Show a WH I 1 t t it 1 V 04 T L i 1 annil is P is ca U U y A B X Tt fiKA 0 C WA I 1 r r re 1 washington business Busl ness as represented by the chamber of commerce of the united states start class again has clashed struggle with the yew new deal and again the can no by business added nothing its attacks apparently bothered the new deal not at all or the new deal has proceeded after the manner of the mastiff trotting along without concern while a poodle barked and snarled business made no overtures for compromise with the new deal and new deal spokesmen were not hastening to make peace with busi business nests leaders altogether there was not the slightest indication given that there will ever be peace between the two elements of economic thought the one thing that impressed me about the recent annual meeting here of the chamber of commerce was the solidarity of business in its opposition to general new deal principles that was to be expected but it has not always been tile the case in days past there were many business groups and individuals who adhered to tile the new deal and vainly tried to work out an understanding with the administration at this annual meeting however there was not the slightest effort made on the part of business to accomplish any arrangement whereby business and the administration would work together tills this can mean only one thin thing president roosevelt Is going into his Is ca campaign in pal n for reelection election re without the support of business interests except where in particular lines benefit has accrued incidentally to specific businesses one would think that such a condition would constitute a threat against the presidents reelection election re such appears not to be the case however because of the particular type of campaign which sir mr roosevelt and his political commander in chief postmaster general parley farley are making the presidents recent political speeches have made it quite clear that he Is seeking support wholly from the agricultural and labor segments of our voters ills his appeals are quite open and frank and they are drawing considerable criticism because it Is held the he initiation of class struggle in this t country whatever the reason for the presidents course it remains as a fact that he Is very busy cultivating voters who have suffered most in the depression when I 1 reported above that business came off second best in III its fresh assault on the new makes good deal I 1 did not mean fight to imply that it had not made madd a vigorous fight it probably gained some ground in getting before the country its side 0 of f the story a phase of our national situation s which has not been as fully advertised to the country as have tile the activities and accomplishments of the new deal the story of the losses suffered by business actually Is not a great deal different from that of the individual and many businesses are existing on a hand to mouth basis just as Is the case with thousands of individuals divi duals because business in our minds eye at least Is larger than an individual political demagogues regard jt it as fair game and for that reason I 1 am inclined to believe business has not had a fair chance on the part of most of us when considering national problems on the other hand ban business has many units within the whole that have not played fair there are a great many corporations that are guilty of plain oppression even to the extent of fraud and corruption of business methods for the crookedness of tills this segment all business lias has been blamed by the new deal tills this Is not equity the unhappy part of it all Is that unless all business stands together good bad and in between it can get nowhere at all in defense of its legitimate rights there Is therefore a wholly natural and yet quite unfair result emanating from this condition new deal planners in their efforts to catch the crooks hive have punished legitimate business far too much if one Is to accept even partially the public statements and tile the private expressions of tile the business men who attended the annu annual al meeting of the chamber of commerce this ought not to be and I 1 think that legitimate business has just ground for complaint on tills this score so as the situation now stands I 1 believe it can be said in all fairness that neither side in this battle between tile the new deal and business comes into court with entirely eDtl rely clean hands bands business has its cancerous sores the new deal has its nitwits and theorists who knew nothing about practical economies economics the result of this Is plainly seen and it becomes more and more apparent that mr roosevelt cannot accomplish his objective of complete recovery until he be directs some of his subordinates tol to put their feet on the ground indeed there are some of the new deal subordinates who ought to be tossed bodily into the street just as there are some business men who ought to be b thrown into jall jail the chamber of commerce meeting brought forth the information that business as a whole business had kept hundreds of has answer thousands of workers on its collective pay rolls during the depression when conditions tilt ions did not justify their retention the claim was advanced that business had expended something like twenty billions in wages paid from stored up reserves it was further asserted that business was alone responsible tor for such gains toward recovery as have been made new deal spokesmen from president roosevelt on down have consistently accused business of failure to take on workers and help solve the unemployment problem at the same time the banking structure of the country has been accused chiefly by the president of refusal to extend credit to business and business as a whole has been classified by the president as greedy it seems safe to say that as regards these charges cli arges business does have an answer for throughout all history capital h has as refused to work unless there was a reasonable promise of return now in addition to the lack of that promised return business Is and has been constantly confronted with uncertainties on the part of the new kew deal the p present resent pending tax legislation Is typical the most dangerous provision of that legislation Is that which will prevent business from building up reserves such as thosa upon which it has been drawing during the depression if the business claim Is true that it has paid out twenty billions more than its operations justified for wages during the depression it causes one to ponder over the future one Is inclined to ask what strength business will have to do even as much for the working classes during the next depression pres slon as it has done in tills this one 0 0 0 with reference to the new deal policies toward business a statement by the rural electro delicate fi cation question don has just jit come to my desk it touch touches on that very delicate question of how far owr t the he government can enter into business in competition with private enterprise without destroying or driving out private initiative the complaint on the part of private business that the government Is continually wedging its way into private fields is well known but the REA statement puts something of a new slant on the view in fact it brings to the front one of the elements of government in business not generally recognized the REA statement consists of a letter from REA administrator morris cooke to the state corporation commission of virginia the vir virginia inia commission was urged to consider the situation in which tile the REA and one of its loans will be placed in event of 0 a certain ruling by the virginia officials in effect administrator coole cooke asked the vir virginia enla commission t to 0 rule against private business in order that a S loan made by REA to a cooperative organization in virginia can be protected to review the facts briefly let me explain that a private electric company applied to the virginia commission for authority to extend its lines for transmission of energy into a farming section adjacent to cities served by the electric company it happened that the REA had sent agents into tills same territory and had obtained promises from many far farmers to buy electricity from a co operative cooperative concern to be organized and financed by REA the private company apparently horned in to what mr cooke thought was tile the territory of REA by right of discovery or some other such reason and so lie he is now eli engaged in attempting at least to prevent the private company from entering that field the point of this circumstance Is that here Is a federal agency steeped in bureaucracy and with tile usual bureaucratic thirst for power which actually Is attempting to drive private industry out of its way it Is dolog doing it under the thinly disguised reason of protecting a government loan I 1 have heard considerable discussion of tills this case many observers and students of economic questions contend that the federal government has abdol absolutely no right to engage in that sort of business while it may be and probably can be said that tile the electric company was attempting to take the cream of the crop by extending its lines only to territory adjacent to its headquarters the fact remains that the normal re employment which that private company would do will be cut down proportionately by the extension of the federal activities into that area it may appear that the workers displaced tor for the private company will be taken on by the federally financed operative cooperative co lines but such Is not the cast case it Is just one more indication of how government once it enters private business continues to expand and to destroy initiative which private enterprise has and which government never has been known to have a western newspaper union |