Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1934-05-10
by William Bruckart

famous as representing prohibition"
The thought behind the cartoon was
deeper in the minds Of some than just
the humor and lesson that it portrayed.
Therein was a story of too much
Washington" Sooner or later, unless
have misread my history, there is
to be a broadside of reaction rise up
against too much Washington" in the
way lives are lived. The current Pc
riod seems to be the high point, but
it had its beginning, in my opinion.
when the Constitutional amendment
was adopted providing for direct cleo
ton of senators. That was followed
some years later by enactment of the
law creating the Federal Farm Loan
system, and then during the last dec
ade we saw other things of the same
type put through by congress. Pres
ident Hoover proposed the Reconstruc-
ton Finance corporation and President
Roosevelt expanded that and lot Of
other things. The result: Regulations,
red tape. dictation, orders, countless
agents, inspectors, Investigators, exam
liners. and much amateurish admins
tration of the decree Thou shalt not"
There was, if you pause to remem-
Der, a general disgust with the steady
procession of indict-
Causes ments, arrests and
H--:to.;o, trials of minor Ii
quor law violators.
Even consistent and conscientious sup
porters of prohibition now and then
burst forth against the administration
of it when men and women, otherwise
respectable in their communities, were
convicted as criminals because they
dared to take a drink.
The Department of Agriculture sup
piled the newspaper correspondents
with an announcement a few days ago
that two men in South Dakota had
been arrested and had pleaded guilty
to charge of conspiracy to defraud
the United States in connection with
the 1888 emergency hog buying pro-
gram. The announcement described
the case as ''of national Importance
and interest as similar fraud cases are
pending in other federal courts" under
this and other emergency programs
handled by the Agricultural Adjust
ment administration.
1t will be recalled that there was
quite bit of cheating in the admins
tration of CWA job planning. There
was some stencil, too, in the handling
of seed loans in two or three parts of
the country, and there is plenty of
complaint about some window-box
farmers who have been drafting reg
ulations in AAA. NRA has been I'M
der fire from time to time because, in
some instances, vast industries were
compelled to sit across table in draft
ing code with man who had had no
experience whatsoever in that indus
try.
So what wonder is it that a man
will do as one about whom l heard.
He boosted about being a chiseler.
That is, among friends, he said: "Of
course, 1 am a chiseler. OF course, I
am making money out of this code.
But the reason am doing it is because
l am thinking of the next few years
when the tax collector is going to take
virtually all of the profits make to
pay up for this waste"
In my roaming around in Washing
ton, I find more and more people who
are asking which of the two major po-
litical parties, the Democrats or the
Republicans, is going to have courage
enough to pull the government back
to Washington as government, and
allow the people to run their own bust
ness?
1t is important to record, in this
connection, that the Department of
Agriculture already
Looks Like has taken a step
Bocktrackine in the direction Of
allowing private
business to run it's own affairs by it's
announcement that government con-
troll of dairy production is not to be
attempted at this time. From the in
formation l have been able to pick up
here and there in high places, 1 suspect
that dairy production control is never
going to be attempted, but Secretary
Wallace's announcement said only that
control would not be attempted "for
the present"
One can only guess whether this is
the beginning of trend, backtrack-
ing, from the governmental control ex-
IRENE to which some of the profes-
sors would like to have gone. They
advanced the control idea to the ulti-
mate in the Bankhead compulsory cot
ton production control law and they
have pushed the control principle al
most as far In wheat, tobacco, corn
and hog industries. With regard to
the dairy business, however, they ran
into difficulties. The stumbling blocks
and obstacles met in that attempt illus
trate better than anything that l know
that Industries in the United States
have interests too divergent to permit
of a universal regulation. mean by
that: practices and problems vary in
avarv locality and there are fexv In