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Show THE touio s gpOTEP IN WASHINGTON mi Playing Politics SOMEONE who was . wise composed com-posed a prayer which read like this: "O Lord, grant me the serenity to accept those things which I cannot can-not change; the courage to change those things which I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." Somehow or other it seems that the citizens committee for the Hoover Report, including its agricultural agri-cultural sub-committee, has failed to find the wisdom to know the difference. dif-ference. Several months ago this column warned that .he citizens committee commit-tee for the hoover Report, which started out as a bi-partisan effort to remodel and stream-line the executive ex-ecutive branch of the government, was playing politics in its efforts to force through some of its recommendations. recom-mendations. And during the past two or three weeks the committee, including its agricultural sub-committee, has become engaged In a knock-down drag-out fight along political po-litical lines on its recommendations recommenda-tions for over-hauling the Department Depart-ment of Agriculture. Now, Dr. Robert L. Johnson, national na-tional chairman of the committee 'and president of Temple University, has announced disbanding of the committee as of May 31 "to avoid becoming involved in politics." Dr. Johnson said that to date about 55 per cent of the recommendations of the commission, many of -which have been endorsed by President Truman, have been enacted Into law. However, and much to the point, the agricultural sub-committee of the citizens committee, does not Intend to disband along with the parent organization, and this Is the group, under the guidance of Charles Dana Bennett, Ben-nett, as special consultant, which has aroused the ire of the National Farmers Union and cf Kei-rptsi rv Charles Brannan of the Department of Agriculture. The National Farmers Union has devoted much of its last two weekly letters to a two-fisted and vitriolic attack upon Bennett, who, in a speech before the members of the committee at the Shoreham hotel, recently used some intemperate language. lan-guage. Bennett leveled much of his fire against the farmer committeemen committee-men in the counties of the nation who are the bulwark of the entire agricultural set-up, elected by the farmers themselves. The committees commit-tees contain thousands of Republicans Repub-licans as well as Democrats, since they are selected on a non-partisan basis. Brannan Letter Secretary Brannan in a public letter sent to Dr. Johnson charged the agricultural committee with "the most flagrant examples of misinformation", some of which he charged was not only "misleading, but outright false." In fairness to the Hoover Committee, however, some advertising agency in preparing pre-paring its copy, had taken figures from the Hoover report of 1947 which of course as of today are false and misleading. In his letter Secretary Brannan said: "The department is carrying on most of the functions in which it was engaged in 1940 plus many new functions such as the rural telephone tele-phone program, the farm housing program and those arising out of the research and marketing act, the Point Four program and numerous others." He pointed out that the department's de-partment's budget has been reduced re-duced by about 25 per cent, from more than $1,600,000,000 in 1940 to $1,200,000,000 in 1952; that total to-tal number of employees, full time, have been reduced from 71,000 In 1940 to 57,000 today and number of part-time employees has been cut in half; that organizational organ-izational structure has been cut from 18 agencies in 1940 to 10 today. to-day. 100,000 Committeemen This reporter believes that the county farm committees who are elected to determine the farm program pro-gram they prefer in their own conn-ties conn-ties are probably the closest group I to tile gtaas luyis nmuwug ujjiui to have in our democracy. It's true that in Vermont, for instance, a majority of a committee may be Republicans, while in Georgia they all might be Democrats, but by and large politics plays no part in the election of delegates to the county convention which selects the county committees. And these farmers actually ac-tually decide the program in their own county. There are more than 100,000 of them. Unwise Interference And while this column is In sympathy sym-pathy with reduction of waste and extravagance, as is the objective of the Hoover Committee, for Instance a one-stop farm office in every county any interference with the local lo-cal farm committees is an attempt to interfere with democracy at its best at the grassroots. It seems only logical to believe these folks know best the kind of a program they want in their own counties in many scattered sections of the country. |