Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 24 January 1950 — Page 12
Bator Manager
om ah Santahed SaUE bb jsrapat Pegs Eps
Telephone Ri ley 5851
y or ’ Give TAGAE and the People Will Fine I'hew Un way
Cool Reception (CONGRESS plainly is not disposed to do much about the “stax recommendations President Truman sent up yesox ;
: » sents o copy for dally ang 108 " . aT a a raues In indiane FH at fo pre, Cound 450.
_ A few dutiful Democrats hailed the message with small .
. The predominant reaction was frosty. In - truth, it was not a very inspiring document. ; _ It led off with a warning that Congress would invite serious consequences by cutting Mr. Truman's proposed $42,439,000,000 spending program for the next fiscal year in an pttempt to reduce the prospective $5,133,000,000 budget deficit. “It promised that “if we follow the right policies” —that is, Mr. Truman's policies— ‘over the next few years” steady progress can be made toward a balanced budget. No date was set for arrival at that goal. “But it can be reached more speedily, the message argued, if we now make some changes in the tax laws to reduce inequities, stimulate business activity and yield about a billion dollars in net added revenue. ” " . , ”. » . “EXCISE taxes still almost at wartime levels, Mr. Trumag said, are depressing some lines of business, burdening consumption, hurting low-income groups and adding to lividg costs, . 80 he advocated reductions, by unspecified amounts, in the taxes on transportation and travel, long-distance phone calls and telegrams, and the entire group of retail exciges, including toilet preparations, luggage and
. However, the President warned, he won't stand for any excise cuts unless the revenue they would cost is recouped by closing tax “loopholes” which “now permit some groups to escape their fair share of taxation.” { 74nd, to raise the billion in new revenue which he wants, he called for tighter estate and gift-tax laws and for higher taxes on the incomes of corporations. i Now, certainly, there is abundant room for improving the present federal tax system, and a number of Mr. Tru-
man’s ‘are constructive. ; ; a are enabling oil operators, mine owners. and others to “gain enormous wealth without paying their
fdir share of taxes,” that situation needs attention by Con- . gress. If a “quirk” of law relieves life insurance companies of taxes they should pay on investment income, that calls . “Abuse of tax exemption by educational and charitable organizations should be stopped. And so—though Mr. Truman did not mention this—should abuse of tax exemption by co-operatives and labor unions. | AR PE cot FE a JUT HIGHER tax rates on corporate ihcome could than more, revenue. They misérgly tend to agell activity. And, in the long run, they merely would be passed on to the consumers—for corporations have no source of income except people. "On the other hand, reduction of excise taxes would ‘stimulate business and employment in many lines and, instead of causing a net loss of revenue, could result in increased revenue from individual and corporate income taxes at current rates. _ Despite Mr. Truman's contrary opinion, we believe his budget is far bigger than it needs to be. Congress seems likely to refuse his demands for higher corporate taxes, and likely to attempt to reduce the excise taxes over a probable veto, If it does, it will be derelict in its own duty unless it goes all the way down the line with reductions in spending.
Apologies for Hiss
MARQUIS CHILDS, a writer whose sincerity we respect, sets forth on this page today an opinion with which we wholly disagree. - © It is on this page at all only because we believe it expresses a point of view that is going to be heard quite dften as the apologists for Alger Hiss go into action . . . and one that appears already to be widely held among his assocates in our government, Mr. Childs portrays Alger Hiss as a naive, innocent, sincere young seeker after truth who was somehow forced by the Great Depression into a hard choice between communism and fascism . . . and maybe chose the better of the two. Poppy-cock. . Alger Hiss was a sophisticated, informed government official. He had been educated in the best universities in this country. He held a confidential post in the innermost circle of our State Department. He had access to the facts. Not * one American in a million had his chance to know the score. No American had to choose between communism and fascism . . . if, indeed, there is any difference between them. Alger Hiss had already sworn loyalty to the United States and to the principles of this republic. He chose to betray that oath, and the trust placed in him, in behalf of another nation and contrary principles, and he lied about it when he got caught. That's what he was convicted of doing. He was not on trial “for the ideas he held.” He was on frial for the direct and overt violation of laws he had solemnly pledged himself to uphold. And he was found guilty. CA : . 0» THE suggestion that those who turned to communism in this country did so to save the soul of America from fascism could hold no validity for poy convert above the grade of a retarded moron. _ + Where were they when Hitler and Stalin and Mussolini were allies, hurling their armies together for the destruction of democracy and liberty and human decency? ~ We heard no protest from them. ‘They still served communism... . . and fascism . . . to-
-
Fa
Jen
WALTER LECKRONE HENRY W. MANS IR a i i ‘Business
On Coalition GOP Was Founded OnCivil Rights, Senator Says
WASHINGTON, Jan. 24—Dear Boss—When the Indiana delegation to the Civil Rights Mobilization called on Republican Sens. Homer ¥. Capehart and William E. Jenner, the latter made it quite clear that he doesn't believe In a coalition of the GOP with Dixiecrats to thwart such measures as FEPC, anti-poll tax and antilynching bills,
“Our party was founded on civil rights and you Negro members of this group probably would not be here presenting your pleas today if It were not for Republican Presiden® Abraham Lincoln,” Sen. Jenner told them.
