Show jim parley farley Is square shooter never has an alibi for any mistakes U S finances hard to comprehend by EARL GODWIN ASHINGTON jim farley W washington steps out ot of his job as postmaster general to pay exclusive attention to his job as chairman of the democratic national committee and the reelection election re of franklin D roosevelt I 1 like farley ile he is an open faced character and strictly on the level it if he makes a mistake he takes the punishment and takes it without a whimper many men in his position deny they said the thing which has been their undoing they say they have been misquoted or they adopt some other device to squirm out of the consequences of their own misdeeds but farley stands still and takes it on the chin roosevelt likes him for that the administrations opponents have been delivering a pitiless attack on parley farley sometimes it has been a brutally unfair attack but as the late huey long said personally to him once jim I 1 like you and the reason I 1 am attacking you is because when I 1 am in a fight I 1 always throw a rock at the biggest man there you have the reason why the republicans and the anti new deal editors have been trying to tell roosevelt to get rid of farley but roosevelt let the opposition tell him what to do so farley merely takes a vacation as postmaster general and stays with the shock troops during the campaign admires roosevelt farley has always been a deep admirer of roosevelt he has fought the old line organization new york state democrats to a finish in Roosevel ts behalf he is a nominal member of tammany hall in new york but he has lead the fight against tammany for roosevelt whom tammany y does not like A lot of squawking and uninformed editors complain that farley has national politics but in new york city tammany throw farley a rope if he was drowning they would however be delighted if they could draw jim into their ranks so they could use his political skill but inasmuch as he remains with the progressive gres sive roosevelt on the honest side of government the tammany hall boys look on farley as someone to be jumped on as soon as he is down but no sooner farley scored a victory for good government in 1930 when he was elected chairman of the new york state democratic committee and by 1932 he had the whole country lined up with enough delegates to nominate roosevelt he was at that time not only opposing the al smith sentiment and its great element in the party but he also had to fight the unseen underground opposition of the old guard republicans who hated and feared roosevelt and for good reason as it now appears in that year when farley went out to seattle ostensibly to attend an elks convention ven tion he started his cross coun try trek to nominate roosevelt he began to talk roosevelt at a time when roosevelt appeared to be a rank amateur in contrast to the big league al smith he was so successful that his opponents credit him with a victory but are cowardly enough to ascribe to him pork barrel dark lantern and illicit methods I 1 think this aspect of the fight hurts jim farley who is I 1 believe about as honest a man as ever fought his way to the top in politics one wholesale charge against farley is that he has used the entire administration of government for political purposes and his accusers back it up with the fact that there are now a huge number of government employees appointed politically and not taken from the civil service merit list the figures covering the number of employees appear to bear this charge out but the facts are as I 1 have related several times that the great emergency required an immediate drafting of several thousand clerks administrators and specialists and the civil service could not meet the demand for the simple reason that there were not enough people on their qualified list federal finances it will be hard for the public to get a clear view of government finances this summer the governments bookkeeping is vast and intricate tri cate difficult to understand mix the natural confusion of large figures with thi the noise of a political campaign and an d it will be an exceptional person who can comprehend it all there is no dispute as to the wisdom of balancing the budget and paying out less than we take in but it must be remembered that our present deficits in the bookkeeping at the U S treasury are caused solely by the tremendous and generous policies of this administration in providing humane and necessary items of re lief payment of the soldiers bonus and loss of the processing taxes by the supreme courts decision against AAA in counting up the appropriations of the session of congress just closed it is impossible to apportion it off into calendar years and cover many situations not generally understood for instance congress appropriates for the post office department what looks like a huge expenditure the public forgets that this sum is practically covered by the postal receipts cash h taken k e n in for stamps at the post cass office ta windows so 0 when h e n t the he orators charge that this last congress appropriated the unheard of sum of dont think it was for one year it covered at least two fiscal years and many items were spread farther the objects which predominate predo mi i are veterans relief and unemployment and assistance to agriculture ri nearest I 1 can come to the amount appropriated for the current fiscal year which began july I 1 and ends june 30 1937 is the foundation stone stona of the new social security policy is included a matter of to start off the fund which eventually will be made up of contributions from employers and employees for old age and unemployment insurance the largest item is of course relief this government is committed to the policy of not permitting anyone to starve relief expenditures will probably dwindle with the betterment of business but does anyone expect the existing industrial policies to absorb the slack in unemployment im sure I 1 dont I 1 think the ma chine age has perfected bechani cal devices to the point where ma chinery will take the place of more human beings this means we will have to adopt shorter work days and shorter weeks and that we must adopt an all inclusive nationwide policy of cooperative industry so that the army of the unemployed can be put to worle work in the industries which supply them with their necessities of life 0 unemployment we have been promised an end to unemployment on various occasions the brewers said that beer would end unemployment that we would raise a billion dollars in taxes and put every jobless man to work if we could have the return of beer well we now have beer and also unemployment then we were promised an end to unemployment with the payment of the bonus this bonus is a sort of midsummer christmas business is getting those millions now and will continue to get more this summer and fall and if this unprecedented expenditure does not provide sufficient increase in industry and commerce to furnish jobs for the workers now unemployed then in my personal opinion we have come to the end of waiting for industry to make good the next step is a permanent policy of jobs by government enterprise ter prise either conservation work and great public projects or cooperative industry where the workers make their own goods 0 0 As it looks political prophets take their reputations in their hands but theres no harm in reporting the consensus as to how various sections of the country stand right now if the election were to be held today I 1 would say that roosevelt has more than a mere majority of the popular vote but that it is so distributed as to make it necessary for him to fight vigorously in some of the large pivotal states id give the republicans new england but remember that the lower economic order the country over is going to vote for roosevelt for the things he is doing for social justice john hamiltons statement that roosevelt cannot carry six states is childish as everyone knows the solid south 11 states is always for roosevelt new york state was to the good for the democrats a year ago but the republicans claim the vote has shifted maybe so but dont bet too heavily on it governor lehman running again is a surefire sure fire vote getter for the new deal pennsylvania belongs to anybody things are confused there but republican claims for illinois based upon the grass roots are not verified by the yoi younger inger crowd of newspaper men covering politics who give roosevelt the state by michigan interests me it went democratic for roosevelt the then n came back strong G 0 P for the democrats think they can take it by running murphy for governor 1 I doubt it minnesota is democratic now california will go for roosevelt by half a million washington and oregon are safely democratic idaho will see a fight it seems democratic enough to give its electoral vote to roosevelt but bill borah is out there and hes always a disturber oklahoma is democratic despite the defection of alfalfa bill murray the democrats have the nerve to say they can take kansas from london landon I 1 wonder nebraska appears to be a republican state but the chief republican there is senator george W norris morris who is Roosevel ts strongest supporter it all adds to this roosevelt can win but his crowd must fight unremittingly remit tingly in every pivotal state s watern union |