Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 27 May 1949 — Page 18

Friday, May 27, 1949

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Give LAs ons thy People Will Ping Thetr Own Wey

State Department Double Talk

THE State Department is laying the groundwork for eventual recognition of Communist China—despite Secretary Acheson's recent assurance that the United States would not recognize such a regime as long as the Nationalists held a foothold in the South. . Meanwhile, of course, the department is doing nothing to encourage the Nationalists to hold on. "Moreover, the reference to a “foothold in-the South” is itself deceptive, since the Nationalists’ present foothold reps. resents substantially half the area of China, with a population of 150 million. . - The State Department's present propaganda line is to smear Chiang Kai-shek and misrepresent American aid. Against that background it attempts to portray Chinese _ ‘tommunism as a popular uprising rather than as a subservient Moscow movement. \ ~The old line that the Chinese Communists aren't real Communists has been abandoned. The contention now is that, once the “small clique” represented by Chiang is driven out, the Chinese people somehow will rid themselves of Mosgow influence—that they are too intensely Nationalistic to submit to foreign domination. Hence, it concludes, the outlook for American interests is “not entirely gloomy.”

BUT popular uprisings have been outmoded by the tank and the machinegun. Police states do not rest upon popular support. : American policy has permitted half of China to fall to communism. If we follow Secretary Acheson's advice and “wait for the dust to settle,” the rest of China probably will go the same route. But that may be a matter of years, We could hasten the process by recognizing a Communist government in China. It would be a tragic mistake. One State Department spokesman contends that, regardless of who is in charge of China, there is vast need for assistance in building a sound administration and industrial izing the country, and that the United States and other democracies are the best sources for this kind of aid. That sounds like a Marshall Plan for Communist China. It is not to our interest—it is dead against ‘our interest «to build up communism in China and help it spread through Asia. State Department double talk can't alter that fact,

The ‘Must’ List HOUSE and Senate Democratic leaders have’ listed three ~ “must” measures they want enacted before Congress adjourns for the summer: Repeal of the Taft-Hartley Labor Relations Act; extension of the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act; Ratification of the North Atlantic Defense Treaty. #2 If Congress adjourns by July 31—as most of its members hope—consideration of these three measures will take up most or all of the time remaining. The plain inference is that the Democratic leaders have littlé or no expectation of action this year on many items in President Truman's original program, including a tax increase, broadening and extension of Social Security, compulsory health insurance and others. : The Reciprocal Trade Law and the North Atlantic Treaty are of prime importance. So is the treaty’s companion measure—the arms program for Western European nations. It should be added to the “must” list.

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AS TO the Taft-Hgrtley Act, the House already has rejected the administration’s repeal bill, and there is every reason to believe that the Senate will follow suit. However, Sen. Taft said he wanted to see the act corrected this year. He and other Republicans intend to offer, as a substitute for the administration bill, amendments proposing some 28 Taft-Hartley changes—amendments drafted, according to Mr, Taft, to meet union leaders’ specific obJjections to the present labor law. The National Association of Manufacturers contends that these changes go much too far, which indicates that Mr. Taft is making some considerable concessions to the labor viewpoint. And he predicts that both Senate and House will approve his amendments. = If so, there is a very real possibility that fair and reasonable Taft-Hartley changes can be made this year. The question, of course, is whether Mr. Truman would approve such changes or whether he and the union leaders would chose to carry over until next year their fight for outright Taft-Hartley repeal and restoration of the old Wagner Act with a few “improvements.”

Public Must Know Truth

(CHAIRMAN DAVID LILIENTHAL shows the right attitude in his request for a thorough investigation of the Atomic Energy Commission. It it is true, as Sen. Hickenlooper has charged, that the atom bomb production program has been incredibly mismanaged, says Mr. Lilienthal, then the United States “is in a sadly weakened condition.” And Congress should lose no time in finding the truth. Sens. Vandenberg, McMahon and other members of the ~ Congressional Joint Committee on Atomic Energy have an‘nounced they will explore all charges and make their findings. Let us hope they are not delayed or diverted by lesser tasks.

