The Alternatives

(Ed. Note--The Crimson does not necessarily endorse opinions expressed in printed communications. No attention will be paid to anonymous letters and only under special conditions, at the request of the writer, will names be with-held.)

To the Editor of the CRIMSON:

With election day approaching there is no question that the opposition party is hopelessly befogged. The New Dealer is justified in asking his opponent, "What do you propose in its place?" Excluding for obvious reasons some sort of socialism, there appear to be three alternatives open to the opponents of the Administration. One is a more or less skimmed-milk opposition, approving some of its policies while objecting in large part to the governmental interference with the instruments of production. But it is apparent that this would be no real opposition, and could never result in the placing of more Republicans in the Capital. For opposition must be opposition and not like some of the well-written but luke-warm lugubrious-like criticisms of a Lippmann.

The second alternative would be to advocate a return to Big Business (with all the term implies emotionally) and the governmental policies of the 'twenties. This is what a great many members of the opposition really desire, but those methods have been so thoroughly discredited that no practical-minded Republican dares to support such an alternative outright. The voters' memories are not so poor and their chicken-pots so full as to vote for such a scheme.

The only possible alternative remaining for opponents to the right of the Administration--and the Left hasn't a chance so long as there is a large land-owning farm population--includes large-scale decentralization of industry, increase in the number of small businesses, and the return to the farms (because there will be no other place to go) of a large number of men who were removed from them in 1914 to aid in fighting a war to make the world everything but safe for democracy. Undoubtedly, this would result in lowering the economic standard of living, at the same time raising the more important and sadly forgotten moral standard, and this explains why the opposition hesitates to advocate such a course. By 1936, however, after the collapse of government credit, they will be forced into such a scheme, whether they like it or not. History will have repeated its old lesson, and the problem of the opposition will be solved--until the next time. V. H. Kramer '35.