Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 31 May 1949 — Page 12

Mexiso, daily, $110 a ates BB gn » copy. Telephone RI ley 8551 Give TAGAS ond tha People Will Ping Ther Owe Wey

Highway Commission, has published a very thoughtful analysis of the problem of trucks and roads and freight rates. It fits not only Indiana, but to some degree all the ai pt points t that everybod ts ou eve y wants more roads and better roads, but nobody appears to be willing to pay for them. Meanwhile, Indiana's highway system is taking a daily beating from heavy trucking and like a lot of others will he destroyed unless a lot of money is spent on © roads. : It is well known that the biggest wear and damage to , roads is caused by hauling heavy loads at high speeds—in other words, by trucks. As Mr. Hadden points out, more "and more heavy, long distance hauling is being done on the highways aa railiad freightirates besos, higher: :

. = 9

IN ADDITION to being more convenient, in many in- : atonces, truck hauling is also done at considerably lower _ rates per ton mile than rail hauling. The shippers, naturally, benefit by that. : But actually there is nothing to show that it costs any less to move a ton of freight by truck than by railroad. In general it most. certainly costs 8 lot more to haul freight on the highways. '. © Truck hauling is possible at lower rates solely because the public a ne up the road-bed for the truck, and the railroads keep up the roadbed for the railroads. If trucks themselves had to maintain their own rights of way, and ‘ add it to their freight rates, we doubt if they would have i the rate advantage they now enjoy. » 8 ; TRUCK operators feel that they “iready pay very n Beavy taxes tor the to’ of tiie highways ‘But heavy as they are, they still fall far short of the cost the trucking

competing railroads must maintain theirs. Meantime, the pressure is unrelenting for permission to carry heavier * loads on the highways, and the violations of the very mild restrictions now imposed are more and more frequent. ~~ In time the trucking industry is going to have to pay share of this highway cost—or there won't be any highways to use. No greater part of that load can be shifted, or should be shifted, 0. the owner of the family pleasure car,

The Item Veto : HE advantage of the plan Congress intends to adopt : next year, for one big annual appropriation bill instead of a dozen smaller, separaté ones, will be many, There is one serious disadvantage, which should be remedied. . Usually, it. may be expected, the consolidated bill will not reach’the President's desk until close to the start of the t fiscal year for which it provides funds. e the President strongly disapproves of one or more items in the bill He has the veto power over the whole bill but not over the items. But if he vetoes the bill, the whole government may be paralyzed for weeks or months by lack of money. 80 he is under unfair pressure to refrain from using his veto power. Or suppose Congress attaches to the bill a rider” forbidding use of any part of the funds to pay the salaries of specific employees of the executive branch to whom certain Senators or Representatives object. Even under the present system, this sort of thing has happened.

» ” » . » ONLY recently President Truman signed, with great

against two of his appointees with whom members of Congress have “een feuding. He considered this method of trying to drive the fwo men out of office outrageous, but the money provided by the bill was urgently needed to keep government business Y ing. The remedy often advocated is to give the President power to veto one or more items in an appropriation vill without vetoing the whole measure. Adoption of the one-big-appropriation-bill plan seems certain to stimulate efforts to find a constitutional way to provide this “item-veto” power. It would, to be sure, considerably increase presidential influence on the shaping of spending measures. But, of course, an “item veto,” like any other veto, could still be overridden by a two-thirds vote of both branches of Congress. .

End of the Ford Strike

Tue GREAT Ford River Rouge plant came to life today ‘and within a couple of weeks all of that company’s assembly plants across the country again should be on full schedule. This looks like another strike which nobody won, For 25 days, 106,000 workers lost an estimated $1 million a day in wages, and the company lost an estimated 93,000 vehicles which were not produced. Some 200,000 employees of other firms manufacturing Ford parts and accessories were adversely affected, not to mention all the Ford dealers, salesmeh and customers, United Auto Workers President Walter Reuther says the settlement should “make for greater stability and understanding” and “minimize future disputes.” Let us hope that proves true. To an outsider there does not seem to be much of anything in the agreement that could not have been arbiLm without stopping production.

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Blackjack's Nicer : 1 judge in Dallas is going to have to decide whether a man’s stomach is subject to seisure and ’ It all comes about because a character serving time Raf narcotics hag charged that Police doctors Ee cumely and than 453 Bin Shey

BE SE Re MR a Ap I SA NIE AA Po ss in

+ But It seems to us the defendant has ; Use of a stomach pump, as has gubmitted to it, constitutes at

of imple assavit

BIG FOUR . . . By Lutiwell Denny

industry would have if it maintained its own roads—as the

reluctance, a deficiency bill carrying such a “rider,” directed ’

Limited Berlin Aareement Seen

But General Settlement of . German Problem Unlikely

PARIS, May 31 — The Foreign Ministers’ Conference entered its second week with both

porary agreement on Berlin and East-West

trade. Neither Russia nor the Western Powers have yet indicated the points of a possible compro-

the first of four items on the program~political and economic unification of Germany—which the other side rejects. Each is trying to get the other to spell out details.

