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Show National Topics Interpreted -H V'A-'Z by William Bruckart JlEM. National Press Bulldlns Washington, D, C. sCCDll Washington. It has been several months since the administration farm relief pro-Memory pro-Memory gram, the agrlcul- Lingers On tural adjustment act, was declared dead, but like the words of the song, "the memory lingers on." And It Is quite apparent that mistakes as well as memories of the AAA will continue through the heat of the coming Presidential campaign and probably considerably longer, for It Is only necessary to recall that the stepbrother of the AAA, the federal farm board of the Hoover administration, adminis-tration, still is the butt of much criticism and many pointed paragraphs. para-graphs. One of the main reasons why the memories linger on, where those memories Involve AAA, is Michigan's Michi-gan's Republican Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg. Senator Vandenberg never did get enthusiastic about the merits of AAA as they were expounded ex-pounded by Secretary Wallace, Administrator Ad-ministrator Chester Davis and other New Deal spokesmen, and when the Supreme court of the United States threw out the processing taxes upon which the law was predicated, Senator Sen-ator Vandenberg was In a delightful spot from a political standpoint. He has not found it necessary to say "I told you so" and has had, I magine, a great deal of personal fun in simply hinting to or reminding remind-ing others of his previous stand. But it was not until the Michigan senator began pulling figures out of his senatorial hat, showing how benefit ben-efit payments from the AAA had gone to great and wealthy corporations corpora-tions in sums as high as a million dollars or more, that he held a key to the New Deal skeleton closet. They know now, however, exactly what he meant when he announced 'n the senate several weeks ago that no such plan as the AAA could be administered without vast sums being be-ing distributed in what he termed' unwarranted payments unwarranted unwarrant-ed from the standpoint of help for the smaller farmers. Secretary Wallace stalled oft Senator Vandenberg's demand In the senate for a complete list of beneficiaries who received checks from AAA in excess of one thousand thou-sand dollars for quite a while, but there were too many senators who believed as Senator Vandenberg did, that the truth ought to be known. Of course, as the procedure usually goes in Washington, many things are done without actual force being used. It was thus In the case of the AAA payments. Democratic senators sen-ators who foresaw their inability to prevent a senate vote demanding a list of AAA payments persuaded Mr. Wallace to make public the list voluntarily vol-untarily and it was done just in advance ad-vance of senate action. So, we now have for the first time, at least, an Indication of the grotesque results of the agricultural adustment administration ad-ministration program that was hailed from the Atlantic to the Pacific as an ideal plan. The dynamite in the situation lies in the fact that there were doz-. doz-. ens, even hun- Dynamite dreds, of corpora-in corpora-in It tions which re ceived A A A checks among the big bounties paid to induce in-duce curtailment of basic forage crops. This would not be so bad except for the fact that the brilliant planners of the AAA continuously stressed its value to the small, debt ridden farmers. Throughout the time the law was under consideration considera-tion and through the two years of its operation, never did Mr. Wallace or Mr. Davis fail to point out In their numerous speeches how great sums of money, collected in processing process-ing taxes, were being distributed to thousands of farmers and that these payments were in time going to put agriculture on Its collective feet. Now, however, the truth of their statement has been proved, but when the whole truth has been exposed ex-posed on the floor of the senate, it was found to go far beyond the small, debt ridden farmers. The whole truth disclosed, In fact, that several million" dollars had been paid even to corporations chartered by the British government and with borne offices in England. Wall Street, that home of "entrenched greed," received re-ceived Its share, and its share was substantial. On top of all of this there latety has come a disclosure that a great wheat farmer in Montana Mon-tana received something like $50,000 for agreeing not to plant wheat on land which he had rented from the Indians through the Federal Department Depart-ment of the Interior for the specific purpose of raising wheat. The list of huge benefit payments is much too large to Include In this letter, but the fact remains that It showed how even the best laid plans of mice and men aft go astray, even when those men are brilliant brain trusters who themselves claim to tnow all there Is available for human hu-man understanding. Beyond that, the Vandenberg disclosures