Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 24 June 1936 — Page 9

New Deal

1D 0

(Continued From Page 8.)

credit are sinking because of an unbalanced

budget. * “Deficits and debts! Who began the deficits which have covered every year since 1920? Did the last Republican’ administration balance the budget? They merely juggled the estimates of revenue and expenditures. Spending little to retrieve disaster, they increased the public Sep by more than four billion dol-

“ “In the hymns of hate which ems anated from the recent outbursts of Republican oratory in national convention, deficits and debts and taxes are treated as a new development of the Roosevelt Administration. The New Deal is portrayed as the father of one, the mother of another and the god-father of the other. “But these apostles of conceal~ ment withheld from their fervid Jeremiahs the fact that during the four long years of Mr. Hoover the accumulated deficit in the Tieasury amounted to more than six billion dollars, although they increased consumers’ taxes from 35 to 60 per

cent. ““They did not tell you and will not tell you that during the creation of these deficits and unbalanced budgets there was no Federal relief program and no Public Works program; that states and counties and cities threw this burden on the Federal doorstep not under Hoover but under Roosevelt. “It was a task for which the Federal government was not prepared. But there was no alternative but to assume it. ~ “At first it was thought that funds should be loaned to the states to be at some time repaid.

‘COURSE WAS ABANDONED’

~ “This course for various reasons, one being that many of the states could not obligate themselves, had to be abandoned. It was under-

: stood and it was theoretically re- |:

quired that the states should make substantial contributions to the relief of their own people. “Some of them undertook in good faith to meet the requirement. Others did nothing. Some states were able to balance their budgets because they made no contribution out of their treasuries to feed or clothe or house the helpless. + “Those who seek to play miserable politics with human misery shout that these billions of dollars spent for relief and work have been poured out. in reckless waste. “The Works Progress Administration has given employment: to 3,600,000 people, 95 per cent of whom were taken from the relief rolls in the several states.

- CALLS PROJECTS WORTHY

© “With the money and labor this provided between 25,000 and 30,000 worthy projects of public need and value have been constructed and repaired. ' These include schodlhouses, water and sewer systems, parks and playgrounds, public buildings, flood control systems, airports, farm to. market highways, stréets and. other public improve

addition, tHe Public Werks inistration, through grants and Johns to local communities, has given employment to more than 3,500,000 workers for a full year. “Who shall assert that these sums have been wasted? Who shall say that these thousands of useful additions to the property of thousands of ‘communities all over the nation

have not brought permanent values

not otherwise obtainable? - Who shall claim that these two great

work administrations have nat giv- |.

ena new impetus to the civic standards of the people? “Shall ‘we measure these values against a budget temporarily unbaianceq?

: REVIEWS RISE IN DEBT

emu the theme song of our anagonists is the destruction of the nation’s credit, and the wrapping

of every new-born child in the

swaddling clothes of debt. “When we entered the World Wer in 1917 our public debt was $2.000,000,000 When we emerged from it in 1918 the public debt was $26,000,000,000. +4“By 1929 it had been reduced under sinking fund requirements passed in the Wilson Administration to $17,000,000,000. “From March, 1929, to March 4, 1833, that debt was increased to $21,000,000,000 without the inauRion of either a relief or public ks program of any conséquence ley Hence, during the four years of the Hoover Adminration, the public debt had been ) y- $4,000,000,000, Tg PLA 28, 1933, to the presmt time, the public debt has in-

‘BONDS’ VALUE INCREASED

“This great program of rehabilitation has been camried on not by endangering but by enbancing the credit of the government. “In 1932, the bonds of the United States sold as low as 83 cents on the dollar. Since the advent of the New Deal these bonds have risen until

today none sell for less than par, while some sell for as much as 17 points above par. “During the same period, $175,000,000 in annual interest was saved by a reduction in the interest rates. “Not only have the prices of bonds increased while interest rates were being reduced, but each new issue offered by the treasury has been largely oversubscribed. “None but a blind and arrogant partisan would assert that the credit of the United States has suffered under the impetus given to public confidence by the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt. “During the world’s greatest war, we could afford to spend more than 30 billion dollars in defense of our country. “In this war against depression, against the demoralization- and disintegration of our social and economic life, we have spent not a dollar to destroy life or property; but every dollar by. which we have increased taxes or deficits or the public debt has been devoted to the saving of life and property and of that which makes both life and property worthwhile — the unconquerable spirit of a matchless people.

