Old Issue, New Styles

A new tariff battle was on. In a surprise message to Congress this week, Franklin Roosevelt asked not only for extension of the reciprocal Trade Agreements Act (it would expire June 12), but also for power to reduce present tariffs still more.

The original Trade Agreements Act, passed in 1934, gave the President power to cut existing tariffs by 50%. In the case of some countries (especially England and Canada) the full cuts were made. Now the President asked for power to reduce the present tariffs by another 50%--or a possible total cut of 75%.

Said Franklin Roosevelt: "This is essential to the substantial increase in our foreign trade which is necessary for full employment and improved standards of living. It means more exports and it also means more imports." Elaborating the idea of reciprocal trade, Franklin Roosevelt argued that other countries cannot pay what they owe the U.S. unless the U.S. is willing to take that payment in imports. And it cannot take the imports if tariffs are high.

Without specifically recalling the famed fights over the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, the President added that, in his opinion, this was no longer a question which should divide Democrats and Republicans. But he promptly heard from two Republicans. Minnesota's Representative Harold Knutson declared that the President's proposal would close many a U.S. factory. Michigan's Roy O. Woodruff called for defeat of the entire reciprocal trade program. Congress set itself for long debate.

Last week the President also:

P: Drove to Union Station in an open car to welcome Canada's ramrod-straight Governor General, the Earl of Athlone.

P: Took the Earl along to the annual White House Correspondents' dinner, there laughed at jokes about Term IV.

P: Asked the Advisory Board of the OWMR to undertake a study of the annual wage. The committee promptly got to work. The study will be directed by U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Eric Johnston.

P: Had a visit from Memphis' owlish Democratic Boss Ed Crump. Leaving the White House, Ed Crump was mum. Scuttlebutt had it that he had been summoned in an effort to get him to stop Tennessee's Senator Kenneth McKellar, the Senate's premier spoilsman, from trying to wreck TVA.

P: Appointed Assistant Secretary of State Nelson A. Rockefeller's great & good friend Wallace Kirkman Harrison, 49, as the $10,000-a-year Director of Inter-American Affairs. No career diplomat, Appointee Harrison is a Manhattan architect, co-designer of Rockefeller Center and the New York World's Fair Trylon & Perisphere.

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