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Show flrucharCx Washington Digest Keep Our Government Liberal, Cry of President and Spokesmen Roosevelt's Definition of Term Means He Has Cast Die For Realignment of Policital Parties; Time May Prove Fallacy of Today's Liberal Doctrines. By WILLIAM BRUCKART tt'N'U Service, National Press Bids., Washington, D. C. WASHINGTON. There is a great to-do being made these days about "liberalism." We are told in the press, through the radio, in personal conversations that "liberalism," liberal lib-eral thinking, is vitally necessary; it is urgent that our government be kept liberal, and that our daily lives be moulded along liberal lines. President Roosevelt says so, and sought in a recent speech to define liberalism; his spokesmen repeat and emphasize what he has said; the vast army of ballyhoo artists on the government payroll is saying it after the manner of a stooge for a ventriloquist. A lot of Republicans, Republi-cans, trying to ape the New Dealers, Deal-ers, are saying it, too, and making just as much of a mess of the proposition propo-sition as the less slick-tongued among the New Dealers. Well, any way, at any cost, there must be liberalism. If we don't be liberal, we are warned, the devil will get us. The nation, its 130,-000,000 130,-000,000 inhabitants and all of their works will sink to the depth of perdition. per-dition. It's a very sorry situation, indeed. Recognizing the need, the urgent necessity for liberalism, Mr. Roosevelt Roose-velt undertook recently to define it. I quote his words from a recent speech in Maryland where he had gone to try to bring about the defeat of Sen. Millard Tydings in a race for the Democratic senatorial nomination: nomi-nation: "For example, Mr. A is a composite compos-ite conservative. He -admitted that in 1933, interest rates charged by privato bankers to ordinary citizens who wanted to finance a farm were altogether too high; he admitted that there were sharp practices, excesses ex-cesses and abuses in issuing securities securi-ties and buying and selling stocks and bonds; he admitted that the hours of work in his factory were too long; he admitted that old people, peo-ple, who became destitute through no fault of their own, were a problem; prob-lem; he admitted that national arid international economics and speculation specu-lation made farming and fishing extremely hazardous occupations; and he even admitted that the buying buy-ing power of farmers and fishermen had not kept pace with the buying power of other kinds of workers. "But conservative Mr. A not only declined to take any lead in solving these problems in co-operation with the government. He even found fault with and opposed, openly or secretly, almost every suggestion that was put forward by those who belonged to the liberal school of thought. "Mr. B, I said, was a composite liberal. He not only admitted the needs and the problems like Mr. A, but he put his shoulder under the load; he gave active study and active ac-tive support to working out methods, meth-ods, in co-operation with the government, govern-ment, for solving the problems and the filling of the needs. Mr. B did not claim that the remedies were perfect, but he knew that we had to start with something less than perfect per-fect in this imperfect world." Would Force Realignment Of Politics of Country Mr. Roosevelt's pronouncement on what constitutes a liberal followed fol-lowed very closely a statement he had issued in a meeting with the newspaper correspondents at the White House, saying that he had no objection to election of "liberal Republicans." Re-publicans." Said he: "If there is a good liberal running on the Republican Repub-lican ticket, I would not have the slightest objection to his election. The good of the country rises above party." The importance of these two declarations? dec-larations? Mr. Roosevelt has cast the die for a new alignment of political parties. He has swept aside all previous bonds that held men and women within the Democratic party par-ty or the Republican party or the lesser political groups and has said, in effect, "Come with me into "a new fusion of forces and action." Of course, no one who has studied Mr. Roosevelt's course since his political politi-cal ears were first pinned back in defeat of his malodorous plan to add six justices of his own choosing to the United States Supreme court could have failed to recognize this eventuality. He was planning to force realignment in politics in this country for some months; but now the thing is out in the open, and the Democrats and Republicans, alike, know what confronts them if it is their desire to maintain the present political party setup. What will happen is quite another question. Undoubtedly, the Democratic Demo-cratic party will be the greater sufferer. suf-ferer. It has to be so, because Mr. Roosevelt became titular head of the Democratic party by virtue of election to the presidency