NEW DEAL ILLIBERALISM

Republican cries to rally around the old banner seem an echo of a lost cause, whose only successful champions, like Senator Vandenburg of Michigan, now owe only nominal allegiance to the party. The Democrats have lured into their camp many magnates of the Hooverite stamp, such as Mr. Schwab, who correctly interpret the assurance of the Administration, that private profit will continue, as the salvation of capitalism in an unfriendly world.

It is upon this question of profit that Right and Left divide in most nations, and Secretary Wallace and others, when they demand an alignment of New Dealers against the Old Guard, irrespective of party, screen half the truth from public view. Though it adorns its measures with a bold pretence of liberalism, the group in power seems to practice a good many fundamental tenets of reactionary taint.

In their treatment of labor, a crucial index to the sentiment of any modern government, the powers that be have repeatedly attempted to mollify strikers while really protecting employers, as some union leaders have complained. Pleas for a truce, for pacific adjustment of quarrels, generally indicate a gentle determination to maintain the status quo. Naturally, the problem is not this simple in reality, as public utility men will loudly declaim. But on the whole, the policy of the President appears to be one of favoring big business first, and groups like the National Chamber of Commerce are slowly coming to realize and confirm this fact.

True, such projects as organized relief and the Tennessee power development point the way for the liberal element. Thus Upton Sinclair borrowed from Mr. Hopkins the concept of cooperative relief, and Norman Thomas admits his admiration of T.V.A. From this trend in time a fully developed party may spring, not necessarily a "red" organization, but quite possibly a powerful one, if it can appeal to the mass of Roosevelt supporters by going the President one better. And it is doubtful whether such eminent but capitalistic New Dealers as Messrs. Baruch, Richberg, and their friends will view such a move with delight.