‘NEW TAXES ADJUSTED’

“We have increased taxes. So did the last Republican Adminisiiation. They increased them on consumers. We have adjusted our new taxes according to the ability of the taxpayer to pay. We have increased

values and profits out of which taxes are paid; but the increase in taxes has not kept pace with the increase in income land values which the policies of the Roosevelt Administration have produced. “We shall balance the budget. We shall balance the books in the Treasury. We shall soon ordain that no discrepancy between income and outgo shall exist. But we shall not do it at. the expense of human life nor to the degradation of the spirit and morale of our people: “But we are told by the smug and cynical apostles of the status quo that the Supreme Court has nullified some of the acts of this. Administration. And while anxious farmers ponder their fate, and laboring men scan the heavens for a rainbow of hope, and women and children look in vain for the preservation of their lives and .heglth, a voice from ‘the grave at Palo" Alto

shouts; Fhank, God for the Supreme }

Court,” =

“1 made no att ck on the Su-| n 3 .ence -to- two recent decisions of the

preme Court. As an' institution I respect it, and I would be both unfair and unjust if I were unwilling to accord to judges on ‘the bench the right to their views of law and constitutions which I claim for myself.

CONTROVERSY NOT NEW

“But there is nothing new in controversies ‘over the Constitution. They began in the convention which framed it, and ten amendments were adopted to it by the first Congress that assembled under. it. “If in the future further amend-

ment should become necessary .to enable the people to work out their destiny ang protect their funocamental rights, or to overcome some archiac interpretation never, intended by its framers, I doubt not that the people will face that duty with the same calm intelligence which has guided them in the past. “But from the exultant voices: of the tree-sifters and the‘ devotees of the hitching post you would iaagine that the Supreme Court had never nullified an act of Congress until Franklin D. Roosevelt became President of the United States. “You would imagine, if you listened to the groans which arise from the doleful kneelers at the Republican wailing wall, that we had set out like some blind Samson to pull down the temple ‘of Constitutional government and destroy everything within it. ¥ : “Let us take & look at the record. “During the existence of this nation moré than 25,000 laws have been enacted by Congress. About 87 of them have been nullified by the Supreme Court, and most of them within the last 50 years, “From 1920 to 1930 21 acts were declared null and void. But did any of these decisions strike Into the hearts of the Old Guard and the Old Dealers? Did anybody don sack-cloth and ashes and pray to. heaven to deliver the

SPEAKS OF COURT

“And when ‘five of those eminent men say a law violates the Constitution, and four of them equally eminent, learned and sincere, and equally alive to the compulsions of modern life, say it does not violate the Constitution, then we are at least relieved of. any obligation to underwrite the infallibility of the five whose views prevail. “Is the court beyond criticism? May 1t be regarded as (00 sacred to be disagreed with? “Thomas Jefferson: did not think so. He did not. hesitate fo denounce ‘the decisions of John Marshall and the majority he led. “Andrew Jackson did not think so. In 1832, speaking of a decision of that court, he said: ‘John Marshall has made his decision. Now let him enforce it.’

