"No Dictatorship"

Good evening, my friends. Millions of U. S. citizens edged closer to their radios last Sunday as they heard this familiar greeting from the President of the U. S. For the second time Franklin Roosevelt was "reporting" to the country from the White House. Eight weeks prior when "the country was dying by inches" his first broadcast on the banking crisis had been a historic success. His second attempt to clear and steer the public mind on issues of state produced a popular reaction no less favorable. President Roosevelt's speech, simple and sympathetic, was more than a review of his two months in office, more than a recitation of the purposes of his Civilian Conservation Corps, his Tennessee Valley Plan, his mortgage and farm relief bills, his railroad legislation (see p. 12). For the baffled businessman who wondered whither he was being led, it was a look into the future. To many that future had looked like an era of State Socialism, with the Government's grip fixed hard & fast upon industry, agriculture, transportation. To others it seemed as if Congress were abdicating its Constitutional powers to the White House. The country appeared in the thick of a gigantic social and economic revolution, quiet but nonetheless real, the direction and philosophy of which the average citizen did not begin to comprehend. President Roosevelt gave no such view of the national situation. Deftly he turned aside the "dictatorship" charge by pointing out that Congress still retains its Constitutional authority and has done nothing more than designate him as its agent in carrying out its will, all in keeping with U. S. tradition. As for the Government's relations with industry, agriculture and transportation, the President explained them not as those of a Socialist state and its servants but as those of business partners, "not a partnership in profits, because the profits would still go to the citizens, but rather a partnership in planning and a partnership to see that the plans are carried out." For weeks the President's friends and assistants in & out of Washington have been drafting and redrafting bills to set up such a partnership, but not until his radio speech was any definite light thrown on what the President himself had in mind. He called for measures "that will attempt to give to industrial workers a more fair wage return, to prevent cut-throat competition and unduly long hours for labor and encourage each industry to prevent overproduction." Getting down to cases, the President felt sure that 90% of the nation's cotton goods manufacturers "would agree tomorrow to eliminate starvation wages, stop long hours of employment and child labor and prevent an overproduction of unsalable surpluses," if it were not for a 10% minority which could wreck any such agreement. Continued the President: "And that is where Government comes in ... to enforce that agreement . . . with the assistance of an overwhelming majority of that industry." The anti-trust laws would, he said, be overhauled to promote this kind of Government-business partnership.

Recalling the familiar fact that U. S. Government and business had issued nearly $100,000,000,000 worth of gold bonds against $4,000,000,000 in gold, the President explained his suspension of the gold standard: "Were the holders of these promises to pay to start to demand gold, the first comers would get gold for a few days. . . . The other 24 people out of 25 who did not happen to be at the top of the line would be politely told that there was no more gold left. And so we have decided to treat all 25 people in the same way. . . . That is why I decided not to let any gold go out of the country."

All ears were pricked when the President skimmed the subject of inflation: "The Administration has the definite objective of raising commodity prices to such an extent that those who have borrowed money will, on the average, be able to repay that money in the same kind of dollar which they borrowed. . . . We seek to correct a wrong and not create another wrong in the opposite direction. . . . These powers will be used when, as and if it may be necessary to accomplish the purpose." President Roosevelt reported conditions "a little better than they were two months ago," with industry picking up. freight traffic increasing, farm prices improving. But, he warned, "I am not going to indulge in issuing proclamations of overenthusiastic assurance. We cannot ballyhoo ourselves back to prosperity." A sensible optimist, he added: "We may make mistakes of procedure as we carry out the policy. I have no expectation of making a hit every time I come to bat. What I seek is the highest possible batting average. . . . Theodore Roosevelt once said to me: 'If I can be right 75% of the time. I shall come up to the fullest measure of my hopes.' "

P: The day Franklin Roosevelt flew to Chicago to accept the Presidential nomination he promised Mayor Cermak, since murdered, to be on hand for the opening of Chicago's Century of Progress. Last week Rufus Cutler Dawes, Fair president, accompanied by Col. Albert Arnold Sprague and onetime Postmaster General Harry Stewart New, marched into the White House, asked the President if he could officiate June 1. The President was sorry but that day he would be handing out diplomas at Annapolis. How about May 27? "That's bully!" declared President Roosevelt. For the opening the President will push a button connected with a beam of starlight which left Arcturus during Chicago's last World's Fair 40 years ago. P: Last week President Roosevelt made the following appointments: Dave Hennen Morris, New York socialite lawyer, to be Ambassador to Belgium--; Sam Gilbert Bratton, Senator from New Mexico, to be a U. S. Circuit Judge after adjournment of Congress; Oscar L. Chapman, Colorado lawyer, to be Assistant Secretary of the Interior; Alexander Wilbourne Weddell of Virginia, former career diplomat, to be Ambassador to Argentina. P: Few reports have excited Washington so much as last week's to the effect that President Roosevelt might attend the London Economic Conference next month. The White House secretariat pooh-poohed the story, and the President discouraged it by reciting his summer plans to the Press: He would go to the graduation of his son John at Groton School in early June, receive an honorary degree at Rutgers later. Aboard the cruiser Indianapolis he would steam up the coast from Philadelphia probably as far as Marblehead. There he and his sons would board the Amberjack II and sail themselves up to the Roosevelt summer home in New Brunswick. After a few weeks there the President would return to Hyde Park for the balance of the summer. P: The rafters of the Washington Auditorium rang with applause one night last week as President Roosevelt appeared to address the U. S. Chamber of Commerce in convention assembled. A businessman's brief talk to businessmen was the President's speech (see p. 41). His prime request: "I ask you to refrain from further reduction in the wages of your employes and also to increase your wage scales in conformity with and simultaneous with the rise of the level of commodity prices. The average wage scale has gone down more rapidly than the cost of living. [It] should be brought back to meet the cost of living and this process should begin now and not later."

P: President Roosevelt will permit his secretariat and close advisers to write for publication. McNaught Syndicate last week announced that Assistant Secretary of State Raymond Moley, head of the "Brain Trust," would supply a weekly 800-word article entitled "'The State of The Nation."

P: President Roosevelt proclaimed May 14 Mother's Day. He urged citizens "to express our love and reverence for motherhood ... by the usual tokens and messages of affection to our mothers.''

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