To bring about these needed changes it is necessary to push to the surface a whole new breed of articulate, well-informed, tough-minded political leaders who have done their homework and are capable of taking on this gigantic international network of global power. Already a few such men and women are beginning to appear on the political scene. Some have already been elected to political office. This must become the wave of the future.
The job devolving on the rest of us is to encourage these courageous Americans who are willing to give up the peace and quiet of their personal lives in order to take on the stormy career of public service. We should encourage them with money, moral support, by doing our own homework, and by speaking up decisively to sustain the fight when critical issues are being decided.
The job ahead is gigantic, but this reviewer believes that America’s misused, much abused, silent majority can still turn back the prevailing tide of impending disaster.
It is time we got on with the task.
Chapter Footnotes
Appendix A
Betrayal of the Democratic Party
By Alfred E. (Al) Smith
Alfred E. Smith, Democratic Governor of New York during four terms, became the Democratic candidate for President in 1928 but lost to Herbert Hoover. In 1932 he supported Franklin D. Roosevelt for President, but by 1936 he was so shocked and alarmed by what he saw happening that he decided to warn his Party. Because of the popularity of President Roosevelt this step was considered by some to be virtual treason. Nevertheless, on January 25, 1936, Alfred E. Smith gave the following speech in Washington, D.C., to warn the American people that the Democratic Party was being betrayed.
Alfred Smith and Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932.
At the outset of my remarks let me make one thing perfectly clear. I am not a candidate for any nomination by any party at any time, and what is more I do not intend to even lift my right hand to secure any nomination from any party at any time.
Further than that, I have no axe to grind. There is nothing personal in this whole performance so far as I am concerned. I have no feeling against any man, woman or child in the United States....
I was born in the Democratic party and I expect to die in it. And I was attracted to it in my youth because I was led to believe that no man owned it. Further than that, that no group of men owned it, but on the other hand, that it belonged to all the plain people in the United States.
Patriotism Above Partisanship
It is not easy for me to stand up here tonight and talk to the American people against tire Democratic Administration. This is not easy. It hurts me. But I can call upon innumerable witnesses to testify to the fact that during my whole public life I put patriotism above partisanship. And when I see danger, I say danger, that is the “Stop, look, and listen” to the fundamental principles upon which this Government of ours was organized, it is difficult for me to refrain from speaking up.
What are these dangers that I see? The first is the arraignment of class against class. It has been freely predicted that if we were ever to have civil strife again in this country, it would come from the appeal to passion and prejudices that comes from the demagogues that would incite one class of our people against the other.
In my time I have met some good and bad industrialists. I have met some good and bad financiers, but I have also met some good and bad laborers, and this I know, that permanent prosperity is dependent upon both capital and labor alike.
And I also know that there can be no permanent prosperity in this country until industry is able to employ labor, and there certainly can be no permanent recovery upon any governmental theory of “soak the rich” or “soak the poor.”...
A Government By Bureaucrats
The next thing that I view as being dangerous to our national well-being is government by bureaucracy instead of what we have been taught to look for, government by law.
Just let me quote something from the President’s message to Congress:
“In 34 months we have built up new instruments of public power in the hands of the people’s government. This power is wholesome and proper, but in the hands of political puppets of an economic autocracy, such power would provide shackles for the liberties of our people.”
Now I interpret that to mean, if you are going to have an autocrat, take me; but be very careful about the other fellow.
There is a complete answer to that, and it rises in the minds of the great rank and file, and that answer is just this: We will never in this country tolerate any laws that provide shackles for our people.
We don’t want any autocrats, either in or out of office. We wouldn’t even take a good one.
The next danger that is apparent to me is the vast building up of new bureaus of government, draining resources of our people in a common pool of redistributing them, not by any process of law, but by the whim of a bureaucratic autocracy.
The 1932 Platform
Well now, what am I here for? I am here not to find fault. Anybody can do that. I am here to make suggestions. What would I have my party do? I would have them reestablish and re-declare the principles that they put forth in that 1932 platform....
The Republican platform was ten times as long. It was stuffy, it was unreadable, and in many points, not understandable. No Administration in the history of the country came into power with a more simple, a more clear, or a more inescapable mandate than did the party that was inaugurated on the Fourth of March in 1933.
And listen, no candidate in the history of the country ever pledged himself more unequivocally to his party platform than did the President who was inaugurated on that day.
Well, here we are!
Millions and millions of Democrats just like myself, all over the country, still believe in that platform. And what we want to know is wiry it wasn’t carried out....
