Reorganization Reorganized

Year ago Franklin Roosevelt's plan for reorganizing the U. S. Government was beaten in a bitter legislative battle amid cries of "Dictator!" from Father Coughlin and Publisher Frank Gannett. Last week another reorganization bill passed--with no national hullabaloo, but after a right smart fight in Congress.

The Bill. Husky, leathery Lindsay Carter Warren, Congressman from Washington, N. C., more than half won the fight by the way he drafted this year's bill. He listed the points on which last year's bill was attacked and simply left most of them out this time. He gave the President power to alter the setup of all executive agencies--except certain ones, specifically listed. (Important exceptions in the bill as passed by the Senate: Civil Service, Communications, Power, Trade, Interstate Commerce, Securities & Exchange, Employes' Compensation, Maritime, Tariff Commissions, Army Engineers Corps, Coast Guard, NLRB, Board of Tax Appeals, Federal Reserve Board, FDIC, Veterans' Administration. Most important: the Comptroller General's office, whose functions of o.k.-ing expenditures beforehand and auditing them afterward the President last year sought to divide between, respectively, the Budget Director and a new Auditor General.) The bill also forbade the President to do away with any function of the agencies he might alter or merge. And it gave Congress power by majority vote to invalidate within 60 days (of a session) any change made by the President.

In short, Lindsay Warren made Reorganization, model 1939, a good deal less drastic than Reorganization 1938. He also made it politically possible--just barely possible--to get the bill passed.

The Doones. Lindsay Warren won his bill's crucial battle on the House floor with one brief, effective literary allusion. When Representative Kleberg of Texas tried to require that the President's reorganization be approved by a positive vote of Congress (rather than subject to a negative veto), Mr. Warren asked his colleagues: "Have you forgotten the story of Lorna Doone?"

In Author Richard Blackmore's novel, when outraged citizens marched against the Doones--outlaws who levied tribute on the surrounding country--they set up cannon on the mountain ridges on both sides of Doone Valley but, falling into discord, fired across the Valley at each other while the Doones sallied out unscathed below. Boomed Lindsay Warren:

"Let us heed the lesson, my fellow Democrats! . . . The Doones [Republicans] are in the valley. I pray you, gentlemen, train your guns a little lower."

Last week in the Senate, Lindsay Warren's good friend Jimmy Byrnes of Spartanburg, S. C. took charge of the bill. "I'd rather have Jimmy Byrnes on my side than any other ten Senators," said Lindsay Warren, and the tribute was well earned. For two days a parliamentary battle was fought over the bill. At one point Senator Burt Wheeler of Montana succeeded in amending it to require both Houses' approval of every reorganization move by the President, by vote of 45-to-44. But after two days' smart maneuvering, Jimmy Byrnes got the amendment stricken out by vote of 46-to-44. The bill, substantially as Jimmy Byrnes and Lindsay Warren wanted it, was passed and sent to conference.

Significance. Lindsay Warren's stature and influence in Congress are not measured by his one House chairmanship, that of the obscure Accounts Committee (which looks after what the House spends on itself). No one has attempted to oppose Warren in a Democratic primary since he won his seat in 1924. In only four of his eight elections have Republicans bothered to nominate a candidate against him. Patronage is therefore unimportant to him. He has not pressed for places on important committees. He turned down the $15,000, 14-year job of Comptroller General. In 1936 he declined to contest for Josiah Bailey's Senate seat, which he might easily have won, because he likes Joe Bailey. Over his colleagues in Congress, as over his constituents, he has developed a hold based on respect and confidence. Aged 49, he regards John Nance Garner as "a second daddy." For all 14 years his capital residence has been a room in the modest Washington Hotel next door to Mr. Garner's. Lindsay Warren did not consult the White House when he drafted the Reorganization bill. The New Deal's leader in the Senate, "Dear Alben" Barkley, even stepped aside in the sharp Senate battle, leaving the generalship to Jimmy Byrnes.* Thus: Reorganization, 1939, was neither written nor passed under New Deal guidance. As enacted it stands as the first major accomplishment of the Garner "moderates."

-* Leader Barkley contributed a laugh, however. To make sure no Senator misunderstood, he intervened to have a question reread before a vote was taken. Then he got balled up himself, voted the wrong way.

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