MUZZLED

In a time of reconstruction such as this country is passing through at the present, along with the serious stabilizing attempts there are always amusing sidelights. In spite of the grimness in the air and the importance of success, it is interesting to note how differently groups now act in the face of a common danger.

President Roosevelt realized before he stopped into office that he would need the entire support of the people to put his program across. Working through secretaries who in turn employed the press, he prepared the public for the brain trust, and all the machinery for rehabilitation which was climaxed by the National Recovery Act. Not only has he bound the people to his support but even the recalcitrant press. The New York Herald-Tribune, which last fall was accustomed to give Hoover's unimportant speeches five-column headlines and deliberately under-rate one of Roosevelt's key messages, now tucks away in an unimportant position, accusations of some merit against the administration coming from Representative Bnell (R.) Undoubtedly the President has realized what a tremendous asset the press can be and has organized and directed his publicity better than any man who ever occupied the White House. Four years ago newspapers, which must necessarily survive on the number of complaints they make about the administration, and any signs of public corruption and inefficiency, would and resented being driven into line for the support of a party opposite to that of their controlling interest.

The whole execution of the President's program as well as the unprecedented ambitious legislation has been accomplished so smoothly and subtlety that the press was firmly won over to a commitment which it is now almost impossible to renounce. It will be some time yet before the full significance of what has happened since March will be realized. N.I.R.A. has teeth. Papers and even radical journals have abandoned plain speaking and not only because circulation would drop. The administration which one no longer thinks of as democratic but rather as Roosevelt has been granted powers which exceed those of war time.

It is particularly fortunate that such a free hand has been given to a man in whom even his political foes repose their confidence, and who has only the welfare of the country at heart. It is significant that in spite of our ever present yet ever-changing political and social diseases our national integrity has remained intact, and groups are willing to put aside lines of party and entrust their security to another for the sake of restoring our domestic prosperity and international prestige.