Severe Terms

U. 8. Secretary of State Dean Acheson, British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin and French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman, and most of their advisers, do not think the Kremlin will accept those severe terms. It's possible the Kremlin might have been disposed to pay that price when it asked for this conference, on the theory its German stooges in the Eastern Zone enough established to carry on. But since then totalitarian elections there indicate the Reds would be defeated in a free referendum,

is unwilling to sacrifice control of the Eastern Zone, temporarily if necessary, as the price of economic unity-—and indirect American aid--so

| much needed. Soviet acceptance of these terms

would be a great Allied diplomatic victory,'on the surface at least. Actually it Would be considerable embarrassment for the It would put a tremendous an on the still untested Bonn foundation. Also it might lull the American Congress into cutting Marshall Plan funds and withholding money for rearming Western Europe. 80 there is a certain amount of uneasiness in Allied circles among those who can’t make up their minds whether to hope Russia will accept in the end or hope she will not accept.

Veto Issue

PROBABLY the result will be determined by the veto issue. Resumption of four-power con= trol for i Germany including the rich Ruhr Sua 25-called unanimity rule ~ namely Russian right to veto—is the essence of the Soviet proposal. The reason an over-all agreement is unlikely is precisely because the Western Powers refuse to compromise on this veto issue—at

cation because the formal Allied proposal presented last Saturday left a loophole. The fifth and final point reads: “Four-power control would be exercised by 2 high commission which “would normally inl 4 its decisions by majority ‘vote save In exceptional circumstances to be mutually agreed.” This can mean everything or nothing. If “exceptional circumstances” are made wide enough for a Soviet veto on basic decisions, then the Kremlin has the conference in a bag. Messrs. Acheson, Bevin and Schuman will get to write into the agreement all the pretty words they like about democracy and freedom but actugl control of Germany will go to Stalin, If, on the other hand, the Allies put in that loophole merely to provide reserve powers to satisfy the U. 8. Congress—particularly to prevent others from voting for. use of American Araops and funds without U, S. consent—then it will not give Vishinsky what he wants. Since the U. 8, insisted on her own right of veto in these exceptional circumstances in its Western (German agreement with Britain and France, it could not reasonably require less in the Russian agreement. All signs here indicate the Allies will not broaden this veto loophole to suit Stalin. But Vishinsky will try and try again,

Barbs—

MORE than 75 babies were entered in a beauty contest in Florida—mainly because they weren't old SHough to object. ®*

THE LONG list of popular settlement workers doesn’t include the long list of bill collectors. ® > WE doubt if money talks these days. The American coins have lost too much strength,

mise. Each side produced general proposals on

least so far. It is necessary to add that qualifi-

_fere with plans to get him fu

DEFICIT FINANCING

WASHINGTON, May 31—“Mr. Micawber's difficulties are almost overwhelming just at present,” said Mrs. Micawber; “and whether it is possible to bring him through them, I don’t know,” In these words Charles Dickens’ introduced to the world, and to David Copperfield in particular, a man born a hundred years too soon. It's too bad so few people read Dickens today. And especially that more of us aren't intimately acquainted with Wilkins Micawher. For, by present standards, he was a great man. He would be doing well today. "He was a ploneer among planners, and an expert on what is now called “deficit financing.” He never let the fact that he was in debt interr therein. This policy landed him in debtors’ prison—an institution now happily extinct. Today, either in England or America, he probably would have headed a bureau, and perhaps gone higher. Mr. Micawber, like ourselves for the last 20 years, lived in a chronic state of emergency. But he never stopped planning, or seeking new loans. As he so often said, he wanted to be

ready “in case anything turned up.”

‘Nothing but Advice

“AT present, and until something turns up (which I am, I may say, hourly expecting) 1 have nothing to offer but advice,” he told young Copperfield. When creditors: besieged his home it often seemed that the final crisis had arrived. “At such times, Mr. Micawber would be transported with grief and mortification; even to the length . . . of making motions at himseif with a razor; but within an hour afterwards he would polish up his shoes with extraordinary pains, and go 6ut humming a tune with a greater air of gentility than ever.” It takes plenty of bounce to be such a man. The kind of bounce we have’ today, when, already owing around 252 billion dollars, we launch new schemes to spend more billions. And when, as in the case of Mr. Micawber, our outgo is already ahead of our income. For a good many years now our national

finances have run in anticipation of something -

turning up. During all that time, it never has.

By E. T. Leech ‘We Borrow and Live in Hope’

- that our “difficulties are coming to a crisis.”

