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Show : ttm. rif IWI1 n r .M .11111111 IMIWI Washington. It nearly always happens in the second term of any j President that the Congress congress begins to Balks shows signs of asserting as-serting itsown will. ! This is perfectly natural. Members of the house and senate recognize, : or have recognized in the past, that when a President enters onto his second term he has little more in the way of trading to offer them, i That is to say, the President has ; about exhausted political appoint-I appoint-I ments and, except for special pieces ; of legislation, the Chief Executive cannot compensate house and sen-I sen-I ate members with political plums. The New Deal congress in Mr. Roosevelt's first term was subservient, subserv-ient, indeed. It gave him everything ! he asked. But now there are en-j en-j couraging signs of a more independ-j independ-j ent attitude on the part of congress. I use the word "independent" to mean that congress has begun to examine legislative proposals from the White House in the light of the viewpoint of individual representatives representa-tives and senators instead of an examination solely in the light of the argument presented by the President. Pres-ident. The Supreme court reorganization reorganiza-tion proposal brought the first sign of independence by congress. This sign broke out in the senate and there are many who believe that the senate will never yield on the President's proposal to pack the court with any additional justices of his own choosing. It is possible that, as we view history from, say ten years hence, the Supreme court reorganization plan will be shown to have been the straw that broke the President's control over a congress con-gress in which his party has more than two-thirds of the members. Several other legislative proposals from the White House have met or are meeting real difficulties. One of them that must be regarded as important im-portant is the relief fund proposition. proposi-tion. I imagine that, in the end, the President will get the full billion and a half that he has requested for relief purposes but the controversy contro-versy over relief funds is significant. For instance, and as an example of the undercurrent of feeling in congress, the house took a nasty slap at Relief Administrator Harry Hopkins. The nouse did it in a way designed to make Mr Hopkins peevish. pee-vish. It cut his salary as relief administrator ad-ministrator by two-thousand dollars a year. Now. a cut from $12,000 to $10,000 probably is unimportant as far as the monetary affect is concerned, con-cerned, but it was the same thing as if the house had turned Mr. Hopkins across its knees and had given him a couple of good spanks. What it does, actually, is to show Mr. Hopkins that the house is still its own boss and it demonstrates as well the house has some spunk left. In addition to the relief fund controversy, con-troversy, congress is giving evidence evi-dence also of more constructive opposition op-position to control from the White House over all national policies. For example, the new farm bill is undergoing under-going very critical analysis by the house agriculture committee. While this measure to establish what Secretary Sec-retary Wallace calls the "ever-normal" granary and to revive control con-trol over important farm groups was not sent to congress from the White House, everyone understands it has White House indorement. House leaders accept it, at least, as representing the principle AAA and, therefore, as being representative of the President's ideas. Leaders of the farm bloc in the house are quite skeptical of the plan. Naturally, it is too early to forecast what is going to happen on this piece of legislation but it is important to note that the house is giving close and independent study instead of rushing the legislation through merely because the admin-4stration admin-4stration announced it was favorable favor-able to the proposition. There is discontent in the senate also. Mr. Roosevelt's farllung government gov-ernment reorganization bill has touched so many sensitive spots that some doubt actually exists whether it will get through at all, even after revision. The feeling in the senate on this matter is so widespread that Democratic Dem-ocratic Leader Robinson made a statement the other day to the effect that "failure of the senate to pass the bill will be no public calamity." If their skepticism leads to a more systematic and thorough scrutiny of this bill and other pieces of legislation. legis-lation. It seems likely in my opinion that some costly blunders may be avoided. The trouble with congress, however, how-ever, when it gets into the humor we now observe, is F ollow that many times it Bell Cow does things the wrong way'. After all, members of the house and senate sen-ate are human and they flock together to-gether behind the bell cow, if that bell cow succeeds in stirring up enough excitement. Tiike the controversy over the relief re-lief funds, as