Evening star., 1935-01-23
WASHINGTON OBSERVATIONS
BY FREDERIC WILLIAM WILE.

Lions share of the credit for the
report of President Roosevelt'S Eco
nomic Security Committee, on which
the proposed unemployment insurance
and old-age pensions legislation Is
based, is accorded to the committees
executive director, DR.. Edwin Emil
Witte. He was professor OF eco
nomics at the University OF W1scon-
sin until drafted into the New Deal
last July. The 48-year-old economist
has had long experience in his present
! field. He began his career as Statlstl-
clan to the Wisconsin Industrial Com
mission. In 1912 he accompanied for
mer Representative John M. Nelson
| to Washington as his secretary. Two
years later DR.. Witte became a spe-
| cial investigator for the United States
Commission on Industrial Relations
and afterward returned to Madison
as secretary of the Wisconsin Indus
trial Commission. Four years ago he
was one of the group of American
economists selected by the Carnegie
Foundation to study European cond-
tions. DR. Witte is the author OF a
volume entitled THE Government in
Labor Disputes" Because of his pro-
fessional background, it's thought pos
sible that he may be appointed one OF
the three S1O,000-a-year members OF
the Social Insurance Board to be set
I'D in the Labor Department to ad-
minister the forthcoming system.
Witte had much to do with fashioning
| the first unemployment insurance law
to be enacted in this country-the one
now in force in Wisconsin.
| X
In a manner of speaking, the Hoover
administration has just given belated
| recognition to the Union of Soviet
| Socialist Republics. That is to say
while Ambassador Troyanovsky was in
California the other day, on his way
back from the Far East, reception
in his honor was given at Stanford
University by DR.. Ray Lyman Wilbur
Mr.. Hoover's intimate friend and Sec
retary of the Interior, who is now
back on his old job at the head OF
| the former Presidents alma mater
Whether Mr.. Hoover was among those
present is not known here. Addressing
the Commonwealth Club of San Fran
| cisco. Mr.. Troyanovsky referred point
| edly to current stories that things are
| not going we'll in the Soviet Union
He said that in view of the bumper
crop harvested in 1884, the abolition
| of bread cards and other signs OF eco
nomic improvement, tales OF woe about
the Soviet must be Judged not merely
from the political, but from the
pathoiogical standpoint" The Am
bassador is due at his post in Wash
ington within the next few days
American Soviet debt and trade talks
are presumably to be resumed forth
with.
With the South in the saddle on
both sides of the Capitol, it accords
with the eternal fitness of things that
son of Dixie should be chosen as
chairman of the Standing Committee
of Correspondence in the press gal
leries of Congress. That blue ribbon
honor, by vote Of his colleagues, has
| Just been awarded to Thomas L.
Stokes, Washington correspondent OF
the New York World Telegram. Mr..
Stokes was born at Atlanta in 1898.
He won his Phi Beta Kappa at the
University of Georgia in 1920, but
hasn't worn that badge of academic
distinction since the day an old sea
captain on the Savannah water front.
which Stokes once covered, asked Tom
where he got "that old watch key"
The gallery chairman's first newspaper
| job was on the Atlanta Journal, where
he sat at tnths feet sS XaSllss 9rancA,