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Show THE BULLETIN Bruekarf Washington Digest Old South' s Cotton Industry Government Reorganization Plan Emerges in Modern Setting Fails to Merge Similar Agencies ADVENTURERS' CLUB Presidential Plan Will Perpetuate All Agencies Created in Last Ten Years; Taxpayer Will Save Little From Proposed Consolidation Move. . "Who Goes There?" Preti Bldg., Washington, D. C. WASHINGTON. At I have often observed In these columns, our federal government is such a huge octopus that it is difficult for one individual to gain a correct perspective of the machinery. That is to ay it Is mighty hard to sit down, thumb through the list and say which agencies are worthwhile and which are just another set of Jobs. The thing is incomprehensible. And so It is that when Mr. Roosevelt; exercising powers for reorganization of the government given him by the last congress, submitted "plan No. 1" the other day, few there were who grasped the scope of the move. Equally, it is true that few persons were able, even after study, to point out all of the good points and all of the bad points, so complex is plan No. 1. X believe, however, after talking with many authorities, it should be said that there are both good and bad points, and nobody ought to be so silly as to deny the statement The President's executive order has established three new major units of government They are the federal security agency, the federal works agency and the federal loan agency. Into these three groups It is proposed to bring some 20 boards, bureaus and commissions, some great, some unimportant, but most of which, in the last few years, have been dangling at loose ends. : HELLO That is the one factor to which criticism ought to be applied. There is no doubt in my mind at all that the President's advisors, in the consolidation plan, or thedrafting President himself, dodged responsibility. I suppose it may have been too much to expect yet it does seem a better job could have been done in that direction. Why, for example, was the reorganization of this phase of government activities worked out with nothing to show in the way of abolition of some of these numerous agencies? It appears to me that if the eight or ten separate units that have been brought into the federal security agency were so closely related, then some of those units could have been disbanded and such functions as necessary could have been lodged in the jurisdiction of the remaining bureaus. The same observation applies to the federal works agency and the federal loan agency. Federal Relief Syttem Remaint Sore Spot I believe the creation of a federal works agency will accomplish a great deal of good, but it does not solve one of the festering sores, now and long since showing on the body politic. I refer to the federal relief system. While there will probably be no more of the fighting over the back-yar-d fence like tomcats, as did Secretary Ickes and Harry Hopkins, the plan No. 1 does nothing to wipe out the pernicious political racketeering that Hopkins permitted as bead of WPA. Nor does It keep government money from being literally forced down the throats of towns for building public power plants or for other uses, only to cre ate debt upon the shoulders of those taxpayers, as Harold Ickes did. There is nothing in the program either that will eliminate the use of federal funds, either through PWA or WPA, in spreading the effect of federal policies into state governments. I have written before of how federal officials actually "eovern" states or counties or municipalities by laying down rules which must be met before the money has been handed over. It is certain, therefore, that as far as public works is concerned and as far as public relief from the federal treasury is concerned, Mr. Roosevelt has accomplished almost nothing at all except to make the heads of the two units report to one administrator who, in turn, will report to the President This makes it appear, moreover, that a real need exists for passage of the bill drafted by Senator Byrnes, South e Carolina Democrat and staunch New Dealer that would place relief back in the hands of the states. Concerning a federal loan agency, however, there ought to be praise. That is, there can be better adminof polistration, better icy, if the President selects a sound man to serve as its head. . South Carolina's Ben. James F. Byrnes, whose bill to place relief administration back In the states' hands is, according to Mr. Brnckart, Jeopardised by President Roosevelt's governmental reorganisation plan for unifying and strengthening federal relief agencies. Nearly all of them have been responsible directly to the President, or to the President and congress. Many of them worked at vass purposes; many overlapped, and there was the attendant Jealousy, conflicts of authority, foolish resentment at each other's attempts to function. It was evident that Mr. Roosevelt hoped the corralling of these maverick agencies would add to the efficiency of the machinery. That must be accepted as the fact because he told congress there would be a saving of only about (20,000,000 annually. The anemic taxpayer, therefore, gets nothing out of the picture. Fault Will Accompany Virtues in Matt Move But what of those who previously headed the independent