QUOTES JUSTICE STONE

“Abraham Lincoln did not think so. In his first inaugural address, he said: ‘If the policy of the government on vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by the decisions of the Supreme Court the instant they are made in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions, the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their government into the hands of that eminent tribunal.’ “Mr. Justice Stone does not think so. In his recent dissent from the unfortunate decision of the majority of the court, this great ‘lawyer and- great ‘American not ‘only ' said that the legislation involved ‘was: constifutional, in which view Chief: Justice ‘Hughes and Justices Brandeis and Cardozo concurred; but criticised the opinion of the majority of the court by saying: ‘While unconstitutional exercises of power .by the executive and legislative branches of the government is subject to judicial restraint, the only check upon the exercise of judicial power is our own sense of self-restraint.’ .

tate TEDDY'S ADVICE

“ ‘The Constitution,’ said. Chief Justice Hughes, during the interval when he was off the: bench, ‘is what the judges say it is.’ “What judges? The. five most of these cases happene in ‘a ‘majority ‘of -one.

rho in to be

“Theodore Roosevelt: did ° not |

think “so.>!*S8peaking -to the Colorado legislature in 1910, with refer

Supreme Court, - he said: ‘If such

: decisions as . these . two indicated

the Court's permanent attitude, there would be really a grave cause for alarm, for such decisions, if consistently followed. up, would- upset the whole system of. popular

“Gov, Landon and. Col. Knox fall upon each other’s necks with hallowed reunion because they rode the Bull . Moose behind Theodore Roosevelt in 1912. In that fight Theodore Roosevelt had: so little regard for the court’s decisions that he advocated their ‘recall’ by the vote of the people. “These judges have. decided that under the Constitution the Federal government can not lift men,

government.’

women and children out of the

degradation of unconscionable hours, wages or working conditions, because it invades the rights of the states. They have decided that the' states can not do it because it" invades the rights of private property. I presume this progres-

‘sive and logical course will soon

lead us to the conclusion that private property can: not do it, because it violates the law of gravitation. “What we need is a new definition and a new interpretation of interstate ‘commerce. Every article that is grown or mined or fabri-

cated in one state and destined for.

another by whatever means of rtation is an object of interstate commerce. It is in compe-

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sweat-shop, and of children whom we have sought to restore to the school room and the play ground. One day all these will thank God for Franklin Roosevelt.

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“But we were told at Cleveland | fut

and will be told until November that we have taken away the liberties of

the people; that we have bound

them in chains, and that they are fettered in the dungeons of moral and economic slavery.

“Oh, for another Lincoln to strike these shackles from our feet! “What is this freedom which we have crucified? This liberty we have slain? “Is it the freedom of workers to free collective bargaining? Is it the freedom of farmers to. escape the loathsome peonage imposed on them by land and produce speculators? Is it the freedom of investors. to circumvent the secret devices of stock manipulators? “Is -it the freedom of bank depositors from the fear of loss of their savings? Is it the freedom of home owners and home lovers. to protect and preserve their firesides?

DRAWS COMPARISON

“The fight for freedom in tice past three years has been the same fight that Thomas Jefferson made in 1776 for the freedom of the common man; that Lincoln made for. the freedom of a race. “Back of Hoover's cry for freedom at Cleveland stood the immemorial pawn-brokers of the Republican Party who shout with glee that they have experienced a counterfeit conversion. Back of him stood the Republican Party’s holding company, the American Liberty League, which, if it had existed in 1776 as now officered and manned, would have been against the Declaration of Independence, the Revolutionary war and the Constitution of the United States. * “Back of him stood ‘every interest which seeks to coin the flesh and blood of human beings into profits; every stock-jobber, every monopolist of privileges and power; every propagandist for the discredited and defunct alliance between politics and pelf. Back of him stood the figure of William Randolph Hearst, gwhose twin discoveries constitute tHe Republican ticket nominated at Cleveland. “Yes, we have destroyed a certain type of liberty in this country.

. LISTS THOSE AFFECTED

‘“We have destroyed the liberty of small groups to pick the pockets of the American people; the liberty of organized greed to ‘pervert the agencies of government to their own enrichment; the .liberty of great financial wizards to engulf this nae tion in the flood-waters of frenzied speculation; the liberty of smug groups of self-satisfied parasites to pull the strings of puppet satelites in official positions in Washington under the guise of popular government; the liberty of long pampered interests to use the forms of law to fasten their teeth in the vitals of American economic life; the liberty of power and utility combinations to strangle while they rob investors and consumers; the liberty of organized crime to flaunt iis black flags in the face of state and Federal Statutes; and we have destroyed the liberty of any powerful or selfish group anywhere in thi€ nation to claim that the capital of the United States is located anywhere on this continent except in the city of Washington, Columbia.