Restoration of public confidence in the atomic energy program is of urgent importance.

| New York State Tax Commission reports that 80 r cent of the state personal income tax is paid by just

per cent of the taxpayers. x i h partly in response to requests.

wanted to find how much com-

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| MEDICINE . . . By Charles T. Lucey

Battle Raging

Truman May Be Forced To Compromise on Plans

WASHINGTON, May 27—An “All-or-Noth-ing” stand by the administration on a national

U.S. Health Aid

health program will get it something closer to nothing at this session of Congress. i But if it is willing to waive at this time its demand for compulsory medical care insurance it may be able to get new funds for hospital construction, Federal ald in training | more doctors and increased support for state and local public health services. i President Truman's leaders on Capitol Hill acknowledge—as did 8en. Scott Lucas (D, Ill.) ~that the administration's massive omnibus health bill has little chance this year. But in health bill hearings, before the Senate Labor and Public Welfare Committee, Sen, Robert A. Taft (R. 0.) said he favored action in separate bills on other phases of the health program on which agreement could be reached. The battle was joined quickly over prepaid medical-care insurance in the hearings. The administration contends its proposal for compulsory health insurance is the way to avert socialized medicine in this country--that the issue is not between voluntary or compulsory health insurance but “rather between national health insurance and state medicine.”

‘National Medicine’ BUT Mr. Taft told the committee that “providing free medical care to everybody means socialization of medicine,” He insisted that the government's plan is “national medicine” and said he believed it would lead to doctors working for government salaries just as do teachers. Mr. Taft maintains that free public school education represents a kind of socialization and that the term isn't necessarily a damning one ~~but he seems to want it recognized for what he believes it is. Mr. Taft, sponsoring a bill which would provide new federal aid for medical care for the poor but opposing the government's plan to bring all workers and their families into a compulsory scheme, insists also that what the government proposes is not insurance at all, but a tax. He says the idea is to take $8 billion a year away from people in payroll and general taxes and give them back $8 billion worth of haalth care. . ] Ben. Claude Pepper (D. Fla.) took a few potshots at Mr. Taft because he would give medical care only after applying a “means test” to determine whether people were able to afford their doctors. Mr. Taft observed that income levels were studied in providing , housing and direct relief subsidies,

Socialization Meanin BEN. HUBERT REY (D. Minn.), who along with Sen. Pepper and others has his name on the administration's health plan, challenged Mr. Taft for tossing around “socialization” charges carelessly. He argued that socialization means state ownership of the means of production, and said compulsory health insurance didn't mean that at all. Mr. Taft did not retreat, | Another issue to be fought out in weeks of hearings ahead is whether the big medicine show envisioned by the administration would be run from Washington or directed locally in the states. The compulsory plan advocates insist that most of the rules would be laid down in the states. Mr. Taft says no, that final say would rest in Washington and the states wouldn't be much more than agents in a big federal scheme,

In Tune With the Times

Barton Rees Pogue

da THE NICKEL ‘YT scan a nickel with sad eye, And think what change hath time now wrought; Today how little it will buy ; How much in other days it bought!

Once kids felt rich with such in fist, And raced to spend in candy-store; Today the young ones long insist, ’ They need of nickels four or more.

If lost, some ask, “Why should we search?” It dropped, “Why, pick it from the ground?” Yet some, still think them nice to have In church when plates are passed around!

FRED H. AUSTIN, Bloomington. ® * o

‘TIS SAID

That the new cars are built too long to fit into the prewar garages. Perhaps, before the public becomes used to handling the super beauties on the highways they will be so folded on either end the old garage can serve after all,

-B. C., Indianapolis.

6

/OIL PROPERTY . . . By Marquis Childs

project—-stalemate.

ment corporation is reported to be $470 million.

last September as compared with 100 in 1939. Pauley in Picture

the oil industry,

The broad outlines, however, are re

of roughly 40 per cent of the oll.

Pay for Dry Wells -

Behind the scenes la

hy

pressure ‘opposition to were pon in 1038.

U.S. Loan to Mexico?

