The Ely miner., 1939-05-25
Bruckarfs Washington Digest
Hoan's Good Government Plea
Ignored by Washington Press
Milwaukee Mayors Criticism of Relief Administration
Practices Neglected Mayor LaGuardia
Furnishes Usual Newspaper Copy.
BY WILLIAM BRUCKART
WNU Service National Press Bldg, Washington D. C.

w ASHINGTON.-It has come to
w be quite habit for mayors OF
cities and governors of states to
come rushing to Washington for ap-
pearances before congressional COM
mittees. They appear as out OF the
blue sky; rush to the capitol; TESTIFY
before a committee; repair to no
tel suite and hold press conference
and gain lot of publicity, and go
back home. They usually come for
just one thing-money.
Visitations to Washington, there
fore, have become fashionable as
political game. And if, as result OF
the words of alleged wisdom dropped
from the lips of the self-annointed
purveyers of peoples thoughts, new
checks should be forthcoming from
the United States treasury-"ah,"
they say, 1--WE got it for YOU"
The traffic in mayors and COVER
nors, especially mayors, has grown
so heavy that it is seldom news, eX-
cept for the mayors home town;
and, frankly, the news writer's de-
scribe them as being worth about a
dime a dozen from strictly news
standpoint. / don't mean to neglect
the governors when / stress the
number of mayors. 1t is fact that
there are more mayors who come,
hat in hand and a bouquet to toss to
themselves later, than there are
governors. 1t is just like the fact
that there are more freshmen IN
high school than there are graduates
from college, because hundreds OF
them drop by the wayside.
Hoan Flags
Relief Spending
Those preliminaries ought to ex-
plain why the appearance here the
other day of Mayor Daniel w. Hoan
of Milwaukee, Wis, failed to get
anything like the attention it de-
served from the press. Now, Mayor
Hoan is a socialist. He is, however,
an individual who thinks about city
administration along many practi-
cal lines, thus differing from the
mine run of mayors who are con-
cerned only with reelection or
political promotion. The mayor
came to testify, but the mayor
wasn't in the capital city just to
beg for money for Milwaukee. He
saw some things around here which
he believed were wrong, as national
policy, and he talked about them.
Said the Milwaukee mayor, in SUBJ
stance: you fellows are spending a
lot of money for relief of the desti-
tute; you are wasting lot of that
money, and it ought to be stopped.
1t ought to be stopped because you
are letting the states and the cities
get into the habit of coming to Wash
ington for money and more money.
They are, therefore, getting out of
the habit of justifying to the people
of their communities the necessity
of expenditures they are making and
money their poor are using. In 9TH
er words, you ought to make the
states and the cities kick in with a
greater share for the support of
those on relief, and force them again
to recognize that taxes must be paid
for wasted, as well as proper use of,
funds. And, more important than
anything else, you ought to put this
relief business on a pay-as-you-go
basis and stop getting further into
debt.
Those were not Mayor Hoan's
words, of course. Yet / have pre-
sented them as substantially what
his testimony meant, and seldom,
in recent years, have heard bet
ter sense spoken to committee of
congress. To me, it was almost
startling testimony, the more so be-
cause it was offered while another
committee was looking into Presi-
dent Roosevelt's request for $1,750,-
100000 for relief in the next year.
1t should be said just here that Mr..
Roosevelt's appeal for the annual
relief appropriation was, or appears
to be, modest. That is, the amount
is modest if it is all he will ask for.
There are those who expect that
he will ask congress next winter for
deficiency appropriation when the
projected sum runs out.