Revolt

The big blowoff came at last in the House of Representatives. The occasion was the need of Franklin D. Roosevelt's bureaus for more money.

One by one the House ripped up the requests, or saddled the appropriations with crippling amendments. In one long, fierce, exhausting session the House made a shambles of the Administration's whole subsidy and price-control program, wiped out the domestic bureau of Elmer Davis' OWI and the National Youth Administration, and, as a final stab, killed the President's pet little bureau, the National Resources Planning Board (which is headed by his uncle, Frederic A. Delano). The "killings" were tentative, since the Senate must concur, but it is unlikely that the House will give way.

The Young Turks. But the slaps at "Uncle Freddie" Delano and Elmer Davis were small acts in a big show. On OPA's request for $177,000,000, the House first cut the appropriation by 26%, then wrote in a series of straightjacket amendments. Most drastic: 1) No one without at least five years' experience in business, except Boss Prentiss Brown, shall be employed in OPA policy-making jobs; 2) no OPA funds may be used to pay any employe having anything to do with administration of subsidies.

These two amendments were sponsored by mop-haired, eloquent Everett Dirksen, Illinois Republican (and close friend of Earl Smith, the brains of the American Farm Bureau). The House was on a violent rampage. Even veteran anti-New Dealers warned the members they were going too far. The young Turks would not hear or heed. They had tasted blood.*

Shrewd, New Deal-hating Howard W. Smith, Virginia Democrat, author of a dozen anti-labor bills, warned: "This inflation threat is so dangerous, so imminent that I do not think we should burn this bridge down because we are mad at somebody." Representative Wright Patman of Texas counseled: "Remember that in Russia milk costs $7 a half pint, butter $70 a pound, a suit of clothes $450." The House, heedless, swept on. After months of inaction the members wanted to seize this first clear chance to smash at the Administration. Anti-Administration Democrats and Republicans alike joined in.

The Price. The subsidy battle was by no means over. The President and Price Administrator Brown must now count on the Senate to undo the House's work. Some Senators felt the House had clearly gone too far; they admired the fine frenzy of the jamboree, but not its results.

But whatever the final outcome, the House's revolt was of immense significance. War or no war, the House blowoff might yet be a constructive blow for legislative government. Franklin Roosevelt must win back Congressional support at all costs, and the price Congress really demands is intelligent administration of the home front. If the President does not choose to pay the price, he may find himself in the unhappy, hamstrung position of the World War I President, Woodrow Wilson.

*Notable was the fact that the one agency to come through with a whole skin was Henry Wallace's pet bureau, the Board of Economic Warfare, whose head, Milo Perkins, has been sedulous in heeding Congressional advice and complaints and in explaining clearly and sensibly to Congress just what he is trying to do.

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