Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1919-01-22
TREND IS TOWARD
FEDERAL CONTROL
EVIDENCE OF THIS IN KENYON'S
RESOLUTION CONCERNING
WELFARE OF PEOPLE.
INVOLVES ADVANCE IDEAS
Business Man Who Has Been Working
in Washington Tells How Red Tape
ampered-Dodging Blame for
Building Locations.
BY ARTHUR w. DUNN.

BY ARTHUR w. DUNN.
Westinghouse an evidence of the
trend toward government control,
which was given such an impetus by
our entry into the war, a recent resolu-
ton introduced by Senator Kenyon of
Iowa and adopted by the senate may
be cited. This resolution instructed
the committee on education and labor
to make numerous inquiries and rec
concentrations, which included a tri-
bunal to settle difficulties between en-
plOyerS and Workmen; to further the
development of the United States en-
ployment service; to prevent unem-
ployment among workers; to promote
better living conditions possible ex-
tension of the soldiers insurance law
against unemployment, old age, ETC.;
the feasibility of a national minimum
wage law; and the extending Of voca-
tional training and education to all
people disabled by injury or sickness.
The senate committee is already tnveS-
tigating this subject, and it may make
a report favOring some, if not all, OF
the ideas outlined in the resolution.
There are a great many public men
who believe it is the duty of the Unit
cd States to take into consideration all
these questions involving employment
and the welfare of people who live by
labor. Of course there must be vast
amount of discussion of such subject
as this before it reaches any stage Of
inality.
The big business men who came to
Washington to help run affairs during
the war had some troubles of their
own, which were explained by one of
them about to depart his work having
been finished. He said that when he
arrived in Washington he met quite
a number of men with whom he had
been more or less associated in bust
ness affairs and was informed by them
that he would meet in Washington
either socialists or stuffed shirts"
This phrase was not elaborated, but
the business man went on to explain
that the average man who came to
Washington generally found himself
up against lot of men with salaries
Of $1,000 or $4,000 year, who were OBJ
structionists. They were the class of
men who had been long in the govern
ment service and they always found
means TO block straightforward bust
ness methods they were the red-tape
artists; they were the men who were
always digging up laws, rules, regula-
tons, precedents, etc, which would
prove TO the active business man that
he could not pursue what he consid-
cred cOmmon-sense methods. Call
them, and 90 per cent of them are not
there" was the way this business man
who had been doing war work sized
them up. He said one reason why a
great deal of war work had been sue
ceSsful was because the business men
disregarded much of the red tape and
moth-eaten systems of the past.
There has been quite long discus
sion in the senate on the housing prop
osition and great deal of criticism of
the project which covered the large
Union Station plaza with structures
intended to house the many clerks that
were overcrowding Washington. Dur
ing this criticism Senator Mclean of
Connecticut put the fiat question to
Senator Reed of Missouri as to who
was responsible for locating these
buildings. The Missouri senator, who
is chairman of the committee on pub
lie buildings and grounds, remarked
that perhaps some member of the COM
mittee could answer that question, and
Senator Hardwick of Georgia, who
had felt the heavy hand of the presi-
dent IN his recent contest for the SEN
ate, did not hesitate to remark: ''Mr.
Eidlitz said that he and some of his
people went around and finally they
got the president and took him around
and showed him those lots and he
picked out the site. The president, of
course, did it all, Eidlitz says" Ed
litz il the man who had charge of the
housing program Senator Reed re-
marked that he found it generally
true that when people do anything
that gets unpopular they always, some
way or other, say that the president
did It."
Tie enormous program of relief
work which the Red Cross has been
carrying on in Europe will naturally
dwindIe as things begin to right them
selves. Henry p Dawson, chairman
of the Red Cross war council. outlined
the situation in a statement as fol-
lows 1.-THE great tasks of fighting
tuberculosis, promoting child welfare,
and caring for refugees, with which
the American Red Cross has concerned
itself so effectively in France, Italy
and Belgium, will at an early date be
assumed by the governments, the Red
Cross organizations, and the relief so