Evening star., 1935-03-05
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All Other States and Canada,
Challenging the Law.

Challenging the Law.
"Questions constantly arise, and
naturally So" Controller General Nc
Carl has written to Secretary Swanson,
"as to the legal availability of a par
ticular appropriation for a contem-
plated use, and such questions must be
authoritatively decided. else there
would be combustion"
Congress has decided that the au-
thority for decision Of such questions
is the controller general. In chal-
lenging the decision of the controller
general, therefore, the law is chal-
lenged. Such challenge might be
successfully sustained by Secretary
Swanson, for all one knows. Certainly
the success of the challenge depends
greatly on the willingness Of the ad-
ministration to see it made. If Sec
retary Swanson. for instance. should
direct his disbursing officers to dis
regard the decision of the controller
general and they should choose to
follow the Secretary's instructions. Mr..
McCarl has no direct method Of giving
force to his decisions. He might direct
suits against the disbursing officers,
or their srlreties, to recover money paid
out In violation of his rulings. But the
prosecution of the suits would lie with
the Department of Justice. and Mr..
Cummings in the present case appar-
emily sides with Secretary Swanson.
They might be ignored.
So, should Secretary Swanson sue
ceed in a challenge of Mr.. McCarl's
authority, the victory would be far
more significant than a mere over
riding of a McCarl decision. The VIC
tory would amount to reputation of
the principle represented in creation
Of the controller generals office. Does
the administration wish to repudiate
that principle? As far as the prin-
ciple is concerned, Mr.. McCarl states
1t as follows:
If such questions were left for de-
cision by each particular spending
agency as to appropriations made for
its lawful uses there would be ever
present the element of Self-intereSt
and the ambition, always in evidence,
to go beyond or to otherwise circum-
vent the limits considered proper and
fixed accordingly by the Congress in the
law. And if Congress had no other
assurance than would be afforded by
such procedure that its laws with
respect to appropriations would be
faithfully abided, it could safely en-
ploy no such convenient system Of
making public moneys available for
uses as now exists. It would be
necessary for it to find some other
effective means Of exacting law
observance by public officers in their
uses of appropriations possibly to
sharply curtail appropriations and the
period Of their availability for use.
Secretary swanson's challenge of
the controller general may be con-
sidered entirely aside from the merits
Of the case on which it is based. The
issue of paying certain allowances to
naval officers on retirement has been
unsettled, it is pointed out, for many
years. The proper remedy-if the
lack Of clarity in law needs remedy
lies with Congress, which could make
its intentions so plain as to be no
longer debatable. If Mr.. McCarl in
terprets the law as forbidding the pay
ment. that decision should stand un-
til Congress changes the law.
Unless the intention of the execu-.
tive branch Of the Government is to
do away with the Office Of controller
general and scrap the principles on
which it was created by Congress, no
good can come from deliberate at
tempts to challenge or evade the effect
of decisions rendered in good faith.
The Government certainly sets no good
example to its citizens in following
such a course.