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Show President of the U. S. Has Biggest Job in the World By BAUKHAGE Newt Anahit and Commentator. WXU Service, 1616 Eye Street, N.W., Washington, O. C. WASHINGTON, D. C Once more events bring up the so far unanswered unan-swered problem, submitted to congress. Among other oth-er suggestions for various departmental depart-mental reorganizations, the plan created a presidential staff of "executive "ex-ecutive assistants." About all the public knows about this corps of assistants is that they are supposed to possess a "passion for anonymity." The other thing about them, which isn't usually admitted, ad-mitted, is that they have never functioned func-tioned properly. That, at last, is the private opinion of one insider who has watched them come and go from the beginning. The reason is simple: People who expect a decision deci-sion on an important matter won't take it from anyone but the President Presi-dent himself. mendous admin- sssssmsm istrative set-up. Baukhage Few people realize real-ize the extent of his functions, most of which aren't even suggested in the constitution, and few laws define de-fine them. They have grown like Topsy. We are reminded of the scope of the presidential duties by Willard Kiplinger in his "Washington Is Like That." He points out that the President Pres-ident as leader of his party runs the party policies through the national na-tional committee. Some times the party line isn't working. You recall re-call the stew over meat? A meeting meet-ing of Democratic party leaders, at the moment when the President was preparing to announce at a news conference that he opposed removing remov-ing the controls on meat prices, passed a resolution asking Chairman Chair-man Hannegan to confer with administrative ad-ministrative officials concerning the removal of such controls. Must Keep Close Check on Aides A pitiful example of the breakdown break-down of the White House machinery was the recent Wallace ruckus. . . . The President never need have been placed in the position he was. It is not a President's Job to read over every document submitted to him. No head of a business as big as the government would dream of trying to do that. But somebody should have read both the Wallace memorandum on foreign policy and the Wallace speech and apprised the President of what they contained and implied. Whether it is the President's Pres-ident's fault that he didn't have properly experienced hired help, is another matter. That his hired help didn't function, caused the damage. An explanation, if not an excuse, has been offered in this case. The job of reading ever public state- The President, as the top executive, execu-tive, heads the executive set-up and he appoints the men who run the executive machinery. He can't talk to each one every day. When there is friction a hot-box often develops. There are plenty of examples in history from Ickes and Wallace, back to Lincoln and Seward, and before. Chief Executive's Task Never Ends The President issues "executive orders" which someone has to write for him but which have the force of law and the President must see that they are properly interpreted. in-terpreted. Again there is trouble if these decrees tread on congressional congression-al prerogatives. He has to get bills which he favors fa-vors passed. Frequently he writes the first drafts of such bills with the help of his legal advisors. He is expected, if necessary, to "put the heat on" to get them through congress. con-gress. This means a lot of work In conference with congressional leaders on the phone and through his personal agents. A tactless agent can easily upset the apple- ments of administration members mem-bers to see that they didn't conflict was handled by the OWI during the war Before that the White House machinery had always taken care of such matters. That machinery machin-ery had not been again set in motion mo-tion when OWI ceased to function. The fault was not that the President Presi-dent didn't prevent the Wallace-Byrnes Wallace-Byrnes clash, but that he was not prevented from preventing it. 1 can think of only one similar bad mistake made by President Boose-i Boose-i velt which parallels the Wallace mix-up and it was due to a similar but not the same cause. It involved the highly technical question of the public debt. An "assistant," supposed sup-posed to be an expert, furnished the figures on which the President based an important public statement. The eagle-eyed financial writers caught it. The "expert" was called to account; ac-count; he furnished new figures, was wrong again and caught again. The President was forced to make a second public correction. The duties of a President are simply sim-ply too great for any one man. So Presidents have always had personal person-al advisors, some times they were given an office, some times they had no official title like Colonel House in the Wilson regime. Today To-day we hear little about presidential "administrative assistants" but we hear a great deal about a group of "advisors" who have failed to function func-tion properly in spite of the fact that unlike the executive assistants they lack authority. These advisors are too "close" to the President. And they have been criticized by other members of the administration for standing between department heads, the congressiorttl and party leaders. They are all old, close, personal friends of the President. They are i inexperienced in government. Whether President Truman's little circle of "cronies" has helped or hindered him is beside the question, j No one can dispute the fact that they were chosen because of their loyalty rather than because of their ! cart. Bemember how Tommy Corcoran Cor-coran used to get under the skin of congress? Many others, well inten-tioned inten-tioned and otherwise, who came and went, might be named. The President has to make up the budget, with the help of the budget director. If the director makes mistakes mis-takes or asks for too much or too litUe, it is the White House that takes the rap. This involves billions. He appoints the Justices of the Supreme Su-preme court and federal judges. A bad choice may be fatal, and yet one person can't know the personal history of every likely candidate. In this sense the President forms the legal thinking of his era. He is not only his own and his party's but also the nation's chief publicity man. A slip of the tongue not only can lose an election, but also could start a war. If war conies, he has to run it. for the experience. The question is whether wheth-er presidential duties, as they exist today, can be delegated even to a well-trained, highly capable staff. They can, is the answer, IF such a staff is not blocked by higher authorities au-thorities who, from motives of love, hate, politics, religion, temperament, tempera-ment, taste or previous condition of servitude, use such authority, other oth-er than in the public good. When Oscar, pet seal of the California Cali-fornia Academy of Science, died, it was found that he had swallowed $7.54 in pennies, nickels and dimes, ! plus a Canadian penny and an amusement token. But it was the DCOnies which were fatal the zinc ones developed poison. A Bussian engineer claims he has perfected ballbearings so small that i 50.000 can be placed in a match box. But will that make it any easier to roll your own? strategy in the field is based on broad objectives decided at home. It was by no means merely military mili-tary opinion which decided when and where the invasion of Europe took place. These are only a few of the things a President has to think about. We have omitted mention of many minor mi-nor but time-consuming matters such as whether the architectural beauty of the White House shall be altered with a new wing, or where some visiting potentate shall sit at the table. All full of dynamite. It was the death of Woodrow Wilson Wil-son which brought the presidential workload to public attention. He died, as much from overwork as from his disappointment over repudiation repu-diation of the League of Nations. Serious study of the problem of furnishing fur-nishing a means to lighten the presidential presi-dential burden began shortly thereafter, there-after, but it was not until 1939 that a specific plan was drawn up and |