Evening star., 1937-01-17
Presidents Heavy Task
Under New Set.up.
BY OWEN L. SCOTT.


House could offer four years of COM
parative repose; at hand the time when
the presidency would make any other
Job in the world look like sinecure
Mr.. Roosevelt, asking Congress to re-
build the machinery of the Federal Gov
ernment, cuts out a Chief Executives
job to his own liking. If Congress agrees
to the pattern, then the people will need
to look carefully and act wisely each
four years when picking a man to run
their streamlined governmental machine.
Louis Brownlow and his associates on
the committee that has built plan for
reniaking the executive arm of the Gov
ernment envision the President of the
future as a man who must be:
First, a political leader, running his
party, guiding and assessing public
opinion. possessed Of a magnetism that
attracts voters; second, head Of the Ma
ton In a ceremonial sense, like king
who represents all Of the elements of a
vast and diverse empire. tending to bind
them together; third, skilled admins
trative officer, operating an establish
ment that dwarfs in size and renders in
significant in comparative power any
private corporation.
Many past Presidents have been strong
on political leadership and ceremonial
display; weak on administrative capabil-
ity. Future Presidents, under the new
plan. will need their old abilities, plus
an understanding of economics, a high
degree of executive ability and the skill
of a specialist in negotiation, in spite
Of the help they receive from a new
corps of executive and research assist
ants.
II II
Why. then, the demand for the changes
that President Roosevelt is proposing?
Why not run along with the present
machinery and avoid placing added re-
sponsibility on the White House?
The answer is that the people. through
the elections of 1882, 1884 and 1896,
appear to have decided beyond all ques-
tion that they want the Government in
Washington to shoulder vast response
bilities. They want Government to pro-
tect them against unemployment and
old age, to regulate business, to control
farming, to set banking policies. to guide
foreign trade and to do the multitude
of things that may be necessary to
modify or to prevent depressions OF the
sort that came in 1929
In attempting to fulfill this demand
President Roosevelt has built up huge
and sprawling organization. The or
ganization he built is piled on top of
another sprawling set-up that has grown
over the years. The result is an ad-
ministrative madhouse. peopled by about
$4,000 persons, engaged in bewildering
array of tasks.
What President Roosevelt wants to do
is to bring order out of chaos and to head
up the executive responsibility of this
Nation in the White House where a
President can be held accountable for
results both by the Congress and by the
people. Then, with responsibility CEN
tralized, he wants facilities to do the
executive job in a modern and efficient
manner.
To do that job he asks for the fol-
lowing:
First. control over personnel through
civil service system that will be flexible
and responsive to the needs of the Gov
ernment for competent workers. The
present civil service system is begged
down in red tape.
Second, more adequate control over
spending through a modernized budget
bureau that not only will determine
spending needs but will police activities
of Government departments and through
release from the sort of restrictions
that j. r. McCarl imposed, as controller
general. in a manner that nearly wrecked
the New Deal.
Third, more control over the admin
istrative functions of more than 100 in
dependent boards and commissions that
now do everything from policing business
to running the railroads.
Mr.. Roosevelt and the members of the
Brownlow Committee realize that the
time is approaching when democracy will
be put to severe test in the United
States, just as it already has been put
to the test elsewhere. DictatorS refer
to democratic governments as debating
societies. Any onlooker in Washington
can testify that they tend to become en-
tangled in their own machinery and to
become strangled by bureaucratic red
tape.
What the President wants to do, If
Congress is willing, is to organize the
Government in way that will make it
responsive to direction by the White
House.
Then Congress, like a corporation
board of directors. would shape policies.
The courts, like corporation general
counsel, would determine whether or not
those policies fit into the pattern of
fundamental powers outlined by the
people in the Constitution. The Presi-
dent once powers were given and tested,
would be charged with putting them into
effect.
To aid him in administration he would
have a staff of executive assistants who
would do the research on which executive
policies are based and who then would
follow through to see that the policies,
once adopted, actually were carried out.
\ X X
Until now the White House establish
ment has been modelled for the period
when a President could spend his after
noon mapping or on the golf course. It
is not equipped to function as directing
head of a vast and high-geared machine
Of government.
But would not any such Capitalization
of power result in abuse in its exercise?
Such a cry is bound to be raised by con-
gressional opponents of the reorganiza-
ton plan. On that point the Presidents
committee says:
Those who waver at the sight of
needed power are false friends of modern
democracy. Strong executive leadership
is essential to democratic government
today. Our choice is not between power
and M r0wer HIT hetween resnonSihle