AMONG the seats of the mighty Franklin D. Roosevelt has simultaneously occupied at least three with surprising and continuing success. The seat on the left has held Roosevelt the friend of labor, rememberer of the forgotten man, reformer and crusader. On the right has sat Roosevelt the lawyer and country squire, friend of legitimate business, primer of pumps, dispenser of breathing spells. And in the dead center, stabilizing the whole arrangement, has sat Roosevelt the politician, friend of everybody. So it was in the beginning; but recently events have conspired to upset the nice balance necessary to so broad a straddle. Mr. Roosevelt has had one chair jerked out from under him with unceremonious violence; the friend of business is a man without a seat.
The disbalance produced by the recent decisions of the Supreme Court on the one hand and the attacks of the allied reactionaries on the other is certain to produce confusion in all ranks At this stage even old political hands refuse to prophesy the results to the present Administration of Mr. Smith's threatened walk, of Governor Talmadge's near-convention with its near-platform, of hints in various quarters of bi-party coalition. The very composition of the emerging alliance is fantastic, comprising such alien and disparate groups as the Ku Klux cohorts of the Georgia governor, Al Smith's mixed following of du Ponts, Catholic reactionaries, and disappointed Democrats, and the New York Herald Tribune. But uncertainty is inevitable in the early months of a campaign, and strange partnerships are common enough to be accepted without much question by a patient electorate More dangerous are the confusions likely to result in regard to the position and purposes of Mr. Roosevelt.
In the months following the Congressional elections of 1934 the glamour of the New Deal slowly faded. Liberals and radicals, workers and farmers, ceased to expect administrative miracles. Labor learned that with or without a Magna Charta it had to fight for even the right to fight. Social security turned into a diminished hope long deferred. Public housing remained a dream and a blueprint. Many farmers were paid for what they failed to raise or sell, but the poorest among them received nothing but a dole and suffered more than at the depth of the depression. Millions of men and women were kept alive by rapidly shifting methods of relief, but their level of subsistence remained beneath the lowest standards set by the government statisticians. Eleven or twelve million workers were still without jobs. Wages and employment, it is true, made small gains, but not until profits had begun to soar.
As usual, disillusionment produced both clarity and cloudiness. Criticism of the New Deal began to crystallize in political forms as various as snowflakes. Most of them were grotesque and appealed to a discontent based only on desperation, but some represented a genuine growth in understanding of the sources of power. Especially in the lower ranks of labor were these signs of growth manifest. Among unionists militancy developed, a demand for new and more aggressive leadership, and an increasing unwillingness to take the promise for the performance in Washington. Talk of a "third" party emerged in groups hitherto politically insulated; in a few localities actual labor parties were formed; unions of relief workers, especially in the white-collar ranks, besieged the Administration with petitions and demonstrations and strikes; criticism of the New Deal swelled in volume and volubility, and the labor spokesmen of the Administration, from Frances Perkins to Donald Richberg to Leo Wolman, were written down as renegades. Much of the criticism was justified by the course of events; to this moment that course has not been altered.
But the attitude of labor has altered--with results that may prove important. Between them, the Supreme Court and Al Smith and the rest of the motley opposition have managed to reinvest the New Deal with glamour, to recreate illusion. Without moving an inch to the left Mr. Roosevelt suddenly finds himself again the champion of labor. It takes a tough and tempered radicalism to withstand the temptation of supporting a man who is attacked for being radical. When Smith assails Roosevelt for shoving through "socialist" measures in defiance of the Constitution, the average liberal is inclined to defend laws he knows well to be inadequate. When Talmadge sneers at the reckless waste of federal funds on projects of relief, even the unemployed begin to doubt that relief is as scanty as their stomachs assure them it is. Already signs of labor's softening have begun to appear. The most sensational evidence, of course, is the speech of John L. Lewis before the United Mine Workers' convention in Washington and the unanimous vote of the convention actively to support the reelection of the President by work and funds. It is true that Lewis and the miners, despite disappointments, have been continuously more friendly to the Administration than many unionists. But their action is almost unprecedented in labor history and cannot be interpreted as anything but a defiant answer to Roosevelt's enemies. This mood will doubtless spread as the emotions of the campaign grow more intense. Smith has handed Roosevelt the labor vote.
It would be pleasant to believe that pressure from the right will similarly incline the President toward labor and a more consistent policy of reform. But experience of political behavior in a campaign year counsels skepticism. Only one event might force the President to take a stand justifying the hopes of the workers and the abuse of the reactionaries. If the NRA and the AAA should be followed to the scrap heap by the other major measures of social control Mr. Roosevelt might have to face the dreaded issue of constitutional change. But even then it is more likely that the President will move warily down the middle of the road that leads toward reelection. He will probably try to dodge the issue of the Constitution by proposing new laws contrived to survive the court if possible but in any case to tide over till election day. If labor and liberals in general will watch closely the actions of the Administration instead of listening to the vituperations of its opponents, they will save themselves much ultimate regret. Above all, they should decline to take Mr. Smith's word for Mr. Roosevelt's radicalism.
