Thunder on the Left

Press, Volume LXXI, Issue 21419, 11 March 1935, Page 10

Thunder on the Left

Those who know a little about the ! past history of Senator Huey Long may be tempted to believe that his campaign against Mr Roosevelt and the National Recovery Administration, discussed in the cable news on Saturday, is more amusing than important. A year ago Mr Long was a great man only so far as the borders of Louisiana, where he was uncritically reverenced as the enemy of monopolies, particularly Standard Oil, and a vigorous campaigner against the more spectacular forms of vice. Outside his State his reputation was that' of a political clown, his best-known exploit being to receive the officers of a German cruiser in his pyjamas. There are such men in every Congress; and they remain famous or notorious until such time as their antics cease to have news value. Partly because of the prevailing political temper, and partly because he is not such a fool as he seems, Mr Long has escaped the dismal oblivion that overtakes the political jester and become a portent which the Washington correspondents discuss anxiously and gravely. By a mixture of luck and adroit

manoeuvring he has made himself the spokesman of the growing radical attack on the New Deal; and already he is regarded as a possibility for the presidency. Until recently political radicalism in the United States has been a purely local phenomenon. Wisconsin and Minnesota are traditionally radical; and in times of stress the industrial south can be relied on to go radical in patches. It is only since the metamorphosis of Mr Long that radicalism has threatened to break down the joint monopoly of federal politics enjoyed by the Republican and Democratic party machines. The economic basis of the change is fairly obvious. Currency depreciation has brought poverty to that large section of the middle class which lives on salaries, while the code system and the relaxing of anti-trust legislation threaten ruin to ♦millions of small traders. It has not escaped notice that a disgruntled and impoverished middle jlass was the raw material out of which Hitler constructed the Nazi movement and that Mr Long's economic programme recalls the early doctrines of Gottfried Feder, who preceded Dr. Schacht as economic adviser to Hitler. In fact, a writer in the New York " Nation," discussing Mr Long's prospects, announces that if Mr Roosevelt fails, " the man is waiting " who is ruthless, ambitious, and " plausible enough to Hitlerize " America." That is almost certainly an over-estimation of Mr Long's possibilities. But it is safe to prophesy that before he disappears from the scene a profound change will have taken place in American political alignments.