George Burke May Be OPA Chief Counsel

George Burke May Be OPA Chief Counsel
Local Attorney Under Consideration For Big Post At Washington
By Mark Foote
(News Washington Bureau) WASHINGTON — George Burke, distinguished Ann Arbor, Mich. attorney, is under consideration for appointment as chief counsel of the Office of Price Administration by Administrator Prentiss M. Brown, it was revealed here today. This position is second in importance only to price administrator, which has been held smce created successively by Leon Henderson and former Senator Brown.
If Mr. Burke is appointed and accepts it will be another step in line with the policy of Prentiss Brown as laid down as a prerequisite to acceptance of the administrator ship from President Roosevelt. Brown told the President he would accept the appointment only on condition that the gestapo system of rationing enforcement, set up by Leon Henderson should be abandoned and replaced by one in which voluntary compliance was the keynote.
It may be assumed that if Mr. Burke accepts an appointment, he will be in complete accordance with this policy. In pursuance of this policy bureaucratic heads in the OPA already are falling by the hundreds, and probably are due to fall by the thousands within the next few weeks. Changed Policy
Brown recently cracked down on the labor policy committee of OPA which had called for the resignation of Lou Maxon, former Detroit advertising executive whom Brown named - as his assistant administrator in charge of information. Brown not only sustained his new employee in every respect but decreed that all matters affecting "public policy" should pass through his hands, and that Maxon "should review present regulations and procedures from the public viewpoint in order to eliminate points which have been or might prove to be a source of public resentment."
This statement epitomizes the new policy or Administrator Brown which Mr. Burke will have to interpret in case he is appointed. Brown has particularly been critical of the number of lawyers and economists "cluttering up" OPA. Conferring with director of the British price and rationing administration soon after he took office, Brown asked how many lawyers that organization employed. The Britisher said the total number of lawyers in the British replica of OPA was 10.
"I don't know whether we can get down to 10 lawyers, but we're going to have a whole lot less than the 2,700 we now have,” Brown laconically commented.
One of Brown's first acts was announcement that police harassment of motorists under the ban of pleasure driving in eastern states had been discontinued in favor of the "honor system" under which car owners' conscience is the only club.