Evening star., 1934-06-03
PROPOSED A. A. A. CHANGE
AROUSES CAPITOL HILL
Democratic Leaders Conduct Vigorous
Drive Against Amendment Pro-
posals by Wallace.

Adjustment Administration want to do
SO much "deeming" in his name In
the course of their ruling and regu-
lating of the professors and dis
tributors of agricultural products?
Some people think that it is because
they wish to turn all the processing
and distributing of agricultural prod
uctS in this country into vast pub
lie utility" in which methods of man
agement and profits of operation will
all be controlled by themselves in
Washington. Others go farther and
think that it is because these gentle
men in the Agricultural Adjustment
administration. including most par
ticularly the administrations chief
Counsel, Jerome Frank, wish inSid-
iously and creepingly and paralyzingly
to introduce communism into the
United States.
How 1 wish I could believe it! 1t
would be so thrilling And the truth
in this case is so prosaic! But will
now unf1inchingly state it.
These gentlemen in the Agricul-
tural Adjustment Administration have
taken on the farmers of the United
States as their clients. They are deter
mined to serve those clients with all
their ability, and they have plenty of
it. Jerome Frank. for sheer mental
equipment, is second to no man l
have ever met. He has a mind like
razor blade and lotion weight COM
bined And he and his comrades In
the Agricultural Adjustment Admin
iStrat1on have a sincere sympathy for
our farmers in their present woes and
a sincere and lively and devoted de-
sire to eXtricate them from them.
Outraged by Poverty.
I do not think that this town has
ever had, on the whole, a higher
spirited or finer-purposed lot of pub
lie officials than Mr.. Wallace has
gathered about him in the Agricul-
tural Adjustment Administration. They
thereupon, being men of acute sensi-
bility. are filled with an intense moral
indignation when they observe farmers
poor and so many purveyors of the
farmers products rich. The social
injustice of general poverty for the
producers and of frequent wealth for
the middlemen irritateS them, out
RACES them. make them resolve to
do their best to rectify it. And how
can it be rectified? Obviously-they
argue-by some sort of ruling" and
regulating" and controlling" of the
middlemen.
There is no Russian conspiracy in
this, and not even any campus con-
y,ly "a Of the
'intelligentSia' of the outfit, halls
from no campus sown with the tareS
of Russian propaganda. He halls from
one of the most "capitalistic" law
firms in Chicago and then also from
one of the most "capitaliStic" law firms
in New York Behind his Disraeli
forehead there is a perfect familiarity
with the ways of wealth. If he wishes
to curb wealth, it is not from igno-
rance. 1t is from experience.
And he is not seeking to curb it on
behalf of Moscow. That is phantasy.
He is seeking to curb it on behalf of
impoverished American citizens on
American farms.
And right there. nevertheless, in my
unfeignedly 'umb,e judgment, Mr.
Frank and his colleagues in the Ag-
ricultural Adjustment Administration
begin to go bit wrong. They are so
dedicated to the farmers that they
tend to want an absolutely unlimited
free hand in dealing with other ele-
ments of the population for the farm
ers' benefit. They thus, perfectly nat
urally, perfectly simply perfectly hon.
estly, come to demand powers which
are new to our constitutional philos-
ophy and violative, I think. of any
philosophy of defined governmental
authority over a free people.