have set in motion discussion that will come pretty close to continuing into every farmhouse in the land. Unless I miss my guess, and I am no Doctor Tugwell, thousands of farmers are going to bitterly resent the fact that their payments were small, whereas gigantic corporations received sums ranging from ten to a thousand times as large. In behalf of the AAA officials, it must be said that there will be as, indeed there has Unfair been already, con-Criticism con-Criticism siderable unfair criticism. The criticism crit-icism to which I refer is of this type: that they should have discovered discov-ered In advance of the payments that funds were going to these corporations. cor-porations. Assuming that they could have discovered that fact In advance, there was no alternative for them except to pay the checks authorized by law. Congress made the law, or rather, congress passed it under the lash of the administration but It was on the statute books and administrative admin-istrative officials are not supposed to disregard such provisions. If there is to be criticism it should be directed at the initial framing of the statute that brought about the condition. The results that have attracted so much attention since Senator Vandenberg's exposure constitute con-stitute one of the curious coincidences coinci-dences and queer quirks of planned economy. And a further word about the criticism. A great many people are likely to forget that while their check was in three figures and some corporation received one In six figures, the condition results wholly from the fact that one owned more land than the other. You may properly say this should have been foreseen and I believe you will be making a correct statement. But surely this is a fact : the AAA officials offi-cials cannot be blamed for sending out the checks when the law said they should do It regardless of the name or nature of the beneficiary. The fault lies solely and completely with those who, from their professional profes-sional desks, conceived the whole scheme and gained President Roose-, velt's approval of it The development of the vulnerable vulner-able spots In the AAA crop curtailment curtail-ment program Vulnerable probably will Spots prove beneficial to the country as a whole eventually. For one thing, these disclosures have forever for-ever choked off proposals of that kind. They may result as well in strengthening the new proposition for crop control through the medium me-dium of soil conservation. In other words, since the bulk of the congress con-gress thinks through legislation only in the terms of administration arguments, they will likely be less prone to enact legislation without knowing what results will be obtained. ob-tained. It seems to me that the new farm-aid plan likely will be stronger strong-er and probably more workable and certainly less extravagant than was the AAA because the AAA weak nesses have been exposed. These exposures ought to have an effect also among thinking farmers who hereafter are unlikely to accept dogmatic dog-matic statements and rainbow pictures pic-tures painted for them by political demagogues and professional farm leaders without examining the practicability prac-ticability of the scheme. While we are talking about mistakes mis-takes and about the results ob-, ob-, , tained by brilliant tletcners theorists, I hear Brain Trust more and more discussion of the latest move by Chairman Henry P. Fletcher and his Republican national na-tional committee. Mr. Fletcher has hired ten university professors to head up what he calls the committee's com-mittee's research staff and in announcing an-nouncing their appointment he stressed a declaration that "the division di-vision Is not a brain trust." But "brain trust" it is going to be called notwithstanding Mr. Fletcher's assertion as-sertion that they were practical men and women of experience. They are going to be a brain trust In exactly the same sense that Mr. Roosevelt's "brain trust" has been denominated. And how else could it be? There actually seems to be little choice between the type of men Mr. Fletcher has chosen and the Tugwells, Hopkinses and other doctors and professors who have constantly had the ear of the President Presi-dent These men wil) have Mr. Fletcher's ear and undoubtedly will pour Into it their own theories of government and their own Ideas of approach to the problem that confronts con-fronts the Republican national commute, com-mute, namely, the defeat of Mr. Roosevelt I have observed political battles for a good many years and I have observed the management of governmental gov-ernmental responsibilities through a parallel period. The conclusion Is inescapable, as far as I am concerned, con-cerned, that practical men always have done a better job, always have been better administrators and better bet-ter planners, than the men and women who have spent their lives lecturing from a university cla'-room cla'-room rostrum. i Western Newspaper Union. |