Muncie Post-Democrat, Muncie, Delaware County, 11 October 1946 — Page 2

THE POST-DEMOCRAT fc. Democratic weekly newspaper representing the Ctemocrats of Muncie, Delaware County and the 10th Congressional District. The only Democratic Newsj>aper in Delaware County. Entered as second class matter January 15, 1921, at the Post Office at Muncie, Indiana, under Act of March 3, 1879. * PRICE 5 CENTS—$1.50 A YEAR GEO. R. DALE, Publisher 916 West Main Street Muncie, Indiana, Friday, October 11, 1946. ‘Let No Man Tell You It Cannot Be Better’ ;i “Let no man tell you it could not be worse.” That’s what Herbert Hoover told the American people back in 1932, at the pit of the nation’s worst depression. The Record proposes to reverse that slogan for the prosperity of 1946: “Let no man tell you it cannot be better.” xxx President Truman, commenting on Reconversion Director Steelman’s report on reconversion, tells us some of the things that are right with the U. S. A. He reminds us: “Of our total labor force of 60 millions, 68 million have jobs. For most of the 2 million looking for work, the periods of unemployment are short, and in most cases unemployed workers draw compensation while they are looking for jobs. “Ten million veterans are gainfully employed, compared to 2 million on V-J Day. “Business profits after taxes are at an all-time high. Income payments to individuals are the highest they have ever been. Farm income, too, is at record levels. “Consumer spending is high.” Considering the obstacles placed in the Truman Administration’s path by the reactionary coalition in the recent Congress, this recoixl in reconversion is a “splendid achievement,” as Truman says. But “let no man tell you it cannot be better.” The American system, buttressed by the basic reforms of the New Deal, has only begun to show the world what it can do. x x Remember another thing the reactionaries used to tell New Dealers back in the 1930’s: The U. S. was suffering from “over-produc-tion.” We are seeing it today. Purchasing power, as the President says, is at an all-time high. Now it is production that’s lagging behind, the one dark spot in the reconversion picture. And the reason production is not coming closer to meeting consumer demands is that this nation is trying to follow two contradictory economic policies at one time. xxx We are trying to have both a regulated economy and a free economy. We are trying to please those who want regulation and also those who believe the way to get production is to remove OPA price controls. The shortages in meat, nails and newsprint are results of trying to go two ways at once. And those shortages create others in commodition not under OPA. For example, while meat ceilings are aimed to guard against inflation, the lack of meat has skyrocketed the demand for poultry and fish. Since there are no ceilings on poultry and fish, the law of supply and demand has upped the price on both. In turn, the shortage of meat has brought a shortage of lard and other shortenings, and it was revealed yesterday that a shortage of shoes is now in prospect. Fewer hides. That’s how complex our economy is. When we make use of everything out of a pig but the squeal, we either have to control the whole pig, or take off controls—or have the kind of mess we have today. It doesn’t matter, either, whether one calls the meat situation a “strike” by the farmers and packers. Under the law, they have as much right to strike as labor unions, xxx All this is why the warning in President Truman’s statement is important: “A difficult struggle lies before us. We must do our utmost to keep industrial peace, to maintain production at present _ levels where it is high, and to spur it to higher levels where it is lagging.” The big question is whether we can “spur it to higher levels where it is lagging” under the sawed-in-half OPA the last Congress wished upon the nation. An unbalanced economy—whichever way it is unbalanced—is wide open to trouble. Every sensible person knows that present production in many key lines is not beginning to fill the needs of the American people, even for various essentials. Try to buy sheets, pillowcases, soap, soap powder, sugar—or 300 new red cars for Philadelphia police? Yes, with all that has been accomplished in reconversion— “Let no man tell you it cannot be better.” America has only begun to relize its own productive power.—Philadelphia Record.

