Evening star. [volume], March 30, 1938, Page A-9, Image 9

About Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972

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America Seen
in Fight on
Hitlerism
Reorganization Vote
Sent Market
Downward.
By DAVID LAWRENCE.
THE fight against the "reorgani
zation" bill has become a fight
against passible Hitlerism in
America.
Rightly or wrongly, the atmosphere
of an organized fight against potential
dictatorship in America has developed
David Lawrence.
nere to sucn an
extent that when
the Senate voted
by & margin of
■even votes to ap
prove the reor
ganization bill,
the stock market
went down on the
assumption that
dictatorship was
nearer than it
would have been
if the bill had
tailed.
Such an exag
gerated impres
sion of the re
organization Din is most, umuuuuaic,
but it is no less absurd than the
views held on the other side of the
issue by the President of the United
States himself. Mr. Roosevelt told
the correspondents at Warm Springs
that the vote on the reorganization
bill showed “that the Senate cannot
be purchased by organized- telegrams
based on direct misrepresentation."
Unhappily for the 42 United States
Senators who voted against the re
organization bill, including such stal
wart New Dealers as Senator Robert
Wagner of New York, the Senate
would allow the inference to be drawn
that members of the Senate so far
forgot their public duty as to submit
to improper influence.
The word “purchased" is one that
Will linger long.
Sign of Emotional Reaction.
It is not often that a President of
the United States has publicly ac
cused a House of Congress of being
subject to "purchase" by organized
telegrams or anything else. It is a
grave reflection on the Senate which
it is doubtful whether Mr. Roosevelt
in a more deliberate mood would ever
have made. It is, however, character
istic of him to make hair-trigger
comments and to allow the press to
quote them. It is more a sign of his
emotional reactions than his con
sidered thought on public questions.
As a matter of fact, the reorganiza
tion bill itself is not as bad as it has
been painted. Were any other Pres
ident in the White House except Mr.
Roosevelt, the bill might have had a
more substantial margin in its favor.
But the thought that Mr. Roosevelt
will be in office during the time the
reorganization is effected is enough to
cause dismay on Capitol Hill, where
distrust of the President is growing
rather than diminishing. The distrust
takes the form of fear that he w'ill
abuse executive power if granted to
him. Incidentally, the removal of
Chairman Morgan of T. V. A. by the
President without the slightest con
stitutional basis for such action has
done more than any one thing to
arouse apprehension about a dictatorial
mood on the part of Mr. Roosevelt.
Nation Watches Fight.
The reorganization bill controversy
has been watched from coast to coast
somewhat as Was the fight against the
bill to pack the Supreme Court.
Though the contest never should have
taken that slant, it so happens that a
vote against the bill was considered a
vote against Mr. Roosevelt and dicta
torship, and a vote for the bill was
taken to mean a continuance of Mr.
Roosevelt's domination of the legisla
tive branch of the Government.
It will be noted that the stock mar
ket had another severe decline after
the reorganization bill passed the
Senate, indicating that, as Mr. Roose
velt’s power grows, confidence on the
part of business and financial men
that they can operate their businesses
and create employment for the idle
begins to diminish.
Maybe Mr. Roosevelt resents the fact
that the issue has been personalized
so much. He may resent also the
charges last week that the adminis
tration was exerting pressure through
patronage and other governmental fa
vors to win votes in the Senate for
the bill. But so long as the President
gives out Federal judgeships to mem
bers of the House of Representatives
and keeps one of their number in the
House even after the latter has been
confirmed as a circuit court of ap
peals judge, the charges of improper
Influence will be heard.
Dividends Off 27 Per Cent.
Unfortunately, none of this creates
any jobs or puts men back to w-ork at
their old jobs. The wiping out of
values and purchasing power goes on
every day. Thus, Moody's which is
one of the leading statistical organiza
tions of the country, has by*a recent
compilation shown that the common
stock dividends of 600 different com
panies declined for the three-month
period from December last through
February from $2.18 a share to $1.60 a
share, or a decline of 27 per cent,
■whereas it took 20 months after the
1929 break for a similar decline in
dividends to develop. And when divi
dends are cut off, a vital part of the
Nation’s purchasing power goes down.
