OCR Text |
Show GRASSROOTS Government May Be Legally Right, Morally Wrong By Wright A. Patterson WHAT MAY BE MORALLY wrong may not necessarily be legally wrong. There was nothing illegal in a United States Senator's using his influence to secure a Reconstruction Re-construction Finance Corporation loan for a client of his attorney son, for which the son received a fee of $21,000, but the senator's action was definitely morally wrong. No court of law would convict con-vict him of legal wrong doing, but the court of public opinion the voters should convict him of moral wrong. At the next election, when that senator is r candidate for reelection, and all others who have been mixed np in the R.F.C. scandals, regardless re-gardless of political affiliations, they should be retired to private life. Such men should not be placed in positions of influence. They are not entitled to public confidence. The Fulbright committee brought these men into the limelight, but that committee cannot convict them as can the court of public opinion. Morally Mor-ally they are guilty as were those in the Harding administration, but they were smoother, and avoided legal wrong doing. So long as they were only morally crooked the President condones their offense, and sees nothing wrong in the action ac-tion of those on White House payrolls, and finds no reason for dropping them as pubiio employees. That is the Job the voters can do, but to do that It may be necessary to disci pline the boss. The R.F.C. and the sale of federal Jobs in Mississippi Mis-sissippi are both sorry messes that call for thorough bouse cleaning. Secretary of State Acheson refused re-fused to turn his back on Alger Hiss, convicted of perjury and President Truman condoned Ach-eson's Ach-eson's statement, as he has condoned con-doned the actions of White House employees in the R.F.C. scandals, on the grounds they have committed no legal crime. Evidently immoralities immorali-ties have no place in his conception of wrong doing, and such a conception concep-tion has no place in connection with the presidential job. Like the scandals scan-dals of the Harding administration, it is a sorry mess. Joe, Harry and Tom were all subject to the draft, and all three were asking for deferment for different dif-ferent reasons, which each thought was entirely legitimate. Congress has made no definite rule that will apply to those seeking deferment, but instead of doing so, it has passed that arduous duty to the President, thus again abdicating a job that is strictly up to the congress. con-gress. Congress has abdicated in so many instances that now the President has more authority than has any President in history. That is not unusual confidence I on the part of congress In the present pres-ent administrative branch of the government, but rather a desire to pass along to the President those subjects that call for careful consideration, con-sideration, or those that might af fect votes of the constituents of the members of the senate or house. It is the congressional version of "let George do it." Such action on the part of Congress Con-gress is unfair !to the President, and it is also unfair to Joe, Harry and Tom. It leaves the decision in their deferment cases in the hands of a partisan politician. It is time that congress was doing the congressional con-gressional job, the Job for which it was created, rather than continuing con-tinuing to "pass the buck" on subjects that call for thoughtful consideration. Now it is up to the President, rather than to the armed services to say who must fight or who need not and the ward or precinct pre-cinct boss can wield an influence. As of March 1, the Gallup poll shows only 26 per cent of the people peo-ple are for President Truman. That is the same poll that predicted his defeat only three years ago, because be-cause of which prediction many ardent Republican- lost election bets. It was wrong then, and it might be now. What do Republicans stand for in the matter of domestic and foreign for-eign policies? If the party leaders know, the; do not take the public into their confidence in any definite defi-nite detail, other tha opposition to a continuance of the Truman regime. re-gime. They do not even generally support the American free enterprise enter-prise system or entirely oppose the Truman welfare state. |