LETTER TO CLERGY.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 257, 27 September 1935, Page 9

LETTER TO CLERGY.

ACTION BY MR ROOSEVELT. DIVERSE REPLIES. WASHINGTON, Sept. 25. An interesting and unusual step, unquestionably having considerable political significance, was taken by President Roosevelt with the sending of a letter to all clergymen throughout the country asking for “counsel and advice.” The letter states: “Tell me where you feel our Government can better serve our people.” The letters, which were dispatched without previous announcement, have caused a sensation and prompted journalists, at their regular conference with the President on the eve of his departure on a speaking tour of the West, to bombard him with questions. It is believed that the only explanation of President Roosevelt’s action is that he wanted the views of persons not in the Government service. In the meantime the responses, which are beginning to pour in, are as diverse as traditional political and economic differences can make them. The opinions expressed are only occasionally indicative that they come from men of the cloth. One rabbi asks for “loyalty to the Constitution.” A New England minister complains that the President does not take sufficient interest in the New England textile industry. Several are extremely critical regarding his social security and works programmes. Many of the writers frankly declare that they are incompetent to give him advice on economic matters. The Lutheran group, stressing the “misery and misfortune of our materialistic age,” declares that the “billions of Government expenditure only emphasise the lovelessness and selfishness of the age which made it necessary.”