President Roosevelt and The America of the Future

The Western Mail ^ | January 5th 1934 | GARETH JONES

[decimon]

“Our Government is a government of the people by the politicians for the bankers and the bootleggers!” said a New Yorker to me one day, and his smile had that sneering quality which reveals bitter disillusion.

His mood reflected the thoughts of millions of his fellow-countrymen up to March, 1933. Then there was something wrong with the state of America: the banks were toppling over like ninepins; the savings of many years had vanished like snow in a burning sun; the ideals of individualism and private enterprise were proving to be selfish and cruel. The Americans yearned for a new system which would save them from collapse, but which would not bring with it the blood and horrors of armed revolt.

This new system was introduced in 1933, and its continuance was indicated this week by President Roosevelt in his speech to Congress. This crippled leader who by his smile can capture the hearts of his opponents, as Mr. Lloyd George could during the War, is determined to build up a new United States, just as Hitler aims at building up a new Germany.

[techno]

it’s hard to believe now but in 1933 FDR and Hitler would looked upon in the same light.

[decimon]

it’s hard to believe now but in 1933 FDR and Hitler would looked upon in the same light.

Not to Jones.

From 1934: "It is remarkable that President Roosevelt can dominate American economic life in the way he does without force. Had Ford been a German and stood out against Hitler as he has done against Roosevelt he would long be pining behind the barbed wire defences of a concentration camp."

In 1934 he wrote of German concentration camps.

I like Jones not for his somekindasocialist politics but because he went to the Ukraine and reported what Duranty did not, of the repression and starvation. And he wrote of Mussolini and Hitler just what they were.