The New Deal: The Economic Consequences

Address delivered to Joint Republican Organizations

Spokane, Washington

November 5, 1938

A few weeks ago at Kansas City I spoke on the moral harvest from the New Deal.  At Hartford I spoke on its peril to representative government and free men.  Tonight I shall speak upon its economic consequences and what we should do about it.

Last evening Mr. Roosevelt spoke highly of his success in creating economic stability, prosperity and security for the average man.  Naturally he did not mention the 11,000,000 unemployed or farmers' prices, and some other instabilities and insecurities.

He probably thought I could be relied upon to supply those omissions tonight.  I will do that and several others.  But I shall rely upon debate and appeal to reason, not upon smearing.

I shall show that the consequences of New Deal morals, their undermining of representative government and their economic policies not only cancel out the humanitarian objectives which it professes and to which all Americans aspire, but that they undermine all hopes for progress in standards of living to all our people.

Truly this is not a nation of economic abstractions or a nation of machines.  But behind all our hopes and purposes are these economic forces which sweep the nation.  They bring blessings or they bring woe to every cottage door.

Our Economic Purpose

We have two dominant concerns in American economic life.

The first and immediate is jobs for 11,000,000 idle men and the rebuilding of agriculture.

The second is beyond this.  If we stretch our vision, what is it we want the economic system to provide for all Americans?  To answer we must dig deep into the whole system of life.  And we must dig deep into what has happened in the last 20 years.

What do we want as a minimum standard of American living for all people?  We want American children born in health.  We want them brought up with plenty of vitamins in the sunshine.  We want our race physically stronger with every generation.  We want our youth high in ideals and resolute in character.  We want them inspired with the spirit of human brotherhood.  We want them trained to make their own living, to contribute to the advancement of the nation.  We want every one of them to have a job to start in life.  And we want them to have constructive joy all through the process.

We want old age serene in security from poverty or the fear of it.

And we want profitable work for the great middle groups between youth and old age, for they must support the whole.  The focus of their lives is the home.  We want them to own their own homes.  We want the gadgets that replace drudgery and give joy in these homes.  We want each home to have a job or to own a farm or its own business.  We want Americans to be secure in that job and get living and comfort out of it.  And above all we want them to have that American personal liberty which makes the rest worth having.  This is no impossible ideal.  I am for whatever economic system will bring it about.

How are we to attain all this?  The question is which is the right road?  Which road leads to danger?

Our Economic System

In all the history of the world mankind has found only two ways of doing the work of feeding, clothing, housing and providing comforts for the people.  One is the way of liberty in which every man and woman is free to plan his own life, choose his own calling, start his own adventures, secure in reward of his effort and ability.  That is the system of free enterprise.

The other way is the way of compulsion by which men work for slave drivers or governments, or as dictated by governments.  The dictators of Europe have softened that rough statement by calling it Planned Economy.  And right here we come to the first quality of free enterprise.  It has been proved in all history and is proved again in 16 nations today that you cannot have free criticism, free speech and free worship with a coercive economic system.  For free men will fight coercion.  And coercion to live must crush free men.

And let me emphasize that when I speak of free enterprise I do not mean that men can abuse or destroy the freedom of others by monopolies or any other kind of privilege or exploitation of business, farmers or labor.  That destroys freedom itself.  No one pretends that ours is a perfect system.  There will be no perfect system until men are perfect.  And economic life requires constant progressive reform and change.  The reason is simple.  Free men constantly find new inventions and new ideas.  Some of them find new varieties of wickedness.  And let me interpolate that it was Old Republicans who, beginning fifty years ago with the Anti-Trust laws, established seven out of ten of the principal Federal agencies which exist today for the prevention of monopolies and business abuse.  But we do not need to sink the ship just to drown the rats.

I have seen the other systems of Europe at work.  I am for free enterprise not because it is a property system or a profit system or a Chamber of Commerce slogan.

I am for it because I know it is inseparable from intellectual and spiritual liberty.  Because it is the only road to higher standards of living.  Because it is the only system under which morals and self-respect of men can survive.

