The Omaha guide., 1938-06-04
IN The Nation
BY Arthur KrOck

@AAo AAAlHaAA2 LAHE 5
employing all it political strength
to scrap with one hand the utilities
settlement it is writing with the
other. This means also that the
government is determined to use
money forcibly collected from in
vestors in utilities securities to de-
press those securities and the val
ne Of many insurance investors.
The Senate Appropriations Com
mittee, acting cOnstructively and
on the plain common sense of the
situation, amended the pump-pri-
ming bill to provide that none of
the relief money may be used by
WPA to make loans or grants for
construction of income-earning
public pwer plants to compete
with private ONES This immunity
Was restricted to those private
plants which operate under gov
eminent rate regulation. If bust
ness recovery is to come, the pri-
vate utilities must be permitted
to attract new money to spend
with the heavy industries. If the
government is to continue to make
loans and grants for power plant
building, purposes the utilities
cannot refinance.
This being a self-demonstrating
theorem, the Senate A%ppropria-
tions Committee applied it, as Re-
preventative Bacon vainly asked
the House to do. But no sooner had
the cmmittee's adoption of the Hale
amendment to Section POI become
known than the President bestirr-
ed himelf to check the action in
the Senate. So sensible and logical
is the provision that the first at
tempt decided upon by he Admin
istration was o modification. This
was Senator Barkley's proposal, af-
ter he had conferred with the
President, that the limitation on
PWA should not apply in instances
where a public community had of
fered a flair price" for an exist
ing plant.
Back to Section pol
But, even though this amend
ment proposed that the determine
tor of what is a flair price" should
be the wholly WA-minded, utility
batting Secretary Ickes, it was i'm
mediately resisted by the private
utility abolitionists led by Senator
Norris. After a canvass of the
Senate, they announced their in
tention to try to vote down both
the Barley ad Hale amendments.
This would leave Section POI as it
was formulated by the Administra-
ton and passed by the House. This
would make a joke of the efforts
of the SEC, of Commissioner
Hanes and of the Groesbeck COM
mittee to attack the recovery prob
lem on the ilities-governments
salient.
But the Administration appar-
emily is determined to make the
joke complete. Half a joke only
would b left under the Barley
amendments. 1t is fair to conclude
that the Administration really
wants what Senator Norris propo-
ses, since the bill was written UNI
der White House inspiration, and
the House stood by Section POI at
the behest of the Presidents lead
ers. Citizens may be sure that if
the Norris move is successful it
will be far more pleasing to the
President than if he is obliged to
take the half-hitch of the Barley
amendments, which the legislative
conference yesterday though he
would have to do.
1t is remarkable situation, and
one that will spread the belief so
many already hold that the Presi-
dent really does not want recovery.
Here is a plain and logical path
to recovery through the Hale
mendment and partly even through
the proposed Barley substitute.
Only those who are willing to post
pone and imperil recovery so that
they first may strike down the pri-
vate power business in the service
of their theology have been vocal
against the restriction on Section
POI. The Presidents initiative a.
gainst the Hale amendment, and
is his undoubted encouragement of
Mr.. Norris, align him with this
group through circumstanial evil
dence.
To Perpetuate Control?
If the general public, after it
fully understands the issue here
involved, lends a more attentive
ear to those who assert that the
PresideP, in disregard of recovery
supports a free spending policy for
the purpose of perpetuating his
group in office, there will be much
apparent justification. In other
years, when the emergency was
more visible and the crisis shadow
ed every Intel. there was some ex-
cuse for conflicting current poll
cies, for steps that suddenly rever-
sed the direction of the one taken
before. But that excuse does not
now hold. The only visible explain
alton is ruthless politics, ana, UNI
less the Administration canfind a
better ones it cannot reasonable
complain of misrepresentation.
The same suspicion attaches to
the stubborn resistance of the Ar
ministration to any effort to I'M
nroVe the distribution If the WPA