Snow on the Lawn

Franklin Roosevelt, who loves a political fight, last week was in one up to his elbows. He was putting a squeeze on those gentlemen in Congress who wanted to cut down the Relief appropriation for the next five months from $875,000,000 to $725,000,000. Fortnight ago when the House passed the bill (397-to-16) with the lower figure there was some suspicion that the President had laid a political trap for Congressional economizers. Last week, whether or not he helped to lay the trap, he helped to squeeze its jaws shut.

To the White House the President called Colorado's stocky little Senator Alva Blanchard Adams, banker-lawyer chairman of the Senate subcommittee which had charge of the Relief bill. "Little Alva," to whom the President gave "the silent treatment" when he ran for renomination last summer, may not be so brilliant as his late father, "Big Alva," who was Governor of Colorado for two terms, or so colorful as his Uncle Billy, who ranched in the San Luis Valley (whence came Jack Dempsey) and was Governor thrice. But his spine last week was stiff for economy.

In an ordinary winter the District of Columbia has little snow, but snow had just fallen heavily in Washington. Gesturing dramatically toward the snow on the White House lawn, the President asked Mr. Adams how he had the heart to turn a million jobless men off into a desolation like that. It was a tough question to any man, a tougher question to ask a politician.

Three years ago when the U. S. was suffering from cold. Senator Adams was photographed, grinning, beside a weather map which recorded that in Denver the temperature was six degrees above freezing (see cut). Last week with Denver temperatures down below freezing. Mr. Adams could not grin, but he had returned to the Capital firm in his belief that $725,000,000 ought to be enough to keep reliefers from being turned out into the snow between now and spring.

Putting Senator Adams on a chilly spot did not finish the President's work. His secretariat sent out hundreds of letters to citizens anxious or angry about the cut. in which blame was heaped squarely upon Congress. One letter said: "The needs of WPA are very close to the President's heart."

The economizers on Senator Adams' committee were asked by David Lasser, head of the Workers Alliance: "Is the majority in this Congress trying deliberately to provoke a situation of social disorder?"; were told by Fiorello LaGuardia of New York City, president of the United States Conference of Mayors: "Havoc will be rife throughout the nation." A committee of actors & artists visited Washington bearing petitions with 200,000 signatures demanding continuance of WPA arts projects. Cafeteria, hotel & restaurant workers telegraphed en masse. Senator Adams got one telegram which was delivered as follows: "Are you a man or a delete?"

In spite of the President's pressure at week's end the subcommittee voted 8-to-3 for an amended bill in which the signal thing not amended was the House figure: $725,000,000.* The full Appropriations Committee (Chairman: Senator Glass) promptly approved the subcommittee's handiwork 17-to-7, reported it out to the Senate. There, Senator Adams predicted, "We will probably get the whey beat out of us ... as usually happens when the subcommittee makes an honest effort to economize."

Franklin Roosevelt, thinking of the whey, may well have grinned at this remark, feeling sure that in the present struggle between economizers and spenders, the economizers cannot win a substantial victory. For $150,000,000 is only a drop in this year's $9,500,000,000 budget--and the corollary of a Permanent Body of Unemployed is a Permanently Unbalanced Budget.

P:The President sent a special message to Congress asking for a law to end the reciprocal tax immunity of Federal, State and municipal salaries and securities. He wrote: "A fair and effective progressive income tax and a huge perpetual reserve of tax-exempt bonds could not exist side by side. Those who earn their livelihood from Government should bear the same tax burden as those who earn their livelihood in private employment." The President reminded Congress that unless it acts before March 15. salaries paid by quasi-public bodies like the Port of New York Authority will, by last year's decision of the Supreme Court, be subject to Federal income tax retroactively for three years. He urged a simple act (instead of a Constitutional Amendment) to end all exemptions, but not retroactively, and sent Under-Secretary of the Treasury John Hanes up Capitol Hill to argue for the change, which might bring the U. S. over $300,000,000 a year in new tax revenue.

P:Through Vice President Garner and Speaker Bankhead, the President told Congress "it would not be safe" to let his powers to alter the dollar's gold content and to continue the $2,000,000,000 Exchange Stabilization Fund expire June 30. He asked extension of both to Jan. 15, 1941 (five days before the next President will be inaugurated).

P:In a letter to Chairman Mansfield of the House Rivers & Harbors Committee, President Roosevelt urged revival of two pet projects: 1) The projected $200,000,000 Florida Ship Canal (on which $5,400,000 of WPA money was spent before work was discontinued in 1936), for the dual object of providing national defense and a commercially important public work for unemployed lasting perhaps ten or 15 years.* 2) The $36,000,000 Passamaquoddy Bay tidal power project (on which $7,000,000 was spent up to the summer of 1936, when Maine's apathy discouraged further appropriations), to give Eastern Maine cheaper power to offset the economic decline of its forests and fisheries.

P:Foreign Minister Oswaldo Aranha of Brazil accepted an invitation from President Roosevelt to visit Washington next month. Subjects for talk: trade, continental defense, Dictators. In any picture of the Dictators fostering a totalitarian state in South America, Brazil looms first and largest because its undeveloped areas are widest, its German and Italian populations powerful. Two years ago Brazil wanted to hire decommissioned U. S. warships to train its navy, but Argentina objected. After Argentina's obstruction of U. S. proposals at the Lima conference last month, her objections might now be disregarded.

*Inserted by way of compromise with the White House were two provisions: 1) that not more than 5% of WPA's present 3,000,000 clients should be cut off the rolls before April 1; 2) that the President might request a further WPAppropriation before June 30 if he perceives another "emergency" and can define it. *He expected that its cost (but not the interest on the investment) would eventually be repaid by ship tolls.

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