Ancient Instances

"The older I grow and the more I read history, the more I reflect upon the influence of the men and events of one generation upon the life and thought of the generations that follow."

So said Franklin Roosevelt last week at Little Rock, Ark. and he devoted the better part of his week to detailing his reflections. Month ago when the Press described his trip as his first campaign tour he retorted that his speeches would be historical. Historical they were, each picking an ancient example to point a New Deal moral. Thus by laying the foundation of his campaign upon the stones of history, he strove to answer the Republican contention that the New Deal is perverting the traditional institutions of the U. S. His historical fables at Little Rock, Dallas, Vincennes:

Arkansas & the Constitution. ". . . The Louisiana Purchase . . . has always had a special significance for me. I am interested in it for family reasons because Robert R. Livingston,* our Minister to France, negotiated the purchase by direction of President Thomas Jefferson--and I must admit that he drove a very shrewd bargain. . . . [Jefferson] had the courage to act for the benefit of the United States without the full and unanimous approval of every member of the legal profession.

"He was told by some of his closest advisers and friends that the Constitution of the United States contained no clause authorizing him to purchase or acquire additional territory. . . .

"He and Robert R. Livingston put the treaty through; the next Congress appropriated the money; nobody carried the case to the Supreme Court; and, as a result, Louisiana and Arkansas and Missouri and Iowa and Minnesota and Kansas and Montana and North Dakota and South Dakota and the larger portions of Wyoming and Colorado and Nebraska and Oklahoma fly the Stars & Stripes today. . . .

"Under [the Constitution's] broad purposes we can and intend to march forward, believing, as the overwhelming majority of Americans believe, that it is intended to meet and fit the amazing physical, economic and social requirements that confront us in this generation."

Texas & Monopoly: ". . . Your farmers were among the first to rebel against exploitation by the railroads. In a period of monopoly, combinations, overcapitalization, high rates, poor service and discrimination against the small shipper, you established a landmark in the regulation of public utilities for the good of their users.

"Later, when industrial development came to Texas, you were confronted by corporations that got out of hand. Here again, you called into play the old Texas spirit of freedom for the individual, and out oi it came your anti-trust laws, preceded by only one other State in the Union. . . .

"The net result of monopoly has meant the ownership of labor as a commodity. If labor is to be a commodity in the United States, in the final analysis it means that we shall become a nation of boarding houses instead of a nation of homes.

''If our people ever submit to that, they will have said 'goodby' to their historic freedom. Men do not fight for boarding houses. They will fight for their homes."

Indiana & Conservation: ". . . George Rogers Clark did battle against the tomahawk and the rifle. He saved for us the fair land that lay between the mountains and the Father of Waters. His task is not done. Though we fight with weapons unknown to him, it is still our duty to continue the saving of this fair land. . . .

"Who, even among the second and third generation of the settlers of this virgin land, gave heed to the future results that attended the cutting of the timber which denuded the greater part of the watersheds?

"Who among them gave thought to the tragic extermination of the wild life which formed the principal article of food of the pioneers?

"Who among them had ever heard the term 'submarginal land' or worried about what would happen when the original soil played out or ran off to the ocean?

"Who among them were concerned if the market price for livestock for the moment justified the overgrazing of pastures, or a temporary boom in the price of cotton or corn tempted them to forget that rotation of crops was a farming maxim as far back as the days of ancient Babylon? . . ."

*Eleanor Roosevelt's great-grandfather.

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