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Show Looking at Washington By Hugo Sims, The Pyramid's Special Spe-cial Washington Correspondent Congressional Records Voted Money and Power Wall Street Belled Stock Market Reformed Roosevelt's Authority Congress Retains finnt.mi NRA Ends First Year Tl?j 73rd Congress made several sev-eral record-. In fact, it abounded abound-ed in them. To begin with, ic, set n new pace in giving power to the President and in voting sxp:ditures. For fifteen months it hns pushed to enactment measures meas-ures that made sweeping changes in the economic structure, and from it- beginning, in March, 1933. when it passed an emergency emergen-cy banking law the Congress began be-gan to break precedents, policies and tradition. The special session last year ran 100 days and the regular session ses-sion lasted 167 days, making a total of 2G7 legislative days the shortest in 30 years and the sec-end sec-end shortest in 100 years. Due to the Norris lame duck amendment its term cf office ends January 3, 1935, irrtead of the usual two years, thus making the actual life of the Congress shorter than any. Something like ten billion dollars dol-lars wp.-. appropriated and the government was pledged to contingent con-tingent liabilities of about half as much again, as Congress followed j the President in his fight upon I depression and withheld practi-I practi-I cai'iy nothing that was asked to aid the battle. While 13,753 bills were introduced in the two houses, hous-es, only 330 major pieces of legislation leg-islation were enacted, exclusive of private and local bills. The Senate confirmed 6,000 appointments, appoint-ments, rejected 3 and caused the withdrawal of several by threatened threat-ened opposition. Relations between the Chief Executive and Congress were marked by an eager willingess of the members to stand by the President, although on three occasions oc-casions adverse action was taken. These rebuffs were rejection of the St. Lawrence waterway treaty, passage ever his veto of the independent inde-pendent offices bill increasing veterans' vet-erans' compensation, and enactment enact-ment of a processing tax on cocoanut oil from the Philippine Island-, in the face of opposition thst this was "bad faith." Tight as was the hold which the President exercised upon Congress Con-gress the Democratic House leadership lead-ership found it necessary to impose im-pose one cf the strictest gag rules m history on its membership. It was done to prevent action on legislation obnoxious, but vote-appealing, vote-appealing, such as the McLeod l-iii to nav off bank depositors. the Prazier-Lemke farm mortgage refinancing bill, and the Connery 30-hcur a week work bill. On the first of next month Wall Street, synonymous in much of the public mind with chicanery and shady manipulations, will pass under the control cf a five-man commission, known as the Stock Market Commission, with immense powers far exceeding those ot most government agencies, j."-new j."-new control is designed to prevent pre-vent such bull markets as that which collapsed in 1929 and precipitated pre-cipitated the present economic criij All' exchanges will be licensed by the new commission. Every li-m that issues securities must rcoort to it and every dealer who sei's or buys must account to it. Moreover, the Federal Reserve Board is given sweeping powers cvr-r all credit extended to stock brokers and all loans to those w buy stocks on margin. The law carrier, heavy penalties, requires comprehensive reports to give the prospective investors irside in-f: in-f: relation about corporations and allows the Federal Reserve Board, to set margins at 45 per cent of the market price of 100 per cent of the lowest price since July l, 1933 and to change these marg ins as may be deemed best. The legislation follows years cf demand for stock market reform, and 1-. an aftermath of recent revelations which uncovered the inside workings of market experts and participation of officers ot big banks and corporations in pools that gave them heavy profits prof-its while suable l.? the los es. It was indeed a deplorable de-plorable picture cf e"ness high financial circles and made inevitable the reform of high fin-ance. Gambling, as a moral prc-po tion is one thing, but when its economic consequences al bu weeks a nation's economic sjs-Tem sjs-Tem something else is involved Chorally, experts believe that under the new regulation, fantastic fan-tastic bull markets, such as tea-Led tea-Led the. 1929 Hcrash,ei cannevcr neve thea3t'nirading"eunder govern-! ment regulation, will become jaf-er jaf-er and investents more attractive to th American people. As Congress adjourns and I. most rf its members po back to the picple in the hope of re-election hePrerldent finds himself armed with more power than has ever before been accorded ' an executive execu-tive -in times of peace. He Is the recipient of many delegated powers pow-ers given him in order to wage the nation's fight' for recovery. He expocts to win the battle through moderate u e of the vast gram cf this authority. While Congress has voted the broadest lean of legislative pow-or; pow-or; ever made except under a dictatorship, the process has been constitutional m g?neral aspect becau c Die powers thus granted are for a limited period and can be taken bark whenever Congress descides to do so-. . However, this-cannot this-cannot be clone until the emigres: emi-gres: meets again which, barring an extra session, will be in Janu ary, after the voters have elected the membership of the 74th Congress. Con-gress. In the interim the President, Presi-dent, to an unsuspected extent will be the government of the United States. In truth, the division cf the American Government into legislative, legis-lative, judicial and executive branches is badly, even if temporarily, tem-porarily, dislocated, as a result of the general recognition on the part of Congressmen that the national na-tional emergency required a concentration con-centration of the nation's power to combat the evil forces of de pression. The President s popularity popular-ity with the people, amazing in its strength, facilitated the grant of tremendous power by Congress. No informed political writer in Washington que-tions . the hold that President Roosevelt has on the people- at this time, as his adminstration ends its first fifteen fif-teen months. That his record is the issue in nearly every election, with even many of his political adversaries rot anxious to be classified against him, indicates the overwhelming backing that the people are giving him. Moreover, More-over, his confidence that' he will win his fight against the depression de-pression is shared by most of the people of the country. That the NRA should be permanently per-manently preserved is the gist of conclusions reached by a conference confer-ence of business leaders who recently re-cently met with Gen. Johnson, but that some changes were necessary was accepted as a keynote for action. The men met as members mem-bers of the Industrial Advisory Board on the day after the President, Presi-dent, in a message to the nation praised the NRA, the leadership of the general and the assistance of thousands of unselfish men and women. "We have spread employment," said the President, "we have raised pay, and We are not through yet." The business men, broadly representative rep-resentative of American industry, were interested in what would ccme after NRA, and believing that its . fundamental purposes should be continued, took initial steps to set up an organization to aid in the permanent task. Moreover, More-over, a resolution was passed on the first anniversary of NRA to express admiration and respect for the devotion, courage and untiring un-tiring efforts cf the general during dur-ing the past year. Incidentally, while this praise was being bestowed, the air was filled with what the recovery ad-minstrator ad-minstrator would call "dead cats." Critics charged that there had been unwarranted extravagance, unnecessary interference with private pri-vate business, stifling cf small enterprises, en-terprises, gouging of the consumer and un-American regimentation of industry. Meanwhile, threats of .la-bor .la-bor difficulty marred the party and it was noted that on two ma- j r policies there nao Deeu u,u about-face. The fair practices and price-fixing stipulations in seven service cedes had been abolished because they were unenforceable, and the idea that major efforts would be concentrated- on about 45 codes regulating industries employing em-ploying about 18,000,000 workers. |
