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Show SEEN-' HEARD around the National Capital i By CARTER FIELD Washington. No final decision on Section 7A t lie Wlerton case can be obtained for one year. That is the inside view at the Department of Justice. Lawyers there do not see any way of short-circuiting the Circuit Court of Appeals, and thus getting tli" case before the Supreme Cour of the United States at once. This means that NRA must be extended by congress without benefit bene-fit of knowledge as to what the final ruling is to be. As a result the administration ad-ministration will press for extension for two years, as originally proposed, pro-posed, without any attempt to rewrite re-write or clarify Section 7A. This had been agreed upon by virtually every element concerned before the decision In the Wlerton case at a time, ns a matter of fact, when Washington thought the Wlerton case would he wod by the government. govern-ment. It is all the more essential now, because nobody can tell in advance how to rewrite Section 7A so as to bring it within the high court's views ns to constitutional limits. Prevailing opinion here Is that when the case is finally decided by the Supreme court the decision will reverse re-verse the Wilmington court, and uphold up-hold the government. And that the decision will be by the same five to four majority that divided the court in upholding the government on the gold clause case. But naturally opinion in Washington Wash-ington would be that, especially as it was felt so strongly that the case would be decided for the government gov-ernment in the lower court. Tliat is the way Washington, dominated by so many New Deal lawyers and Department De-partment of Justice attorneys, functions func-tions as to its legal thought. It is the reason Washington thought it. was a ten to one bet that the high court would uphold the government on the gold case, although actually the decision was by the tight vote of five to four, so that any one justice on the majority ma-jority side could have changed It. Not Before Christmas After the Supreme court decision of the Wierton case, which cannot well he expected before next Christinas, Christ-inas, there will undoubtedly be a new attempt to rewrite Section 7A if the high court decision should be against the government. But before that a lot of water will have run under the country's bridges. It may well be that the whole attitude of the administration will have changed. Best opinion is that some form of NRA will remain with us always. It goes to the essentials of the New Deal philosophy. Many lines of business, busi-ness, for reasons as far apart as the poles, want some phase of it retained. re-tained. In many instances the chief desire is to prevent competitors from "chiseling." But in others this is not the main motive at all. For example, in the coal Industry the saving grace of the code, as far as members of the industry are concerned, con-cerned, is the price fixing provision, whereas in many lines price fixing is anathema. In the coal trade, however, how-ever, It is generally admitted that the industry could never have been brought together on any code whatever what-ever had it not been for the price fixing element. Then along comes the Guffey bill, which if enacted would remove this one string that is holding the industry indus-try together for the code. Business as a whole, if the National Association Associa-tion of Manufacturers can be accepted ac-cepted as speaking for it, is opposed op-posed to the Guffey bill, which would virtually make coal a public pub-lic utility and impose drastic regulation. regu-lation. The United Mine Workers are strongly for the bill. The National Coal association, which might be expected to speak for the operators, has been absolutely abso-lutely silent, and Is expected to remain re-main so. But individuals in the organization or-ganization in Washington have declared de-clared heatedly that the bill is an outrage. Radicals, worried about the constitutionality con-stitutionality of NRA in view of the Wierton decision, are strongly for the Guffey bill, and anything else like it for other industries. They are interested in the march toward stricter and stricter control of everything ev-erything by the government. Utilities Campaign For the first time since the public pub-lic utilities came under attack, they have begun utilizing in an organized way the power of their army of stockholders. And they had to choose a time when there was another an-other issue, which was very much more appealing publicity for income in-come tax returns. The effects on the mail are prodigious. pro-digious. They threaten to swell postal receipts so much that Postmaster Post-master General James A. Farley will not have to resort to fancy bookkeeping to prove that the department de-partment is no longer in the red. Just ns an illustration, Senator Marcus A. Coolidge of Massachusetts Massachu-setts has been averaging 1,000 letters let-ters a day. Slightly more than OIK) of these urge that the law providing provid-ing for publicity for Income tax returns re-turns be repealed, and more than 300 protest against the drastic legislation leg-islation intended to eliminate holding hold-ing companies. In fact, the old-timers say you have to go