RECOVERY: Seventh Wonder

When General Johnson went to the Midwest last month to stump for the NRA, he was invading a land embittered by falling agricultural prices, pocked by rural unrest. Last week the NRAdministrator made his first swing South. Ten cent cotton had disposed its people favorably toward the President’s recovery program. At Atlanta, where he was cheered by 3,500 Georgians, the General was in top forensic form.

“The experiment,” said he, standing under a huge Blue Eagle, “is scarcely begun and yet in the few months of its execution it has produced 25% of the results expected of it. When, in the history of the world, was there ever such a record of achievement and speed? Twenty-five percent recovery from a small depression may not be much but 25% recovery by a deliberate plan in a few months from the wreck of an entire economic system is a seventh wonder of the world. And for this relief much thanks from 95% of the American people but—from the leaders, guides and scouts of the old road to ruin —what? Strident clamoring—a few little men with loud voices, frantically waving many puny red flags of false and futile warning in the path of the resistless advance of a great people—125,000,000 strong—united by suffering in a common purpose, by mutual sacrifice and cooperation and under the inspiring leadership of a great captain of humanity, to march out of the deep, dark valley of death and despond, into the sunshine of a new and better day which has already gilded their brows with the light of dawning confidence, faith and hope, for the first time in four years.

“Away, slight men! You may have been leaders once. You are corporals of disaster now and a safe place for you may be yapping at the flanks but it is not safe to stand obstructing the front of this great army. You might be trampled underfoot —not knowingly but inadvertently—because of your small stature and of the uplifted glance of a people whose ‘eyes have seen the glory’ and whose purpose is intent on the inspired leadership of your neighbor and my friend Franklin Roosevelt.”