Show no gnp 10 00 L 1 L r U washington the most imbor tant news story in washington and throughout t the b e relief country now is the politics use of relief funds for political pur poses it is not only the most im news at this time but has been the most important and will continue to be the most important for weeks to come this is so be cause the amount of money involved is vast and the number of votes possible to be influenced by that money is so great the stakes are high and the unscrupulous are go ing to play for them to the limit of their capacity I 1 think that per haps the corruption tf of the harding administration with its shameful oil scandal was more sensational but surely no one condones the present situation any more than the scan dais of the earlier malfeasance of office holders in the harding oil affair there was perhaps 5 per cent as much money involved few if any votes of private citizens were at stake certainly no votes of persons who through no fault of their own found themselves destitute it was the late thomas walsh montana democratic senator who conducted the earnest fight to purge the country of the crooks at that time and now that the senate again has taken notice of the conditions one cannot help but wonder whether there will be the same high type of statesmanship displayed the same courage shown by some republican or democratic senator for the sake of the country I 1 hope that no stone will be left unturned by the senate investigation which though ordered belatedly and after an irn table reaction from the country nevertheless was ordered by the senate the senate deserves no credit for having moved to expose the condi tion which senator wheeler of mon tana described as playing politics with human misery it had three chances to show its courage and its statesmanship before it would take hold of what many recognized as a political firebrand it ran from those opportunities in the most cowardly fashion under the lash of new deal leaders in the senate on three occasions I 1 repeat the senate had a chance to assert control over the 5 borrowing spending 9 lending bill and prevent to some extent the further use of taxpayers money for electioneering purposes and I 1 repeat each time the vote was against inclusion of pr eventa tive clauses in that appropriation measure so none can say the credit should go to the senate even though now it promises to uncover facts which anyone with an eye half open knows exist there can be no credit to the ad ministration because president roosevelt spoke not a word in be half of use of funds for relief and for the removal of politics indeed he praised his relief administrator harry hopkins for publicly backing representative the new deal candidate for the senate nomi nation in iowa mr was well licked by senator gillette an old line democrat nor did the pres ident tell the senate publicly that he favored a curb on the use of the mone bonef quite the contrary cheth er the president urged them to do so or not his board of strategy the new name for the brain trust put the steam on and made enough sen vote against the amendments to curb politics to insure defeat they even forced senator barkley of kentucky to take the floor in fa vor of the use of money in any way the relief overseers want to use it and senator barkley is seeking re nomination in his native kentucky so no credit for the move to draw back the curtain can possibly be given to the white house or any of the president presidents s advisors or strate fists no credit for bringing the situa tion to the attention of the country can go to the dodged house of depre in n house senta tives it did not even consider an any restrictions on the use of the money 1 PY when the bill was up for passage there the leadership in the house is controlled by mr roosevelt but even then it was sur to see such upstanding square shooting men like speaker bankhead and majority leader ray burn of texas sidle around the hot spot sam rayburn is one of the really splendid men in the house of representatives but he dodged on this thing and it t is not corn com then where must credit be div ena why did the senate finally take the bit in its teeth and set machin ery in motion for putting out the fir fire e before adjournment 9 the answer is that the people back home and that means largely in smaller towns and in the country finally caught up with the fact that they are bein being 9 victimized they let their feelings become known and with them near ly every newspaper in the country criticized the senate until the sen atonal ears must have burned to a crisp anyway it brought action and for that the country ought to be thankful it might be well to review the sen ate action when it ran away from an honest job on the relief ap aaion first there was the amend ment by senator hatch democrat new mexico which was to prevent use of relief funds for political pur poses by the simple expedient of dismissal for the official who had control over such funds second there was the amendment by sena tor lodge massachusetts republic can which would have required a distribution of the relief funds on the basis of the number of anem aloyed in each state and which thereby would have prevented use of vast sums in some states where the political battle might be going against the candidate with a new deal blessing whether the opponent be an old line democrat or a re publican third there was the amendment by senator rush holt democrat of west virginia which merely proposed to make all federal relief officials responsive to civil service laws insofar as political ac was concerned and fourth there was the amendment by sen ator austin republican vermont which would have made it unlawful for any person whose compensation comes from relief funds to solicit or authorize the solicitation of funds as contributions to any political party well as I 1 said the senate ran away from them and it seems to me that any senator who voted against those amendments has a pretty difficult job to explain that vote As much as I 1 admire senator barkley the basis of his argument was so sour that it smelled to high heaven the kentuckian told the senate that the amendments would destroy senators and give all of the political power into the hands of state political machines which could use that power against sena tors seeking reelection senator barkley is being challenged for re nomination in his state and I 1 suppose the matter strikes right close home with him whether senators who voted against those amendments so in tended or not what they have done when the picture is examined in an unbiased fashion is to put the whole roosevelt administration in a ridic ulous position it was their action which makes the record show that the whole administration is willing to let politics run not riot in relief it is against a fair and equitable al location of money among the states in accordance with the number of unemployed who must be fed As to the phase of conditions back home the word seeps through to wash i IL the folks ington that a good back home many persons who are seeking house or senate nominations against new deal aspirants are finding strong organizations against them and in favor of the new deal candi cand date and the full import of that strength comes to mind quickly when one thinks what a hungry per son will give up in order to have food senator tydings of maryland is the sponsor of the move to clean up the mess in relief of course senator tydings while a staunch democrat seldom has done any thing to cause the new de dealers alers hap on the contrary he was marked for liquidation 10 long ng long ago it is much better that an out standing democrat should have pro posed the investigation than t to 0 have had the proposal come from a re publican had a republican introduced the resolution the thing would have been called political purely but it would have been a move calculated to demonstrate the genuineness of the new deal if some roosevelt per center would have brought up the proposition there is a great opportunity for this new senate committee to serve the country well it can and should go into every report its in tors obtain to learn to what extent taxpayers money is being employed to influence elections it has an out standing piece upon which to work at the very start did not mr hop kins horn into the iowa primary and everywhere there was the ques tion whether the and other re lief workers in iowa would not con the hopkins announcement in behalf of mr as an or der for them to support t t the he sa same me man but more important than mr hopkins this investigation if it is seriously made can point the tre fallacy and danger of relief being administered from wash ington instead of from the states and the counties where the money is spent if the country is made fully aware of true conditions I 1 believe there will be changes in the relief methods that will allow more than 60 or 70 cents out of each dol lar expended to be used for food and clothing as is the case now 0 western newspaper union |