Coulee City dispatch. [volume] (Coulee City, Wash.) 19??-19??, 1937-05-13
SEEN and HEARQ>
around tie \A@N
NATIONAL CAPITALA% /
BY Carter Field 1A
FAMOUS WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT ~A~
FAMOUS WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT

Washington.-This talk about cut
ting federal expenditures ten per
cent in order to balance the budget
is just eyewash, as most folks who
know what is going on around Wash
ington will tell you. When first stated
1t sounds fine, but it doesn't sound
so convincing after you begin study
ing the figures.
In the first place, a considerable
part of the total federal expendi-
lures is in the ''untouchable" class,
to borrow a word from India. For
example, the interest on the fed
eral debt. Then there are the pay
ments to veterans, and the pay
ments to farmers, which of course
technically do not belong there, but
actually - can you imagine a
majority of both house and senate
voting to curtail payments to farm
ers?
And any one who thinks that, after
all the talk in the last campaign
about the government using the
money collected in pay roll deduc-
tons for old age pensions and un-
employment insurance, for ordinary
governmental expenditures, con-
gress is going to vote anything like
that-so soon-is just ignorant of
the ordinary political mental proc
eSseS.
1t finally gets down to the federal
pay roll, about 81, 500, 000, 900 a year.
Ten per cent of that would be $780,
000, 600 a year. That would be i'm
portant money to any other person
or agency than the United States
government. But it is less than n
months relief bill, at the rate of
spending for this year-meaning the
year ending June 80 next.
It is perfectly true that the gov
eminent cut all federal salaries al
most fifteen per cent back in 1888,
and that the country generally
thought it was a pretty good idea.
But things were different then. In
the first place, most folks outside
the government service had been
taking cuts, some of them much
more drastic than fifteen per cent.
More important, people working I'm
der private employers had been sub
ject to drastic wedding out proc
esses-the fellow or girl who had
kept his job being more or less
lucky.
Piteous Walls
So the public attitude was that
the government employees, who up
to that act of 1888 had not suffered
from the 1929 debacle, were particu-
larly favored and privileged class
of workers. So when they were sub
jected to a fifteen per cent cut,
though the walls in Washington and
some other places were piteous,
there was very little public SYM
pathy. :
But now! Actually the workers
outside, in a considerable percent
age if not a majority of cases, have
been the beneficiaries of salary and
wage boosts, bonuses, and general
advancement, not to mention reduc-
ton of hours. So that the govern
ment clerks are no longeraprivileged
class. If anything, the contrary.
There is another point, which in
sheer logic has nothing to do with
the case, but in the human equation
figures Importantly. At the same
time that this salary cut was voted
by congress-, the compensations and
whatnots of the veterans were also
cut. Senators . and representatives
have never been permitted to forget
that, nor to cease regretting it. 1t
gave them plenty of trouble at the
ensuing election.
Also, at the same time, congress
cut the salaries of it's own mem
bers. Mrs. Senator and Mrs. Rep
resentative have not forgotten that!
To be perfectly frank, it is a rather
unpopular topic. Up on Capitol Hill
the subjects are more or less as
ISOLATED in the collective memory,
SO to speak.
Which brings us back rather forci-
bly, to the idea that if there is going
to be economy it is going to come
out of relief. But that is another
story!
Senators Indignant
A small group of senators is very
indignant owe a proposed COM
promise in the neutrality bill, which
would exempt the Great Lakes and
inland waterways from the cash and
carry provisions of the senate bill,
and allow just that much of the
discretionary" powers granted the
President to which, in the house bill,
the senators objected so much.
This group of senators has charged
all along that the real purpose of
the advocates Of giving the Presi-
dent SO much discretionary power
was to leave the United States gov
eminent free in all international
difficulties to cooperate, if it
wished, with the British empire. In
fact, they have been naming parti-
cular men, notably, Norman H.
Davis, as desiring an accord be-
tween the English speaking coun-
tries which, the senators feared,
would almost surely drift into an
alliance in the event of another
World war.
They point out that this proposed