Evening Star Newspaper, May 27, 1937, Page 13

Vote Is Issue in Spending Fight Fate of Congress In- dividual Linked With Relief. BY DAVID LAWRENCE. HE battle against “discretionary” spending is on. Congress, well aware now that the power of the Executive to control elec- tlons is at stake, is beginning to won- der whether the death sentence o the individual independence of a member of Con- gress isn't con- tained in appro- priations grant- ing the President $1,500,000,000 foi “relief.” When Senator ¥4 Harry Byrd of Virginia was told by Secretary Wallace the other day that it"would be a “miracle” if & Senator refused an appropriation to be spent in his State and when Mr. Byrd performed the “miracle” by asking the Department of Agriculture to withhold $1.500,000 of proposed spending in Virginia, it wasn't really & miracle happening at all. Senator Byrd, of course, deserves eredit for courage in risking misun- derstanding by his constituents, but the issue was a simple one. The ques- tion really presented was: Shall the Benator from Virginia stand by and allow $1,500,000 more to be spent in his State for the purpose of building up a political machine to defeat him for renomination in the Democratic primaries? As a measure of self-protection, the Virginia Senator called attention to the waste involved, as he saw it, in the proposed expenditure, and while the episode is very unusual and only & man of Harry Byrd's courage and statemanship would bring it about, nevertheless the political side of the controversy is not to be dveriooked. Wastefulness Essential Many members of Congress are in the same fix. If they play ball with the administration, they can get ad- ministration support for renomina- tion and re-election. but they must| acquiesce in a policy of wasteful spending. If they oppose the ad- ministration, they must be prepared for the backfire in their districts and States. Thus, undoubtedly, the re- fusal by Harry Byrd to countenance a waste of $1,500,000 will be used oy administration henchmen who are op- posed to Byrd as & means of building up sentiment against him. But the people of Virginia who have supported Senator Gla nothwithstandin; hls“ outspoken sm of the admin tion are of a kind apparently who un-| derstand and appreciate also a man of Harry Byrd's capacity and con- scientious service. | In the other States of the Union {ncumbent’ members of Cong do not have political organizations with the power that Senator Byrd has had, so they will require consider- | able more skill in warding off the attacks of administration lieutenants | who appear as ri for tion and are promp esse \ support from labor orzanizations and other groups which are the direct beneficiaries of administration favor. Members of Congress have until now failed to realize that the relief expenditures can be used in such a way as to build up political organiza- tions under the direction of Mr. Far- | ley. For, while Harry Hopkins is the relief administrator, the funds| David Lawrence. ss THE EVENING STAR, WASHINGTON, D. News Behind the News Economist Contends Return to 1929 Standards Would Absorb Unemployed. BY PAUL MALLON. V/ HILE President Roosevelt was composing his new labor standards of hours and wages, an eminent unprejudiced economist was suggesting to a private audience of distinguished officials how to do the same job the opposite way. ‘What the workers o. this country may need, he indicated, is not less work for all and more pay for the lowest class of workers, but more work and more yay for all. Or at least this is a reportorial paraphrasing of his careful remarks. What he actually did was to submit the results of a survey, showing that erpansion of business and living to a real 1929 rela- tionship would require eight to mine million more workers in the durable goods industries alone. There can be no doubt, he said, living standards during the next five years are more than sufficent to absorb the entire volume of unemployment now existing. But what is more important, the eminent economist told his audience, was that his computations were based on an assumed average working week of 43 hours. The simple truth, he said, is that this country has not reached the stage of technological development at which it is possible for the American people to obtain the standard of living they desire on a 40-hour- week basis. * X ¥ x Some say Mr. Roosevelt heard about the speech and that is why he eliminated the 40-hour week from his proposal and left the number blank. Others