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President made it clear that he was spending and borrowing purelyas an emergency device. As late as April 1937 ne said:While I recognize many opportunities to improve social and economicconditions through federal action, I am convinced that the success of ourwhole program and the permanent security of our people demand that weadjust all expenditures within the limits of my budget estimate.He then delivered himself of the following extraordinary opinion:It is a matter of common knowledge that the principal danger to moderncivilization lies in those nations which largely because of an armament raceare headed directly toward bankruptcy. In proportion to national budgetsthe United States is spending a far smaller proportion of government incomefor armaments than the nations to which I refer. It behooves us,therefore, to continue our efforts to make both ends of our economy meet.Here was a clear recognition of the fact that in Europe for manydecades governments had been doing what our government wasthen doing, spending great sums of money and going into debt forit, but doing it on armaments instead of on peacetime activities asMr. Roosevelt was doing. But nations which borrow money and pileon vast national debts can go into bankruptcy whether the debtsbe for armaments or roads, parks and public buildings. Europeannations were far more deeply stricken in crisis and had been foryears. The armaments had become an economic necessity to them.They were not to us. Our government was delivering lectures onsound fiscal policy, deploring the deficits, yet planning new andmore extravagant means of spending money, soothing the Haveswith promises of balanced budgets and lower taxes, and stimulatingthe Have-nots with promises of security and abundance. Thegovernment was doing, in fact, what Depretis was doing in Italybetween 1876 and 1887. Let the reader turn back to the first partof this volume for a description of that record:He promised every sort of reform without regard to the contradictionsamong his promises. He promised to reduce taxation and increase publicworks. He promised greater social security and greater prosperity. When hecame to power he had no program and no settled notion how he would redeemthese pledges. His party was joined by recruits from every school of*77