Second Year's Speech

One morning last week 3,500 businessmen marched past the west side of the White House grounds and through the classic portals of Constitution Hall. They were the NRA code representatives, trade association executives and bigwigs of industry. They took seats in the great auditorium which the Daughters of the American Revolution built, seats which the Daughters themselves warm but once a year. The platform was gay with flags and banners. A red-coated Army band played "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" The adjutants of industry spoke softly to one another.

Suddenly there was a rustle and a hush.On the platform Franklin D. Roosevelt, who almost at that very hour was completing his 366th day as President of the U. S.. appeared on the arm of an aide. There was a round of applause. The Rev. Ze Barney Thome Phillips, Chaplain of the Senate, raised his hand and began "Our Father, which art in Heaven. . . ." Piously the 3,500 businessmen mumbled the familiar phrases. The prayer over. General Johnson, who had just concluded a four-day wrestle with the critics of NRA (see p. 15), stepped forward to begin his second wrestling bout, this time with the code authorities. But first he introduced President Roosevelt who, before a microphone, delivered a speech designed to crush his critics and rally his followers to a fresh advance under the Blue Eagle.

His major points:

To critics: I am always a little amused and perhaps at times a little saddened--and I think the American people feel the same way--by those few writers and speakers who proclaim tearfully either that we are now committed to communism and collectivism, or that we have adopted fascism and a dictatorship. The real truth of the matter is that for a number of years in our country the machinery of democracy had failed to function. . . . There are some people, of course, who do not think things through; as, for example, the man who complained in one of yesterday morning's papers that criticism was held to be unpatriotic. Let me put the case so clearly that even his type will understand. . . . The critic is unpatriotic who contents himself with loudly proclaiming that that way, that method is no good; that it won't work; that it is wrong to do this. This critic contributes nothing --he is not constructive; he is unpatriotic because he attempts to destroy without even suggesting a way to build up.

On the other hand, the critic is patriotic whether he be a businessman, a worker, a farmer or a politician if he says, "I don't like the methods you are using to solve the problem; I believe it would be far better if we were to use the following alternate method'' ... In this great evolution through which we are passing, the average American is doing splendid service by coming back at the captious critic and saying to him. "Well, old man, and what do you suggest?"

On wages & hours: With millions still unemployed the power of our people to purchase and use the products of industry is still greatly curtailed. It can be increased and sustained only by striving for the lowest schedule of prices on which higher wages and increasing employment can be maintained. . . . Reduction in hours coupled with a decrease in weekly wages will do no good at all, for it amounts merely to a forced contribution to unemployment relief by the class least able to bear it. I have never believed that we should violently impose flat, arbitrary and abrupt changes on the economic structure but we can nevertheless work together in arriving at a common objective.

On the little fellow: You on code authorities are your industrial brother's keeper and especially are you the keeper of your small industrial brother. We must set up every safeguard against erasing the small operator from the economic scene. . . . The anti-trust laws must continue in their major purpose of retaining competition and preventing monopoly. It is only where these laws have prevented the cooperation to eliminate things like child labor and sweatshops, starvation wages and other unfair practices that there is justification in modifying them.

On collective bargaining: The law itself has provided for free choice of their own representatives by employes. Those two words "free choice" mean just what they say. It is obvious that the Government itself not only has the right but also the duty to see, first, that employes may make a choice and, secondly, that in the making of it they shall be wholly free.

On enforcement: We have been seeking experience in our first eight months of code making; for that same reason we have been tolerant of certain misunderstandings even when they resulted in evasions of the spirit, if not of the letter of the law. Now we are moving into a period of administration when that which is law must be made certain and the letter and the spirit must be fulfilled. We can not tolerate actions which are clearly monopolistic, which wink at unfair trade practices, which fail to give to labor free choice of their representatives.

On permanent purpose: We undertook by lawful, constitutional processes to reorganize a disintegrating system of production and exchange. ... It is very certain that the American people understand that the purpose of the reorganization was not only to bring back prosperity. It was far deeper than that. The reorganization must be permanent for all the rest of our lives in that never again will we permit the social conditions which allowed the vast sections of our populations to exist in an un-American way, which allowed a maldistribution of wealth and of power.

When he had finished the President went to another hall where an overflow audience had heard him only by amplifiers. To them he said: "I'll tell you a secret. It is the longest speech I have made in all the past year. I said what I believe."

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