The Waterbury Democrat., 1935-06-17
BY H. o. THOMPSON

' United Press Stan Correspondcnt)
 \ Washington, June 17.-UP).-
 aTwo years ago, at noon on a hot
 q land sultry day, barrel-chested d
 man with flushed face and mili-
 . tary carriage walked into the
 ~Commerce Department building
 and put in motion an industrial
 {. experiment which seems destined
 v for un important place in Ameri.
 scan economic history.
 T The man was Hugh Samuel
 s Johnson. He was returning from
 = the White House, where President :. Roosevelt few moments before q had signed the Industrial Recovery
 \ Act with rousing appeal for
 :. country patriotic cooperation. The second anniversary of that = occasion finds most of NRA shat
 '. tered by the supreme courts de- 2. cision in the Schechter case. Its . codes have been abandoned; its = hand has been removed from the
 helm of American business.
 - Always In Controversy
 . The less -than-tw -two-year career "a of MIRA wns filled with enough .s action to provide issues and burn ~ ing political arguments not only
 {. in the 1936 presidential campaigns ~ but for years to come From birth Ss to the death decreed by the su- ' preme court MIRA was symbol of !. controversy and excitement. . When Johnson returned to his . cubby-hole office on the third floor 70 lea g,I- !. try Wednesday there were fewer . than 100 MIRA employees. The nun. V Der grew until at one time there 2 were E,4o0 men and women on the |. MIRA payroll in and out of Wash- . ington.
 . Spread Throughout Country Y From the original dozen offices ' assigned to Johnson and his dep : uties, the MIRA spread to two s floors of the huge Commerce < building, to other downtown of- 1. fico. Buildings and to towns and ; cites throughout the country. . In those early days Johnson ' moved his office frequently, at- {. tempting to find hide.away 1. where he would be free from in- s terruptions and escape the hordes ' of business men who swarmed !. through the halls looking for "the [ heEd man."
 ' II was a time of phrase -mak- 1. ing and slogan-writing. The now { familiar NRA did not become the : official name of the recovery unit ' for several weeks. It was a period of confusion and mistakes, but |. through 1t all ran spirit of ad- venture and of swift, determined z action.
 p saOrder Replaces Chaos ,a. :, The confusion gradually died 2 away. Business men and indus. trialists at last learned their way ] about the Commerce Building [ without getting lost in its lahyrin- [ thian corridors. Code hearings began, at first with the dramatic dustry when the auditorium was packed almost to the point of suf- location, and lu.or with the order- liness of well-establlshed custom. After nearly two years the scene shifts. It is another spring day, but the atmosphere Is one of calm, judicial dignity instead of the Informal hurry and hustle that marked the start of NRA. Ends In Courtroom :. Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes Is reading the opinion in the Schechter case. He reads on, tense audience hanging on each word for clue to the decision the court Is about to render.
 Donald R. Richberg, who took over the MIRA after Johnson's re- tirement, was in the small, semi- ' circular courtroom.
 His face fell and he appeared dazed as Hughes reached the cli- max of tho opinion, fearing the code-making functions of MIRA un- constitutional.
 So the MIRA began, and so much of 1t died. Issues arising from the New Deal experiment, however, will live on for future settlement.