ECONOMIDC FREEDOM: THE LAST STAND

...Administration's Errors Up to now the Administration's path to its eventual goal of property disposal has been filled with tragic errors, and whether the public interests can be saved now depends in large measure on whether the Administration avails itself of the opportunity the Congress has given it to redeem itself from the errors of the past...

...The Big Business point of view-was presented by Mr...

...and of new towels—more than a million of them—costing 54 cents, at 3 cents each...

...But in most other respects the door is wide open...

...Secretary Ickes, Atty...

...3"he total cost to the Government was $85,000,000...

...There is a great concentration of wealth and industry still going on—all of which makes the future for little business and free enterprise very dark...

...He was a supporter of the Associated Farmers...

...In the words of Mr...

...Behind these simple words lies one of the largest powers of the Board to aid either big or little business...

...of paraffin paper costing 00 cents a pound at 5 cents a pound...

...Hancock is presently a Wall Street broker and his ties with Big Business have never for a moment been severed...

...Clayton's brief administration of the surplus property program was about what could be expected...

...David Lawrence and the Washington Times-Herald praised the report for its "sound conservatism...

...147,424,000 Gas, light, heat, and power...

...The property to be disposed of includes the stupendous amounts of American property now in foreign countries, which is all too likely to fall into the hands of the great cartels that dominate those-countries...

...211,465,000 Miscellaneous Manufacturing...

...Hancock deliberately turned their backs on wiser counsel...

...2,128,465,000 Iron and steel and its products.....1,068,866,000 Nonferrous metals and their products 1,167,568,000 - Machine tools and other metal-working equipment...

...Therefore we must see to it that the small businessmen have a chance to purchase...

...The struggle between the small businessman and the public on the one hand and the monopolists on the other is on now in full force, and the outcome of the battle will have consequences throughout the indefinite future for all the people of the United States...

...Testimony of Secretary of the In-terior...

...If the Baruch-Hancock report were applied today, all future developments like the TVA would be killed before they were ever born...

...Thus, during the last war the Government constructed a smokeless powder plant at Nashville, Tenn., called the Old Hickory plant...

...3While the act does not provide for the mechanics ? of the disposition of farm land, it does provide that "whenever practical" the land shall be sold in family-sized units...

...Harold L. Ickes, before a Senate Committee...

...Clayton is the world's biggest cotton merchant...

...Patton, the Baruch report would result in "the peace being won by the money-changers...

...He is one of the most reactionary men in the Federal Government and is on public record as being wholly opposed to everything the New Deal stood for...

...In considering the Surplus Property Bill, Congress had before it the farmers, the small businesses, and the big business point of view...

...The future welfare of the farmers and of little business and of the entire American economy depends in great degree on the selection of the three-man Surplus Property Board...

...1The first error was the appointment of Bernard ? Baruch and John Hancock to draft the basic bill for surplus property disposal...

...If the President makes his appointments on the basis of the suggestions of men like Sen...

...This, then, is the Last Stand...

...Instead of proposing that the Government lease the property so that if the plants fell into the hands of monopolists who used the Government investment to further their evasion of the anti-trust laws the leases could be cancelled, they chose instead the course of direct sale...

...Had that farm land been assigned to the Department of Agriculture or the Department of the Interior, the farmers of the country might have had some opportunity to get it...

...1,188,579,000 Products of petroleum, coal...

...239,112,000 Mining metal ores, minerals...

...Baruch is considered by a friendly public as a kindly and generous elderly statesman above the disputes of the world...

...3The third error was the failure of the Administra...

...The small business point of view was expressed by former Congressman Maury Maverick, chairman of the Smaller War Plants Corporation, who said: "I should like to point out to this committee that little business is getting the worst of it now, has been for sometime, and especially since the beginning of the war...

...Baruch is generous and kindly, but he is also a Wall Street broker who has never forgotten his financial friends...

...Robert M. La Follette, Jr., of Wisconsin and George "Aiken of Vermont reserving power transmission lines for cooperative and public power projects...

...He pointed out that no small wholesalers could buy so large a quantity and that when goods are sold in such large lots, the practical result is to take out of the consumer's pocket an unnecessary profit for the middleman...

...And the result is a bill which can be redeemed only if it is interpreted by persons who are sympathetic with the objectives of full production, lower prices, and an independent rather than a monopoly-controlled industry...

...Other instances of the speculators' paradise that followed World War I were sales of bedsheets costing the Government $1 at 20 cents apiece...

...In some instances these same sheets and towels were then immediately repurchased by the Federal Government at the original cost...

...SCANDALS are a real possibility when Government property is being disposed of in wholesale lots, and the scandals of the past may be multiplied many-fold in the immediate future when the Government settles down to the disposition of a store of surplus property vastly greater than that which it has held after any earlier American war...

...Holifield of California spoke very critically of the sale after the last war of 10,000 mattresses in one lot...

...2The second error was the President's appointment ? of William Clayton as the administrator of the disposal of surplus property under the Baruch-Hancock report...

...ESTIMATED TYPE OF PRODUCT PUBLIC COST Ordnarfce...

...If the goods are sold in large lots, only big business can buy them...

...The Last Stand During the passage of the bill, Rep...

...If not, it's all over but the looting...

