A WEEKLY COMMENTARY
Year Twenty-One ... Number Thirty ... July 26, 1974
THE CONTRIVED EVOLUTION
OF REGIONAL GOVERNMENT
PART THIRTEEN
THE FIRST CRUSADE
"Regional government as we know it today is a direct descendant of the utopian dream of Robert Owen, first expounded more than a century and a half ago, and described, clarified and structured by H.G. Wells. Through his efforts, the outline of what is now being developed was thus established more than sixty years ago."
So wrote Maureen Heaton in her excellent booklet "So Desperate a Step," which was one of the first attempts to point out the dangers of Regional Government and its companion control system known as PPBS.
It should be added that Robert Owen developed the embryo that became Regional Government out of a pure heart and a befuddled mind; he sought sincerely for a way to establish a perfect society on earth, and died still seeking the impossible. H.G. Wells was steeped in the equally impractical ideals of Fabian Socialism when he laid down the principles of what we now know as Regional Government; he recovered from the aberration, but too late for anyone to profit from his awakening.
But Regional Government is presently being installed throughout the world because it is an essential ingredient of the Planned Society. 'Planners can draw up their plans and write out their timetables, and secure the required finances and leadership -- but without the control network that is provided by some system similar to Regional Government, such plans would merely gather dust in some think tank.
In her booklet, Maureen Heaton provided a summary of what we have written in previous letters in this series, but this is information that bears repeating. So, we quote:
"The first major breakthrough in this country came in 1913, when three crucial changes were made in the American government system -- the graduated income tax, direct election of Senators, and the Federal Reserve System (to which we added a fourth: the federal chartering of tax-exempt foundations- Ed.). Without the access to the substance of the great middle sector of citizens provided by the 16th Amendment* ... through the Marxian scheme of progressive taxation, this revolution would still be the impossible dream ... unfunded. Without destroying the balance of power between land area and people, administrative government such as this would have been unworkable. Without the machinery for the destruction of the monetary value, the crisis necessary to obtain public acceptance could not have been constructed.
Since publishing our letter concerning the 16th, Income Tax Amendment, we have been swamped with letters and articles pointing out the fact that Ohio was not legally in the Union in 1913, therefore the 16th Amendment was never legally ratified, since the vote of non-State Ohio wouldn't count.
The facts as we have been able to dig them out of the archives: Ohio did not, legally, become a State on March 1, 1803, because of a Congressional blunder. The oversight was not corrected, legally, until August, 1953 when a joint Resolution (Public Law 204) was passed, officially admitting Ohio to the Union of States.
However, much as we could wish it to be otherwise, this doesn't revoke the 16th Amendment. Approved by the Senate 77 to 0 on July 5, 1909, and by the House 318 to 14 on July 12, 1909, it was then submitted to the 48 States for ratification. 36 States had to ratify the Amendment before it could be certified by the Secretary of State as a part of the Constitution.
On February 3, 1913, Delaware, New Mexico and Wyoming ratified the Amendment, which made a total of 38 States that had ratified the Amendment (one of them being the non-State of Ohio). On February 4, 1913, New Jersey ratified and on February 19, 1913, Vermont followed suit. Connecticut, Florida, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Utah and Virginia never did ratify the 16th Amendment. However, when Secretary of State Philander C. Knox certified the Amendment on Feb. 25, 1913, 40 States had ratified (including the non-State of Ohio) and only 36 States were required.
Sorry, but we'll have to find another way to get rid of that cruelest Amendment of all.
"In 1921, the next most important step was taken, when Congress was persuaded to abdicate its constitutional responsibility as watchdog of the public purse and transferred to the executive the keeping of the budget. Without that free access to the budgetary process, the Planning, Programming and Budgeting System could not have become the tool of executive power that it is today ...
"During the 1920s, too, the first systemic efforts were made to test the techniques of planning. A preliminary survey was made of the Philadelphia metropolitan area in 1924, and the Tri-State District which resulted included parts of New Jersey and Delaware. By 1932, the Regional Planning Federation of the District unveiled the results of their labors, in a document of almost 600 pages, which included maps, diagrams, population statistics, and socialist plans for highways, transportation, airways and airports, parks and parkways, water supply and sanitation, and architectural and aesthetic elements of planning. This document stated that twenty areas in the northeast section of the country were being planned even then, and among these maps were those showing rudimentary regions for the greater Boston area, Connecticut, New York and New Jersey; and the Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin regions.
