Evening star., 1932-09-18

hardly anything could be more 1ocap
than a home. Yet, for the buying and
owning of homes and for the strength
ening of home life throughout the
country Mr. Hoover has given us new
Federal bureau reaching down into the
EXTREMIST depths OF our local life.
l venture, out of some familiarity with
the processes of Washington, to predict
that Mr. Hoover's four new bureaus will
be fixtures, and valued fixtures, in our
Federal Governments expanding array
of services to its citizens.
Next:
Mr.. Hoover has promoted five new
sorts of Federal governmental regula-
tion of business.
He has given us the perishable prod
ucts acts, under which the Secretary Of
Agriculture exercises new broad judicial
administrative powers to protect the
growers of numerous crops in their deal
ings with merchandising middlemen.
He has advocated the equalizing OF the
competition between railways and high
ways through the imposition Of regula-
ton upon trucks and buses.
He has recommended to the Congress
that the powers of the Shipping Board
should be extended "to include regu-
lation Of coastwise shipping SO as to
assure stability and better service"
IE has carried forward the irresistible
development of the tendency to-
ward further regulation Of banks. He
has spoken most emphatically of the
evils in the present banking situation.
He has spoken of "mismanagement OF
financial institutions" of 1.-The diversion
of capital from business to the stock
market" of Imitation of securities" of
"unsound foreign investments" OF eek
ploitation and abuse OF financial power"
Last December he urged the Congress to
proceed to a prompt improvement OF
the banking laws" especially on the
point of a separation between CONNER
cial banks on the one hand and invest
ment banks on the other.
It was strange that Congress which
processes to be much more progressive
than Mr. Hoover should have failed to
accept his invitation toward reform in
this fundamental, vital matter. 1t IS
even stranger that for three years it
has failed to accept his invitation to-
ward reform in matter equally funda-
mentally vital-electric light and power.
In his first annual message to the Con-
gress Mr. Hoover requested it to clothe
the Federal Power Commission with the
b. lott ho fi0nc nf
electric light and power companies In
interstate commerce. No Surer route to
the curbing of the excesses of the so
called power trust" could be devised
In comparison with it a localized at
tack, such as the erection of an expert
ment in Federal ownership and opera
ton of power on the banks of the Ten
nessee River at Muscle Shoals is trif1ing.
Mr. Hoover in his second annual mes
sage to the Congress reiterated his be-
lief in Federal control of interstate power
company activities In his third annual
message, last December, he said:
Il have recommended in previous mes
sages the effective regulation OF inter-
state electrical power as the essential
function of the reorganized Power Com
mission. I renew the recommendation.
It is urgently needed in public protec-
ton"
Meanwhile - strangely - amazingly
the Couzens bill for effectuating this pur-
pose has lain comatose in Congress
dominated in one Of its branches by the
Democrats and in the other by the
Democrats plus the Republican Progress
sives Obviously, logically, the two next
great steps in further Federal control
Of business are in the field of banking
and in the field Of electrical energy.
Mr. Hoover has urged both steps. The
CONGRESS has taken neither