First Grand Audit

U. S. Business was assembled in Washington last week for its first grand audit of the New Deal. From the length & breadth of the land went 1,400 businessmen for the 22nd annual meeting of the U. S. Chamber of Commerce. Behind the Chambermen and their fellow capitalists lay a year of solid recovery. In 1933 they had assembled with their hearts in their throats and despair in their hearts. Last week their hearts were almost back to normal. President Henry Ingraham Harriman keynoted on "American Progress under American Methods."

The progress was indisputable. Mr. Harriman listed an increase in farm income from 1932 to 1933 of at least $1,500,000.000; a 50% rise in the price of farm products; a rise in the index of business activity from 61.7 to 78.5 between February 1933 and March 1934; a rise in the index of wholesale prices in the same period from 59.8 to 73.7; a decrease in unemployment from 13,000,000 to less than 7,000,000.

The methods were disputable and the Chambermen proceeded to dispute them during their four-day session. Hottest topics: Should the New Deal's policies and practices be made permanent and if so in what form?

Just 53 weeks before President Harriman had wrung his hands before a House Committee, imploring the Government to save business from their own cupidity. "I should be perfectly willing, speaking for myself and not for the Chamber," said Mr. Harriman then, "to see an amendment to the Constitution which gave for a period of two years the right to the President to exercise great power and regulation over industry and business." Last week President Harriman cheerfully admitted that the Chamber had been formulating plans for regulating industry and agriculture as far back as 1931. What the Chamber had not originated were such checks & balances as the labor section of NIRA or the Government's power to impose codes on an unwilling industry. Wolf. Last year President Roosevelt went before the fearful Chambermen in person to explain his ideas of a partnership between Government and Business. The Chamber promptly plumped for self-regulation under the Government's watchful eye, but few of the delegates foresaw how close and intimate that partnership was to be. Yet if U. S. businessmen had occasionally found the partnership irksome so had President Roosevelt. Last week he wrote the Chamber a letter in polite but plain English. Excerpts: "In the main, American businessmen have cooperated patriotically. "The Federal Government will continue its unceasing efforts to stimulate employment. . . . Private business can and must help to take up the slack. . . .

"Your membership largely represents those interests which, from motives of self-interest as well as good citizenship, have a leading role to play. ... It is time to stop crying 'wolf and to cooperate in working for recovery and for the continued elimination of evil conditions of the past."

President Roosevelt has lately complained to friends that all big businessmen who visit him have only one threadbare suggestion to offer: ''Restore confidence!" That hoary cry rang frequently through the Chamber last week but never more loudly than from the Chamber's president under Herbert Clark Hoover. Silas Hardy Strawn, a stout Republican pillar, spoke on security regulation, a subject which ranked a close second to NRA as the Chamber's chief interest. The hard-bitten Chicago lawyer refused to admit that he was a Roosevelt wolf-crier but his speech was shot with such phrases as "hysterical legislation . . . unbearable if not confiscatory taxes . . . lack of confidence, the greatest menace to the revival of normal business."

He buttressed his argument with quotations from that sturdy champion of laissez-faire, the late famed William Graham Sumner ("It is not the function of the state to make men happy") but trumpeted: "I find difficulty in consenting to the abandonment of a scheme of government which for 150 years has made us happier and more prosperous than the people of any other nation."

Sounding very much like a Republican candidate on the stump Mr. Strawn wanted the Democratic President to: 1) balance the budget; 2) stop trying to "spend our way to prosperity"; 3) hold relief expenditures down to the minimum; 4) announce that the emergency is over; 5 ) request no more emergency legislation; 6) stop tinkering the dollar.

"Suicide or Revolution." The present president of the U. S. Chamber of Commerce is no such old-school businessman. Born in Brooklyn 61 years ago, Henry Ingraham Harriman joined the New York Bar, went to Boston to make his fortune. He helped found New England Power Association (which developed the first major hydro-electric sites on the Connecticut River) and untangle Boston's transit tangle. Director in many a potent New England bank and industry, he owns a 200,000-acre cattle ranch in Montana, reads Greek for relaxation. He has been close to the New Deal from the start and his advice has been sought and taken. Of the millions of words which were mouthed at last week's session, his were the best tempered. Examples:

On NRA:

"If I rightly sense the judgment of businessmen on the workings of the National Industrial Recovery Act, it is that the law has done much good. . . . But I also sense a very widespread fear that an act, based on the self-regulation of business with government approval . . . may become an autocratic act for the regimentation of business by the Government.''

On the future: "Rejecting and blocking desirable reforms will result either in national suicide or in complete revolution."

"Satisfied?" On NRA there was grumbling galore but the Chamber never doubted for a moment that in one form or another it was here to stay. General Johnson, who made no thundering defense before the assembled Chambermen, was not so sanguine. At a dinner of trade association executives he announced plans for a nation-wide drive within a month or two to whip up flagging interest in the new "code eagle." "Due to a lapse of public enthusiasm," said the General, a drive was imperative. "If you can't get public support, you just can't make the thing go." After a short speech, he announced that he was ready for any questions on NRA that the delegates cared to fire. For several minutes no one spoke. General Johnson growled: "Everybody's satisfied, eh?"

Resolutions. Before the Chambermen return to their homes after each annual meeting, they pass a series of resolutions which are supposed to be the planks in the U. S. Business platform. Last week they solemnly declared for:

1) Extension of the temporary bank deposit insurance plan, extension of the period for divorcing security affiliates, repeal of restrictions on commercial banking's participation in security underwriting.

2) Consideration of silver only by international agreement.

3) Truth in drug, food and cosmetic advertising but: "Any attempt by government authority to impose a censorship in any form upon advertising would be an inexcusable intrusion into private business affairs."

4) Modification of the Securities Act and clarification of the Stock Exchange bill.

5) Opposition to penalizing taxes as a dangerous and unwarranted infringement of "individual rights." 6) Confining codes to basic interstate businesses and fuller use of trade associations in code administration.

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