say the number of maximum hours, wages, etc., was omitted because his con- gressional leaders haggled for 35 hours. At any rate, the point is that here is an economist with new evidence pointing in a different direction, and he has formed his evidence not to impress voters politically, but to ascertain what is best economically. The speaker will undoubtedly be summoned at congressional hearings on the wages and hours bill, because he is Dr. Harold G. Moulton, president of Brookings Institution, which is recognized as the foremost non-governmental statistical agency in Washington. Dr. Moulton and his institution about becoming involved in political arguments and avoiding pub- licity. They do a strictly scientific job. The address was not made with any knowledge of the President's sub- sequent proposals. Dr. Moulton only intended to amplify the philosophy of expansion contained in the recent lem in the United States.” What he sought to show is that the popular conception that we have “recovered” is wrong, that the rosy the Government and business really fall far short of what our recovery really should be, that the thinkers should think ahead to bigger and better things, and stop looking back to the depths of the depression, to gauge their position. * % A couple of Government economists nearly collapsed when he said the volume of industrial production in major lines would have to be approxi- mately 60 per cent higher than last year to restore the standard of living #a A continued growth of the population, As a result, he computed the following increases (over 1936 levels) would be necessary in the various lines to create a real 1929 standard: Housing, 208 per cent; industrial, 70 per cent; public utilities, 70 per cent; stcam railroad, 67 per cent; passenger autos, 15 per cent; other consumer goods, 33 per cent. These figures seem to point to pansion thinking far beyond any at present being expressed publicly by any one. Note—The market value of goods and services produced in 1936 was $60,000,000,000. This was about 85 per cept of 1929 if you allow for price changes, and 80 per cent of 1929 for come had been divided equally, it would have amounted to about $470 per person and $1,900 per family. This, indispensable for restoration of former living standards. (Copyright, 1937.) that the work requirements to restore WHAT THIS COUNTRY NEEDS, IS MORE WORK, AND MORE PAY- FOR ALL/ are naturally extremely cautious Brookings book, “The Recovery Prob- statistics being handed out daily by * % of 1929. They have been thinking that the 105 per cent production of last year (and the current level of 120 per cent) was getting some- where near the 1929 level, when production averaged 119 for the year. The Moulton survey, however, took into consideration the re- stricted rate of production of the last seven years, the deferred replacement necessitated by the and other factors. the necessity for rebuilding and ex- each person (per capita). If this in- too, suggests a material expansion is | and independent Democrats in suffi- cient numbers to overcome the ad- ministration groups. But the first move toward the 1938 election campaign is being taken this week, and it centers in the approval or disapproval of the $1,500,000,000 expenditure for “relief.” By attempt- ing to write specific instructions into the appropriation bill, specifying in what districts and for what purposes the money shall be spent, the mem- are disbursed through a burcaucracy | bers of the House prevent last-minute which has been political in its com- | threats and clubs being held over | plexion almost from the very be-|their heads either as a punishment ginning. Besides this, the Federal for independence in their voting or officeholders are today very active in |as a means of coercing them later politics and can be counted upon to|on in this session and in the session fight any candidates inside the Dem- | of Congress which begins next Janu- ocratic party who are not lining up |ary. For the $1,500,000,000 must be with the administsation on public | spread over the country and could policies. be concentrated or withdrawn as the House Revolt New Trend. | Executive pleases. The revolt this week in the House | For the funds now being appro- of Representatives, where an effort | priated this month are for the fiscal has been made to “earmark” appro- |year beginning July 1, 1937, and the priations for specific purposes, is a|money will be spent through July 1, new trend, but it has been develop- | 