Show 0 NATIONAL TOPICS INTER METED 3 NATIONAL PRESS washington D 0 C E washington I 1 resident roosevelt has bas settled a controversy by the sim slin pie expedient of settle transferring two men controversy from responsible po f in the virgin islands to jobs in wash ng agton ton ile haa has taken paul M pearson from the post of civil governor of the virgin islands and has made him assistant dt rector of housing in the interior de apartment part ment and has transferred federal director judge T webber wilson from his post in the islands to the federal ILA parole board here in washington dach each man has accepted his new ap t and in so far as a current controversy Is concerned the book la Is closed it will be recalled that governor pearson and judge wilson long have been at loggerheads over virgin island affairs the battle was bitter it came to a head when paul yates executive assistant to the governor and a former washington corre spon dent res ened his job and came back here with a bag full of charges against his former chief the yates allegations ranged all the way from minor charges of poor judgment to gross accusations ile succeeded in getting a senate committee tion and it was at that time that flip th pearson iv allson ilson feud flared so openly that administration officials here were dragged in and the whole scope of differences aired As a matter of facts fact there Is every reason to believe that governor pear rear son was tar far from a successful execl tive in the islands he frequently aroused the ire of natives and ac cording to testimony adduced by the senate investigation had bad very little to show for the sums of money he ex in attempting to give the vir gin islands a new lease on life all of the information tends to establish that the islands continue to be an effectual poorhouse just as president hoover described them on the occa elon slon of a visit during his term as chief executive but governor pearson had his sup porters in the administration chief among these thee was secretary ickes whose department Is responsible for admin str atlon of the islands just why mr air ickes has been so enthusiastic about governor rear pearson sons s regime Is not fully disclosed in any evidence here except that the interior secretary has certain ideas about social reform that some unkind cr er ties tics refer to as pure socialism which governor pear son had been attempting to impose upon the island inhabitants governor pearson has ey expended vast sums of funds in the islands in his efforts to carry out the ickes program of ref or mation it seems however that the schemes were not as practical cal as they misfit have been and so trouble started in a rather extensive fashion 1 v the president stayed outside of the row until in tl e course of the senate inquiry senator tydings a maryland democrat and usually an a a anti roosevelt democrat received a letter from mr ickes mr ickes ac re aused the investigating chairman with having whitewashed a witness whose testimony was all anti ickes and antt anti pearson the senator flared up in a big way at that letter 11 s reply la Is likely to become a classic in official correspondence he ile did not mince his words after voicing his general conception of the attitude exhibited by mr ickes and accusing him of at tempting to interfere in the tion senator tydings informed the in perlor secretary that he may as well attempt to run the department of the interior and let the senators run the senate he ile used just about those words that was the signal for mr air roosevelt to take a hand it was easy to see that a few outbursts of that kind and mr ickes in have found him belt self in a splendid position to resign from the cabinet so the pres dent got the feudists into his office singly of course and when those conferences were over the senate investigation into the virgin island situation was sus for two weeks the transfer of governor pearson and judge wilson resulted a one might properly inquire why all of this agitation has occurred about the virgin islands why the they are many hun agitation deeds of miles from washington ahey ile in the caribbean sea considerably out of the usual pathway of ships they are populated by about indi visuals 91 per cent of whom are negroes negroes and may generally be described as a backward place they may have some military and naval value that has never been fully demonstrated but the fact re mains they are possessions of t the e united states and if our government Is s to be their protector it Is responsible e for a sane adminis administrate trat on of th their r affairs the washington fight may have had its start la in the virgin in islands but it has progressed beyond that point and Is a domestic battle now it la Is safe to say that tor for 18 years which Is the time the islands have been under united states rule there has been a d re need for a plan of government suited to those people each year con gresa gress has been appropriating thou sands of dollars for the island govern ment and each year there has been miserably ably little in the way of improvement to show for these funds almost as frequently as congress has appropriated money it has made changes in the aimin str atlon meth in use there there has never been a long term program la d out and there has been nothing whatsoever evero done showing the sympathy of a so called intellectual people as we claim to be for those downtrodden masses that populate the virgin islands all of this it seems to me we shows the woeful need for careful considers cons con sIdera tion of that s tuition it seems to me equally apparent that as long as con gress keeps medal ng in and a as s long aa politicians from the mainland are sent there purely on a pol basis we will continue to have a pack of trouble bundled up in those virgin islands several attempts have been made to work out a governmental system worth while but the politic ans are not among those who will let plums escape it Is certain therefore that the pearson 1 W v ilson ickes tydings battle royal is an outcropping of what amounts to a festering sore in american govern mental policy it if congress continues in session past august 15 and it is now apparent that it may run to sep long session I 1 it will have severe strain been in session days some two weeks longer than the average of the so called long sessions of congress prior to adoption of the lame duck amendment which did away with ses alons of unequal length the shorter sessions of congress averaged about days the ion longer er terms were around days before final adjourn ment was taken thus the current sess on stands in a far way to be among the list of hardy sessions all of which Is by way of saying that the current session of congress has worn orn down its members both physically and mentally to an extent quite unusual I 1 was talking a few days ago with a veteran senator a man who has served almost 20 23 years la in the upper house of congress ue he Is known as a physically strong anif vidual and usually lasts very wet we 1 through the work that piles up before senators and represent ives I 1 InquI inquire rel 1 of him concerning the general health of congress and his reply was I 1 regret to say we are just a bunch of debilitated old men incapable of doing the job that is expected of us and everyone Is hoping against hope that we can live through this work and this heat As a result of that convers talon the thought came to me that here was an answer to the oft repeated declaration that members of congress fail fall to earn their salaries of per year I 1 have observed congressional proceed ings almost a score of years and it Is my mature conviction that few times in that period has congress tailed failed to earn its salt a Is there Is another reason why con gressional gress lonal sessions should not run so long and should not when solons be carried on in the are tired intense heat of a washington summer one condition nearly always has ob talked near the close of a long ses son s on As the days drag by persona persons with axes to grind and individual in teresta to serve have a way of digging up questionable bills that thereto theretofore foie had been aide side tracked and assumed to be dead with res stance low the average or representative Is unable to fight off legislation which he I 1 to be bad with the same spirit that accompanied his activities earlier in the sess on likewise he Is unable to battle as successfully as before tor for legislation which he knows to be good this condition opens the way for a revival of lobbies they are back in washington in numbers now despite the disclosures being made by the two congressional comm that are in vesti gatina the lobb es that operated to defeat temporally temp orar ly at least the legis lation killing utility holding corn com panics one would nave assumed justly with the investigations under way after the utility legislation was passed that lobbyists and self serving representatives would have been frightened away from washington such was not the cise they are here in such numbers that some observers believe mr roosevelt has made mad a mis take in demanding that congress stay until it has lias enacted the share the wealth tax bill and the leg which will prohibit lawsuits agalos the government for damages resulting from abrogation of the promise in go eminent bonds to pay them in gold mr air roos roosevelt roosvelt velt Is insisting on these laws lie ile will get them but in the opinion of many authorities he stands a fair chance also of getting some other legislation which he may not want a 0 western newspaper |