After a prolonged orgy of jew-baiting, breast beating and other forms of glorification of the national ego, the Nazis are now getting down to business, for they cannot live by applause alone. The question is how are they going to go about favoring which class or classes. Recent steps serve as important pointers.

Out of all the fog of nationalistic demagoguery the hard, clear fact is emerging that the foundation of Nazi economic policy is going to be the lowering in the standard of living of the hitherto powerful German worker. The announcement of plans for unified corporations of workers and employers merely indicates the specific form under which the power of organized labor will be broken. There can be no practical value of these organizations except to guarantee a docile and controllable labor.

Now that labor is unable to do anything about it, it is possible to proceed with the distribution of favors to other sections of the community. The first move is being made by raising the prices of farm products and thus subsidizing the land-holding peasantry, active backbone, if prosperous, of any regime aimed at safeguarding private property. Dairy products are an indication; butter has risen in price by about one third, cheese by 30 per cent, cream by 25 per cent. Moral: stop the proletariat with the peasantry.

Next in line for favours is the city bourgeoisie, especially the vociferous lower middle class. They will be reduced equally with the worker by rising food prices. Just how they will be rewarded it is pointless to guess. Another Nazi pronouncement will tell the story before long. The farmer will then have to sacrifice a part of his gain in raised commodity prices, but only a part for labor is not to be in on the cut. The technique (if sincere bigotry can be called technique) for hiding this redistribution of national income will be a continuance of racial self-adulation and hatred for Germany's oppressors. Thus does latter day capitalism use nationalism as a sedative to obscure class antagonisms. But it is a dangerous sedative, one liable to produce convulsions.

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Frankness, a pardonable virtue, seems to be entering the world of diplomatic notes, a field long held by the flowery evasion. First Russia and Japan called each other a liar with an admirable, if startling, baldness. Now comes President Roosevelt's plain answer to a long, decorous request from the President of Haiti that the United States withdraw its fiscal control over that country. While expressing a kindly word for the record of the Haitian government, nonetheless our own F. D. could not find it in his heart to grant this request. And why not? Because, as the Transcript neatly paraphrases it, "of the injustice Mr. Roosevelt feels such action would be to Haitian bondholders." It is understood this means Haitian bondholders living in the United States. President Roosevelt added that the United States would welcome any refunding agreement which Haiti may arrange that is satisfactory to the bondholders. What more could those Haitians expect?