OCR Text |
Show MARQUIS CHILDS Whether to Fight or Appease Congress Worries Bureaus crat waa elected governor of New York in 1928. He faced a Republican legislature. That governor sent proposal after proposar to the hostile legislature. legisla-ture. When the legislature turned him down, he went on the radio to take his case to the people of the state. When the Republican legislature emasculated emascu-lated his state budget, the governor, gov-ernor, fought them in the state courts and won. That governor was elected president of the United States In 1932 and was thereafter reelected in three successive elections. His name was Franklin D. Roosevelt That la one way to face an opposition legislature. Following such a line, the executive leaves the people In no doubt as -to where he stands. The record is written so that all may read it The other way is the way of appeasement It is the way of timid conciliation. And it is likely like-ly to be the way ot disintegration disintegra-tion and defeat When the Democrats Demo-crats match the Republicans in budget-paring and conservatism,, they will no longer be Democrats. Demo-crats. Copyright' 1948, by United Feature Syndicate WASHINGTON The men around President Truman are nervously trying to anticipate the wishes and the whims of the ' Incoming Republican congress. They are trying to do the kind of master-minding which will make it possible to avoid any vilolent clash with the new GOP house and senate. That is behind the timid approach ap-proach to the budget for the coming year which ia now being put together. Each department ia coming in with its estimate of how much money it needs. And each department head Is being told that he must cut and cut and cut again to meet the Republican Re-publican economy drive. This Is considered good strategy by those in the White House who feel the president should demonstrate that he can get along with congress. Thusv it is argued by the master-minders, master-minders, the president will take the wind out of the Republican aails. That was the strategy behind the dismissal of Wilson Wyatt aa housing expediter. , Wholesale Cuts But there are serious dangers In this strategy, as some bolder souls have pointed out First Is the very practical consideration considera-tion that the Republicans are bound to do some cutting regardless re-gardless of how much the Democrats Demo-crats have . pared the candle-ends candle-ends in their budget If these but there's that Republican congress" con-gress" seems to originate with the master-minders rather than with Mr. Truman himself. The budget bureau is Insisting that the no-strike pledge be Included in every appropriation bill. Some agencies that deal directly with large numbers of workers, such as the Panama canal and the Inland Waterways corporation, are bound to find this a handicap. It tenda to provoke pro-voke labor troubles where none existed before. If -the Democrats In the White House take on too much protective pro-tective coloration, it will not be poasible for the ordinary citizen to tell them from the Republicans. Republi-cans. That la not the way to preserve a healthy two-party system. If the two-party system sys-tem is to mean anything, there ahould be real dlfferencea between be-tween the two labels. Suppose that the gloomiest predictions of the leflsts come true. A Republican administration administra-tion after 1948 producea an old-fashioned old-fashioned Republican boom. That boom 'ends in a resounding resound-ing smash. If the Democrats, aa the opposition party, seem to be merely a tweedledum to the Republican tweedledee, with nothing to offer as .a valid alternative, al-ternative, then we might be tempted to follow a quack or a man on horseback. Here la a parable. A Demo- cuts are made on top of th cutting cut-ting already done, then the executive exec-utive branch of the government may find Itself seriously embarrassed em-barrassed for funds. While department heads do some wishful padding . when they go to the budget bureau with their estimates, they are presumably responsible men who are not interested in throwing throw-ing money out the window. They know that they will be called up to Capitol Hill to defend their requests. To tell these men that they must arbitrarily cut off so much here and so much there is dangerously dan-gerously short-sighted. If there is one thing the Truman administration admin-istration can do in the next two years, it is to build up a record. It can stand dp and be counted for what it believes to be right regardless of how unpopular ' those views may be with the GOP. Truman Policies The president haa frequently demonstrated that he can stand up to an unpopular decision when the issue is put up to him. The policy of "Don't look now, |