The Economy of Plenty

I am well aware of the weaknesses of the system of free enterprise.  But from an economic point of view there is a superlative quality which makes that system worth fighting for.  In the period after the war free enterprise had so stimulated technology and efficiency as to give us the highest standard of living ever know in all the history of mankind.  It created an unparalleled economic middle class of more than 80 percent of the people.  It proved itself the very mother of plenty.  We proved we had the method to furnish the bricks and straw from which we could build the ideal of American living.  Not 5 percent of the people in Russia or 10 percent of the people in Germany or Italy today enjoy the standard of living which 80 percent of our people possessed at that time.

Free enterprise can well be called the economy of plenty.

Two major weaknesses developed in that period.  Both were the ills of rapid progress.  Both could be remedied.  The first was weakness in organization and streaks of wickedness in the financial system.  The second was that in the national concentration on production we gave too little heed to the fair diffusion among all the people of this triumph in production.  A margin of some thousands got too much of the productive pie for the services they performed.  This was on its way to correction through inheritance taxes.  Another margin of some 20 percent got too little.  But workmen had jobs.  Farmers in general could see daylight in their accounts.  The nation was, however, much too slow in social action that would lift the earnings and ease the life of the less fortunate groups.

Nevertheless, we had so triumphed in the long march of mankind from scarcity to plenty that we had ascended Mount Pisgah, where we looked over the Promised Land of ideal American living.

And then our progress was halted in 1929 by the faults in our financial system.  Then the hurricane of European liquidation of the World War struck us.  And then our principal job was to get our people back to work.

One thing is certain.  It is recognized by every authority that depression was overcome and recovery begun the world over in the early summer of 1932.  Every great country including the United States surged forward.  The United States alone hesitated, when Mr. Roosevelt was elected.

The Conflict

The major problem America confronts today is whether we shall shape our economic system on free men or whether we shall introduce into it a mixture of personal power with coerced or regimented men.  That is the flaming conflict in the world today.

With Mr. Roosevelt's election America became involved in this conflict of systems.

No one will today doubt the enmity of many of Mr. Roosevelt's associates to free enterprise.  With beguiling phrases Mr. Roosevelt has mixed some of the working parts of these coercive systems into American life.

The introduction of this power or compulsion economy into free enterprise is not always direct.  It is often indirect through monetary and credit policies and spending.  It is in part by beguilement of subsidies with public money and disadvantage to those who do not take it.  My constant curiosity is whether it leads to complete Fascism, or to complete Socialism, or just plain economic nonsense.

In any event these children of men have erected a new Tower of Babel which they also camouflaged under the European term, Planned Economy.  The true name is Coerced Economy.  The headlines tell us of its bricks and mortar -- Government Devalues Currency; Government Manages Currency; Government Manages Credit; Government Deficits; Government Debt Double Great War; Government Forced Monopolies in the N.R.A.; Government Dictation to Business, to Labor, to Farmers; Government Competes in Business with Citizens; Government Fixes Prices; Government Restricts Production; Government Pump Priming; Government Controls Elections; Abundant Life; Objectives.

It mixes all the stimulating drinks on the bartender's shelf.  This does not make for sobriety.

You will find every one of these powers and these economic ideas somewhere along the Berlin-Rome-Moscow axis.  And to force these ideas on America you have seen attempts to control our Courts, to control our Congress, to control our elections, to control our public opinion with mass propaganda and slogans.  All that at least has a faint odor of totalitarian government.

If you do not believe something has been mixed into the American system of free men I give you a Great Mystery.

There is the mystery that if you produce less you will have more.  There is the mystery of raising costs of production by government action.  In that case you increase prices and then wait for the people to buy more.  There is the mystery of how you fill pay envelopes while the government stimulates war between labor unions.  There is the mystery of how citizens can compete in business with the government, which sends its bills to the taxpayer.

There is the mystery of how money taxed from the citizen and spent by politicians will produce more employment than the citizen can give.  There is the mystery of how politicians can run the specialized business of the country better than citizens can do it.  There is the mystery of how farmers can use their own judgment amid orders shouted from the national capital.