WASHINGTON, May 27-—8everal times at his news conference President Truman has been asked about the status of

a proposed loan to Mexico. The answer has been: “No comment.” Involved in the question of a Mexican loan are all the conflicting forces that make Washington ‘today a place of weary stalemate. That seems the likely outcome of the Mexican

Chafrman Herbert Gaston has told interested members of Congress that the Export-Import Bank would not look favorably on a request for a large oil loan. The amount sought by the Mexican government to develop oil properties held by a govern-

At one point there was fairly wide support within the Truman administration for a Mexican loan. A loan to develop not merely oil wells but hydro-élettric and other projects:was considered important to help the Mexican government counter a serious wartime inflation. The cost-of-living index stood at 325

THEN certain things happened. The President's good friend, Edwin W. Pauley, came into the picture. Reports from Mexico had it that Mr. Pauley, in association with two independent oil companies, was signing an extraordinary contract with Pemex, the Mexican government corporation covering every phase of

The terms of that contract have never been made public. pdrted to be as follows; The Pauley group would get 50 per cent of all oll produced by their drilling until they were reimbursed for their investment. At the same time they would get 16 per cent of all ofl produced on land and 18 per cent drilled from wells in the tidelands. This would be free and clear of all taxes and claims which would make it the equivalent, considering the tax-free provision,

After developing a field and being reimbursed, the Pauley combine would move out. But for 25 years thereafter they would continue to get 16 per cent of the oll, tax free.

UNDER the reported terms of the contract, the productive wells would pay for the dry holes, Thus the only way the combine could lose would be if their geologists and drillers failed to find any ofl whatsoever. The last is a most unlikely contirigéncy, given the geological structures that prevail in oil-rich Mexico. ‘ ‘There were many, both in and out of government, whose attitude changed with the entrance of Mr. Pauley. They felt that, regardless of its merit or demerits, the loan would have a look of favoritism and politics. A disinterested inquiry to a high official of the Mexican government seeking information on the reason for the Pauley contract brought this reply: “You ask why Mr. Pauley has become a participant. You should know that Mr, Pauley came to Mexico City with a letter of introduction from your President to our President.” American ofl companies applied proposed loan. Their properties they were repaid for installa-

free PROGRAM IS VERY EXTENSIVE AND CANNOT ALL BE CARRIED OUT IN A SINGLE SESSION. (EADER B12 CONGRESS

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BIG FOUR PARLEY . . . By Ludwell Denny Russ Maneuver to Get Ruhr Seen

PARIS, May 27 — Russia will accept almost any kind of German settlement, provided she can regain veto power and get her hands on the Ruhr, Europe's industrial heart in peace and war, . That is what Western delegates read between the lines of Andrei Vishinsky's cleverly evasive proposal to the Foreign Ministers’ Conference here on the political and economic unification of Germany. Actual terms of the proposal as stated by the Soviet foreign minister are not taken seriously, They are so obviously unreasonable and unworkable Westerners assume they are merely for bargaining purposes, and to screen the actual Russian proposals until the Allied terms are presented. Nevertheless behind the screen of Vishinsky's text the unmentioned word “veto” bulges from all sides. That plus the fact, which no amount of double talk could conceal and which Vishinsky therefore stated frankly, that the Ruhr must be under four-power control—instead of under Western authority as now.

| Control Machinery

THE effect of the text of the Soviet proposal would be to return to the 1945 Potsdam provisions for an initial post-ward period—that is, to conditions long since passed by Western Zone progress, and to control machinery long ago wrecked beyond repair by Russia. Specifically Vishinsky’s text would: Re-establish “on its previous basis,” FourPower Control Council as the supreme authority in Germany, and the Inter-Allled Commandatura to administer Berlin. Create from existing economic organs in the Soviet and Western Zones an all-German state council as a single central body to handle questions of economic and ‘state structure,” and elect an all-Berlin magistrate. ; As for returning to the old control council in its previous form, the Kremlin knows the Western Allies will not accept this.

