This brochure is not intended as an attack on personalities, but as a presentation of irrefutable and universal principles. This dispensation of favor (II Cor. 5:19) does not feature "condemnation" as the motive of reform -- as did the law -- but emphasizes enlightenment:

"That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world" (JOHN 1:9).

This research was spurred by a statement, broadcast and published, from the leader of the "New Deal":

"We need a greater national righteousness and stronger faith in God."

This fragmentary, uncomplemented statement rightly suggests our most imperative need.

It is hoped that this effort to draw -- from the Fountain Source -- a fuller portrait of the features the President suggests may be of general helpfulness.

If Bible Economics runs counter to policies and practices of the present administration that is incidental to their wider scope; for, corruption proved, it has not a monopoly of it, as the late President Coolidge answered critics who hurled a like charge against the Republican party.

These economic principles were given by the "governor among the nations," to "teach their senators wisdom" (Ps. 22:28; 105:22). Such origin necessitates impartiality. Their nonpartisan, nonsectarian, nonracial and universally-applicable character is apparent. The references may be confirmed by Jewish Old Testament writings, by the Douay Catholic Bible, and by all standard Protestant versions.

In the coming conflict denunciation will abound on all sides; but, even where merited by reprehensible practices, it is a far cry from that constructive vision of truth in which, only, inheres the solution of our individual and national problems; for, "Believe it or not," money is not Our greatest need, but that spiritual adjustment which carries the promise for material needs:

"And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work" (II Cor. 9:8).

No "Square," "Fair," or "New" "Deal" is possible -- for these may be meaningless political shibboleths -- without a "New Man" -- heart, principles and motives -- whose politics are right because he is right.

The way out of our national selfishness is beyond the power of any human legislation, and calls for the gift of that "stronger faith in God" which the President indicates as our present imperative need.

Only God can give that widespread illumination and transformation that make larger spiritual life and its ever-necessary complement, equitable economics, spontaneous and glad. For, love from God begets it, and love for God and for man confirm it.

The writer disclaims any direct knowledge of political corruption except that derived from daily paper reports. And, except one classic statement ^[1] of the disease, which, with variations, covers all, shall confine himself to the remedy Bible Economics offers all political corrupters.

That the world's most venerated Volume minutely described, two to four thousand years ago, all phases of economic corruption arising in our times (James 5:1-6), is phenomenal proof of its inspired origin:

"Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand; and I will do all my pleasure" (Isa. 46:10).

THE CART BEFORE THE HORSE

Without the "New Man," which only God's grace can create, the "forgotten man" hopes in vain for a "New Deal." Now the New Dealers are "men and not God." "None of them can at all redeem his brother."

"Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil" (Jer. 13:23).

Emerson said that golden traits never flow from leaden instincts. It is preposterous to assume to do what God cannot do -- have a "New Deal" without a new heart; cast out Satan by Satan; cure avarice by avarice; expel selfish ambition by selfish ambition; dislodge covetousness by covetousness; cure graft by nationalizing Tammany Hall hearts and methods; make the law, which discloses and condemns wrong, remove the heart of stone; change the Old Man of selfishness by dressing him up in new clothes and giving him a new name. The force that makes the "New Man" is not human legislation but the power of the atonement made by the Son of God through His death on the Cross.

The "New Dealers" are rich men. "Soaking" the rich has not impoverished but enriched them. The unavoidable perquisites of office, not to speak of the spoils, make it difficult to escape the "woe" that Bible Economics pronounces upon "them that join land to land and lay field to field."

What constitutes wealth? Opinions differ.

John Wesley said: "Something to eat, something to wear, something over, make one wealthy. Should," said he, "after my decease there be found anything among my effects which was not essential to my current needs, which I could have disbursed to the poor, let men say that John Wesley died a thief and a robber."

His rigid rule, whatever his increase in income, was not to spend on himself more than the nominal budget, which covered, without frills, his actual needs. All over this amount (and before his death he had vast revenues) as a faithful steward of God, he disbursed among the poor, and used to further the vast work he founded.

There is also difference of opinion and practice in what constitutes real emergency measures. One, with the General Greely North Pole Exploration expedition, who appropriated more than his ration, after remonstrance, was shot.

In the light of these instances we have been playing at relief and have not yet begun to "soak" our own or others' riches.

RULERS RIDING FOR A FALL

Before the advent of the "Wise men of the East" in 1932 all was Egyptian night, economically, in America. Then they began to dispel the new "Dark Ages." And, like the self-made man who gave the credit to his creator, they have ascribed to their efforts an imaginary "spiritual awakening and understanding which has dispelled avarice, personal ambition, littleness, utter selfishness, sectionalism, class antagonism, malice and greed."

