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Show Our GovemmeiF How It Operate i- 1 By William Bruckart INDEPENDENT AGENCIE THIS government of ours has : come such a gigantic thing only those who have daily com with it in all of its forms readily t.' ognize its magnitude. Consequen: Qn 1 there has developed throughout ara, 1 country a feeling on the part of tt.opherr1 sands that there are a lot of gov(tls 1 mental agencies whose existence jian f not justified. There are others who;3ruce not certain the government ought ".J be as big as it is, but they retain uwer unquestioning faith in those tlove ti elect to represent them. icctdei iharge There is plenty of ground for i-hlldre feeling In each Instance. The gove?" ment certainly Is doing a lot of thi:n that the Fathers of the Country ci bad not contemplate, but which asture p,fiv'i 1 ticians since have conceived, 'a'fje of these functions ought never ha)r0poe been started ; vast numbers of th(:hat h ought to be done away with now, l'" c the law of averages has worked agposai. and some of the things the governmway, Is now doing represent services wh the bl the country needs and which Its c: zenry finds of value In one maniht mse or another. lover- In the course of examining the gr ernmental structure in detail as have had to do in preparing these d cussions, I located a total of 53 age cies operating independently of fjPe(j established departments over whijjnc'e cabinet members preside. They spee w a total of about $60,000,000 each yea,jdre exclusive of the vast sum $9S5,(X'yie w 000 paid out by the veterans' adm; istration which has been discussperb, separately. So it would seem ft ,,,, there was sufficient reason for thlnucj1 Tennessee woman who, having reBne r criticisms of the great number of tpaus( reaus, boards and commissions, wr(QQy , to the President, saying that she cot( nl use one of the "useless bureaus" aigj, would be willing to pay the freigw)(:n charges on it If one were shipped pe's her. ; ..B Most of these independent ofBtgtep spend less than a million dollars rema year apiece. Some of them cost oi,ea(j a few thousand a year, but there a'chlld some whose annual cost to the ta: A payers range much higher. Sure'.jjeri-none Sure'.jjeri-none questions the value of the rad lT1 commission in these days when we JBUpp enjoy extracting things from the aterirl nor is there a question as to the pri,rou ciples actuating creation of the feyag. eral power commission. The boarun. of tax appeals amounts to a court atsjon serves taxpayers and the governme;ara alike. But there is the shipping board at gt the United States tariff commissk.peg and the federal trade commission aip)ar the bureau of efficiency, two or threjjer commissions to adjust disputes grovay ing out of boundary questions betwetperf the United States and its neighboracn, the national screw thread commif E sion, any number of memorial ai.f t battle monument commissions, boarc.chii for this and boards for that. TliBut tariff commission was created on tt. ; theory that the tariff question won' (jn( be taken out of politics, but politiciai uttl did not want that to happen. Tt.8igi federal trade commission was estate lished to protect the little fellow again;, the octopus of business, but there is school of thought that believes i started nowhere and continues on tbJea( course. a, There are such groups as the civ; " service commission who, if politician' ste kept hands off. might establish a feilfra eral service that would contain 011!: to satisfactory workers eventually; an' to the joint committee on printing tlirr " would hold down government costs o'asl printing except that the governmen: am departments and members of the housiold and senate are continually clamorin: ho: to stock the country with printed ma terial. ba: A board of mediation was set u iis to settle railway labor disputes, biv th there is little doubt that it could bt oi dispensed with along with two score; th' of other agencies. Maintenance of such organization! as the Smithsonian institution is ac- e cepted as a normal function of gov Di ernment, for it preserves to posterit; a physical record of what has hap- l pened and is educational, purely. A' e the other side of the Mall from thf eu Smithsonian in Washington, however is a beautiful building that serves a; wl headquarters of the Fan-Amerlcai 1Q union. S': It is supposed to knit the nations Pc of the two Americas. It has ncconv r plished some things, but it has failed J In many. Then, there are several agencies rep- ' resenting a wartime-hangover, suet ' as the alien property custodian, tlif m War Finance corporation, the raliroaJ administration. They are existing ho- n cause all of tills time has been required, re-quired, and more, to wind up theii affairs. There are the new agencies. too, the Reconstruction Finance corporation cor-poration and t he Federal Homo Loan bank board, the first strictly an enier-gency enier-gency relief corporation and ttie sei'-ond sei'-ond a permanent addition to the niv tion's financing unit. Good undoubted lv ly has come from the first and tlif s establishment of the Home Loan batiK y system Is generally recognized as fl j, move In the right direction, and li j, must lie remembered respecting thesf -j two that, theoretically at least, neither fl Is to result in added burdens for tin' taxpayers tor the money ,'hey pay out , Is in the form of loans and Is ropaj-able ropaj-able jf Hi. IB li. W, Morn Nhw.4jmmv I'inioo. 1 |