There is the mystery that devaluing the dollar like shortening the yardstick makes more cloth in the bolt.  There is the mystery of how frightened men will undertake new enterprises even if the banks are jammed with printing-press credit.

And there is the mystery that Santa Claus can reign throughout the year and never pay his bills.

There is the mystery of buying all the loose gold and silver in the world, then burying it in the ground at Fort Knox and West Point.  That is the old method of curing rheumatism by carrying a potato in the pocket.

There is the mystery of letting down our tariff on farm products.  The foreign farmer sells beef to us, so another foreigner will have more money to buy our surplus beef.  The foreigner was grateful and complimented us highly on our good-neighbor policy.

There is the mystery of the ever-normal granary.  Then surely prices were to go up.  And behold, the farmer filled the granary to the roof and out into the yard.  And the world saw the granary was full and they all said it was good-neighbor policy.  They said we do not need to buy for the present for our good neighbor is keeping it in store for us and will always sell it at what it cost him.  And the price went down.  Now we propose to dump the ever-normal granary onto the foreigner at less than cost.  Even Joseph did not do that.  And now Mr. Wallace admits it all a failure and says he should have some more power to perform some other mystery.

When you solve these mysteries you will know something has been mixed with free enterprise.  It is probably all clear to you, now that coercive economy has been renamed Liberalism.

Mr. Roosevelt's Babel of Confused Economy certainly never reached to heaven.  But like the people of Babel the speech of men is confused and their energies scattered.

The Consequences

And where have we got to now?  We are six years from the beginning of the New Deal.  The other democracies in the world were as deep in the worldwide depression in 1932 as we were.  All of them, except France, have years ago regained employment for their people, and such degree of prosperity as new war fears or wars permit.  And France adopted the New Deal.  She is now trying to abandon it.  We -- free from these fears of war -- have 11,000,000 or more unemployed.  We have 30,000,000 people who are living on relief or some sort of pay from the government.  Our farmers are still in distress with prices lower on the old gold basis than ever before.  We shall see a rise in the national debt to over 40 billions.  It does not seem to have been a self-supporting prosperity.  However, we are daily assured that our recovery is fully planned.

And now let us explore these six years in a little more detail. 

It has been a hectic six years, shot through with artificialities and afflictions.  At the period when Mr. Roosevelt announced that we had prosperity we still had 8,000,000 men walking the streets ceaselessly looking for jobs.  There was a period of 18 months from the spring of 1935 to the winter of 1937 when we felt real hope.  At the beginning of that period the Supreme Court suddenly shot a bolt of sense through this murky mixture.  It found that various parts of this coerced economy were violations of the rights of free men.  At once the spirits of men rose in hope.  Again they believed America was safe and recovery showed signs of life.  But that period ended in February 1937, when Mr. Roosevelt began his attempt to subjugate the Courts.  In March other parts of the coercive system came into action against prices and bank credit.  And if this were not enough, by condoning sit-down strikes the New Deal gave further reminders of a coercive system.

Mr. Roosevelt's artificial Tower of Babel structure could stand no such shocks as all these.  We have never seen so precipitate a smash in all American history.  Unemployment leaped to more than 12,000,000 men.  The prices of grain collapsed 40 percent.  Cotton dropped 36 percent, while things the farmer buys dropped but 3 percent.  The value of securities fell 30 billions.  We crashed to a point within 12 percent of the low point of the depression in the spring of 1932.  It took a world war to bring us to that point in 1932.  One New Deal, working alone, was within a few percent of the same bottom in 1938.

A recent investigation and report by the New Deal itself states that poverty is increasing in the land.

With 11,000,000 unemployed after six years we did not need an elaborate report to prove it.  All that it proves to me is that the New Deal slogan might be two families in every garage.

We certainly can conclude that:  The economic forces created by this mixture of European coercive systems into free enterprise have failed to bring recovery or security.

Recovery of Other Democracies

We do not have to depend on our own home experience to show that Mr. Roosevelt led America astray.