Mr. Roosevelt was in “high humor”
1 at Warm Springs about the reorgani
sation bill vote, but he can hardly
laugh off the deflation now going on
and the plight of the millions whose
pay envelopes have been curtailed or
wiped out through the indifference of
his administration to the needs of
business.
(Copyright, 1938.)
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The Capital Parade
Expanded R. F. C. Lending Program Last Stand of
Anti-Spending Conservatives.
By JOSEPH ALSOP and ROBERT KINTNER.
AN INVESTIGATION of the thinking behind the President's dealings
with the depression is now in order. The expanded'R. P. C. lending
program, hastily announced over the week end, appears to be the
last card of the New Deal’s anti-spending conservatives In their
weary waiting game with bad times.
The program’s disclosure was premature by at least two weeks. It
was prompted by the soggy collapse of the stock market last week and is
understood to have been authorized by the President, by telephone from
Warm Springs, as a quick confidence producer. The program may pro
duce confidence. By pouring hundreds of millions of R. P. C. dollars into
industrial construction, it may even produce a healthy upturn. But, if it
does not, a White House tack toward more drastic action seems inevitable.
This set of facts poses a single and extremely pressing question: If
he has always been ready to resort, if necessary, to some such daring
expedient as the Douglas Federal underwriting scheme disclosed here
yesterday, why has the President ,
remained inactive for so long? L
The malicious rumor-mongers,
who love to credit the President
with a superhuman cunning and
coldness of calculation, have re
plied that he has desired to let the
depression grow so bad that a bank
rupt country will follow him again
as blindly and unquestioningly as
in 1933. This is obvious nonsense.
A better answer is the one supplied
<pEer 7m
v” i.fi»
g^OANS^.
below, which comes from a source close to the White House. Quite nat
urally, its accuracy in detail cannot be vouched for, but it seems a reason
able and consistent explanation of the President’s course.
* * * *
The key to the puzzle seems to be that the President shares the lively
conviction of his Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Morgenthau, Jr., that
the public debt is now so great that immediate huge increases in it might
be dangerous. Mr. Morgenthau’s gentle but untiring persuasiveness in
stilled this conviction in the President last spring.
The conviction’s strength has been repeatedly demonstrated
from the start of the depression. There was Mr. Morgenthau’s
extreme budget-balancing speech in New York last fall just when
bad times were really on us. In it Mr. Morgenthau expressed the
exact views of the President, who had personally revised and
approved every word in the address. Then there were the recurrent
defeats suffered by the left-wing White House advisers during the
winter—on their W. P. A. housing scheme and similar sending
proposals.
And finally, last week, there was the President's choice of Mr,.Mor
genthau as the chairman of the Treasury conference on aid to business,
out of which came the R. P. C. lending program. Considerably to the
chagrin of Mr. Morgenthau’s less conservative rivals, it was to the Secre
tary of the Treasury that the President turned over all memoranda on
his desk dealing with ways of meeting the depression. And it was Mr.
Morgenthau to whom the President gave the deciding vote in culling over
the eight schemes which were considered practicable.
* * * *
The President’s belief in the danger of further huge additions to the
public debt is so important, because, by the explanation already referred
to, the President is also convinced that pump-priming of some sort is the
only way out of a real depression He thinks that depressions are caused
by a capital panic, which puts a stop to capital investment. In the case
of the new depression, many of his visitors report that he suffers from
the Hooverian illusion of a conspiracy of large and hostile capitalists behind
the capital panic. But the significant thing is that he thinks pump-priming
necessary to tempt capital out of hiding, by offering the hope of profit.
If you cannot increase the public debt by pump-priming with
public funds, the way out is to force, tempt or hornswoggle private
investors into putting up the pump-priming cash. How to do so is
a nasty problem, on which little groups of serious New Deal thinkers
have been at work all winter.
The proposed solutions to the problem range all the way from the
R. F. C. lending program just promulgated to a plan to force private
investment by levying a heavy tax on all liquid capital inactive after a
given date. Between these extremes are many other alternatives, like the
Douglas Federal underwriting scheme just set aside and the plan matured
by Labor, Agriculture and Federal Reserve economists for grandiose Gov
ernment purchases of such things as railroad equipment and machine
tools, to be liquidated by renting out the locomotives and lathes.
