Evening star., 1935-04-14
LOBBIES REGAIN POWER
AS NEW DEAL WEAKENS
Special Interests Take Advantage OF
Presidents Failure to Retain His
Grip ON Congress.

proposals these days originate with
the administration. leading lobbyists
blame the New Deal for the reappear-
ance of the lobbies In such force.
Having been a part Of the American
system from the start, they would
have reappeared anyway in due course
as soon as it ceased to be considered
unpatriotic to oppose the New Deal.
The singular part about the present
resurgence of the lobbies is their
mushroom growth. They are more
extensive now than ever before. This
is attributed to the fact that. with
Congress delegating its "law-making"
functions to the President over wide
range, and administrative agencies
thus having the power to issue regula-
tions with the force of laws, the ground
to be covered by the lobbies has been
multiplied. And as lobbies become
common, they spring UP fearlessly to
push all kinds Of causes, good and bad.
A recent compilation showed $50 in
the open, to say nothing of those
operating under cover.
Lobbyists for organized labor, sgri-
culturalists, the myriad groups of big
business, war veterans, religious and
racial groups and what not, are merely
the outriders for the special interest
blocs in Congress, which shattered
party lines and made it difficult for
Presidents Coolidge and Hoover to Sc
cure enactment of legislative recon-
mendations. Now the blocs also have
come back to life and, because they
operate principally to offset each
other, are preventing the passage of
nearly all of the measures President
Roosevelt has recommended.
Blocs Foster Fascism.
It has been observed that if there
is danger of the development of
Fascism in the United States it lies
in this rise of the blocs and the Spe-
cial interest lobbies to replace the
old-established political parties and
the seeming inability of Congress to
legislate on any important subject,
a condition never better illustrated
than in the present Congress.
To the extent that they operated
at all at the height of the Presi-
dents popularity, they sought to in
fluence the President and the lesser
administration officials who were
charged with the drafting of legisla-
ton for presentation to Congress.
Once the bills were introduced the
opposition to them largely subsidized
and the House and Senate alike
Jumped at the crack of the presiden-
tial whip.
There were signs last Spring that
this presidential honeymoon was ap-
preaching its end when Congress over
rode the veto Of the bill to increase
compensation of Federal employees and
war veterans, defeated the st. Law
renee waterway treaty and forced the
acceptance of the Frazier-Lemke farm
mortgage moratorium and silver bills as
uuid pro quo for enactment of the last
Of the pending administration meas
ures. In the end. however, the Presi-
dent got most of the things he was
after.
Despite the Presidents victory at
the polls last November, as the pres
ent session has proceeded 1t has be-
come increasingly apparent that the
Presidents hold upon Congress is slip
ping and this due neither to the op-
position of the Republicans on the
right nor the radicals on the left.
What has happened in fact is that
the old and new special interest lob
bies, which for two years past had
been reorganizing around the N. r. A.,
the A. A. A., the P. w. A., the F. E.
r. A, the Security Commission, the
Railroad Administration, and the null
titude Of other New Deal agencies,
have come back to life stronger than
ever.
-. Copyright. 1850 -