Suit the Action To the Words During the past fortnight the international war of nerves has somewhat subsided, at least on the vocal front. The conciliatory remarks of Anthony Eden, former British Foreign Minister, the interview of Josef Stalin saying that he did not believe in the real danger of a new war, and the speech last week of Secretary of State James F. Byrnes in Paris have all poured cold water on a situation which had grown

extremely heated. It is hoped that reasonable dealing in dip(lomatic conferences will match the reasonable j words. Whether that happens, we shall have to wait and see. ] In the meantime, Americans must realize that there is a big job ahead of them both at home and abroad. They cannot successfully i approach these jobs in a mood of black de spair. Courage and good sense tell us to hope and work for the best. The United States has achieved a boom period in business. The facts do not warrant the conclusion that this prosperity will soon ftide. Of course, much depends upon careful planning by management and labor to meet changing conditions. We cannot flout the sound laws of economics. We must continue to battle against inflation. We must learn to take some of the annoyances in our stride. The best information at home and from abroad indicates that none of the Big Three will risk another war in the immediate fuj ture. That gives the diplomats further time in which to work out the way to enduring peace. In every way possible the peoples of the world must try to make the diplomats responsive to their wishes. If the common people in Russia, Great Britain and the United States, as well as in the smaller nations, had their way there would not be any more war. Never in history was there ag reater challenge to intelligence, sanity and wisdom. No one can afford to forget the lessons of the last two wars. The cost in human life, in accumulated wealth, and in natural resources, makes armed conflict seem more senseless than ever. Weapons have grown too horrible and destructive to contemplate. It would be sheer madness to take the view that war is inevitable and then abandon all attempts to prevent it. We do not believe that informed Americans will fall into such an error, but that they will proceed with all their might while there is yet time to avert such a catastrophe.—Journal-Gazette. Good Will Tours and Foreign Policy The secret is out We are informed that American naval vessels were not in the Mediterranean on a good will tour after all. Now that the silly subterfuge has been rolled away, we think the United States has a right to ask, “so what?” It certainly has been no secret that we have been maintaining forces in Europe according to plans agreed upon while the war was still raging. And it must be remember^ ed that Britain and Russia were worried lest the United States pull out of Europe soon after the surrender of Germany. It was at Yalta that Stalin is reported to have sought a commitment from President Roosevelt on the length of time he could count on American occupation. The mere presence of some naval fighting ships should cause no more concern than the presence of our troops. The ships are American ships, manned by American sailors, a part of the same force that is helping police Europe. So we must look for an ulterior motive behind the protests over our ships in the Mediterranean. The Milwaukee Journal wonders editorially as follows: “If anyone of our allies has changed its mind about the desirability of American forces in Europe—and there is no evidence that Britain has changed—it is unfortunate. Our commitment is to see this period through to the establishment, if possible, of some stable peace. Nobody in his right mind could suspect the United States of aggressive designs in Europe, or in the Mediterranean. If any other power is contemplating aggression or armed intimidation, then it is clearly American foreign policy to exert its influence to counteract this. “There are some unpleasant threats in Europe today. Yugoslavia is showing an openly hostle attitude to the settlement which the majority of powers believe most hopeful for the Trieste area. There have been some vague threats of force by Yugoslavia. How much these have been inspired by the Soviets is not clear. “But it is very clear that if American influence is to be exerted toward some sort of peace and stability, it is necessary for us to have more than token police forces in the troubled areas.” It should be increasingly clear to the rest of the world that the United States is not running out on Europe.—Journal-Gazette.

National Housing Program The Democratic Administration gave new life to the sagging housing situation in the 30’s. FHA helped provide homes for 7,000,000 families, and insured more than. $9,127,900,000 in loans. HOLC lowered interest rates and saved millions of home owners from foreclosures. FPHA accomplished a far - reaching slum clearance program. Wartime emergency housing provided quarters for over 1,900,000 war workers. The Veterans Emergency Housing Program has a goal of 2,700,000 homes in the next two years. Insured mortgages, priorities, premium payments, and other Government incentives are being used to push the program. As of June, 1946, 225,000 units were completed and 496,000 starts had been made. The Democratic Administration is proposing a program to build 12,600,000 new units of non-farm housing in the first 10 postwar years.

Buy Savings Bonds

POST-DEMOCRAT, FRIDAY, OCTOBER 11, 1946.

