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Show I NEWS BEHIND THE NEWS Written for The Telegram By Ray Tucker , , tin. It's a lot of fighting for control con-trol of a corpse. National Chairman Farley has discovered that there is no royal road for leaving the cabinet. The prospects are that he will stick around Washington for a while, . despite a desire to return to a i more private and profitable life, j The deal under which he was to organize a national distributing agency for a new low-priced car has apparently fallen through, though it has not been officially admitted by either side. The "Roosevelt recession," ironically, has made it impossible for the automobile company to float the $11,000,000 iiuue needed to finance the motor "Jim" was to popularize. Not even the powerful name of "Farley" stirred investors into a generous mood. Sales probabilities lor rival cars already established are not currently inviting. Chief cause of Mr. Farley'g trouble trou-ble is his loyalty to "the boss," and his refusal to accept any job where he would be expected to use his political influence. Had he quit six months ago before the market drop he would have walked into a swell post. But then the supreme court fight was on, and F. D. R. needed him. If he'd sign up with the folks who want to use him distillers or contractorshe contrac-torshe could still make a gorgeous gor-geous getaway. But he won't. It's a safe bet, however, that he'll eventually land on both feet and right side up. He always has! WASHINGTON -Several politi- 1 rally minded Rooseveltians have quietly proposed a governmental reorganization that would create a machine dwarfing the system James Aloyaius Farley has built. Details are still to be worked out, but the general idea is to group W P A. a revived P W A. the AAA and similar agencies under the field setup of the post offire. The nonpostal groups would keep their own personnel, preserve their identity, but they would have a loose tieup with the Farley organization. The local post office would become a headquarters head-quarters for almost all federal activities of an emergency nature, na-ture, resulting In the formation of a powerful pillbox in every city and hamlet. The scheme his been advanced as a money saver and efficiency giver, but its political possibilities possibili-ties are limitless as its sponsors haven't failed to note. The prospect pros-pect that Harry Hopkins may supplant Mr. Farley as postmaster postmas-ter general and Mr. Roosevelt's No. 1 politico for 1940 schemes furnished fanciful touches to the program. It sounds so fantastic that Washington suspects it may come true. The Washington press corps nurses a not. so secret grievance against the manager of President Roosevelt's press conferences Secretary Early. Mr. Early, presumably at the president's request, permits the publicity agents for every .government .gov-ernment department to attend F. D. R.'a biweekly interviews with the correspondents. Instead of sending Only one representative, some departments permit four or five to be on hand, and the bloc frequently totals 80 or 60 men. They pack the small circular office, of-fice, form a screen around the president's desk and handicap the men and women seeking his views on public questions. They also form a clique which greets Mr. Roosevelt's denunciations of his enemies with loud laughter, often drowning out his utterances. The system was originally installed in-stalled so that the acouta could inform their bosses what the president pres-ident said on matters affecting them, and prevent linea from being be-ing crossed. But it has become dangerously cumbersome as executed. exe-cuted. Mr. Early, however, refuses re-fuses to make any change. Says he: "They have just as much right to attend as the press:" The White House is secretly disappointed over the reaction to the special presidential message to congress. F. D. R.'s aids won't admit it. but they glued - their ears closer to the ground on this critical occasion than at any time since the early days of 1933. Both liberals and conservatives greeted ft with ill-concealed skepticism. skep-ticism. The former saw signs that Mr. Roosevelt's don't-hurt-busi-ness bloc Messrs. Jones. Ken-nedy. Ken-nedy. Garner, etc. had frightened fright-ened him into a backdown from pinkish objectives. He spoke of "conservation" rather than "power" "pow-er" when they expected him to ask for "seven T V A's." Though he headlined the recession, he raised doubt by failing to advance any thoroughgoing legislation for restoring private confidence tax revision, "death sentence" modification. modifi-cation. Business nren are saying to each other: "Is he kidding us again?" Capitol hill confusion tells the story. Tom Connally's cry 'Why did he call us into special session from the homes where we were investigating conditions?" produced pro-duced roars of laughter from floor and galleries, but nobody has given giv-en a satisfactory answer yet. Undercover Un-dercover suspicion is that the president was deliberately vague. His own leaders don't know what he means or wants. It's one row after another with the Republicans these days, only their scrap doesn't make the biasing bias-ing headlines which advertise the Democrats-new dealers' feud on Capitol hill. The fresh controversy rages around domination of the executive execu-tive committee of the national committee, which was assigned the task of naming the 100 members mem-bers who will frame marching orders for the 1938 elections. Factions Fac-tions struggling for control fall, roughly, into four groups the national na-tional committeemen themselves, the congressional iMartin-Snell-Vandfnbergi bloc, the Hooverites. the Landon remnants. Neither wants the other to "pack" the proposed body with a majority, and each has its own "program." They dovetail only here and there, their respective aims colliding on many major issues. Mr. Hoover's subrosa suggestion sugges-tion for five memberships antagonized antag-onized the house gang because he didn't include anybody from their side. He named himself. Alf Landon, Chairman Hamilton. Frank O. Lowden and Senator Vandenberg a representative enough group except for its failure fail-ure to mention House Leader Snell or Congressional Chairman Mar- President Roosevelt's stomach upset provoked a wag's remark that he should know better than to eat dinner at the National Press club and to sit between correspondents for two bitterly antinew deal newspapers. Nobody enjoyed the joke more than K. D. R. The fact is that be always eats at home when he must attend a public dinner. So the journalistic menu and men are exonerated. Notes: Texans say Leon Trotsky Trot-sky is carrying on a. busy correspondence corre-spondence with Americans . . . Senator King proposes a Hawaiian Hawaii-an plebiscite on statehood. . . . Opposition of A F L blocks plan to establish a labor standards board to regulate wages and hours. . . , Tax revision impracticable impracti-cable until budget needs are known which will be January 3. . . . Report is to be prepared showing show-ing amount and value of all goods purchased by government (Copyright, 1937. for The Telegram) |