Mr. Roosevelt said last night:  "Our economic and social program of the past five years has definitely given to the United States a more stable and less artificial prosperity than any other nation in the world has enjoyed.”

Fortunately we can test the accuracy of that statement here and now.  We could compare a dozen other democracies.  We take the largest of them for an example—that is Great Britain.  Theirs is a representative government.  Their economic system was the same as ours.  Their losses from war were far greater than ours.  They were at the depth of the same worldwide depression in 1932.

The British started out of the depression at the same time we did.  That was five months before Mr. Roosevelt's election in 1932.  But they had no New Deal.  They maintained the initiative of free men, and got their daily fun out of Mr. Roosevelt's white rabbits.

To translate their progress in the race to get men back to work we must take account of the difference in population.  If we make that adjustment Mr. Roosevelt should have had less that 4,000,000 unemployed 18 months after his election.  Yet Mr. Roosevelt had 11,000,000.

Even today British business activity is higher than pre-depression levels and we are 30 percent below.  But there is more to it than that.  Mr. Roosevelt is increasing our national debt by 20 billions.  The British had increased theirs by but a billion.  The British have had no smash in the last year for the simple reason they had not been blowing bubbles.

We can here conclude that:  The experience of those democracies that held to free enterprise shows we could have recovered on that highway.

Mr. Roosevelt last night discussed the relative merits of slumps and depressions.  And I use the word depression.  It is not a term of avoidance.

Depressions and recessions feel very much alike.  But believe it or not there is a difference.  A depression is an economic mud hole in which the whole world wallows together.  A recession is the same mud hole when we wallow in it alone.  There is another distinction based on whether a Republican or a Democrat happens to be President.

The grim depression of 1929-32 was a combination of a collapsed homemade boom and the far more disastrous but inevitable liquidation of the war in Europe.  That was an inexorable as a Caribbean hurricane.

I cannot take the time tonight to contrast the great measures taken by a Republican administration to protect the people from the storm and to aid them back to recovery with those of the New Deal.  A contrast would prove the recuperative powers of free men.  The tide to recovery did turn.  And those sound Republican actions were not futile juggling which violated economic law, morals, the Constitution and the structure of American liberty which have brought us a second depression.

Mr. Roosevelt last night seemed to be proud that his depression is less disastrous than the worldwide depression of 1929-1932.  He said:  "That the slump (of 1937) did not become a major depression is the best kind of proof that we are on the right track.”  It is a mighty bumpy track.

Aside from war, depressions are the worst of all human calamities.  And this whole question of depressions remains to be solved.  And outside war origins they could be largely prevented if we had a thoroughgoing reorganization of our banking and fiscal system instead of New Deal methods which only breed them oftener and faster.

Mr. Roosevelt's Alibi

And at this point let me explode that phantasmagoria with which the New Deal always attempts to justify its actions.  They say when they came into office the people were neglected and starving.  That is a lie.  In various words they monotonously claim that the depression proved that free enterprise had failed.  They assert the nation was bankrupt, that it was in ruins.  They chatter tragically about the tramp of marching revolution.  These men misled the people that they might impose a new system of life.

Certainly it is true Mr. Roosevelt's approach to the White House was greeted with a panic of bank depositors.

People were trying to remove their money from the reach of inflation or devaluation.  A recent report issued by a leading group of economists confirms flatly that the incoming administration (that is the Roosevelt administration) was conclusively responsible for the panic of bank depositors and the closing of the banks.

But even a temporary bank depositors' frenzy does not bankrupt a nation.   Our government could then borrow billions in any market in the world.  It had four billions of 100 percent gold dollars in its vaults.  We owed the world nothing.

Maybe our country was bankrupt.  But if so we were attending the bankruptcy proceedings in our own 20,000,000 automobiles.  Nor is attendance at revolution usually by automobile.

Continuing Destructive Economic Forces

We have explored the visible consequences of this Administration's mixing of coercive economy in free enterprise.  Now let us examine some of the invisible forces that continue to undermine real recovery.