1938—the very vital time of the pri- RETAIL TRADE MOSTLY ON CASH OR C. 0. D. BASIS | | Comparisons With Credit Trans- actions for 1935, 1933 and 1929 Made by Census Bureau. American retailers do 67.8 per cent of their business for cash or on the C. O. D. basis, 21.3 per cent on open account and 10.9 per cent on the in- stallment basis, according to the Cen- sus Bureau. Comparisons between cash and credit transactions for the years 1935, 1933 and 1929, during which such studies were made, indicate a sub- stantial decrease in credit sales dur- ing the depression and a return to nearly the pre-depression ratio during 1935. Household appliance and radio stores extended the highest percentage of credit in 1935, with 74.5 per cent | ing for some time. If appropriations are earmarked, the discretionary pow- er of the Executive is to that extent curtailed. The administration real- izes a very important prize is at stake, and undoubtedly all the pressure of the President’s influence will be brought to bear by his lobby agents on Capitol Hill, who will be less ef- fective in the Senate than in the House. Members of the upper house who | to | have stuck out their necks, so speak, in the fight against the Presi- dent's Supreme Court bill may come to realize that the $1,500,000,000 fund, | if allowed to be spent in a discre- tionary sense by the administration, will spell the doom of their careers in public life unless they can get substantial support from Republicans “Well, maybe from now on yow'll stick to IVilkins of sales on that basis. Installment credit sales accounted for 54.9 per cent. | maries before congressional elections. | On whether the administration re- tains or loses the power of discre- tionary spending depends the future | votes of many members of Congress land doubtless their fate, too, in the iprimary contests of the Spring of | 1938, when their respective renomi- nations on the Democratic ticket will be before the voters for decision. (Copyright. 1937.) Eye Trouble Confines Quezon. | NEW YORK, May 27 (#).—Manuel | Quezon, President of the Philippine | Commonwealth, was confined to his Waldorf-Astoria Hotel suite yesterday suffering from a recurrence of an eye ailment which caused him to cancel all engagements. HE 80-minute trip latest design . . . ater a C., THURSDAY, THE opinions of the writers on this page are their own, not necessarily The Star’s. Such opinions are presented in The Star’s effort to give all sides of questions of interest to its readers, although such opinions ma themselves and directly opposed be contradictory amon, to T%e Star’s. v Suicide Congress Choice Reorgarization and Wage-Hour Plans Step Nearer Loss of BY MARK SULLIVAN. ITH the hour and wage measure which the Presi- dent sent to Congress this week, it is the same as with his court measure and his meas- ure to reorganize the executive branch of the Government. About this new measure, as about the others, mil- 7 lions of words % could be written. 3 About the one that has had real public attention, the court meas- ure, millions ac- tually have been written. Of all the as- pects of these measures, of all that calls for il- lumination, there is one that most needs to be made clear. Everything else we can omit, if we must. The most essential thing, and unhappily the most somber, is | to record the progress of America to- ward the totalitarian form of govern- ment that has arisen in Europe—to- ward the time when the kind of dis- patch that now comes out of Berlin, Rome and Moscow will be coming out of Washington. A few weeks ago I asked Congress and the country to read a dispatch from Berlin. It was dated January 15, just after Mr. Roosevelt sent to Congress his plan for reorganizing the executive branch. The dispatch dealt with Mr. Roosevelt'’s plan, and with the German equivalent of our Congress, the Reichstag. It began: “Berlin, January 15.