Therefore the Western delegates surmise ;

that Vishinsky eventually, and with a great show of compromise, may offer a new model of the control council, exceedingly attractive to the Allies except for that “previous” gadget under the hood—the veto. Chief surprise in the Vishinsky proposal is

SIDE GLANCES

0OPR, 1949 BY NEA SERVICE, WC. T. WA. RED, . §. PAT. OFF, “The best time we've had in years—I| can't remember another party where there was nobody we had to be polite to!"

that it gives no sop to actual political unification. That has been the major propaganda line of Moscow as well as the demand of all German parties. Though he used the phrase political unification several times, he made no provision for it.

Appointed, Not Elected

MOREOVER, as British Foreign Minister Bevin said in joining with U, 8. Secretary of State Dean Acheson and French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman in rejecting the Vishinsky proposal, even that all-German central apparently is appointed instead of elected. The Western governments have been aware for many weeks that Stalin's growing desire for a German settlement is niore than political for the timé being. The devastating effect on the Soviet German zone, the satellite states, and Russia herself of the Allied counter-blockade, of the East-West split, and of Stalin's fatal blunder of boycotting instead of entering and sabotaging the Marshall Plan, has been near economic strangulation for the Iron Curtain countries. : They need desperately machines, coking coal, credits and productive markets which Russia cannot provide. These can be supplied only by West Germany, Western Europe and America. 80, economic unification of Germany, enabling the Soviet-drained East to tap a Western re-

‘stored and subsidized Ruhr, is the obvious solu-

tion for Stalin. Political control is not so urgent for him. Indeed, all the elections in Germany, including even the totalitarian polling in Stalin’s Eastern zone police state 10 days ago, prove Red parties cannot obtain political control quickly.

’ Centralized State THE Western delegates expected Vishinsky to make a grandstand play for German public opinion by proposing a strong centralized German political state. This is the only kind Com~ munists eventually could capture, however delayed the process. : Vishinsky may be waiting in hopes that Mr. Bevin, whé favors a stronger central government than Mr. Schuman, will provide an opening for the Soviet wedge splitting of Western unity here. Such a split, of course, would break the present Allied control of this conference and give Russia the chance to take over.

By Galbraith

Peoples objectives.

list.

can a

loyal

tions _above ground, they were not compensated for the oil wealth under the ground, which the Mexican government held to be the property of the Mexican state. Why, argued the oil companies, give a loan to a government that has seized private ?

There were others who argued that the oil project should be financed by private capital. Their position was that private investment abroad must be given an opportunity or nments would newer get over the habit of looking to public loans with all the political limitations hazards that such loans imply. This point of view was expressed in a memorandum prepared by the school of advanced international studies that is believed to have influenced policy-makers. Mr, Pauley was in- Washington recently and sat on President Truman's right at a dinner given by James Bruce, Amerisador to the Argentine, for important contributors to the Degnocratic campaign last fall, The Presided® is intensely ‘his old friends, “

able.

oreign

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~~ Keap letters 200 words or less on any subused will be edited but content will be preserved, for here th: People Speak in Freedom. ‘Debate With Communist’ By Ronsld F. Faucett, 834 Wright St. I should like to comment briefly on a letter from George Sandy which appeared in The " Times recently. © As a member of the Marion County Young Democrats, and as an outspoken advocate of the

two-party system of government, I would wel chance to debate, either formally or

i g i i £ 7

of the people of Indiana.” It is high time the question of communism is brought before the people. munism, like

improved, but improvements are a matter of opinion and each party is fully capable of building its own theories of what is best for the people of America. There should be no place in American life for any splinter parties, although the right to organize such parties should be guaranteed. Building a splinter party in defiance of the party of your choice is about as

»

I am very sure that such a debate would do much to destroy that very small foothold coms munism has in Indianapolis. It would alse do much to stimulate interest in the two-party system and in Americanism. I am not a Lincoln; but Mr, Sandy is not a Douglas. The debate would be welcomed by the Marion Sounty Joung Demofrate (and I have an ides my Young Republican frien would join in very mgly), ds ® ¢

‘Sthool Merger Problem’

