THE EAGLE'S GHOST

If President Roosevelt's Baltimore speech of the thirteenth is any indication of what we may expect from a second caging of the Elephant, it is time to hamstring the Donkey instead. The nation is still fairly placid in spite of the aimless and futile experimentation it has undergone. But if that experimentation is to be revived, with no emendation and no attempt to contract its illegality, the guinea pig has every right to become a snorting wild boar.

Speaking to the assembled young Democrats the President seemed blissfully unconscious of the Schechter case, and the defeat of the Blue Eagle at the hands of the domestic chicken. Otherwise he must consider that eagle somewhat of a phoenix, hourly expecting it to spring from its ashes. For the plan he proposes for curbing unemployment, certainly involves the N.R.A. principles of labor control. The establishment of higher wages and shorter hours by governmental authority are the very tools so clearly condemned about a year ago. Defining the age range of the employable to make more room for competent middle-aged workers, sound as the policy may be of itself, is equally sure to go the way of all regimentation. The merit of such propositions is irrelevant as long as this nation adheres to substantially the same Constitution and to judicial review. Until the President comes out with the bravery to propose an amendment to the Constitution giving the federal government control over intra-state industry and commerce, his benevolent aims for labor must be regarded as a most transparent species of reaching for the moon, or for the votes.

There is no reason why confidence should again be deposited in a man so grotesquely visionary that he takes no account of his decisive defeats and asks for permission to butt his head against the wall that raised such a welt on it last time. Henry P. Fletcher may sound a little too panicky and self-righteous in his protests over the use of soldier boys in the torchlight rally preceding the President's speech. But his objections to the warmed-over panacea are sound. Liberty Leaguer Shouse wins the same commendation by essentially the same stand. And Herbert Hoover continues to refurbish his badge of integrity, on the approved plan of denouncing Roosevelt. There is no need to be duped by the five-point system he would substitute for the President's latest nonsense. A glance at the propositions indicates their pure and simple anti-Rooseveltism. So far there has been little danger of the Republicans' obscuring what they oppose with what they favor. And if the President continues to dish out the clammy hash, the G. O. P. has a good chance of reinstating itself without ever committing itself to anything positive. For the Blue Eagle is even uglier when dragged in without its feathers.