Coulee City dispatch. [volume] (Coulee City, Wash.) 19??-19??, 1937-06-03

merce. IhlS bOdy now approves
some planes which could not, with
it's approval, land at many airports.
So there is serious discussion of
an idea to regulate for two or three
years the size and design of GER
tain classes of airplanes while the
airports catch up to requirements.
Naturally this results in loud
walls from the airplane manufac-
turers. Also from many operating
companies. The proposed action,
both say, would place them in a
strait-jacket, arrest their develop
ment, hold America back while the
rest of the world marches on to
new efficiency in aviation.
So Fred Fagg, new director of
the re-organized bureau of air COM
merce, discovers that his prede-
cessor, Gene Vida, did not have
such a bed of roses.
Airport Needs
Most airports need longer run
ways for heavy ships that fly faster
and at fatter angles in the approach
and takeoff. They need hard sur
faces for increasing loads, especial
ly as all weather schedules increase
with better aids to flight. And equal
ly costly is the purchase of addi-
tional land to clear obstacles around
the edges of the fields, and to pro-
vide radio beam approach lanes.
The American Municipal %associa-
ton has taken up the cudgels in
defense of the 200 odd cities which
maintain established air route ter
minals, claiming the expense for
the needed improvements is not
justified, for the traffic is mostly
interstate commerce.
The operators not only resent the
proposed limitation on airplane de-
sign, but state emphatically that
they will not pay for airport i'm
provements. Their mail income has
been cut, they point out, and their
passenger rates have been forced
down.
So Uncle Sam is to be called on
to foot the bill, Secretary of the
Treasury Henry M~orgenthau, Jr., to
the contrary Notwithstanding. AL
ready two bills are in the hopper
providing for just that.
Already about $75, 900, 900 a
come out of the federal treasury
as a contribution to the country's
2,700 airports, through c. w. A.,
F. E. R. A., W. P. A. and a little
through P. w. A. But that is only
a fraction of the investment by the
individual cities, which the air bu-
reau calculates at nearly half a
billion dollars. Half a dozen cities
have spent more than 5000, 900
each for their airports. Whereas
much \of the federal contribution,
due to the fact that the chief goal
was job making, was very ineffi-
GENTLY expended.
President Wins
If President Roosevelt wins on his
idea of having congress grant the
Chief Executive the right to cut fiji
teen per cent from any a%ppropria-
tion-instead of the ten per cent
horizontal cut favored by many en-
ators-his hold on congress through
the remainder of this session and
for the next year will not only be
continued, but strengthened.
The point is that the President
will then have the discretion
airy power to cut or pare appropri-
atoms which vitality affect every
state and every congressional dis
trict in the United States-in short,
to help or hurt every individual
senator and representative in the
one argument each likes most to
make-that he "brings home the
bacon for his constituents.
This is vital in view of the proba-
bility that the President will suffer
severe %reverses in two of his i'm
portant fights-for Supreme court
enlargement and for government re-
organization.
The tide of battle GIBBS and flows
on the court proposition, but it is
almost a certainty as this is written
that the President will not get the
six additional justices he has asked
for, and which he has repeatedly
indicated he will insist upon. AS
it looks now he will be lucky to get
two additional justices. 1t is just
possible he will not get any.
This does not mean that his main
objective will not be achieved, for
there is practically no doubt that
the majority of the high court will
be "liberal' within a year. But it
will be "liberalized" in part by re-
tirements. 1t will not be liberalized
by enlargement to as many as fiji
teen justices.
Would Mean Loss of Face
But the question of presidential
prestige is something else again. If
the President does not get six addi-
tional justices, it will mean a GER
tain loss of face. 1t will be the first
evere defeat he has taken since
he vas elected governor of New
York in 1923. Critics may point to
his defeat by the senate on the
World court and on the st. Law
renee but neither of these