dangling, wandering type of bureau or board or commission? The plan proposes to make them subject to a new boss somebody In between them and the President It does nothing more than that Close examination of plan No. 1 seems, therefore, to amount to a bodily transfer of each of these setups, taking with them all of their faults as well as all of their good qualities. At the same time, it Is possible that such a grouping will accomplish something not visible on its surface. When several agencies, now operating in their own spheres, are brought under one general head, there Is a chance that some of the overlapping of work will be eliminated. I mentioned at the outset the difficulty of discovering these conflicts. If they are brought together, therefore, someone surely will find them and eliminate them. If that Is done, as it should be, there Is just a twinkling light of a possible saving to the taxpayer. One should always remember, however, that few government agencies once created have ever been abandoned. The jobholders are the best lobbyists in the world. Which brings us to the one definite objection that I have heard about the President's plan No. 1. That objection is that nowhere in it is there any effort made to reduce the scope of government Or, to express the same thought in an affirmative manner: Plan No. 1 will perpetuate without exception every agency created In the last 10 years under the guise of emergency legislation, relief for the destitute and business reform. one-tim- Security Agency It Plan't Hot Potato The federal security agency, if we have to have such stuff, is the hot potato of the whole collection in plan No. I. Into that group, there will be placed the social security board, the national youth administration, the Civilian Conservation corps, the United States employment service, the public health service and the office of education. mm HEADLINES FROM THE LIVE OF PEOPLE LIKE YOURSELFI By WILLIAM BRUCKART WNU Service, National A Just why such things as the public health service and the office of education should be tossed into that madhouse, no one seems to know. Under the reorganization act congress has 60 days in which to examine the President's plan, and approve or disapprove. That is to say, congress must vote a resolution of disapproval within two months, or the plan becomes operative. There isn't the slightest chance that It will be rejected. One reason the proposal wil not be rejected, if there was ever any chance of it, is that one of the Republican members of the house played dumb. Representative Taber of New York could not wait; he introduced a resolution of rejection on the day following submission of the plan No, 1, and he has just as much chance of accomplishing his purpose as a snowball has in the nether regions. I do not infer that the President's proposal ought to be rejected. That might be the conclusion after experts have gone through it with a comb. On the surface, Mr. Taber provided no basis of prestige for the Republicans by his act nor did he demonstrate his value as a national legislator. As for Republican tactics, especially on such matters as government reorganisation, they ought to distinguish between issues and making noise. I have a suspicion that Mr. Tabers resolution was as much welcomed by Democratic Leader- Rayburn as it was disliked by the Republican side of the house. Certainly, it will provide a measure of Democratic solidarity . . . fine-tooth- ed bow-eve- r, - O Wcitcra Nrwspupcr Union. EVERYBODY: a yarn from Hawaii but it isn't any tale of soft moonlight and hula girls dancing on the beach of Waikiki. You can forget all about the South Sea's glamor, for this is a grim tale of soldiering in a tropic land. A tala island of madness and murder on a dank, mosquito-infeste- d under a blazing, searing tropic sun and a sullen tropic moon. Charles Suval of Brooklyn. N. Y., brings us this tale, and it happened back in 1920, when Charley was in the army and attached to the 13th Field Artillery, stationed at the Schofield barracks near Honolulu. Hawaii has a pretty swell reputation here in the United States. It's supposed to be the next tiling to paradise. And I guess it is for the touron ists who live in the hotels and hang around a But for the beaches all day long. soldier, Charley says, it's anything BUT a paradise. Soldiers don't get much chance to loaf around on the beaches. In fact, they're lucky if they, ever see a beach. sun-bathi- Above photos show the old But Traditional Sliare-Croppand new in cotton picking. At Persists in top, Negroes going through the fields picking the bloomt Delta Region by hand, earning from 73 er Prepared by National Gcorraphle Society, Washington. D. O WNU Service. "the TO THE Mississippian spelled with cap- cents to $1.00 a hundred pounds. Below it the new mechanical picker which will glean one bale (about 1JS00 pounds of lint cotton and teed) an hour at an approximate cotl of 2i cents per 100 pounds. itals, is not the Mississippi's marshy mouths, but the triangle between that river and the Yazoo. There patient Nature and more than 5,000 tons of cottonallu- seed. laid down the tar-blaEmploy Researchers. mold vium and decayed leaf Managers of each of its 11 units that form the richest cotton report to a general manager and land this side of the benign his