PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT’S DIFFICULTIES

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIX, 30 January 1936, Page 6

PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT’S DIFFICULTIES

JUST as the people of the United States are doing, President Roosevelt is experiencing a difficult time. He and his budgetary proposals received a severe set-back when the Supreme Court ruled ■ the Agricultural Adjustment Administration taxation to be unconstitutional. Now he has been flouted in connection with the Bill which provides for the payment at once in cash, if demanded, of the war veterans’ compensation certificates which, without this special legislation, would not be payable until 1945. The legislation has been described as a votecatching “hardy annual.” Last Alay, when this Bonus Bill came up for consideration the President, after an unprecedented appearance before a joint session of Congress to which he dramatically delivered his veto message, succeeded in securing the defeat of the measure. Both the House of Representatives and the Senate over-rode his objection, but the majority was not sufficient to make the proposed legislation effective. Although it was not anticipated that there would be any attempt to cash the whole issue of the veterans’ certificates, it was stated that the face value of these was 3,500,000,000 dollars, and approximately 3,677,000 adjusted service certificates are outstanding. It is obvious that enactment ‘of the Bonus Bill would make very serious demands upon an already depleted Treasury. This fact, however, did not deter a predominantly Democratic Congress last week giving a more emphatic rebuff to the Democratic President, who, acting as three of Ins predecessors had done, had again vetoed the Bill. When Congress over-rode the veto by 324 votes to 61, the decision was described as the worst legislative defeat yet suffered by President Roosevelt, and as indicating the prospect a similar verdict in the Senate. That prediction has been fulfilled, as indicated by yesterday’s cables, which told us that the President’s veto on tlie War Veterans’ Bonus Bill had been overridden by 76 votes to 19. With these substantial majorities in Congress and Senate against the President’s veto the measure is now law. It must he understood lhat the veterans’ bonus proposal is not a part of the “New Deal,” which had been approved, but was later declared, in essentials, to be unconstitutional. The votes just taken may he regarded as an indication that the legislators realise that feeling in the country which so strongly supported the Democrats at last election, is now becoming antagonistic. The effect upon the country’s finances is apparently being regarded as secondary to the desire to secure votes in election year, for the veterans —some of whose merits are said to be doubtful—are a powerful forces As an American journalist recently wrote on this point:

The veterans comprise probably the largest and most closely-knit “special pleader” groups in the United States. Their leaders know full well how to apply pressure to individual Representatives and Senators. They are expert in the use of political fright More than 3,500,000 people of voting age would be directly affected by bonus legislation, and they wield a political influence upon at least that many more. The type of agitation, that has been carried on among the veterans by their so-called political friends had made it impossible for the President or any one else to reason with them. They have been told repeatedly that the amount of their certificates had been due and payable for several years, and that it is being withheld by their own Government.

Another writer, reviewing the election

1 prospects, emphasised that in view of j what had happened the question would he asked : Can President Roosevelt survive the defeat of the New Deal? And I now lias come the set back over the veterans’ bonus legislation. The present Congress will meet at the end of Febru- ’ ary. Like the President, it lias suffered a rebuff by the Supreme Court. It would be only wasting time if it re-enacted the ■ defeated measures. Only an amendment of the Constitution would make this satisfactory to the Court, and that process would necessarily take many months, whereas the Presidential nomination conventions must be held no later than the middle of the year to give time for the campaign before the election in November. The writer quoted considers that it is not even certain if President Roosevelt moved to give the Federal Government centralised powers whether he would procure the nomination of the Democrats, traditionally a States Rights party. However, he is not the type of man to give in, and should he fail to rally his parly lie may choose to stand as ail Independent Democrat on the broad and seemingly uncontentious issue whether tile Government has the right, like every national Government, to control social, I economic, and working conditions, aquestion, as he himself has expressed it, “as big as the choice between war and peace.” According to this authority, President Roosevelt can be sure of the support of Labour, the farmers in the agricultural south and middle‘west, the small tradespeople, and those who, for election purposes, are described as “the plain people.” Confronting him would he the Republicans no longer divided by Prohibition, but, so far, lacking a real leader, unless Mr Hoover attempts to return to office. The next move of President Roosevelt and his advisers will be awaited with the keenest interest.