—The German press and radio are giving a surpris- ing amount of attention to President Roosevelt's proposal for administra- tive reorganization. Such interest in American affairs is unusual, but may | . Mark Sullivan, be attributed to preparations now be- | ing made here for changes in the | Reich government. * * * The most in- | fluential and the largest number of | Chancellor Hitler's advisers propose | that the Reichstag be abolished as unnecessary. It is probable it may vote itself out of existence or be dis- missed forever.” Peril to Congress. That dispatch I asked Congress to read because it suggested what would; and in time will, follow if Congress passes the President’s plan to re- | organize the executive department, in | the form in which Mr. Roosevelt sent | the plan to Congress. For that plan‘ to reorganize the executive depart- | ment gives to the executive, Ind‘ therefore takes away from Congress, 50 many powers that it would be a | long step toward the extinction of Congress. It would be a step toward the centralized, totalitarian conception of government, and that conception has no use for a Congress or a Reichstag. It centralizes everything | in the executive department and the individual who heads it. I now ask Congress to read one further sentence from that same Ber- lin dispatch. It reads: “According to present plans all but seven of the former states would be abolished.” The wiping out in Germany—*“liqui- dation,” they call it—of local units of government, analogous to our 48 States, is as definite a symptom of the totalitarian government as the wiping out of parliament. And en- actment of Mr. Roosevelt's present hour and wage law would be a long step toward wiping out of State gov- ernments. This step is unnecessary. Every one of the objectives of Mr. Roose- velt's measure—minimum wages, max- | for American system. imum hours, child labor, abolition of sweatshop conditions—all can be ac- complished by legislation of the sep- arate States, or it can be accom- plished by one Federal law covering the whole country, as Mr. Roosevelt Proposes. This condition, the fact that these objectives can now be accomplished by State legislation, is not widely realized. It is a new condition. It arises out of recent decisions of the DAILY _MINUTE MEN" to Washington is now available every hour of the day! Added reason to join America’s favored flying group the “80-Minute Men Club.” Your first trip makes you a member. You step aboard a swift, luxury transport of the quiet, cool 80 minutes you'’re in New York, richer by the pleasant- est trip in your memory. You recall grate- fully the flight-steward’s thoughtful attentions, the easy, club-like atmosphere. And Eastern Air Lines’ 150 million pas- senger miles experience is written into the charter of the “80-Minute Men Club.” ‘Why not plan to take that long-promised trip . . . join the “80-Minute Men” . . . right mow! NEW YORK PHILADELPHIA Coffet Atlants Jacksonville Miami FOR RESERVATIONS: Phone NAtional 3646 or any hotel, travel bureau, Western Union or Postal Telegraph Office. BALTIMORE 'WASHINGTON New Orleans Beaument Noeuston MEMBER OF THE NATIONAL SAFETY COUNCIL \ r { Liberty. SBupreme Court. Because those de- cisions are not widely understood, it follows that a habit of mind which was prevalent and accurate for more than 60 years continues to exist. It exists even among well-informed members of Congress. The change that has come about through recent decisions of the Supreme Court is too intricate and technical to be dealt with adequately here. Where the court has opened the door for Congress, it has also opened the door for the State Legislatures. It is suf- ficient to say that the old objec- tions and impediments to attainment of national objectives by State legis- lation have now disappeared. Now every State can pass its own minimum wage law, its own child- labor law, its own other laws guard- ing against sweatshop conditions. And by legislation of Congress no goods made under conditions below a State standard can be shipped into a State. This process has the same identical effect as the process of one Federal law, which Mr. Roosevelt Pproposes. Everybody knows there must be different standards of wages in urban New York and rural ~ississippi; one standard for child labor for manu- facturing in industrial Connecticut and another standard for farming in Towa; one standard for one kind of manufacturing and a different stand- ard for another. Differing Standards. ‘That the standards must differ is conceded by Mr. Roosevelt. But he would have the differing standards set up by a board of five men at Washington—five men who would get their appointments from the Presi- dent, be subject to removal by him, get their authority from him and carry out his ideas. The other method would be to have the different standards set up | by each State, with a Federal law giving complete force and protection to the State laws. The standards that would be set up by States would not differ ma- terially from the standards that would be set up by five men in Wash- ington. The effect on industry would be exactly the same. The effective- ness in attaining abolition of child | labor and all other sweatshop con- ditions would be the same. local government, preserving identity of the States, great Congress has before it today—in the pending wage and hour bill, the pending executive reorganization bill and the pending court bill—Congress has before it a choice between life or death—life or death for itself, life or death for the States from which Congressmen come. It can preserve the vitality of Congress, it can pre- serve the vitality of States, it can the would be very | preserve the American system of gov- ernment—or it can commit suicide itself, for the States, for the (Copyright. 