"Doubtless ye are the people and wisdom will die with you." So far may the egotistical complex drive that men ascribe to themselves spiritual results only God can accomplish. They sit upon a golden throne, arrayed in royal apparel, and so eloquently harangue the people that they cry, "The voice of gods! saviours!" But there is "falsehood in their answers," gold, not God, is their hope; "much fine gold, their confidence;" they promise deliverance by that thing, the love of which is the root of all evil, money! A king, so obsessed, of old, spellbound his people. Recovering, they cried, "It is the voice of a god, and not a man."

"And immediately the angel of the Lord smote him, because he gave not God the glory" (Acts 12:21-23).

"There is a generation pure in their own eyes yet not washed from their filthiness."

The Son of God could do nothing without the Father, and said His disciples could do nothing without Him. The New Dealers are working the miracle, transforming the spoiled contents of a can by wrapping an artistic label about it! Promising results ^[2] which can only fruit from God-given spirituality is rank blasphemy. I am reminded of the false exorcists who tried to cast out devils by using the formulae of the spiritual Paul. The demon answered, "Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye?" (Acts 19:11-17). And of the words of Christ:

"If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness" (Matt. 6:23).

The darkness of seeming light! Which places a new name on the old bondage! Which gilds, but does not break the people's shackles! Which, as the French proverb suggests, the more it gives promise of change the more certainly things remain as they were!

It is a hard saying, who can bear it -- the golden rule of Bible economic legislation and practice-

"Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them" (Matt. 7:12).

One rightly suggests that the economics of the Bible have not been tried and found impracticable but have been discovered difficult and therefore not tried. 

CONCISE CONTRASTS BETWEEN THE NEW DEAL AND THE BIBLE THE NEW DEAL...

The very name "New Deal" sharply conflicts with the Bible.

THE BIBLE...

"Is there anything whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us."

"And there IS NO NEW THING under the sun" (Ecclesiastes 1:9, 10). 

THE NEW DEAL...

Its ideal is impossible without a New Man.

THE BIBLE...

"Neither do men put new wine into old bottles" (Matthew 9:17). 

THE NEW DEAL

Egotistical boasting of power, policies, authority, accomplishments. "Have we not taken unto us horns BY OUR OWN STRENGTH?" "Recovery is as I have planned it and don't let any one tell you differently."

THE BIBLE

"Herod, arrayed in royal apparel, sat upon his throne, and made an oration unto them. And the people gave a shout, saying, It is the voice of a god, and not of a man. And immediately the angel of the Lord smote him, because he gave not God the glory" (Acts 12:21-23).

"For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased" (Luke 14:11). 

THE NEW DEAL

Blasting at, threats to, insinuations of changing, the constitution. "Horse and buggy age."

THE BIBLE

"Remove not the ancient landmark which thy fathers have set" (Proverbs 22:28) -- Not blind bondage to the past, but because of the eternal and irrefutable principles they bequeathed to us.

THE NEW DEAL

Aspersions calculated to wean the children from the inheritance of ageless wisdom willed by their fathers.

THE BIBLE

Of such rulers the Bible says: "Because they have despised the law of the Lord, and have not kept his commandments, and their lies caused them to err, after the which their fathers have walked" (Amos 2:4). Away from changeless principles is not progress, but regression.

THE NEW DEAL

Interruption of animal fecundity, God's beneficent law that every beast should bring forth

according to its kind, that His creature, man, might have meat, in due season, according to His covenant or promise.

THE BIBLE

That there be no miscarriage in our stalls, and "that our sheep may bring forth thousands and ten thousands in our streets" (Psalm 144:13). 

THE NEW DEAL

Our greatest need, national righteousness and stronger faith in God, was rightly stated.

THE BIBLE

The method of securing it by more equitable distribution of material things is altogether wide of the mark and makes Christ die in vain, personal and national righteousness only flowing from His death and the faith He thence gives.

THE NEW DEAL

Soaking and humiliating the rich, not wise, but ignorant; not good, but evil; not truth, but error; not wisdom, but folly. The only class who can prevent national economic suicide.

THE BIBLE

"There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, as an error which proceedeth from the ruler: "Folly is set in great dignity, and the rich sit in low place" (Ecclesiastes 10:5, 6), said Solomon, the wisest of men. 

