Montana labor news., 1937-07-15
The Pork Barrel Bloc
Continued from Page b

Continued from Page 81
than Kramer and Costello of Cali
fornia I could go on through the
list of all the states and find that
each must hang its head in shame
and confess, "Mea culpal" All OF
the states, so far as I know, have
men in Congress, elected on the New
Deal platform, who have repudiated
it and joined the wreckers. The
voters in their districts should know
what to do in the next election.
The only fireworks in the whole
sordid business was the sudden ex-
plosion that slapped down Harry
Hopkins on a Thursday and did a
complete, if resentful, about-face on
the next Tuesday. It is interesting
that of all the men who have come
and gone during the hectic days of
the New Deal only two who have
held the spotlight remain Harry
Hopkins and Aubrey Williams. Both
are cordially hated, and quite as
cordially loved. The old grey wolves
hate them because they are indomit-
ably, incorruptibly, and everlasting
ly for the underprivileged. There
are millions of us who love them for
what they tried to do, but resent the
way they did it. We know that they
are the victims of their profound
sincerity. They are so obsessed and
bedevilled with the necessity of
feeding the hungry and salvaging
human wreckage that they stumbled
into the old, old pitfall the delusion
that the end justifies the means.
The end does not justify the means
because the end is the fruit of the
means, and if the means are vicious
the fruit will be as dust and ashes.
Harassed by the grim necessities
of his job, and being only a cog in
the machinery of government, Harry
Hopkins traded and trafficked and
truckled to all that is most vicious
in politics. To get what he needed
for the poor he made terrible bar
gains with the rich. To get relief
funds for the starving, he bowed to
the powers-that-be and let politi-
clans load his executive and admin
istrative staffs with the incompetent,
the dishonest, and the saboteurs. To
get the bitter bread of relief for his
millions of unemployed he made the
that is as old as civilization
and as common as human life. He
tried to buy peace, security, and
freedom to do his work by submit
ting to what amounted to blackmail
by politicians. 1t simply can't be
done. No man who can be bought
ever stays bought. Because Hopkins
bought men when he was strong, he
is now weak. No clear thinking
person can defend what has been
done in Federal relief administra-
ton. The very best that can be said
is that desperate conditions made it
to question methods. +
know what happened in California.
Since coming to Washington | have
sent out thousands of questionnaires
on the relief set-up. The replies
prove that what happened in Cali |
fornia happened in every other state. |
saw the vicious, hoary, old South
arn Pacific Standard Oil-Republican-
Democratic machine given complete
control of all Federal relief admin
stration because Harry Hopkins |
lacked the CUTS to buck the Johnson
McAdoo-Dockweiler ring. l saw our
self-help cooperatives |
by sappy college boy sent |
out from New York for that purpose |
saw Federal Transient Camp that |
was a miracle of efficiency and re-
mobilization smashed, the ablest agri-
,ulturist human engineer it has ever |
oeen my privilege to know dis
charged and his work destroyed be-
,ause he refused to violate the Cali