staff. Among its experts are Greek-letter-shap- ed ck Nile. This Delta "begins in the lobby of the Peabody hotel in Memphis and ends in Catfish Row in Vicksburg." It is as flat as a Netherlands landscape. In August towns loom on the pancake level of fluffy fields dotted with black men, women and children, trailing their bags and singing as they pluck the white gold. Vegetation la Lush. Rows of willows, honey locusts, cypress, and gleaming birches, swamp hickory mark the mesh of rivers, creeks, lakes, and bayous that make this an area of thousands of Inland islands. Like a lazy field hand the river drops its silt along its banks, then the channel narrows, twists and bends. An endless array of Negro cabins, some neat and whitewashed, others unkempt and dilapidated, surround the planters' homes, stores, gins and like mirages barns. Any Delta citizen will talk about soil with the fervor of a Caliiornlan praising sunshine, or a Gloucester fisherman sizing up a nor'eaiter. They teach soil in the schools, and talk about it before Rotary clubs. A research scientists in breeding and a "mule buyer" who cares for its 865 animals. There Is a head black smith with a gang of helpers, a building crew to keep its more than 1,000 houses in repair, a plant for its croppers, and a savings department where they may deposit their earnings. A physician is always on call and presides over the hospital where 87 babies were delivered last year, Workers' children attend seven county schools on the premises. Airplanes are hired to fly low over its fields and dust the plants with powdered calcium arsenate to poison the boll weevil. For the share cropper and his family the management furnishes a cabin, mules, fuel, water, tools, cottonseed, and credit for clothing, food, and other necessary provisions. Each worker of the family is allotted six acres to grow cotton, and two more acres for his own corn, vegetable garden, cow and The Schofield barracks are 28 miles from town. In 1820, those barracks weren't either modern or comfortable. Just a bunch of wooden buildings with darned few conveniences. The place was hot, and it swarmed with mosquitoes. "It was bad enough for us says Charley, "but for the like Charley hat rookies it was plenty tough." Most of the been stationed In the tropics before. They were used to it The rookies had to get used to it, too and most of mem did. But a few of them ' were sent back to the States with their papers marked "undesirable." And nine times out of ten that meant that the poor rookie had cracked under the strain of sweltering in the sun all day and lying in a hot bed slapping at mosquitoes sll night ," old-time- rs Strange, Moody Youngster Surprises Barrack Mates. There was a young lad In Charley Saval'a outfit whom everybody spoke of as "The Kid." He was a quiet youngster from the first, but the longer he stayed at the Schofield barracks, the more quiet and mere moody he became. lie kept to himself most of the time, and since be didn't seem to want to be bothered with friends, the other lads In the barracks left him strictly atone. No one thought least of all Charley that that kid was close to the breaking point Nor did anyone even dream that before long he would be' the cause of a grim and heartless tragedy. Bat it wasn't so many days after that that the kid was put en guard duty one night and what happened thereafter Is what we're going to let Charley tell us about new. Says Charley: "We had been having a torrid spell for more than week, and when it's hot in Honolulu, it's plenty hot The air was is meat-curin- g - Then, suddenly, The Kid's gun went np. He fired. damp and muggy that it seemed to stick to you like glue. We tried all sorts of dodges to keep cool, but none of them seemed to do any good. "One night four of us, Corporal Bradley, Corporal Howe, a private and myself were trying to get some relief from the heat We drank too pigs. much of the native drink called OKEOLEHUE. About midnight we Shares Divided. started to stroll around a bit all of us feeling pretty good. We walked At the end of about 125 days the toward the gun park, and as we neared it we were challenged by of worker receives exactly i cotton he sentry." the current price of the Those four lads recognised the sentry's voice. It was The Kid. ' Usually be was quiet and moody, but now his voice sounded sullen and angry. "What do yon mean by making all that racket? " he growled. one-ha- lf banker will assay the fine, sandy " loam between thumb and forefinger The Kid Had a Strange Look in His Eye. as he passes upon a plantation mortThe Kid had his .45 Army Colt out of Its holster. As they gage. And when it comes to Yazoo came nearer, Charley saw that he had a wild, strange look la Us "buckshot1 and the underlying clay eye. It might have been a warning to him, but It meant nothing stratum then the paeans well to the to Bradley. After quite a few drinks of okeolchue, Bradley was tenderness of poetry. In s fine Jovial mood. Grinning from ear to ear, he waved a Delta Dirt Wins Votes. hand at The Kid. careless John The late Sharp Williams, "One side, rookie." he said. "And next time you see the leneraL. senatorial "sage of Yazoo," he of to salute." don't j forget and rapier wit ready response famed In Washington for World war Then, suddenly. The Kid's gun went up. He