The Waterbury Democrat., 1938-01-18
! . BEHIND | THE SCENESl WASHINGTON wV RODNEY DUTCHER-l
 Democrat Washington
 Correspondent
FDR's Business Reform Goal Most Radical
 Yet But He
 May Miss It

WI ay MISS It Washington, Jan. IS RooSevelt's expressed desire to eliminate all holding companies is part of his ambition to break the concentrated financial control, mostly from New York, over a large section of in- dustry.
 If he embarks on the sort of a campaign which he has suggested in recent private conversations, you will be hearing plenty about such groups as the Morgan interests with their far-flung control over steel, public utilities, automobiles, railroads and other industries. Banker control over industry,
 New Deal theory holds, is the real
 secret of monopoly, price fixing and other factors alleged to have helped bring on the recession.
 Bankers standing behind indus trialists are thought to be respon-
 sible for sweeping layoffs, wage
 cuts and curtailments of produce eAOAA " O uC6ACC W11ICu dCo
 tual arrangements would go if left
 to themselves.
 Roosevelt and his advisers seek 1 to distinguish between the needs and the interest of business and finance
 Although Roosevelt may get mo- where near his goal, that goal is a mayor reform in the present busi- ness system. It is perhaps his most ideal to date.
 Ickes Records Conversations
 Hearings on the fitness o1 Ebert K. BurleW to be Assistant Secretary of the Interior, bringing charges of wire-tapping in the Interior De- partment up again, also call atten- tion to a mechanical devise Ickes has in his office. By this devise all telephone and personal converse tions anyone has with Secretary Ickes can be recorded when he presses button.
 The arrangement is handy one for Ickes, obviously enough. But the ethical point raised is that person who may want to speak confidentially with the secretary is not told that a transcript of his words is being preserved.
 Probably there are other such recording machines in federal of fees, although Interior is the only department where numerous off, cials believe their telephone wires are tapped. It is common practice for officials to have their secretaries listening in on telephone conversa- tions, sometimes taking notes and sometimes not.
 For Japan-Gestures
 The administration has no inten- tion of letting people of the U. S. forget about Japan. Few opportun- ities are being missed to spread the impression that the Far Eastern sit uation should be viewed with con- cern.
 Word came from the Philippines
 that High Commissioner Paul V.
 McNutt was flying to Mindanao Island to investigate land holdings of 8 large colony of Japanese, would subsequently, visit China and then report to the President. All this could have been done quietly and without ballyhoo. Mo Mutt could have sent his report by airmail. But it's official policy now to dramatize all gestures and deal- ings having to do with Japan. Cameramen and Black Escape
 Relations between Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black and the news photographers continue to be some what less than cordial.
 "If you make picture of him coming out, he's going to be upset" Mrs. Clifford Durr, the justices sister-in-law. told the cameramen who marched onto the grounds of Blacks Seminary Hill (Virginia) home the evening of the White House reception for the. judiciary Furthermore, if you stay here we don't know what will happen"
 Things happened, all right, and worse things came near happen
 ing. Photographers took a posi-
 tiOn on curve down the drive,
 and Blacks car, it's top so low
 that the justice had to hold his
 top hat in his lap, came tearing
 along at high speed.
 Not quite negotiating the curve 1t tore off some of the jutting rocks bordering the driveway. To hear the photographers tell it, only luck and their own agility kept them from being the morning newspapers big story. The pictures were blurred. Copyright, 1888, NEA Servcie, Incl