GENERAL LEGISLATION

There are many other subjects requiring legislative action at this session of the Congress.  I may list the following among them: 

VETERANS’ SERVICES

The law enacted last March authorizing loans of 50 per cent upon adjusted-service certificates has, together with the loans made under previous laws, resulted in payments of about $1,260,000,000.  Appropriations have been exhausted.  The Administrator of Veterans’ Affairs advises that a further appropriation of $200,000,000 is required at once to meet the obligations made necessary by existing legislation.

There will be demands for further veterans’ legislation; there are inequalities in our system of veterans’ relief; it is our national duty to meet our obligations to those who have served the Nation.  But our present expenditure upon these services now exceeds $1,000,000,000 per annum.  I am opposed to any extension of these expenditures until the country has recovered from the present situation.

ELECTRICAL-POWER REGULATION

I have recommended in previous messages the effective regulation of interstate electrical power as the essential function of the reorganized Federal Power Commission.  I renew the recommendation.  It is urgently needed in public protection.

MUSCLE SHOALS

At my suggestion, the Governors and Legislatures of Alabama and Tennessee selected three members each for service on a committee to which I appointed a representative of the farm organizations and two representatives of the War Department for the purpose of recommending a plan for the disposal of these properties which would be in the interest of the people of those States and the agricultural industry throughout the country.  I shall transmit the recommendations to the Congress.

REORGANIZATION OF FEDERAL DEPARTMENTS

I have referred in previous messages to the profound need of further reorganization and consolidation of Federal administrative functions to eliminate overlap and waste, and to enable coordination and definition of Government policies now wholly impossible in scattered and conflicting agencies which deal with parts of the same major function.  I shall lay before the Congress further recommendations upon this subject, particularly in relation to the Department of the Interior.  There are two directions of such reorganization, however, which have an important bearing upon the emergency problems with which we are confronted.

SHIPPING BOARD

At present the Shipping Board exercises large administrative functions independent of the Executive.  These administrative functions should be transferred to the Department of Commerce, in keeping with that single responsibility which has been the basis of our governmental structure since its foundation.  There should be created in that department a position of Assistant Secretary for Merchant Marine, under whom this work and the several bureaus having to do with merchant marine may be grouped.