REUNION IN HEAVEN
Meyer, Ernerst L.
Reunion In Heaven By ERNEST L MEYER BERNARD M. BARUCH'S blueprint for postwar reconversion of industry has been received in many quarters with shouts of acclaim. Especially his enunciation that...
...This formula of unregulated competition is the one, as you recall, which worked with such distinguished success during the late Hoover regime...
...Not on your life," I roared angrily...
...I asked feebly...
...he repeated...
...The answer is found in one word—LIBERTY...
...Good day...
...No Meddling Allowed I was reading the editorialin a copy of the paper I had picked up at a corner newstand...
...The Baruch...
...You go away," I snarled...
...How do you do...
...Beg your pardon...
...I am," he said, bowing...
...Then we sat and waited for prosperity to come by itself...
...Were you addressing me...
...And there's a chunk out of your cranium that won't grow back if you live to be as old as Methuselah...
...The Baruch nlan will work,' we said...
...I don't care whether it is sugar, oil, or what it is...
...This was difficult because the hole in my cranium made it difficult to concentrate...
...You can't fool me...
...That's the sound American plan...
...Liberty of private enterprise...
...Recovery which doesn't come of itself can't last...
...They're splintered...
...If we work fast you may recover...
...Brioker, blowing the same old battered bugle of "free enterprise...
...Then he added thoughtfully: "I am still convinced of the virtue of the Baruch let-alone policy...
...Baruch's report charts a return of the business of the country to the owners of the businesses now partly operated by the Government and the return to the people of their personal liberties...
...And today we find the Republicans, especially Gov...
...We all died of advanced old age, starvation, and exposure to frozen assets," said the ghost of Mr...
...Personally," Baruch put it, "I don't want the Government to go into any business...
...Your constitution will last about four hours," said the doctor...
...I had read that far when an unhappy accident occurred...
...But since I lack your consent, I can't operate...
...We must operate...
...Even such shining trumpeters of freedom as the Hearst newspapers join in applauding the Baruch plan...
...If only, ah, if only, we had let the let-alone poHcy alone...
...And how did you die...
...I awoke with a start...
...Were you addressing me...
...What are you going to do...
...I awoke in a hospital, surjrounded by a battery of nurses and a doctor...
...A Meeting Up There The doctor left...
...I inquired politely...
...Always messing around when you should let things recover by themselves...
...This so impressed the Republicans who were in power when the war ended that the Administration immediately canceled every regulation affecting private business, dished the anti-trust laws, gave free reign to cartels and combines, restored the good old fashioned American concept of cut-throat competition, and removed every Federal shackle from the banks and from Wall Street...
...I don't want you to tinker with me...
...Mr...
...Near me sat the spectre of an old man...
...The United States from its founding has been an 'adventure in prosperity.' What has conditioned that prosperity...
...We will get you on the operating table at once," said the doctor...
...You just quit your meddling with my liberty, and leave me alone, and in a couple of months or so my bones will knit...
...It's agin the constitution...
...I attempted self-hypnosis...
...You can't monkey with my system...
...I believe in absolute non-regulation...
...Baruch ?" I asked...
...The Baruch plan will work.'" "And then what happened...
...Their hoary thesis is that American industry is sacrosanct, that Federal monkeying with the machine is iniquitous, that our system works splendidly if only you will let it alone...
...I believe in letting the system strictly alone...
...Are you Mr...
...The Baruch plan will work," I murmured over and over .again...
...You're one of those pesky, artificial stimulators and regulators...
...Baruch with a hollow groan...
...We must dress your injuries, trepan your fractured skull, set your broken arms and legs, and put you in a cast," he said...
...said a voice...
...Why not...
...The Baruch plan will work...
...Fundamentally I'm sound, even though I have an assortment of shattered fibulas and have lost part of my brain-crust...
...Especially his enunciation that all industries now in whole or in part subject to Federal regulation be turned back lock, stock, and barrel to their private owners, and with no strings attached...
...As you know," he replied, "I wrote a postwar plan based on the ideal of restoration of liberty and free enterprise...
...I was in heaven...
...Nit," said the doctor...
...He was silent for a moment, and in the silence I thought I heard the distant sound of falling stocks...
...Crossing the street, my eyes on the printed page, I was suddenly run down by a Fifth Avenue bus traveling at high speed...
...Liberty of the individual...
...So I must have died in the hospital after all...
...Baruch," said the New York Mirror editorially, "has given the first official postwar plan that is ALL-AMERICAN both in principle and detail...
...I shooed the nurses out and I applied myself earnestly to the job of recovering all by myself...
Vol. 8 • March 1944 • No. 10
