Show ash t digesi Dige sf National Topics an interpreted 6 no io by W WILLIAM BROCK brucker BR Z washington 6 C washington it has been exceed angly interesting to watch the 7 7 p r po p ress of 1 J ca campaign m cratic crada issues sues I 1 11 I 1 c cap i in campaign v committees c 0 m m i in heir efforts edores to shape and join the issues upon which the electorate will choose the i r next occupant of the white hoase house there has been a tremendous am amount purit of hauling and filling each side coming forth with trial balloons balloon sin in an eff effort ortto to find out IsA is that hatwill will attract the most interest amon among agthe the voters an and d to determine what particular matters afford the best vehicle on which they can ride into office from the beginning of this year president roosevelt has been trying to shape his issue on the basis of a single question whether the american people in dollars and cents bents are better off then ilien they were when he took office I 1 think admittedly that if mr roosevelt could force that question into the center of the stage and make it the real issue he would have very little campaigning to do but the trouble is mr roosevelt has been unable to accomplish his purpose and no little credit for his threat to force a joinder of issues on this point is due to the republican leadership the republican managers simply will not be led into that trap thus we must look elsewhere to see what the real issues are or are likely to be in this campaign decision it has nearly always been true that the issues prominent early in the campaign have proved not to be the issues issue s at all near the end of a political battle this year promises to be no exception political leaders attempt to figure out the proposition upon which their opponents are most vulnerable and obviously this figuring takes place in advance it has to happen that way in order that methods of attack can be arranged in advance the new dealers thought they could smoke outtie out the republicans b by Y shouting far and wide that the people as a whole are better off than they were when mr roosevelt took office but again it was a case where political strategy did not wor kEven though many hundred thousands of people are better off the fact remains that there are some twenty million persons receiving relief in one form or another and the further fact remains that there are somewhere between nine 11 million illion and ten million workers without jobs consequently mr Roosevel ts question whether people were better off in dollars and cents did not quite click 6 in the meantime the republicans have found what they believe to be a very vulnerable spot in the new deal armor and they are shooting at it with machine gun rapidity this question this spot centers around taxation the republicans apparently thought at the start of the fight that democratic waste of federal money and the vast debt that was piled up would force a revulsion of feeling against new deal policies so they started out on that campaign horse but they found that the question of taxation overshadowed over shadowed the other even though the taxation about which the republicans are talking has been an offspring of the alleged waste of the party in power I 1 doubt that the taxation issue would have been as important as it is proving to be err crr in 1 had not the new strategy dealers made a mistake in political strategy this mistake it may I 1 be said in passing illustrates how very minor things influence the ultimate result ir in politics to a greater extent perhaps than in any other activity of Ameel american caa national life the mistake which I 1 refer to was made by attorney general cummings the story of the circumstance chronologically is something like this the republicans from their headquarters in in chicago began calling attention to increased tax burdens in connection with their exposure of the increase of more than thirteen billion dollars in the coun arys debt they pointed out how if the roosevelt administration had pot hot wasted money preparations would not have to be made for raising the taxes and how if this waste had not occurred tax increases which we already have had would not have ken place As a part pai t of the demonstration of increased taxation the republicans issued campaign literature itemizing the amount of taxes each and every one of us pays on the common everyday every day necessities of lift life they showed how each loaf of bread each pair of shoes each pork chop among other things bears so much tax which all of us pay in buying those necessities f es of life probably the distribution of this campaign literature by the republicans would not have stirred up so much fuss in and of itself had it not been for the action of attorney general cummings the attorney general made some public thre threats ats that he would seek to indict those who were responsible for foi distribution of this inform information atlon claiming that a a federal law had been violated being attorney general of the united states any statement from him got gat wide distribution but the republicans recognizing the potentialities of this situation issued a challenge to mr cummings to proceed with his threat of indictments their publicity statement on the point was i just as vi virulent ru as that of any red blooded amer american I 1 can boy who says to his playmate 1 I dare you tot tol well the rejoinder of the republicans rather put mr cummings on the spot I 1 presume probably the threat and the resulting challenge still would have amounted to nothing except that the method employed by the republicans cap capitalized lie on that threat by accusing the attorney general of seeking to prevent free speech end and to prohibit discussion of campaign issues if there is one thing that the american people resent it is any attempt by lk a governmental agency of whatever character it may be that seeks to stifle discussion they look upon it as a sign of dictatorship somewhere in their veins still courses the virus that overthrew king george in the birth of this nation that is why the cummings threat is so important 0 president Roose roosevelt veli announced the other day that he is pre preparing paring to start re too many bation of the fid fed agencies eral era administrative agencies he said he had arrived at the conclusion that such a course was hecei necessary because there has been overlapping in function and jurisdiction among the many agencies created by the new deal it is the second time that the president has proposed beor reorganization i of the governmental units and his new announcement promises promis esto to attract as much attention as did his original announcement no which was made when heimas he was a candidate dur during laig the 1932 presidential campaign for a long time it has been plainly evident to observers in washing 1 ton that new deal agencies were literally falling over one another and that many of them were constantly in conflict with others because the laws or executive orders chiefly the executive orders by which these agencies were created did not clarify their jurisdiction or their function A good ideal deal of this trouble obviously had its origin in the haste that characterized the early efforts of the roosevelt administration to establish machinery by which problems of the depression could be solved or alleviated it alwa always ys happens that when governmental agencies are created in such subh haste ridiculous di situations result it w was a s the case during the world war and it hasteen has been the case during the new deals efforts to solve depression problems under the emergency powers granted by congress the truth seems to be that there is more overlapping more conflict now than there was during the world war I 1 have known of numerous instances where one agency under authority given it much by the president Cod contusion has as promulgated rule and regulations having the force of law that did not conform to rules and regulations dealing with the same matters but coming from another unit uffit of government in addition I 1 have seen different interpretations interpretation i placed on the same statute or the same regulation by two different agencies in consequence the citizen whose business practices or personal affairs were touched by government edict found himself prohibited from doing a particular thing on the one hand and ordered to do it on the other thus it would seem that it is high time for something to be done about organization reorganization re it would seem equally to be high time for elimination of some of the extra red tape of government which has been wound about the private lives of american citizens by the new deal goodness knows there was plenty of red tape before the new deal it certainly is worse now than it was before the thing that seemed coln to interest most of the writing fraternity in washington however was not so much the alleviation of the conditions which I 1 have mentioned but the political aspects of the presidential announcement announcement that new reorganization plans wre were under can consideration some of these writers wh who 0 are are cil critical of the new deal went back to the 1932 campaign records and dragged out to public view mr roosevelt respecting spec ting ng govern governmental me antal complexities f f 0 western ne newspaper shaper un union |