AMERICA TO-DAY STANDS AT THE TURNING POINT.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20508, 9 January 1935, Page 6

AMERICA TO-DAY STANDS AT THE TURNING POINT.

Roosevelt Intends to Save Country “ If we change our minds twice a day. ,f

By

Marc T. Greene.

IF ALL THIS seem startling let me remind you that only last week a strange tale gained credence. It was to the effect that the very noisy and bluntspoken General Smedley Butler had been asked by Wall Street interests to head a “ march on Washington,” after the immortal blaclc-shirted precedent. Thus had the present administrative tendency toward the Left upset the nation’s financiers. However, the story was promptly denied, and very luridly by the doughty general himself. But it shows how thought is running in one group at least. Still, there are many evidences that the administration intends to “ get together ” with the big business interests. On the basis of them the stock market immediately moves upward. A fortnight ago there were announcements of administrative intent to investigate the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, the world’s largest corporation. Its stock dropped 11 points in 48 hqiurs, and there was wild talk of “ unloading ” by large interests, trust estates and insurance companies, including the Sun Life, of Canada, one of the largest shareholders. But something happened. The stock turned, and recovered the entire loss. Will Not “ Upset Applecart.” It becomes increasingly clear that the administration, all-powerful as it is with its overwhelming Congress, is far from intending to upset the applecart. A year and a half ago it was reform-before-recovery, or at least recovery-based-on-immediate-re-form. But now it is fast coming to be recovery-before-reform, which the “ interests ” accept with tongue-in-cheek, confident of their ability to handle the reform when and if it ever comes. In other words, the President is going to “ play ball and all will be O.K. with everybody.” Well, as Mr Graham M’Namee would say, “ maybe so and maybe not.” But the mere rumour to that effect is enough to encourage Wall Street, to start what at the moment really looks like the long-awaited credit expansion, and to lend definite stability to the latest “ trick out of the Roosevelt hat,” as his foes are so fond of putting it, the Housing Scheme. Certainly there is no radicalism abroad in Washington to-day, and little that can really be called liberalism, at least the liberalism of the administration’s early days. “We are going to save, the country if we change our minds twice a day,” stated Roosevelt last week, “ and we are quite prepared to do it.” Of that there is no doubt. Moreover, there is an old American maxim that justifies it. “ A man may change his mind, but a mule will stick the same old way.” And Franklin D. Roosevelt is no mule. But meanwhile there are still 17,000,000

out of work, and that’s the rub. "To give the men the dole is to lower their morale,” states Federal Relief Administrator Harry Hopkins, with profound unoriginalitv. But successor to General Johnson in the job of N.R.A. guide, Mr Richberv is more definite. "It may cost more,” he says, “ but it is worth the additional cost to give men jobs at fcelf-respecting wages, even if we have to find billions to pay for it.” The first thing to be taken up by the new Congress will be the " bonus,” or, as the American Legion prefers to call it, “ adjusted compensation,” for services performed in the Great War. It will involve a large outlay if paid, some two billions of dollars in case every veteran demands the money, but about 25 per cent less in fact, since not more than 75 per cent at the outside will demand it. And that will not, as the Conservatives wail, ruin the country. The same thing happened four years ago, and there was the same wail, but it passed off without a tremor, even at the outset of depression. So it will this time if it is paid, as seems probable. The country’s gold reserves are at present nine billions of dollars, or more, and its annual income is perhaps twice as much. Nor necessarily there result inflation, though there is a large element in Congress which will try to link up the two. Opposition to Bonus Plan. The President will oppose the bonus plan, probably with a compromise giving the money only to the proven needy, or to veterans “ not on the income tax list.” The latter would be very fair, since a man who has an income of over 1200 dollars annually ought to be willing to yield to the thousands of veterans who have no income at all. But the Legion will press for immediate passage of the unrestricted Act. Tt will pass both branches of Congress, the President will veto it, it will be repassed in the House over the veto, and its fate will hang upon Senate action, which is not at the moment definitely forecastable. Meanwhile, there is in Washington, with reflections in all the big cities of the Atlantic Coast, if not through the mid-West, a definite change of feeling for the better. Many times the extreme optimists have insisted that "the corner has been turned,” only to be refuted by developments. But this time there is something a little more definite behind the insistence. Production, led by steel, is increasing with sure, if slow, strides, and for the first time the business interests of the.-'fcountry, articulate through the national Chamber of Commerce, are urging the people to support the recovery programme. This is about the most significant indication yet of recovering confidence. Much, perhaps all, hinges on the actions of the coming Congress. Undoubtedly the nation is now at the turning point—for better or for worse.

WASHINGTON, December 5. The Congress, overpoweringly Democratic, which opens its session the first week in the New Year, will either make or break the country, if you heed the forecasts of nineteen out of every twenty Americans. Nor is there lacking plenty of foundation for'such forecasts. Little doubt can exist in the minds of anyone familiar with the position in America to-day that the nation is at the turning-point, or that this winter will go far to determine whether the American Republic as a great democracy will go on, or whether government of. for and by the people, in the ideology of Abraham Lincoln, will slowly but no less certainly fade from the American scene to be replaced by—no man is so bold as to say what.