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Show mi i.. ,)..: V-!. - -V. -ji-Wie-n - - s-' ..ySiii I in --- Washington. In this so-called modern civilization of ours when we are supposed to Network keep pace with of Spies Progress, every one of us is confronted con-fronted every day with some sort of government regulation or restriction. restric-tion. We are told what to do and what not to do and a good many politicians want to increase the number of things we are told to do. Included in this modern civilization civiliza-tion is a perfect network of spies who bear official titles of one kind or another, and probably the most insistent of these spies are the agents of government who look after taxes. All of which is necessary because tax payers undoubtedly will dodge a little if they can get away with it. The federal government has a good many thousands of them; state governments have them and county and city governments maintain main-tain a veritable army of employees whose job it is to check up on taxpayers. tax-payers. They do their job thoroughly. thorough-ly. Make no mistake about that. If the taxpayer does not come through in accordance with the orders of the tax collectors, there is plenty of punishment. Which brings us to the point of and the reason for this discussion. It sets the stage for the question: If the government, national, state or local, is so punctilious about tax collections, the gathering in of people's peo-ple's money, why is it that government-is not equally punctilious about the way the money is spent? This question is very much to the forefront fore-front now. It is a question of paramount para-mount importance because of a proposal pro-posal for governmental reorganization reorganiza-tion which President Roosevelt insists in-sists must be considered by the forthcoming session of congress. The federal government must ne reorganized. The reason for this reorganization, according to the President's argument, is that the present structure is inefficient, wasteful, and generally quite unwieldy. un-wieldy. It is to be granted, I think, that much of the present federal governmental govern-mental structure is inefficient, wasteful waste-ful and unwieldy. Throughout the government one will find various agencies charged with the same responsibilities, re-sponsibilities, doing things in opposite oppo-site directions, winding and binding red tape around the citizens until some of them scarcely can get a hand free to mark their ballots. The whole thing needs a thorough going over but, as I see the picture, this going over should be done with a view to making governmental machinery ma-chinery workable and rebuilding only where hastily conceived governmental gov-ernmental agencies and functions have demonstrated that they are acting as a deterrent rather than an encouragement to the nation as o tI.V,t I have no quarrel with Mr. Roosevelt Roose-velt concerning the need for changing chang-ing some parts of Changes the governmental Proposed machine. I have a very definite objection, ob-jection, however, to some of the changes he proposes. I object strenuously, stren-uously, for example, to his move to destroy the present setup for protection pro-tection against improper spending of the taxpayers' money. Specifically, Specifi-cally, I can see no possible excuse for Mr. Roosevelt's demand that the general accounting office be made subservient again to the whims of politicians by placing that agency under the control of a political appointee, ap-pointee, namely, the secretary of the treasury. That is exactly what is proposed, and if the President's governmental reorganization program pro-gram is accepted by congress in its present form, the President of the United States, whether Mr. Roosevelt Roose-velt or his successor, again will be able to determine to a large measure meas-ure how the taxpayers' money is spent. That may appear to be an exaggerated exag-gerated statement. One may ask about the constitutional provision which requires that all appropriations appropria-tions shall be made by congress. This would seem to prevent executive execu-tive mismanagement of the taxpayers' taxpay-ers' money. Such, however, unfortunately unfor-tunately is not the case because we have had proof under President Roosevelt's administration what can be done when one political party has such complete control of the machinery of government Congress Con-gress appropriated billions. True. But had there been no general accounting ac-counting office in existence, I doubt if anyone could have even guessed what would have happened to those vast sums of money. It has been my privilege to watch operation of the federal government almost 20 years. Because of that experience, I think I am able to say that I am more conversant with the tricks to which politicians resort in getting money out of the treasury than persons who have not had an opportunity to study the government as it actually functions. And because be-cause of that experience, I am going go-ing to make the unequivocal statement state-ment that unless congress rcpells Mr. Roosevelt's plan to destroy the curb on trick and illegal spending, this nation and its citizens will pay for the folly in waste not now conceivable. con-ceivable. Someone might arise and say that my statement is unjustified because there was not such Drain on a terrific drain on Treasury the treasury before be-fore the general accounting office came into existence ex-istence in 1921. My answer to that is that there was a tremendous drain on the treasury before 1921 when the accounting, auditing of bills and checks, was done by individual indi-vidual agencies of the government. The difficulty is that, except for war time agencies, the cost of running run-ning the federal government before the general accounting office was established was only about one-seventh of what it is now. None of the federal agencies then in existence exist-ence were as large then as they are now; none had as much authority authori-ty nor as great a scope of operations, opera-tions, and the bulk of the new agencies agen-cies have been born in legislation that is haphazard and undigested to say the least. The older agencies agen-cies of government have scores of workers who know how to handle their business. Regretfully, it must be said that most of the new agencies agen-cies are controlled by, completely filled up with, men who are unfamiliar un-familiar with the gigantic problems their jobs entail. Public sentiment is a thing difficult diffi-cult to understand. For example, millions of people became wrought up when President Roosevelt sought to increase the membership of the Supreme court of the United States by the addition of six judges of his own choosing. They rightfully fought back against the destruction of our judicial system. Fighting words characterized the criticism of Mr. Roosevelt and his New Dealers who sought to break down the system sys-tem of checks and balances created in our government by the founding fathers when they provided for executive, ex-ecutive, legislative and judicial divisions di-visions of governmental authority. So, I am wondering why thus far there has not been an outburst of vehement criticism of Mr. Roosevelt Roose-velt with reference to the proposed destruction of the check on spending. spend-ing. I am wondering, too, why people peo-ple who complain so violently against spies in the form of tax investigators in-vestigators should not demand of their government equal protection for the funds after they have been taken away from the taxpayers. There are two other agencies of the federal government which Mr. Roosevelt's reor-Two reor-Two Good ganization plan unes uoomea wi" evciiiumij uc-stroy. uc-stroy. Each has proved its worth. Each has a record rec-ord of service to the nation and protection pro-tection for individual citizens that cannot be ignored. I refer to the interstate commerce commission and the federal trade commission. The ICC has supervised the railroads rail-roads nearly half a century. It has compelled them to be fair when some individuals in the railroad industry in-dustry were inclined to cheat or take advantage of an unorganized segment seg-ment of the population. Sometimes there has been criticism of the commission com-mission for placing the railroads in a strait-jacket, but the good that the ICC has done far outweighs any damages it has caused. Yet, it is proposed in the President's Presi-dent's reorganization plan to take away the independence which has characterized the history of the operations op-erations of this agency. The President Presi-dent wants to place over the commission com-mission a political appointee responsible respon-sible only to the Chief Executive. Through all of the years I have worked in Washington, there has been a never-ending effort on the part of politicians to get their hands on the agency that controls the railroads. rail-roads. It takes no stretch of the imagination to see what would happen hap-pen if the politicians were able to succeed in this direction. I am quite convinced that if the ICC is subordinated sub-ordinated to the political philosophy of a presidential appointee, every one of us who uses the railroads will be paying toll. The toll will not go to the railroads but to the politicians. With respect to the federal trade commission much the same can be said. Like the ICC, the trade commission com-mission is quasi judicial. It is an independent agency. Times unnumbered, unnum-bered, it has stepped on crooked business and has forced business of this stripe to play the game within the regulations. On occasion, I have criticized specific actions by the commission as lacking in judicial consideration. By and large, however, how-ever, I think no one can say unqualifiedly un-qualifiedly that the federal trade commission has failed to do its job in the interest of individual citizens which, after all, is what government govern-ment is supposed to do. Western N w.sp.iprr Un: jn. |