Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 11 May 1949 — Page 14

7 "PAGE "14 Wednesday, May 11, 1949 TTI SE | tes ane

rd N Alliance,

Telephone RI ley 8551 Glos IAghs and the People Will Find Thetr Own Wey

More Byrds Needed (OFFICERS of the American Veterans Committee who “called on President Truman said he told them there were too many men in Congress like Sen. Harry F. Byrd of Virginia. ? Mr. Truman, according to the AVC officers, admonished them to “go back home and see to the election of members of Congress who think in terms of national rather than local interests, of large plans instead of small plans.” . » . ” » . SEN. BYRD, in a speech the other day, said that the national interest urgently required a large plan for government economy. He predicted that, in the present fiscal year, ending next June 30, the government would spend $800 million more than it takes in. He estimated that present government activities, plus now activities proposed by Mr. Truman, would increase government spending from $40,300,000,000 this fiscal year to $44,300,000,000 next fiscal year and to $47,400,000,000 in the fiscal year after that. He said that boosting government revenue enough to cover such spending would require a large tax increase— but that a large tax increase, imposed at a time when business is already receding, might turn a minor decline into a major depression. : He asserted that the higher individual and corporate income taxes for which Mr, Truman has asked, plus federal excise taxes, plus higher payroll taxes for expanded and new ‘social security programs advocated by Mr. Truman, would mean a take for the government of $49,300,000,000 : next fiscal year. : ls SEE al SMR IT WOULD mean, he argued, the federal, state and local governments taking nearly 30 per cent of the total me—even if the national income stays as high imposing a heavier burden than the economic machine can carry safely. : Deficit spending, Sen. Byrd said, would be even more surely ruinous. For, he said, if the federal budget cannot be balanced in this period of prosperity and peace, there is grave doubt that it ever can be balanced again and that the government's credit and our system of government can be saved from destruction. The only safe way to balance the budget, he contended, 1s to retrench—to eliminate or postpone all new- activities

not absolutely tial, to reduce the, a ing for next fiscal year.

duty of Congress. ® 88

MR. TRUMAN, it seems, did not admire Sen, Byrd's speech. He probably was more favorably impressed by the remarks of Sen. J. C. O'Mahoney of Wyoming, who has just warned of dire peril “if the government starts trimming i spending too deeply or firing too vemployees.” So it's likely that a chorus a will be shouting that O'Mahoney, the “liberal” and '.ogressive,” is the true prophet, and that nobody should listen to Mr. Byrd, the “conservative” and “reactionary.” But what Congress really needs just now is more men like Mr. Byrd of Virginia—more men who react against danger of national insolvency and dare to advocate conserving the government's credit.

The West German Republic

APPROVAL of the draft constitution by the parliamentary council at Bonn, after eight months of deliberation, is a

major step toward resumption of representative govern. ment in West Germany, The proposed constitution now will be submitted to occupation authorities for their approval, and then to the parliaments of member states for final ratification. The new document is similar in most respects to the constitution of the Weimar Republic, the basic law of Germany from the end of World War I to Hitler's accession. It provides for a federal government not unlike our own, although the legislative branch's powers would be relatively greater than the executive's. The President is to be elected for a five-year-term by a convention made up of the members of the upper house of the federal parliament and an equal number of delegates elected from the member states. * Though the government to be formed under the new constitution is only for the Western Zone of Germany, the door is left open for the Russian zone to join the new state * wwhenever free elections are held in Soviet-controlled East Germany. i » ” ” LJ » » . UNDER the allied occupation statute, adopted by the United States, Britain and France in Washington last month, the new German government will assume most of the duties of the present allied military rule which will end when the Bonn constitution is ratified. Thereafter, the three Western Powers will be represented in West Germany by high commissioners who will maintain certain supervisory in the changeover, of course. is to continue indefinitely. , ' During the period of political tutelage which lies ahead + the West Germans have an opportunity to demonstrate a desire and capacity for representative government. The _ Weimar constitution failed to hold popular support, and “was overthrown by the Nazis. The Bonn constitution ‘can expect a better fate only if the Germans have profited by the lessons of the Hitler p cle, br, itgis to be assumed that the Allies will reto powers over the new German government until been a convincing demonstration that the Ger:

