PLATFORM FOR 1944

At the drag-end of last week's White House press conference, Associated Pressman Douglas B. Cornell asked the question for which all the 80 assembled newsmen, and Franklin Roosevelt, had been waiting. The question: "Mr. President, after our last meeting with you, it appears that someone stayed behind and received word that you no longer liked the term 'New Deal.' Would you care to express any opinion to the rest of us?"

The President most certainly would. Herewith, from a White House transcript, the gist of Franklin Roosevelt's answer: P:ls for Cat. The President had supposed somebody would ask that, he said. It all comes down, really, to a rather puerile and political view of things.

Some people have to be told how to spell "cat," even people with a normally good education.

How did the New Deal come into existence? It was because in 1932 there was an awfully sick patient called the United States of America. He was suffering from a grave internal disorder--he was awfully sick--he had all kinds of internal troubles. And they sent for the doctor. And it was a long, long, process; it took several years before those ills, that illness of ten years ago, were remedied.

D ls for Doctor. But after a while they were remedied. In 1933 many things had to be done to cure the patient internally. And they were done.

There were certain specific remedies that the old doctor gave the patient. The people who are peddling all this talk about "New Deal" today are not saying anything about why the patient had to have all those remedies. The President was inclined to think that some people in the country ought to have it brought back to their memories.

The patient is all right now--he's all right internally now--if they will just leave him alone.

W Is for War. But, two years ago, after he had become pretty well, he had a very bad accident. Two years ago, on the seventh of December, he got into a pretty bad smashup --broke his hip, broke his leg in two or three places, broke a wrist and an arm. Some people for a while didn't even think he would live. And then he began to "come to" again. Since then he has been in charge of a partner of the old doctor. Old Dr. New Deal knew a great deal about internal medicine, but nothing about this new kind of trouble. So he got his partner, who was an orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Win-the-War, to take care of this fellow who had been in this bad accident. And the result is that the patient is back on his feet. He has given up his crutches. He has begun to strike back--on the offensive. He isn't wholly well yet, and he won't be until he wins the war.

R ls for Remedies. The remedies which Old Dr. New Deal used, the President said, were for internal troubles: saving bank deposits by the FDIC, saving homes from foreclosure by the HOLC, saving farms from foreclosure by the FCA, protecting investors by the SEC. Sarcastically the President said he supposed that there were some people who wanted to repeal all these remedies.

The President listed more: slum clearance, old age and unemployment insurance, aid for the blind and crippled, the public works program (both PWA and WPA), minimum wages and maximum hours, the CCC and NYA, abolition of child labor, the break-up of utility monopolies, TVA and REA, flood control, water conservation and drought relief, crop insurance and the ever-normal granary.

Well, the President said, his list just totaled up to about 30, and he had probably left out half of them.

But at the present time the principal emphasis, the overwhelming emphasis, should be on winning the war. In other words, we are now suffering from that bad accident, not from an internal illness.

G Is for Generalities. And when victory comes, the program of the past, of course, has got to be carried on. It will not pay to go into an economic isolationism any more than it would pay to go into a military isolationism.

This postwar program, of course, hasn't been settled on at all--except in generalities. As he had said about the meetings in Teheran and in Cairo, we are still in the generality stage, not in the detail stage, because we are still talking only about principles.

Now, the President asked, have those words been sufficiently simple and understood for the newsmen to write a story about?

P Is for Picayune. The reporters rested momentarily. Up popped the New York Herald Tribune's able Washington bureau chief, Bert Andrews, with the obvious question: "Does all that add up to a fourth-term declaration?" When the laughter died down the President replied (authorizing only this much of his remarks for direct quotation):

"Oh, now--we are not talking about things like that now. You are getting picayune. That's a grand word to use--another word beginning with a P--picayune. I know you won't mind my saying that, but I have to say something like that."

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