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Show Tugwell Handed Big Rural Job To Administer Part of Works Program; Taxation Plan Hits Immense Fortunes By EARL GODWIN WASHINGTON. Rexford G. Tugwell, easy-going undersecretary un-dersecretary of agriculture, agricul-ture, and number one brain trustee, has been put In charge of a wide section of the works-relief program known as "Rural "Ru-ral resettlement" He Is the President's Presi-dent's right-hand man on changing the rural relief payments to employment; em-ployment; and Is Instructed to carry car-ry on with one thing In mind; namely, to get employables off the dole and on the job. One day last winter one of the high lights of the power trust lobby here took me aside and whispered confidentially: "Roosevelt Is going to get rid of the entire brain trust. Tugwell Bret" Placing him In charge of this big rural resettlement work doesn't bear out the whisper, which was a part of the drive to discredit not only Tugwell but the entire group of Intelligent and unselfish trained men who are here to help plan recovery re-covery and reform and who are doing so. We should have more unselfish, nonpartisan Intelligent men In government; gov-ernment; but there Is a constant warfare on such men by the politicians, politi-cians, who look on them as Intruders. Intrud-ers. Knowing how to reach the public, pub-lic, the politicians have spread ridicule ridi-cule against the non-political scientists scien-tists In high government position. One of the most effective tricks against the brain trust Is the school boy cartoon, making fun of the pro-., pro-., , lessor. Instead of discarding his strong men of Intelligence and training, Roosevelt Is going to depend on thera more than ever, now that the program Is getting under way for the second phase of the New Deal. Administration of reform functions, like the federal power commission, the Investigation Into the Bell system, sys-tem, the control of the stock exchanges, ex-changes, with Its dally hunt for crooked securities; and all similar activities require brainy men who have no political partisanship and to whom mental Integrity is every thing This country should be proud to have men of that sort In office; V and I think most people feel that way. The extensive program of rural resettlement, which will put men and womfn employables to work In the rural areas, Is based on work these people can do. Most of them live on the land; have been brought up In farming areas, and should work at the sort of jobs naturally arising In their own lives and experience. ex-perience. Tugwell will soon announce an-nounce the broad outlines of his program ; they will be based largely large-ly on actual fnrm work, on the patching up of areas eroded by wind storms, eaten away by floods, spoiled by forest fires. There will be road work, flood control work, and work connected with rural electrification. elec-trification. HITS GREAT FORTUNES I think the country at large missed the Implications In the President's Pres-ident's message to congress outlining outlin-ing a program of taxation on the larger concentrations of personal and corporate wealth. It was neither a "soak the rich" nor a "share the burden" plan ; but a social so-cial program for leveling off Hie top of fortunes pyramiding through the clouds, creating the well-recognized danger present In too great a concentration of wealth and economic power. Mr. Roosevelt has been talking about this process of shaving off the tops of the financial mountains for a long time; I know that he discussed dis-cussed the thing at a birthday dinner din-ner In January, 1020, at Albany; then he made a brief reference to It at Chicago when he flew there to accept ac-cept the nomination. Certainly Roosevelt Is not the first man to advocate such a thing; he happens to he the first President to put It right up to congress to get about the business of revising the taxes now. There Is more social value than financial value to such a revision; the figures prove that. As large as our American fortunes for-tunes are, the government would get a relatively small amount of money from Inheritances, girt taxes and even super taxes on the million-dollar Incomes in contrast to the billions needed to run the government gov-ernment for the past dozen years. But we have reached the point where many people are tired of talking about these large aggregations aggrega-tions of Inherited, unearned and lightly taxed wealth and there Is a disposition to do something about It Roosevelt's paragraphs on this matter were cheered several times when the message was rend In the house; he certainly has the lawmakers law-makers with hlra and I Ininglne that efforts to cry down a tax on Incomes ranging from a million to more than five million dollars a year, will not be successful. The argument that such a tax Is s tax on thrift was Immediately started; hut the truly thrifty know better than that. Roosevelt points out there Is no social danger In thrifty Inheritances Inherit-ances of moderate size; but the vast "swollen fortune" has been attacked