ROOSEVELT AND THE DEMOCRATS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 254, 27 October 1938, Page 6

ROOSEVELT AND THE DEMOCRATS

EFFORT TO MAKE A PURGE TO REMOVE THE CONSERVATIVES

NEW YORK. Sept. 24. “The Democratic Party will live and continue to receive the support of the majority of Americans just as long as it remains a liberal party . . . As the leader of that party I propose to try to keep it liberal.” • This was the essence of the challenge which President Roosevelt issued in his Labour Day address to the electors of Maryland in pleading for the support of a New Deal Democrat in the coming primary elections as against the claims of the incumbent Senator Tydings, who has opposed several of the major measures in the New Deal programme. Tne Presidents “intervention” hi the Maryland primaries is the most conspicuous incident in his recent campaign to “purge” the Demccir.tic Party of conservative, anti-Ne.v Deal elements. Appeal to the Electors Beginning on his rail trip through the south last June Roosevelt, wilh varying degrees of directness, has asked the electors of his parly in the different States to vote for those candidates whom he considers friends of the New Deal, no matter what the prestige of rival conservative Democratic candidates may be. Already his advocacy has brought success to several Senatorial candidates, notably in Florida, Ohio and Kentucky. But in Idaho and South Carolina the New Dealers he sponsored met with defeats which have been hailed in the Republican Press as evidence that Democrats will not tolerate “interference” by the President with their own electoral affairs. Again the anti-Roosevelt Press has protested that this Presidential action at election time is unconstitutional. Roosevelt has countered by pointing out that his actions have been made in his capacity as leader of the Democratic Party and that it is his duty in that capacity to see that the interests of the party as he understands them are furthered by the selection of worthy candidates on Congress. Democrats Divided The constitutional propriety of the President’s actions is really an academic question at this time of fundamental realignments in the traditional American two-party system. The important thing is the extent to which Roosevelt plans to go in his determination to make and keep the Democratic Party “liberal.” In actual fact the party has been split into a New Deal and anti-New Deal wing ever since the Supreme Court reform struggle and even before that. The conservative wing deny, of course, that they oppose the New Deal in principle. They declare they merely object to Roosevelt’s methods. The President exposed the plausibility of this claim in his important fireside radio talk last June. He then launched his famous distinction between “liberals” and “conservatives.” The former see the need for social welfare legislation along the lines of the New

Deal programme and approve the necessity of Government responsibility in carrying out the reforms. The “conservatives of both parties” are the “Yes, but. . men. however. They often realise the need for social reform, but they are opposed to effective action by the Government to make reform a reality. Such Government responsibility is to them unwanted interference in the free fielci of private business and property rights. Thus leading Senators from the south and men like Wheeler, of Montana. Bailey, of North Carolina, and Clark, of Idaho, have fought as strenuously as any Republican such vital New Deal measures as the Reorganisation Bill, the Labour Standards Act (Wages and Hours Bill maxima and minima), the Anti-lynch-ing Bill, national health insurance, and. conspicuously, lhe undivided profits tax. What Are Roosevelt’s Intentions? What, then, are Roosevelt’s intentions? Is he out to cut right across party lines in order to found a new “Liberal” Parly of faithful New Dealers in 1940? At this stage no precise answer can be made. Perhaps the task of weeding out the conservatives will be too great for the New Deal forces. It certainly cannot present the carry-over of a vociferous conservative minority lasting into the crucial days of the 1940 party convention, when the Democratic candidate for the Presidency will be chosen. Some time ago it seemed that Roosevelt would be content with the nomination of a “middle of the road” Democrat who could still hold a mixed party of conservatives and New Dealers together. Now. it is almost certain that Roosevelt and his advisers mean to have a NewDeal Democrat Party at all costs. The forces working on the side of Roosevelt and the Liberals grow stronger day by day. The, mass of the farmers are pledged now to the NewDeal. no matter how much sections of tjjem curse “Government interference.” The workers and unemployed, in spite of the conservative resistance of the leadership of the American Federation of Labour, will not tolerate any reversion to the pre-New-Deal days of strike injunctions and deflation. And the middle classes, especially in the lower income brackets, are steadily being won over to the social philosophy of the NewDeal. These are the forces behind Roosevelt's liberalism, from which there can be no turning back without something of a revolution, come what may to the stability of the Democratic Party.—By lan Milner, graduate of Canterbury College and Rhodes Scholar, in the Christchurch Press.