WICKARD IS NO CURE FOR REA'S ILLS
McMillin, Miles
Wickard Is No Cure For REA's Ills By MILES McMILLIN PERHAPS no domestic political squabble in late years has caused so much distress and genuine concern among progressives in this country as the...
...Roosevelt was President, and Slattery was asked to resign, which he refused to do...
...The smouldering quarrel broke out and became critical 2 years ago when the Wickard faction set out to organize a National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, a voluntary organization of REA co-ops...
...former Congressman Clyde Ellis...
...Among those who lined up in support of Wickard were such men as Rep...
...Wickard's name had not even been mentioned...
...Next to naming an outright utility stooge, President Truman could not have pleased them more...
...Many of the members of the Senate felt that the move for REA independence would be nullified if Wickard were confirmed...
...Despite the widespread protests, however, the Senate Agriculture Committee has voted to recommend confirmation of the appointment...
...He also had considerable support among the REA co-ops themselves...
...The letter charged that Wickard had blocked a clean-up in REA and stated that in one co-op there had been defalcations and misappropriations totaling $15,000...
...Slattery Sues For Divorce The fight became increasingly more bitter, with the Slattery forces heading a drive for divorcing REA from the Department of Agriculture...
...Its easy passage in the Senate looked like a clear-cut victory for the Slattery forces...
...Neal is a former administrator of the New Hampshire REA, which Sen...
...Congress stepped in...
...It began soon after REA was transferred to the Department of Agriculture...
...The fight, which broke out in full fury recently when President Truman named former Secretary of Agriculture Claude Wickard to the top administrative post, has been going on for about 5 years...
...The hearings brought out much of the old fight with a few new twists...
...Many of the progressive papers and groups in the country protested the appointment...
...Stephen Tate, wealthy businessman from Tate...
...Harry Slattery was appointed to succeed him...
...One of these groups, if not actually lead by Wickard, certainly left no doubt that it paid its allegiance to him rather than Slattery, who spearheaded the drive of the other group...
...A Grave Mistake There was a strong reaction...
...I cannot help but feel that the Committee's action is a mistake...
...It further stated that Wickard had appointed William J. Neal deputy administrator to by-pass Slattery...
...Judson King, in several controversial articles, condemned the association as an instrument to throw REA into politics and as a device to assure a few individuals political power and commercial gain...
...Instead it sought to have Slattery removed as administrator...
...Slattery, meanwhile, made public a hitherto undisclosed letter which he had sent to President Roosevelt at the time he resigned...
...Wickard's appointment will result in anything but harmony...
...NRECA Becomes An Issue Slattery's support rested largely with old friends in the public power movement, such as Judson King, director of the National Popular Government League, and the leaders of the cooperative movement...
...A Senate committee conducted a thorough inquiry into the whole affair and came up with some findings most damaging to the Wickard crowd...
...While the other nominations made by the President at the same time were confirmed, the Senate held up the Wickard appointment and ordered hearings...
...Henrik Shipstead, Minnesota Republican, charges was the worst administered REA in the United States while it was under Neal...
...The position of administrator was still vacant, the Senate Tories having defeated President Roosevelt's nomination of Aubrey Williams...
...Truman nominated Wickard whose position in the Cabinet had just been handed to a new man...
...John Rankin, Mississippi Democrat and arch demagogue on almost all issues but public power...
...This pressure was applied through the White House when the late Mr...
...The Wickard group, while not too enthusiastic over independence, could not take a strong stand against it because of the popularity of such a move among the co-ops...
...Slattery later resigned, stating that he did so in order to be more free to carry on the fight against the men whom he accused of trying to wreck REA...
...A bill was introduced in this session of Congress to re-establish REA as an independent agency...
...Up to that time it had functioned as an independent agency under John Carmody who resigned as administrator shortly after the transfer was made...
...It soon became apparent that 2 groups within the REA were engaged in a bitter battle for control...
...Ga., Robert Craig, former deputy administrator of REA...
...Wickard Is No Cure For REA's Ills By MILES McMILLIN PERHAPS no domestic political squabble in late years has caused so much distress and genuine concern among progressives in this country as the one which now rages within the Rural Electrification Administration...
...A continuation of the bitter fighting that has gone on in the past is the very thing that the utilities are banking on in their drive to smash REA...
...This move was apparently undertaken without the approval of Slattery and it soon became obvious that he and his followers were extremely suspicious of the motives behind the drive for a national association if not actually antagonistic to it...
...Then came the explosion...
...The appointment came as a complete surprise...
...The committee recommended independent status for REA and offered as one of the principal grounds the politics being played by the Department of Agriculture...
...Confirmation of Wickard cannot help but do great harm to the REA program—one of the truly great accomplishments of the New Deal...
...Without taking sides in the dispute raging between the 2 factions, one cannot help but conclude that it is definitely unwise to put at the head of the agency a man who has been a storm center of the controversy which Congress has been endeavoring to straighten out...
Vol. 9 • June 1945 • No. 26
