ROOSEVELT CONQUERS NEW HAVEN

Outbreaks of adolescence have never been a rarity at Yale, but the recital given by the Yale News early this week, when it pulled off the cloak of non-partisanship and announced itself for Roosevelt, was certainly the theme song of little boys reveling in their political coming-of-age.

During the present campaign it has been the fate of shallow minds to confuse the dramatic, band-stand plays of Roosevelt for political liberalism. The Yale News falls squarely into this trap. It pays the New Deal the compliment of having done something for the worker. If the N.R.A., with its haphazard and unalterable codes drawn up by the Chamber of Commerce at will, could do anything for labor, that benefits has yet to appear. If the breakup of the united labor front in this country into a Green and a Lewis camp, which was openly fostered by the President and his underlings, can do anything but set the labor movement back several decades Mr. Roosevelt has not yet explained what it is. If the rabble-rousing speeches of the President have any effect on the worker, it is only in accentuating class differences between capital and labor which have never existed in this country.

His "banking reforms" also appeal to the common-room liberals of New Haven, who, if they would make only the most casual investigation, would realize that government bonds weigh so heavily on the banks of the United States that only the hypodermic needle of the government-supported F. D. I. C. prevents a recurrence of financial panic. Equally attractive is the "experiment with government ownership of utilities," which may appear as justice to all sorts of political malcontents, but which promises to ruin one of America's most highly capitalized industries, the vast majority of whose securities is held by the small investor. This myopic view of what was once called "liberalism" is shown again in the applause at Roosevelt's social security measures. Small regard is taken of the years the workers will have to pay before realizing any return, and the fiscal danger of the gigantic surplus to be piled up under the New Deal.

Many voters, moved by sentiment and not too insistent upon concrete results, pour forth mush on the subject of Cordell Hull and the New Deal foreign policy. Those who see in Mr. Hull a second John Quincy Adams should recall the smashup of the London Economic Conference as well as the financial spoliation of China, which are more typical of New Deal measures than most. They should also recall that the trend toward "big brotherhood" in Latin America began under a Republican administration while Roosevelt was still a scheming, incapable Governor of New York.

As for the almost irreparable damage done by the New Deal, the Yale News comes to the conclusion that "mistakes are better than inaction." Before President Roosevelt arrived America had no Farley, no Tugwell, no Passmaquoddy, no N.R.A., no Guffey Act, no A.A.A., no Silver Purchase Act, no boondoggling. We will take "inaction".