The Skyland Post

Washington, Jan. 9.--As Congress gets into its stride, and old and new members exchange opinions, it is becoming apparent to observers on Capitol Hill that one of the major themes of this session will be the effort to curtail the personal authority of the President.

This effort will be joined in by members of both parties, including sincere followers of Mr. Roosevelt. It will be an effort to prevent his renomination in 1940. It will be an effort to reassert the authority of Congress in its Constitutional sphere of action.

How far this movement will get is, of course, problematical. Congress surrendered many of its Constitutional powers to the President at the beginning of his first term, on the theory that the economic emergency could not be dealt with in any other way than by putting one man in charge.

Some of the actions of Congress were held to be beyond its power, by Supreme Court decisions in the N. R. A. and A. A. A. cases; they delegated power to make orders and regulations which had the force of law, and only Congress may enact laws.

Among the unlimited powers which the President still has under the emergency legislation are these:

Powers of President

He can devalue the dollar still further at any time he so chooses.

He can issue three billion dollars in paper money with no gold reserve behind it.

He can decree the free and unlimited coinage of silver, and fix the ration of the silver dollars to gold at any proportion he sees fit.

He can prescribe the regulations under which gold can be owned, traded in, held or exported.

He can operate a "stabilization fund" of two billion dollars in complete secrecy, being accountable to nobody for its operations.

He can suspend trading on any stock exchange for a period of ninety days.

He can raise or lower by as much as 50 percent any tariff imposed by the United States on goods imported from any nation which enters into a trade agreement with this country.

He can spend practically at his own discretion funds for relief, farm benefits and other similar projects, totaling more than all previous Presidents lumped together have ever been authorized to spend.

There have been some talk of the possibility that the President would voluntarily relinquish some of those broad powers.

Some plan for turning relief back to the states may be put forward. In any event the expectation is that the new appropriations for relief will be rigidly apportioned for specific purposes.

To Vote On Hopkins

There are expected to be a loud echoes of the W. P. A. situation on the floor of the Senate when the question of the confirmation of Harry Hopkins as Secretary of Commerce comes up for discussion.

That he will be confirmed is generally believed. It takes only a majority of the Senate to confirm a Cabinet officer, and at most the members of the Cabinet are merely the President's clerks, employed to run the executive departments according to his ideas.

In the case of the secretary of State and some others, Cabinet officers are in line of succession to the Presidency in case the President and the Vice-President should both die before their terms expire, but the Secretary of Commerce is not so eligible so it makes little difference, as most of Congress sees it, who holds the jobs.

The principal criticism of Mr. Hopkins' appointment is that he has had no business experience. His whole life has been spent as a social worker. The Department of Commerce is the one department which deals with the problems of business, and to which business men can come with their difficulties and get at least sound advice. How business men will get along with Mr. Hopkins, and he with business men, is still a question.

Those who hold that his appointment is a good one, point out that he is personally closer to Mr. Roosevelt than any other man in Washington, and that the President will listen to him when he tells him of the troubles of business ness more than he ever listened to Secretary Roper.

There is no doubt that those who have business with the Department of Commerce will find Secretary Hopkins an agreeable fellow, personally likeable and genial in his contacts. He has a reputation in Washington as being perhaps the most "human" of all the highly placed officials.

He enjoys sports and play of every kind, and is the life of the party on almost all social occasions.

In Patterson's Hands

When it comes to running the Department of Commerce, that job will be mainly in the hands of Assistant Secretary Patterson, an able man who has been the actual executive for a long time.

Washington is still trying to figure out just how much the United States got out of the Lima conference of the 21 American republics. There is a tendency to fear that we enlarge our responsibilities toward the rest of the Western Hemisphere. That may be used as an argument in favor of the National Defense program, which at present looks as if it might be the principal controversial issue of the session.

There is no great opposition to broadening the defenses of the nation, but there is great difference of opinion as to how that should be done.

The Army wants more land and coast-defense armaments; the Navy wants more fighting ships; and all the air forces want more fighting planes. The President inclines to a great new airplane program, with the National Youth Administration taking charge of the training of enough aviators and mechanics to operate an air force of perhaps 15,000 planes.