Rebuke & Repartee

Louisiana has had almost no hand in controlling the distribution of Federal relief funds within the State. Early this month Federal Relief Administrator Harry Hopkins quietly destroyed the State's last hold on Federal relief funds by appointing Frank Peterman, a bitter anti-Longster, to administer Louisiana relief. Last week Senator Long piped his State legislators to Baton Rouge, commanded them to rubber-stamp bills empowering his State agencies to seize and administer all Federal relief and PWA monies sent into the State, clap Frank Peterman into jail if he did not knuckle under. "This," commented an anti-Long legislator, "is a declaration of war against the United States."

It was also an excellent excuse for Secretary of the Interior Ickes to do something which no member of the Roosevelt Cabinet had yet dared to do--i.e., to express publicly his vast distaste for Huey P. Long. "I don't think," growled the PWAdministrator, "that Senator Long is going to dictate to us on how we are going to administer public works in Louisiana. . . . Mr. Long by the action of his Legislature will keep a lot of men out of work by making it impossible for PWA to make loans or grants. Apparently the Senator favors sharing wealth but not sharing work. Perhaps the Senator knows how to produce wealth without work and perhaps we'll have a profound economic and political theory announced after the Longislature has been in session some time. . . .

"We are certainly not going to give works relief funds to build up Senator Long's political machine in Louisiana. The Emperor of Louisiana is creating a situation down there where all allotments might have to be canceled. He's getting a good start."

Blustered Senator Long: "Tell that fellow to go slap damn to hell. If he had any sense, which of course he hasn't, or he wouldn't be in the Cabinet, he would praise this legislation. We are doing the United States Government a compliment when we let them do business with us."

Returned Secretary Ickes: "The trouble with Senator Long is that he is suffering from halitosis of the intellect. That's presuming Emperor Long has an intellect." Then, tired of talk, the PWAdministrator scratched $648,000 for Louisiana off his PWA loan & grant list.

Rushing back to Washington, Senator Long burst into the Senate for a round of New Deal name-calling which began with "Lord High Chamberlain Ickes, the Chinch Bug of Chicago" and ended with: "Roosevelt desires that there shall be re-inflicted upon [Louisiana] the rottenest, most corruptive form of political debauchery ever known--and I don't mean maybe.

"The sovereignty of the State shall be no more. The new President has set up a Boston Tea Party of his own by which he will reach out into the sovereign States, draw out the tax resources, and then withhold from the States their proportion of this fund if they insist on exercising the right of a State."

In Manhattan at an Associated Press luncheon (see p. 46), Secretary Ickes denounced, without naming, a "demagog" whose share-the-wealth scheme was "a base and loathsome thing . . . despicable beyond my powers of description."

Rebuking another Democratic sniper at the New Deal, Secretary Ickes also last week canceled four loans totaling $210,000 allotted to Georgia. Governor Eugene Talmadge, who last week blatantly turned his anti-New Deal fire directly on President Roosevelt (see p. 14), had promised to push passage of a bill validating the sale of Georgia Highway Department Certificates to guarantee the loans in question. When the bill was passed Governor Talmadge vetoed it. Commented Secretary Ickes: "I like to do business with a man whose word I can rely on. We don't care for any more underwriting by the Governor."

For his part, Administrator Hopkins, pointing out that the State of Georgia had contributed nothing to help pay last year's or this year's relief bill, promised that, beginning June 1, the State would get no more Federal funds for direct relief. He also announced that Miss Gay B. Shepperson, whom he personally appointed to be State Relief Administrator of Georgia, would henceforth act as a Federal official responsible directly to Washington.

Pennsylvania, ruled Relief Administrator Hopkins last week, could henceforth share its $20,000,000-per-month relief bill with the Federal Government or it would get no more Government allotments. "Pennsylvania," snapped he, "gives me a pain in the neck. I've been fooling around with it for months. It's one of the richest States in the Union. Everybody admits they can put up the money. Even the City of Brotherly Love never put up a dime. I don't care how Pennsylvania gets the money, but I'm through until it does. I'm sick of having a cat & dog fight every month to decide whether the State will contribute."

Pennsylvania's Republican Senate, which has blocked Democratic Governor George H. Earle's tax bill, hastily voted $5,000,000 to pay the State's share of its relief bill from April 15 to May 15.

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