are ing word — and become

Actual military occupation

Only the transfer of the civil administration is involved

GOVERNMENT ... By Paul Leach Big Payroll in

TrumanProgram

100,000 New Jobs Seen In Passage of Four Bills

WASHINGTON, May 11—Federal payrolls will be increased by upwards of 100,000 jobs if Congress adopts four bills now under way or “In the study stage,” all’ favored by President Truman. The bills are compulsory health insurance, the Brannan Plan for keeping consumer food prices down while Treasury subsidies keep farm income up, expansion of old age insurance, and public housing. In reply to a query from Sen. Alexander Wiley (R. Wis.), Assistant Budget Director Frederick J. Lawton said that adoption of the health insurance plan would eventually call for some 40,000 employees to administer it. Of this total, he said, only about 10 per cent “probably” would be federal jobholders; the rest state, county and city. The congressional inclination, however, “in putting new national welfare programs into effect has been to go in more for federal than local office jobs in regional offices. That makes more patronage for Congressmen. The health bill is unlikely to come out of the House Ways and Means Committee this year. It will be a major issue next year when the congressional election campaigns open up.

20,000 More Workers

ACCORDING to the same authority, extension of pension coverage to some 20,000,000 domestics, farmers, self employed and the like will require 20,000 new federal employees. The House committee is now working on this bill for early House action, g These payroll increases would be split between the Social Security Administration, which administers welfare, and the Bureau of Internal Revenue, which collects payroll taxes to finance them. : Mr. Lawton also said that the new housing subsidy program, which has passed the Senate and is now in the House Banking Committee, would call for 4000 new employees by 1951. This, he said, would include some 1500 temporary - workers doing a housing census, What Secretary of Agriculture Brannan's new price-subsidy plan would cost in added payroll is anybody's guess right now. The Department of Agriculture has no estimate. Hasn't gone that far in its figuring. Estimates run up to 60,000, however, because of the added work load on Washington and field offices of the Department of Agriculture, and because of the big job the Treasury wold be called upon to do in writing checks for farmers. :

Big Abditing Job

THE farm-payment job would mean not only auditing vouchers for payment and writing checks—maybe as many as four checks for different commodities to each participating farmer—but auditing them afterward. Throughout the United States there are today more than 6,000,000 on federal, state, county and city jobs. They get about $1,340, 000,000 a month. The federal payroll runs around $550,000,000 a month, The latest Civil Service report lists 1,102,043 persons on Uncle's payrolls throughout the world at the end of March, not including the military. That was up 6887 from the end of February. | ; The federal payroll total includes 694,350 in the United States outside of Washington, 214,035 in Washington, and 193,658 overseas. The wartime peak of federal employment was 3,188,625 civilians in 1943. That was made up of 860,929 in the regular agencies, and 2,327, 606 in war agencies.

J ol Tune Yith the Times

Rees

There May Be a Slight Dela

"WINDOWS

Ag-I climbed the ladder To wash away the grime of yesterday From the windows of my house, The sun was warm on my shoulders And there was a song in my heart. And I thought : It was not so long ago I climbed the ladder of your love — And washed the windows of my soul.

~=VIRGINIA FORTNEY, Indianapolis. > &

| SPEAK TO YOU

1 speak to you, undaunted Youth, Dreamers of Love, the cosmic plan. To hearts that keep their faith in Man, To Pligrims at the shrine of Truth, I speak to you! You have but one—-this one hard choice— To stoop into the vulgar plane, Or live your lives in loneliness. ~GEORGE ZEBROWSKI, Pekin.

Dear Congressman Cannon:

the cost. I wouldn't know about that.

House the other day.

old walls,

that fragment.

