is not done for, bnt is at the

awkward, delivery stage of his promises. The real test is not academic arguments, but whether the balance-holding President, without taking too much away from the established order, can give Labour enough to prevent the development of a political Labour party with Mr. Lewis as probable candidate for President. The last session of Congress was admittedly a failure; but there will be other sessions. Meanwhile Mr. Lewis minimises, without eliminating, the possibility of his Presidential candidature in 1940; and when "Third Term" is suggested fo Mr. .Roosevelt at a Piess conference, he invites the reporter to don the dunce's cap and stand in the corner. These Sphinx-like attitudes are characteristic of American democracy. What will actually happen in 1940 will depend on the skill with which Mr. Roosevelt reconstructs his power in Congress; and whether, having done that, he will use his power to give neutrality a positive expression and a concrete result.. A merely negative neutrality, at home as well as oversea, is barren and is doomed to failure.