Publishers & Pork

After a dinner in Washington one evening last week at which Publisher Frank Knox of the Chicago Daily News was host, 38 potent newspaper publishers proceeded to the White House and filed into the President's study. Notably absent were William Randolph Hearst and Adolph Ochs of the New York Times. But their presence was unnecessary. The President knew they were favorable towards the proposal he had in mind. He wanted to ask the others if they would help drive a Sales Tax through balky Congress.

President Hoover led off with a 45-min. speech. Then each guest was asked to give his remedies for the nation's ills, beginning with Clark Howell of the Atlanta Constitution who illustrated his remarks with a smoking-compartment story about a young man in a lingerie shop. The publishers' consensus was that the President should be more firm with Congress. Aggrievedly President Hoover replied that when he had attempted to reprimand Congress he was not only jumped on by Congress but by the publishers. At this point someone brought up the real business of the evening, suggested that a hand-raising vote be taken to see how many present would work for the Sales Tax.

Out of the 38 present, only dapper little Roy Howard (Scripps-Howard) and Harry Preston Wolfe of the Columbus (Ohio) Evening Dispatch failed to lift an arm. Scripps-Howard chainpapers had vigorously cudgeled the issue when it was before Congress in March. Final agreement of the publishers, however, was that they would support a Sales Tax if the President would personally sponsor it.

Few days later when Senator Harrison flaunted his round robin in the Senate and the Sales Tax had been knocked groggy, the President took a hand. He called the Democratic members of the Finance Committee to a night conference in the White House. After they had left he heard disturbing news about raids on the dollar abroad, was unable to sleep. At 5:30 a.m. he arose, took pencil & paper, wrote diligently for three hours. At 10:30 a.m. he told the Cabinet he would address the Senate at noon, an impromptu procedure such as none at the White House could recall witnessing. From a special platform set up at the reading clerk's desk the President voiced his grave concern over depletion of the nation's gold reserves; appealed for economy of $400,000,000, support of his relief program (see below); urged speedy passage of a general manufacturers' excise tax (see p. 12).

P:The problem of Taxation had not pushed the problem of Relief off the President's desk last week. Alfred Emanuel Smith had urged that leaders cease "quibbling over words" and get on with some sort of productive public works program. Governor Roosevelt of New York had set in motion his plan to place his jobless citizens on "subsistence farms." At the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, Congress was boiling over with relief ideas. In the Senate, Pennsylvania's Davis had wanted Reconstruction Finance Corp. to lend a half-billion dollars to cities and States for unemployment relief. Oregon's McNary had suggested a 100-million-dollar Federal appropriation for relief to be administered through the Red Cross. New York's Wagner wanted R. F. C. to loan 300 millions to the States, $1,460,000,000 more to self-supporting public works (toll bridges, tunnels, etc.) and 40 millions to Agriculture; to float a half-billion-dollar bond issue to compete authorized Federal projects. New Mexico's Cutting asked the Senate to authorize a five-billion-dollar bond issue to finance construction of harbors, roads, etc.

On all proposals the President had frowned severely. He hoped he had shunted them definitely aside by his own relief program (main point: authority for R. F. C. to increase its debenture limit an additional billion and a half to be loaned, partly, to States unable to care for their needy and partly to self-sustaining public works and private industry) which Secretary Mills, Chairman Eugene Meyer and President Charles Gates Dawes of R. F. C. were laboring over last week. Shocked and angered was the President when Speaker of the House John Nance Garner brought out his relief program: a billion increase in R. F. C.'s funds for public construction by States and private enterprise; another billion-odd from the Treasury for Federal undertakings; 100 million more to be handled by the President as an emergency fund. To provide interest and sinking fund for the R. F. C. and Treasury financing, Speaker Garner suggested a Federal tax on gasoline of & per gallon. No sooner had the Garner bill been laid before the House than irate President Hoover addressed the nation in the strongest language he had used since taking office:

"An examination of only one group of these proposals--that is, proposed authorizations for new postoffices--shows a list of about 2,300 such buildings, at a total cost of about $150,000.000. The Post Office Department informs me that the interest and upkeep of these buildings would amount to $14,000,000 per annum, whereas the upkeep and rent of buildings at present in use amounts to less than $3,000,000. Many of the other groups in this bill will no more stand the light of day than this example. . . .

"I am advised by the engineers that the amount of labor required to complete a group of $400,000,000 of these works would amount to only 100,000 men for one year, because they are in large degree mechanical jobs.

"This is not unemployment relief. It is the most gigantic pork barrel ever proposed to the American Congress. It is an unexampled raid on the public treasury.

". . . It is apparently expected that the cupidity of these towns and sections will demand that their Congressmen and Senators vote for this bill or threaten to penalize them if they fail to join in this squandering of money. . . . Our nation was not founded on the pork barrel, and it has not become great by political logrolling!"

Back snapped Speaker Garner: "It would be just as logical to refer to the Reconstruction Finance Corporation act as a 'pork barrel' for the banks, insurance companies, railroads and financial institutions of the country. . . . The Democrats did not expect to receive real co-operation from the President in any manner benefiting the masses. . . ."

P:A famed feature of President Hoover's legend is his fondness for children. Last week, shepherded by the manager of the bus line which brought them from Detroit, Clifford (10), Irene (n) and Bernice Feagan (13) arrived at the White House. Their father, a refrigerator mechanic, was held in Detroit on a Federal charge of stealing an automobile from a St. Joseph, Mo. piano tuner seven months ago. The father's plea was that he had taken the car to Detroit with the owner's consent to sell it.

Admitted to the President's office, the Feagans stated their case, told how they had persuaded the Governor of Michigan to defer extradition. They wanted President Hoover to use his influence to release Father Feagan.

President Hoover, 'father of two, assured his visitors: "Well, you can go home cheerful. When there are three little kiddies pleading for their daddy the way you did they can rest assured that if I possibly can I will send your father home to you."

The Department of Justice ordered Father Feagan released on his own recognizance, pending investigation.

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