at-tacked by defenders of social Justice Jus-tice for a long time. This Roosevelt Roose-velt is not half so Insistent on leveling lev-eling of these mounds of gold as Theodore Roosevelt was; but this Roosevelt has a congress that will do something about it Theodore used to be content, It seems, in calling call-ing names, such as "malefactors of great wealth." Franklin's claim that the country Is in danger from these centralized pools of wealth In personal hands means he sees that the old American Ameri-can spirit Is being diluted by too much luxury. What we need Is less pie and more pioneering. So also with corporations. The President's suggestion that large corporations pay a higher tax rate than small ones Is a move toward breaking business into smaller units; Roosevelt frankly realizes that size Is a danger after It reaches a certain point That Is not personal flair or jealousy, or anything any-thing of that sort. Rather It Is an Intelligent understanding of the truth that nature wants to express Itself through the Individual as far as possible; It is a return from so-called so-called "rugged Individualism" to Individual In-dividual ruggedness; to the place where the storekeeper will not be run out by the "chains" or the oversized over-sized merchant prince. It seems to me to Indicate a return re-turn to workmanship as contrasted to mass production, which might be something to develop, after all. I don't think we could ever return to the old village cobbler rather than the shoe factory; but we will, I believe, have less of the slave driving mass organization and more personal and Individualized effort when the Roosevelt Ideals prevail. SYSTEM NOT CHANCE The administration plans for a Job for every employable and a cushion against hard luck and old age begins to have practical aspects. as-pects. The work-relief program is starting; start-ing; the social security bill is now through both houses. We are on the threshold of the era when we will be operating a nation wide, all time plan to take care of hard luck by system and not by chance. The social security popular name Is "old age pension;" but there's more to It than that There are five broad activities; namely, federal aid to dependent children; to public pub-lic programs; to the Indigent blind; built up pensions to aged dependents; depend-ents; and a system of compensation to provide a fund against periods of unemployment ' There is nothing startling about the federal government's aid In public pub-lic health, child welfare and similar sim-ilar beneficial activities. Nor should there be any disposition to look on social Insurance against old age and unemployment as a cure-all for poverty; pov-erty; It will not usher In a new world nor -will It destroy the old. It is by no means a dreamy-eyed perfectionist program. Details of the plan are Intricate and endless; but in a word social insurance against old age, poverty and unemployment Is merely a systematic sys-tematic savings fund. Workers contribute con-tribute a mite out of each pay envelope; en-velope; employers contribute a mite week after week; the states supervise, super-vise, the federal government takes the funds and puts them in the United States treasury. The federal fed-eral government contributes up to $15 a mouth for old age pensions, to states that will contribute as much for their dependent aged. Eventually the plan pays for Itself. These benefits will not be felt In the agricultural districts as soon as In the Industrial centers ; and the best reason I can find for this la that farm leaders here have not yet been able to agree among themselves them-selves on methods for collecting the weekly or monthly small amounts from the workers ; nor for a way to levy the tax on the employing em-ploying farmers. I talked about this to Miss : Frances Perkins, secretary of labor and a social Insurance expert. Tills Is what she told me: "The treasury officials can't find a way to handle the enormous number num-ber of small amounts necessary In a social Insurance plan for farm workers; but after we have had a little more experience with this ' thing, I think the treasury will know how to proceed." I Aubrey Williams, second In com- ' mand at the Federal Emergency Relief administration, and one of the world's experts on social lnsur- ance matters, also discussed this ' matter with me. Mr. Williams points out that pending a method for collecting and accounting for farm workers' Insurance payments, the government is making agriculture agricul-ture more and more secure through the AAA, through the various credit cred-it aids to agriculture, farm loans, etc States which go In for a high- I grade policy of old age pensions will gee $15 apiece per month for Indigent aged, and the states must pay at least $15; they may pay more, but Sift is the minimum, whlrh means at least S.'iO monthly for the old people who can't support sup-port themselves. j Eventually, whenever old age pen- ' sinn plans of a high order hare been put Into effect the old time county poor house has closed Its doors. I a) Watrn NviDaDr L'n!o j |