Beveral of the Negroes present introduced themselves and added that they were Republicans, some being active party members. Sen. Jennér told them that he believed that quite generally the minority groups now interested in civil rights had swung over to the under the New Deal and the Fair Deal. Mostly they agreed on that, ; “I don’t know whether we can win you back or not,” Ben. Jenner said. “But my party was born fighting for civil rights and I do not intend to desert these principles for any unprofitable coalition.” $
Halleck Takes Different View
OVER ON the House side they met quite a different response from Rep. Charles A. Halleck, Rensselaer Republican. The dean of all the Hoosiers on Capitol Hill, Mr. Halleck was majority leader in the GOP 80th Congress and has been a hard under-cover worker for the GOPDixiecrat coalition there in the Democratic 81st. It was coincidental that the Rules Committee had voted to try and get back its old bill-block-Ing powers right at the time that the Civil Rights Mobilization occurred. That gave the civil rights group another issue, They asked their Congressmen not only to be for FEPC but also against changing the rule adopted at the first session of the 81st Congress which permits regular committee chairmen to call up a bill for floor action if the Rules Committee doesn’t give it the green light within 21 days. It was this right which a majority of the Rules Committee wanted repealed. That majority was under the coalition leadership of Dixiecrats opposed to civil rights and old guard Republicans opposed to most everything. They wanted to put a road-block up against all Fair Deal legislation and keep it off the House floor unless 218 members signed a discharge petition for it. Mr. Halleck, once a member of the Rules Committee himself, was for restoring its old dictatorial powers and frankly told the civil rights group so. That was the position taken by the minority leadership. But the rules committee power grab went down to defeat 236 to 183. On the majority side were 64 Republicans who figuratively thumbed their noses at Minority Leader Joseph W, Martin Jr. (R, Mass.). Reps. Clarence Brown (R. Ohio) and Leo E. Allen (R. Ii), both members of the Rules Committee coalition, as well as Mr. Halleck himself, Although the latter took the floor to plead for restoring the Rules Committee to power, one of the 64 Republicans who said “no” was Rep. Ralph Harvey of New Castle.
Democrats Follow Madden
ONLY Bas Wilson Bedford and Cecil Harden, gton, Republican National Committeewoman for Indiana, voted with Mr. Halleck. All the Democrats followed Rep. Ray Madden, , who with Chairman Adolph Sabath (D. IIL.) led the fight against the coalition in the Rules Committee and later on the floor. There they were joined by Speaker Sam Rayburn (D. Tex.) and the administration leadership: None of the Democrats anticipated their whacking majority, with the progressive Republicans making up for the Dixie defections. It e Mr. glum indeed. He said that his Bo was misunderstood and that even Repu “fewapapers were givingdhe Rules Committee 4 black eye. Oddly the Rules Committee originally was established to take dictatorship powers away from the Speaker of the House. In the 80th Congress the Dixie Democrats joined with the GOP in preventing votes on bills for which their was such a public clamor that as soon as the Democrats recaptured the House they changed the rule. It looks now as though it will stay changed. And it also looks like wise Republicans will take a far dinmifner future view of GOP-Dixiecrat coalitions, just as Sen. Jenner said he intends to do.
GENIUS
Genius is a person of moods Sometimes she is easily tempted, By a warm fireside or a splendid dress, To have her rights pre-empted.
Then suddenly leaving the warmth, And donning a thin poor gown, She will stride away to a lonely hill Where indifferent stars look down. ~Myra Ahler.
BRANNAN PLAN ... By Earl Richert
Farm Price Tangle
farm products are being priced out of “the market by the government's own program to ald farmers, says Agriculture Secretary Charles Brannan. “The present price support law,” he told the House Appropriations Committee, “is pricing us out of the market place.” He sald that all evidence showed people would not eat as much
WASHINGTON, Jan. 24—U. 8.