Not Very Good Stone

Washington,

~room-A

after the tragedy of Lincoln's assassination. Scenes of Past

and ashes,

WELFARE STATE . . . By E. T. Leech ‘Liberty Goes Down Same Drain’

WASHINGTON, May 11—The old idea in America was that the people controlled and supported the government. Now it is in conflict with a new and world-wide idea that government supports the people. « That's what all the shooting is about. A basic clash of ideas is raging both in this country and abroad. If you say you favor the old American idea, you risk being called old-fashioned, reactionary and, probably, hard-hearted. Actually you won't be old-fashioned—for the simple reason that the American idea isn’t really old. Compared to the other theory it is quite new. However, the mere matter of age is of little real importance save as past experience reveals future prospects. As for the matter of being hard-hearted, it is of course difficult to oppose things which promise well, It is a tempting idea to think that the state can make everybody comfortable and secure, well-educated, healthy and safe against old age, unemployment or emergency. Why would oppose such a system? The answeY, of course, is that nobody ‘would —if it actually.could exist. The only question

. involves whether it is possible.

Best for People EVERY government contends it is the best possible government for its people. There have been thousands of governments over the long course of history—and they all made that claim. At least 99 per cer’ of those governments don’t exist today, or ha been so modified as to be completely changed. Had those governments been as good for their people as they pretended to be, more of them would have survived. That seems to be a reasonable assumption. Another thing to remember is that at least 99 per cent of those governments were supreme over their people. That is, the state controlled the people—instead of the people controlling the state. That has been the customary and general condition since man emerged from barbarism, If it had been a good system, why would mankind have suffered so much under it? Why would such governments constantly fail and disappear? The American systema grew out of those failures, It was founded for the express purpose

of getting away from state control. For the first time, the principle that the individuals are supreme over the state not only was proclaimed but was put into practice. Now this idea—less than two centuries old— is again in conflict with the other idea, which is at least 10,000 years old. Yet, for some queer reason, the ancient system is being hailed as something new,

‘Welfare State’

THE only, real change is that it has been dressed out in high-sounding and appealing trappings. It is to be a “welfare state,” seeking only security, abundance, health, schooling and contentment for its people. They are to subordinate themselves to it, not as a master, but as a benefactor, There is one supreme obstacle: The state never creates anything. It doesn't earn a dollar. It can give only what it takes from others— either from its own people, from other people, or from both. And before giving anything back it must deduct the cost of government—a deduction which grows in proportion to the services which the state attempts. America doesn’t intend to loot any other people. Instead of taking from them, it" is giving them billions. Therefore, all that Washington can give away must be taken from our people here at home. Many will get more than they give—at least for a while. That's the chief bait. But those who do most of the producing and create most of the wealth will get less than they give—far less in many cases.

Government Collapses THE big question is how much the state can

take from this producing group before drying

its members up. How much can they be forced to give before they switch sides—that is, start giving less than they receive? If enough of them are dried up and switch sides, then government collapses.

But before any government collapses fit .|

* rule the Spanish people.

always tried to save itself by forcing people |

to follow its plans. .It tries to make them produce under government orders. And it makes no difference whether the government started out to be a welfare state or a tyrant state—a benefactor or a master. Liberty goes down the same old drain into which it has flowed time and time before,

HISTORIC PAST . . . By Marquis Childs

No ‘New White House’

WASHINGTON, May 11— (Marquis Childs’ column is devoted today to an open letter to Congressman Clarence Cannon of Missouri, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.)

1 notice you are urging that the White House be torn down and a new one built from the ground up. Your idea seems to be that the house would exactly duplicate the present structure. But it would be strong enough to last for many generations. » You say it would be cheaper to do this than to restore and recondition the present structure which, as you point out with considerable accuracy, is a hollow shell. You may be right about

But I want to tell you about a visit T made to the White. I walked through those empty rooms, stripped of furniture, stripped of paintings, with holes here and | there where the architects and engineers had made tests of the |

On the landing of the grand staircase the plaster is chipped away, and on the ancient beams are the marks of the fire of 1812, when the British burned the President's mansion that had scarcely been occupied. After that fire only a small part of the original walls was left standing, but the rebuilding began with

DOWN in the basement, in what was the old kitchen and in later years became a servants’ dining room, is a big, plain old fireplace made of the same stone as the outer walls, The stone in the fireplace has never been painted and you can see its original color—-a kind of sandy shade—and feel the rough texture. You're right, Congressman Cannon; it isn't very good stone, . The legend is that it came from a quarry owned by George

