Ke Alakai o Hawaii, Volume IX, Number 29, 27 October 1936 — Baltimore Sun Deserts Roosevelt Cause; Baltimore Sun Writer Praises New Deal [ARTICLE]

Baltimore Sun Deserts Roosevelt Cause; Baltimore Sun Writer Praises New Deal

Three days after The Baltimore Sun confirmed on its front page its well known antagonism to President Eooseveit, by announcing that it opposed his reeleeiion, Gerald W. Johnson, briiliant editorial writer of the Evening Sun published in that paper a signed commimication entitled "I am for Eoosevelt." Declaring the Sun's reasons were ,"wholly inadequate, because they omit all reference to the greatest service that Roosevelt has rendered to the country, to-wit, the introduction of inteßigence into the conduct of the country 1 s affairs," Johnson said: "I am not against Landon, I am for Roosevelt, Certainly Gov. Landon has exhibited appreciation of some things Boosevelt has done anu has intimated that he will continue them if elected. But he has uttered no word that evidences an understanding of Roosevelt's great achievement, whieh is the establishment of contact between statecraft and reality. "Roosevelt — Statesman" "I am not for Roosevelt the man, I am for Roosevelt the stetesman. I am for Roosevett precisely becaiuse I, like the Sun. believe fc'. a Jree cofeipetttive system under capltalism governed ] democraticaliy. I believe that' Roosevelt is the great bulwark j of capitalism, conservatism and l democracy. t . . . .j "The most dreadful failure of' whieh any form of government ean be guilty is simply to lose touch with reality, because out af this faihire all imaginable forms of evil grow. This was the catastrophic failure of the Hard-ing-Coolidge-Hoover regime. Have we forgotten how Coolidge and Mellon repeatedly assured us that all was well at the ver/ mq*nent when we were plunging toward the edge of the abyss? They were probably sincere enough; they simply didn't know what was going on. "Hien, when the inevitable crash eame, they were incapable of learning. We had to sweat through four years of aepression under Hoover, although every single thing that Roosevelt has

done might Just as well have been done years earlier. "The banking situation might have been e!eared up in 1930 or 1931, just as well as in 1933. The poblie works prograni raight have been st'arted y!ars earlicr. The problem of socīal security might have been taekled long ago, Soraething intelligent about the tariff might have been done while Cordell Hull was still merely a congressman. "I say they 'might have been done,' -but in truth they couldn t have been done, because Washington at that time had not the brains and the eourage necessary to do them. The politicians then in power couīd not thlnk, or act, or even feel otherwise than in the old traditional political way. "I am for Rooseve!t because he i is not extravagant, Extr'avagance iis spending money wlthout getting anvthing worth whlle for it. Hoover's Farm Board was gross extravagance, beeause it spent money on a hope!ess project. The RFC was extravagant, because it spent money attacking the depression without making a dent in it. "During the World War the country spent $30,000,000,000 in a year and a half and all it got in re&im was 350,000 eorpse& and a iot of bad debts. Bince 1933— tliat is to say. in twice the time —the New Deal has spent a third as mueh and for it we have many i,housands of miles of roads and streets, countiess school houses, bridges, aams, canals, power plants, forests, sewer and water mains, playgrounds, airports, and other tliings. But, above all, we have avoided gettlng a lot of corpses. Troops are not fighting milk farmers, as they were just before Hoover went out. Quenching that fire was worth the mohey if we had jreceived none of the public works. "The man's adminLstration. has been alert, honest and amazingly successful. More than that, it has been lib*ertarian. It is ridiculous to describe as a dictat-or the man under whom we have seen th"e abolition of p^ohihUie:: the abolition of the more lelio _ censorship of books, periodic&is and plays."