Imperial Valley press., 1941-06-03

WASHINGTON, June 3 = If you
as a citizen, from your tumble
down love nest or palatial office,
write a letter to Uncle Sam,
Washington, D. c. because you
don't know whom to address in
asking your question about where
to get a subcontract to make left
handed monkey Wrenches or how
to make good gravy. the letter goes
first to the United States Infor-
nation Service in the Office of
Government Reports.
If USIS has the answer handy,
and it has a lot of answers handy,
you get a letter back in postage
free envelope on which is imprint
ed, Executive Office of the Presi-
dent" and in smaller type, office
of Government Reports, United
States Information Service" That
makes you feel good, getting let
ter right from the Presidents Of
flee, and it makes you think, after
all maybe the gov'ment is pretty
good.
If USIS doesn't know the answer,
it routes your inquiry to the House
Economies Section of the Depart
ment of Agriculture for the good
gravy recipe, or to the Sub-Con-
tracing Service in The Office of
Production Management for the
monkey wrench job.
81
questions of the public, submitted
az the rate of 100 day. or answer
ing questions Of Congressman or
other departments of the govern
ment is Just one of the five main
functions of this Office of Govern
ment Reports, which for the fiscal
year starting July /, will get
million and a half dollars a year
instead of three-quarters of mil
hon. One of the other functions is
tc advise the President on how to
save money, but this isn't an eX-
ample cf that function
EXPAND TO AZ STATES
This extra money will go to pay
another $50 employees in Washing
ton, raising the staff to about 500,
and the opening of branch offices
with four or five employees in all
46 states, augmenting two-and
three-employe staffs now running
IL 81 states
There has probably been more
misinformation spread around on
the operation of Office of Govern
rent Reports than any other fed
eral department. 1t has been called
q potential bureau of censorship
and a potential ministry of propa-
ganda. That is true to the same
extent that the J. Edgar HooVer's
FBI is a potential Gestapo. If
propaganda has been one of the
purposes of OGR, there is really
not much to fear for it has done
an admittedly lousy job of propa-
gandizing itself.
Without offense TO any of the
personnel in OGR, who are as nice
and as cooperative a bunch as
you'll find in any public library,
the outfit itself is about as sub
yersive or threatening as a gossipy
cid lady with pair of shears.
Serving as a listening post and
clipping things out Of newspapers
ard magazines for the President,
Congress and all government agen-
cies are. in fact, OGR's two prin-
cipal jobs. AS for censorship. there
are only three newspaper men on
the whole staff
PAID TO READ THE PAPER
The Division Of Press Intelligence
in OGR, in spite of its high
sounding name, is really only
glorified clipping service. Ten peo-
pie divide up the reading of $50
leading newspapers every day.
Knowing the work of all the gov
ernment departments and the spe-
cial requests Of all the congress-
men who want to see what the
papers said about their pet pork
oarrel projects, these readers mai.
up the number OF copies to be
clipped or photostated.
All the clippings of all the news
articles and all the editorials and
all the comments by the colmnist
pundlts are then boiled down to a
two or three line summary and
daily bulletin is put on all the
magazines.
Propaganda activities are confin-
ed writing free radip eoptinili-