DEMOCRACY MUST NOT FAIL

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 43, 6 March 1937, Page 7

DEMOCRACY MUST NOT FAIL

-Prest Aesn.-

President Roosevelt Speaks to The Nation

REMEDIES ESSENTIAL

(By Telegraph-

-Copyright.)

WASHINGTON, March 5. Although he did not mention the Supreme Court by name, President Roosevelt, in an. address at a Democrat victory dinner, oponcd a series of radio appeals throughout the nation in support of his judiciary proposals as the quickest and surest way to obey the election mandate and remody the conditions under whieh a third of the na-. tion is still ill-nourishcd, ill-clad and ill-housed. Ho said his greatest am,-. bltion was to surrender the office of' President to his auccessor in 1941 se-; cure in the knowledge that the nation, waa intaet, peaceful and prosperous. Slavery took at least forty years of; argUment, discussion and futile compro-^ mise before it camo to a head in tho: tragic civil war, but the economic freedom of the wage earner, farmer and small business mau would not wait forty years or even four. It would not wait at all. Yarious forms of government had failed in the world and even democracies had failed for the timfl: being to meet human needs. Democracy had not failed in the Uniteif States, however, and they proposed not: to let it fail. "I cannot say with candour that democracy in the United States during; the past few years has fully succeeded; .nor can I tell you just where it is headed. I can only hope, for there is no; definite assurance, that the three-horse. .team of the American system of gov-j ernment, will pull together. If one; Tiorse iies down in the traces or plunges' in another direction, the field will be. lunploughed, " added the President. j j Mr. Roosevelt painted a picture of: jfarmers .burdened with debt, men and! ■women labouring in factories with injadequate pay, children working in mines and mills, labour strikes costing millions of dollars, threatening floods ,and blowing dust. He said none of these problems could be adequately met while uncertainties continue with regard to the legality of the Congression-. al attempts to remedy them. This speech is considered tantamount to an announcement that no new effort will be made to meet fhese conditions until the Supreme Court is brought into better harmony with the legislative executive and branches. He placed support for the plan to remake the Court squarely on the basis of party loyalty and responsibility and warned Democrats that if they did not have the courage to lead the American people in the way they want to go, someone else will.