Col. McCormick Is Unhappy Col. Robert R. McCormick, publisher of the Chicago Tribune, is very unhappy about the Republican Party. Now Col. McCormick is not a Democrat, and he hates New Dealers like the devil hates holy water. He claims to be a simon pure Republican, one of the most simon pure in the country today. He disliked Wendell L. Willkie. He scorns Gov. Tom Dewey. He claims that they were “me too” candidates who agree with Franklin now the colonel is out gunning for Harold E. Stassen, former governor of Minnesota, who wants the Republican nomination for the presidency. He says Stassen is another of the Willkie and Dewey type and that he simply will not do. According to the Tribune the Republican Party in the East is run by Wall Street and international bankers. Neither does he like GOP newspapers of New York. He devotes a lot of space to telling them off. They will not go along with his ideas about foreign policy. Col. McCormick is what is usually known as an isolationist. The colonel contends in editorials, supplemented by radio addresses, that the only real Americans are those who were born and reared in the states carved out of the Northwest Territory. One of his great loves is the old Northwest Territory. He sings like a troubador whenever he mentions it. It’s for him. He is now on the prowl for a candidate for president of the United States who represents his point of view. He’s been looking high. He’s been looking low. But the just right man has not been found. It’s like searching for a needle in a haystack. No wonder if the colonel has not overlooked a bet. Why go so far afield ? What is the matter with the man in his own backyard? Yes, you have guessed it. Why doesn’t Mr. McCormick offer himself for the presidency ? He could not be seduced by the Democrats. He wouldn’t say “me too” to the New‘Dealers. He could carry the banner of the Northwest Territory high. He knows all the simon pure answers without being coached. So why not McCormick for the McCormick Republicans? It would be a rare chance to see how many people agree with him. It would provide a showdown once and for all. Such a political campaign could not help but bring gaiety to the nation, which sadly needs the corners of its mouth lifted. How about stepping down out of the ivory tower into the arena, Colonel ? Don’t shrink and back away and break the heart of the Northwest Territory.—J our nal-Gazette.

Let’s Quit Kidding Ourselves One need not look for the frost on the pumpkin to realize we are wdll into Autumn. He can hear the voice of the quarterback, the thud of the football and the heavy breathing of heavier linesmen. So the blast by Paul Douglass, president of Washington’s American University, is right in season. It happens every year. Not so many years ago the public and Big Ten officials protended to be scandalized by evidence that certain Iowa University athletes had been “proselyted.” The word sent most of the athletes scurrying around for dictionaries and by the time they returned for practice they found they had been disqualified from further competition and the school had been suspended from the Big Ten. People took college football’s amateur standing seriously in those days. Along came Robert M. Hutchins, president of the University of Chicago, with a withering denunciation of college football and exercise in general. He charged with a little too much enthusiasm that many college athlete^ earned 10 letters before they had learned to write one. Pittsburgh, once a stronghold of football, “delemphasized” the sport, just to the point where they lose most of their games. It has been noted the loudest squawks usually come from the most consistent losers. Mr. Douglass terms the college football industry’s a “human slave market” and says the players “surrender their complete freedom to the coaches, today’s slave drivers.” He contends that some players are earning as much as $200 a month for beating their brains out on an amateur basis. And he may be right. Certainly, there has been more phony malarkey printed about the leadership qualities of football coaches than any other set of tin gods in history. For one who actually leads, there are 99 who drive. Perhaps, some day, we will tire of the sham that surrounds the football that is played in colleges today and admit it is a big-time, big-money sport that millions of Americans enjoy watching. Pbrhaps we will have the nerve to admit that players are recruited for their ability to play and their education is a very minor matter. Perhaps, too, schools will be divided according to the money they spend to produce winning teams. Then we can have leagues instead of conferences and quit kidding ourselves that Joe Blow came across the nation from Roothog, Ida., to play football for the glory of old Si wash. We all know better.—Joumal-Ga-

ette.

Cordell Hull’s Wise Contribution The statement which former Secretary of State Cordell Hull, the grand old man of American diplomacy, issued from a sick bed on the occasion of his seventy-fifth birthday, deserves more than passing attention. The power and glory of this world were past for Mr. Hdll. He was near to the portals of death. He could have had only one motive and that was to do his last bit to help a troubled world. Giving emphasis to his words was the mem-

