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cult of planning offered to minds that in happier days would haveyielded to socialism the perfect escape from surrender to orthodoxcapitalism. They could be for a kind of capitalist socialism withoutbeing just socialist.When Mr. Roosevelt was elected it was as the representative andchampion of the liberal wing of the Democratic party. Strangelyenough, his predecessor was an engineer with an orderly mind runningtoward habits of surveying and planning. As a result he hadset up a number of commissions to make studies and carry outpolicies. This practice of Mr. Hoover seemed to excite Mr. Roosevelt'sespecial scorn. He denounced regimentation not only whencarried on by trade associations but "when it is done by thegovernment of the United States itself." 2 He scored Mr. Hoover for"fostering regimentation without stint or limit." In March 1930 hesaid:The doctrine of regulation and legislation by "master minds" in whosejudgment and will all the people may gladly and quietly acquiesce has beentoo glaringly apparent at Washington these last ten years. Were it possibleto find master minds so unselfish, so willing to decide unhesitatinglyagainst their own personal interests or private prejudices, men almost Godlikein their ability to hold the scales of justice with an even hand, such agovernment might be in the interest of the country. But there are nonesuch on our political horizon, and we cannot expect a complete reversalof all the teachings of history. 3But when Mr. Roosevelt came into power it was not the philosophyof his party as expounded in his pre-election addresses thatwas put into practice, but measures which corresponded moreclosely with the teachings of the planners. Which is to say simplythis, that the Democratic platform of 1932 shared the fate of theeleven points of Mussolini and the twenty-five points of Hitler. ThePresident entered the White House in the midst of a tremendouseconomic crisis and the measures he adopted were suggested not bythe formal declarations of policy made by politicians based on ideasthey supposed to be popular but by the necessities of the times.2 Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1928—3 6, Random House, NewYork, 1938.'Ibid.*97