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Nevertheless, it is part of the government's plan to continue thisnew and abrasive order. "Normal" is precisely the condition towhich we will not be permitted to return. Its spokesmen have saidso a score of times. "We cannot think of discontinuing the wartimecontrols," they add more specifically. But in view of the inevitableresistance of the people, how can such a system be continued? Theanswer is ready. We began this experiment in 1933 under the pressureof an internal economic crisis. We continue and extend it underthe stern necessities of a war crisis. When the war ends, with itsinevitable chaos, unemployment, and world commitments, we mustcontinue it under the inexorable compulsion of the postwar crisis.And there, indeed, is the secret of this whole black chapter. It isborn in crisis, lives on crises, and cannot survive the era of crisis.By the very law of its nature it must create for itself, if it is to continue,fresh crises from year to year. Mussolini came to power in thepostwar crisis and became himself a crisis in Italian life. Then he conjuredup new crises—the imperious need for Italy's domination ofthe Mediterranean, the need for further colonial expansion that producedthe Ethiopian crisis, after which crises were produced for himin the aggressions of Hitler to whom he instantly attached himself.Hitler's story is the same. And our future is all charted out uponthe same turbulent road of permanent crisis.We would do well to cease our storming at bureaucrats and atthe small fry of briefless lawyers, youthful instructors, and socialwelfarepractitioners who flourish in Washington and are supposedto be at the bottom of all this. They are in Washington because theysing the song that is wanted there, because they prattle the theorieswhich conform to the policies our rulers in Washington want andwhich they adopt not because these little national and planetaryremodelers preach the doctrine but because these policies representthe estimate of the administration as to the easiest line to take withthe American people.It was the easiest line ten years ago. However, it is no longer.When the policy of government spending is first launched it producesnothing but benefits—benefits to the man on relief and theman on the PWA job and to the merchant and manufacturer withwhom he spends his government pay. But after a time the burdens256