Foreign News: Crisis of Confidence

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Brendan Bracken, another leading House of Commons member of the "ginger group"—M. P.s in their middle 303, many of whom have business interests in The City—recently visited the U. S. to judge for himself of President Roosevelt and the economic situation. Among several London newsorgans in which energetic Brendan Bracken has an interest is the Financial News. Last week none of his friends needed to be told who had written for this London paper "HOW TO CREATE A DEPRESSION—President Roosevelt's Recipe—By a Correspondent." Ex- cerpts: "Mr. Roosevelt, like most vocal humanitarians, is a great hater. . . . Roosevelt's punitive mind is mirrored in the drastic extension of the Capital Gains Tax. . . . Working men may be forgiven for thinking that Mr. Roosevelt's passion for half-baked reforms has reformed them out of their jobs. . . . As a result of [the Roosevelt Administration's] crazy experiments in taxation and their policy of harassing industry, the lights are going out in factories all over America. The direful 'No Men Wanted' signs are brought out of storage. ... If the economic royalists were responsible for the last depression,

Mr. Roosevelt and his budding commissars must take the responsibility for this one. . . .

"It is the New Dealers . . . who are the real menace to American prosperity. . . . Until they cease to have power to run the Federal Government, confidence will not return to America. . . . Congress may be incoherent, but it is not so flippant as the President and his posse of experimenting and irresponsible advisors. . . . Will they dare to ring down the curtain on the President's prima donna performances which are at the root of this Crisis of Confidence? . . .

"No man's head, however big, could carry all Mr. Roosevelt thinks he knows. . . . One day an inflationist, the next a deflationist. A fixer of prices who denounces his own creations, a giver of what he calls 'the more abundant life' who orders the destruction of food while millions of his fellow-countrymen are undernourished. A great preacher of free speech who threatened the political ruin of the Senator who for the sake of principle opposed his Supreme Court 'reform.' A bitter critic of bureaucracy who has created so many bureaux that Washington cannot contain them. A stern advocate of economy who has spent more money than any President in the history of the United States

"In the light of these inconsistencies, can it be denied that 'confidence' and Mr. Roosevelt go ill together? The power to create a state of uncertainty in which no businessman or investor will incur risk is vested in the President of the United States. Mr. Roosevelt is the first President who thought fit to use that power. Every ounce of it was applied. Neither graphs, nor economic jargon, nor statistics are required to show how Mr. Roosevelt made the depression which should always bear his name. He created it by methods which were as direct as they were effective."