fired! "Bradley," and states' rights orations, won says Charley, "died before he hit the ground. Howe and the private stood looking stunned. My own brain was spinning around in circles, many home votes, they say, by but instinctively I tackled The Kid around the legs, bringing him to his sheer eloquence about Delta dirt You drive out to the cotton plantaknees. Then Howe closed in, trying to help, while the private ran back auto tires, toward the barracks for more men." tions on n wheel, to steered by a Charley says that by that time The Kid was a raving maniac. He fired a shot ss Charley tackled him and another at Howe as he came take a picture of a cotton gin with to Charley's aid. After that be kept right on shooting shooting films that utilized cotton linters. at anything in sight The pharaobs of this former flood plain are the affluent planters, also The Kid Gets a Fresh Clip of Cartridges. the corporations and northern insurCharley had a grip on his guu hand. None of the shots had dona ance companies that now operate any damage. But In the heat of the struggle Howe gave Charley a push. thousands of acres they took over lost his grip on The Kid's arm. Charley cotton the slump. price during was Just for a second but It was disastrous. The Kid had It "But we sre not In the cotton Ms gun, and now he used that moment of freedom to to want we into emptied don't go business; take out the empty clip from his aatomatle and Insert a fresh the cotton business," insisted a Bosload of cartridges. Before Charley could get hold of his arm be ton banker one day in 1831. had fired another another. cotton in the mixed all "Well, you The first shed found its mark in Howe's stomach. The second bit business in the sixties; anyway, you are in it right now," drawled a Delta The cotton plantations into Charley's shoulder. Blood began to flow from the wound, and the planter as he laid a pile of mort- blacksmith working on shoes sight of it made Charley mad. "I lost all caution," he says, "and al my Ideas about taking The Kid into the barracks unhurt I began looking gages on the banker's desk, bowed for the mulct. around for a weapon, picked up a heavy stone and threw it as hard as low, and set forth for a trip to raised, the amount of his rations I could, aiming straight for The Kid's head." Europe. account is deducted, and he is handScott Farm Is Example. The stone found Its mark. The Kid went down and lay like ed the balance in a lump sum. The Scott farm, north of Greena log end the traglo battle was ever. In some poor years he may reville, Illustrates how share cropping Both Howe and Bradley were dead when they picked them up. planta- ceive less than his store bilL Then They were buried with full military honors. Charley went to the hosoperates on a tion, where owners find it profitable the account is closed and the plantapital, and by the time he got out The Kid had been sent back to the to keep workers healthy, happy and tion takes that loss in addition to States. Charley doesn't know what became of him but he doesn't contented to remain year after year. overhead The Kid any ity feeling. After all, it wasn't his fault You can bear In 1931 the Scott farm wrote off The Scott establishment is the lay the blame on the sun and the heat and those doggone mosquitoes. principal holding of. the Delta and $80,000 in unpaid tenant accounts. Copyright. WNU Strvle. d Last year it paid a single tenant Pine Land company, biggest cotton plantation in family of man, wife, and four children 81.480 for their share of a the United States. 60 Old, It uses mules, not tractors; pays good crop. known bowler this in London some 140 years aco. When The in hat in and not Scott store The shares its workers by general annually BritIts the he first wore It he was arrested for as got country derby, daily wages; and picks by hand, not reports about 8260,000 gross sales. ish name through having first been inciting a riot; the complaint was 280 own Scott is families it at Thus typical, Negro by machinery. made more than 60 years ago by made that timid persons were except for its size, of many of the automobiles, ranging from new cars William Bowler of St. Swithin's lane frightened by its sheen. A century to museum pieces. larger Delta plantations. Norfolk a of to farmer. the design ago a Frenchman, Antoine Gibus, some f time At The Scott farm alone, exclusive thrifty crop- The bowler or is popular in contributed the opera hat spring. derby n desome of a of two subsidiary holdings (at land, buy patch pers and has many adherents This is the only successful mechanand Estill , spreads over an area posit their savings, others indulge Britain bowler is a symbol of ical device in the hat business, and The here. nearly as large as the District of their fancy for such characteristic solidity. The high silk hat repre- the inventor's family receives royDelta Negro luxuries as gold teeth, Columbia. On it live about 900 famsents lofty social standing. John alties from it High hats are all ilies, aggregating 3.330 people. In riding on trains, and the inevitable Hetherington invented the "topper" made by hand. 1838 it sold 13.200 bales of cotton "rolling the bones." cotton-reinforce- d part-cotto- wild-sho- oting shot-Hu- id well-manag- British-owne- . Bowler Hat, pay-of- Dee-so- Years Known as Derby |