Lean Pork

For many years, it has been the right, the privilege and by some esteemed even the duty of Congressmen to secure, each for his constituency, the finest, fattest, most expensive public building that he could wheedle out of his colleagues and the Federal fisc. So, in a spirit of sympathetic cooperation, Congressmen would get together, each handing the other a perfect plum of a public edifice. The press of those parts of the country where the plums did not fall called this "log-rolling," called it "pork."

But now is Congress fallen into parsimonious times. Coolidge, the economical, reigns over the flowing waters and rich lands of our country. Congress is bidden reform itself. A sign of this is a new form of Public Buildings Bill.

This bill was called up in the House last week under a suspension of the rules. It authorizes the expenditure of $150,000,000 equally divided over a period of six years. In the first place, this is not a large sum as such bills go. In the second place, it is arranged that one third of this amount is to be spent at the Capital, where it will benefit no one's constituency. New buildings are urgently needed at Washington, where several departments are inadequately housed, valuable documents are stored in firetraps and high rents are paid for absolutely essential floor space wherein to conduct the Government's business.

Thus, an important prerogative is to be given up by Congress. To be sure, the present bill only authorizes the erection of buildings and does not actually provide the money therefore. To secure the money, the Secretary of the Treasury and the Postmaster General must go to Congress and ask specific appropriations, and Congress will have the opportunity of refusing the money if it does not approve their projects. But the effect, at any rate, is to take the initiative out of the hands of Congress and place it in the hands of two members of the Cabinet.

Finis J. Garrett, Democratic Floor Leader, was quick to point out possible evils which might arise from this departure--the possibility, for example, of log-rolling between the Cabinet and some members of Congress. Said he:

"In what position does it place Congress ? It places it in the position where the efficiency of a member of the House of Representatives or of the Senate will be measured by the ability with which he can secure favorable action on the part of some bureau chief in the matter of constructing a public building in his district.

"They are proposing to open another avenue through which members of Congress, the House and the Senate, shall walk as messenger boys of the Republic, hat in hand, asking as a favor that which they have now the power to take as a right."

Nonetheless, the House passed the bill, 243 to 116. The Senate is supposed to favor the bill, the President is known to sponsor it, so the prospect is that it will become law.