Members of the United States Congress are notoriously more interested in voting funds to be spent in their constituencies than they are in raising revenue. Some of them are cynically frank about the matter and have formed an organization which they have named the Demagogues Club, membership of which is restricted to those who have never voted against an appropriation or in favour of additional taxation to meet it.
Projects and grants for States and districts appear to be specific advantages. They can be pointed out as concrete evidence that the Congressman is looking after his constituents' interests. On the.other hand such things as balancing the budget and maintaining credit of the Government are remote and theoretical topics which arouse no local interest.' The Federal Treasury is looked upon as something remote and incredibly vast from which funds can be poured in profusion and the filling of which can be taken as something which naturally happens, like rainfall.
The overwhelmingly favourable votes by which the 1938 pump-priming proposal was passed—60 to 10 in the Senate and 329 to 70 in the House—illustrates this point, However hostile Congress may be to the Administration, one bill they will never reject is a bill to spend more money. Usually the President acts as a brake on the spending activities of Congress for the President (and Vice-President) are the only elected officials who represent the nation as a whole. The President does not have to think of local needs and prejudices; he can ignore sectional interests.
But the traditional roles were reversed when the pump-priming measure was proposed. The President was thinking of local expendi tures and the small group who opposed the bill did so on the grounds that any local benefits obtained would be overshadowed by national considerations.
A much larger group attempted to alter the bill for less creditable reasons. If money was to be spent, they insisted that it was dangerous for the President to control the expenditure and have a free hand in allocating sums where he wished, He would be able to manipulate the funds in order to obtain political control. Congressmen felt that the political influence should be left to them.
Votes can be influenced by relief funds ip two principle ways. Relief workers can be pel suaded that if they do not vote as they are told they may be struck from the relief rolls and those who are not on relief can be favourably influenced if some of the pump-priming funds are used to build in their district a new school or recreation centre or swimming bath.
The President decides where the new recreation centre shall be and allows the representative of the district to announce the fact and thus get the credit, Senators and Congressmen who vote with the New Deal are allowed to announce very many: more projects than those who occasionally vote against it. Republicans of course never have an opportunity of showing themselves generous with Federal funds.
The Senate debate on whether the President should be permitted to use his power of a location to influence votes and whether those employed on Government projects should use their position to influence votes was very revealing and somewhat disillusioning. Three separate motions were introduced to take the expenditure of relief money "out of politics" by providing penalties for relief administrators and officials who influence relief workers in any way. Senator Barkley, the Administration leader, put the matter bluntly by saying that it was most unfair to place restrictions upon Federal relief workers when workers employed on various State schemes were free as much as they liked. claimed, was particularly flagrant in the case of those State officials who used the funds granted them by the Federal Government for highway improvement. "We all know," said Barkley, "there is not a State in the Union in which the political organiza tion which is in control of the State does not prostitute for its own political purposes the employment of men and women on the highway and within the offices conducting and constructing the highway: cee Senator Barkley named other groups of! State employees, such as the Unemployment Compensation services, who although supported by Federal funds were and would be at liberty to engage in political activity even if Congress voted that relief workers could not. "They are at liberty," said Sen, Barkley, "to roam round at their will, or at the will of their boss or their organization, and indulge in politics to their hearts' content. But we are proposing that anybody connected with a job under WPA or PWA or CCC or the AAA, shall be tied with a rope to a tree so that he is helpless and cannot even speak, uñless now, and countries are closer to each other than he can whisper' in the ear of somebody what his convictions are."
Senator McCarran put the case for the opposition. "Today how many are there in America whose meal ticket is controlled by some Federal agency?" he asked, "Does that $32 Federal agency controlling that meal ticket have the power to say to that individual that unless he votes as the one controlling says he shall vote, he will be cut off? The whole question involved here is, shall the people tule, or shall someone who has been delegated by the people tq minister to the needs of the unemployed dominate Senator Barkley's position can be better understood when the background of the stiff political fight in his State, Kentucky, is realized. The Governor of Kentucky, Mr. Albert (Happy) Chandler was trying to get the Democratic Senatorial nomination from Senator Barkley in the party primary. A special investigator for the Scripps-Howard papers thus describes the situation. "WPA financed by the taxpayer to care for the unemployed and needy is deep in politics on behalf of the renomination of Senator Barkley. In places the WPA activity is open and brazen unlike anything seen heretofore. On his side Governor Chandler has thrown his whole State organization—one of the best political machines in the country—into the fight."
Thus there existed in Kentucky when the Senator objected to tieing the hands of Government relief workers a dingdong tussle between Federal employers working for Senator Barkley and State employees working lor Governor Chandler. "To have prevented Federal workers from playing politics in the State would have left a free field for the Governor's men.
Political activity this writer found was most active at the bottom of the ladder—WPA foremen passed out Barkley buttons, instructing their workers that they must vote for the Senator and, in numerous cases making support of him a prerequisite for jobs. In several cases workers who have indicated their preference for Gov. Chandler have been dismissed.
"As the campaign gets hotter, "he said," additional WPA projects are supplied for the State by Washington and announced first in telegrams from Senator Barkley, which are displayed by his local campaign managers so that he can get full credit.". The weekly magazine, "Life," recently broke down the figures for Federal relief expenditures from 1933 to 1937 according to States and commented, as a result of its analysis, "The figures on these pages are astounding. If they mean what they appear to mean in the light of American political history and political practice, then the charge that the New Deal has spent and lent its relief and recovery billions in the way best calculated to keep itself in power is'true." 8
Up to the time the President proposed his new $4,000,000,000 programme thousands of millions of dollars were spent or lent for relief and recovery.. The total includes farm relief cheques loans for Public Works, RFC loans and Housing loans as well as direct relief money. The Western States, which hold the political balance of power in the United States, received most Government money per person while the Southern States which are safely Democratic got least. Maine and New Hampshire, the only two States to vote Republican at the last Presidential election were among the low-figured Southern States, This is in keeping with the well-known adage of political campaign managers, "Never waste your money in a ward, county or State where you are sure to lose or where you are sure to win."
Other possible reasons why the Western States should get more Federal funds per capita than any other section of the country spring to mind. Perhaps they were poorer and needed more money? "Life's" figures show that this reason must be set aside. The average income of each person in the ten Southern States who got least from the New Deal was $303.17 a year; the average income of each person in the first ten Western States who got most Federal money was $462.05. There are some extenuating circumstances. The South contains many negroes who can live on less than the destitute in the Western States. Moreover the West is new and not so well developed as the South so that from a national point of view it would be justifiable to spend more money on general public improvements in the West than in the South.
Moreover it might be argued that money spent directly in the West aids indirectly all sections of the country. But whatever mitigating circumstances are advanced the fact remains that in the State of Nevada $1,114 was spent by the New Deal per person while in the southern State of North Carolina the per capita expenditure was only $123. It is little wonder that some Southern Congressmen follow a policy of making a nuisance of themselves so that they will be bribed with extra public works money to be good. But they have to be careful for retribution may fall upon them if they misbehave too much and the full force of Federal funds will be used to oust them.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.