Government Out of Business?

Government Out of Business?

Into Chicago's Union League Club one night last week marched 70 well-to-do businessmen. They represented 24 different industries. Over their meeting presided Charles A. Wilson, president of the Chicago Live Stock Exchange. Their purpose : to put the Federal Government out of private business. To this end they organized the Federation of American Business, applied for an Illinois charter, hoped their movement would soon spread to other States.

Bernard W. ("Barney") Snow, G. O. P. leader of Cook County and a director of the new Federation, declared that, though nonpartisan, the Federation would work politically to abolish the Federal Farm Board and 79 other Governmental agencies competing with private business. The Federation pledged itself to "put an end to the undermining of the principles of American government by the encroachment of Socialism and Communism."

Chicago's 70 businessmen had picked out a monster adversary. Before they can claim success, they must get the War Department's barge line off the Mississippi and Warrior Rivers, stop Federal production of hydroelectric power at Muscle Shoals, turn its river-&-harbor digging over to private hands. Other governmental activities which, as "private business," the F. of A. B. would have to abolish: printing by one of the biggest plants in the U. S.; ship-building at Navy yards; operation of the Alaskan Railroad by the Department of the Interior; the U. S. Shipping Board's fleet;* helium production for the Navy by the Bureau of Mines; Post Office banking in the form of postal savings accounts; lumbering in national forests by the Department of Agriculture; real estate sales by the General Land Office. Private educators could ask to have Howard University (Negro) in Washington put out of business. Railway Express Agency would like to see the Post Office Department get out of the parcel post business. Private credit companies would like the business now done by the Federal Land Banks.

*The Government has been trying for many to get out of the shipping business. For week's progress of this effort, see p. 40.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.