Stuart Chase's Letter to the New York Times

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Stuart Chase

Publishing Information

[Stuart Chase's letter to the Times was not published]

February 15, 1937

To the Editor
New York Times

Sir:

In the hullabaloo which has followed the President's proposal to ease the pressure of the courts on social legislation, the real point at issue is in danger of being submerged. The point might be phrased in the form of a question: What would you do if you were President of the United States, following a mandate such as that delivered in the last election? Hysterical appeals to Imperishable Traditions would not help you much, particularly if the traditions were constantly perishing in the face of concrete situations. Learned studies of what Jefferson, Jackson and Grant did in the past would not help much There are certain grave problems demanding solution in 1937. Your task is to find a way to attack them which is at once legal and effective. Looking over the frothing rhetoric to the real land and the real people of America, you find that:
Six million farmers were left in a legal vacuum by the AAA decision. The overwhelming majority of them are frightened, sore and determined to secure legislation which will rescue agriculture from the curve of progressive degeneration in evidence since 1920.
Fifteen million industrial and clerical workers, more or less, were stripped of wage and hour protection by the NRA decision. They are baffled, alarmed and determined to secure this protection in some form. An unfavorable decision in the Wagner Act will increase their resentment. An unfavorable decision in the Social Security Act will increase it again.
Half a million coal miners and many operators are disgruntled and angry about the Guffey Coal Bill decision.
A million railway workers are thoroughly aroused over the Railway Retirement Act decision.
Eight million unemployed want work and will continue to be bitter and resentful until they get it.
A land-less tenant class turns to the government to save them from peasantry or worse.
Here are stock markets, banks, investment trusts likely to go on the loose again as they did in 1929, cleaning out millions of small depositors and investors without some form of orderly control, which will not be thrown out of court.
Finally, and perhaps most important of all in the long run, here is the continent of North America sliding to the sea at the rate of three billion tons of top soil a year, and increasingly stricken with flood, drought and dust storm. Only vigorous action, inaugurated by the federal government on a regional rather than a state basis, can cope with this appalling situation. The Ohio River is not conversant with the interstate commerce clause.
In brief here are a series of acute problems in 1937 which somehow somebody must meet. Failing energetic action, we are faced with a serious lowering of the survival value of the American community. It is not a case of Eternal Verities, the Principles of the Founding Fathers, or Hallowed Traditions, it is a case of maintaining a functioning community. The first duty of a government is not to preserve traditions, its first duty is to govern.
The President I take it has heard from the farmers, heard from the workers, share croppers, coal miners, railway men, the unemployed, the small depositor, and heard in no uncertain terms from the Ohio River and the Dust Bowl. As a result, he sees the situation in practical terms, unclouded with Imperishable Principles and other absolutes. His guiding principle is to make this country more viable and a less hazardous place in which to live and work. He is on the spot. He is responsible, together with Congress, for doing something. He has the tough job of devising ways and means to give millions of distressed people definite hope for a better and more secure existence.
When he devises such measures, what does he hit? A stone wall. Five old gentlemen say: No, you can't do it. Four old gentlemen say: Yes, you can. So he can't do it. The urgent needs, desires and demands of the majority of the people are thus rendered irrelevant and immaterial.
What is the President to do? What would you do? Tell the 27 million citizens who voted for the New Deal to forget their difficulties because five old gentlemen consider them insolvable, or to warn the five gentlemen that the people demand action? Perhaps you prefer a constitutional amendment as a more dignified way out of the impasse. I do. But what if you and I knew that to get an amendment at all would take a long time—the Child Labor Amendment has been kicking around State Legislatures for thirteen years; and knew further that by concentrating their still formidable powers in thirteen States, those who are quite satisfied with things as they are, stand an excellent chance of heading off any amendment indefinitely? And here are all these farmers and workers. Now. Here are women laboring 48 hours a week in New Bedford mills for $5. Now. Here is the Dust Bowl beginning to blow again. Now. Here are millions of land-less tenants progressively sliding to economic perdition.
If we really cared about America, I think we should act. Now.
Yours very truly,
Stuart Chase