| OCR Text |
Show National Topics Interpreted by William Bruckart yWJS, Washington. If I read the signs correctly, neither the Democratic nor the Itepub- Tarred With lican party is go- c cu lng to be able to Same Stick flny shouting in the campaign next fall about the graft and corruption that has taken place while the other party Is In power. The clothing of each party bears Indelible stains on that score, and if one could overlook the serious se-rious character of the malfeasance that has taken place, there might be occasion for a laugh. That is to say, neither party can point the finger of scorn at the other and plead purity before the voters. Just as Senator Black of Alabama, Ala-bama, a Democrat, head of a senate investigating committee, turns up some "pay dirt" In digging Into fraud In the award of ocean mail and air mail contracts under the Hoover administration, a District of Columbia grand jury turns out indictments in-dictments charging fraud In the award of contracts for the purchase of millions of dollars worth of motor mo-tor trucks for the army under the Roosevelt administration. Actually, the disclosures came within 24 hours of each other, although naturally nat-urally the Black discoveries were of Incidents that took place about two years ago. It does not change the picture, however, from the political po-litical standpoint. , Each party has found slime in its own household, and neither can deny It before the voters next November. In addition to the motor contract fraud charges that the Democrats must explain away, there have been numerous cases throughout the country of petty graft In connection with Civil Works administration affairs. af-fairs. None of these have been of more than local consequence in that they usually Involved only one or two persons hardly known outside of their own communities, but they have made up in numbers that which they lacked In size. And from the partisan standpoint, they constitbte the basis of trouble for the party In power when they occur. The reason Is that the average person in those communities will know all about that kind of crookedness, whereas a gigantic conspiracy of the type alleged In the air mail contracts or those involving the motor mo-tor trucks seem rather outside of the picture because they have no local lo-cal connections. In other words, we don't know the people concerned. But the President has moved with considerable speed on the charges In each instance. He ordered Postmaster Post-master General Farley to cancel the air mall contracts, not one but all of them, and turned the Job of carrying car-rying the air mail over to the army. He ordered Attorney General Cum-mings Cum-mings to go after the alleged crookedness crook-edness In the motor truck case, with the resulting indictments. All of which seems to give the present administration ad-ministration the advantage in the political battles that may be expected expect-ed In the campaign, yet the opinions opin-ions I hear around Washington do not support that view. The observers ob-servers and analysts Insist that neither nei-ther political party can make much use of arguments about fraud without with-out stirring up a fresh mess for itself. it-self. There Is, and always has been, a sharp difference of views about granting subsidies Mail for carrying the Subsidies alr mail anl the ocean mail. Aside from the fraud charges, it appears there is a natural basis upon which opinion may be divided. Roughly, those who favor the subsidies do so because it is the only way in which our government may encourage by direct aid the expansion of an industry. in-dustry. Those who favor subsidies point out, for example, that the mil-lenlum mil-lenlum has not been reached and that war is not banished from the earth. Why, then, they ask, should not the air craft industry and the shipping industry be encouraged to go ahead, develop, expand, experiment, experi-ment, produce bigger and better ships and planes? If there be war, those ships and those planes are available for government service. They are built; they are ready, and the government can command them Besides, if there be war, the Industries Indus-tries concerned will have plants and equipment and plans. Production of ships and planes for war can go forward at wartime speed. Thus, say the subsidy advocates, subsidies' for air mail and for ocean mail actually actu-ally are for defense of the realm In their full effect As a matter of cold fact, the use of subsidies is the reason why the American air craft Industry has grown and now equals or exceeds j the same industry anywhere else In I the world. As a further matter of fact- the use of subsidies has kept a good deal of American shipping I allve and. thereby, has kept Anieri can exporters from falling Into the clutches of foreign shipping com panies, who would have no competition compe-tition in numerous routes were the Americans to withdraw Those who attack the subsidies however, claim they constitute a vile discrimination. They allege them to be unjust use of taxpayers money, because they suck cash from the treasury that should be used for general purposes of government. Further, it Is the claim of subsidy opponents that such payments produce pro-duce monopolies, drive out domestic domes-tic competition which might not fall within the formula for subsidy payments. pay-ments. Generally, the opposition claims that subsidies add to the strength of the rich and the taxpayers taxpay-ers carry the burden. This extra load, the figures show, amounted to $54,453,000 in the last five years. As far as I can see, and I have done considerable research work on the question, the arguments of neither nei-ther side are Infallible. Each side, in supporting its view, is not wholly motivated by titilitarlan or nationalistic sentiment. I have always held the conviction convic-tion that each of us, as an individual, individ-ual, is and Take Themselves can be no Seriously more than Just one of the teeming millions inhabiting this old earth, and, holding that belief, I never have thought that any of us ought to be impressed with his own importance. In other words, "don't take yourself too seriously." But my philosophy of life apparently apparent-ly Is not shared by members of congress. con-gress. Most of them do take themselves them-selves seriously, very seriously. In proof of my statement, permit me to call attention to a small uproar up-roar that was created among several sev-eral members of the house of representatives repre-sentatives because officials and staff of the Farm Credit administration administra-tion failed to do a hop, skip and jump when the house members sought something or other from the credit administration offices. . The members became so wrathy that they decided they wanted to investigate inves-tigate the credit administration. The rules committee of the house, the committee that really determines deter-mines whether proposals for action by the house shall ever get before that body, had ljr. William I. Myers, farm credit administrator, before It Doctor Myers was told that there had been numerous charges of graft and irregularity in credit administration adminis-tration affairs and the house members mem-bers were trying to decide whether to delve into them. In the midst of this discussion, Representative O'Connor, a New York Democrat, burst forth with what the newspaper news-paper correspondents seemed to think was the real reason for the flareup about credit administration affairs. "The main reason we are considering consid-ering an investigation," said Representative Repre-sentative O'Connor, "is because we have trouble with farm credit officials offi-cials whose salaries we appropriate and whose jobs we create, and who think we have no control over them." The New York representntive called the credit administration "the department that sneers at congressmen," con-gressmen," and Representative Carpenter Car-penter of Nebraska, also a Democrat, Demo-crat, said he had tried to get an appointment with Doctor Myers but had failed to get by the administrator's adminis-trator's secretary. Doctor Myers denied any Inlent on his part or on the part of his staff to snub members of congress, but the representatives certainly felt they had been snubbed. While it Is no grief of mine whether a member of the house or senate wants to Playing have everybody Politics kotow to nim, I continue to be a menu oi me executive branch of our government and that friendship results from many years of observation observa-tion of its capacity to get things done. The records of congress through the years show distinctly, as far as I am concerned, how few times It has risen up to the full measure of the country's demands upon It It has persisted In "playing "play-ing politics," and the amount of demagoguery that Is printed in the Congressional Record each day Is enough to choke several of the best cows in the neighborhood. And under present conditions, I am moved to ask why, if these house members and senators are so Important, Im-portant, they obey the party whip and do as they are told every time there Is a bill sent to congress from the White House. From a long period of observation, observa-tion, I believe that representatives and senators do get most of the things they seek from the various offices in the executive departments of the government. Time after time constituents of a representative representa-tive or senator will come to Washington, Wash-ington, seeking favors or perhaps speed on a legitimate proposition and they ask their representative or their senator to help. I have boon 'n offices and have heard senators and representatives telephone the o'l'ce In the executive branch that 13 concerned, and they do not mince words in admonishing the man at the other end of the wire that a spec ihc thing must be done. And ifitls withm reason. It Is done, too by Western Newspaper Union. |
