Sharp Words at Gainesville

In his transcontinental tour last autumn, Franklin Roosevelt let the voters of several States see how much he resented their Senators' fight against his plan to enlarge the Supreme Court. Last week, on tour again, the President let the voters of another section of the country see how he felt about their representatives' action on part of his current legislative program. Starting on his spring vacation, the President paused at Gainesville, Ga. to dedicate a public square named after him. Introduced to the crowd of 20,000 by Georgia's Senator Walter F. George, who like most other Southern Congressmen, last summer went on record against the Wages & Hours Bill, the President ignored Mr. George in his speech, pointedly patted the back of loyal Governor Eurith D. Rivers and then proceeded to give his favorite theme--that Recovery is being held up by "minority selfishness"--a new twist :

"They [selfish minorities] have the same type of mind as those representatives of the people who vote against legislation to help social and economic conditions, proclaiming loudly that they are for the objectives but do not like the methods, and then fail utterly to offer a better method of their own.

"Georgia and the lower South may just as well face facts--simple facts presented in the lower South by the President of the United States. Your Governor understands these facts. The purchasing power of the millions of Americans in this whole area is far too low. Most men and women who work for wages in this whole area get wages which are far too low. On the present scale of wages, and therefore on the present scale of buying power, the South cannot and will not succeed in establishing successful new industries." Not since Madam Secretary Perkins twitted Dixie on its shoelessness have Southerners taken from Washington such a jolt as came next. The President ascribed part of the South's economic difficulties to old-fashioned feudalism, added that: "When you come down to it, there is little difference between the feudal system and the fascist system. If you believe in the one you lean to the other." Reaction to the President's curt speech by a tobacco-chewing crowd which had expected a few congratulatory truisms was one of silent, hurt amazement. Next day, it was echoed by the Southern press, by which time the President was in a fairly snappish mood himself.

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