a caso In point. It is plain that the house feels that Mr. Roosevelt does not require a billion and a half in new money for relief. But the house apparently does not have the courage to take an out and out position in accordance with its conviction. So it is trying to dodge the real issue by holding out for a provision in the bill that would set aside half a billion of the total for use exclusively on permanent public pub-lic works under Secretary Ickes as public works administrator. (Secretary (Secre-tary Ickes and Relief Aministrator Hopkins long have been snarling at each other.) To get down to cases on this relief fund controversy, it actually happens that the real argument is on the side of Mr. Roosevelt. Either he needs the whole amount for relief re-lief or he does not and there is little sense in the house taking a run around the rosebush to cover a feeling feel-ing of revenge. Thus, the house is shown in a rather bad light. If it has spunk enough to spank Mr. Hopkins and if it does not believe that the President needs the full amount he has requested, then why does not the house approve of only a billion and stick to that position? There is another phase of this house revolt on relief funds that ought to be examined. I mentioned earlier that the members of the house and senate no longer expected expect-ed political plums from the White House. Now they are trying to get close to the political pie counter in another manner. If they can get part of the relief funds allocated for permanent public works, they have their snouts in the political trough of the old pork barrel. There is a natural reaction for politicians when money is to be passed out and the house has been displaying that reaction to the fullest full-est on the relief funds. The proposition, proposi-tion, simmered down, is, however, that the time has long passed when pork barrel methods can be tolerated tolerat-ed in congress. It is not a sound principle of representative government govern-ment and it is not economical. On the other hand, it seems to me that Mr. Roosevelt cannot escape responsibility for revival of the pork barrel custom. Throughout his first term, he allowed congress plenty of pork barrel packages and now that he is attempting to stick through his own ideas without providing the usual sop for congress, the politicians politi-cians resent it. While the congress has been fussing fuss-ing and fuming over legislation, in downtown Wash-Treasury Wash-Treasury ington, the Treas-in Treas-in Trouble urv is finding its job more and more difficult. Last week. Secretary Mor-genthau Mor-genthau found himself in a position where he had to go into the money market for an additional eight-hundred-million dollars. He offered new government bonds in that amount and from the proceeds of their sale, he will have in the Treasury sufficient suffi-cient funds to keep the government going. Incidentally, this new loan will put the national debt almost to thirty-six billion. The Treasury's latest borrowing of new money caused some surprise sur-prise because it had been thought that the June 15 income tax payments pay-ments would put the Treasury's balance bal-ance sufficiently high to carry the government for another month or two. Notwithstanding Mr. Roosevelt's Roos-evelt's declarations that government govern-ment expenses must be cut, they are continuing to expand and, consequently, con-sequently, it has been necessary to borrow more money in order to keep the machinery of government operating. It is impossible to discuss the latest lat-est Treasury loan without linking to it the question of the administration's admin-istration's gold policy and, it is impossible im-possible to mention the gold policy without relating that the United States now has more than twelve billions in gold. The United States thus has approximately one-half of all the gold in the world. This would seem to make our nation the richest in the world, but having all of this gold stock is a very expensive proposition prop-osition under the administration's gold policy. For one thing, the care and handling of it is an item of cost that is tremendous. No one seems to know how the administration will untangle itself from the gold policy. If the United States continues to maintain the present price of gold, just so long will other nations ship gold to the shores of America. We have seen gold entering the United States at the rate of sixteen million dollars a day for some days. Of course, that is an abnormal rate but the imports have been so high that presently, if the present pace la maintained we will have all of the gold and its value will be questionable as a factor fac-tor in trade. From foreign sources conic rumors that many of the banking interests abroad are perlVelly willing will-ing to unload the bulk of their gold on the United Stales. In so dnini;. they put themselves in a position to bargain ell'ee! i cly w Hi llu- Unit-ed Unit-ed Slates whenever l':e lime comes for world nations ,.;:.,.u.:s ,,ione slabil v. il 10:1 |
