Show tugwell handed big rural job to administer part of works Proy program b rani taxation plan hits immense fortunes by EARL GODWIN ASHINGTON It exford G washington Tu tuga bugnell gNell ell easygoing easy going undersecretary of agriculture and number one brain trustee has beer been put in charge of a wide section of the work relief program known as hural resettlement lie he Is the presidents right hand mat man on changing the rural relief payments to employment PION ment and Is instructed to carry on with one thing in mind namely to get emloe tables off the dole and on tile the job one lay day last winter one of the high lights of the power trust lobby here took me aside and whispered codil dent denti lally ally roosevelt Roo Revelt Is going to get rid of the entire brain trust augell Tu gell giNell first placing jilin him in charge of this big rural resettlement work bear out the whisper which was a part pan of the drive to discredit not only tug nell ell but the entire group of intelligent and unselfish trained men who are liere here to help plan recovery and reform and who are doing so we should have more unselfish nonpartisan intelligent men in government but there Is a constant warfare on such men by the politicians who look on them as intruders know log ing how to reach the public the politicians ticiano have spread ridicule against the nonpolitical non political scientists in high government position one of the most effect he e tricks against the braio brain trust Is the school boy cartoon making fun of the professor instead of discarding his strong men of intelligence and training roosevelt Is going to depend on them more than ever now that the pro program ram Is getting under way for the second phase of the new deal administration of reform functions like the federal power commission tile the investigation into the cell bell system the control of the stock exchanges with its dally daily hunt for crooked securities and all similar activities require brainy men who have no political partisanship and to whom mental integrity Is everything this country should be proud to have men of that sort in office and I 1 think most people cople feel that way the extensive program of rural resettlement sell ement which bich will put men and women employ ables to work in the rural areas Is based on work these people can do most of them live on lilt the land ballu have been brought up in farming areas and should work at the sort of jobs naturally arising in their own lives and experience tuga ell will soon announce the broad outlines of his program they will be based largely on actual farm work on the patching up of areas eroded by wind wilid storms eaten away by floods spoiled by forest fires there will nill be road work hood flood control work and work connected with rural electrification 0 0 0 HITS GREAT FORTUNES I 1 think tile the country at large missed tile the implications in tile the presidents message ge to congress boutil outil outlining n ing a program or of taxation on the larger concentrations cent rations of personal and corporate wealth it was neither a soak the rich nor a share the burden plan but a social program for leveling off tile the top of fortunes pyramiding pyram iding through the clouds creating the well recognized dan dangers gers present in too great a concentration of wealth and economic power mr loosevelt Koo sevelt has been talking about this process of shaving off on tile tops of tile alie financial mountains for a long time I 1 know that he discussed the thing at a birthday dinner in january 1929 at albany then lie he made a brief reference to it at chicago when he hew flew there to accept the nomination certainly roosevelt Hoo sevelt Is not the first roan man to advocate such a thing he happens to be 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 are the hie government would ret get a relatively small amount of money from inheritances heri gift taxes anil and even super taxes on the million dollar incomes in contrast to the billions needed to run rain the government for the past dozen years but we have reached the point where many people are tired of talking about these large aggregations of inherited he unearned and lightly taxed wealth and there is a disposition to do something about it paragraphs on this ma matter t ter were cheered several times when the message was read in the house he certainly lias has tile the lawmakers with him and I 1 imagine 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 ut that such a tax Is a tax on thrift was immediately started but the truly thrifty know better than that roosevelt points out there Is no so caal danger in thrifty of moderate size but the vast swollen fortune has been attacked attack ed by defenders of social justice for a long iong time little this roosevelt Is not half so insistent on leveling of these mounds of gold as theodore roosevelt noo sevelt buas but this I 1 roosevelt has a congress that will do something about it it theodore used to be content it seems in calling names such guch as of great wealth Ir franklins claim that tile the country Is in danger from these centralized pools pool of wealth in personal hands means h he ces hint it tile die old american spirit Is being diluted by too much luxury what we need Is less pie and more pioneering so also with fill corporations tile the presidents suggestion that large corporations po rations pay a higher tax rate than small ones Is a move toward breaking business into sin smaller aller units roosevelt frankly realizes that size 1 Is ft a danger after it ren clies a 4 certain point that Is one of justice Pran Br andels deis ideas idea too this is not personal flair or jealousy or anything of that sort rather it Is an intelligent understanding of the truth that nature wants to express itself through the individual ns its far as possible it Is a re return turn from so called rugged individualism to I 1 individual n ruggedness to the place where the storekeeper will not dot be run out by the chains or the oversized merchant prince it seems to we me to indicate a return to workmanship as contrasted to mass production prod ution which might be something to develop after all I 1 dont think we could ever return to the old village cobbler rather titan than the shoe factory but we will I 1 believe have less of the slave lave s 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 be ills to have practical aspects the work relief pr program is starting 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 nil all time plan to take care of hard lucic luck by system and not by chance the social security popular name Is old age pen pension slon but theres more to it than thad that there are five broad activities namely federal aid to dependent children to public health programs to tile the indigent blind built up pensions to aged dependents and a system of compensation jo to provide a fund against periods of unemployment nearly every other country attends to these matters on a national scale we have been leaving them all to th the states stales with the result that some states do and some states do not come in on the program the new program puts a federal backing to all of 0 it provides federal standards and contributes federal money to be matched by the states which will come up to rather easy federal standards there Is nothing startling about the fele federal ral governments aid in public health child welfare and similar beneficial activities nor should there be any disposition to look on social insurance against om 01 aged age and unemployment as a cure all for poverty 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 land unemployment is merely a systematic savings fund workers contribute a mite mile out of each pay envelope employers COD contribute tribute a mite week after week the states supervise the federal government takes the funds and puts them in the united states treas treasury tiry the federal government contributes up to 15 13 a month for old age pen pensions sloin to states that will contribute as duct for their dependent aged eventually the plans pas for itself those there benefits will not be felt in the agricultural districts as soon as in the industrial centers and the best reason I 1 can find for this Is that farm leaders here have not yet been able to agree among themselves on methods oil for collecting the weekly or monthly small amounts from the workers nor for a way to levy the tax on the employing farmers I 1 talked about this to miss frances perkins secretary of labor and a social insurance expert this Is what she told me tile the treasury officials cant find a way to handle the enormous number of small amounts necessary in a social insurance plan for farm workers but after we have had a little more experience with this thin thing I 1 think the treasury will know how to t 0 proceed aubrey williams second in command nl at the veder federal at emergency relief reder administration and one of 0 the worlds experts on social insurance matters also discussed this matter with tile me mr williams points out that pending a method for collecting and accounting for farm workers insurance payments the government Is malting making agriculture more and more secure through the AAA through the various credit aids to agriculture farm loans etc that Is true elou enough gh but here Is a hint those who want old age pensions and job insurance may help it along by agitating the subject states which go in for a high grade policy of old age pensions will get 15 apiece per month for indigent aged and the states must pay at least 15 they may pay more but 15 Is the minimum which means at least 30 monthly for the old people who ho cant support themselves eventually wherever old age pension plans of a high order have b been cen put into effect the old time county poor house has closed its doors passage of the social security bill sounded the death knell for this session at least of the townsend plan to pay a month to all over sixty years and to buey longs share the wealth plans those nightmares which terrified terri Gedl the lawmakers six months ago were trotted out inspected and not merely voted down but laughed down looks like our lawmakers were getting some sense A NA N A 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