The Waterbury Democrat., 1936-01-16

1Ilc 1IlS10cIS UO1lL Cld Roosevelt will sign the bill. But they are so confident he is leaning their way that they are willing to put up money.
 There are two reasons for their belief:
 (l) Practically unanimous
 sentiment among the pregi-
 dents advisers that he should
 climb on the bonus bandwagorl:
 (2) The presidents private
 belief that . majority on the
 Supreme Court is being moti-
 vated by political rather than
 legal views in ruling on New
 Deal acts. Therefore, 1t is ar-
 gued, he too might as well be
 political on the bonus.
 Pro BOf1O-B Bonus
 There is tremendous pro-bonus pressure on the president from within his inner council. Every congressional leader, including Vice President Jack Garner, is strongly against 8 veto.
 Their argument is that he can't stop the legislation; there- fore might as well grab the pO- lltical capital to be gained by signing it. The forces opposed to the bonus, they point out to the president, are against him anyway, and his veto of the bonus won't win them over.
 The fact that a White House representative participated in the secret conferences which worked out the revised senate bill is 8 significant indication that this line of reasoning has carried weight with Roosevelt.
 On the Spot
 Comptroller General J. R. Mc- Carl, who has thrown many a monkey wrench into the New Deal, is going to be given Q dose of his own medicine.
 A secret plan Is on foot to force him to pass on the valid- fly of several lush Ocean.mail contracts negotiated during the Coolidge and Hoover regimes. McCarl is . republican with re- puted presidential ambitions.
 Recently the post office depart ment began testing the speed of ships carrying mail to ascertain whether they met contract re- quirements. Out of eleven ships tested, only three came up to specifications.
 McCarl's Nemesis
 A group of house liberals led by Representative Otha D. Wear in, scrappy Iowa democrat, con- tend that this failure to meet speed minimutns automatically cancels the government contracts. Ship owners deny this; claim that the only penalty which can be imposed is Q fractional cut in poundage rates.
 Under the law, McCarl, as the federal auditing officer. must pass on ali governments payments. So far he has taken no action on the occan-mail matter. To force him to declare himself Congressman Wearin is drafting resolution asking McCarl for @ formal rul- ing.
 NOTE.--McCarl's 15-year term expires this year. Under the law he cannot be re.appointed, but there is 6 movement under way to amend 1t so he could be rec named. The liberals, very much opposed to him, hope the ocean, mali controversy will furnish them with potent ammunition to blast his chances for re-appointment. Business Machines
 Uncle Sam is gunning for . company of which he is the big gest customer.
 It is international Business Machines, whose president, Thomas J. Watson, is one of the highest paid executives in American industry. He gets S1,- GOO . day, or S30E,O0O . year, and, incidentally, is go0d democrat and heavy contributor t0 the Roosevelt campaign.
 Tn Q dozen departments and agencies of the government, In- ternational Business Machines punch cards, record the number of pigs on . farm, the number of foreign born in Pittsburgh, or the number of mortgages held by the HOLC.
 In the northeast corner of the justice department, J. Edgar Hoover uses !. D. M. machines to sort fingerprint records. Tn the southwest corner of the same building Cummings' legal experts are pushing the prosecution against I. B. M.
 The charge is that Interna. tlonal Business Machines has violated the Clayton act by re- qulrlng people who use its ma- chimes also to buy its cards. If they object to this, I. B. M. charges . higher rental. The card printing business amounts to two or three million dollars yearly, and Uncle Sam