Show national topics interpreted by william bruckart wap hington D C national press building MI washington congress is packing its duds it know exactly what date it will want lantto to go home but go go home home home it will in just a few weeks more there is ie nothing more contagious than homesickness among congressmen when primaries are in the he air and votes around the grass roots await to be garnered I 1 suppose that when hen they go there will be a certain amount of ariti ism about the do nothing congress particularly will they hear barks hat they have left the nations most important problem unsolved they will be told how they should have barted a course to lead the country tut but of the depression and how they tailed failed to do anything towards restoring unemployed to permanent jobs the prospect of this condition it teems to me warrants a general discussion without pulling punches congress is supposed to formulate national rational Dat ional policies it therefore must incept some blame for its f failure but it is not alone to blame and the voters ought to know it there ire re some other spots to which a attention should be directed in a all 11 fairness aarness air ness to the members of the abuse and senate let us look back a bit it must be greed I 1 believe that recovery is the foremost problem recovery plans must be divided attention must be given first to relief of the lesti institute tute the unemployed secondly y policies must be laid down that will mil permit business big and little to take on workers or obviously they will remain on the relief rolls since last november there have seen deen pleas threats argument all leeking establishment of policies that would permit business to have confidence there has been nothing from president roosevelt in the kay amy of suggestions or proposals along llong this line and congress refused cowardly enough 0 to lead the way nay As the session wore on unemployment increased until the other lay the social security board made public figures showing that abo about u t persons were receive receiving ing government assistance of one kind ft dr another almost families and during the same period the volume of business fell further into new low levels the whole picture undeniably has grown worse then there came from the president the request for the use of further money some six billion collars of it it was the so called tending lending spending program that has lust just been enacted and the congress anxious to avoid conflict with lenthal will rubbed its collective hands bands and said in effect there takes care of the unemployed so we will have new post offices new bridges new roads new this and new that some time those things can not be put over on a days notice it takes time to get them started where they will employ workers the portion of the six billions allocated for relief of can be used at once because mr harry hopkins can have his boys and girls write checks at a rate which is positively amazing rhe fhe public construction phase will be valuable or ought to be to the candidates andi dates because the candidates tan an say to their political aeeti meetings here it is and from my hands too loo after that money is spent then hat my conviction is that we will be just where we started that is to say we will be just where we were three years ago every one recalls of course how there was a pump priming of business then it sost the result was some very nice post offices and other public buildings and an addition of to the national debt the administration tried some other pump priming too and succeeded in building up the national debt still higher gher it is now pushing right up lip to the forty billion mark since the pump priming and the ather spending ideas failed to accomplish com anything spending in the other trials fails there seems to be no reason to expect the new outlay outlaw of cash to do more than create a new high record for the national debt it will do that beyond question but I 1 said at the outset that there were wera others to blame this tact fact nas been brought to the fore by the tondi condition tion lately much publicized in chicago and cleveland scenes distressingly tres singly reminiscent of the lines df bf starving in 1930 were re enacted in chicago and cleveland within the month the cities were out of cash and the relief lines became riotous there is not much to be done about starving people but to feed them that is accepted yet how did that happen why was the condition allowed to reach that stage here is the tact fact that will make me v very ery popular I 1 am sure in the areas where the shoe fits the states have tailed failed to assume their proper share of the responsibility let me repeat that the states have failed to assume their proper share of responsibility they have consistently done so and the reason they have been chiseling chi and pulling at the federal teat is because they have been taught by the washington government through six or eight years that they could do it and get away with it the politicians within a state can not be blamed wholly because they are politicians seeking election or seeking to hold office or party power or what hat have you it was so much easier to bring pressure to bear in washington go home with big checks shout to the folks that they were bringing home the bacon without adding to the tax of their home folks that is they said there was no additional tax because it was a federal tax that had to make up for what the states drew out and the federal taxes are not as easily seen as taxes in a state a county or a city it has come to such a pass these days that few state politicians dare to suggest at home that they raise the relief funds locally it would be political suicide they feel so they follow the beaten track to washington and the washington politicians from president roosevelt down the courage to send them back home without some token of appreciation something of a minor character like a a few millions and a promise of more if one is really going to trace this thing down to its start I 1 believe it has to go back to herbert hoovers administration it will be recalled that mr hoover proposed and obtained congressional action on a plan by which the reconstruction finance corporation was created it was to loan money to tide business over until the depression had worn itself out it was not a sound plan then it is not sound now it was opposed by democrats then but i it has been expanded and enlarged and glorified by them since but the fact that it was created constitutes the tragedy the fact that there was a spot where government cash could be borrowed started politicians looking to washington it was a pretty soft touch for them the lafollette type of mind and the group of professors who figured the nation could spend its way out of the depression moved right into the long halls and took over desks in every place they could find chairs the thing spread like wildfire and it is still is going as