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Show ! up into powerful state political machnes. Hornet's ost . . . Tlie President stirred up a hornet's hor-net's nest when he sent to Congress Con-gress a recommendation for another an-other step in his departmental reorganization plan. He proposed to take away from the Civil Aeronautics Aero-nautics Authority its status as an independent administration unit, responsible directly to Congress, and to put it into the Department of Commerce, under the jurisdiction jurisdic-tion of Secretary Harry Hopkins. The opposition to this change was based upon the very bad record rec-ord 01' the Department of Commerce Com-merce when it had control of aviation, avia-tion, before the C.A.A. was established. estab-lished. Since the C.A.A. has been on the job there has not been a single sin-gle fatal accident on any American Ameri-can commercial airline. ffli . IN Washington As the time of the Presidential Presiden-tial nominating conventions draws near and Congress is going through the motions of speeding up in preparation for adjournment, adjourn-ment, the observer sitting on the sidelines notes a great deal more evidence of political considerations considera-tions in the goings on in both houses, than of real interest in the national welfare. Practically the only measure of consequence which this session of the 7 6th Congress has considered on its merits apart from its political po-litical effect is the group of legislation legis-lation which comes under the head of National Defense. There has been practically no opposition from either side of either chamber "to the approval of plans and appropriation of funds for enlarging the Navy, the Air Corps and the Army, and of accumulating ac-cumulating a supply of war materials ma-terials which might be difficult to get if the war zone is further extended. Not that anybody seriously ser-iously expects the United States to become involved in the war, but you never can tell. The clearest exposition that has been made of the war policy of the United States as it has been shaped by the present Administration, Admin-istration, and the details of the discussions and actions which led up to it, is contained in a book called "American White Paper," written by two bright young Washington newspapermen, Joseph Jo-seph Alsop and Robert Kintner. Unofficial Document . . . It is a purely unofficial document, docu-ment, but it bears internal evidence evi-dence of having been compiled from official information. It has created a sensation in political circles, and its young authors seem to be on the road to wealth; for the paper-covered volume is reported to be selling at the rate of 5,000 copies a day at $1 a copy. This correspondent has no personal per-sonal interest in giving the book a free puff, but does not hesitate to recommend that every intelligent intelli-gent American of any party ought to read it. It is the most enlight-I enlight-I ening document yet published in its exposition of the way in which the President, his Cabinet, and the American diplomats abroad handled the troublesome problem of what the American position should be when the war, which they foresaw long before it broke, should finally come. The effect of this document is not likely to be the development of opposition to 'the Administration's Administra-tion's policy of trying to help the Allies in every possible way without with-out makng any - commitments which could possibly involve the United States in actual warfare. That is almost the only point of Administration policy which is not subject to violent attack by the Republican minority, as well as from within the ranks of the Democratic party. Some very funny things have been going on in Congress, all of them obviously motivated by political po-litical consideration. There was the shelving of the proposed amendment to the Wages and Hours Law, for example. It was evident early in the session that a majority of the members favored changes in this law. The minority group which wanted no change, managed by parliamentary maneuvering to bring it up for consideration in such a way that any member could offer any amendment which he thought might be productive of votes in his home district to help him get reelected. Hodg'e-Podfje Results . . , The result was such a hodgepodge hodge-podge of amendments as to make the old law completely unworkable, unwork-able, so that on the final vote practically all of the members agreed that the only thing to do with it was to toss it back into the pigeon-hole and let the next Congress tackle it. The mystery of what happened to the second Hatch-Dempsey bill to control political activities, in the House Judiciary committee, probably never will be solved. A secret ballot was taken in the committee with the result, as reported re-ported by Chairman Sumners, of fourteen votes against reporting the bill to ten in favor of it. But as soon as that was publicly announced, an-nounced, Representative Dempsey of New Mexico made a private canvass of the committee and fifteen members assured him that they had voted in favor of reporting report-ing his bill. Mr. Dempsey, who does not take rebuffs lying down, went into action and stirred up one of the liveliest rows which has occurred oc-curred in Congress this year. The bill is intended to supplement the Hatch bill adopted last year, which prohibits Federal employees employ-ees from taking an active part in national political campaigns. It extends this prohibition to all state employees who draw any j part of their compensation from ! federal funds. This is aimed par-j par-j ticularly at state highway depart- ments, all of which are partly sup-, sup-, ported by the federal government and most of which have been built |