The Waterbury Democrat., 1937-01-29


 Commissions under executive control to the point where they could be ecleaned out"
 Where Shoes Pinch
 Privately, Roosevelt regards these fEo commissions as badly staffed, in- eDmpetent and getting worse. But &ach is tied close to Congress by many big patronage jobs, occupants 0f which are now serving as secret 4bby to sabotage the reorganization Ieegram as it would apply to ETC sxA ICC.
 s Also painful to the administration is Senate Majority Leader Joe . Robinson's Outcry against the plan t0 raise cabinet salaries from
 a5, 600 to $20,OO0, and to pay other <tep officials as high as $15,000. eJce and other members feel hard
 H anyone should receive more than An member of Congress, who gets s10,0Oo.
 Y But private corporations keep right on buying up the governments Nest men for salaries much higher. = Chances are the president will Don start pushing for action on re- Organization.
 Eoyiet Embassy Uneasy
 . Not one of them would dare peep, but attaches and officials of the Russian embassy are commonly sus- pected of harboring some discon- certing fears.
 = Consider what happened to MT. Vladimir Romm, who was corre- Spondent here for the Russian gov- ernment,s big newspaper Izvestia. Homm was notified of his promotion to be correspondent at London and Erected to go to London by way of Moscow.
 v Romm was delighted. So was his beautiful blond wife Galena, swho used to tell people her name meant chicken" in Italian. So swas their l2-year- son Billy. q Romm reported to Moscow and skes arrested in connection with 4he alleged plotting of Trotsky, Radek and others. The circum- Stances were such as to make 1t s3lkeIy that no one at the Russian 4mbassy will be able to view very Happily any future promotion"
 It may all be very silly but few Happenings abroad in late years nave caused so much emotional dis Nirbance especially among the newspaper crowd, which is sure Homm was loyal to his government &S worry over possibility that Romm light be shot. Romm was popular md respected, man of great charm and possessed of appealing human qualities.
 EessOn Comes Home"
 %If anything serious happens to HOmm, it will undo whatever good- V6lI may have been created by the hCge quantity of champagne, vodka, Scotch whiskey, caviar, sturgeon &hd other delicacies which have been showered upon newspaper cor xespondents and other Washington t1ns by the Russian embassy since fho U. s. S. R. was recognized by }Ae U. s. A.
 As . matter of fact, all that fo0d and drink didn't create as lnuch good twill for Russia in this
 0wn as did that quiet, genial and kindly fellow Romm, who was emever known to propagandize, but tOmmented objectively and wisely 5on American affairs and only ex- plained and praised the Commun- s7st form of government when you 5puf him on the spot about it. ~ The most conservative as well as 4fhe most liberal correspondents There joined in protest to the Russian government saying in ef- rect that they knew Romm to be zs nice fellow, and that he never *told them he was doing any phe. nagling against his government. 2, So 1t must have been something IT shock and disillusionment to many of them when Romm con- essed everything in true Soviet @tyle on the first day of his trial 5h Moscow. A few realized then, that Y Romm really had been traitorous- 4g conniving against his government. He would scarcely has been so silly &s to bandy the fact around among Ills washington associates. and that heir testimony in his behalf was &lct very weighty after all. = Perhaps inffective, the American Correspondents protest on a matter hat was technically none of their
 uBiness, was nevertheless an extra
 E6anary personal tribute to Romm. And it's nice to realize that we're not aii going to bc shot for 1t. ff'sDyrighk lss5. NEA Service. Incl