Green Bay Answer

President Roosevelt could talk at length on the importance of the Navy, the brotherhood of nations and the beauties of National Parks--and still U. S. businessmen would not be soothed out of their anxieties by the pleasant sound of his voice. From the moment he landed at Portland from his Pacific cruise, they have been wondering, worrying, and waiting for some presidential word addressed directly to them. Was industry to be allowed to make and keep its profits? Was the New Deal going to swing Right or Left? At Glacier Park last fortnight, the President was not ready to answer such questions. Last week at Green Bay, Wis. he was, in his own way. Chief points in what was widely called his most important public utterance since last January's Budget Message:

No End Yet. "The average man in Wisconsin waged a long and bitter fight for his rights. Here, and in the nation at large, this battle has been twofold. He has had to fight nature . . . and those forces which disregard human cooperation and human rights in seeking that kind of individual profit which is gained at the expense of his fellows. . . .

"In the great national movement that culminated in 1932, people joined with enthusiasm. ... In one year and five months the people of the United States have received at least a partial answer to their demands for action and neither the demand nor the action has reached the end of the road."

Confidence. "But action may be delayed by two types of individuals. First, there is the man whose objectives are wholly right and wholly progressive, but who declines to cooperate or even to discuss methods of arriving at the objectives because he insists on his own methods and nobody else's. The other type to which I refer is the individual who demands some message to the people of the United States that will restore what he calls 'confidence'. . . .

"There is no lack of confidence on the part of those businessmen, farmers and workers who clearly read the signs of the times. . . . Those who would measure confidence in this country in the future must look first to the average citizen.

"Confidence is returning to our agricultural population who, in spite of unpredictable and uncontrollable drought in a large area, is giving understanding cooperation to practical planning. . . .

Confidence is returning to the manufacturers who . . . are comparing the black ink of today with the red ink of many years gone by; to the workers who have achieved under the National Recovery Administration rights for which they fought unsuccessfully for a generation; to the men and women . . . who have been saved from starvation by Government relief ... to the fair and sincere bankers and financiers and businessmen, big and little, who now, for the first time, find Government cooperating with them in new attempts to put the golden rule into the temples of finance; to the home owners who have been saved from the stark threat of foreclosure and to the small investors and savers of the nation who, for the first time, rightly believe that their savings are secure."

Peter & Paul. "This Government intends no injury to honest business. The processes we follow in seeking social justice do not take from one and give to another. In this modern world, the spreading out of opportunity ought not to consist of robbing Peter to pay Paul.* We are concerned with .more than mere subtraction and addition. We are concerned with the multiplication of wealth through cooperative action--wealth in which all can share."

Reactions. How well the President had answered the questions of troubled U. S. businessmen was a matter of viewpoint--and dispute. The darkest future was painted by those pessimists who pointed out that: 1) The President had praised Wisconsin as the beau ideal of the New Deal and Wisconsin under La Follette leadership has for a generation heaped tax after tax on business, rigidly regulated utilities. 2) The President declared that the New Deal had not reached the end of its social reform, and experience has shown that whenever he talks that way it is unwise to discount his utterances. 3) The President would not have bothered to assert the country's confidence if the U. S. were indeed confident. 4) If the President himself feels confident, that is a probable prelude to new experiments.

Optimistic businessmen had counterclaims: 1) The President could not repudiate the intention of continuing social reforms and what he said was no more than was to be expected. 2) In this speech for the first time he spoke less of what he would do for the U. S., more of what business must do for the country, thereby indicating that business may expect more cooperation and less cramping interference from its "partner," the Government. 3) Most reassuring of all, the President was evidently trying to be reassuring.

*First recorded use of "Robbing Peter to pay Paul" was by John Wyclif about 1380. Two days after the President's speech, Associated Gas & Electric System ran an advertisement headlined "Taking from Peter to Pay Paul." The point: Since 1928 rate reductions and tax increases have deprived 182,000 Associated stockholders of $16,100,000 a year in dividends.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.