NEWS FROM WASHINGTON

The following is the second in a series of four articles written exclusively for the Crimson on condition in Washington. Mr. Cross was born in Never sink, New York, and educated at the Ellenville High School. He received his degree from the University of Cornell Law School, where he was selected for the All-American Basketball team. He was elected six times to the New York State Assembly, and was personal secretary to President Roosevelt during his term as Governor of New York State. Recently he has been appointed Assistant Sollcitor General in the Department of Justice in the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. He resides in Washington.

When Franklin D. Roosevelt was inaugurated President and the Democrats obtained full control of the Government it was a foregone conclusion that the seventy-third Congress then in session would be called upon to enact one of the most ambition programs of legislation in our history. Conditions in the country called for heroic action. The people were not only ready for it but with new hope turned eager eyes toward Washinton. Members of Congress realized the great task ahead but it is doubtful if any one with a force and precision that marks a new niche in the effectiveness of our form of representative Government.

Wide Powers for Roosevelt

Aside from repeal of the eighteenth amendment of rather the submission of the repeal to the States, the Glass-Steagall Banking Reform Act and a few other pieces of important legislation the record of the past Congress is reflected in the extraordinary powers granted the President. No other President has been given authority all comparable to that vested in President Roosevelt by the seventy-third Congress.

Briefly those powers may be summed up as follows:

1. To inflate the currency through the following means.

2. Requiring open market operations in Federal securities.

b. Devaluing the gold dollar by not more than fifty per cent.

c. Issuing U. S. notes up to $3,000. 000.000 or accepting up to $200.000,000 in silver in payment of allied war debts.

2. To appoint a Coordinator of Railroads, to affect economics and to find means to prevent what appeared to be on-coming financial ruin.

3. To appoint what is known as the Tennessee Valley Authority to include completion of the huge Muscle Shoals project and to develop on a tremedous scale the natural resources of the Tennessee Valey--an admittedly bold national experiment.

4. Most important of all, to establish control over industry, regulate production, require fair competition, fixing minimum wages and maximum hours of work and to set up a plan of Government licenses for business if such action, should be necessary to affect control over industry.

5. To establish a new pension system for veterans of all wars to take the place of the previously existing benefits which were repealed by the Congress.

6. To consolidate, eliminate or transfer bureaus within the Executive branch of the Government to effect economics and advance efficiency.

7. To direct an expenditure of $500,000.000 supplied by the Reconstruction Finance Corporation for the destitute in the various States.

8. To reduce salaries of employees of the U. S. not to exceed 15 per cent.

9. To publish income tax returns to such extent as he may deem in public interest and under regulations he may prescribe.

10. To organize and accept responsibility for direction of a Public Works Program expending $3,300,000 for the relief of unemployment.

11. To repeal by executive proclamation new taxes voted in the Industrial Recovery Act upon restoration of business or repeal of eighteenth amendment.

12. To set up and direct hundreds of camps in reforestation operations to employ more than 250,000 young men.

13. To regulate transactions in credit, currency, gold and silver by invoking war time powers to the extent of placing an embargo on gold or foreign exchange.

War Against Depression

The granting of such powers to the Executive constituted a declaration of war by the American Congress on the economic situation as then existing. The execution of the laws is being effected in the spirit of war. Washington hums with activity comparable to the days of 1917-18. That there is opposition sincerely entertained both within and without the Congress to the granting of such powers to the President cannot be denied. But he takes hold of his task with both hands unafraid. No one questions his purpose. History is in the making