This American economic system of free enterprise depends for productivity and consequently the jobs for men on two most sensitive human emotions.  Those emotions are confidence and fear.  That is confidence that the country is going forward.  Confidence that a man shall be secure in the enjoyment of his efforts and his savings.  Fear instantly shrivels and blights free enterprise.

There are two kinds of confidence among men -- short-term confidence and long-term confidence.  There are likewise two kinds of fear -- short-term fears and long-term fears.  In the depression of 1929-32 we had short-term fears but no man doubted the ultimate progress of America.  Today we are haunted by long-term fears.  We are living on short-term confidence.

Let us examine this force which is constantly undermining the long-view confidence of men.

1. Six years ago the Republican Administration handed Franklin Roosevelt the Constitution intact in spirit as well as in letter.  The safeguards of liberty among men were unquestioned.  The independence of the courts was inviolate.  Men had been appointed justices who commanded universal esteem.  The Congress was respected as an independent arm of the government.  The rights of the states had not been impaired.

Today not a single one of the ideals and institutions committed to Mr. Roosevelt is unqualifiedly secure.

That certainly diminishes the security of men and undermines long-view confidence.

2.  There is an unmoral doctrine adopted by every government which seeks to take power from the hands of the people.  That is that the end justifies the means no matter how dishonest.  These exhibits all around us of wholesale political corruption undermine long-view confidence of men in the future of America.

3. A large part of the nation has been compelled or taught to depend upon the government.

The self-respect of states and local governments has been bought or sabotaged.  Governors of great states and mayors of great cities stand hat in hand before the appointive non-entities in Washington, begging for a hand-out from moneys taken from their citizens.  And these appointive nonentities act as if it were their money given as favors.

The New Deal has apparently given up all hope of returning America to full productive employment.  Their relief officials tell us that the W.P.A. or something like it must be permanent.  That attitude toward these distressed men is the abandonment of hope for return to their productive jobs and decent wages.  The attitude is wrong but certainly this does not establish confidence in the future of America.

4.  And out of all this comes another evil force.  That is disunity in America. 

The great human objective of an economic system must be to lift the marginal substandard group into the economic middle class.  But far from it today, we are on the road to the creation of a Europeanized proletariat, institutionalized by government, supported by government and voted by government.

We have workers organized against workers.  We see section arrayed against section.  That makes for neither social justice nor social security.  Nor is it America, for a house divided against itself cannot stand.

Mr. Roosevelt last night naturally mentioned the need of national unity.  How about these policies of organizing workers against workers?  Of section against section?

Mr. Roosevelt said:  "I am proud of the fact that I have never called out the armed forces of the state or the nation except on errands of mercy.”  Mr. Roosevelt omitted to mention that the Governors have been compelled to call out the National Guard, which is part of the armed forces, not once by 90 times during his administration to put down conflict stirred by New Deal policies.  He neglects also to mention that in the Hoover Administration no Governor ever had to call out a single soldier to put down industrial conflict.  In fact the National Guard was called only once and that was to compel the inoculation of cows in Iowa.

All this stirring of conflict does not build confidence in the future of America.

5.  New Deal monetary credit and inflation policies leave every man uncertain as to what the future value of his dollar will be.  His every venture, every insurance policy, even his daily business is a bet on the currency.  These policies stimulate speculation in the stock market instead of creative enterprise.  They constantly undermine confidence in the long-view future.

6.  This trail of government spending and mounting public debt comes to one of three precipices.  It must be repaid by taxes, by inflation, or by devaluation.  Certainly taxes at $5,500,000,000 have already risen to the highest point in our history—even higher than during the Great War.  We cannot stand much more.  And these taxes coming in large part from the people who toil steadily reduce the purchasing power of the people. 

But beyond this through ignorance or design the method of taxation discourages initiative and enterprise and confidence.

7.  As to how we will pay the increasing debt, I don't know.  As for tonight I accept the New Deal theory.  That is, we will not have to pay for it.  Our children will do that.  And they will pay it with tears and bitterness toward our generation.  At best it will grievously handicap their every opportunity in life.  For a third of their days they will be working for the government.  Certainly this constant increase in debt rots confidence in the future.

