Mr. Roosevelt's Plans President Roosevelt's latest broadcast was well calcu-
lated to improve his party's prospects at next month's elections, but it was rather an enunciation of general principles than anything in the shape of a concrete programme. The President is already contemplating the permanent embodiment of parts of the National Recovery Administration provisions in the machinery of government, but he has still to decide which parts. He wants " greater freedom and greater security for the average man." He wants to establish a permanent machinery for fixing wages, hours and conditions of -labour and for settling disputes. He is still pledged to various social reforms, notably an unemployment insurance scheme more or less on the British model. In most of these points he will have the American Federation of Labour with him, but that means nothing like Trades Union Congress support in this country. And he will have a considerable body of opponents of State intervention against him. But the Republicans have nothing like a programme at all, and the average elector is content to know that the President's activity is not slackening. His chief danger is the election of an enthusiastic Congress which will push him further than he thinks it wise to go.
* * * *
Previous page