AMERICAN FAITH . . . By Marquis Childs ‘Hiss Case Recalls Distrust Era’
WASHINGTON, Jan, 24—As reported in one news account of the reaction to the verdict of guilty in the Hiss trial, a citizen remarked that, no matter who you are, it would leave a bad taste in the mouth. That probably hits close to what most Americans feel. It is a reminder of a time that many would prefer to forget. It was a time when doubt and distrust had eaten deeply into the American faith in America. The grinding, jolting shock of the great depression had been followed by the threat of nazism with the loudly proclaimed goal of world conquest and the overthrow of democracy. ; . To some Americans Soviet communism seemed .the only answer both to the worid's economic ills and to the threat of Fascist conquest, The veils of illusion that still shrouded the Soviet system were sufficiently thick for those who deliberately chose to transfer their faith to the remote
Mr. Hiss
‘and unknowable mecca of Moscow.
Alger. hes now been found guilty hy an Amerab a der the/Wimertodin: process of law of having perjured himself when he denied that he served Soviet communism by supplying secret State Department documents to a Soviet spy ring. His chief accuser, Whittaker Chambers, has confessed to serving Russian masters over a long period and repeatedly spying, lying and stealing. What is so often forgotten, and conveniently by some, is that the failure of faith in the Western democracies took not one form, but two forms. Some Americans were saying that maybe Mussolini had the right idea. Hadn't he made the trains run on time and didn't he do away with begging in Italy? Hitler had his adherents in this country and Great Britain, and they were not merely in the screwball fringe and in the German-American Bunds. At highly respectable dinner tables one heard the opinion that while, of course, you couldn't approve everything he did yet still Hitler was necessary to keep Europe on the right path. Thus the pit of disillusion had two boundaries. If fascism had had an international organization, perhaps these same admirers might have been its agents. "As it was, they
SIDE GI.ANCES
were carriers of an infection of distrust tinged with fear and hate. } There is some reason to believe that it is the same fringe which is now gloating over the Hiss verdict and which took such jubilant satisfaction in the conviction of the 11 Communists in New York. The admirers of fascism have an inherent distrust of ideas and opinions that deviate in the slightest from the orthodox. That is part of the psychosis of distrust and fear that is fascism. However distasteful it may be, we should not hesitate to expose and analyze the acts and the motives of those who conspired against the government of the United States. Only in this
way will we understand the tragic significance -
of their disillusion. But when this is pushed to the point of prosecution — and persecution — of men and women for the ideas they hold, then we imperil the very base of a free society. We make ourselves over in the deformed image of what we profess to loathe. And it is a sad commentary that those Who were most guilty of denying the Amerjcan faith, such as Chambers, now seem to want to make
us all pay for their sense of guilt by starting °
us off on bigger and better heresy trials. There is & danger that we shall stamp out the free expression of ideas and opinions.
Political Capital
ONE of those who derives most satisfaction from this Hiss verdict is Rep. Richard M. Nixon of California: Rep. Nixon can say with truth that it would never have happened if it had not been for his persistence. Obviously he intends to make political capital out of this to try to get himself elected Senator in the race this fall. I have the feeling that it will not win him very much popularity among the rank and file of voters. It is too deeply mortifying to most Americans to be reminded of the unhappy era when faith fell away and, more important, there will be a persistent doubt whether Hiss received a fair trial in the present atmosphere when guilty accusers seek to unload their burden of guilt by public accusation. President Truman talking, in his state of the union message about what a strong and
free America can do; came ‘nfuclf cloger tp the -
temper of today.
By Galbraith AMERICAN AID ...By Clyde Famsworth © Confused on China?
TAIPEH, Formosa, Jan. 24—Much of American discussion of whether to aid in the defense of Formosa against the Communists is beside the point, according to Chinese Nationalists, They say that President Truman has denied them something they haven't asked for—American armed participation. The President did this publicly in a press statement Jan. §
WoW PLAYING
STYMRINE
-tlons to:
the Red strategy. Scare the capitalist
by dire predictions and threats of war-and '-
offer a new hope of peace.
some more Red colonies. Of all the lying pro that Moscow has put ! the demand that “all colonial people be ud and then to move right in and proceed to persuade these same freed colonial people to bring themselves under the iron heel of the Kremlin. > - - -
WHAT DO WE NEED IN 1950? =
‘Scout Mothers!