in 1932 and again in 1936 as the candidate of that party. So many of the former for-mer Democrats have become wedded wed-ded to the New Deal either by conviction con-viction or as a result of having won office on New Deal coat tails that there is no turning back for hem. Thus, there is a split, with those who subscribe to the New Deal theory the-ory of liberalism on the one hand and the Democrats who adhere to the hundred-year-old principles of the Democratic party on the other. There will be, some Republicans drawn into the new alignment, but they will be fewer than the wing formed from Democrats. The Republicans Re-publicans who will go over to any new alignment will be of the type of Harold Ickes, now secretary of the interior, Senator Norris of Nebraska (who once wore a Republican label) and others of the here-today-gone-tomorrow category. And further, as to what will happen: hap-pen: my observation is that these so-called liberal movements don't last very long. They crack up on the very principles which are supposed sup-posed to be their foundation stones. Always, there are too many "leaders." "lead-ers." Every "liberal," who catalogues cata-logues himself as such, shouts about it and produces plans for saving the world wherever anybody will listen, conceives himself to be a leader. Someway, the ideas and ideals of these liberal leaders always differ. Each invariably takes the position that his plans must be adopted unanimously or the world will go to pot. Ideas Subject to Quick Change; Try Something Else Then, too, their ideas are subject to such quick change that few of them are retained very long. They are cast aside for something else that has more glamor. A case in point is an incident of recent history. his-tory. After New Dealer Senator Pope had been licked for the Idaho Democratic nomination for senator by the youthful Worth Clark, there was talk among the New Dealers about having Senator Pope seek reelection re-election independently; it was proposed pro-posed and discussed with Mr. Roosevelt whether Senator Pope should embrace the faith of the La-Follette's La-Follette's progressive ticket in Idaho. Ida-ho. It was found, however, that the LaFollettes had a candidate for the senate on their ticket. To the suggestion that he withdraw and let Senator Pope be their candidate, the LaFollette spokesman said: no sir-ee! sir-ee! Senator Pope isn't progressive enough for us and Senator Pope had campaigned as a 100 per cent New Dealer. One can walk around the halls of congress any day when the session is on and find hundred-per-centers arguing how far "reform" must be carried; what "liberalism" means. And, in downtown Washington, where the really important headmen head-men of liberalism are to be found, they are constantly fuming and fretting fret-ting at each other. Instances are on record where two rabid liberals actually ac-tually have sought to get each other discredited in the eyes of the President Presi-dent because of their differences over what liberalism means. The only thing about which they seem to agree is that anyone who insists on sanity in governmental thinking anyone who takes heed of lessons of experiences and traditions tradi-tions of the past must, of necessity neces-sity be a tory, a bloodsucker, a trampler of the poor, an obstructionist, obstruc-tionist, a "republicrat," or some other animal in human form who is overcome with personal greed. On that point, the liberals that we see in the government these days present pre-sent a united front. Time May Prove Fallacy Of Today's Liberal Ideas That is the story of the self-appointed liberals. To them has been given the right in their own minds, at least to guide the destinies of the nation. I assume that if they regard me at all they classify me as coming from across the railroad tracks, question my mental balance. But I shall continue to study their methods, commend what is good, criticize that which is obviously unsound. un-sound. More important, I shall continue to cling to the doctrine of the ages that human nature is going go-ing to be changed by some Power that is considerably above the level of human intelligence; I shall hold to a conviction that real progress comes by that method and not from the crackpots who look upon the human hu-man race as a fresh litter of guinea-pigs. guinea-pigs. But, anyway, we have liberalism defined at last by a man who is qualified to define it, and we find that it differs from what liberalism formerly meant. It was only a few generations ago that liberalism meant restricting, not increasing, the powers of government. Neither Mr. Roosevelt's definition nor his record in office coincides with tha former understanding of the wort!. It seems to me likely, therefore, that we will go on for quite some years with this quarrel, and that may be and this is just a hunch time will prove the fallacy of some of the so-called liberal doctriies ol this day. Western Newspaper Unlrn. |