Montana labor news., 1937-07-15
THE PORK BARREL
BLOC
By KATE RICHARDS o'HARE


ing to stir the emotions, nothing to
make the spectators in the gallery
realize that they were watching his
tory being made. 1t was all as thrill
ing as a pan of cold dishwater, as in
triguing as dust-mop. Just bor-
ing succession of roll calls that load
ed the Administrator relief bill with
emasculating amendments, earmark-
ing funds, and designed to cut
ghastly cash in relief work.
AS the night session dragged on,
one got a dreary sense of newt
ability as the leaders broke with the
Administration. With tiresome mon
otony each roll-call found a solid
opposition bloc, approximately lao
congressman, about 100 Democrats
and 40 Republicans. 1.-Two minds
with but a single thought, two hearts
that beat as one" to harass the Ad-
ministration and slash an already
woefully adequate relief bill
So far as the so-called leaders"
of the Democratic Party were con-
cerned, it was 2 petty, tin-horn,
fence-fixing pork grab. 1t is no Sc
cret that it takes food from the
mouths of starving children to build
political machines, and to serve the
cement, steel, and contracting inter-
ests. The reactionary Democratic
bloc, which the Republicans joined
not primarily for pork, but to en-
barrass the Administration, was so
frankly a pork grabbing coalition,
and the smell was SO rank, that no
one took the trouble to justify this
guerilla warfare as CONGRESSES assert
ing its right to control public spend
ing.
There is nothing new about pork
grabbing. Capitol Hill has always
fed on it, and l am not so naive that
don't know that there has been
plenty of greasing in this admins
tration. The difference is that in
stead of the individual congressman
dishing out the pork, lot Of it seems
to have been in Harry Hopkins de-
partment. He, contrary to political
tradition, has tried desperately, if
not very courageously, to see that
the livers, lights, chitterlings, and
bacon rinds went to the unemployed
even if the economic royalists' did
continue to get the hams and pork
chops.
The Philadelphia Record of May
20 in a bitter editorial is scathing
in its denunciation of the Demo-
Gratis from the old, solid, South who
led the pork-barrel sniping. 1t re-
minded them of the states, which,
on a plea of poverty, had grabbed
100 per cent relief funds from Wash
ington but refused to provide any
state funds for relief, and of the
prosperity that had come to South
ern business interests from Federal
spending, and closed with: 'Now
they turn their poison on an Admin
istration which has chosen to give
the underprivileged as well as the
overprivileged better break"
All of which is true, but it is not
the whole truth. The pork-barrel
raid was led by Southern Democrats,
and every earmarking amendment
aimed to grab relief funds for pork
barrel purposes was offered by a
Democrat who represents a poverty
stricken district where cutting relief
means despair, desolation, and death
follow relief curtailing. These old
Bourbon Democrats of the pork bar
rel bloc welcomed with open arms
the reactionary New England Re
publicans They temporarily buried
their traditional hatred for Dam
yankees" and worked with them
cheek by jowl to cut relief and
harass President Roosevelt.
But l don't think that it was only
Bourbon Democrats from the deep
South who lined up with New Eng
land Republicans SO desperately to
swing Congress from New Deal poll
cies to the standards of Hoover and
Landon. Cred and reaction know
no state, creed, or race lines. 1t was
Cartwright of Oklahoma who faith
cred the rankest pork-barrel of all,
roads. l know the people of Okla
homa and l suspect that he will have
some trouble explaining why he did
his best to cut relief when his people
are SO tragically in need; l am sure
that many voting mother will ask
him if he thinks that they can fill
the empty bellies of their hungry
children with cement and steel.
Harry B. Coffee of Nebraska is one
of the most thoroughly reactionary
men in the House, and if half Of
what l have heard about his share
cropper tenants is true, landlords ir
eastern Arkansas have nothing or
him. l am naturally keeping tab or
our California congressman, and
haven't found anyone, from Tinkhan
of Massachusetts, to Woodrum of Vir-
ginia, more consistently reactionary
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