National Affairs: Garner v. Wagner v. Hoover

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When in 1927 he re placed Republican James Wolcott Wadsworth Jr. in the Senate, the State soon discovered it had not suffered by the ex change. Chunky, genial, levelheaded. Senator Wagner has been pounding away at Unemployment Relief for two years. Said he last week: "The Administration has waited for some miracle to come about to absorb the unemployed and unemployment has risen to a total in excess of 10.000.000. What has Congress done? We have brought about no recovery in business by any action so far and it is clear that private industry is unable to take up the slack. Thus far we have been smug, complacent, waiting for someone else. But the situation can't be met that way. . . . The primary purpose behind this bill is to help States and municipalities which are being forced to abandon projects because they cannot sell securities." The relief legislation had hardly gone to conference before President Hoover released a public blast against some of its provisions. His statement was accepted as a veto warning. The President was "glad" to see the "principle of generous relief to unemployment adopted." The R. F. C.'s $300,000.000 for State loans was "in line with major objectives I have been advocating," but it was "disheartening" that the money should be apportioned according to population rather than need — a provision the Senate deliberately inserted on the ground that the determination of local "need" would lead to bureaucratic delays and political complications. But President Hoover's chief criticism was leveled against provisions in both bills for a bond issue for public works. At the beginning of the Depression the President used to stress public building as a major form of relief. When it failed to work, he turned against it. Said he last week:

"I intensely regret these major provisions . . . committing the Federal Treasury to the expenditure of from $500,000,000 to $1,200,000,000 for non-productive public works. . . . Any study will indicate their pork-barrel characteristics. . . . They are wasteful . . . not economically needed ... a squandering of public money. ... A deficiency [will be] created in the Budget [which] cannot be disguised by accounting phrases. . . . Ve have worked for four months in heart- breaking struggle to balance the Budget. ... To start now to break Federal credit will result in the eventual unemployment of far more men than this comparatively few benefited. . . . There is. however, a possibility of immediately rectifying these destructive factors and delinquencies. It is within the power of the conferees to rewrite the bill. ... I earnestly hope this may be done."

*This provision, once passed by the Senate as a separate bill, was reincorporated in the Wagner measure to get it into conference.