PRESIDENT RETURNS TO TROUBLED SCENE

Press, Volume LXXX, Issue 24149, 7 January 1944, Page 4

PRESIDENT RETURNS TO TROUBLED SCENE

POLITICS IN U.S.A.

[By A. D. ROTHMAN. Washington Staff Correspondent of the "Sydney Womb.. Herald.”] mornln * (Published by Arrangement.)

In his first press conference after his return from the Allied conferences in the Middle East, President Roosevelt jokingly asked journalists what had happened in the domestic sphere in his absence of more than a month, and was greeted with cries of “Plenty” and shouts of laughter. One of the Washington columnists subsequently wrote that the President will “find Pandora’s box wide open—from it

have flown the most virulent and tenacious of social and economic plagues that affect the country and soften its attack on the Axis. The President’s immediate and essential task is to try to get them under restraint again,” Problems of the domestic front unquestionably increased in intensity while President Roosevelt was away. While the complexity of the American system of government demands wide delegation of powers by the President, it has been one of the chief characteristics of President Roosevelt’s administration that both small and large problems hardly ever get themselves solved except by the President himself.

hoarding, notably in liquors, are ele, ments in the picture. Price control has faltered in manv ■; fields. In luxuries and semi-luxuries *i it has been brazenly thrown off bv sellers. There is so much money in v* the people’s pockets that it pushes its H way through the price structure in i essentials, and literally explodes an laws but the naked law of supply ant i demand. When the president of the United -? Mine Workers, Mr J. L. Lewis, breach- r $ ed the so-called “little steel formula” by obtaining a wage increase of 15Q cents a day for coal miners, he opened ‘ ? the way for other assaults on the wage ’■! structure which the "little steel form-. ; ula” at least technically was expected -I to maintain. '| [Mr Rothman here reviewed the'J origins of the railway strike threatened |a for December 31. “It seems that PresU dent Roosevelt can prevent a strike,” h|,'il correctly "but what,” he. asked, “will happen to the wage struck J ture?”] i r |

A worsening of conditions on the home front during the President’s absence is reflected in the following facts:—

(1) Congress failed to act on the new tax programme. (2) Congress failed to act on the President’s request for a continuation and increase of food subsidies. (3) Price control further disintegrated. (4) Further assaults were made on the wages structure, with a threatened strike by railway employees. _ (5) The manpower muddle increased. (6) The negro question took a form of open disobedience by interested groups of a Presidential executive order.

Manpower Muddle The manpower muddle has been U ascribed to divided authority civilian heads and the military. Dis&l putes over the question have followe4|i a tortuous course. The present crisiifl in this field is - over the drafting os| “pre-Pearl Harbour fathers.” Con-..| gress has passed a bill deferring thesa.fi to the last, although leading figure! | in the Government have pleaded with f 1 Congress not to do so. President Roose- ' I velt on his return announced that hi - I would sign the measure but expressed I strong disapproval of it and asked for I its revision. ‘AM

(7) Evidence developed of growing revolt in the Democratic Party against the President’s leadership. An examination of these seven heading shows fairly thoroughly the nature of the President’s domestic war-time social and economic programme, and gives evidence of its lack of integration. Factors Responsible Politics, group economic interests, genuine differences of opinion about the wisdom of metflod, psychological factoi’s like the distance of the domestic front from the actual war front, and complacency arising from good war news—all these are responsible. After many weeks of wrangling the Senate Finance Committee increased by about 500 million dollars, raising to 2284 million dollars, the tax programme of the House of Representatives as against requests by the Treasury for some 10,000 million dollars of new taxation in order to take up part of the estimated 35,000 million dollars of excess spending power In the hands of the people. The House answered the Presidents request for a food subsidy appropriation of about 1,800,000,000 dollars by deciding upon prohibition of subsidies.. The Senate failed to act on that prohibition, and when it became known that President Roosevelt intended to veto the measure containing the prohibition an abortive effort was made at a compromise. But it is now uncertain whether the Senate will approve the prohibition compelling the Presidential veto with a new measure drawn to provide a compromise or whether, when Congress returns from recess, it will restore the subsidies in perhaps a modified form to the measure now before it. Subsidies have become the crux in the price-wage discussions. Farmers and processors have been fighting subsidies. Cattlemen have been withholding beef from the market, for instance, and maize growers, in spite of the lifting of ceiling prices on their product, have found it more profitable to feed 'it to pigs. Price Controls Fail In spite of beef shortages, failure to carefully integrate the rationing system with available supply has resulted in spoilage and demands for temporary suspension of rationing of this food. Clear evidences of disintegration in the quality of domestic food Supply, a shaky price structure, black markets,

The negro question is always with;,. | us. Its recrudescence during Prea«,i | dent Roosevelt’s absence took the form;' I of a direct refusal by 16 southern rail.' I ways to obey the demand of the Fair., I Employment Practices Committee ap*i | pointed by Presidential executivtjf | order, to secure equality between em*;i | ployees irrespective of colour or r*cl| ligion. The railways declared that the de*;y| mand was without constitutional!, | authority, and that “it is wholly imr4.| practical to hancue delicate inter-racial problems in the southern states by de»:*l cree.” Repeated efforts in Congress to securt.fi repeal of the poll tax which franchises the majority of negroes IBtJ the south have failed. This question# I has intruded itself into the problem# I of assuring soldiers a vote In toe til coming Presidential election, r |i Efforts to secure the passage of ** | Federal Act providing for a | method of balloting in the armed ser- > p vices were defeated because in-! I volved in them was elimination of the ■ J poll tax. A combination of southern 1 | Democratic Congressmen, and anti- J I Roosevelt Republicans, stood on the ] I Constitutional issue, namely, that the '; right of fixing voting conditions is re- ■* served to the States. But 10 million ,~ soldier votes are also involved, and ), observers believe they will be pre-! - dominantly pro-Roosevelt if he runi again. The matter, therefore, becomesone of high politic, as well as civil, i consideration, Democrats Divided On the racial question, President Roosevelt’s efforts on behalf of the ,j. negroes have heightened southern De-f mocratic opposition. In the soldiers’: ‘ vote issue, division has gone so far \- that southern Democrats are even pre-; pared to see the defeat of the Demo-= j era tic Party rather than give way. This 1 •, might be interpreted as cutting off ■■■ ■ j one’s nose to spite one’s face, not a ‘.i common practice among American ! political parties—although mon among Democrats than Republi* uj cans. fj But the southern Democratic entity, f I which in the last analysis considers y itself as the only true and lasting part of the Democratic Party, is seeing m,Q this a sign of the times. There havesil been pronouncements by more intran-i]i sigent Democratic Senators from south for the formation of a separate Democratic Party to oppose President ‘ | Roosevelt.