By Mrs. Sam Stabler, 4052 Kingsley Drive. We need enough Boy Scout den mothers in Indianapolis so that pot even one boy of Cub Scout age would feel unwanted or left out. Children need to belong to “a gang.” As parents, we'd better see that they get into a lively, happy useful group of young Americans. ; I'd add, make a spot in the sun for some lonesome youngster. Once a motherless boy said something unforgettable to me, It shows how a child will rebuild happiness and security in his own mind and heart when he is given half a chance. “I guess I'm just luckier than lots of - kids,” he said thoughtfully. “You know in a 3d way I've got. two mothers. There's ‘Aunt Essie’ and you. Mrs. Stabler Den mothers are Ike real mothers, aren't they”? I told him I hoped they had just one-tenth as; much human understanding as the “Aunt Essie” who had taken him to raise « 7} A few years later his beloved “Aunt Essie” died but that boy went right on and grew into a fine young man. In fact, he still lives inthe same house and he and his “Uncle Ray” Jive together. gd Here's the point. It doesn’t take very many people, nor teo much time, to help children get a toehold in this world. Most of all they need someone to talk to, someone who will feel proud and happy when they succeed, or who will undérstand when they fail. Den mothers are good listening posts. “ in ¢ oo 41
What are your ideas on ways to improve Indianapolis during 10507 Send your sugges- : 4
"1950 Editor,” The Times, $14 W. Maryland
St.
-
meat, eggs, butter, ete, as they wanted while the government kept the prices up to the level it regards as a fair return to farmers. Mr. Brannan Was Arguing for the first time before the House Appropriations Committee for his controversial farm plan He would solve the whole problem by simply taking the government out of the market for perishable farm products and letting prices fall to natural levels, } This, he says, would give the consumers cheaper prices and they would eat more. He would then pay farmers by direct check the difference between the average prices received and the government support price. In arguing for his program, Mr. Brannan has become one of the country’s severest critios of the present farm price support setup and its results. He found sharp opposition within the committee to his plan but wide agreement with his analysis of the defects of the present farm price sup‘port operations.
Mr; Brannan
opponent of
a quart cheaper, butter at five
‘ernment maintaining support
interested in increasing domes-
provided a yardstick for the costs to Mr. Brannan's plan. . . . THEN, he said, the government spent $4.2 billion to give consumers milk at two cents
cents a pound cheaper and pork, beef and veal from three to one cent a pound less. He said that $4.2 billion was now part of the national debt of $256 billion on which the consumers have to pay inter est. He said that with $4.2 billion paid out on a few commodities in a time of shortage, a similar plan today might cost $20 or $30 billion. * . LJ . REP. WHITTEN advocated a two-price system-—the gov-
prices on what is actually needed for consumption in this country and letting the farmers sell their surplus for whatever
The administration has opposed this plan as “dumping” ~a device used by Hitler and which the administration itwelf is now using to some extent on such commodities as potatoes, canned orange juice, raisins, ete. r » »
MR. BRANNAN said he was
government.
tic consumption to keep from having to adopt a program of
day if it weren't for the high cotton prices maintained by
Rep. Walt Horan (R. Wash.) -
i
they could get for sale abroad. hay
COPR. 1900 BY NEA SERVICE. WC. 7. M. RIG. 4. & MAY. OFF.
"It boils down to this: we see the movie and starve, or forget
“it and eat!”
y-—aordering farmers to . part of. the freight costs ae. u "curtail production. : "farm products, thus keeping TEACHERS at Marion, 0, ° He sald for example, some freight charges from be- got a 5100-a-year raise in salmilitons more cotton-mill ing added into the retail food ary. A lot of other cities in the . 4pindies would be turning to- prioa United States please note!
without disclosing what the Nationalist government had actually requested. » = » MR. TRUMAN'S press statement and subsequent elaboration by Becretary of State Dean Acheson put most emphasis on the refusal of American military participation in the defense of this island. Then both went on also to rule out official American material aid and technical advice
which the Nationalists do want
and did ask for. In the Chinese Nationalist view, this has confused the is sue before the American people and Mme. Chiang Kai-shek has tried to set it straight. . ” . “lI BELIEVE the American people want to help us, but they do not want to be involved in
Truman for aid under the $75 million appropriation for “the general area of China.” Without disclosing its con tents, he stressed also the need for spare parts and technical guidance without which the 2ghting Power of the Chinese y, air force and na be impaired. vy wil
. » . “INASMUCH as President Truman has not yet answered, it would not be proper for me to publish my letter to him.” Madame Chiang doubts that the Truman-Acheson pronoun cement of Jan. 5 “reflects the sum total of the activities, thoughts and speech of the American people,” as the Sec retary of State expressed it. “They want to help, but they don't know what to do, They do not want to send their troops to fight for us. We have men of our own.”
E =
And how it
f ii
Hin Hi
EY i
who