8.  And there are the incessant and indiscriminate attacks upon business.  Do they make for confidence in the future? 

And these attacks go further than upon businessmen.  How about the Labor Board for example?  An agency to protect the right of collective bargaining?  Yes.  To prevent the coercion of workmen by employers?  Yes.  These do not destroy confidence in the future; they build it.

But what about the coercion of other workers by this board?  What about the coercion of employers?  And what of this un-American combination of powers of legislator, prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner in any group of men?  That is a violation of every process of justice known to the American people.  The most emphatic demand in the first constitution of Massachusetts was a government of laws and not of men.  All this, however, may be merely a morning exercise in Fascism.

But does it establish confidence in the future of America?

And I am not talking about the effect of confidence or fear upon Big Business or banks or Wall Street.  I am talking about John Q. Public.  Big Business never leads.  It is always ready to do business.  It awaits on orders for goods or services or investment of savings by John Q.

John Q. sees all these mysteries and angers about him.  What does he do?  If he is conservative he and his wife delay building that house.  They delay buying that davenport or refrigerator.  They postpone buying that piece of land.  They are afraid to buy a bond for fear the government will drive or tax that industry out of business.

If John Q. is of a more reckless mind he concludes that with all these alphabets about him he might as well spend what he earns.  He thinks thrift is futile.  He looks for more joy in life rather than to save for the government to take it away before a rainy day.  He refuses to undertake that long-view speculative enterprise which pioneers new industry.

From both John Q.'s actions business lives hectically; employment is uncertain.  Because it cannot get capital, it slows down on its improvements for the future and more men are out of jobs.

And now let us explore the practical proof of all this breakdown in long-view confidence.  And it is very practical.  If we look back we will find that this country in the six years prior to 1932, which includes two years of the depression, spent about 45 billion 100-cent dollars on private construction work.  That is homes, factories, electric power plants, machinery, etc.  That is building for the future.  That is the product of long-view confidence.

Now let us look at the six years subsequent to 1932.  And that includes Mr. Roosevelt's prosperity years.  In that period we spent only 17 billions on private construction.

The governmental public works in the two periods shows only 2 billions increase to offset 28 billions loss of private construction.  If you search those figures you will find a large part of the reason why at the very top of Mr. Roosevelt's planned prosperity there were 8,000,000 men walking the streets looking for jobs.  The New Dealers' self-justification is that their "objectives” were to help the underdog.  They surely have got him under.

Today millions of Americans are again struggling gallantly for recovery.

I have no doubt that through natural forces and pump priming we will make some recovery.  That is under way.  Free enterprise has proved itself fairly tough.  It is still in the ring but it is pretty weak.  Recovery will increase greatly if enough Republicans are elected next Tuesday to demonstrate that New Deal coercion economy is on the way out.  That would restore long-term confidence.  But until then we shall not see the day when unemployment relief will vanish under the sunshine of productive jobs.

Our Humanitarian Purpose

Now let us for a moment explore the economics of our larger purpose.  That is the enlargement of our whole American standard of living.

We hear much of New Deal "objectives.”  That word has now been substituted for "the abundant life.”  Such words can be made to scintillate like the Aurora Borealis.  And they have proved about as effective in illuminating the long and difficult highway of human progress as the Aurora itself.

Even if we assume these objectives to be sincere, certainly it is time to remember that the road to Paradise is not paved either with professions of good objectives or good resolutions.  The hot spot we are now in is paved all over with "objectives.”

There are a multitude of these objectives which you may surmise I do not approve of.

What of personal power, of coercive economy, of these steps toward Fascism and Socialism, this destruction of free enterprise, this weakening of the safeguards of liberty, this reckless spending, debt and unbearable taxes, of immorality in government, and others?

I have repeated elsewhere the test given us by the Greatest Teacher of mankind, "Ye shall know them by their fruits.  Do men gather grapes from thorns or figs from thistles?”

