Acts of the Week

As if the No. 1 U.S. bottleneck had come uncorked with the departure of Winston Churchill for home, the President last week took the most important step in many a week by appointing a single war-production tsar, Donald M. Nelson. Letting loose a flow of energy, he also:

>Denounced the price-control bill as passed by the Senate and hinted a veto unless farm politics were dropped from it before it emerges from conference.

>Assumed control of Canal-adjacent Panamanian waters.

>Conferred with people ranging from the Uruguayan and Australian envoys to Governor Homer M. Adkins of Arkansas and Mayor Carl F. Zeidler of Milwaukee.

>Transmitted to Congress a National Resources Planning Board program for the post-war development of the U.S. along the four-freedoms line of the Atlantic Charter.

>Authorized an increase in Army strength to 3,600,000.

>Ordered the registration of all enemy aliens 14 years of age or over in the U.S., Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

>Wrote Baseball's Akhoond of Swat, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, that he felt it was best for the country to keep professional baseball going during the war.

>Withdrew the nomination of Minnesotan David J. Winton as Minister to New Zealand, at Winton's request.

Two sensible changes in Government procedure which he also suggested to Congress :

1) Most onerous chore of the President is the signing of claim bills. Each Congressional session produces 2,000 minuscule claims for relief of private citizens whose feelings or property have been damaged. The Congress passes some 400 of these (the passage of each bill costs the U.S. $200, which is often more than the claim) and one-third of Mr. Roosevelt's record-breaking number of vetoes goes to claim bills each year--by law he must give a reason for each veto, which means costly research all over again. So he suggested legislation empowering the various executive departments to adjust claims up to $1,000, with claims over $500 to be reviewed by the Attorney General; that U.S. district courts be given jurisdiction over such tort claims up to $7,500, with right of appeal to the Court of Claims.

2) Next most onerous Presidential chore is approving at least 100 bills a session authorizing bridge construction or extending the permissible contract times. In order to save time & money, the President suggested that Congress delegate this chore to the Secretary of War.

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