Spending Spree

One tall tree toppled by New Deal axmen in 1932 was lugubrious, bony, prophetic Reed Smoot, Utah Senator since 1903. Except for an occasional cussing-out as author of the Smoot-Hawley tariff, Latter-Day-Saint Apostle Smoot was promptly forgotten by a busy U. S., and his dismal prophecies with him. Last week thoughtful newsmen realized that at least two of gloomy Oldster Smoot's melancholy forecasts were being realized.

Prophecy I (1920) was remembered by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's Charles G. Ross: "The handwriting is there as plain as ever was mene mene tekel up-harsin. . . . The general service pension is coming. It's as certain as death and taxes."

Prophecy II (1925) was recalled by the Baltimore Evening Sun: "There never has been a year when the cost of Government has not increased, and it will continue to increase, I care not what party is in power."

Prophet Smoot's bleak words were timely because in Washington last week Congress unlaced its economy corset, began to fling about the taxpayers' money. Fired by the Senate's prodigal example in upping the farm bill to a juicy billion dollars (TIME, March 18), the House set upon the Labor-Federal Security Appropriation bill, upped it $67,450,000 (to $1,021,639,700).

> Up by $17.450,000 (to a total of $102,450,000) went the National Youth Administration appropriation.

> Up by $50,000,000 (to $280,000,000) went the CCC appropriation, after debate in which Georgia's "Jedge" Malcolm Tarver revealed, too late, that a legal technicality would prevent spending the extra funds. Not to be dissuaded by such a trifle, the romping House appropriated the unusable $50,000,000 anyway.

> In a momentary fit of economy, the House clipped $337,000 off the $3,180,000 needed by the National Labor Relations Board, believing this a sure way to injure NLRB.

Bitterly Virginia's Clifton Woodrum strove, recalled economy pledges, shouted: "How are you going to pay the bill. Are you going to have a tax bill [the House shuddered], or are you going to raise the debt limit and borrow the money? You know as well as I know that the Congress has no idea of doing either one . . . at this session."

Nobody contradicted Pinchfist Woodrum, but the House whooped down his proposal to kill the bill.

Downtown, the President observed the proceedings with interest. Last July his $870,000,000 Spend-Lend bill was killed by this same House on grounds of economy, and he was loudly assailed as a wastrel and profligate. Warily Mr. Roosevelt prepared a trap last week. The bait: Relief. One morning Secretary Steve Early announced that the President would soon send up his spring Relief message, expected to forecast a $1,000,000,000 appropriation for the fiscal year 1940-41.

That afternoon Secretary Early recalled this statement as hasty, said that Works Projects Commissioner F. C. Harrington would instead present the situation informally to House committeemen.

Out of the White House now came hints that $1,125,000,000 might be needed. Congress faced: 1) election year; 2) an angry mayors' lobby headed by New York's curvetting Fiorello LaGuardia; 3) the fact that 700,000 WPA voters must be dropped between now and June 15; 4) the fact that artful Franklin Roosevelt had passed them the buck, and the buck was hot as a steelworker's rivet.

But Congress' veteran buck-dodgers were unworried; least worried of all was Mississippi's poodle-haired John Rankin, known ironically as "Silent" John. If the Ashurstian*; definition of a Congressman --"A man who votes for all appropriations and against all taxes"--were accepted, "Silent" John would be an almost perfect example. As chairman of the House committee on Veterans' Legislation, World War I Veteran Rankin (21 days in an officers' training camp) has siphoned many a million out of the U. S. Treasury, hopes to siphon many more. Last week "Silent" John celebrated his 58th birthday by dragging out of his committee the most galumptious pension bill yet framed. Its terms: to pension all widows, children and dependent parents of World War veterans who have died from any cause whatever.

By all signs, Mr. Rankin's bill was only the opening whoof in another general rush at the pension trough. During February hearings on the bill, Cornelius Bull, American Veterans Association counsel, pointed out--before apoplectic Mr. Rankin cut him off: "Have you the courage to go to your constituents with a direct tax and say, 'Here is a tax bill for pensioning a woman, not born until 1920, who married a go-day training-camp veteran in May 1938?'"

Not deigning to answer such an impertinent question, "Silent" John snapped at Mr. Bull: "Do not argue back with the chairman," and passed on to the pleasanter business of exchanging back-pats with lobbyists for the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars and Disabled American Veterans. All these gentlemen agreed that the new Rankin bill was a mild bill, a meager bill, a regrettably short step in the laudable direction of general pension legislation.*

Well John Rankin knew that, if he ever gets his bill to the House floor, it will pass like a shot. Last week he worked to get it there. The American Legion watched with interest. For the Legion wanted even more: last February it demanded pensions for ;any veterans "disabled" by constitutional psychopathic inferiority.

In Salt Lake City's huge granite Mormon Church-office building, Apostle Smoot looked at the wall and lugubriously smiled.

* Made by Senator Henry Fountain Ashurst of Arizona, in a non-sesquipedalian moment.

* Since the U. S. was founded, $23,466,000,000 has been spent on veterans' relief--about 13% of all Federal expenditures. This fiscal year's bill: $557,078,000; next year's will be bigger. One lady, Esther Ann Hill Morgan, of Independence, Ore., daughter of a War of 1812 veteran, still draws a $20 monthly pension--125 years after that war ended.

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