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Show Changing Times Call for f rS1 Creation of U. S. Bureaus Various Interests Favor Special Agencies fljl For Own Problems Patronage Plums fj& Sought by Political Parties. fy-Qsati rr,L :rtr4 By BAUKIIAGE Newt Analyst and Commentator. WNU Service, Union Trust Building Washington, D. C. The much-mooted question of states rights as against the over-centralization over-centralization of government in Washington which is lumped neatly Into the one word "bureaucracy" is due for a thorough airing in the coming political campaign. The recent debate in the senate over reconversion, especially In the contest over whether the federal government should administer the unemployment payments during the change-ove from war production to civilian production, is a good example. ex-ample. There will be much sound and fury, much thundering in the index on this subject. Little will be found to have been accomplished when the dust settles. For In this question we behold an interesting paradox. New Dealers as well as Republicans, left-wingers left-wingers as well as right-wingers, deplore de-plore the growing centralization of power in the federal government as a threat to democracy. And yet, all of them, when they sit down to look at the facts, admit privately that there Is little or no chance of checking check-ing this trend. The very groups which oppose the tendency toward the creation of more federal machinery and denounce de-nounce the bureaucrats the loudest, are insistent that enough of the bureaucrats who handle their special spe-cial Interests be spared whenever the axe threatens to fall It is upon this little inconsistency that President Roosevelt always hangs his rebuttal whenever Senator Sena-tor Byrd and other critics of his lavish lav-ish government spending call for a reduction of the government payroll. pay-roll. Of course, the war badly disturbed dis-turbed the traditional democratic Institution In-stitution of checks and balances and lifted private enterprise right out by the hair and sat down in its place with the brutal Indifference which is associated with Mars. The federal government today finds itself doing business on a scale larger than all peacetime enterprise put together. Some of these activities are bound to stick when normal times finally return, but the trend toward bureaucracy started even before that According to Alfred Bingham who has written a book called "The Practice of Idealism," which you ought to read whether you can agree with it or not, the trend toward bureaucracy is due largely to two of five revolutions which he says re going on now. Bingham says that "revolution remits re-mits from the pent-up pressure af delayed social change." He believes that, like water-power, it can "either sweep in a destructive flood over peaceful cities and farms," or It can be controlled and turned to beneficial use. Bingham, was the technical revolution, revo-lution, another name for the industrial indus-trial revolution which has made mass production and all the wonders won-ders of the machine age possible. Billion-dollar corporations required some government control; various industries, notably those producing and using the automobile and the airplane called for highway and skyway sky-way encouragement, regulation and guidance. The huge department of commerce with its many activities conducted to aid business became a separate entity In 1903 and has grown steadily since. And right here we might assert that the common man, and, if you will, the less common man, worker, farmer, artisan, executive or entrepreneur, entre-preneur, although he joins merrily in the chorus denouncing the bureaucrats In general, doesn't want the particular bureaucrat who Is ready to help his particular Interest, Inter-est, disturbed. If he does not actually demand the services of such a bureaucrat, he may create a situation which his competitor, or those who may become his victim, insist must be controlled by the government. gov-ernment. Of course, Mr. Bingham's answer to all this is that a growing expansion ex-pansion of governmental powers is all right, so long as it is self-government. Without debating that question ques-tion let's see exactly how badly the bureaucrat is really hated. But you will And that there are bureaucrats and bureaucrats. You will find no complaint about the civil servant who carries out the decrees of the people's duly elected representatives, provided those decrees de-crees have been sponsored, not to say lobbied, through congress at said complainant's request. Let us consider the following statement state-ment concerning one bureau, presumably pre-sumably administered, if I read my Webster aright, by bureaucrats: "Federal aid In building and maintaining highways, as carried out under Republican administrations administra-tions and since continued, is a sound and comparatively harmonious program. pro-gram. ..." COP Has Some Kind Words for Bureaus "Federal responsibility (regarding (regard-ing agriculture) should be directed to such economic stabilization through disposition of surpluses, assurance as-surance of fair market prices. . . ." Who says this? The 28 Republican governors assembled in St. Louis early this month to back Mr. Dswey's presidential campaign. They represented, we opine, both the "common man" and likewise, the "uncommon man." And if you want further support for Mr. Bingham's thesis that the leaders In the world of technology, the men who own the machines and supervise their operation, like some 'Revolt of Common Man' Encourages Bureaucracy The first of the revolutions he names, and one of those which has encouraged bureaucracy and increased in-creased the demands on the federal fed-eral government's manpower, Is the "revolt of the common man." Of course, that revolt has been going on lustily with the start it got at the barricades in Paris and the events which occurred between Lexington and Yorktown, but the depression of 1929 moved it ahead quite a peg in this country, to say nothing of what happened after World War I all over the world, including the birth of communism, fascism, and all their freak off-shoots. Bingham says it was the call of the common man for social and economic eco-nomic security which was one of the two chief causes of the growing centralization cen-tralization of government. He cites as two examples, the labor group which demanded that their interests be looked after, and the farmers. (The labor department, which had been a part of the department of commerce since 1903, was created a separate unit in 1913.) Bingham says that the vast organization under un-der the department of agriculture was the result of the insistence by farmers that agriculture be recognized recog-nized and assisted. The second revolution, the demands de-mands of which brought about additional addi-tional federal activity, according to of the bureaucrats, note the statement state-ment from authentic sources that after the war industry is going to encourage the perpetuation of some of the functions of the OPA and the WPB because it Is thought they can help stabilize industry. On the other side of the medal, again, Just to preserve a nice balance, bal-ance, what about the GI Bill of Rights? That law puts into the hands of the federal government the administration of the greatest welfare program ever framed. I take it that high, low and middle are willing to pay for the bureaucrats bureau-crats lb run this program out of the federal treasury. It was passed unanimously by congress. So it goes. We can boil down the debate in congress over unemployment insur- . ance and the effort to put the administration ad-ministration of the payments into the hands of the states, into a much more immediate and practical question ques-tion than the broad principle ol i states rights, centralization of government gov-ernment or the growth of bureauc- ' racy. It is a simple matter here of whether the administration (any ' administration) handing out the benefits directly, sets up the office of-fice holders who do the handing out, or whether the state governments (state political machines) assume these gracious functions. In othei words, who gets the political support sup-port in return? I'm sorry but that's the way It Is. |