| Show national topics interpreted by william bruckart national press 11 building wahington D C washington it has been several months since the administration farm relief pro memory gram the agrical lingers lagerson gersOn Lm on tural adjustment act was declared dead but like the words of the sons song the memory lingers on and it Is quite juite apparent that mistakes as well as memories of the AAA will continue through the heat of the coming presidential campaign and probably considerably longer tor for it Is only necessary to recall that the stepbrother of the AAA the federal tarin farm board of the hoover administration tra tion still Is the butt of much criticism and many pointed paragraphs one of the main reasons vi why by the soe memories mories linger on where those memories involve A AAA Is republican senator arthur EL H senator sever lever did get enthusiastic about the merits of AAA as they were expounded by secretary wallace administrator chester davis and other new kew deal spokesmen and when the supreme court of the united states threw out the processing taxes upon which the law was predicated senator was in a delightful spot from a political standpoint lie ile has not found it necessary to say 1 I told you so and has had bad I 1 imagine a great deal of personal fun in simply hinting to or reminding others of his previous stand but it was not until the michigan senator began pulling figures out of his bis senatorial bat showing how benefit payments from the AAA had bad gone to great and wealthy corporations in sums as high as a million dollars or more that he held a key to the new deal skeleton closet they know now however exactly what he be meant when he be announced in the hecate several weeks ago that no lo such plan as the AAA could be administered without vast sums being distributed in what he termed unwarranted payments unwarranted from the standpoint of help tor for the smaller farmers secretary wallace stalled oft off senator Vanden bergs s demand in the senate for a complete list of benefi beneficiaries clarles who received checks from AAA in excess of one thousand dollars for quite a while but there were too many senators who wha believed as senator did that the truth ought to be known of course as the procedure usually goes in washington many things are done without actual f force orce being used it was thus in the case of the AAA payments democratic senators who foresaw their inability to prevent a senate vote demanding demand ln a list of AAA payments persuaded mr wallace to make public the list voluntarily unta rily and it was done just in advance of senate action so we now haie hae for the first time at least an indication of the grotesque results of the a agricultural gri cultural adjustment adust ment administration pr program that was hailed from the atlantic to the pacific as an ideal plan the dynamite in the situation lies in the fact that there were doz ens e even v e n hun dynamite deeds of corpora in in it eions w which h I 1 c h received AAA checks among the ba big bounties paid to induce curtailment of basic fora forage crops this would not be so bd bad except tor for the fact that the brilliant planners of the AAA continuously stressed its value to the small debt ridden farmers throughout the time the law was under consideration and through the two bears ears of never did mr wallace or mr davis fall to point out in their numerous speeches how great sums gums of money collected in processing in taxes were being distributed to thousands of farmers and that these payments were in time going to put agriculture on its collective feet now kow however the truth of their statement has been proved but when the whole truth has been exposed on the floor of the senate it was found to go far beyond the small debt ridden farmers the whole truth disclosed in tact fact that several million dollars had been paid even to corporations chartered by the british government and with home offices in england wall street that home of entrenched greed received its share and its share was substantial on top of all of this there latey has come a disclosure that a great wheat farmer in montana rec received elved something like for agreeing not to plant wheat on land which he had rented from the indians through the federal department of alje interior for tile tife specific purpose of raising wheat the list of huge benefit payments is much too large to include in tills this letter but the fact remains rem ins that it showed how even thebert the best laid plans of mice and men art aft go astray even when those men dien are brilliant brain tr usters who themselves claim to know all there Is available for human understanding beyond that the disclosures have set sel in motion discussion that will conic come pretty close to continuing into every farmhouse in tile the land unless Un lel I 1 miss my by guess and I 1 am no doctor tugwell thousands of tanners farmers are gong going to bitterly resent the tact faett that hat their payments were small whereas gigantic corporations received sums ranging from ten to a thousand times as large in behalf of the lie AAA officials it must be said that there will be as indeed there lias has unfair been already con criticism sid erable u unfair n f a I 1 r criticism the criticism to which I 1 refer is of this type that they should have discovered d in advance of the payments that funds were going to these corporations po rations assuming that they could have discovered that tact fact in advance there was no alternative for them except to pay the checks authorized by law congress made the law or rather congress passed it under the lash of the administration but it was on the statute books and administrative istra tive officials are not supposed to disregard such provisions if there Is to be criticism it should be directed at the initial framing of the statute that brought about the condition the results that have attracted so much attention since senator Vanden bergs exposure constitute one of the curious coincidences and queer quirks of planned economy and a further word about the criticism A great many people are likely to forget that while their check was in three figures and some corporation received one in six figures the condition results n holly from the fact that one owned more land than the other you may properly say this should have been foreseen and I 1 believe you will be making a correct statement but surely this Is a fact the AAA officials cannot be blamed for sending out the checks when the law said they should do it regardless of the name or nature of the beneficiary the fault lies solely and completely complete with those who from their probes dional desks conceived the whole scheme and gained president noose belts approval of it 0 9 0 the development of the vulnerable spots in the AAA crop cur curtailment 11 program vulnerable probably will spots prove beneficial to the country as a whole hole eventually for one thin thing these disclosures have forever clicked choked off proposals of that kind they may result as well in strengthening streng the new proposition for cro crop control through the medium of soil conservation in other words since the bulk of the congress thinks through legislation only in the terms of administration arguments they will likely be less prone to enact legislation le Islat lon without knowing what results will be obtained it seems to me that the now new farm aid plan likely will ill be stronger and probably more workable and a nd certainly less extravagant than was the AAA because the AAA weaknesses have been exposed these exposures ought to have an effect also among thinking farmers who hereafter fire are unlikely to accept dogmatic statements and rainbow pictures painted for them by political demagogues and professional farm leaders without examining the practicability tic of the scheme 0 0 while we are talking about mis takes and about the results ob tallied by brilliant Flet fletcherr fletchers chers theorists I 1 bear brain trust more and more discussion of the latest move by chairman denry I 1 P fletcher and his republican notional national committee sir fletcher lias has hired ten university professors to head bead up what he calls the committees mit tees research start staff and in announcing noun cing their appointment he stressed a declaration that the d division Is not a brain trust but brain trust it Is going to be called notwithstanding mr air Flet fiddlers fletchers fidd chers lers assertion that they were practical men and women 0 of experience they are going to be a brain trust in exactly the same sense that mr Roosevel ts brain trust has been denominated and how else could it be there actually seems to be little choice between the type or of meu met clr fletcher has chosen and the Tug wells and other doctors and professors who have bave constantly had the ear of 0 the president these men will have mr r fletcherr fletchers Ilet Flet chers par ear and undoubtedly will pour into it their own theories of 0 government and their own ideas of approach to the problem that confronts the Uc Wi publican national com mitte namely the defeat of mr roosevelt I 1 have observed political battles for a good many years and I 1 have haac observed served li the management of 0 governmental ern mental responsibilities through a parallel lel period the conclusion Is inescapable as tar far as I 1 am concerned that practical men always have donea better job always have been better administrators and better planners than the men and women who alio have spent their alls llica lecturing from a university classroom rostrum sa Q western newspaper unload |