. ‘NOT HONEST INVESTOR’

“Who are those who raise their strident voices against the objectives of the New Deal? “Not, the American farmer, whose increased income under it has lifted him out of the economic basement. “Not the American home owner,

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“During the 12 long years of night in which the Republican party controlled the nation, no attempt was made even to deal with this problem. All they hold out is a vague and Impossible ; designed to deceive and thwart the h of 11 million aged. people throughout the nation, and countless millions who will become aged in the years of the future.

“WHO oPORTe FIGHT?" ;

: *Who opposes this new fight for democracy today? Who throws across the pathway of real liberty lighted by Thomas Jefferson, and relighted by Jackson and Lincoln and Woodrow Wilson, the impediments of falsity and the tangled timbers of deception? Who seeks to divert the masses of men from the trail which leads to real and not a spurious freedom? Who pours into. the faces of our people the poison gas of doubt and fear and suspicion? “Not the more than a million and a half young men from every: state and town who have been offered a haven from. idleness. and possible crime. ; “Not the thousands of towns and cities throughout. America whose needs for better living advantages have been gratified. “Not the anxious fathers and mothers of the nation from whose hearts has been removed the fear of the kidnaper and the gangster. “Not the millions of school children whose facilities for the enjoyment - of learning have been increased. “Not the millions of sufferers of torrential and devastating floods whose safety and. protection we have authorized.

‘NOT HONEST BUSINESS MAN’

. “Not the consumers of electric energy for whom we have provided an honest yardstick. . “Not the honest business man

| who asks. nothing of government

except the assurance that he shall be permitted to compete with othi on a basis of honesty and jus-| ice. “Not the great moral leaders and, apostles of America, who have seen at last some of the sacred precepts of the golden rule applied to the

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constantly: seeks to: usurp the rights

of the stages’ say - these master builders. But for a arty a century and a halt they have sought. to aUthoOmty. when directed against their pampered pets in politics and

b! “It has dishonored our country by ‘repudiating its most solemn obligations,’ and on. that platform they. nominated a candidate who, three years ago, urged the payment of public .and private debts in money of the printing ‘press redeemable in neither Silver or. gold: “It ‘has created a vast multitude of new offices.’ So runs the monotonous refrain. “If we had continued the Republican policy of doing nothing about relief, nothing. about the < farm crisis, nothing for labor or business, nothing for homes and farms burdened with debt, nothing for onefourth :of the: distressed population of this nation, it would have been possible not to create new offices. But you can not double the tasks of government and not increase the number of employes. “If this is Republican condemnation of doing something rs opposed to doing nothing, let them say so and take the consequences. If it is

a Republicahh approval of doing|

something and a condemnation of using the means to accomplish it, it is rank hypocrisy and | unwortny of notice,

LISTS INDEX FIGURES

“Figures are important to register results, but the astonishing figures of American recovery are not the most important thing. “There has been no such volume of recovery in so short a time in the whole history of the world as occurred here in the first six months of 1033. It paused momentarily in 1934, but if has gone steadily upward with no sustained recession. It has included every form of human activity. : “I do not wish to burden this address: with statistics. But for the sake of those who measure life by figures on. a table, I give you ‘the essential indexes of improvement: ‘Farm. prices, 50 per cent. “Farm income, 53 per cent. . “Farm purchasing. power, 40 per cent. “Factory pay roll, 59 per cent. . “Purchasing power of same, 50 per cent. “Factory employment, 33 per cent. pdusizial earnings, 35 per cent.