back to the days of 1016 and 1017. when the United States was drifting into war, and there was an organized propaganda against it, to get anything like a comparable volume of mail. Mauv senators profess that they pav no attention to letters, which are obviously Inspired by some such propaganda. Hut when the letters come from voters in their states whose names are big enough to mean something to their secretaries, secre-taries, this aloof attitude becomes a mere poise. They are affected. And in these two Instances repeal re-peal of the publicity provision of the Income tax and the holding company legislation naturally a considerable percentage of the letters let-ters and telegrams come from influential influ-ential people, of whom a smaller percentage are apt to be on friendly terms, sometimes political supporters, support-ers, of the senators receiving the mail. Fight Over "Pink Slip" As a result of the present deluge, It is actually a probability and not just a mere possibility, tliat the "pink slip" provision will be repealed. re-pealed. Not without a fight. Senator Sen-ator Robert M. La Follette and Senator Sen-ator George W. Norris, both of whom at different times forced through income tax return publicity pub-licity provisions, will both fight repeal. They will be joined by many others. But expectancy now is that the provision will be repealed just the same. The house of representatives representa-tives never was very strong for It In each case where it was enacted, the resulting provision was a compromise com-promise forced by the house. Both Norris and La Follette wanted, and still want, the income tax returns to be made a matter of public record. rec-ord. They resent the "pink slip" Idea, which merely makes public a small part of the entire return, but also encourages newspaper publication publica-tion of the reported Incomes. Best information Is that President Roosevelt has no objection to repeal. re-peal. The treasury does not like the provision. His Position Stronger President Roosevelt is not weaker In strategic position than he was before be-fore his two senate rebuffs. He is immeasurably stronger. Stronger because be-cause he has progressed definitely toward the position outlined in these dispatches right after last November's Novem-ber's election the happj- and typically typi-cally Rooseveltian position of being in between two extremes. Let us dismiss the World court. It meant nothing but local sentiment in the states which elected the dissenting dis-senting senators. The lineup on the St. Lawrence seaway treaty will also mean nothing. The motives wiil be almost entirely geographical. For example, even if Huey Long loved and adored Franklin Roosevelt, he would still have to vote against that treaty, because almost to a man the people of New Orleans think the treaty would hurt their city by diverting di-verting business it now handles to the new route. But consider a much more important impor-tant question the prevailing wage fight in the work relief bill. Immediately after the last election it was apparent that hope for any successful opposition to the President Presi-dent in the 1030 campaign, ns far as the Republican party was concerned, was very low. Indeed. It also appeared ap-peared that the menace of a' new radical movement was so far nebulous. nebul-ous. Hence the chief problem of President Pres-ident Roosevelt, with most fear ns to 1936 opposition from purely political po-litical angles eliminated, became to prevent an economic situation developing devel-oping which would endanger him. In short, if in some way business could be made better, so that the hope of prosperity's coming back under his guidance should be strong in 1030, there would be almost no threatened threat-ened opposition to him in tliat year at all. In the Middle He had attained his old favorite position in the middle; with extremes ex-tremes on either side each of which would far rather have Roosevelt Roose-velt continue in the saddle than to have the other extreme victorious. Just as in the preconvention maneuvering maneu-vering in 1032 Roosevelt wound up with the supposedly dry South enthusiastically en-thusiastically for him. It had turned to him despite his wetness because it feared A' Smith might be named otherwise. The fact that Roosevelt, after the 1034 endorsement, stood squarely in between the radicals and the extreme ex-treme conservatives was obvious, but had not been demonstrated forcibly forc-ibly to the country. Many shrewd business leaders realized it. And at the same time gave up hope, in the face of those election returns, of getting back to the old order by 1030. So they were ready to support sup-port the President, mildly. Then came the work relief hill and the prevailing wage issue. And to the amazement of conservative business men, hoping Rol)s'PveU could beat the radicals, the most talked about candidate for the Re publicans in 1030, Senator Vanden-berg Vanden-berg of Michrgan one of the few Republicans to weather the 10"4 landslide voted with the radicals So did a lot of other Republicans generally regarded ns conservative And now friends of the President are busy building backfires mt parently to turn a few votes In the senate so ns to prevent this Ion-step Ion-step towards Socialism. CoDyncht.VV.NU Service |