...The selection of the three board members, then, is the public's last chance...

...Indeed there is at the present time one far greater danger—a danger that in an orderly and legally honest way the wealth produced by the American people in the course of the war is about to be transferred from the hands of the public through their Government to the hands of a little group of monopolists...

...Hill of Alabama, Pepper of Florida, O'Mahoney of Wyoming, La Follette of Wisconsin, and Aiken of Vermont, on the basis of the recommendations of his Cabinet members, Ickes and Biddle, on the basis of the recommendation of the Farmers Union and the labor organizations, there is hope for the future...

...There is a munitions dump near Joliet, 111., which is surrounded by large acreage of some of the best farm land in the state...

...around us...

...The act does contain provisions that none of the larger aluminum, magnesium, synthetic rubber, iron, and steel and some other basic plants can be sold by the Board until a report has been made to Congress, but Congress has reserved for itself only 30 days in which to consider such reports so that as a practical matter, this provision may well operate simply to give a coating of Congressional whitewash to whatever the Board chooses to do...

...The result of the Congressional deliberations was an act which, while not as good as it ought to be, leaves so much discretion to those who administer that the future opportunities for farmers and small business will depend entirely on the choice of the three Board members...

...Biddle, Maury Maverick, and a few others did their best and were aided particularly by Sen...

...These lands ought to be distributed by the Department of Agriculture and by the Department of the Interior for the benefit of small farmers...

...The new Board will have to make a thousand decisions just like the decision made when the 10,000 mattresses were sold 20 years ago...

...But the Administration itself never went to bat for a real program...

...The fight is not for millions but for billions...

...The assignment of the land of the DPC, which has about as much interest in or understanding of the farmers' problems as the Board of Directors of any Wall Street Bank, was greeted by an alarmed outburst from progressive forces in Congress who justifiably feared that the property would end up in the hands of land speculators...

...472,767,000 Transportation...........................„ 191,309,000 Communication...

...He contributed $10,000 to the Liberty League in 1936...

...The farmers' interests were expressed by, among others, the Farmers Union, which in a formal statement said: "Possession by the Government of several million acres of good farm land affords an opportunity that may not occur again for many years, perhaps generations, to give so easily such a great impetus to the promotion of the family-type farm...

...15,725,142,000 Under the Surplus Property Bill just passed by the Congress, the President must appoint a board of three members to dispose of the vast Government holdings...

...Joseph O'Mahoney of Wyoming and other members of the Senate...

...tion to present a united front in behalf of a sound surplus property program to the Congress...

...the enormous amounts of agricultural lands-wMch have been acquired by the Government for bombing ranges and military camps and training grounds and which should be turned over to the farmers of the country...

...His most important single act was the assignment of surplus real property—not plants but good farm land—to, of all weird places, the Defense Plant Corporation...

...The entire works, torn down and sold piecemeal, brought to the Government a net return of $4,000,000...

...and the tremendous public investment of fifteen billion dollars in war plants...

...Baruch and Mr...

...Under the act great discretion as to their disposal is left to the Board and if Mr...

...Here are some examples of the discretion left to the Board by the bill: IThe Government has acquired between 10 and 15 ? million acres of land during the war, much of which is of good farm quality...

...If the Messrs, Baruch and Hancock had made their report in 1918, and if that report had been followed, the Tennessee Valley today would be a cog in the power system of some New York utility and most of the homes of the rural South would still be without electricity...

...485,846,000 Chemicals, also synthetic rubber...

...It is obvious that the determination of what is practical will depend to a great extent on whether the person making the decision is friendly or opposed to the interests of small farmers...

...There is, for example, an area-of 40,000 acres near Salem, Oreg., which has just been declared surplus and which is excellent farming land...

...The result of the deliberations of these gentlemen was a plan which would have made Standard Oil, Alcoa, United States Steel, and Dupont the chief beneficiaries of the public's war investment...

...Labor, publication of the Railway Brotherhoods, James G. Pat-ton, president of the National Farmers Union, and The Progressive were among the principal critics of the Baruch report...

...139,144,000 Machinery, electrical equipment...

...3,975,000 Total...

...5,166,854,000 Aircraft—engines, parts...

...There is no dispute on that point...

...Clayton's already announced policy should be carried out, these lands will pass to the land speculators through the Defense Plant Corporation...

...3,113,768,000 Ship construction and repair...

...Clayton...

...Whether the job is done well or poorly, whether the disposition of the property is to be for the benefit of the 100 largest corporations or for the benefit Of the whole country, depends almost entirely on these three appointments...

...The act itself is so broad that it can be interpreted either badly or well...

...Never Went To Bat' Mr...

...But scandals in the customary crass sense of giving favored persons too much for too little are only one of the dangers to be faced in the disposition of surplus property...

...The public reaction to the Baruch report was mixed...

...2The Board is to determine the size of the lots in ? which the property is to be disposed of...

...His first sale of property was the transfer of a Louisiana plant to Dupont...

...In addition, the act contains a provision supported by Sen...

...Instead of proposing that the Government keep a yardstick plant to maintain a measure of reasonable profit, they proposed that all property be sold as quickly as possible...

...The following table gives some impression of the value of the Government plants paid for by the taxpayers' money which are now to be disposed of...