‘So expenses have steadily skyrocketed as we sunk deeper into debt. Scheming, spending, borrowing and hoping for a vague something to turn up can become & state of mind with a nation, as well as with a person. Most people realize that in the individual's case, such ideas will lead to disaster. Finally, he'll gd broke. t no longer means debtors’ prison; but it can force bankruptcy and going to work, or, more likely today, going on relief.

Born Too Soon

NOBODY would have beén more apt at accepting government bounties and turning security problems over to the state than Mr, Micawber would have been, save for the misfortune of being born too soon. But turning from his troubles to our own, recently there have been strong indications

However, few citizens worry much about national bankruptcy—for the simple reason that it is so hard to envision and understand. A sovereign government can get into the same sort of financial jam 4s an individual; but there the comparison stops. Government deksn't actually go bankrupt. - a government goes broke, it doesn’t bankrupt itself; it just bankrupts all its a It pulls itself out of the hole at the expense, of its people. It does this inflation. It gets out of debt by making money so low in value that it can pay with cheap dollars obligations contracted when dollars were valuable. Thus the government tries to save itself by wiping out the savings of its citizens. It has happened to every nation which long followed the Micawber theories of spending more than income and borrowing to do so.

Ruins Everybody THIS process is far more painful than is any individual bankruptcy. For it ruins everybody—and those who lose most are the ones who tried to save, carry insurance and invest for the future. The value of money can be destroyed either by printing too much or by borrowing too much, The latter policy creates credit dollars-~that is, fictitious bank deposits—which have about the same effect as running dollars off a printing

. against us in China.

press. That's what we've been doing for years.

As in the case of Hitler, when he wax'winning, this Chinese victory will draw thousands of actual and potential American Communists in with their Moscow Fuehrer,

American h Thus, with the development of the A-bqmb and Russian domination over half of the globe in mind, is it not foolhardy to entrust the formation of American ideals to followers of the “Red Have of the utara and Am Save As parents, taxpayers ericans, we not the right to exclude these mental poison

: Already far too many spies and fellow trave slers are known as former graduates from oum foremost universities, to er these questions with anything but an emphatic “No!” : * 9%

. tion immediately. But so few realize that such capable men are sensitive and unselfish and

will work until they drop into fatigue, since they, are so conscientious and seem so indispensable, It behooves every executive to be alert to the reactions of those under him in plenty of time to take precaution. This would save many heart cases as well as mental.

* * 9

Too Much Leniency’ By East Ender Y wish to 34d my bit to. Floyd G. Veasy's

‘letter on “Don’t Protect Lawbreakers.”

There is entirely too much leniency shown delinquents, juveniles who are vicious, and repeated offenders. The idea that every juvenile lawbreaker needs help is an erroneous one. Many are bad by preference and a menace to their community. Often they are excused until they do something terrible (sometimes even murder). Why mollycoddle these people and create criminals in the end?

What Others Say—

TO BE liberal, one does not have to be a wastrel. We must, in fact, be thrifty if we are to be really humane. We are not helping the slum dwellers, the under-educated and sick by supporting an excessive number of stenogra-

"phers and clerks.—Sen. Paul H. Douglas (D,

IL), advocating, cutbacks in government spend.

ing. * + 9 NO witchhunt has blotted or will blot our record of equal justice to all, We are as de« termined to protect the innocent as we are to prosecute the Sulithea fy, Sen. Tom Clark.

OUR policy is always to advise our meme bers to work for the government in the case of plant seizure. You can’t strike against the government. wATL President William Green. / * ©

THE world today is not the: world we had hoped for when the 8an Francisco Conference adjourned less than four years ago—President Truman.

CAMPAIGN FUNDS . . . By Charles T. Lucey

Money in Politics

WASHINGTON, May 31-—Charges in Congress that there may be a connection between campaign contributions and government contracts have churned up demands for new methods of financing national elections.

For a long time most of the campaign cash has been showered down by party fat cats and government payrollers, The jobholders can't be levied upon as in other days but they still may make voluntary contributions.

When New Mexico's Carl A. Hatch was in the Senate and after the Hatch "clean politics” law had been passed, he studied the possibility of financing national campaigns from the Federal Treasury. The idea was to equalize the amounts available to the major parties—the Republicans always were supposed to be the boys with all the money-—and to eliminate abuses that. may grow out of big contributions.

But Mr, Hatch couldn't find a formula under which minority parties might be aided. It would be simple to spot the two major parties $5 million apiece, say--but on what basis would funds be given the Progressives, the Prohibitionists, the Vegetarians and the rest?

