Evening star., 1943-01-03
Capital SideIights
By Will P. Kennedy.

The busiest man at the Capitol dur
ing the past week was J. Crawford
Shanks, disbursing clerk in the Office
OF South Trimble, veteran Clerk of the
house, who is one of the career men
IN the permanent organization which
the House is building up for efficient
service. Mr.. Shanks has been a Capitol
employe for n years, and during the
10 years he has been disbursing officer
Mr.. Trimble says that never has a single
suspension been recorded on the accounts
handled by him through the Treasury
Department, Budget Bureau or General
Accounting Office.
Mr.. Shanks has been busy prenarinr
the pay-off checks for some 1000 House
employees for the December 10 per cent
salary increase under the new Overtime
Pay Act. and in preliminary figuring for
the per cent Victory tax deductions on
the January payroll. These recent en-
actments have multiplied the work of
MS ONCE from a four column to a nine
column payroll, each column of which
requires separate computation for each
OF the House employees. The work of
this office is especially tedious because
after the payroll has been computed and
checks made out, last minute changes
III rates for employees not infreuuentlv
are made by House members-for ex-
ample. one member recently made eight
changes IN pay rates and shift of en-
ployes in the closing days of the month.
so important, complicated and null
t1plled has the work of this office be-
come that Speaker Rayburn took the
floor on December Is and announced
that he had had the Committee on Ac-
counts called into session to approve
resolution, the passage of which the
Speaker urged, providing $500 for ad-
dltional clerk hire for the disbursing
officer to perform the increased work.
The resolution was agreed to.
representative Karl E. Mundt of
South Dakota has placed in the Con-
gressional Record Panoramic View of
the United States From l776 Until Today.
With Look Ahead" He concludes that:
Representative democracy as we know
and love it cannot survive a world con-
stantly at war; totalitarianism breeds
totalltarianism. and there cannot be con-
tlnual f1uctuation between totaltarian-
Ism and representative democracy. and
the world with the airplane is not big
enough for both. Thus in winning the
war we must win peace that will insure
tranquil world, for the republic. as we
love II, cannot remain a republic if everv
quarter OF a century the bugles are to
sound to war"
Let us develop national resources and
qult fatlonlng, is a clarion call to the
incoming Congress by Representative
Charles r. Robertson of North Dakota
He emphasizes that the United States
haSsa greater Ignite coal reserve than
all other countries on the globe COM
olned-pointing out that Ignite coal is
the source OF the Axis power for electric
energy, for synthetic oil and rubber. for
the maintenance of German industry
and the German war machine. He de-
clares that the United States has an
undeveloped peat reserve four times that
OF Ireland and greater than that of the
combined six countries on the North
sea. Uncle Sam, he explains, has a peat
reserve, unused for fuel or power, in II
states, all the coalless States of the
Great Lakes and st. Lawrence, from
Minnesota to Maine. He urges that
Congress send these undeveloped re-
sources to war and prevent the sacrifice
OF American manpower.
The present housing congestion of
washington and the discomforts COM
planned OF by war workers today are in
snarp contrast to the conditions expert
enced by national officials and Congress-
men when Washington was young. Most
OF the Senators and Representatives in
the early Congresses were crowded into
boarding houses adjacent to the Capitol,
two and sometimes more men sharing a
single bedroom. Jefferson boarded at
Conrad and McMunn's boarding house
up to the time Of his Inauguration, and
Albert Gallatin, who later was Secretary
OF the Treasury under jefferson and
Madison and envoy to France and Great
Britain, also lived there. The charge was
SIS week, which included wood, candles
and liquors. More than 30 men ate at the
same table. and Jefferson. while he was
Vice President. had ths eoldest and low