Now, let us wander for awhile and let’s take a look at that platform, and let’s see what happened to it. Here is how it started out:
“We believe that a party platform is a covenant with the people, to be faithfully kept by the party when entrusted with power, and that the people are entitled to know in plain words the terms of contract to which they are asked to subscribe.
“The Democratic Party solemnly promises by appropriate action to put into effect the principles, policies and reforms herein advocated and to eradicate the political methods and practices herein condemned.”
My friends, these are what we call fighting words. At the time that that platform went through the air and over the wire, the people of the United States were in the lowest possible depths of despair, and the Democratic platform looked to them like the star of hope; it looked like the rising sun in the East to the mariner on the bridge of a ship after a terrible night.
But what happened to it?
Economy in Government
First plank: “We advocate immediate and drastic reduction of governmental expenditures by abolishing useless commissions and offices, consolidating departments and bureaus, and eliminating extravagance to accomplish a saving of not less than 25 percent in the cost of the Federal Government.”
Well, now, what is the fact? No offices were consolidated, no bureaus were eliminated, but on the other hand, the alphabet was exhausted. The creation of new departments and this is sad news for the taxpayer—the cost, the ordinary cost, what we refer to as housekeeping cost, over and above all emergencies that ordinary housekeeping cost of government is greater today than it has ever been in any time in the history of the republic.
The Unbalanced Budget
Another plank: “We favor maintenance of the national credit by a Federal budget annually balanced on the basis of accurate Federal estimate within revenue.”
How
can you balance a budget if you insist upon spending more money than you take in? Even the increased revenue won’t go to balance the budget, because it is hocked before you receive it. What is worse than that?...
The Middle Class Will Pay the Debt
Now here is something that I want to say to the rank and file. There are three classes of people in this country; there are the poor and the rich, and in between the two is what has often been referred to as the great backbone of America, that is the plain fellow.
That is the fellow that makes from one hundred dollars a month up to the man that draws down five or six thousand dollars a year.
Now, there is a great big army. Forget the rich; they can’t pay this debt. If you took everything they have away from them, they couldn’t pay it; they ain’t got enough. There is no use talking about the poor; they will never pay it, because they have nothing.
This debt is going to be paid by that great big middle class that we refer to as the backbone and the rank and file, and the sin of it is they ain’t going to know that they are paying it. It is going to come to them in the form of indirect and hidden taxation. It will come to them in the cost of living, in the cost of clothing, in the cost of every activity that they enter into, and because it is not a direct tax, they won’t think they’re paying, but, take it from me, they are going to pay it!
What About States’ Rights?
Another plank: “We advocate the extension of Federal credit to the States to provide unemployment relief where the diminishing resources of the State make it impossible for them to provide for their needs.”
That was pretty plain. That was a recognition in the national convention of the rights of the States. But how is it interpreted? The Federal Government took over most of the relief problems, some of them useful and most of them useless. They started out to prime the pump for industry in order to absorb the ranks of the unemployed, and at the end of three years their employment affirmative policy is absolutely nothing better than the negative policy of the Administration that preceded it.
“We favor unemployment and old age insurance under State laws.”
Now let me make myself perfectly clear so that no demagogue or no crack-pot in the next week or so will be able to say anything about my attitude on this kind of legislation. I am in favor of it. And I take my hat off to no man in the United States on the question of legislation beneficial to the poor, the weak, the sick, or the afflicted, or women and children.
Because why? I started out a quarter of a century ago when I had very few followers in my State, and during that period I advocated, fought for, introduced as a legislator and finally as Governor for eight long years, signed more progressive legislation in the interest of the men, women and children than any man in the State of New York.
Unconstitutional Measure—Unfulfilled Pledges
And the sin of this whole thing, and the part of it that worries me and gives me concern, is that this haphazard, hurry-up passage of legislation is never going to accomplish the purposes for which it was designed and—bear this in mind, follow the platform-under State laws....
Another one: “We promise the removal of Government from all fields of private enterprise except where necessary to develop public works and national resources in the common interest.”
NRA! A vast octopus set up by government, that wound its arms around all the business of the country, paralyzed big business, and choked little business to death.
Did you read in the papers a short time ago where somebody said that business was going to get a breathing spell?
What is the meaning of that? And where did that expression arise?
I’ll tell you where it comes from. It comes from the prize ring. When the aggressor is punching the head off the other fellow he suddenly takes compassion on him and he gives him a breathing spell before he delivers the knockout wallop.
