The Skyland post. [volume] (West Jefferson, N.C.) 193?-1988, 1940-04-04
{ By STAFF WRITER)

WA0I141NG1O4N, "A
Washington continues to display
more interest in personalities
than in Governmental policies ano
legislative programs. That is chief.
ly because policies and programs
follow pretty closely the well,
established lines of politics, Will;
nobody can tell what any indivi'
dual may do; and occasionally
men in public life do thing:
which put them in the spotlight
and furnish new angles for poll
teal controversies.
Nobody is surprised. or very
much interested, in Washington
over the action of the Senate in
adding more than 20O,OO0,OOO to
the Agricultural Appropriation
Bill as passed by the House. This
is election year and the Farm
vote is important.
The political party in power
has better chance of getting it
self reelected if it spends another
couple of hundred millions of the
taxpayers money in the effort to
buy the votes of the farmers. For
that is precisely what this in
crease in farm appropriations, to
an aggregate of nearly billion
dollars, amounts to.
That is standard political prac-
tice, regardless of which party is
in power. It does not follow that
the distribution of public funds to
Agriculture or Labor or to any
other organized pressure group
results in swinging great masses
of voters one way or the other.
The Farm vote and the Labor
vote are bought and paid for in
every election, but the sellers
have never been able to deliver
the goods.
1t is an old political racket
which practically never works,
except to distribute nice slice
of cash to voters who pocket it
and then proceed to vote the way
they intended to anyway.
Promoting Personal Welfare
Recognizing that the farm ap-
preparation, the purity in politics
legislation, and most Of the other
proceedings in Congress which
make headlines have their origin
not in any real purpose of pro-
noting the general welfare, but
are rather intended to serve the
personal welfare of the promoters
or the partisan welfare of their
particular political organizations,
experienced Washington observ-
ers refuse to get excited over
them, and Senator'S and Repre-
sentatives as a rule are careful
to watch their steps lest they
lose some votes by taking the
unpopular side.
When it comes to discussion of
personalities, especially of mem
bers of the American Diplomatic
Corps, the gentlemen en- Capitol
Hill can say what they please
with impunity. They can't lose
any votes and they may gain
credit as friends of the plain peo-
pie when they criticize the con-
duct of the wealthy men, either
in their own right or as husbands
of heiresses, who represent the
United States as Ambassadors
and Ministers to foreign coun-
tries.
Congress has always been too
afraid of criticism from the voters
back home to appropriate en-
ough money for our diplomatic
service to enable the representa-
tives of this country to maintain
the relations with the officials of
foreign governments which are
necessary if the dignity, power
and prestige of the United States
is to be upheld.
The result is that nobody but
very wealthy man can afford
to accept appointment as an Am
bassador to an important nation
Congress allows top salaries OF
$17,500 a year to American Am
-bassadors, and such trifling ex.
penses for secretaries, necessary
entertainment, ETC., that our re.
representatives. at every important
post have to spend out of theil
own pockets two Or three times
the amount of their salaries.
Accounts for DiplOmacists
That accounts for the fact thai
our Ambassador to Paris is the
extremely wealthy William c
Bullitt; that Joseph P. Kennedy
a multi-millionaire, represent:
the United States in London; that
"Tony" Biddle is our Minister tt
Poland, and so on down the line
until we get to Jimmy" Crom.
well, the American Minister tt
Canada, who made himself &