Big Business on the Dole…

The liberals, as they warm up for 1956, begin again their perennial pursuit of issues. Not much remains to them. They have muted their criticism in most areas, renounced it completely in others. Now, however, a convenient amnesia has set in which invites bold onslaughts on a condition the Democratic Party itself created.

The Fair Deal* publicists have decided to make an issue of regulatory commissions. Certain sinister developments are alleged to have taken place in the past two years. It is said that our watchdogs of fair play have been captured and leashed by the very groups they were designed to curb. President Eisenhower, determined to fulfill his campaign pledge of using only the best brains, sought them in their natural environment, Big Business. The best brains are not inclined to inhibit others with a similar complement of gray matter.

Lately the welfare state has been undergoing a subtle change into the rich man’s welfare state, aiding those who do not need help or who don’t deserve it at public expense. The agencies created to end privilege have become bulwarks of privilege. The bureaus which were established originally as balance wheels for segments of the national economy — transportation, communications, land use, etc.—unbalance the economy by distributing the riches unevenly.

Is this Michael Straight? Marquis Childs? Stuart Chase? No. Nor is the year 1955. I am quoting from the best how-to book so far written, Blair Bolles’ “How To Get Rich in Washington,” 1952. Mr. Bolles wishes to characterize the Truman Administration, and does so with devastating thoroughness. A Fair Dealer could take the story, change its cast of characters (one Charlie Wilson for another), dedicate the whole thing to Ike, and call it a me-too book. This is probably what political scientists mean by continuity in our two-party system.

Bolles documents the process whereby nearly every important Federal agency was undermined by Executive appointment even before business came officially into its own. How the Natural Gas Act was sabotaged by Mon Walgren, Truman’s crony and appointee to the Federal Power Commission. How the FCC tolerated use by professional criminals (like the bookmaker, C. J, Rish, who was grossing $5,000,000 a year) of Western Union wire service to conduct their business. How Preston T. Tucker fleeced the War Assets Administration which permitted him to occupy a $200,000,000 building free, let him use $24,000,000 worth of machine tools without charge, and spent $300,000 a year to keep up “his” plant. How “obsequious gentlemen who treated their public office as a trust for private interests” ran the U.S. Maritime Commission after World War II, assuring that “every ship of consequence” built in an American yard received a “modern spray of gold” in the form of outrageous subsidies. (Is this free enterprise? Bolles says the m...