Melons & Motive

Well does Secretary of Commerce Daniel Calhoun Roper know how to pleasure his friends. He does it by importing watermelons from his native South Carolina. So tender and so succulent are these great green fruit that he has them brought by automobile lest they be damaged traveling by rail. Last week he pleasured newshawks by presenting his weekly press conference with two enormous South Carolina melons, 3 ft. long and weighing, by report, 80 Ib. each.

To the Administration, however, pleasuring the Press is currently less important than pleasuring businessmen who are jittery at the thought that melon-cutting may be forever denied them. Last week Relief Administrator Harry Hopkins arrived in Washington full of ideas for cutting new melons for the unemployed. Before he left for Paris he struck a reassuring note by declaring: "The Administration is making an honest and a sincere effort to bolster up capitalism."

Last week Secretary Roper was commissioned by the White House to go before a microphone and make a thorough job of reassuring U. S. businessmen. His soothing syrup was a declaration of policy:

"To the businessmen of our country let me say that our Government and the masses of the people themselves resent unthinking statements or subtle suggestions that the profit motive in American life has been or is to be abolished. . . .

"The Government and the people have, however, asked that certain abuses shall be discontinued. There has been legitimate objection to such things as unfair profits as, for example, profits on watered stock or salaries which are out of proportion to services rendered. . . .

"Private enterprise is getting back upon its own feet, and more and more is exerting its initiative and is able to relieve the Federal Government of responsibilities which under normal conditions belong to business.

"Pardon my repeating again that the Roosevelt Administration is squarely behind this principle. It believes in just profits for management and capital and an equitable return to labor for its rightful rewards in the economic processes. . . ."

Words help businessmen to get their bearings but deeds mean more. Satisfied with the "principle" laid down by Melon-Cutter Roper, they waited anxiously for the next move in Washington to define "fair" profits, "proportionate" salaries.

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