Review of the Book

After Seven Years
by Raymond Moley

John Luxton

[Reprinted from Land and Freedom, May-June 1940]

Mr. Moley's book a critique of the last seven years of Roosevelt bids fair to serve as a warning to all budding patriots, students of social science, amateur economists, so-called professional economists, reformers and new-world architects, to make sure that the kite to which they wish to tie themselves as tail segments is in the hands of a competent flyer. That the great kite of the American republic has not yet crashed upon the rocks of complete bankruptcy, is a credit to the stamina of a people still endowed with a strong love of liberty, and to whom opportunities to fulfill ambitions have not yet been completely closed.

When Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected President, Georgeists were convinced that he could not be expected to do anything to bring about economic justice, for the simple reason that he did not know the causes of economic injustice. If, after all these years of New Deal, any further proof is needed that they were right, Mr. Moley's book has provided it.

The first chapter of "After Seven Years" tells of the birth of the New Deal, when Roosevelt was still Governor of New York and was mentioned for the Democratic nomination to the Presidency. Moley was interested in Roosevelt's ideas, and saw in an affiliation with him an opportunity to "satisfy my desire for a wider experience in politics and, at the same time, to help, in a small way, in the realization of old and time-tested concepts of political evolution." Moley also thought that Roosevelt was the one "who could do on a national scale what Tom Johnson had done in Cleveland." During the campaign, he had ample time to entertain doubts as to the ability of his champion to fill that role. For Roosevelt seems to have thought of nothing but success, and he left to his yeomen, the "brain trust," the lesser tasks of formulating policies and principles.

Chapter II is properly entitled "Gayly the Troubadour." For while the farm policy and other features of the planned economy of the New Deal were being thrown together by twenty-five super-minds, the Troubadour was merrily instilling the nation and the "forgotten man" with confidence. At that time Mr. Moley began to have qualms of misgivings.

In the chapter, "For Kings Cannot Err," the story of the London Conference is told. Moley relates how this "dream of world salvation" was bungled by Roosevelt. His rejection of the proposals for stabilizing the currency in foreign exchange, and his famous "bombshell" although not understood by the delegates wrecked that Conference.

Moley himself is no economic sage. For one thing he is a high-tariff advocate. But, having some inkling of economics, it is hard to understand why he sacrificed time, money and health to push forward to a high political office a man who was thoroughly unprepared in fundamental economics.