In the room that was Lincoln's office and in recent years was a bedroom with the big, old Lincoln bed in it, is a fireplace with a small bronze plaque on the mantel. It reads, “In this braham Lincoln the Emancipation Proclamation of | January 1, 1863, whereby four million slaves weré given their freedom and slavery was forever prohibited in the United States.” The walls of the oval study next door have heard so many secrets; looked down on so much sorrow and joy and hope and fear. It was here during the last war that Franklin Roosevelt met with the leaders-~Churchill, Marshall, King, Leahy and the others—who were directing the most terrible conflict in history. You don't need very much imagination to people those empty rooms with the ghosts of the past. Old John Quincy Adams, inflexible, unyielding, stalks past, and impetuous Andrew Jackson. This was where Andrew Johnson went through his long ordeal

HERE the noisy, vigorous children of Theodore Roosevelt romped with their noisy, vigorous father. Here “Princess Alice” Roosevelt was married. Here Woodrow Wilson lived out the last | “months. of his second term, an unhappy invalid, Here was held the funeral of young Calvin Coolidge, son of Calvin and Grace Coolidge, and for the taciturn New Englander the rest was dust

SIDE GLANCES

Sn sll

fo CAPR A995 SV WEA BERVIOL, TNE. TW WELL U.K WAY, OOF,

"She won't take her nose out of her books long enough to date a boy friend—it's your fault, encouraging her with that talk about rich career women!"

| | { |

Hoosier Forum

"1 do not agree with & word that you sey, but 1 will defend fo the desth your right to say H."

. Keep letters 200 words or less on any subject with which you are familiar. Some letters used will be edited but content will be preserved, for here the People Speak in Freedom.

‘Dog Pound Conditions Bad’ * By Louise Wood, 2502 N. Alabama If there were anything in my power to say to prevent it, no more animals would be sent to : our City Pound—at least until there was a clarification as to the intent of the place (under law) and a realization of obligation on the part of those who are at present, unfortunately, in charge there. I shall be gad to have anyone who considers disposing of an the City Pound write first to me about it. 1 shall tell them what we know first hand. > “This is a jail for dogs,” I was told when began to deplore the fact that while, by law, qualified veterinarian is required to kill these animals, there was no veterinarian in attendance. Will you tell me why dogs need jail? We pay for what is going on down there. Is it a jail we want? Do we want a place where the records cannot be seen upon application (although the law requires this), where the keeper in charge loses his temper, threatening to arrest without a cause? We know a great deal about the Pound. We know that there should be a change of administration down there—and that quickly. I shall be glad to come before any body of earnest citizens who may be interested to hear and to tell them in full just what conditions we found there. An effort to present these real abuses to the Mayor and to the Chief of Police has ht us nothing. Dr lcked up a dog the other day that had been shot by the police. I took the animal to a veterinarian who could find nothing the matter dislocated leg. . buts is about time that these faithful dogs are taken out of the cruel hands of unfeeling politics and given such care and protection as

civilized state. befits a ae

‘No Aid for Franco’

By Thomas G. Morgensen. In Peter Edson's article “Crossroads Reached by U. S. and Spain,” there is a criticasm of the anti-Franco resolution adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in December, 1046, It is stated that this pronouncement, instead of Weakening Franco's hold on Spain, ally made it stronger. ay how much more secure does Franco feel than he did in 1946? Not sufficiently so, it

® =

" appears, to hold a, free and democratically

conducted election! His unwillingness to do just that was one of the chief objections of the United Nations to his regime. : It is rather curious that many who regarded Franco as a sort of minor-league Mussolini just a few years ago, now seek to’excuse and condone his course of action. The mere fact that he is against Soviet communism is no indication that he is or ever was a friend of democracy. If it is allies that we seek in these tense days, are we justified in relying upon those who may desert in a crisis? During war days, Franco fully demonstrated his abilities as a fence-sitter, favoring now one side, now an-. other. Small wonder that neither Hitler nor the Allies trusted him then. : Franco has yet to prove his legal right to Until he takes the necessary steps to do so, he should not be invited to join the Atlantic Pact or to participate in the benefits of the Marshall Plan.

