A WEIRD LETTER

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 72, 26 March 1934, Page 9

A WEIRD LETTER

WASHINGTON, March 24. At the House Committee hearing on the Stock Exchange Control Bill' today, a letter was read from Dr. "William Wirt, of Gary, Indiana,- a well-known educator, declaring that certain members of President Boosevelt }sr "brain trust" had confided in him that they were deliberately retarding business recovery, in an effort to drive the nation into Communism. He described the elaborate technique devised to gain such ends, stating that it included the strangulation of private enterprise through such legislation as the' Stock Exchange Control Bill and other measures to defeat recovery until the misery-of the workers made them amenable to Government control of-business and commerce, while farmers would be pacified through increasingly large subsidies.. ; .•■■.- ..,:■. One unnamed member of the "trust" is quoted by Dr. Wirt as follows:— "We believe we have President Boose> velt in the middle of a swift stream, and that the current is so strong.that he cannot turn back or escape from it. We believe we can keep Roosevelt {here until we are ready to supplant him with a, Stalin. We all think Eoosevelt is only the Kerensky of this revolution." The letter was so startling, and apparently so. absurd, that it probably would not have been allowed to go on record except for the fact that it was sponsored by Mr. James Band, junior, a prominent industrialist and chairman of the "Committee of the- Nation," which is active in the discussion of Governmental policies, often; strongly supporting President Roosevelt.