The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1936-02-28

the piecemeal presentations of Senator
Borah, Idaho Republican Presidential
prospect or to the ideas advanced by
Senator Dickinson, Iowa Republican or
any of the others.
Since it seems established that the
subsidy idea will and must be kept as
a part of any farm policy, the problem
is narrowed down to the question of
how it will be administered. Each plan
provides machinery-political jobs-for
administration. That fact, however,
would seem to guarantee inefficiency
rather than efficiency in administra-
ton. Each of the plans obviously
must reach into nearly every county
in the United States and the experience
gained from AAA administration forces
the conclusion, regretful as it is, that
no efficient means for administration
has been suggested.
An unbiased investigation Of the
whole situation, as far as 1 have been
able to make it, prompts me to say
that until partisan politics is elimi-
mated from farm relief considerations,
farm aid is going to continue in a
mess. Perhaps it is character of our
system of government that the con-
dition exists, but whatever the reason
may be, I am convinced that there
ought to be distinction between the
giving of a subsidy as such and the
giving of a subsidy to accomplish other
purposes. mean by that if we are
to have subsidy, let us not get it all
mangled up with a lot of prescribed
conditions which bind the farmer hand
and foot. / am one of those who be-
lieve that the average farmer is better
equipped to solve his own problem
than are his professional leaders who
call themselves heads of farm organi-
cations or the politicians who pirate
about the farmer and think only in the
terms of his voting number. So 1 say
until the farm problem can be sep
arated from politics and until it can
be separated from theories of regimen
tation and crop-control and binding the
farmer by lot of conditions, there
will not be any effective solution for
the farm problem.
Several years ago, when the present
work-relief policy was young, a reader
wrote me rather
GrdftersTake critical letter be-
Their Toll cause I made the
sta ement t h t
crookedness was bound to crop into
administration of the relief programs.
Ny prediction was predicated not
upon any clairvoyance or ability as
soothsayer but upon knowl-
edge of the difficulty that neces-
sarily harnesses the management of a
far-flung organization. 1t was predi-
| Gated as we'll on an understanding that
| there was no way on earth to keep pol
| iticians and Missionaries out of these
organizations. had no apology to make
| to that reader then but l do have the
| privilege of boasting just bit since
administrative heads of these organi-
| cations in Washington have been put
| to the necessity of cleaning up one
| dirty problem after another. 1t has
happened in countless places, not with
| the consent of the ruling authorities,
| that petty grafters have crept in, have
taken their toll.
Now, however, evidence is seeping
| through to the top in record form, of
| another danger in the attempted man
| agement of so many different groups
| from a central office in Washington.
| The best illustration of this that l
have seen comes from New York where
| the local relief organization has a
writers project" in operation. Just
| at this time the local New York au-
| thorities, with the assistance of Wash
ington headquarters, are trying to find
out whether radicals, many of them
| of foreign birth, have taken charge OF
| the New York writers project"
One man, Samuel Mccoy, assistant
| director, has been dismissed. He
has charged that reds are in control
and that they are taking up their time
PROSECUTING and seeking new members
| of Communistic organization.
Against his charges, those he at
| tackled countered with accusations that
| Mccoy has continuously sought to pro-
mote Fascism among the writers.
1t is an unhappy thing to occur.
Here we have a paternalistic federal
government seeking to provide people
| with work and some measure of COM
pensation for that work, and we see
| a political problem injected into it. l
do not know what the end will be.
nor is it pertinent to this discussion.
The point is, after all, that 1t repre-
sents, indeed it proves, the futility of
attempting to run all of these things
from Washington. Those who favor
the old idea of states right certainly
cannot want for ammunition in de-
fanSa of their beliefs.