NO HORSE SWAPPING

Storm clouds are looming on the congressional horizon as President Roosevelt renews his campaign for an additional $150,000,000 for the W.P. A. Threat of a party split in House and Senate makes the issue one of the most important facing Congress with New Deal forces concentrating on the continuation of the relief program while a militant Republican minority allied with the Anti New Deal Democrats demands a reduced budget regardless is its effect on the delicately balanced relief structure.

The opposition maintains that the President's requested appropriation is greater than the relief need caused by the recent European crisis and the New England hurricane. To refute this argument, Representative Cannon of Missouri made eloquent use of statistics: "The appropriation of $875,00,000 recommended by the Budget will keep 3,081,000 men at work," he said. "The appropriation of $725,000,000 recommended by the committee will employ only 1,930,000. In other words, the committee proposes to throw out of employment, in the dead of winter, 1,151,300 men... It is not necessary to draw on the imagination to understand what that mean to the business interests of the country."

The main criticism by the opposition is supported with two lesser objections. In the first place, with fine Republican indignation they demand the immediate enactment of the far-reaching reforms for the elimination of politics from W.P. A. administration recommended by the Shepherd Committee. The second measure for which the opposition is fighting is the abandonment of lump sum appropriations in favor of appropriations itemized by Congress for expenditure on stipulated projects. Even if there is a measure of justice in each of these criticisms, their adoption in the middle of a fiscal year would hardly be justified. As Lincoln once said in connection with a change in policy during the Civil War, there is little to be gained and much to be lost by "swapping horses in the middle of a stream."

Whether or not the president's relief program has benefited the nation only history can say, But to prevent the impoverishment and demoralization of more than a million Americans, the immediate endorsement of President Roosevelt's recommendation is essential. As in the case of Lincoln's Civil War policy, the emergency relief program for 1939 will be gravely imperiled by any interference within the fiscal year. If it so desires, Congress will have ample time to "swap horses" when it gets to the other side of the stream in 1940.