| Show 6 national topics 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 remarkable mar kabIe statement and the truth of it may not now even be denied it accurately presented one of the fundamental influences 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 presidents remark subsequently I 1 called attention to the conditions of administration policy under the new deal that were necessarily causing a continuation of that fear of fear instead of calming the nations nerves As mr roosevelt closes his first term and be begins gins his second tenure I 1 believe it is entirely proper again to advert to his 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 Roosevel ts observation 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 administrative 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 ou our practical standpoint the love of money takes on quite an unusual definition for may I 1 point out in candor there never has been a national administration 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 offender of his administration in this regard d the two men whose records stand out with an absurd willingness in ness 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 progress administrator 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 wasteful I 1 am afraid that when the history of this great depression is set down in the cold light of facts as they will appear a quarter of a century from now mr hopkins will have a place in that spotlight that will not do credit to the hundreds of people who have the real welfare of the poor at heart a the latest development concerning mr hopkins in his public state ment that there money must be at least for relief three quarters of a billion new money appropriated for his relief work president roosevelt previously had said he would ask congress for only half a billion it is difficult to reconcile 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 wasting taxpayers money now the figures reveal that relief operations as managed by mr hopkins are costing about a month if mr roosevelt intends to use only for relief curtailment in sharp fashion must take place if no such curtailment 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 rind ond more discussion as congress gets under way that some definite statement ought to be made some commitment 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 recently spoke rather curtly to some of his departmental heads about their printing bills 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 compared red to the waste that goes on in the enormous relief setup set up of which mr hopkins is the head it has been shown too many times to need elaboration here since mr roosevelt has taken note of the departmental printing bills however I 1 would like to make the suggestion that there is no valid rason r ason any longer for excluding relief appropriations from the regular estimates of expenditures I 1 as included in the annual budget like many other items the relief totals may have to be revised later but that does not excuse the rather careless practices that have grown up in the calculation of relief expenditures 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 printing bills and toss out halt 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 of sound policy I 1 referred to secretary wallaces 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 accomplish that end he has been talking about money in sums as large as a billion dollars a year for crop insurance a program in furtherance of mr wallaces ever normal granary idea in theory there is much to be said in favor of spreading unpredictable losses of farming through insurance su A large part of the distress found in agricultural regions is due to the destruction of crops by causes over which the farmers have no control if the consequences of those 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 tendency to regard this move with a skeptical eye this is necessary because like so many theories the wallace crop insurance ever normal granary plan seems to omit 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 part or all of the cost and human nature inevitably resents taking from one to give to another mr wallaces Walla cei ideas were adopted by the presidents crop insurance committee that committee was supposed to have the interest of agriculture ri at heart its recommendations indicate that it had not only such an interest but an even greater in interest terest namely making sure that the farmers were given averyt everything bing from all of the discussions that I 1 have heard I 1 believe it is quite apparent that the committee went too far it went so far indeed that it is arousing resentment fron from n the consumers who think that they will have to pay the bill therefore by proposing a pro program cram that is too extreme the crop insurance committee and mr wallace have f forced a cleavage between producer and consumer and that is likely to result in a renewal of warfare between these two segments of our national life it will cause a revival of an age old quarrel instead of a healing of old wounds no one can deny that the farmers as a class have not been getting their fair share F from rom the attitude of many thinking farmers however I 1 rather believe 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 fan ners output to advert to the original theme mr wallace likes to pass out money he 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 foster ing a program that will change traditions 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 agriculture 0 western newspaper union |
