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Show Bruckart's Washington Digest President Restates All New Deal Theories and Convictions Retail Federation Speech Seen a3 His Political Philosophy Philos-ophy for 1910 Campaign; Insist3 on Continued Spending; Would Hold Down Business Profits. By WILLIAM ERUCKART WNU Service, National Press Bid?., Washington, D. C. WASHINGTON. As the days go by, It appears more and more that President Roosevelt's speech before the American Retail federation here, May 22, amounts to a declaration declara-tion of greatest political importance. impor-tance. It may be, indeed, that the Chief Executive's pronouncements before the retail merchants that night will eventuate as the cornerstone corner-stone of his political philosophy for the campaign of 1940. In Mr. Roosevelt's speech before the retail businessmen, it will be recalled re-called upon examination that he restated re-stated virtually all of the New Deal theories and convictions. That was important. But more Important was the emphasis with which he offered, of-fered, in new language, the general assertion that there will be no backtracking. back-tracking. More important to the country, as a whole, was his determined de-termined adherence to the principle of virtually unlimited government spending, because his renewed insistence in-sistence in that direction came at a time when there is considerable fear that the country faces further inflation of its currency. There seems to be quite a general gen-eral agreement that the retail speech should be examined in the light of 1940. As far as I can learn, that is the view taken by New Dealers, Deal-ers, by old line Democrats, who are antagonistic to spending policies of the last five years, and by cautious Republican observers who are anxiously anx-iously looking for signs indicating whether Mr. Roosevelt, himself, will seek a third term in the office of President. While the views of the three segments converge, their reasons rea-sons differ. The New Dealers who want Mr. Roosevelt to run for a third term desire to consider the speech as a preliminary statement, a charting of the future course; the old line Democrats who desire to get the party back in Democratic hands, rather than in the hands of the radical wing, entertain fears which force consideration of 1940, and the Republicans secretly are hoping that Mr. Roosevelt will try to break the third term precedent. Speech Sought to Court Favor With Retailers There is another reason, apparent to some observers, why the speech that sought to court favor with the retail dealers should be thought of in terms of a year hence. It will be remembered that the annual meeting of the Chamber of Commerce Com-merce of the United States was held here only two weeks in advance of the speech which is the subject of so much discussion. Now, I never have thought that the Chamber of Commerce represents very much of the country's sentiment. It is made up, of course, of business interests that are representative, but as a matter of cold fact it is dominated and managed and directed by the really big business of the nation. Thus, it speaks the big business viewpoint to the extreme, and likewise like-wise in these columns before that the Chamber of Commerce usually can kill off projected legislation by the simple expedient of supporting it. But the recent chamber meeting took no notice of Mr. Roosevelt beyond be-yond damning his program and policies pol-icies lock, stock and barrel. The President, it seems, took advantage of the opportunity to tell the retailers retail-ers about his' innermost thoughts as an offset to the vials of poison scattered scat-tered about by the big business representatives. rep-resentatives. He reasserted his views on every point to which the chamber had taken opposition and about which there had been fighting fight-ing speeches made. I suppose if one's sense of humor could be sufficiently suf-ficiently detached from the gravity of the situation, they could describe the circumstance as similar to two small boys who were sticking out their tongues at each other as proof of their anger. A third factor might be brought into the picture. You will recall that it was only a week or so prior to Mr. Roosevelt's speech that he spent an afternoon in conference with some of the legislative leaders. Among them was Senator Pat Harrison, Har-rison, the old-line Mississippi Democrat, Demo-crat, who occupies the post of chairman chair-man of the powerful senate committee com-mittee on finance. That is the commutes com-mutes which handles tax legislation legisla-tion in the senate. Included in the conference also was Chairman Doughton, of the house committee on ways and means, also a tax committee. com-mittee. Harrison Tells President Tax Revision Is Necessary No further review of that conference confer-ence is necessary than to relate how Mr. Harrison told the President there must be tax revision in order to lift and readjust some of the unfair taxes on business, and he said there would be tax legislation in this session