Probe of Contracts

BUT new support for the idea could come out of demands by Rep, James Van Zandt (R. Pa.) for an investigation of contracts given Consolidated-Vultee for the B-36 bomber. Rep. Carl Vinson (D. Ga.), House Armed Services Committee chairman, has announced he will ask the committee for authority to proceed with such an inquiry. Broadly, Mr, Van Zandt is raising the issue of possible connection between contributions to President Truman's campaign chest last fall and to subsequent plane contracts. His questions involve Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson, who ran a special fund-raising campaign for the Democrats, and who was then a director of Consolidated-Vultee. The name of Floyd B. Odlum, who controls Atlas Corp., which in turn is a heavy stockholder of the airplane company, also has figured in Mr, Van Zandt's comments. So far Mr. Van Zandt's charges are only charges, of course-—not proof. The recora of contributions to the Democratic campaign shows both Mr, Johnson, who was at that time outside the ade ministration, and Mr. Odlum were big contributors. Mr. Johnson, with a Washington hotel given as his address, was down for $3000. Mrs. Louis Johnson of Clarksburg, W, Va.-—the Johnson's home-contributed $5000. Two contributions of $1500 each are shown for Mr, Odlum.

From Big Business

from big business people whose address listing was set down as “care of Floyd B. Odlum, 33 Pine St, New York City.” : Zemurray, president of the United Fruit Co., in which Atlas Corp. has a substantial interest. Mr. UITAy gave 80 did A. A. Pollan, executive vice president of United Fruit. Also Sam . Baggett, vice president and general counsel of United Fruit, identified as “care of Floyd B. Odlum.” Similarly IHsted for $5000 was John A. Werner, a United Fruit director. J. R. Kansas, linked similarly with Mr.

Odium as to address, also gave $5000, oh i from business and industrial people are not

BUT the reports also show numerous sizable contributions

SIDE GLANCES By Galbraith

a 8

PLANET oy ve ar ih Suave, a. 1.00. 100 1k DOT OOO

“I hope you'll be more choosy than your father was at your age~he'd fall for any girl who'd tell him she liked his curly hair!"

unusual. The wealthy Pew and DuPont families have kicked fn heavily to the Republicans for many years. On the Democratic lists in the last election also were Thomas A. Morgan and John derson, both of New York. Poor's Directory lists a Thomas A. Morgan as chairman of the Board of Bperry Gyroscope and a John Sanderson as vice president and director of the same company. Charles A. Ward, of Hudson, Wis., and Mrs, Charles A. Ward, of 8t. Paul, were down for $5000 each, Poor's Directory lists a Charles A. Ward as president of Brown & Bigelow. William H. Marzolf, listed as assistant to the president gave $5000, and Harrington, also of Brown & Bigelow, gave $5000. Cabinet members, ambassadors and others contributed heavTruman

vided $1000. Attorney General Tom Clark $3000. There's often much talk about “broad the base” apd getting a lot of §1, $5 and $10 contributions. But experienced political fund-raisers say you've got to have the big boys to

Snagse a national campaign. »

ily tothe. of John Snyder was down for $5000, Mrs. Snyder for $2500, daughter, Dructe for $500. Secretary of Commerce Charles Sawyer pro-

MILITARY TRAINING . . . By Jim G. Lucas

State Guard Plot?

WASHINGTON, May 31—National Guardsmen want na ruck with any plan to pay them two days’ wages for one day's work. What's more, they've got their dander up because the governs ment was to put up $100 million to help them build new armories, "All this generosity, the skeptical Guard suspects, is just ans other plot to take them away from the states and make them part of the Army and Air Force, They say they're not having any, Take the matter of two days’ pay for one day's work. The Army and Air Force say the National Guard is entitled to it, particularly on Saturday, If a drill lasts more than eight hours, the Pentagon says, two training days can be claimed “for pay, purposes.” The Navy has worked it that way for several years, Far from being happy, the National Guard Association's exec. utive committee met in Washington last week and viewed with alarm coupled with “emphatic disapproval” It adopted a reso

lution--and sent copies to Defense Secretary Louis Johnson— #

saying that it “contravenes the principle of one day's pay tor one day's service.”

One Retirement Point

FURTHERMORE, the resolution pointed out, the law says a an can pick up only one retirement point a day. Even if he draws two checks, he still moves only one step nearer a pension. Finally, the association said, it’s not fair to active duty men who put in the same time but draw only one day's pay. The Army and Air Force sald they're sorry, but it's none of the National Guard's business, since the regular military establishment has jurisdiction over pay matters. The National Guard Bureau says it's a training matter, where it has the last word, The Guard Association got in its licks by ordering state adjutants general not to pay any attention to the regulars.

As for the proposed $100 million armory construction pros

Maj. Gen. Milton A, Reckord, chairman of fhe Guard Associ ation’s legislative committee, says it is of no value to the National Guard, For one thing, Gen, Reckord said, it proyides that the federal and state governments share costs on a 80-40 per cent basis. In the past, he said, it's always been 75-28.

Share Its Armories

WHAT'S worse, the legislation provides that the Guard must share its armories with

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