ory of his heroic flight to Moscow in his advanced years to hold an important conference with Stalin which bore remarkable fruits in the months which followed. Said Mr. Hull: “In my own lifetime, I have seen the influence of our nation steadily expand. Today it is a potent world force in the cause of peace and humanity. The immense power and success which our country has now attained have brought us the opportunity for greatness and with it new responsibilities in the community of nations. The heaviest of these responscibilities, which our country has accepted, is that of providing our full share of world leadership for the attainment of international unity and co-operation in the service of peace, justice, freedom and progress. “The acceptance of responsibility for such leadership is the duty of every peace-loving nation. But this is especially true for each of the large nations, into whose keeping the facts of geography and history have placed great agglomerations of political, economic and military power.” Having pointed out to the large nations, their primary responsibility for the future of peace and civilization, the former Secretary of State continued: “As I look ahead, it is perfectly clear to me that all nations must, with wholehearted devotion, continue to base their relations upon the paramount fact that the primary interests of each of them alike lie in the assuring of its security in a world at peace, and the fostering, in such a world, of the economic and social well-being of its people. They must never fail to act on the principle that these great common interests cannot be attained except by the practice of justice and fair-dealing toward each other, and through mutual confidence and mutual respect. So long as the governments and the peoples keep their eyes fixed on their common interests and are resolved to act in accordance with this manifest principle, they will find ways to adjust their differences.” Those sentences contain a simple statement of the moral principle upon which peace —if we are to have peace—must be built. We hope that all Americans will read and ponder them and we hope that they came to the attention of Stalin in the Kremlin and that, recalling the gallant old man who flew so far by airplane to meet him in the cause of world unity, they made a deep impression upon the head of the Soviet Union.—Journal-

Gazette.

Votes Are the Answer to Reactionaries The old Liberty League of 1936 has come to life and so has the prewar America First organization which never found much to fear in European Fascism but maintained a deadly hate for Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. The name this time is American Action, Inc., and its renewed purpose is to turn back the clock of democratic progress and reassert mastery over the government. They were held in check during the war— these gentlemen of wealth, power and 19thcentury minds. Now they are back at work. Their immediate objective is to defeat progressives and elect conservatives in the congressional elections. So they talk darkly about “radicals” and “aliens” and “internationalists.” They assure each other in confidential exchanges that “leftist minorities” are “dictating” to Congress. They are putting their money on the line. They think it wicked and conspiratorial for a union member to donate a dollar to a political action committee, but they themselves have close to a million dollars — with more coming—to buy the congressional districts which they deem “crucial.”

xxx

In the published documents of American Action there is a notable lack of specific examples of how “leftist” minorities are running Congress. Bills were introduced into the 79th Congress to raise minimum wages to 65 cents an hour and to broaden social security. But the principles of minimum wages and social insurance have been imbedded in our governmental structure for years. Besides, all these socially desirable bills were beaten. Yet one can still surmise the objectives of American Action. It wants to make sure that such bills don’t pass next year. It wants to see unions “regulated” in order to repeat the success of great corporations in virtually destroying the labor movement in the decade following the first World War. Its technique, in moving toward these ends, is the familiar one of trying to scare the voters.

xxx

• Most businessmen, to their credit, wouldn’t touch American Action with a 10-ft. pole. The movement represents the extreme rightwing fringe—the Lammot du Fonts, the McCormicks and Weirs, the Gen. Woods, and such professional propagandists as Merwin K. Hart and Upton Close. These gentlemen never forgave Mr. Roosevelt for being a “traitor to his class.” They have not compromised with higher taxes or the spread of collective bargaining or the democratic doctrine that the government exists to serve the people. They learned nothing from the collapse of American business in 1929. Apparently they desire to try again the dismal pattern of Harding’s “normalcy.” But the fact that they come only from the fringe does not make them harmless. They have money. They are dangerous if the people don’t vote, if apathy and confusion rule. Votes must be the answer to the reactionaries—votes for progressive congressional candidates who will serve the whole nation’s interests—not the supposed self-interests of a handful of privileged men who apparently imagine that only their ideas are “American.”—Chicago Sun.

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From where I sit... Ay Joe Marshi

Are Returning Veterans "Different"?

During the war you heard a lot about how hard it was going to be for returning veterans to get adjusted to civilian life ... how they’d be “different.” Well, plenty of them have returned to our town, and a finer, steadier bunch you couldn’t ask for. Most of them are back at the same jobs . . . going with the same nice home-town girls (getting married, some of them, and setting up families) ... renewing the same old friendships. Even their amusements are the

same. Nothing more exciting than fishing Seward’s creek or pitching horseshoes , . . enjoying an outdoor barbecue with friendly wholesome beer and pleasant talk. If they’ve changed at all it’s in the direction of maturity and tolerance ... tolerance for everything except dictators, and those who would destroy our democratic principles of live and let live. And from where I sit, that’s another reason to be proud of them.

