Show 0 D 9 0 national topics interpreted 11 by william bruckart I 1 national press pre building washington Wan hington D C washington congress is packing its duds it know exactly W what hat date it will want to go home but go go home home it will in just a few weeks more there is nothing more contagious ta g lous than homesickness among congressmen when primaries are in the air and votes around the grass gras 9 roots await to be garnered I 1 suppose that when they go there will be a certain amount ot of criticism ab about u t the do nothing congress particularly particularly will they hoar hear barks that they have left the nations most moist important problem unsolved they will be told how they should have charted a course to lead the country out of the depression and how they failed to do anything towards restoring unemployed to permanent jobs the prospect of this condition it seems to me warrants a general discus discussion s lon without pulling punches congress is supposed to formulate national policies it therefore must accept some blame for its allure ciure but it is not alone to blame and the voters ought to know it there are some other spots to which attention should be directed in all fairness to the members of the house and senate let us look back a bit it must be agreed I 1 believe that recovery Is the foremost problem recovery plans must be divided attention must be given first to relief of the destitute the unemployed secondly policies must be laid down that will permit business big and little to take on workers or obviously they will remain on the relief rolls since last november there have been pleas threats argument all seeking establishment of policies that would permit business to have confidence there has been nothing from president roosevelt Hoo sevelt in the way of suggestions or proposals along this line and congress refused cowardly eno enough tigh to lead the way As the session wore on unemployment increased until the other day clay the social security board made public figures showing that about persons were receiving government alsista assistance nee of one kind or another almost families alies and during the same period the volume of business fell further into new low levels the whole picture undeniably has grown worse then there came from the president the request for the use of further money some six billion dollars of it it was the so called lending spending program that has just been enacted and the congress anxious to avoid conflict with presidential will rubbed its collective hands and said in effect therel there that takes care of the unemployed so we will have new post offices new bridges new roads new this and new that some time those things can not be put over on a days noti notice ce it takes time to get them started where they will employ wor workers kers the portion of the six billions allocated for relief of course can be used at once because mr harry hopkins can have his boys and girls write checks at a rate which is positively amazing the public construction phase will be valuable or ought to be to the candidates because the candidates can say to their political meetings here it is and from my hands too after that money is spent then what my conviction is that we will be just where we started that is to say we will be just where we were three years ago every one recalls of course how there was a pump priming of business then it cost the result was some very nice post offices and other public buildings and an addition of to the national debt the administration tried some other pump priming too and succeeded in building up the national debt still higher it is now pushing right up to the forty billion mark since the pump priming and the other spending ideas tailed failed to accomplish com anything spending in the other trials fails there seems to be no reason to expect the new outlay of cash to d do 0 more than create a new high record lor for the national debt it will do that beyond question but I 1 said at the outset that there were others to blame this tact fact has been brought to the fore by the condition lately much publicized in chicago and cleveland scenes distressingly tres singly reminiscent of the lines of starving in 1930 were re enacted in chicago and cleveland within the month the cities were out of cash and the relief lines became riotous there is not much to be done about starving people but to teed feed them that is accepted yet how Q did that happen why was the condition allowed to reach that stage here is the fact that will make me I 1 very popular I 1 am sure in the areas where the shoe fits the states have tailed failed to assume their proper share of the responsibility I 1 lehme repeat that the states have failed to assume their proper tha share of they have consistently done su EU and the reason I 1 I 1 I 1 they have been chiseling chi and pulling at the federal teat Is be because e a au they have been taught by the washington as government through six or eight years that they could do it and get away with it the politicians within a state can not be blamed wholly because they are politicians seeking election or seeking to hold office or party p power ow e r or what have you it was so much easier to bring pressure to bear in washington go home with big checks shout to the folks that they were bringing home the bacon without adding to the tax of their home folks that Is they said there was no additional tax because it was a federal tax that had to make up tor for what the states drew W out and the federal taxes are not as easily seen peen as taxes in a state a county or a city it has come to such a pass these days that few state politicians dare to suggest at home that they raise I 1 the relief funds locally it would be political suicide they feel so they follow the beaten track to washington and the washington politicians from president roosevelt down the courage to send them back home without some token of appreciation something of a minor character me like a check tor for a few millions and a promise of more if one is really going to trace this thing down to its start I 1 believe it has to go back to herbert hoovers administration it will be recalled that mr hoover proposed and obtained congressional action on a plan by which the reconstruction finance corporation was created it was to loan money to tide business over until the depression had worn itself out it was not a sound plan then it is not sound now it was opposed by democrats then but it has been expanded and enlarged and glorified by them since but the fact that it was created constitutes the tragedy the tact fact that there was a spot where government cash could be borrowed started politicians looking to washington it was a pretty soft touch for them the lafollette type of mind and the group of professors who figured the nation could spend its way out of the depression moved right into the long halls and took over desks in every place they could find chairs the thing spread like wildfire and it Is still Is going as witness the latest program involving six sit billion dollars 0 it is going to require many years 0 of f effort to restore states to their own boundaries long road they have got ahead themselves I 1 into n t 0 1 debt with the federal government they have found how easy it Is to do that and they will do more unless the people themselves realize what it means unless the states again take control of their own affairs state lines will mean nothing the nation will be run from washington bureaucrats desks and good government by the people themselves will be a thing of the past there is a phase of this control from washington upon which I 1 want to record a few especial observations I 1 refer to the great waste that occurs when the federal government attempts to handle such a delicate and direct proposition as relief tills this phase irks me and it ought to irk every one who hates to see stupid administration use up so much money needlessly my morning paper a few days ago parried carried a dispatch from cleveland announcing that public funds from washington were going to be used to give work to four hundred men for s six ix months they are going to count the trees in cleveland think of it counting trees as a means of giving borki surely it is possible to create some other kind of work I 1 believe it would be better to give that money outright for the construction st of some homes for fifty families or any one of a hundred thousand things I 1 such things as this are bound to happen however when the states counties and cities lean so heavily on washington citizens lose control when they let their politicians dodge responsibility by calling on washington for everything and there is no doubt in the mind of any one who has studied the problem but that the citizens will pay more when their relief needs are met from washington than it if they forced their own officials to assume the responsibilities of their offices I 1 suppose however that it is in the interest of odthe the politicians to bring about recovery in a normal way whether they are local or state or national politicians it if they can accomplish election the way it is now being done they may as well continue each onedas one has only one political life to give to his country and 4 1 he can make that political life a good 1 long one by kidding his cons constituents well why nt not I 1 repeat however and there can be no denying the fact that relief Is going to cost each citizen more because the money is being chiseled out of washington rather than the state or local treasuries 0 western newspaper union |