Evening star., 1937-10-06
Roosevelt
Continued From First PAGE }

majority of the farmers wanted surplus
control
No Comment on Black.
Mr.. Roosevelt said he had no COM
ment to make regarding Associate
Justice Hugo L. Black, and added
he had not been in touch with him
since the justice returned from a
vacation in Europe.
The President was reminded of
statement he made before leaving on
his tour that Black was out of the
country and had not had an oppor-
tupnity to read series of articles
contending the justice held member
ship in the Ku Klux Klan. Mr..
Roosevelt said then there would be no
further comment until Black returned.
That statement. the President said,
strongly implied the possibility of a
later statement, but did not neces-
sarly mean there would be one.
He suggested he probably should
have said at that time there would
be statement when, as and if, cir
Cumstances indicated further state
menu was III OrQer.
The President said he found bet
ter understanding among the voters of
what it was all about For example. he
said, he did not hear any complaint
when he mentioned that w. P. A. and
P. w. A. have got to be curtailed,
whereas two or three years ago there
would have been an awful howl at such
. suggestion.
Today, he said, the people under
stand that the relief and public works
programs were not mere handouts, but
an economic program that shifts with
the economics of the Nation.
He said it was not necessary any
more to keep 100000 persons on re-
lief.
He said, in response to a question,
he saw no conflict between his
reclamation and acreage reduction
programs. because curtailment took
place almost in every case on poor
land
He said he found much land in the
drought areas of the Northwest that
should never have been cultivated,
and that if farmers there would trans
fer to the irrigated Boise Valley, for
instance, they would plant other than
surplus crops.
Interest in Surplus Control.
He said he had found no lack of
Interest for surplus control in good
crop areas because the farmers evil
IDENTIFY remembered what happened
before and were now better educated
to the requirements.
The President, in mentioning re-
gional planning as the fourth meas
ure of his next session program, ex-
planned the Norris bill for eight re-
gional planning boards was not a
little T. V. A. proposal"
The Tennessee Valley Authority act,
he said, gives the T. v. A. complete
charge of the whole Tennessee water
shed, with authority to build dams
and transmission lines, prevent soil
erosion and build model communities.
The Norris bill. he added, would
give the new boards only planning and
no administrative authority.
The administrative phase depended
q lot on how Congress deals with Gov
ernment reorganization. Now that
the new public works department has
been eliminated, he said the same end
could be achieved by having this work
co-ordinated under the President.
Board Recommendations.
If dam was to be built. he said,
It would be done by the Army en-
gineers or reclamation service, with
the regional boards recommending
various works to a national planning
agency in Washington.
These recommendations would be
sifted by the President with the
Budget Bureau and a preferred and
secondary list of projects submitted
annually to Congress.
If the eight agencies, for example,
asked for $780, 100000 of projects and
the Government pocket book could
stand only $200,OOO, 900, Congress
would be given two lists of 5000, 900, 900
each.
The latter would have discretion to
select from the two lists, but would
be asked to adhere to the 5000, 900, 900
appropriation.