Show er laws wess washington supporters of the new deal as well as its opponents are watching a new new experiment president preside n t experiment by roosevelt w with i t h more than passing interest they are watching this experiment because of various circumstances including obviously its po political lotical phases for they realize that the president has stepped out into a hitherto field unplowed ground in this new experiment chiefly because it is something entirely new and not because any on one e yet can tell what is going to happen I 1 want to report this week on the presidents plan to have his eldest son james his no I 1 secretary serve as a clearing house between the chief executive and I 1 some ome eighteen or more government agencies roosevelt the younger has been designated by the president to sit down once each week with heads of each of the enumerated agencies and talk over their problems iron out those which he can help solve ordinate coordinate co the work between them as far as he is able to do so and most important to the men with whom he deals decide which questions confronting these units of government may be matters for the presidents personal consideration era tion it is a big order but jimm jimmy Y as he is known known around he here re is is a big man at least physically because he stands something like six six feet one inch ile he is twenty nine years old the audiences at the white house with jimmy have already started and the agency heads who have sat through the conferences seem well pleased at least there has been no criticism yet no signs of jealousy or indications of dissent among those who are called upon to take up their problems with the young secretary to the president in fact I 1 have heard in only a few places a revival of the punning that went out a couple of years ago when the roosevelt for king game was in its heyday and jimmy was laughingly labeled as the crown prince thus the plan surely seems to have started off most auspiciously but as I 1 said what success what trials and tribulations await it no one can say undoubtedly president roosevelt has started a plan of action that has much to be said in much in its favor it has its favor of course many possibilities of trouble and there surely is argument against having the white house s secretariat ec reta riat deter determine mine policy when the president has been elected to that job yet at this time credit must be argued along with signs and portents of trouble first let us recognize that the office of president of the united states stat es is a man killing job there is nothing like it anywhere else in the world there are not too many men who can stand up under the load of work and worry that is continually on the shoulders of the head of the nation there is no way possible for him to escape it vacations sleep absence from washington not a chance the work and worry is with him abw always ays every minute out of his twenty four f our hour day thus if there is any way that can be devised to lift some of the burden it ought to be done no way has been found heretofore however and the millstone continues around the presidents neck on the he other hand this is a democracy mo cracy in the opinion ominio n of many persons there already is too much power lodged in the tl hands of individuals divi duals who were not elected but were appointed to office the president has vast power an and d he h e has to unload it somewhere lc I 1 acre into the hands of those he appoints nevertheless th eless throughout the federal government scores of men rne and women exercise cac very great authority over your life and mine who were personally selected by the president for whom none of us voted when we voted L for a presidential nominee li kosutt red tape rules and ace regulations ions dos and dont galore until we hardly know whether we can cat our food without transgressing gressing or bailin failing g to comply with some federal reu regulation ft I 1 aa tion all of that is by way wa Y of if saying lying that ly iy ay implementing the relationship between tile the president and men and woman vo clcil whom lie he has appointed to otisa nofri c through ti tile the insertion of on added vi vt vicci of authority there lie loe potential nial changes in all of policies and here lies lie e po s joity of changes chan es acing maje for 1 belter or for worse without uc tle president having knowl edle of thain vaut of the personal side the reel cc s IN of the llie officials who ha have ve i deal with a young man wh who 0 can P phoc to za eona ne extent c tont at least lee st fr for is fakher the president As A s I 1 F said arlier arli cr thus far no none ne cf the con derees have given any indication of disturbed feelings they may never have any thoughts along this line this observation if u yet I 1 venture they dont resent having the presidents son tell them what to do or not to do at some time or other the officials concerned will be unlike most other human beings 0 0 the department of agriculture is quite pessimistic about the business outlook for next business year in a series outlook ot of reports analyzing general conditions which the department issued the other day it made no effort to conceal its belief that there is something wrong in the business situation far beyond the recent re cent violent decline in the quotations of the stock markets these reports and conclusions take on considerably more weight when it is recalled that several other agencies of the government notably secretary roper of the department part ment of commerce have sought vainly to make it appear that business is good at the same time I 1 think attention ought to be drawn to the fact that secretary wallace of the department of agriculture is striving to have congress pass legislation to aid the farmer it is just possible that he thinks his objectives can be achieved more easily if the congressmen are made to believe that general business and agriculture are taking a real tailspin that is the politics of the situation but business reports spread on the pages of newspapers seem to show that a bad slump lies ahead recently I 1 wrote in these columns how business was as spotted as a leopard that some firms were making more money than ever before and how some others were getting by only because the volume was large and faced difficulties if the volume declined the agriculture department statements based now on facts and figures show even a worse picture than I 1 described several months ago they indicate strongly that 1938 1933 is to be considerably boyzer in the level of business than 1937 and that spells trouble for example the agriculture statement predicts that there will be a less favorable demand for farm products in 1933 1938 than in 1937 home domestic demands are down and appear likely to stay down and the export market holds no hope for an increase emphasizing the dependence of consumption demand upon general business conditions the department statement explained explained there was no certainty as to the length of time the present slump will continue it added that prospects are against a sufficiently early and vigorous rise in 1933 to bring the aver average age of industrial activity and of consumer incomes incomes up to that of 1937 but from the standpoint of the farmer the picture is made worse e by the department picture statement it made worse points out how there has been a rise in production costs of crops and livestock and how staring the farmer in in the face are more of these increases adding along with the higher wage wade rates farmers apparently will have to pay somewhat higher prices for farm arm machinery automobiles building materials equipment and supplies on the other hand the prices of feed and seed will be substantially lower next spring than a year earlier the department did not go into detail detail in explaining these increases in in production costs and increases in prices for things the farmer buys it should have given facts and figures on these for they are basic and the picture is incomplete without thern them everyone knows of course that farm labor wants more money for its work and has been getting more in the last two erthree or three years department part ment of labor statistics show this and they show as well how much additional labor is receiving in its pay checks from industry the automobile industry which has been organized by john L lewis and his C 1 I 0 labor group has been forced to pay much higher wages and naturally those wages have been added into the cost of the t he automobile which any one buys the automobile industry wa sonly an illustration the same is true all along the line the truth of the matter is that federal taxes texes which vh i ch have been ca conceived nd by the presidents P ants brain tru trust st professors probes sors and rid applied without stint or lim alt it to industry stry are upsetting the whole who e agricultural as well as the whole business busin rss structure of the country the load of taxes together t oge ther with a lot of queer looking and cockeyed regulations have conti continually dually increased the cost of prod production action of everything from black eyed locomotives es peas to a western news Doper per union |