Wt is very easy to pick holes in the Jackson-Ickes contention that business has engineered the recession out of spite and staged a sit-down strike of capital. In the first place business is used at times to indicate management and at times investment (capital in its true sense). It is only, by this confusion that the absurdity of charging that there is a strike of capital because management has! given capital q larger return on its investments is not immediately obvious, There is just ax much confusion in the attack over who the real enemy whether it is monopoly, or big. business, or merely profitable businest. The President himsel€ in his. attacks on business is always careful to point out that he is only speaking 2 section, but his henchmen are of $0. careful di] "tu addition to staging a sit-down strike and preventing the expansion which "would check the business Fecession, business (according to these spokesmen) hax helped briny about by price fixing at unduly. high levels, thus cutting. off consumer demand, This accusation it was felt came with an ill grace from the Spokesmen of Government which had made price-raising one of its objectives.
The URA, is true, was dead, The Administration's failures in 1937 throw light upon. the strategy. 'The Court plan had led to' the President's defeat In the Senate, TI had one more; it had perhaps permanently caused him to lose control of the Democratic majority, and it had delayed the whole of his social pro Bramme, The special session wax called to gather up some of the broken pieces. But when it met the President found himself faced with anew disaster—the business recess "The Court opposition (with some changes) round a new rallying point. They impatiently turned down the President's reform programme and demanded that (business be aided. The President was blamed for the @ecline in production and employment on the grounds thay he had Gestroyed the confidence of the me vester by government competition 1-and government interference in Dbusifess, and by encouraging oF at least permitting labour to increase labour costs without any regard for Congress instend of hastening to pass the President's reform measures rowed itself anxious to modify tax 8 which business disliked. - The last straw" which broke the President patience was the defeat in the House fof the wages and hours bill. Tt appeared to the President that his efforts to ce-operate with business had merely Ted him into the false position fof accepting " full responsibility for the business decline, It the New Deal was to be saved nel the President's authority restored something drastic was required. The conservative type of advisers, Joseph Kennedy, Marriner Ecoles, Daniel Roper and the rest had given bad Smoothing-Over Process The President therefore turned Jagain to his left wing advisers, who had meanwhile been chafing ar the Bit, and told them to go ahead and charge. What they charged was not important. It was the charged itself which mattered, Compared with their fury the President's message 10 Congress and his speech at the Jackson Day dinner appeared calm, reasoned and statesmanlike utterances, The sting was taken from the remarks. of the White, House lieutenants. by the President's assurances that the Administration was only opposed to the malpractices of g guilty minority. a "mere handful" said the President in his Jackson Day address. He sought to divide the opposition, and place himself upon the side of the The President's. message to Con-ress was not addressed mainly to the members sitting In front of him, nor was his Jackson Day dinner speech intended for the ears of the Democratic ofice-holders who had paid 100 dollars por plate for the privilege of attending. In both cases the rear audience was the public at large. The marked lack of enthusi-asin of och immediate audience was unimportant, If the generat public heard thes: would bring pressure to Beat upon Congressmen and officials and would force them to place them: selves once more beneath the ProfSident's Teilgrship in due course,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.