1937.) Police Use Gas Mask Whistles. Traffic policemen of Vienna, Austria, have been equipped with gas masks fitted with whistles. en Te But the | difference with respect to preserving ! MAY 27, 1937. We, the People Less Than 12% of American People Represented in Court Plan Defeat. BY JAY FRANKLIN, HEN they asked Mr. Roosevelt why he didn't try to get his Judicial reforms by a constitutional amendment, he said that = the big corporation lawyers would simply take $20,000,000 and tie up the Legislatures of the 13 smallest States which have the constitutional power to block basic change. These, the “rotten boroughs” of our Federal form of Government, are either the home of loat causes, like Delaware and Vermont, or the playground of absentee corporations, like many of the wide-open mining States. In such units, underpopulated and dependent on Eastern capital, ;::1:“ of political mainpulation is not difficult for those who come well- Indeed, much of the political success of the New Deal is due to a {rank recognition of these facts by the Roosevelt administration, and to a shrewd use of relief funds and Federal projects to keep the faithful in line. Hence the President was not greatly disturbed by the unrepresentative composition of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which had first whack at his reform bill. Houwever, thanks to the sudden switch of Democratic Senators from New Mezico, Wyoming and Nevada—forty-fifth, forty-seventh and forty-eighth among all the 48 States of the Union in order of population—the friends of the judicial oligarchy won out in the committee. The 16 States represented in that body include 8 of the 13 smallest States and contain a bare Afth of the entire American people. They include not one State in the entire Southeastern part of the country and only siz States east of the Mississippi River. 1f this is a coincidence, it is a very peculiar one. Majority Turned Down. The vote in this committee was 10 to 8 against the reform bill, but even so the eight Senators who favored the Roosevelt plan represened more people than the 10 who opposed judicial reform. The 1930 census figures are pretty conclusive on this point. (Since each State has two Senators, the populations represented are halved in each case and calcu- lated to the nearest 1,000.) Against Judicial Reform. King of Utah.__ 254,000 McCarran of Nevada. 46,000 Van Nuys of Indiana..._1619,000 Hatch of New Mexico.... 212,000 Burke of Nebraska 689,000 Connally of Texas. -2,912,000 O'Mahoney of Wyoming_. 113,000 Borah of Idaho. 223,000 Austin of Vermont. 180,000 Steiwer of Oregon._. - 477,000 For the Roosevelt Plan. Neely of West Virginia__ 865,000 Logan of Kentucky. 1,307,000 Dieterich of Illinois. 3,815,000 McGill of Kansas___ 940,000 Pittman of Nevada. 46,000 Hughes of Delaware 119,000 Ashurst of Arizon: 218,000 689,000 Total -6,725,000 7,934,000 8o you get a narrow conservative “victory” in a body which repre- sents less than 12 per cent of the American people, the South scarcely at all, and the East by Vermont, Delaware and West Virginia! Fight te Be Forced. With these remarkable facts in mind, the administration is prepared to force the fight for the measure, despite the loud cries that it is now “dead” from those who seek to kill it. Senator Robinson of Arkansas has been given discretionary power to accept minor compromises and the “Logan amendment’—providing for an accordion type of court, to be limited to a basic nine, with temporary additions for overage justices— represents the New Deal's party line. That this course may help the party to throw overboard such men as Senators Bailey of North Carolina, Byrd of Virginia and Connally of Tezas is mot the least of its charms to those New Dealers who recall what happened when Al Smith, John W. Davis, Bainbridge Colby and Jim Reed of Missouri “‘took a