Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1938-02-24

the ''don't" legislation. So the Bar
ton program would restore a great
deal of freedom to the people them
selves and would restore to con-
gress much of the power that it
has given to the President. To car
ry that thought further, then, the
Barton program actually seems to
me to propose saving only those
laws that the progress of civiliza-
ton shows to be sound and work
able.
We might consider some of the
statutes which MIR. Barton wants to
Time to Cut for example the
Them Out so-called Thomas
amendment - one
of the most assinine and dangerous
pieces of legislation ever to get on
the statute books. The legislation,
forced through by Senator Thomas
of Oklahoma in May of 1888, gave
the President the power to issue
$4,000, 100000 in paper currency. I
do not see how anybody can regard
it as anything but authority to issue
printing press money. Of course, it
never has been used by President
Roosevelt and probably never will
be, but the authority to 60 into print
ing press initiation exists and that is
the danger. How, for instance, can
you or I or anyone else feel sure
that the money we have in our
pocket or the few dollars in the
bank is going to be worth anything
tomorrow when the President of the
United States, by one stroke of the
pen, could turn loose a food of
worthless money.
Mr.. Barton also seeks liquidation
Of a flock of government agencies.
Some of them are 20 years old or
of even greater age-built as war;
time emergency units, but still in
existence for no reason at all. Be-
sides the War Finance corporation
and some others of that wartime
era, it is proposed to get rid of
some things of more recent date.
The Commodity Credit corporation
and the two export-import banks, to
mention only three. Now, there is
no reason available for retention of
the skeletons of the World war, and
there appears to have been no rea-
son for creation of such things as
the export-import banks. I mean
there was no sound reason. Those
radicals who forced the diplomatic
recognition of Soviet Russia thought
there was reason for the export
import banks because they held
such banks would enable trade with
Russia. But Russian trade has
amounted to about the same as the
sale of mules in my home county of
Missouri.
Two other pieces of legislation
which Mr.. Barton seeks to repeal
are strictly New Deal. One is that
law which gave the President the
right to change the value of the dol
lar at will, within certain limita-
tons. I suppose there are some
who still believe that devaluation of
the dollar has done or can do good
in aiding recovery. 1t seems to
me, however, that existence of that
power in the hands of one man is
just another basis for uncertainty
among all of the people. In any
event, the failure of that panacea
has been amply demonstrated.
The piece of far-reaching New
Deal legislation concerned is the So
called Guffey coal law. That thing
Ia price fixing measure. It gave
authority to coal commission to
prescribe prices throughout the
country, and producers would be
violating law if they sold below
those figures; they would be SUBJ
ject to fines and prison terms. Only
recently, the price fixing features