ANOTHER RETURN TO NORMALCY

When the Roosevelt administration took over the rotting reins of power last March, those who felt the necessity of a sensibly planned society were led to believe that the hour of unrestrained, irresponsible, big business had at last struck. More significant yet, those conservatives who had suspected the Democratic campaign was nine-tenths demagoguery began to believe that the much-needed social reforms might after all be adopted. But now the administration is backing down all along the line. A short while ago it was admitted that money is increasingly becoming concentrated in the hands of a few and that small incomes are becoming smaller. Unless Roosevelt takes a firm stand on the issues he enunciated during his campaign, not only he, but the administration itself must be accused of a breach of faith.

The question is only too clear, and whether or no business and vested interests are responsible is beside the point. The Democrats came into office promising to bring about long-range improvements in the social structure. That such improvements require a measure of socialism is undeniable; but capitalism of the old self-seeking type travelling a road marked by cycles of increasingly intensified depression, now appears only to have been scotched, but not despatched at the 1929 crossroads. The guide posts to reform are being ignored on every side, and the demand becomes more insistent for a return to the era of unrestricted profits. It is indeed discouraging when crusaders such as Welter Lippmann, Johnson and others become apologists.

The issue is clear-cut. Either the administration has the courage to stand by the credo which brought it into power, or it has not. It either desires to effect changes which will at least mitigate, if not avoid catastrophes such as that from which we are emerging, or it does not. Though N. R. A. is imperfect, it at least furnished a step in the direction of a better-organized society, wherein wealth might be more equitably distributed, and no man beaten before the starts. To abandon that goal is to forsake an ideal that gave promise of realization and to betray the trust of the American people.