Evening star., 1939-02-26

A new form of government is growing
up in the United States in answer to
the challenge to make democracy work.
1t offers a middle way between highly
centralized authority and small admin
istrative units too weak to handle mod
ern social problems.
1t is government by cooperation.
The Federal Government and the
States are sometimes partners in it.
Sometimes States are partners with other
States.
1t reaches down and nabs you if you
shoot a wild duck out of season.
1t reaches out and gives away millions
of dollars to the aged, the blind and the
needy through the new social security
system
Yet it operates so unobtrusively it is
d. seldom noticed by the average man.
He heard nothing of it when John
Dillingers gun gang was being oblit-
Grated. But it was responsible for that
dramatic piece of social retribution.
Ended Musica'ss Career.
He heard nothing of it when swindler
SOoeCA 0N4AolSd was OClIlk chpUScu Ill Illc
McKesson- Robbins scandal But with
out it, Coster Musica would still be
fleeing stockholders through his imag-
.inary business deals"
To those who favor social and eco
nomic reforms but who fear a dictator
ship if the reform power is given entirely
to the Federal Government, cooperative
ant to L@
great hope. For even the fundamental
functions Of police, highway upkeep and
care OF the poor-once purely local prob
lems-have outgrown the bounds of in
dividual States.
Cooperative government comes with
IN the framework of the Constitution
because it is free of the element of CO.
erclon. Action is voluntary by each
party concerned Sometimes it takes
the form of informal understandings"
such as Government relations between
local and State police and Federal
agents; sometimes formal compacts like
the one in which the States agreed to
the building of Boulder DAM sometimes
. laws passed by Congress and supple
AhCA1oCu Wy oUdtC laws, DIS Ill lIl6 Case Oh
the wage-hour administration.
Grants Foster Growth.
Although interstate cooperation has
been growing since the New Deal began
assuming unprecedentedly broad powers
for the Federal branch, cooperative
government to date has had its greatest
advance in the guise of grants-in-aid
appropriated by Congress for use in the
States.
The social security system is one of
the best-and also the biggest-examples
Of grant-in-aid.
In passing the social security law in
1885, Congress set down certain broad
sules covering old-age pensions, unem-
2loyment insurance and assistance to the
handicapped and needy. 1t agreed to
give the States half of whatever they
should decide to spend for the aged and
the blind and third of what they
should spend for the support of de-
pendent children.
To that extent social security is a ma
tional program. But the greatest part
OF the system-the making of detailed
laws and the administration of them
with the exception OF old-age pensions)
is left to the individual States.
Thus, State may cooperate with the
program, or it may decline to participate.
If 1t decides to 60 along, it can get in
formation on what other States were
doing through the Social Security Board
in Washington. This helps to build
national pattern.
Anything as sweeping as social security
would have appalled, the legislators who
!, originated the grant" idea in the early
} days of our country. The first grants
were OF unsettled land. given to the
States for colleges. highways canals and
railroads. They were outright gifts,
with no strings attached and they
gradually developed into a spending
spree topped off when Congress became
embarrassed by s28 100000 surplus in
the Treasury and gave it to the States.
Requirements Began in 1890.
Grants were made for specific pur-
poses beginning with the land grant
colleges in 1862. The idea of co-opera-
ton frSt appeared in 1890, when the
States were required to meet certain
minimum standards set by the Secre-
,tary OF Interior before they could re-
ceive money for salaries of teachers at
the land grant colleges. Payment of a
share of the cost by the State was first
required in the forestry conservation
grant of 1911: in the same law pay
ments to the States we're made depend
ent on the States submissions to the
Federal Government of definite plans
Tor spending the money Wish these
restrictions the grant-in-a aid had evolved
to its present form.
Since then this form of Federal
State cooperation has been adopted to:
Finance and administer the agricul-
tural schools of the countN. around
which modern American fsyming has
been built;
Protect our forests from extinction:
Build highway system up from