But the greatest strides into this New American Revolution came in the 1930s, when: ' ... a plague of young lawyers settled on Washington .... These prattlers were, for the most part, employees of the government, and had taken the oath of office. But they took the position that their high purposes gave them a supermorality that could not be confused with the morality the Nation had been using. They were quite above such oldfogy, Tory, reactionary stuff as oaths of office or other religious antiquities. They owed allegience, not to the United States -- patriotism was for the nonthinking -- They had allegience to a higher cause: The end justified the means.'
"So said George N. Peek, first administrator of the Agriculture Adjustment Administration, who soon realized that strange things were taking place in his department. His own allegience to this country caused him to resist this group, and he was relieved of his duties. Even then the Planners had acquired that much strength, that they could remove someone who posed a threat to the Plan.
"One of the 'braintrusters' who swarmed into Washington at that time was a professor from Columbia University, Rexford Guy Tugwell, who became Assistant Secretary of Agriculture. He also wrote books, and made speeches (and recently wrote a proposed new Constitution for the United States-Ed.). He stated:
"'We have a century and more of development to undo. It is, in other words, a logical impossibility, to have a planned economy and to have business operating its industries, just as it is also impossible to have one with our present Constitutional and statutory structure. Modifications in both, so serious as to mean destruction and rebeginning, are required .... '
"Tugwell publicly supported the theory that a planned economy required three great changes in the American system: first, a breaking down of existing statutes and constitutions of government; second, the destruction of private enterprise; and, third the destruction of the sovereignty of the States. He categorically asserted, 'All three of these wholesale changes are required by even a limited acceptance of the planning idea'...." (The foregoing is quoted from "So Desperate a Step," by Maureen Heaton, revised and updated as of March, 1973, and still one of the finest exposes of Regional Government yet written. If still available, can be obtained by sending a donation (at least 50¢) to National Families United, -- P.O. Box 445, Camino, California 95709.)
Planning was the key word; and on June 30, 1934, President Roosevelt demonstrated this fact by creating the National Resources Planning Board, which we mentioned briefly in our last letter in this series in connection with the expansion of the power of the Executive Order. But this Planning Board did much more. It laid down a plan for the socialization of the United States which included many features that are familiar to all citizens today. Proposed were: a minimum standard of living with the federal government guaranteeing the family income; a regional police force; rigid zoning and building codes (almost unknown in the 1930s); use of federal planning as a tool for the "better utilization of human and material resources;" a federal requirement that local planning bodies be established and operated in accordance with federal guidelines as a condition for receiving federal grants-in-aid; consolidation of "overlapping authorities" through the creation of regional headquarters (similar to present Regional Districts); a bill providing blanket consent of Congress to all Interstate Compacts that might be created; urban renewal, revenue sharing,uniform tax policies in the States; public land acquisition; re-distribution of industrial areas, etc., etc. This proposed program devised by the National Resources Planning Board also urged increased use of "State and National Associations of Municipalities, and municipal officers," and specifically mentioned 1313's Public Administration Clearing House.
As we noted, most of the proposals in this socialization program submitted to Congress by the Roosevelt Administration in 1937, are commonplace accomplishments or proposed programs of the Nixon Administration. But in 1937 the proposals were so revolutionary and so obviously socialistic, that a Congress which has otherwise been called a rubber stamp congress, not only rejected the whole set of proposals, but demanded the dissolution of the National Resources Planning Board as well. The Planners had moved too far to the left too fast and had to start all over again, proceeding more slowly. And many of the proposals would remain dormant for a few decades, awaiting the election of another President who would be elected on a conservative platform and then promote ultra-liberal policies and complete the winning of the New Revolution. It should be noted that FDR was elected on a conservative platform and then broke every promise he had made to the people by adopting the Fabian Socialist platform proposed by Norman Thomas and installed by the very "masterminds" whom he had denounced in his election campaign. Franklin Roosevelt as a candidate, had told the people:
"The doctrine of legislation and regulation by 'masterminds' in whose judgment and will all the people may gladly and quietly acquiesce, has been too glaringly apparent at Washington these past two years. Were it possible to find 'masterminds' so unselfish, so willing to decide unhesitatingly against their own personal interests or private prejudices, men almost Godlike in their ability to hold the scales of justice with an even hand, such a government might be in the interest of the country. But there are none such on the political horizon, and we cannot expect a complete reversal of all the teachings of history." (From The New York Times of March 3, 1930).