Besides the planners, there were, of course, the other influential
left-wingers who desired a direct resort to spending. Because of the
•Tieaiueiiis iears as 10 tne aeo', tneir
advice has been unattended, and
will continue to be unless the Presi
dent forgets his fears.
* * * *
You may still ask why inac
tion has continued so long. The
answer, of course, is the congres
sional situation. To quote once
more from the source of this long
explanation. Congress and many
people in the country have suffered
irom an oosession tnat tar. revision and other friendly gestures toward
business would turn the trick. It is impassible to manage the obsessed,
and thus the President has preferred to delay his positive steps, first, until
the need for them was fully proved, and, second, until the tax revising and
other obsessions could be got out of the way. Apparently, this period is
now at hand.
If the R. F. C. lending program does not work, it’s likely that the
present congressional session will be greatly prolonged by a presidential
request for great authorities, or even that the electioneering legislators
will be recalled from their primaries for a special session. What the irri
table law makers will do with a presidential request for new grants of
power is another question.
(Copyright, 1938. by the North American Newspaper Alliance, Inc.)
Have yeu tried WWdrwCoffee at the new lew prieel
CJ*HE opinions of the writers on this page are their own, not
necessarily The Star’s. Such opinions are presented in
The Star’s effort to give all sides of questions of interest to its
readers, although such opinions may be contradictory among
themselves and directly opposed to The Star’s.
£
Peril of Dictatorship
Reorganization Bill Seen Entrenching President as
Superboss of National Patronage. _
By DOROTHY THOMPSON.
THE bill for the reorganization of
#the Executive has not yet
passed, and it is my firm belief
that it will not pass, in its
present form, if the House of Repre
sentatives listens to the country. The
attempt of the administration leaders
to send the Senate bill, which passed
by only a margin of seven votes, to
conference in the House without hav
Dorothy Thompion.
ing to go to tne
House Commit
tee, failed. It is
now in the hands
of the House
Committee with a
possibility still for
debate, amend
ment, or a peace
ful grave.
The House and
Conference Com
mittee of Con
gress still have
the power to
eliminate the four
really objectipn
a b1e features of
the bill. These features are: (1) ine
substitution of a single civil service
administrator, responsible wholly to
the President, in the place of a bi
partisan board. The fact that this ad
ministrator is appointed for 15 years
need not be considered as a check,
since the case of Arthur Morgan, who
was appointed, we remember, for nine
years. (2) The requirements of a
two-thirds vote of Congress to over
ride any measure within the act, which
the President may choose to make.
(3) The removal of congressional con
trol on the Executive purse, by making
the auditing retrospective and not pro
spective. <4) The subjection to the
President of sltch quasi-legislative
agencies as the T. V. A.
Dangerous Elements of Bill.
These are the four really serious and
dangerous features of this bill. The
way they might be exploited must be
considered in connection with the
whole practice of American politics,
and particularly with the tendencies
of this administration. This bill, with
these features in it, will entrench and
fortify the President as the super
boss of national patronage with some
thing like $5,000,000,000 of the budget
to shift around.
It is amazing to me that Senator
Norris, for whom I have great respect,
supported this bill in its present form.
As late as March 16 the Senator,
in the debate on the bill, opposed
including the T. V. A. under the agen
cies which the President could trans
form or eliminate at will, which he
can certainly do in the present draft.
The Senator said then: ‘‘I should
be opposed to the T. V. A. being at
tached to any department, I care not
what it is. The very theory of the
T. V. A. Act itself was to make the
organization independent of any de
partment, independent of any Presi
dent, independent of any political
change which might come over the
country, by which we would go from
one extreme to the other, as the
country often does; to put the Tennes
see Valley Authority as nearly as
possible upon a business basis, upon a
permanent basis, so that it would not
be in the power of either party if it
came into power some time to over
throw the T. V. A. before it would be
possible to have a friendly administra
tion in power.”
Norris' Remarks Pertinent.
Senator Norris’ remarks were exactly
pertinent.
The so-called liberal supporters of
this legislation make exactly the same
error that they made in respect to
the bill for the reorganization of the
Supreme Court. They see things with
the short view, with respect to a
specific administration, with a specific
program.
