The Waterbury Democrat., 1941-06-04

asO" you get a letter back in q postage.free envelope oi which is imprinted, Executive Of- flee of the President" and in smaller type, "OfIlre of Government Reports, United States Information Service" That makes you feel good getting 8 letter right from the presidents office, and it makes you think, after all, maybe the gov'ment is pretty good.
 If USlS doesn't know the answer It routes your inquiry to the House Economies Section of the Depart inent of Agriculture for the good gravy recipe, or to the Sub-Con- tracing Service in the Ofice of Production Management for the monkey wrench job.
 This little task of answering questions of the public, submitted at the rate of i60 day, or answer ing questions of congressman or other departments of the govern lnent Is just one of the five main functions of this Office of Govern. ment Reports, which for the fiscal year starting July 1, will get @ mil- lion and q half dollars q year inc stead of three-quartersof million. One of the other functions is to ad- wise the president on how to save money, but this isn't an example of that function.
 EXPANDS TO 4S STATES
 This extra money will go to pay another l50 employees in Washing ton, raising the staff to about 500, and the opening of branch offices with four or Ave employees In all 48 states, auSmentlng the two and three-employe staffs now running in 34 states.
 There has probably been more transformation spread around on the operation Of Office of Govern mont Reports than any other fed- eral department. It has been called q potential bureau of censorship and q potential ministry of propa- garda. That is true to the same extent that the J. Edgar Hoover TBT is q potential Gcstapo. If propaganda has been one of the purposes of OdR there is really not much to fear for it has done an admittedly lousy job of propagand- IZing itself.
 Without offcnse to any of the personnel of OGR, who are as nice and as cooperative 6 bunch as you'll find if any public library, the outfit itself is about as Subversiye of threatening as a gossipy old lady with 6 pair of shears. Serving as q listening post and clipping things out of newspapers and magazines for the president, congress and all government agencies, are, in fact OGR,s two principal jobs. AS for censorship there are only three newspapermen oil the whole staff. PAID TO READ PAPERS
 The Division of Press Intelligence, in OGR, ii spite of It's high-sound- ing name, Is really only glorlfied clipping service. Ten people divide up the reading of $50 leading news papers every day. Knowing the work of all the government depart ments and the special requests oi all the congressman who want tc sec what the papers said about theii pet pork barrel projects, these read. CTS mark up the number of copies to be clipped or photostated.
 All the clippings Of all the news articles and all the editorials ane all the comments by the columnsi pundits are then boiled down to 6 two or three liise summary and daily bulletin is put out for govern. ment offices. digesting and index. ing this vast store of information Once @ week a similar condensation Is put out on all the magazines.
 Propaganda activities are con- fined to writing free radio con- tinuities about the government fol 250 stations and making daily di' gests and weekly summaries Of th' digests from all government press bulletins. With nearly 800 govern ment press agents grinding out thi! material, this Is no small chore These summaries go to goyernmen offices and to the state offices oi OGR itself to help them spread in' formation about federal activities These state offices, in turn, art supposed to keep Washington in' formed about what goes on in thu states.
 The whole thing. therefore, boil! down into this principal function of providing Washington with listening post on what the country thinks about things. A senator wht has made the most use of OGR ha' still been one of its most bitter op' ponents. It's a nice thing, he ad mits, but he doesn't think the gov ernment can afford 1t.