“Decline in commercial failures, 66 per- cent. “Increase in national income, 50 per cent. “New securities issued, 50 per

—— m= i

. “Perhaps the most significent of all, to industry, is the decline of 56 per cent in the rate of business failures; and the decline of bank. failures of 100 per cent. “But there are. human values far beyond these figures. The important point is. not merely. that farm prices have . increased, but that’ American agriculture has been rescued from impending ‘ruin. It is not merely that the condition of labor has been

‘improved by. the reduction of the

number of unemployed from 15 millions ‘to 10 millions of workers, but that labor has been dragged back from the brink of peonage and that with one-fourth of our population destitute, their health, comfort and self-respect have been maintained, and there has been no sedition, riot or bloodshed during the worst human catastrophe in our history. “It is not merely that banking and industry have been saved from bankruptcy, but that faith in. banking and industry have been revived, “The answer to that enigma of denunciation by some of those who have been saved and others who may not have needed it is as old as Hamiltonian reaction and Jeffersonian democracy. This has been a balanced recovery. Benefits have been bestowed upon all groups with as even a hand as government can assure. :

TELLS OF OTHER GAINS

“But there are other gains which have been recorded in the past three years of which I am ‘thinking, and of which the American people are thinking: “These are the moral and spiritual contributions we have made to the life of our people which are beyond computation by the standards of the dollar.’ “We talk of the gold standard, the gold content of the dollar, and men who do not know the history or the significance of money talk about the gold dollar and the so-called return to gold, denying the obvious truth that the: American dollar, with a larger reserve of gold behind it today: than ever before, is the soundest medium of exchange among all the nations of the world today. - “But I am thinking of those immortal reserves of character which partake of the essence of the heart and soul of a nation :which have been strengthened and perpetuated by: what ‘we -have: been trying to do. “I am: “that while we have preserved homes and acres and railroads and banks and insurance companies and factories and all the tangible and corporal symbols of the people’s wealth, we have also pre-

served the intangible and immea-

of pride and. service and

"We have preserved and stmulaled respect for law and the rights OF the average am. £8 Loy hm

INCREASED LOYALTY’

“We have increased the loyalty of the people to the government which should. be their servant. “We have restored the faith from which must spring the defenders of the flag and of the Constitution. “We have cultivated a study of the science of government and its truest functions among millions to whom government was something apart .and detached and without meaning. . “We have renewed and re-en-forced the belief that after all government and trusted leaders may hear and heed the cry of the humblest ‘worshiper at the shrine of equality. “We have rekindled the vanishing faith in the survival of the best as well as the fittest. “We have revitalized the answer to the question which has rung through al the ages, ‘Am I My Brother’s Keeper?! “We have sought to confound the cynics who despise the moral conceptions of the more abundant life _ for which the Master lived and died. “We have under the: leadership of a man of rare and superb ‘courage endeavored Jot to ‘tear down what others have legitimately constructed, not to destroy the material rewards of honest toil of .mind or body, but to establish a fairer, juster order that will give to every man, woman and child in this republic the right to stand erect in pride and self<respéct,’ to see the stars on high and share the ‘glory . of the sun:

"WE ACCEPT a

“We meet here within the shadow of Liberty Hall, in this City of Brotherly Love, in this state of Wil liam Penn, where eight score years ago Thomas Jefferson gave to the world an unfamiliar creed of human freedom. It was here that he became the spokesman of the drawers of water and the hewers of wood. It was here that the foundations of our faith were laid. “It is ‘here again, in the midst of these historic scenes that we invoke the’ spirits of departed patriuis, rekindle our belief in’ the nobility of their cause, and rededicate ourselves to its complete fulfilment. “It Is here, with such a leadership, in such a ‘cause, with such a tecord, that we accept the challenge and

"hasten our feet to the field of

battle. 4 “May I conclude with this’ quotas on: “‘No greater thing could come to our land today than a revival of the spirit of religion—a revival that would sweep through the homes of the, nation’ and stir the hearts of men and women of all faiths to a realization of their belfef in God and their dedication to His will for themselves and for their world. I doubt _ if there is any problem— social, political or economic—that. would not melt before the fire. of such a spifitual awakening.” “The American people are not afraid -to follow, they will follow, the man ,who spoke those words. He is the present and the next

President of the United States, Pranklin Delano Roosevelt,”

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