The Waterbury Democrat., 1943-12-11

Furthermore. Senator hurt his own cause by submitting his report di- rect to the Senate instead of through the committees on appro- priations or non- essential federal ! expenditures. This reused the ire of Senator Kenneth McKellar of Tennessee, ranking member of both committees, and gave the Nebraskan a powerful opponent to defeat his purpose.
 Senator Butler spent 50-odd days | on his 20,000-mile trip to 20 coun- tries. That gave him two and half days per country, and his average travel had to be 400 miles a day, to boot. In some places he spent only Q few hours. The senator frankly admits he did not come back an expert on South America, l but 8 little more careful digging would have shown what was really wrong and what was constructively right and necessary.
 QUESTIONABLE ITEMS
 The usefulness of the Butler trip was to call attention to the issue, but 1t now devoles upon the Truman Committee, to whom Buffers report will be referred, to do the real in- vestigating. Some of the minor items well worth looking into are these:
 Maintenance of U. s. automobiles in Latin America, $1 million.
 In addition to that, there's an item of another $1 million for travel of U. s. employees in Latin America.
 Bearing in mind the recent dis closures on the War Departments Canol oil project in Canada, there are & couple of intriguing items in $50 million loan to Argentina for oil exploration and another $1O million for other U. s. oil explora- tion, and another $10 million for Q Mexican refinery.
 There Is an item of $180 million just for office overhead and admin istrative expenses of all the U. s. government agencies in Latin America. The item of $1 million for the construction of 12 new embassies may not be questioned, nor can the other $9 million expenditures of the State Department for purely diplo- matic operations over three years, if that figure is correct. But over and above that there are apparently more than 50 o-ordinated U. s. government agencies running around in addition to Army and Navy. The Butler report gives clews to them in various and per- haps duplicating items.
 There is a miscellaneous" catch all item of $150 million covering the activities of 15O agencies-S Smith sonian Institution, Selective Service, Public Health Service, Archives, Securities and Exchange Commis- sion, Tariff Commission, Farm Se- curity, National Housing Adminis- tration, Coast and Geodetic Survey, Bureau of Mines, Office of Strate- gic Services, Post Office, Food and Drugs, War Production Board, and the maintenance of foreign monu- ments.
 There is another million dollar item for U. s. contributions to IA commissions, which may or may not be Implications.
 ADD AGENCIES
 There are more than 25 other agencies specifically mentioned, having expenditures of from 5000 to $100,000 each-child conferences, recording folk music, Indian guide books and what not-adding up to more than another million.
 Rubber Reserve Corporation is down for a total of $178 million, which would make the 21,0O0 tons of South American rubber expected by the end of the year cost some thing better than $4 pound, though the purchase price is only 45 cents 8 pound.
 These are some of the little items that will stand further investiga- tion. They show how minor sums can add up and they emphasize the need for the closest scrutiny by Congress of all appropriation bills. After all, Congress okayed these things in the first place.