National Affairs: The Razzberry Laugh

Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes has a gift for orotund invective with which he delights to smite enemies of the New Deal. Last week he sighted a new enemy, changed his style, and spat out a good old Fourth of July oration. His enemy: totalitarian nations who boast that they are the new, strong people, fresher and more vigorous than the decadent democrats of the U. S. Shouted an angry and Whitmanesque Mr. Ickes. standing before the Washington Monument :

“When are you going to laugh, Americans?

“When is the big laugh, the coarse, loud laugh, the harsh laugh of Americans going to blurt out and fill the world ?

“When is the great, hard, angry, shouting razzberry laugh of the American people going to yell . . .?

“When are you going to say, all as one man, and all together: We haven’t even yet begun to live?”