OCR Text |
Show America and the Future Come Time, Life and Fortune Alf Landon tells our soldiers and sailors that when they return from fighting f ascism abroad, they will find things being run by "fascist New Dealers" at home. There is a nationwide undertow of fear and pessimism pes-simism which good war news does not change. Too many people, whether farmers,, workers or businessmen, expect the depression to return. The Declaration of Independence was branded by the Tories as a fraud, as it did not embrace the Negroes. "Glittering generalities." As with capitalism, the man who is for liberty is almost ashamed to say so. Competition in a free market. "Robber barons" Gould, Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Rockefel-ler, who created national wealth, but who made their. own economic rules in doing so. They not only on-ly bought out their competitors, but judges and legislators leg-islators to boot. Modern mass production and chronic mass unemployment. un-employment. Instead of investing in "expansion" capitalists invested in "consolidation" the huge corporations. Buying up competitors, or, buying up sources of supply, as Ford and General Motors. Or retail outlets, out-lets, as General Electrics does. So is running a patent pat-ent factory. Price agreements. The farmers subsidy. The Great Discovery of the 20th Century is that, by organizing and passing laws, any particular group of producers can corrupt cor-rupt or evade the blind justice of the free market. Established producers have so many hooks in it (trade, market, legislation) that the market is less tempting to new producers. When old capital is so well protected against loss, new capital would rather rath-er join with the old than try to lick it. The odds favor idle or timid capital and when money is idle, so are men. If the owners won't spend idle money, then the government must step in, tax that money away from them, and spend it itself. The war has brought us (why say the war?) three new economic evils regimentation, inflation and inefficiency. The great middle class. The wage earning class in England formed the Labor Party. In America, the strongest bid for working-class political power was not made until New Deal years, the C.I.O., and Wagner Act. Gigantic pools of capital. Gigantic pools of Labor. General Motors 1,100,000 members are plenty independent in-dependent of G. M., but not of each other. (Laboi Union). He is practically collectivized already. The hero of collectivism is not the individual, bu1 the mass. Which means a dictatorial state. The average American does not favor eithei system capitalistic or state socialism directed by either in mass. Like George III, the collectivist "has erected c multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms oi officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance." sub-stance." The Government must do this thru laws and freedom under laws, not by blue-prints and swarms of officers. The South still denies the Negro political rights. Government, in its relation to business, should be an impartial umpire. Its policies must be partial to freedom's friends. The best friend and exemplar of economic freedom free-dom in Americta is the small, new, ambitious, competitive-minded enterpriser the man who is, oi wants to be in business for himself. He should be the favorite of a truly liberal government. The more enterprisers, the freer the nation. Government economy. Public works planned in advance not leaf picking. pick-ing. The expanding activities of free competitive in- dividuals are the only sure guarantee of increasing national wealth. A re-awakening spirit of enterprise, of faith ir capitalism, is visible; it is likely to be found among returning soldiers. Wealth is not the end of life. A true policy o: freedom is one that first sets men free to make a living, liv-ing, but then sets them freer to be teachers, scientists, scient-ists, artists, statesmen, philosophers, or what thev can . .. . The thing to be liberated is the human spirit. |