During this same campaign, Franklin Roosevelt referred to the 18th (the Prohibition Amendment) and then made a statement that caused conservatives to cheer, and vote for him. He said:
"As a matter of fact and law, the governing rights of the states are all of those which have not been surrendered to the National Government by the Constitution or its amendments. Wisely or unwisely, people know that under the 18th Amendment Congress has been given the right to legislate on this particular subject, but this is not the case in the matter of a great number of other vital problems of government, such as the conduct of public utilities, of banks, or insurance, of agriculture, of education, of social welfare, and of a dozen other important features. In these, Washington must never be permitted to interfere in these avenues of our affairs .... Now, to bring about government by oligarchy masquerading as democracy, it is fundamentally essential that practically all authority and control be centralized in our National Government." (Quoted from The New York Times, March 3, 1930; an article headed, "Roosevelt Decries Waning State Rule").
In a manner to be copied forty years later by another President from another political party, Roosevelt talked like a conservative before election, then acted like a socialist after winning the election. Roosevelt's sponsoring of the National Resources Planning Board's proposals -- which were dubbed the "Dictator's Bill" -- did not prevent its rejection by the Congress. Undaunted, other plans were made for destroying State sovereignty and strengthening the federal executive. On June 27, 1934, the National Housing Act was passed; this was the beginning of Urban Renewal. On September 23, 1935, the Resettlement Administration was established and four "model cities," the socalled "Greenbelt Towns" were started (Greenbelt near Washington, D.C., Greenhills near Cincinnati, Greendale near Milwaukee, and Greenbrook near Bound Brook, New Jersey.) This program was the forerunner of the New Towns concept, and established the federal precedent for moving entire communities into new locations.
Then, on February 29, 1936, Public Law 74-461, creating Social Conservation Districts, went into effect. And here we see a particular modus operandi being initiated: Model legislation was prepared and sent to all State Governors, with a covering letter of instruction from the President of the United States. Each Governor was advised that he should have this legislation passed by the State Legislature, in order that his State would be in the highest classification when federal aid was doled out. Provisions in this model legislation had to do with the manner in which States levied property taxes, establishment of work programs to relieve the unemployed, land use regulations, and other guideline provisions that are familiar to students of Regional Governance methods.
The gimmick worked like this: When a State qualified for federal assistance, then the federal government would set up "social conservation districts" for the administration of the aid. This program did not die with the New Deal, it carried on. And, by 1952, thirty-eight States were active in the federal program, and 1,981 social conservation districts were in operation in the United States (this according to John C. Bollens, author of Special Districts Governments in the United States. Berkeley University of California Press, 1957.)
These first Regional Districts were not mandatory. A State could refuse to comply, and suffer the consequences of no federal aid. Ten States did refuse to go along with the program. But with the passage of the Area Redevelopment Act of 1961, the States were forced to submit. More of this in a future letter.
Returning in time to that era which some have referred to as the New Deal Daze, a portent of what was being planned for these United States was shown to readers of The New York Times when, on April 21, 1935, a map was published, depicting the United States divided into nine "Federal Departments" which were to replace the 48 States. The accompanying article, by Delbert Clark, said, in part:
"There is a growing sentiment -- still too inchoate to be termed a movement -- among certain members of Congress with advanced social views and a willingness to break with tradition, in favor of drastic change in our form of government to facilitate nationwide reforms frequently blocked by the very nature of our confederation. Since, obviously, there is political dynamite in any proposal to abolish States in so far as they provide a check upon the Federal Government, no one has yet dared to broach publicly the thesis that the abolition would be in the public interest and is, in fact, a distinct possibility in the somewhat distant future. Yet there are those who feel that the change should be made....
"Aside from the strictly legal and mechanical problems involved, clearly the greatest difficulty in the path of such a profound reorganization of our political system is sheer pride of Statehood ... this sentiment is a powerful force. There has appeared of late a remarkable resurgance of State consciousness, a self-assertiveness on the part of States some of which in the old pre-depression days hardly knew they had boundaries.
"Whether the issue will ever be raised is a moot question. The revisionists may never be heard from publicly -- ... "
The author was correct: there was no fanfare and no publicity. The change was made by Executive Order in 1972, and few knew that a new form of government had replaced the old balance-of-powers form.
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