What Others Say—

IT (the Republican Party) needs to be saved from those in the party who would take us back to the 1920's. They're scared to death that

- if they don’t, somebody might accuse them of

being a “me too” party. If they do go back I am sure they will be a ‘has been” party.—Sen. Wayne L. Morse (R.) of Oregon. > &

ABSENCE of fear and freedom of association will return to us as a working mechanism of our democracy if citizens can have the facts about the nature of the organizations they join. —James Lawrence Fly, former chairman of Federal Communications Commission;

UNLESS we are very careful, Soviet leaders might jump to the conclusion that the (North Atlantic) Pact is, in fact, offensive. If so, it might bring on the war which it is designed to prevent.—John Foster Dulles, U. 8. delegate to UN Security Council. e &

LIFE is a whole, and luck is a whole, and no part of them can be separated from the rest, —Winston Churchill in “Maxims and Reflections.”

By Galbraith

the world.

to follow.

could ever be the same.

about the President's House.

{

" No, Congressman Canndn, you can't raze the White House. Even if all that is left is a hollow shell, once the first and second floors are torn out as they must be, no “new White House”

This sounds sentimental, but that is the way most of us feel

On these fine May days the view from President Truman's balcony-—what a fuss they made about’ that balcony, and you | can't help wonder now what it was all about-—is fine. lawn below, the big old horse chestnut trees are a mass of bloom as though they were lit by a thousand candelabra. . The architects say it will cost $5,400,000 to restore the White House, We seem to be able to afford a lot of things in this country, andl think that is one of them. Sincerely youxgs,

On the |

MARQUIS CHILDS.

RED ADVANCE . . . By Clyde Farnsworth

Key City Doomed

TSINGTAO, China, May 11—This city, a strategic military point and North China's last stronghold against the Communists, appears doomed. Tsingtao’s future has been reduced to the hopeless question of whether economic rot or civil disorder will outpace the Communist military plans, Here is not merely an important Chinese port 300 miles north of Shanghai, isolated and threatened by land. Here is a potential naval base which geography and the cross currents of Amer-ican-Russian world strategy have turned into a position of untold value, even if only denied to one side by the other, The way things have gone the United States long since has lost Tsingtao as an asset for defense against the Soviet Union— if such defense should ever be necessary, And the United States soon will be denied its use even as a peaceful station for training the Chinese Nationalist navy.

Needs Food for People BEST guesses give Tsingtao until the end of June before it passes into Communist hands. .

The city needs hard monby for her soldiers, food for her people, raw materials and coal for factories. Whether Tsingtao harbor becomes a Russian submarine base or is left indefinitely in the hands of merchantmen, coasting ‘Junks and harbor sampans, it will remain an American debit in strategic calculations for the Western Pacific region. Once this city was the obvious counterweight to the Soviet Union's new naval and air station at Port Arthur, 200 miles north, But now Tsingtao soon will be scratched from any such lineup. In fact it eventually may become a threat to the sea and air communication through left to the United States as her defense frontier on this side of

the Western Pacific chain that's been

The Germans thought enough of Tsingtao as a strategically important port to seize it in 1887. They held on to it, building it up and making nr 4 harbor improvements, until they were “forced out by World War I. ; “ American warships now in port are kept in 30-minute readiness for sailing. And when they sail two Chinese destroyers, all the warships that remain here of the Chinese navy, are expected

No Naval Base EVEN if the remaining Nationalist troops—now winnowed down to Shantung provincials—could hold against the superior number of Reds that face them, Tsingtao couldn't qualify as an American naval base. A naval base must be secure and defensie ble against potential air attack. Tsingtao is not. During the past year in which the Shantung peninsula has been overrun by Chinese Reds the naval units here would have been sitting ducks for a low-level attack out of Port Arthur. Shantung's mountains would shield the attackers from radar almost until the moment of attack. Some people here are getting the idea that iI the’ Red occupation is inevitable it might be better to get it over with. On May Day an American counted 43 hammer-and-sickle flags displa; in Tsingtao and not all we citizens form Tsingtao's largest foreign colony.

yed flown by the 385 Boviet who

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