Government Out of Business

A bold promise to take the Government out of private business after the War helped the Republican party win the 1920 election. Twelve years passed but few U. S. businessmen could see where that campaign pledge had been fulfilled by the G. O. P. In good times, they loudly complained, it was difficult enough to buck the U.S. as a rival producer. In bad times it was ruinously impossible. Last May the Democratic House of Representatives voted to investigate the whole problem of Government competition with private enterprise. Appointed was a special committee, chairmanned by Representative Joseph B. Shannon, Kansas City lawyer and onetime pin boy in a beer garden bowling alley.

In eight months the Shannon Committee, sitting in nine different cities, heard 625 witnesses fervently describe the iniquities of Government competition. Its record of evidence filled 43 fat volumes.

Manufacturers of binoculars, rope, paint, varnish, furniture, mattresses, hammocks, Diesel engines and fire extinguishers told how the Navy was making these same articles for the fleet at increased costs to the taxpayer. That the Government Printing Office should manufacture ink, paste and mucilage incensed all U. S. ink, paste and mucilage manufacturers. Bitter were the complaints of local retailers against the Army's system of post exchanges where merchandise was underpriced and untaxed. Railroaders flayed the War Department's barge line on the Mississippi as open larceny of their freight traffic. Musicians flayed the Army, Navy and Marine bands for performing without charge at nonofficial functions.

Makers of tabulating machines refused to see why the Census Bureau should manufacture and repair its apparatus. Printers violently objected to the Post Office's merchandising stamped and printed return envelopes at the rate of 10,000,000 per day. Railway Express Agency wanted to put the parcel post system out of business because it operated for less than cost.* Architects contended that the Treasury was hogging the design of new public buildings. Brokers in farm products were bitterly resentful against the Farm Board's activities.

To get the Government out of business. Chairman Shannon's Committee last week recommended to Congress, among other things, that:

1) The Federal Barge line be sold to a private operator.

2) The Army, Navy and Marine bands restrict their performance to official functions.

3) Local architects be used to design new public buildings, local engineers to supervise their construction.

4) The Army and Navy discontinue their post exchanges, except in locations remote from retail trade.

5) The Army and Navy stop making uniforms, paints, varnish, saddles, etc. in their shops.

6) The Government Printing Office stop making paste and mucilage.

7) Parcel post rates be upped to make the service self-sustaining and postmasters cease soliciting such business.

8) Disabled veterans be housed in private or municipal hospitals.

9) The Coast Guard leave ship salvage to private ship salvagers.

10) Government-operated restaurants be abolished.*

Whether the Shannon Committee's recommendations are to become law depends in large measure upon the attitude of the next President. Many an observer last week was of the opinion that Franklin Delano Roosevelt would take the Government out of small business like mucilage-making and put it into big business like power-production.

* Unmentioned in the report were the House and Senate restaurants in the Capitol, each operated at a large annual deficit, paid by the Government.

* Last week the Post Office Department ordered its rural carriers to remove from all mail boxes all hand-delivered catalogs from mail order houses (Montgomery Ward, Sears Roebuck) and hold them until senders paid postage.

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