Wasteful Extravagance
Here is another one: “We condemn the open and covert resistance of administrative officials to every effort made by congressional committees to curtail the extravagant expenditures of Government and improvident subsidies granted to private interests.”
Now, just between ourselves, do you know any administrative officer that has tried to stop Congress from appropriating money? Do you think there has been any desire on the part of Congress to curtail appropriations?
Why, not at all. The fact is that Congress threw them right and left—didn’t even tell what they were for.
And the truth, further, is that every administrative officer sought to get all that he possibly could in order to expand the activities of his own office and throw the money of the people right and left. And as to subsidies, why, never at any time in the history of this or any other country were there so many subsidies granted to private groups, and on such a huge scale.
The fact of the matter is that most of the cases now pending before the United States Supreme Court revolve around the point whether or not it is proper for Congress to tax all the people to pay subsidies to a particular group.
Here is another one: “We condemn the extravagance of the Farm Board, its disastrous action which made the Government a speculator of farm products, and the unsound policy of restricting agricultural products to the demand of domestic markets.”...
What about the restriction of our agricultural products and the demands of the market? Why, the fact about that is that we shut out entirely the farm market, and by plowing under corn and wheat and the destruction of foodstuffs, food from foreign countries has been pouring into our American markets—food that should have been purchased by us from our own farmers.
In other words, while some of the countries of the Old World were attempting to drive the wolf of hunger from the doormat, the United States flew in the face of God’s bounty and destroyed its own foodstuffs. There can be no question about that.
Now I could go on indefinitely with some of the other planks. They are unimportant, and the radio time will not permit it. But just let me sum up this way. Regulation of the Stock Exchange and the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment, plus one or two minor planks of the platform that in no way touch the daily life of our people, have been carried out, but the balance of the platform was thrown in the wastebasket. About that there can be no question.
Let’s see how it was carried out. Make a test for yourself. Just get the platform of the Democratic Party, and get the platform of the Socialist Party, and lay them down on your dining room table, side by side, and get a heavy lead pencil and scratch out the word “Democrat,” and scratch out the word “Socialist,” and let the two platforms lay there.
Then study the record of the present Administration up to date. After you have done that, make your mind up to pick up the platform that more nearly squares with the record, and you will put your hand on the Socialist platform. You don’t dare touch the Democratic platform.
Democratic Or Socialistic?
And incidentally, let me say, that it is not the first time in recorded history, that a group of men have stolen the livery of the church to do the work of the devil.
Now, after studying this whole situation, you will find that that is at the bottom of all our troubles. This country was organized on the principles of representative democracy, and you can’t mix Socialism or Communism with that. They are like oil and water; they refuse to mix.
And incidentally, let me say to you, that is the reason why the United States Supreme Court is working overtime throwing the alphabet out of the window three letters at a time.
Now I am going to let you in on something else. How do you suppose all this happened? Here is the way it happened. The young Brain Trusters caught the Socialists in swimming and they ran away with their clothes.
Now, it is all right with me. It is all right to me if they want to disguise themselves as Norman Thomas or Karl Marx, or Lenin, or any of the rest of that bunch, but what I won’t stand for is to let them march under the banner of Jefferson, Jackson, or Cleveland.
br /> “We Can Take a Walk”
Now what is worrying me, where does that leave me as a Democrat? My mind is now fixed upon the Convention in June, in Philadelphia. The committee on resolutions is about to report, and the preamble to the platform is:
“We, the representatives of the Democratic Party in Convention assembled, heartily endorse the Democratic Administration.”
What happens to the disciples of Jefferson and Jackson and Cleveland when that resolution is read out? Why, for us it is a washout. There is only one of two things we can do. We can either take on the mantle of hypocrisy or we can take a walk, and we will probably do the latter.
Now leave the platform alone for a little while. What about this attack that has been made upon the fundamental institutions of this country? Who threatens them, and did we have any warning of this threat? Why, you don’t have to study party platforms. You don’t have to read books. You don’t have to listen to professors of economics. You can find the whole thing incorporated in the greatest declaration of political principles that ever came from the hands of man, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States.
Constitutional Limitations
Always have in your minds that the Constitution and the first ten amendments to it were drafted by refugees and by sons of refugees, by men with bitter memories of European oppression and hardship, by men who brought to this country and handed down to their descendants an abiding fear of the bitterness and all the hatred of the Old World was distilled in our Constitution into the purest democracy that the world has ever known.