We are told by some people that our is a “corrupted and corruptive culture of bourgeois society” and Americans do but express “the moral disintegration and rotting of the capitalistic sys-

tem.”

We are not, to be sure, as good as we might be — not as bad, however, as our critics make us out to be. A tremendous strength is in this free America as our part in the war amply proved — a more passionate devotion to freedom than our critics suspect — and it is not going to hurt any of us to appreciate America a little more than, perhaps some of us

have.

There is a lot of good sound progress to be found in American history if it is read as it ought to be — without fantastic notions colored by a theory about the inevitable “decline” of American society. It was not “moral disentegration,” but moral strength, that overcame the restrictive measures against Catholics which appeared in the charters of the 17th century Massachusetts and the 18th century Georgia, and which finally expressed itself on behalf of all faiths in the Bill of

Rights by declaring that Congress shall make no law “prohibiting the free exercise” of religion. It is a long step forward from the early days of our history, when some Americans were denied the right to hold public office solely on religious grounds, to the Constitution which declares that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” As late as 1861 only New York and the New England states permitted Negroes to vote. We are doing better than that today. Even in those parts of the United States where restrictions against Negroes have held out the longest, five states, since 1934, have repealed the poll tax. That’s not “moral disintegration.” That’s progress — up-to-the-minute progress. That’s the way we work in America. And if, at times, the fight for freedom seems to be set back, we should renew the battle with increased zeal knowing we have a history which shows that, over the long haul, American society does advance.

Recommends U. S. Colonization of the Moon As An Atomic War Bridgehead

Chicago, Illinois — R. L. Farnsworth said today that the United States should step lively and occupy the moon if it wants to be the No. 1 power of the atomic

age.

Farnsworth, president of the United States Rocket Society, Inc., said that the “power that controls the moon will for many ages control the far-flung trade of the solar system.” The moon, with its mineral deposits, would be a “valuable prize in itself,” he said. And because of its slight gravitational pull, it might “very likely” become a shuttle station for flights to Mars, Venus and other planets. The only thing keeping him from sending an atomic rocket to the moon, Farnsworth said, is money. He said it would cost

$350,000.

Not only will the moon become the key to inter-planetary trade, he said, but it may become a matter of military necessity. The power that holds the moon, he said, will be able to bomb any point on the earth’s surface. The German V-2 rocket which devastated Britain during the war achieved a velocity of 1 1-2 miles per second,” he said. “This is the escape velocity from the moon. This means that with rockets already in existence the power holding the moon would be able to bomb any point ozi earth

with impunity.

Factories and rocket installations on the moon could be protected from counter - bombardment from the earth, he said, by placing them on the side of the moon never seen from the earth. Farnsworth said the Rocket Society of which he is president,

accrue to the American businessman and to the American people if we Americans are first on the

moon,” he said.

“Here at our cosmic doorstep, now atomically available, is a trove of riches more vast than those ever conceived of by ex-

plorers of the past.

‘The moon is an unmined world. On the moon, power can well be cheapest thing available. Untempered by an atmospher, the moon receives the unbridled ener-

gies of the sun.”

He said the moon might make

an ideal health resort, and cited the possibility of founding an observatory on the moon to fore-

cast the earth’s weather.

Erect Quietest Room In World

Murray Hill, N. J.—A room which will be so quiet that even the stirring of molecules in the air or the beat of a heart will break dead silence is being built here for the sake of improving telephone communication. The spot will be the quietest place on earth, according to E. C. Wente, Bell Telephone Laboratories research physicist, who is in charge of the project. It will be known as a “dead room.” Because the building will be completely sealed, it will be necessary to equip it with special air conditioning. Even air waves flowing from ordinary equipment would create a sound comparable on the outside to thun-

der.

“Although acoustical research

has a nationwide membership of j ^, as b6 en carried on continuously 1,000. After years of experimen- a ^ rnos ^ ever since the telephone tation with the technical prob- was invented, this room will give lems of moonward rockets, he - us facilities never before availsaid, he has turned his attention ! able,” Wente said. “We can exto the commercial and military I periment with sounds that begin aspects. ! at the threshold of hearing and He said he could build a man- | will be able to perform new excarrying rocket within two years, i periments with voice production, if he had the money. i tone quality, hearing and dic-

“Think of the benefits that will s tion.”

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