The Government's Week

At least once last year did dictatorial Chairman Charles Franklin Hosford Jr. of the National Bituminous Coal Commission submit his resignation to President Roosevelt after the commission had been rent by squabbles over patronage, office furniture, other trivia connected with its primary purpose of setting up minimum prices for soft coal. Franklin Roosevelt refused to accept it. Last week, however, when Chairman Hosford once more submitted his resignation, Franklin Roosevelt did accept it. The reason was clear--the Coal Commission has made an unholy botch of its job.

Washington has been expecting Mr. Hosford's exit ever since his commission was forced to drop its entire schedule of minima when courts found they had been prepared without requisite public hearings (TIME, Feb. 21, et seq.). However, Franklin Roosevelt last week asked Chairman Hosford to remain on duty until April 30, thus provoked an uproar. Gloating over Mr. Hosford's downfall, the minority group in the commission, which has long opposed him, called him into executive session and asked him to get out of his office at once. He did so. John L. Lewis and Senator Joseph Guffey were reported to be set to test their political strength by forcing the immediate choice of Coal Commissioner Pleas (rhymes with fez) E. Greenlee of Indiana as chairman. This week the commission unanimously voted to defer selection of a permanent chairman until the President named Mr. Hosford's successor, elected Minority Commissioner Percy Tetlow, an Ohio coal miner, as temporary chairman. Meanwhile Franklin Roosevelt, already heckled by the TVA fuss, was moved to disillusioned comment. Asked a complex question about whether the U. S. would have participated in the World War if it had been fully armed, Franklin Roosevelt wearily replied that it was a bit like saying: If Abraham Lincoln were alive and on the Bituminous Coal Commission, what would he have done?

¶ Having concluded, but not yet released, its investigation of American Telephone & Telegraph Co., the Federal Communications Commission voted to investigate "monopolistic tendencies" in the radio broadcasting industry.

¶ When the railroads petitioned the Interstate Commerce Commission for a 15% freight rate rise last fall, motor carriers hastened to follow suit. Last week ICC tossed motor carriers the same "half a life-preserver and a book on swimming" that it gave the railroads fortnight ago--an average 5.3% increase in maximum rates.

¶ Set up in 1914, the Federal Trade Commission is a hoary oldster compared to many a New Deal innovation, but few bureaus have proved as useful to New Deal reform. FTC is soon to move to new quarters and last week Congress gave it a house-warming gift--the first amendments to the 1914 Act ever passed. The original Act declares unlawful "unfair methods of competition in commerce." The chief amendment adds "and unfair or deceptive acts or practices in commerce." In short, instead of being hampered by having to find an injured competitor, FTC now has only to show that a practice is unfair to the public. Other amendments provide for criminal prosecution for false advertising of food or drugs that may cause harm to health, limitation to 60 days of the period during which an offending company may appeal an FTC cease & desist order, provision for FTC to halt immediately the sale of a product in the case of an emergency such as last year's sulfanilamide tragedy. Total effect is to make FTC considerably more potent.

¶ To the annual Central States group conference of the Investment Bankers Association of America journeyed new Securities & Exchange Commissioner John W. Hanes for his first public SEC function. Long an investment banker in the Wall Street house of Charles D. Barney & Co., Commissioner Hanes took occasion to reprimand the attending I. B. A. members for the serious drought in the new money market. Warned he: "It seems to me that the investment banking mechanism is not now hitting on all cylinders. I know too well that the inactivity of the capital market is not all your fault, but it is time to study your own situation, to find out just what can be done. . . . It is up to you to start thinking of possible remedies. . . . If you cannot reach these solutions, then the Government, whatever the party in power, may have to impose them upon you. because a Government cannot endure unless it can keep the national economy going. . . ."

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