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his health into a ten-year study of history and economics.
 
He had learned how men behaved in past crises.
 
 
He held conferences with the greater committees
 
of both houses of Congress; he consulted experts on sub-
 
jects on which expert opinion was needful; he coaxed semi-
 
hostile newspaper folk to delay their opposition; and he
 
postponed appointments to ten thousand offices in which
 
mere politicians were interested.  It was a human picture,
 
a Jefferson urging Southerners to abolish slavery, lest
 
they themselves be abolished; a Wilson urging war to end
 
war.  And Roosevelt was successful.  A banking war was enacted
 
which gave the Federal Government powers which must paralyze
 
all state systems.  A control over the issue of securities
 
was enacted which would probably have prevented the depres-
 
sion if applied in 1921-1929.  The farmers of the West were
 
told in legal form how much wheat they might plant, and
 
cotton growers were ordered to plow up ten million acres
 
of the 1933 crop.  If railroads were to operate, their mana-
 
gers must submit to orders from the White House.  The whole
 
economic life of the country was taken in hand upon mandates
 
voted by both houses of Congress.  There had never been any-
 
thing like it before, but some way to recovery must be
 
sought, else even greater catastrophe than that of 1929
 
might come.  It was not revolution as men are prone to say.  It
 
was a popular expansion of governmental powers beyond all con-
 
stitutional grants; and nearly all men everywhere hope the
 
President may succeed.  If he is able to put half the unemploy-
 
ed back to work; if the new banking law and corporation control
 
yield half the desired results, the cause of democracy and per-
 
sonal liberty may survive the onslaughts of our times.
 
 
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