Private Convention

Three eminent Democrats held a premature political convention of their own last week in the letters columns of the New York Times, where they were certain of getting a wider audience than they could enjoy at Philadelphia week after next. Naming no slate, they nevertheless drew up an epistolary platform which contained, among other originalities, the declaration that the "national policy followed by this Administration ... is profoundly reactionary." The signatories to these sentiments were Woodrow Wilson's Wartime Secretary of War Newton Diehl Baker, Franklin Roosevelt's first Budget Director Lewis William Douglas and Leo Wolman, who served on Wilson's War Industries Board and on Roosevelt's first National Labor Board.

"We believe," continued this talented trio of ex-public servants, "that the time has come to challenge the policies which, under the twelve years of Republican rule, fostered the growth of private monopolies and subsidized them by exclusive privileges of tariff protection. We challenge those policies which under three years of Democratic rule aimed to check, balance and supplement these private monopolies by State-created monopolies and to create new private monopolies based on more legal privileges and subsidies. . . .

"We cannot subscribe to the view that the monopolistic tendencies which had official sanction from 1920 to 1932 were conducive to prosperity, and we cannot subscribe to the view of those New Dealers who claim that their experiments in monopoly, restriction and centralized political power are in the interests of an abundant life. . . .

"The evils of bureaucracy, centralization and extravagant expenditures are a popular reaction to the evils of private privilege. They are defensive and complementary. They are fire used to fight fire, they are abuses of public power resulting from abuses of private power, and only those who are prepared to deal with the causes can hope to deal with the consequences."

As remedy, four policies were proposed: 1) "step by step" withdrawal of all special privileges in order to restore free competition; 2) removal of legislative power from administrators to Congress, from Congress to the States; 3) "responsible government finance," making taxes direct and visible; 4) forcing the Government as well as citizens to obey the law.

Though Messrs. Baker, Douglas & Wolman had chosen the burden of their platform from the current and historic tenets of both major parties, it was soon evident they had pleased neither. No Republican leader spoke up to praise them. On behalf of the Administration, Senator Minton of Indiana sneered: "My idea of a platform would be one to repudiate Newton Baker rather than the New Deal."

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