THE NEW DEAL

"Share the wealth." ^[3]

THE BIBLE

Christ discloses the hidden motive of this policy: He answered, indignantly, one who asked Him to compel his brother to divide his inheritance. And, startling, Christ rebuked not the possessor of the inheritance, but the greed which coveted:

"Beware of covetousness" (Luke 12:15). 

THE NEW DEAL

Hypocrisy: the wealthy swatting the wealthy without the example of first sharing their own wealth, at least not growing poorer by this policy.

THE BIBLE

"And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

"Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold a beam is in thine own eye?

"Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye" (Matthew 7:3-5). 

Christ rebuked all forced conscription of others' wealth, communistic, dictatorial, or socialistic legislation, or any minority steam-rolling of such a program on a nation.

He specifically commanded those men who had eaten, without labor or price, His miraculously created bread, and forthwith, by force, clamored to crown Him King of free bread distributors -- "Labor not for the meat which perisheth" (John 6:14, 15, 26, 27). From this scene Jesus retires, sorrowfully, into the mountain because the multitude missed the great lesson He wished to teach by feeding them -- His supreme work of providing spiritual bread for the life of the world through His death. Could any distribution of wealth purchase what only His death bought?

Thus the most serious charge against the policies of the "New Deal" is its absence of the Cross of Christ -- the fountain of all life that is really large. Hence all socialized substitutes are atheistic, a reversion to Satan's program offered Adam, reformation without redemption. This new wine bursts old skins. Without the New Man, any pretext of driving the money changers out of the Temple but lets the bars down to old plunderers dressed in "New Deal" clothes.  THE NEW DEAL "Larger life by a more equitable distribution of wealth." THE BIBLE Christ said: "A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth" (Luke 12:15).  THE NEW DEAL Bribery. THE BIBLE "In whose hands is mischief, and their right hand is full of bribes" (Psalm 26:10).  THE NEW DEAL Dictatorial ambition. THE BIBLE "My son, fear thou the Lord and the king: and meddle not with them that are given to change" (Prov. 24:21; see also 22).  THE NEW DEAL Crop restriction. THE BIBLE

"God multiply your seed sown." (See II Corinthians 9:10.)

"That our garners be filled with all manner of store." (See Psalm 144:13.) 

THE NEW DEAL

Scarcity making for prosperity.

THE BIBLE

Abundance through increase: "There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet [clogged distribution], but it tendeth to poverty" (Proverbs 11:24).

The results of such insane policies, enforced by the rulers of Isaiah's day, are vividly portrayed: they had prescribed scarcity for the people, not for themselves -- "their own eyes stuck out with fatness; they had more than heart could wish." Isaiah, speaking representatively for the people, tells of his own sufferings. He was near starvation:

"I said, My leanness, my leanness, woe unto me!" He then gives a searching word on the "MISDEALERS" responsible for his and the people's woes:

"The treacherous dealers have dealt treacherously: yea, the treacherous dealers have dealt very treacherously" (Isaiah 24:16).

He shows how they betrayed the people by tampering with the constitution: "They have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant" (Isaiah 24:5).

Hence "curse," "desolation," "joy darkened," and "the mirth of the land is gone" (Isaiah 24:5-12). 

1 -- In a letter to the Chief Executive (Chicago Tribune, December 23. 1935), Clifford Pinchot, former Governor of Pennsylvania, said:

"Federal work relief has been sold into political bondage in Pennsylvania. This perversion has infested other states. Men anxious to earn a living for their families... for no reason but politics are refused work by your subordinates, under authority derived from you, in your name and ostensibly in the interest of your reelection... Such prostitution of relief to politics is a stench in the nostrils of all decent people.

"Until WPA took it over, work-relief in Pennsylvania was clean. Men were chosen for work-relief by nonpartisan relief boards on the basis of need alone.

"Today the situation is wholly changed. Washington has put in charge of work-relief notorious spoilsmen who assign work on the basis of political advantage."

Specifically Former Governor Pinchot charged:

"Republicans are denied work-relief unless they will disavow their party and register as Democrats... and submit to assessments for political purposes... 3 percent on $1,200-a-year salaries, 5 percent on salaries over that amount."

In fairness to the President the ex-Governor reminded him that he had requested report of the development of such conditions and promised to remedy them, whoever was involved in such guilt.

2 -- "A new social order rising from the disintegration of the old is apparent. We have undertaken a new order of things. Let no one stop our onward step. We are on our way. The masters quite a condescension -- of the old practice and theory were unprepared for economic problems and crises of our day."

3 -- The "New Deal" antagonizes that legitimate profit motive which the Bible recognizes and sanctions: "In all labor there is profit," that is, profit in the labor of brain as well as in that of brawn.