Show 0 national topics inte rp feted by william bruckart Wash washington lia ton it begins to appear trial the hie country as a whole may have a c ch ir a anceto n c e to know new deal how many laws and publicity executive orders issued have come out of the new deal in its ten tyone ty one months of life president roosevelt lias has determined upon public publication allon in an official manner as the means ot of informing mr air average man alan what he Is not supposed to do under the new deal it has not been determined yet whether there will nil be an official government newspaper for publication of nil all of these laws lans executive orders codes regulations and other means of official expression but everything points that way courts have always said that ignorance of the law excuses no man it rem remained aiDed fur for the supreme court of the united states ho however conever never to say that when v lien the average man was m as deluged with hundreds of orders of inhibition and prohibition from washington lie he was or is quite likely to he be unable to comprehend what it is all about aboul it was almost unprecedented for criticism to come from a member ot of the supreme court of the united states but associate justice I 1 one ot of the outstanding liberals of the highest tribunal made no effort to conceal his bis grievance when in the course of presentation of an case to the court he learned to his amazement that there had been no publication ot of vi the numerous orders regulations or rules in a manner that could conceivably reach the country as a whole of course the newspapers have attempted to keep tile the country informed but there seems to be no doubt that the number of kofl acla pronouncements noun cements was too great for any newspaper however large to keep track of and publish them all consequently ly the associate justice gave voice to a feeling that has prevailed among newspaper correspondents in washington for a long time namely that the bulk of the citizens of this country were uninformed concerning the vast number of new regulations forthcoming under the new deal it Is a regular practice for congress to enact legislation and include in such laws a phrase to this effect authority to issue regulations carrying out the terms of this law Is hereby extended that phrase whenever it Is included as it Is almost invariably gives to the rules and regulations proclamations and pronouncements the full force and effect of the law itself so long as the administrative promulgations are within the terms of the law itself and within reason in other words these become law and they can he be sustained by any court that can find the law itself constitutional 0 0 the magnitude of the problem with which the president has hag now determined to deal was waa weighty suggested recently by problem lern a committee of the american liar har association which estimated that in the first year of the alone more than ten thousand pages of such law were written by executive authority without adequate pro provision Islon for notifying the public the total legislative output by or in conne connection tion with this one administrative agency the committee declared actually staggers the imagination the committee added that any calculation cu lation involved guess mork and atcon it concluded after something more than a superficial investigation that between four thousand he hundred and five thousand methods of business conduct were prohibited by the codes and supplemental plem pleni amendments to codes promulgated mul gated by the national recovery administration in its brief period of life the Broo brooklyn hlyn institute in a study of the situation has found that in the federal government there are sixty different administrative tribunals which as the institutes statement said are making judicial decisions affecting private rights the institutes statement added that these do not proceed according to any single form do not follow any uniform procedure and do not fit in as integral parts of a coherent or intelligent system during the world war there was an official publication issued by the committee on public information which was designed to acquaint the general public with the myriads of orders from the white house orders from the war and navy N ivy departments orders from a score of other places in uie hope that public understanding would simplify the administrations problem that Is the only time as far as I 1 have been able to ascertain when the production of rules and regulations and ad ministration made law was so great that oth other e r ti than ian no normal tin ft I 1 press channels it had to be used sir air roosevelt said in announcing his decision that frankly there nener neer had been machinery of government for the publication of such decrees and laws obviously now that the hip supreme court has called atte attention n to the lack of a central com compilation plia I 1 or publication of such orders something constructive Is going to be done about it there Is however a possibility of danger in that course attention attento n has been directed here to the threat that unless careful supervision over such a publication Is maintained some unscrupulous individuals may take advantage of this new avenue of publicity for selfish menns it Is to be assumed that mr air roosevelt ivill III protect against this potential darger danger but I 1 find in many quarters expressions of 0 a fear that the lie thing may get out of hand unless the president Is fully forewarned so that he can be forearmed 0 0 much significance attaches to the Il presidents residents projected plan to take the profits out of war presidents it Is looked upon by shrewd move thoe who know as a very shrewd both domestic and international politics it nill be some time before its full fill import can be pieced together in one picture but when among that tha time comes wiseacres wise acres tell mo me among the things to be seen will he be 1 notice to congress that the president Is not going to allow the legislative body to run away with ith things that gain publicity if the lie scheme is one in ID which he desires to participate 2 notice to the world that the unit ed states Is not going to surrender leadership in world affairs even though the london naval daval conference lias has failed find and even though japan has renounced her signature to tire the washington arms limitation treaty of 1922 it Is too early to make a guess the senators who militantly fought back after mr pronouncement no will get anywhere T those I 1 lose senators were the leaders in the senate committees munitions investigation senator nye the committee chairman with all of the breeze of his north dakota plains accused the president in effect of trying to stop the munitions inquiry senator of michigan challenged the presidents right to interfere each thought as did some of the other members of the committee who nho did not become vocal that mr roosevelt was trying to steal the show because it Is a fact that t the he committee was on the front pages day after day during the investigation some observers here are inclined to the opinion that mr roosevelt will wil I 1 be able to lull the recalcitrant members of congress into a kindly feeling toward his program which Is designed to draft far reaching legislation and that they will eventually hush up at this writing I 1 am unwilling to agree fully with mat chat belief one must not be unmindful in dis cussing bussing this little controversy that it can become of great magnitude or it can sink out of sight easily my own thought is that mr Roosevel ts control of congress Is not going to be serious ly y disturbed by it IL it Is possible how ever that there are enough dissatisfied members of the house and senate to constitute a bloc which will speak its mind collectively as well as bally if that should come about there will be fun every once in a while some one dis covers some new dew letters written by george washington washington such stich a circumstance a lobbyist has just developed the chesapeake and ohio railroad preparing to celebrate the one hundred and fiftieth annever sary of the original corporation from which it came has found a letter signed by general washington which authorities tell me represents among the first petitions ever filet filed with a leg Islat Isla lve tIve body in behalf of private interests in tills this country in fact it if the washington letter in question were to have been presented to the present day congress undoubtedly those tin in opposition to the generals plan would have described him as a 11 0 bishop a noted writer and historian here found in the library of congress that general washington had sought legislation in the general assembly of virginia in behalf of the jamestown company a corporation which in later years was to become the chesapeake and ohio railroad company general washington interceded intercedes Inter ceded with the virginia assembly on 00 the ground that it if the united states ever were nere to become of consequence as a nation in this world viere there must be expansion westward and it if there were to be expansion there had to be means of transportation the general according to the library of congress records personally surveyed a westward route over which the jamestown company was to operate eliat Is tile the route now followed by the die line of the present railroad disclosure of the washington letter has brought again to tile the forefront the question of what constitutes lobbying before a legislative body there are those in ID this administration the same as there have been in numerous preceding administrations who accuse anyone attempting to present his aids ald of the story to a legislative body of being a lobbyist I 1 believe however that the bulk of the people look upon that sort of thing as an exercise of the right of petit petition 1 on it will be 1 interesting to note tow now when tile efforts of general washington in behalf of the jamestown company are generally known his exer elso of the right of petition will be accepted surely even the most ardent reformers will not desire to call tho 1 father of our country a lobbyist a 0 western newspaper union |