of congress. Chairman Chair-man Doughton appeared to join in rather timidly, but I believe it is not going to be important whether the Doughton heart is with Harri son or with Roosevelt. The fighting Pat Harrison is going to obtain some tax legislation if it is possible, and Mr. Roosevelt will have an opportunity oppor-tunity to veto the bill if he likes. So, in his speech, Mr. Roosevelt took a sideswipe at the proponents of tax changes. Their reasons for demanding tax revision,' you see, are based upon a belief that business busi-ness will not go ahead until government govern-ment gives more consideration to the burden that is on business. Senator Sen-ator Harrison, along with many other old line Democrats, feels that business can not re-employ workers as long as taxes are unevenly distributed. dis-tributed. That is to say, the Mississippi Mis-sissippi senator is seeking ways by which business will take on workers work-ers and the federal treasury will be free from the enormous appropriations appropria-tions for relief spending. With reference to the Harrison position, however, it should be said here that congress has shown a dozen doz-en yellow streaks about cutting down in spending. . It started out talking economy in a big way. It acted, however, by way of voting money out of the treasury wherever wherev-er a new method for spending it was proposed. The individual representative rep-resentative and senator, excepting those boldly aligned with Senator Harrison, displayed the usual cowardice cow-ardice of a political more interested in holding his ten-thousand dollar job than in serving his country. Determined Business Profits Must Be Held to Minimum When Mr. Roosevelt said in his speech, therefore, that he would demand de-mand only that the present distribution distribu-tion of tax levies and rates should remain the same, he was answering answer-ing Senator Harrison's group. In other words, the President has budged from the position and viewpoint view-point he long has held only to the extent that he now says he will not quibble about details; he wants corporations to bear as much tax as heretofore and he will insist upon it. He is determined that business profits must be held to the minimum and there are indications that he will carry such a fight "to the country." coun-try." .Regardless of the tax question and the over regulation to which so many government agencies are ad- dieted in dealing with business, Mr. Roosevelt expressed his whole thought in one sentence: "You can not expect this administration admin-istration to alter the principles and the objectives for which we have struggled the last six years." That declaration encompasses in one sentence germs of great trouble for the Democratic party. Some observers ob-servers here described it as stubborn stub-born statement. It is known, of course, that Mr. Roosevelt can be positively bull-headed in his determination deter-mination when he wishes. Because of this trait, therefore, some of the old line Democrats again are fearful fear-ful of a wide open split in the party. The President laid the greatest stress on federal spending, and he made the rather startling statement that there can be no balanced budget bud-get either this year or next. Which can mean only that there must be more borrowing by the government which now is paying an annual interest in-terest charge of more than $1,000,-000,000 $1,000,-000,000 on the public debt that is well over $40,000,000,000. In defense of this condition there has been an increase of more than $20,000,000,000 since Mr. Roosevelt took office the President asserted there should be no particular concern about the debt or the interest. What of it, he said, in effect; if there is that interest in-terest to be paid by our children, it will be paid to our children. Smacks Much of Old Argument for Pump Priming In pooh-poohing the public debt and the great interest charge to be met every year, Mr. Roosevelt said the government had to continue spending and creating debt because, otherwise, there would be no business busi-ness for the retailers or any other type of commercial endeavor. It smacked very much of the old argument argu-ment for pump priming and certainly cer-tainly bore out many reports that Marriner S. Eccles, head of the federal reserve banking system, has great influence with the President, who used to get his advice on financial finan-cial matters from Secretary Mor-genthau, Mor-genthau, of the treasury. Mr. Eccles Ec-cles may be regarded, I believe, as one of the most visionary of all of the inner circle of New Dealers. In any event, he has preached spending, spending and more spending spend-ing by the government as the means of lifting the country out of the depression by its own bootstraps. boot-straps. It is on this public debt matter that attention is likely to center more earnestly later on. The debt has been growing and growing and the general condition of the country may be said fairly to have adv ,nced not one bit in the last several years. (Released by Western Newspaper Union. |
