PLAN OUTLINED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 April 1938, Page 7

PLAN OUTLINED

GREAT EFFORT TO DEFEAT RECESSION PRESERVATION OF DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTIONS. NATION CAN AFFORD TO PAY. By Telegraph.—Press Association, Copyright. WASHINGTON, April 14. President Roosevelt proposed to Congress a . 4,512,000,000-dollar lending, spending and credit expansion programme in the New deal's second huge pump-priming campaign against depression. The plan falls into three general categories, first the maintenance of relief, secondly the expansion of credit, and thirdly the revival of public works and additional funds for certain active New Deal recovery agencies. In a dramatic nation-wide radio appeal President Roosevelt placed the country’s economic crisis before the people and described the attempt being made to defeat depression. The President apologised for speaking in Holy Week, but said the emergency confronting the nation demanded immediate action. The only way to save the present system of Government was for all to act together.

“Democracy has disappeared from several other great nations, not because the people disliked demorcracy, but because they had grown tired of unemployment and insecurity and seeing their children hungry while they themselves sat helpless in the face of Government confusion,- weakness and lack of leadership,” he said. “Finally, in desperation they chose to sacrifice their liberty in the hope of getting something to eat. “We in America know our democratic institutions can be preserved andmade to work, but we must act together to prove that the practical operation of democratic government is equal to the task. Your Government must prove it is stronger than the forces of business depression.

“We are a rich nation and can af-

ford to pay for security and prosperity without having to sacrifice liberties into the bargain,” President Roosevelt said. “It is going to cost something to get out of this recession this way, but the profit we will get out of it will pay.

“I constantly seek to look beyond the doors of White House and beyond officialdom into the hopes and fears of men and women in their homes. I want to be sure that neither the battles nor the burdens of office will blind me to an intimate knowledge of the way the American people want to live and the purposes for which they put me here.” . Breaking White House precedent, President Roosevelt caused a sensation in Washington by intervening in the Senate House conference on the 5,300,000,000-dollar Tax Bill, demanding the retention of both the undistributed profits tax., and., the., present method of taxing capital gains as income.

His action has stirred up a Congressional revolt, bringing legislators to the brink of a violent struggle rivalling the fight over the Reorganisation Bill.

In his plans to break the recession, the President contemplates using the gold sterilisation fund.