THE NEW DEAL CRITICISED

Press, Volume LXXI, Issue 21418, 9 March 1935, Page 13

THE NEW DEAL CRITICISED

i SENATOR'S ATTACK DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH (UNITED PRZSS ASSOCIATION'—BY ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH —COPYRIGHT.) (Received March 3, 8.40 p.m.) WASHINGTON, March 7. In answer to the charges made against him recently by General Johnson, the former National Recovery Administration leauer, Senator Huey Long made a blistering 45-minute radio address over a nation-wide network to-night, viciously attacking General Johnson. the Roosevelt administration, and his critics generally. In recent months Senator Long's multifarious political activities have brought him into nation-wide prominence as a potential presidential candidate in 1936 on an ultraradical platform. General Johnson liad charged Senator Long and also Father Charles Coughlin, the Detroit "radio" priest, with being dangerous demagogues trying to stir the "lunatic fringe" into revolution, and to-night Senator Long answered in kind. Senator Long called General Johnson an "erstwhile prince of the deranged alphabet," referring to such new deal agencies as the N.R.A., the A.A.A., the P.W.A., etc. He grouped General Johnson with President Roosevelt, Mr J. A. Farley, and "all their speilers and spellbinders" as influenced by Wall street, and operating against the interests of the poor, and in unusually strong language criticised the Roosevelt administration. "The trouble is that their scheme.-; and isms have failed," he said. Under the new deal the rich had become richer and the poor poorer. He estimated that 4 per cent, of the people owned 85 to 90 per cent, of the wealth, while about 75 per cent, "don't own anything." The middle class had been all but liquidated. His solution was a "share wealth plan," whereby all citizens would be guaranteed a decent existence through the progressive taxation of large fortunes.