By G. T. Fleming-Roberts, Member Jackson Township Home Rule Committee : Victor Peterson's interesting article on the proposed consolidation of Brown County Schools does not present a full picture of the situation, Among the citizens of Jackson Township, comprising the necessary five per cent of the registered voters who signed the petition for referendum orn consolidation, only a small percentage have children. Further, a startling numeber of those signatories, including myself, were not given a full explanation of what we were signing. Lest we appear ignorant or disinterSid, let ne point ou tat there are two bills under which consolidation might be perfec Senate Bill 131 and House Bill 158, a the Ress are readily confused. Proponents of consolidation are employing H. B. 158 which provides that after five per cent of the registered voters of each township have signed the petition, township boundaries are automatically dissolved for the purposes of referendum. This was not so stated on the petition. This law, therefore, actually makes it possible for a hand-picked minority of five per cent of the voters of Jackson Township to deliver Jackson Township's school properties and building fund for confiscation by the rest of the county. With all due sympathy for the other four townships where inadequate school facilities exist, I am tempted to ask if the end justifies the means—confiscation of property against the will of a vast majority of Jackson Township's voters. Mr, Peterson's “ . . . there is some dissatisfaction with the proposal in Jackson Township,” constitutes a masterpiece of understatement. Your publication of this letter will, to some extent, enable Times readers to obtain a better grasp of the school consolidation problem as it is shaping up in Brown County as well as give them a clearer picture of an ill-conceived piece of legislation (H. B. 158) in operation.

What Others Say—

EVERYONE feels . . . that mankind is now at a decisive turning point of its history, before which the clergy cannot remain an inert specta~ tor.—~Pope Plus mn a

SHOULD another war be forced upon us, there would exist a more extensive scope for amphibious warfare than ever before in the

One can only regret that of this h order was not put to better use in the b sulivage: of ahi Sign submitted to Hitler's yoke, One can only hope that this stout-hearted demonstration Gen. Clay believes, a sign that Germans slowly are finding their way back toward the democratic fold. And one may wish that fear-ridd l take new

military history of the I'nited States.—Maj.-Gen, M. H. Silverthorn, USM.C.

GERMAN BALLOT . . . By Bruce Biossat

Reds’ Big Setback

WASHINGTON, May 27--The Germans in the Soviet zone of

Germany have delivered a damaging Sunday punch to the plans of their Russian overseers. They may well have wrecked the whole original strategy devised by the Russians for the meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers now in progress at Paris. What was his rude setback? By Soviet admission, 34 per cent of the German voters in the Russian zone turned down a Communist-rigged list of delegates to a proposed nationwide

The ballot also stood as an expression for or against “German unity, & speedy peace treaty and withdrawal of all occupas tion troops.” Hence the Russians concede that a third of the voters recorded themselves against the Soviet version of these

The Russians plainly had counted on a favorable vote of perhaps 85 to 95 per cent. Following the pattern of totalitarian elections, the ballots gave voters no choice between candidates but merely a chance to say “yes” or “no” to a single, hand-picked

Champion of Unity

CONFIDENT of heavy German support gained through this dubious “democratic” procedure, the Soviet Union expected to appear at Paris as the champion of German unity, strong central government and removal of occupation armies. It wanted this eastern zone backing as a trump card against the new government being set up in Western Germany. The resounding defeat of these hopes was a bitter pill. Said one German Communist: “This is the greatest bankruptcy in the history of the party.” It was clear Soll De start of voting that matters were not going well for the out of 7000 votes cast, a comfortable majority had voted “no.” Promptly the lid was clamped down on these embarrassing statistics, and silence was observed for 20 hours. Finally the “official” results were announced. It is imposs to check them independently, but high ile sources say that probably more than half the a third, voted “no.” There are signs the Communists threw out many “no” votes and counted numerous blank ballots as favor-

ans. Fisst scattered returns showed that

German and Western voters, instead of

Courage fo Say ‘No’ BUT even the Russian account means 4,000,280 Germans had the courage to say “no.” They said it in an atmosphere of terror. They said it despite the fact that they undoubtedly national unity and withdrawal of foreign troops at the earliest

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