The Waterbury Democrat., 1941-10-04

| RAanm charged against 8
 service of inform ation, where legitimate news leaves of and where propaganda or edu- cation begins.
 Bureau of the Budget, which should know the answers to all such questions, has made several surveys to determine what the services of information cost the taxpayers. The bureau has a standard, nimeo- graphed form which 1t sends to all government agencies, asking them to report in detail the number of persons, their salaries, the other amounts expended for information or publicity.
 These reports come back, but when the figures in them are check ed against departmental requests for appropriations from Congress, and against reports which individual bur- eaus have made elsewhere or which several economy minded congress- men have smoked out, the figures just don't jibe. Instead, they tive.
 Actual expenses for publicity or information services are concealed, or they are justified aS expenses re- quired by law, and red herrings are dragged across the trail in the ap- proved technique of all commercial press agents hired to make things look good for the boss. In some in- stances, the information services are so well covered up they are not even mentioned in appropriat tion hearings.
 Congressman Robert F. Jones of Lima, Ohio, youngest Republican on the House Appropriations Commit tee, got interested in this subject and has tried to smoke out some of the facts on these expenditures. But he has had a good many barriers put in his way.
 Jones got g. tabulation of the bud get estimates of expenditures for information and publicity for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1941, cov- ering the 10 cabinet departments of the government and 16 principal in- dependent agencies. The total re- ported was $2,416,343. No small sum, but 1t doesn't begin to cover the story.
 For instance, the first item of this Budget Bureau tabulation is, De- partment of Agriculture $698, ,16S.
 AGRICULTURAL
 ADDITION
 Secretary of Agriculture Claude R. Wickard, in a letter to RepreSen- tative Jones dated May IS, 1s41, re- ported that "the cost for all per- sonal service devoted to the prepar- atlon of materials for the press, radio, motion pictures and exhibits, including only those employees who work directly on these materials and not typists, stenographic help, etc, for 290 employees amounts to $519,- 792 annually; other expenses are $236,3s2."
 The total of these two sums is $746,174 more than the report to the Budget Bureau.
 That's only a beginning. On top of the $746,174 there was printing appropriation for the year of $1,- 660,4 ,435. Add those figures and you get a total of $2.3S3,613, which is only $32,730 less than the total re-. ported to the Burget Bureau by all 26 departments.
 Now, 1t can probably be called un- fair to make this comparison, for the Department of Agriculture ex- penseS for information and publicity rank among the three or four high est in the government, and 1t is not cricket to charge all of that $1, ,660,- 900 printing bill against the service of information. For instance, it takes a million dollars worth of forms to run the department year.
 When the Department of Agri- culture boys get to bragging about . what they've done in any given year, they don't hesitate to spread it on thick. Tn fact, when the report from the Department of Agriculture director of information was submit ted for the year -l940, the printing and binding expenses were listed as not $1,660,ooo, but $1,955,721. That was for 23,813,344 publications and periodicals and 8583,4 400 lists of farmers bulletins and leaflets, dis tributed free in response to specific requests. There were 2876 posters, charts and art department jobs. And 267 ,424 photographic prints.
 From the duplicating department were issued 151 ,323,975 pages of ma terial which went to 603,789 cus- toners on 1031 mailing lists. At the end of the year there were 19,600,- 573 copies of publications on hand, waiting for someone to ask for them.
 POWERFUL COST
 OF PROPAGANDA
 It would be unfair to multiply these totals by 10, or Is, or by 26 the number of federal depart ments and agencies for which Con- lgressman Jones was able to get fig ures on publicity expenses - to make an estimate of the total gov- ernment expenses for information education, propaganda, or whatever you want to call it. But from these figures it can be seen that t1e~gov- ernment departments aren't as frank and honest about this business as they should be.
 Generally speaking" wrote Har- old D. Smith. director of the Budget to Congressman Jones, there is nc segregation in the accounting, bud getary. or appropriating procedures of the federal government of puhli- cations, publicity or news material as specific objects or purposes of ex- penditure. As a consequence. it would be a practical impossibility tc prepare a compilation Of the actual costs under these heads over e per-