As far as the civil sendee provi
sions are concerned the bill does not,
in the estimation of this column, go
nearly far enough. They do not touch
basic issues. The civil service prob
lem is not a problem of clerks and
stenographers. It is a problem of
building up an intelligent and con
tinuing bureaucracy in positions up to
undersecretaries of State, with an
esprit de corps of devoted public
service, and with a freedom and
security so great that they can feel
free to criticize as well as support the
policies of the administration, on the
basis of their considered and expert
Judgment.
Problem of Ending Patronage.
It is a problem of getting rid of
patronage as a political instrument,
in order that deliberation and con
sidered judgment may be put in its
place.
But it does not abolish patronage to
decrease the patronage dispensation
privileges of Congress and increase the
patronage distributing privileges of the
President. On the contrary, it creates
a very much more dangerous form of
patronage.
The vote of many Senators on the
bill Is politically illuminating. Sen
ator Wagner of New York voted
against it. Senator Wagner is one of
the most aftute politicians in Congress,
and it is probable that he recognizes
what the Gallup Polls increasingly
show, what the changed attitude of
William Green and John L. Lewis
shows, and what will soon be apparent
to all politicians, namely that the lead
ership of the President is no longer a
political asset in the United States.
The reason is a simple one. A
leader, to hold public support in a
Democratic country, must lead.
And throughout his entire second
administration the President has dis
played no leadership.
It is almost as though another
Franklin D. Roosevelt sat in the White
; House. We are at this moment a
country without a government. We
have non-government by echoes of its
past self.
Country Demands Leadership.
What the country is demanding
from the administration and Congress
is precisely what it demanded in 1932:
Leadership in dealing with a very
serious depression. Actually, leader
ship in dealing with the most precip
itous depression in our history, which
is rapidly approaching the point of
1932.
And not a single constructive idea
for handling this, which is our only
immediate important problem, has
come from the administration.
On the contrary, since November,
the administration has been blocking
every attempt of Congress to deal
realistically with the situation.
The members of Congress are free
to use their considerate judgment
about this bill or any other bill. They
don't need to be afraid that if they
switch their vote they're backing the
wrrong horse.
What they need to fear is that they
are backing no horse.
(Copyright, 1938, by the New York Trib
une, Inc.)
This Changing World
Italy and Germany Making Preparations for Handling
Spain and Franco.
By CONSTANTINE BROWN.
HE rich uncle Is not dead yet, but the heirs are making plans for
division of the estate they expect to inherit.
The loyalist forces are still fighting—a losing battle, it is true—
and the Germans and Italians are making necessary preparations
for handling Spain and the future dictator, Gen. Francisco Franco.
* * * *
Among these preparations there is a plan for the maintenance in Spain
of a substantial force of Black Shirts to help Franco police the country.
The official reason for the maintenance of the "police” force is that
Franco will have to demobilise his entire army as soon as the war is over.
He would want, it is said, to send every able-bodied man to his home to
, work the fields, the mines and the factories. For almost two years. SDain
&
*- —~
\ Dictator. ’
\ tKahco
has been just fighting; it is high
time that it starts working. And
Mussolini is willing to help Franco
put his people to work again.
* * * *
But a strong police force is
necessary to supervise a country
which has gone through a severe
ordeal. And for that reason some
thirty or forty thousand Italian
Black Shirts will be maintained in
Spain; they will police the country
ana incidentally lien. Franco himseir.
The same thing, on a smaller scale, will apply to the Germans. The
nucleus of an airforce will be maintained at the principal strategic points—
a full-blooded German force.
German specialists who are now improving the nationalist
arsenals, naval and air bases will continue their work while German
engineers will be placed at the head of the Spanish mining and
industrial enterprises.
Franco will be the supreme ruler of Spain .. , attached to a telephone
wire connecting him directly with Berchtesgaden and Palazzo Venezia in
Rome.
* * * *
The popular and affable Mexican Ambassador in Washington, Senor
Francisco Castillo Najera has telegraphed and telephoned this writer that
he was fully in sympathy with the policies of his boss, President Cardenas,
regarding Mexico’s policies of nationalization of the foreign oil fields.
There is no doubt, on the basis of the ambassador's message, that
high officials in Washington must have misinterpreted his thoughts. That
is of course the fault of diplomacy.
