The daily monitor leader. [volume] (Mount Clemens, Mich.) 1942-19??, 1945-02-09

chlefS, cnalrmen, auInirdiS anu
generals-no doubt sit back in
pop-eyed despair at times, won
dering why SO many congress
men criticize the way govern
ment agencies do things, taking
up the valuable time of import
ant people who have work to
do and a war to win. It's a fair
question.
Why all this rash of congress
sional investigations, prompting
Chairman John j. Cochran Of
the House Accounts Committee
to complain that these investiga-
tons were themselves costing a
million dollars a year, that the
House of Representatives should
be rechristened the House of In
vestigations?
OF course II couldn't be that
there was anything wrong. To
the administrative mind, all this
is just politics. Congressman
have to get reelected, this is an
election year, they like public
ity.
But II you go for the old
"where there's smoke, there's
fire" stuff, the answer isn't that
simple.
A TREMENDOUS JOB
There is nothing healthier
than tough congressional in
vestigation, we'll conducted. Re-
calling the mess of Investigations
after the last war, early in this
war it was determined by Con-
gress than an effort should be
made to conduct the investiga-
tions while the fighting was still
going on, to prevent mistakes
rather than to wait until after
they had happened and were
beyond correction.
The result was the Senate's
Truman Committee to Investi-
gate the National Defense. It is
generally given credit for hav-.
ing done tremendous job.
1t has saved the taxpayers mil
lions of dollars merely by being
in existence, like checkrein, to
keep the official gentlemen rid
ing the high government horses
from falling on their buckets.
The easy and the frequently
heard alibi of administrators
whose mistakes are exposed is
to the effect: Sure there have
been mistakes. This is war.
There isn't time to proceed care
fully. We must move boldly and
take risks. War in itself is
wasteful. 1t costs lives as we'll
as money. There will always be
costly expenditures of both.
There will always be bad con-
tracts, graft, collision, profiteer-
ing. No matter what kind of an
organization you might set up,
you couldn't stop these mistakes
even if you had an inspector
looking over the shoulder of ev-
cry government employee"
THE ARGUMENT BACKFIRES
But doesn't an alibi of this
sort defeat it's own argument?
1t may explain in part why there
are SO many congressional in
vestigations today, why the
number of congressional investi-
cations is apt to increase rather
than decrease. And 1t brings you
back to the original premise that
something would seem to be
ailing with the governments
system of self-inspection.
In the struggle between the
executive and legislative
branches of the government 1t
has, been proposed at various
times that the Congress should
have permanent staff, con-
stantly keeping check on the ex-
ecutive agencies, responsible to
and reporting only to Congress.
Whether that would work is
open to debate. 1t might create
congressional bureaucracy,
adding so much to the present
entanglements of administrative
red tape that nothing would ever
get done and that Congress itself
would be destroyed as a purely
legislative body, becoming in
stead the super-executive.