The Evening Star (April 12, 1946)
Lawrence: One year since Roosevelt died
Problem of reconversion Truman’s only major mistake
By David Lawrence
These words are being written just a year to the day and the hour that a flash came over the teletype announcing that Franklin D. Roosevelt had died. In the span of time that has elapsed, the nation and the world have had an opportunity to evaluate the meaning of that event.
Would things have been different nationally and internationally if Mr. Roosevelt had lived, and how different? This question inevitably arises as one surveys what actually has happened. If Mr. Roosevelt’s health had remained good so that he could have tackled postwar problems with vigor, it seems plausible to suppose that he would have dealt with the last 12 months far more effectively than has President Truman.
Mr. Roosevelt would have been more successful with the labor situation than his successor because he would have recognized the importance of reconversion and getting production balanced with demand. To accomplish this, he probably would have retained wartime controls on both wages and prices. He would have relinquished controls gradually. Retention of wage and salary control appears now as the one step that would have prevented the present era of inflation. A readjustment in rates to care for the take-home-pay problem would have been inevitable but a National Labor Board directed by the president doubtless would have fixed on a 15 percent or even 17 percent increase of basic rates without the costly strikes.
Handicapped on U.N.
Mr. Roosevelt would have been active in maintaining the United Nations as an organization working for peace and in this respect his policy would have been no different than that of Mr. Truman.
There would have been one advantage – Mr. Roosevelt knew what he had promised Russia and would have been able to deal with Moscow more effectively than has Mr. Truman. This is no criticism of the present incumbent, because, after all, he came into office handicapped by a lack of information. The Truman administration under the circumstances has done an excellent job.
In relations with Congress, Mr. Roosevelt might have fared worse than has Mr. Truman because the feeling between the executive and legislative departments was bitter a year ago. Mr. Truman has by no means gotten his wishes on legislation, but he is on better terms with the senators and representatives than was Mr. Roosevelt.
It seems certain that the late president would have dealt with the problem of the armed services far differently than has Mr. Truman. The Navy would certainly not have been punished after its magnificent showing in the war. Mr. Roosevelt would never have allowed the Navy to be weakened nor would he ever have made the blunder of forcing a merger on any of the armed services when by honest conviction so many of the men in the Navy and Marine Corps feel that the defense of the United States is thereby being impaired.
Best friend of Navy
Mr. Roosevelt would probably have asked the heads of the armed service to form a council to study the best plan for defense. He would not have taken sides as to a concrete plan for unification till the military experts had threshed out the mistakes and achievements of World War II. Mr. Roosevelt had a thorough knowledge of what powerful blows had been and could be struck by air power, but he also knew what the Navy has meant to America.
He was the best friend the Navy ever had and that’s one reason why the war against Japan was shortened and Japan was rendered virtually helpless even before the atomic bomb was dropped.
As for demobilization, Mr. Roosevelt probably would not have been able to stem the clamor for withdrawal of troops from overseas at a faster pace than was warranted. He would have been up against much the same opposition in Congress to extension of the draft, but in the end, he would have worked out compromises. Mr. Roosevelt’s experience would have been invaluable in the postwar period.
Those who fought the New Deal, on the other hand, have felt quite relieved in the last 12 months that Mr. Roosevelt’s aggressive handling of domestic problems was not copied by Mr. Truman. The conservatives were for a while inclined to support the present chief executive, but lately they have veered to their own kind of conservatives in the Republican ranks. So politics is just the same as it would have been; international affairs are not much different, and only in the domestic picture might there have been considerable change in the tempo of reconversion to civilian production.