walk” during the last election. For now the fight is in the open on the Senate floor, where the “rotten boroughs” of national politics can be outvoted by the repre- sentatives of the more densely populated States and where the quiet lure of patronage and pork can woo the Western wobblers from their uncom- fotable profession of permanent political pole-sitting. (Copyright, 1937.) {NAVY BUYS 1,225,000 POUNDS OF COPPER liver 200,000 pounds here at the same price. For the Portsmouth (N. H) Navy Yard the Kennecott firm will deliver 250,000 pounds at 14.175 cents per pound; 50,000 pounds at 14.05 cents at the Boston (Mass.) Navy Yard and 325,000 pounds at 14.175 cents at the Norfolk (Va.) Navy Yard. The copper here will be used in conjunction with work at the naval gun factory, officials said. About Half of Contracted Amount to Be Used in Naval Gun Factory Work Here. Contracts for purchasing 1,225,000 pounds of electrolytic copper, 600,000 pounds of which will be used at the Washington Navy Yard, were an- nounced yesterday by the Navy De- partment. The Kennecott Sales Corp. of New York City will furnish 400,000 pounds for local use at 14.175 cents per pound, while the American Smelting and Re- 96 Youths Sentenced. MANILA, Philippine Islands, May 27 (®)—Ninety-six youths of Leyte Province, convicted of failing to re- port for military training as required under the defense act, were sentenced today to serve one month in jail. An American You Should Know Harllee Branch. Harllee Branch Turns the Wheels That De- BY DELIA PYNCHON. HEN you send letters out wheels grind and deliver them by air, rail, steam- skies for 1 to 6 cents. Harllee Branch, slightly on the youthful side as to energy and charge of an enormous net- transportation as Second Assist- General. He is by trade Born in Polkton, N. C. educated and Oak Ridge Institute, sniffed the fragrance of printer's ink | &s typesetter, linotype operator and | Charlotte Observer. Switching to the | news rooms, he covered everything Charleston Evening Post, Augusta Herald and Atlanta Journal from 1903 | itics as executive secretary to the Mayor of Atlanta, a longer stretch as Atlanta Journal. Appointed first exe ecutive assistant to the Postmaster present position in 1934, still with & bit of nostalgia for journalism. | romantic part of postal service, travel from Washington to Los Angeles in contracts were annulled, a new and faster service has been established. Branch says. Payments to air- mail contractors in 1930 were over as contrasted to 1936 payments of over 12 million, revenue almost 10 was around 760.000: for 1936, 1,778,- 912. The increase is about 300,000 a | bounds,” Branch says. It is a modern | miracle to consider that airmail cove | service, 30,000 domestic. Planes fly the Pacific every week. It takes a “Trans service is expected | this Fall,” Branch says. actively engaged in seeing that our letters are delivered. Approximately tion alone. There are 35,000 rural mail carriers, 12,000 on the star | point. to another, beside the legions | dealing with rail and ship mails. | Sam's business,” Branch says, but airmail increesingly binds people of livec (our Letters. into the blue, Government ship, auto, trucks, even dogteams and gray side as to hair, much on the keenness, has work of postal ant Postmaster a newspaper man., at public schools Branch early | then composing room foreman on the | from police courts to politics on the to 1933. There was a stretch of pole Washington correspondent for the General in 1933, Branch assumed his Letters by airmail, perhaps the most 18 hours. Since 1934, when airmail margin of subsidy is getting 14 millio) revenues over 2 million, million. Airmail poundage for 1930 month and growing “by leaps and ers now 26,000 miles of foreign air | letter about six days to reach China. One-quarter of a million people are 75,000 are employed in transporta=- | routes, contact from one receiving | “These have the lion’s share of Uncle the world together. i | Firemen Visit London. ‘ Firemen of 21 nations recently vise | ited London as guests of Sir Thomas | Cook, a 'mber of Parliament. 014«? L[] m miu/aicirm u(e’c e o0 TELEPHONE THEM! Send a word of congratulation and good wishes to the June bride or graduate by Long Distance. 42 It's the personal wfiy to say gersonal.'thinqn to erase the miles, to give the one thing no one else "can give —your voice, yourself. 4X Rates are pleas- antly low—particularly at night and all day Sunday. 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