* * * *
In keeping with the policies of the dictators of administering hot and
cold showers to- the democratic governments, diplomats are looking now
towards the Pacific for some new spectacular developments. What they
are going to be is still uncertain, but a new Japanese drive Is expected
somewhere.
a a a a
In the meantime American naval experts are trying to figure out
what is the meaning of the Japanese plans to build pocket battle cruisers.
These ships which are reported to be in process of construction in the
Japanese navy yards have a displacement of 16,000 tons and carry 12-inch
gun batteries. Their speed is said
to exceed 30 knots.
* * * *
In building these pocket battle
cruisers, besides the *2.000-ton
battleships, the Japanese are merely
following the policy of the othej
principal sea powers: They have to
have powerful and fast ships to raid
the sea-borne trade of their po
tential enemies. The capture and
destruction of commerce with the
consequent crippling or economic resources of the enemy is one of the
fundamental principles of sea warfare.
* * * *
The question which worries our naval experts is against which country
these raiders will be active.
The British have an important commerce in the Pacific. But east of
a line running through Singapore and north of a line running through
Sydney and New South Wales, the normal volume of British sea trade
forms a comparatively small proportion of Britain’s commerce.
* * * *
It is pointed out by these experts that the number of British merchant
men of over 3,000 tons registry on the 87,000 miles of trade routes average
1.147 daily.
All in all there are only some 100 British ships plying in the
zone which might become threatened by the guns of the new
Japanese raiders—100 ships out of a fofal of 1,U7 traders carrying
British and foreign goods over the seven seas.
The destruction of that commerce could not cripple the British
Empire. The inevitable conclusion is that the Japanese Navy intends to
cripple the trade of all countries which have interests in the Par East and
it is in that light that the construction of the new pocket battle cruisers is
regarded today.
Headline Folk
and What
They Do
Maj. Eliot, Expert on
Defense, Shapes Up
as a Capt. Hart.
By LEMUEL PARTON.
THE author of around 3,000,000*
word* of pulp Action 1* *hap-1
lng up as the Liddell Hart of *
America. At a New York club ’
the other night this reporter encoun
tered Maj. George Fielding Eliot, one
of the experts collaborating with the
New Republic in its current “national
defense" supplement. He is co-author,
with Maj. R. Ernest Dupuy, of the re
cently published book, “If War Comes.”
I knew of his reputation as a military
critic and commentator. The pulp Ac
tion background was news.
In his talk to the club Maj. Eliot had
maintained on the basis of close and
detailed study, that the German Army
is not the juggernaut it is supposed to
be, with none of the offensive power of
the old imperial army. Questioning
him about this, it occurred to me that
this country had no one covering the
military beat like Capt. Hart and
asked Maj. Eliot about his objectives.
He was modest about it but said he
was working in the same Aeld and
hoped to make good. He added, how
ever, that he earnestly disagreed with
Capt. Hart on many points.
He W'as born in Brooklyn In 1894
and went to Australia with his parents
at the age of 8. He returned to An
lsh military college just as the World
War started. He fought with the
Australian imperial force at the Dar
danelles. the Arst Somme battle, in
the mud at Paschendaele and else
where on the western front. After the
war, in Kansas City, he began writing
yarns for War Stories and thereafter
came the 2,000,000 words of pulp Ac
tion.
In 1928 he became a major of the
Military Intelligence Service, and It
was then that he began supplementing
his war experiences with his Intensive
technical and strategic studies. With
increasing frequency he appears in
magazine and military journals. Of
his book the Infantry’ Journal said:
“Not since the classics of the great Ad
miral Mahan has there been such a
vital addition to the field of military
literature.”
He is deliberate, bulky, square-cut,
quietly courteous and loaded to the
guards with amazing minute and
particularized military information.
He and his specialty are timely at the
moment in the National Forum, In
which a precise definition for “ade
quate defense” is sought. In reply to
my request for his idea of a sound
military policy, he said: "Impregnable
defense for the Western Hemisphere,
but no more European or Asiatic ad
ventures.”
(Copyright. 1938.)
G. W. Art Exhibition.
An exhibition of the works of Cecil
Harold McLendon, graduate art stu
dent of George Washington University,
will open at the school's Little Gallery,
2131 G street N.W., at 1 p.m. Monday.
The display, which includes water
colors, oils and drawings, will be open
to the public every day except Sunday
for two weeks.
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