witness the latest program involving six billion dollars it is going to require m many any years of effort to restore states to their own boundaries long road they have got ahead themselves i n t c debt with the fed fedj j eral government they have found how easy it is to do that and they will do more unless the people themselves realize what it means un less the states again take control of their own affairs state lines will mean nothing the nation will be run from washington bureaucrats desks and good government by the people themselves will be a thing of the past i there is a phase of this control from washington upon which I 1 want to record a few especial observations I 1 refer to the great waste that occurs when the federal government attempts to handle such a delicate and direct proposition as relief this phase irks me and it il ought to irk every one who hates hales tc see stupid administration use up sc much money needlessly my morning paper a few days ago carried a dispatch from Cl cleveland evelind announcing that public funds from washington were going to be used tg tc give work to four hundred men for six months they are going to count the trees in cleveland think of it il counting trees as a means of giving borki surely it is possible to create some other kind of work I 1 believe it would be better to give that money outright for the construction st of some homes for fifty families or any one of a hundred thousand things such things as this are bound tc happen however when the states counties and cities lean so heavily on washington ington citizens lose control when they let their politic politicians iane dodge responsibility by calling or washington for everything are ARC there is no doubt in the mind ol of any one who has studied the lem but that the citizens will pay more when their relief needs are arc met from washington than if they forced their own officials to assume assum the responsibilities of their offices I 1 suppose however that it is not no in the interest of the politicians tc bring about recovery in a norma way whether they arc local or state or national politicians if they cat car accomplish election the way it if now being done they may as wel continue each one has only on political life to give to his country and if he can make 0 that life a go good 0 d long one by hoddin his constituents well why not I 1 repeat however and there can be no denying the fact that relief il u going to cost each citizen more be cause the money is being chis clec out of washington rather than the state or local treasuries 0 western newspaper union en of the men bunted b by captain G elliott nightingale copyright mv A CHISELER STARTS A RIOT FOR a dozen days and nights the continuous roll of the tom toms P nd the weird blood chilling shrieking of the Salt eaux indians had echoed and re echoed over the atha backan plains meanwhile in the tents anu unu and tepees babies died in the ar is of mothers too starved to bem laem while others including the doged and ill were slowly dying from hunger and the 30 below zero weather that had been gripping the region fir far weeks and as the sal beaux suil suffered ered and died the warriors and braves with the help of some smuggled rotgut whisky were dancing themselves into an ugly fighting bloodthirsty mood they were steaming up for a little skull splitting and scalp lifting party to be staged on the handful of whites who were responsible for their pitiable condition the Salt eaux a rather superior group were justified in their anger and rage for the administration of their affairs had fallen into the hands of a double dyed grafter and chiseler when the great white mother made the treaty with the Salt eaux she not only agreed to give them equipment horses and cows with which to begin farming but she also agreed to give them food and supplies twice a week until they were well established and prosperous everything went along fine until some underling in the indian aff affairs airs department was placed in charge while his superior was off on a rather extended vacation down east from this time on the food supplies for the Salt eaux began to diminish each time the rations were handed out they weighed a few ounces less than before with the result that after a week or two the allotments reached the most ridiculous di ch proportions and the sal beaux began to grumble out loud to make matters worse game was exceedingly cee scarce in the region that winter and even rabbits were few and far between moreover had there been furs and skins skids the sal beaux could have hake traded for food at the hudson bay trading post located right on the reservation and now with the tribe slowly starving to death in the middle of a stiff winter it was time for action having worked themselves into a frenzy of rage and hate the warriors and braves 4 swooped down on the government warehouses and helped themselves to a few tons of flour sowbelly bacon and other staples the underling in charge made a faint squeak of protest and right away two husky braves had him by collar and belt and were heaving him oft off into the distance loaded with all the food they could carry away the Salt eaux returned to their tepees and had the first really decent feed in weeks and as they fed and gorge gorged d themselves the men alen of the mounted were on their way to investigate what was termed an indian outrage the officer in charge although a fearless policeman was a poor hand with indians and his opening remarks were to the effect that the great white mother was deeply grieved to learn that her Salt eaux children had committed this terrible crime taking the food that rightfully belonged to them furthermore ther more the poor misguided or misinformed officer asked them why they committed the robbery when everybody knew that the agent handed out plenty of food twice a week naturally the Salt eaux began to think that the redcoat red coat was insane did he not know that they were starving did he not know chat that the food ration had been growing smaller and smaller until there was not enough for one child let alone a brave no the officer did not know this furthermore he rather brusquely stated that they were not starving at all and that the rations given them were more than sufficient this was the spark to the powder the braves began fondling their rifles and clubs and they moved in close dangerously close the air was electrified with the tension of impending battle up to this time there had never been any misunderstandings nor had there ever been shots exchanged between the sal beaux and the mounted police and it long before an ordinary red coated constable was down among the ugly Salt eaux patching things up and incidentally learning the truth about the diminishing iati rations ons needless to say the quarrel was patched up so well that there has never been any more trouble with the Salt eaux the chiseler well he saddled up one morning and rode east he must have kept on traveling for he been seen since |