Show national topics 0 interpreted by william bruckart washington when president roosevelt took office for his first term one of the about outstanding money lations that he made was to the effect that the american people feared fear and of this condition was born instability it was a re statement and the truth of it may not now even be denied it accurately presented one of the fundamental inglut influences alices disturbing american life and if that psychology could have been completely swept away I 1 believe things would have been different now As I 1 remember I 1 commented at that time upon the new president presidents s remark subsequently I 1 called at to the conditions of admin policy under the new deal that were ere necessarily causing a con of that fear of fear in stead of calming the nation s nerves As mr roosevelt closes his first term and begins his second tenure I 1 believe it is entirely proper again to advert to his sign significant and truthful observation of 1933 we can look at this picture only in retrospect regrettable as it is that we cannot see into the future it would then seem to be an entirely permissible thing to do to examine the basis of mr roosevelt s and see what has been done to correct the condition about which he complained I 1 shall not attempt to go into the various phases of the four year term indeed I 1 think it is neither advisable nor necessary to analyze conditions beyond those that are basic fundamental in our national economic and political structure for that reason and because of recent developments of adminis tra tive policy I 1 am writing something about money in this report to you the scripture quotation is the love of money is the root of all evil in treating of the subject of money from our practical sta stand nd point the love of money takes on quite an unusual definition for may I 1 point out in candor I 1 there never has been a national admin so far as my research goes that has so thoroughly loved the spending of money I 1 believe mr roosevelt himself enjoys it but mr roosevelt is not the chief of fender of his administration in this regard the two men whose rec stand out with an absurd will dingness to throw money around as I 1 used to throw pebbles when I 1 was a boy on a missouri farm are harry hopkins works pro progress ress ad and secretary wallace of the department of agriculture I 1 am quite convinced that mr hopkins is the worse of the two my conclusion is based on a conviction that mr hopkins s the more waste ful I 1 am afraid that when the h s tory of th s great depress on is set down in the cold light of facts as they will appear a of a cen tury from now mr hopkins will have a place in that that will not do credit to the hundreds of people who have the real welfare of the poor at heart the latest development concern ing mr hopkins in his c state ment that there money must be at least for jor it relief three quarters of a billion new money appropriated for his relief work president roosevelt previously had sa d he would ask congress for only half a billion it is difficult to rec ancile these two statements or the reasons some slipshod thing has taken place or else mr hopkins again is indulging in his favorite sport of spending and wast mg ing taxpayers money now the figures reveal that re lief operations as managed by mr hopkins are costing about a month if mr roosevelt intends to use only for relief curtailment in sharp fash on must take place if no such cur bailment tail ment is intended even the hopkins figure is too small thus we are brought face to face again with a question what is to be the policy I 1 hear more and more discussion as congress gets under way that some definite statement ought to be made some corn com fitment given so that the nation would know what it is proposed to do with all of this money and how much of it is to be used incidentally mr roosevelt re bently spoke rather curtly to some of his departmental heads about their printing b Us he thought they were too large and that money should be saved in that direction now it happens governmental printing bills amount to no more than a drop in the bucket when corn com pared to the waste that goes on in the enormous relief set up of which mr me hopkins is the head it has been shown too many times to need lazoration lab oration here since mr roosevelt has taken note of the departmental printing bills however I 1 would like to make the e suggestion that there is no valid ason any longer for excluding re lief appropriate ons from the regu lar tar estimates of expenditures as in eluded in the annual budget like many other items the relief totals may have to be revised later but that doea doe not excuse the rather care less practices that have grown up in the calculation of relief expendi expends tures it does not exclude the necessity for a real protection against heedless spending nor does it prevent the formulation of intelligent policies individually I 1 do not quite understand why the administration should fuss about a few millions of print ing bills and toss out half a billion or three quarters of a billion as the case may be with reckless abandon when such tossing is done without any evident continuity ity of sound policy I 1 referred to secretary wallace s spending proclivities mr wallace has been going wallace about the country talks money lately talking of the necessity for soil conservation and the payment of a subsidy to farmers to acco accod in that end he has been talking about money in sums as large as a billion dollars a year tor for crop in aurance a program in furtherance of mr wallace s I 1 ever normal granary idea in theory there is much to be said in favor of spreading unpredictable losses of farming through in aurance A large part of the dis tress found in agricultural regions is due to the destruction of crops by causes over which the farmers have no control if the consequences of these hazards could be minimized by adjusting losses over wide areas and by using the surplus of one year to offset the shortage of the next one major farm problem would be solved but as matters now stand there is a natural tend ency to regard this move with a skeptical eye this is necessary be cause like so many theories the wallace crop insurance ever nor mal granary plan seems to 0 omit mit the one element that is necessary to be included if this proposition is to be successful there simply can be no doubt that it must have almost unanimous support it does not have it and never will the reason is that it calls upon the government to pay pait or all of the cost and human nature mevit ably resents taking from one to give to another mr wallace s ideas were adopted by the president presidents s crop insurance committee that committee was supposed to have the interest of ag ao ri culture at heart its recommend rec ommen lations indicate that it had not on only ay such an interest but an even greater interest namely making sure that the farmers were given everything from all of the discussions that I 1 have heard I 1 believe it is qu te apparent that the committee went too far it went so far indeed that it is arousing resentment fro the consumers who think that they will have to pay the bill there fore by proposing a program 0 that 1 too extreme the crop insurance committee and mr wallace have forced a cleavage between producer and consumer and that is likely to result in a renewal of warfare be tween these two segments of our national life it will cause a re vival of an age old quarrel instead of a healing of old wounds no one can can deny that the farmers as a class have not been getting their fair share from the atrit attitude ude of many thinking farmers however I 1 rather bel eve that agriculture would prefer to have a farm aid program which would permit it to produce and sell to the consumers cun sumers under harmonious conditions and regulations rather than get too much and earn the hatred of the masses who are to buy the farmers output to advert to the original theme mr wallace I 1 kes to pass out mon ey he ile knows as all others in public life know that the government will be generous with agriculture and I 1 am afraid that fact has caused the otherwise genial secretary of agriculture to lose his perspective spec tive to forget that he is fostering a program that will change tra editions and practices on the farms of america as surely as the sun shines farmers are human as everyone else is human some of them like some of us who must exist among modern cliff dwellings of concrete and steel entertain a fear that a policy of government payments equivalent to a dole may have the effect in the end of destroying rather than saving the business of re a western newspaper union |