Evening star., 1937-11-26
THE POLITICAL
MILL
BY G. GOULD LINCOLN.

moving strongly to put check on buSl-
ness recession and to stimulate business.
Already the President has taken steps
to promote a vast building program by
private business. He has just encour-
aged public utility corporations in his
own State to a program Of expansion
and presumably those in other States.
It Is reported that a revision OF taxes,
which the President promised in his
message to Congress II there were
unjust" taxes. may now be pressed in
the special session, without waiting until
the regular session.
The President, in his message to Con-
gress, called for co-operation-the Gov
ernment to cooperate with every citi-
zen and every citizen to cooperate with
the Government. He is moving to show
the willingness Of the Government to
cooperate. His apparent success with
Floyd L. Carlisle of the Consolidated Edi-
son and the Niagara Hudson group OF
power companies, is indicative. It Is
quite clear that the President can do a
great deal to restore business confidence
X +
The further experimentation, however,
of Government control of industry and
OF agriculture, proposed in two major
pieces of legislation on the program,
wages and hours and crop control bills,
for the special Session of Congress, are
not quite so encouraging to business
or even to the farmers. Both are likely
to raise costs of production and at the
same. time to raise prices to the con-
sumer. But what many business men
are anxious to know is whether the ad-
ministration will be satisfied to rest if
it gets these two measures-or whether
it is going still further in the matter of
control. Control, of business, plus COM
petition by the Government in busi-
ness, Is the nightmare of business men
generally. That goes for the little busi-
ness man as well as for the big.
In desperate effort to get the wages
and hours bill out of the hands of
hostile House Rules Committee, Mrs
Mary Norton, chairman of the Labor
Committee, has suggested that the pro-
posed board of five members to pass on
minimum wages and maximum hours be
scrapped and the administration be
placed in the hands of the Department
OF Labor. If that should be done, the
political control of wages and hours
may be even more complete than if the
independent board were set up. There
are business men who would not relish
leaving these matters to Miss Perkins,
the Secretary of Labor. How the labor
unions will feel about it remains to be
seen.
The labor unions have as great an
interest in this matter of Federal regu-
lation Of wages and hours as has bus-
ness. It might work in their interest.
and 1t might not Furthermore, if the
Federal Government is to control in
such matters, the unions may find that
their members may take the cue and
give up paying dues.
The demand for revision of taxes found
too burdensome and discouraging to busi-
ness and its expansion has already been
made. The demand that Government
competition with private business cease
has also found voice. Senator H. Styles
Bridges of New Hampshire in a letter
today to Senator Wagner of New York,
chairman of the Banking and Currency
Committee, is demanding that the dan
ger OF imitation of the currency be re-
duced, If not eliminated He is asking
that power to expand the currency by
some $4,000, ,00O, 900 of greenbacks, given
the President in the Thomas amendment
to the Agricultural Adjustment Act of
1888, be repealed.
++* *
Said Senator Bridges in this connec-
ton:
THE sound reasons for removing from
our statute books the threat of green
backism, so clearly understood by all
sound economists, business men and
bankers, are, unfortunately, not under
stood by minority of our people who
have been deluded by few highly vocal
inf1ationists into a belief that in the
| printing press lies the salvation of the
| debtor-that a flood of greenbacks,
poured out of the TreasuryS printing
press, will give them all the money they
need to pay of their mortgages and
retire their other obligations.
although am sure that substantial
| majorities in both houses of Congress
will agree with the President that green
backism invites an ultimate reckoning
In uncomfortable prices = . that will
strike most cruelty upon those = who
seem to be temporarily benefited it is
important that the soundness of their
position be revealed to their constituents
| I am therefore requesting you to sci
an early date for the beginning of hear.
ings on my bill to repeal the so-called
Thomas imitation amendment to the
Agricultural Adjustment Act.
| The President, fortunately for the
country has evinced as yet no desire tt
employ the power to issue up to three
billions of dollars in inconvertible cur.
rency granted him by that act. 1 thinl
you will agree. however, that this is ne
reason why the act should not be re.
pealed and certainly is no reason VIII,
the many important considerations ir
favor OF its repeal should not be freel,
discussed in hearing before your com.
mittee."
Senator Bridges said also in his lettel
he had been informed the administra.
ton has felt it desirable to have tht
power to issue greenbacks as club ovel
the bankers in case they baked at &C.
cepting the Governments enormou!
issues OF securities. If it Is true tha
there is to be prolonged recess in CO.
ercive practices" he added, ION the par
of the administration, this reason nj
longer exists"
| X X
Albert Sidney Burleson, who diet
Wednesday at his home in Austin, Tex
was real figure in congressional ant
governmental circles in Washington fo
a generation, although he had been ou
OF the public eye since 1921. For l.
years he served as member of tn,
House, and for the succeeding eight year