The New Deal has given emphasis to humanitarian objectives.  The country needed it.  However, they in fact seek to cloak all their objectives with that appeal.  My criticism is that many of their other objectives destroy the hope of humanitarian progress.  They cancel out any real hope of full employment and higher standards of living to all the people -- labor and farmers alike.  In fact the sum of these New Deal objectives cancel themselves out in poverty.

In discussing humanitarian objectives common sense is the hardest of all commodities to sell.  Emotion is the easiest of all things to distribute.

Truly we wish for the abolition of sweated labor, or child labor.  We want shorter hours, more leisure.  We want real farm relief.  We must have protection of women and children.  We must have collective bargaining.  We want old-age pensions, relief of the unemployed and support to war veterans.  We want increasing public health services, spread of medical attention, hospitalization and education.  All these and many more resolute objectives of progressive men were going concerns before the New Deal was born.  The New Deal deserves credit wherever it has in reality advanced them.  And they are all a part of establishing the ideal of American living.

I do not wish to assert that the so-called humanitarian objectives of the New Deal are insincere.

But when you scan the newspaper headlines and find Grand Juries, Senatorial committees and the press charging that the administration of these humanitarian measures is impregnated with the spoils system, corruption of public officials and of elections, you at least wonder if the primary objective is not power rather than humanity.

The people grow poor in personal liberty when its officials grow rich in personal power.  And you wonder if idealism can live in the same land with moral debauchery.  What has a nation profited if to gain any objective it has lost its own soul?

And what hope is there of these humanitarian objectives if the nation cannot bear the cost of them?  They can be supported only by the maximum productivity of the nation.  That plenty which free enterprise can alone produce is the only hope of proper protection and development of the young and support of the old.  It is the only hope of winning the ideals of living standards to every American family.

But how are we ever going to restore production under these monetary policies, these shackles on industry, this coercive economy, this discouragement of the initiative of men, this decay of confidence in the future?  And much of these humanitarian objectives must be paid for by taxes.  They cannot be paid for either by mystery plays or hypnotism.  These annual Federal deficits of billions are the exact proof that we are not meeting the bill today.  We are using money borrowed from our children.  How are they going to pay for them?

The greatest humanitarian objective of them all is jobs for 11,000,000 men.  Another is farm stability.  Another is to lift the standard of living of all the people.  It would seem that these are the forgotten objectives.

Conclusion

This administration proposes to go back to the same old treadmill of shackled economy, of pump-priming, of fear of more inflation and more dictation.

But what should we do to restore these 11,000,000 men to productive jobs, to give real relief to the farmer and the business man and to start America on the road to progress?  Mr. Roosevelt said he would not let the people down.  The time has come to let them up.

I am not going into a long program.  I do not suggest that the nation go backward.  Progressive men never go backward.  Let us resume the American road and go forward.  And let us flee from the dangerous road we are traveling, for its end leads to a precipice.  Let me give you a few fundamental things that must be done first.

1.  Resume honor to the Constitution of the Unites States, and thus give men confidence that the safeguards of free men will be upheld.

2.  Resume common morals.  Both morals in thinking and morals in governmental action.

3.  Resume the American system of free enterprise.  Clean out these European mixtures of coercion.  Correct the faults of private enterprise, but do not destroy its productivity.  Without that all else fails.

4.  Trust 130,000,000 free people in the United States to have more sense than a dozen starry-eyed boys in Washington

The first step to start us on our way is to elect independent men to Congress in the place of these yes-yes men.

To insure a free government, to maintain free enterprise we have long since

learned that the Congress must be independent of the President.

Make Congress independent.  That will be a sign to America that we have changed our national road from compelled men to free men.  It will bring confidence in the future that will quickly make jobs.

This must come before we can restore productive jobs for these 11,000,000 unemployed.

And this is also the first measure of farm relief, for the farmers' first market is full dinner pails at home.

Then a confident, alert, alive, and free people, enthused with incentive and enterprise, will quickly repair losses, repay debts, and bury mistakes.  It will make economic security a reality for the worker and for the farmer instead of a broken-down objective.

Give us the election of a new Congress of independent men and watch America come back.