OUR IRRESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT
Beard, Charles A.
Our Irresponsible Government By CHARLES A. BEARD TWO THINGS the American people have long taken for granted, like the air they breathe: the liberties »nd the rights of self-government which they...
...After Sen...
...Butler's schedule item by item and give the correct total...
...Robert M. La Follette, Jr., Wisconsin Progressive, for reducing and streamlining the committees of the Senate in the interest of a more efficient transaction of public business...
...Surely Congress and the people have a right to know whether the figure is approximately true or is grotesquely false...
...For his edification, newspapers, magazines, and columnists poured out ink like cuttlefish, making the air thicker than a London fog...
...Surely none will deny the essential truth of this proposition...
...Butler...
...In the course of his report, Sen...
...Hugh A. Butler of Nebraska made a report to the Senate on our financial operations in Latin America, Now I do not know Sen...
...They have seen parliament after parliament paralyzed by incapacity to legislate and control executive aggression, and then either disappear entirely or sink into utter futility...
...On Jan...
...Butler's critics over the period covered...
...But is that enough...
...The second is a resolution introduced in the House of Representatives by Rep...
...After all, aren't they working hard in committees, answering letters and telephone calls, running errands for constituents, making speeches on the floor, talking fast and furiously in cloak rooms and caucuses, and answering back when the President tells them that they are trying to commit a fraud on the people of the United States...
...Butler's new accounting was made public, a person supposed to be speaking for the State Department deplored the incident as injurious to the Good Neighbor Policy, but did not, perhaps could not, tear into Sen...
...But his figures were not refuted...
...McKellar, acting chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, who, if anybody, might be supposed to know, declared cautiously: "If I understand correctly, $2,207,000,000 is all that has been spent down there for every purpose, including the purchase of war materials...
...In order to make this point clear and explicit, let us take a single illustration out of the many available to anybody who studies and observes the transaction of public business in Washington...
...Nor do I pretend to judge here the merits of his argument or the case he raised, although I have probably given more time to the matter than the average busy American citizen...
...Now exact information and a sense of responsibility on the part of public authorities are certainly indispensable to the conduct and maintenance of constitutional government, at least in the long run...
...According to the Associated Press, Nelson Rockefeller issued a statement as follows: "Spending and commitments to spend in Latin America in the last three years by all government agencies, including military and naval installations, total less than $6,000,-000,000...
...26, 1943, Sen...
...Is it possible that the American people actually regard themselves as utterly and forever immune to the calamities which have marked the march of despotism in Europe and Asia...
...Here the case is rested and I submit to candid readers the proposition that the methods and machinery of the legislative and executive departments at Washington need a drastic overhauling in the interest of safety for constitutional government...
...20, 1944, Sen...
...After reading a bale of clippings I felt like old Ben Turpin himself, and awaited more enlightenment...
...Since no military secrets were involved in the mere fact of the $6,000,000,000, Congress and the people were entitled to know about it...
...Butler stated: "Our actual expenditures, commitments, and extensions of credit in or for Latin America during the three years, 1942, 1943, 1944 total more than $6,000,-000,000...
...Is it possible that the Congress and President of the United States can pursue unscathed in the coming half century the methods they have followed during the past 25 years...
...McKellar, instead of tearing them to pieces and giving the facts, if he could, laid special emphasis on the importance of maintaining the Good Neighbor Policy...
...Meanwhile questions asked in Congress and by citizens seeking information concerning their government remain unanswered...
...Three Sleeping Resolutions That a few members of the present Congress are disturbed by such questions is made evident in three resolutions which have been introduced since it opened in January, 1943...
...Nor do I here pass upon the motives of Sen...
...The third is a joint resolution, sponsored by Representative Monroney and Sen...
...In other words, it seemed that Sen...
...According to this schedule, the total figure in the case in question was $5,733,953,534, as far as independent Lathi American countries alone were concerned...
...Butler was either careless or frightfully ignorant, and trying to make trouble for the Administration...
...Meanwhile, save on rare occasions, debates in the House and Senate are as desultory as ever, grave issues continue to be undefined, to say nothing of joined, and an air of irresponsibility seems to hang thickly over the Capitol Hill as well as the White House...
...Maloney, which calls for the creation of a joint committee empowered to investigate and report on the whole problem of efficient Congressional procedure and efficient methods for conducting the relations between Congress and the President...
...No military secrets are involved—just the brute fact of a $6,000,-000,000 bill which taxpayers will have to meet or not...
...OnJNov...
...That is not far from the original claim: $6,000,000,000...
...Nevertheless it is repeatedly flouted in Congress and by the President...
...The Senator went on to say that a considerable part of this money was being spent in ways that did not advance good relations between the United States and Latin America...
...Are they prepared by organization, procedure, knowledge, and spirit to cope successfully with the pressing and complicated issues of government already crowding in upon them—issues almost certain to become more pressing and more complicated in the years immediately ahead...
...There seemed to have been some confusion among Sen...
...Some debate then took place...
...Well, what did they learn...
...In any event, that queer bird known as John Q. Citizen, who has to pay taxes to meet the bill whatever it is, must have felt more cross-eyed than ever...
...In any efficient and responsible government it could be so settled and would be...
...The Constitution provides explicitly: "No money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law...
...The story could be extended indefinitely, but that figure of $6,000,000,000 still remains a mystery...
...So it looked for a moment as if Sen...
...But at the moment these resolutions seem to be sleeping in committee rooms and there are few overt signs that a majority of Senators and Representatives are looking beyond their noses in this respect or ever dream that the deluge may come in their own time, instead of after they are safely interred in their graves...
...Yet they have, within the past 25 years, witnessed the destruction of civil liberties and the collapse of popular governments far and wide over the surface of the earth...
...There is something fundamentally wrong and irresponsible in a legislature and an executive department which cannot settle such a question on the basis of positive knowledge within 24 hours...
...He presented to the Senate a long and detailed schedule, checked by certified public accountants and citing the documentary sources of each major item...
...All Is Confusion Leaving out of account the rhetoric of the business, there stands the Senator's statement about the $6,000,-000,000...
...Either that or the three gentlemen did not know what they were talking about or were talking through their hats...
...Butler was 10 times wrong, absurdly wrong...
...My point is made...
...On the same day, Sen...
...They have seen great nations disgusted by factionalism and negationism in legislative chambers and willing to surrender to demagogues prepared to promise them peace, action, and security...
...Our Irresponsible Government By CHARLES A. BEARD TWO THINGS the American people have long taken for granted, like the air they breathe: the liberties »nd the rights of self-government which they enjoy under the constitutional system of the United States...
...All I want to do is to call attention to the way in which a piece of public business is handled in Washington...
...and a regular statement and account of the receipts and expenditures of all public money shall be published from time to time...
...They have seemed to imagine that no matter what they think, say, and do, these liberties and rights will endure forever, like the hills and the stars...
...Butler opened up again...
...Butler or his critics...
...Estes Kefauver to amend the rules in such a way as to make it possible for the House to invite heads of departments and independent agencies to report and answer questions on the floor of the House...
...The first is a proposal by Sen...
...Butler agreed with him on that policy but wanted to know whether the methods of expenditure pursued were actually doing good or harm...
Vol. 8 • March 1944 • No. 10
