Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 25 June 1950 — Page 22

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conference just ended at Indiana University.

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Plain Talk at Bloomington IT VERY WELL may be that the U. 8. Department of - State took away more than it brought to the three-day

Dr. Phillip Jessup, ambassador-at-large, seemed to set the Department's keynote in his opening address. It was an explanation of U. 8. foreign policy couched in the most elementary terms, and closely prepared for a group that couldn't be expected to know anything about the subject. It just wasn't that kind of a group. The response he got from the floor quickly made it clear that here were at least a couple of thousand Hdosiers who were extremely well informed on world affairs, and intelligently critical of U. 8.

policies and performances in that field. -

THAT became still more evident as the round-table discussion groups took their hair down and exchanged frank opinions during the next two da Eman By Saturday night anyone who had come to Bloomington with an idea of primary-level instruction of “Middlewest isolationists” very likely had changed his mind. We're inclined to believe that the situation discovered there was not unique . . . that Americans generally know, and understand, a lot more about what's going on in the world than they are credited with knowing. And have some very positive views on it, which they don't often get to

: Prof. Buehrig and his associates who set up this conference can mark up for themselves an outstanding suc-

cess . . . and one we hope they'll repeat next year. . Certainly it was of utmost value to the Hoosiers who

attended. If it also helped our Department of State it has been doubly useful. -° sail sVeto . . P TRUMAN displayed courage and sound judgment in vetoing the bill for pay raises to almost

This bill was strongly supported by postal workers’ unions and veterans’ organizations, It proposed fo give such veterans full promotion and ' salary credits for their military service. It would have meant for each of them a pay increase of $100 for each

year spent in the armed forces.

Mr. Truman called the bill “an indirect bonus” and “a undesirable direction.” He said, four fundamental weaknesses. “based on the bad principle of allowing credit for service in no way related to a civil career.” It was “discriminatory” in giving benefits to only a small part of the 500,000 veterans employed by the federal t and to only one group—mail carriers and other field employees—of postal workers. y » : dE » . . IT OFFERED “a special benefit to a special group of veterans without reference to a real or specific need.” 2 It would add almost $24 million to Postoffice expense in the next 12 months and ultimately cost over $163 million, “at a time when the postal service is cutting down in order to reduce its deficit.” . Furthermore, permitting this bill to become law would have paved the way for a far greater increase of government costs. For legislation to give the same benefits to all veterans who have taken federal jobs since the war is already before Congress, and there would have been immediate demands for its enactment. The vetoed bill had passed both House and Senate without roll call votes. Now, no doubt, efforts will be made to override the veto. They should not succeed. And they will not, if slightly more than one-third of the members in at least one branch of Congress dare to take as brave and right a stand as Mr. Truman's. :

New Look at Formosa FAINT glimmers of hope for a high-level re-examination of our Formosa policy, looking to its reversal, have appeared lately both on the Pacific horizon and in Washington. \ "We are presently in the curious predicament of keeping up friendly relations with the Chinese Nationalist government on Formosa, yet abandoning the Red-threatened {sland as if it were of no importance to us in the world menace of Soviet aggression. The lame excuse for this paradox is the State Department’s Red-slanted finding that the Nationalist government is “corrupt” and “reactionary,” and that Chiang Kai-shek is incompetent. :

» . n 0p NOW ‘appears there is good chance Formcsa may be put in proper perspective on the basis of the island's strategic position in our Pacific defense line against international communism. In Tokyo, Gen. MacArthur has been conferring with Defense Secretary Johnson, Gen. Bradley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and John Foster Dulles, adviser to the State Department. - o ; They are reported to be in agreement on the necessity of keeping Formosa in friendly hands and to favor ~ prompt U. 8. aid, including military equipment and a mili-

tary commission to administer it*and advise the Nationalists.

on defense of thé island. In Washington, meanwhile, Assistant Secretary of State Dean Rusk has undertaken a new review of the China situation. - He has called into consultation a number of Senators including those Republicans who have been most outspoken critics of the administration's write-off of Formosa. :

LJ 2 . MR. RUSK, incidentally, has only recently taken over contro! of Far Eastern affairs for the State Department, succeeding W. Walton Butterworth who was instrumental in that write-off. Mr. Rusk’s approach to the China problem is said to be more objective than anything that has developed In the department since the war. Maybe we are seeing too many good signs—it won't be easy for the Truman administration to get off the hook in this case. But a showdown is approaching, and it's

needed reversal of a mistaken and discredited policy.

Pure: Find The Manop

(An Editorial)

WE print this map today because we're bored. Also, we print it to show you how you are being took. You are being took in the pants pocket; the one where you carry your money, or : A lot of so-called free enterprisers and their fancy-priced lawyers are doing the talk ing. and the taking. They work on you thru Uncle 8am, the fellow who collects your taxes. We're bored with their phony argument that costs us all too much money. "It works like this: * For the past several years, airlines have been expanding, and combining, and fighting

each other, battling for customers all over

the world. Airlines carrying the American flag, but flying abroad, have been faced with increasing competition from foreign ajrlines. = As foreign nations recover from. the war, they are either making or buying new planes. and for military or political reasons, gre punching farther and ‘farther around the globe.

‘Government Owned

THESE foreign lines are government owned,

_ not just subsidized like American airlines.

You can see from the map the way things are today. 2 The black lines. represent foreign airlines. For simplicity’s sake we didn’t try to differentiate between foreign nations; we simply drew a black line for each foreign flag line. Each dotted line represents’ an American flag airiine; not any particular airline. As the struggle gets tougher for customers, the airlines try to kill off a competitor by

- simply blanketing him, at taxpayers’ expense,

with so many airplanes that he'll quit. If he doesn’t quit, it really doesn't matter, as long as everybody's subsidized. That's the newage version of free enterprise, Get a govern-

“ment subsidy.

The gimmick in all this is as follows: A foreign airline usually does have a monopoly, in actual fact. It has a monopoly on the taxpayers’ pocketbook of that particular foreign country. 5 : In Britain, no airline can dip into the glum, British taxpayers’ purse but British Overseas Airways Corp. : : In France, no airline can grab francs from a screaming Frenchman but Air France.

No Bed of Roses

THE hard-pressed Hollander has much to worry him, but only KLM can nick him for guilders to pay an airline pay roll. Italians have no bed of roses, but only Alitalia has to be supported in the air in a style to which it probably has been unaccustomed.

President Peron keeps Fama In pay-roll money, tho ft isn't a law yet that Argentines have to _ride on it when they fly. : And so on, all. over the world but here. In this country, everybody can get into the act. And maybe get rich. All you need to own, apparently, are a couple of airplanes, a couple: of lawyers, and a couple of Congressmen. Not necessarily in the order named. : Then you pick out a place to fly to. It does not have to be a place where no airplanes go. In fact, it might be better to pick out a place where some other airplanes do go, preferably American. : a : For they then e¢an’t turn you down by telling you such an airline run Isn't needed. But if they turn you down on a run where

WHAT A LIFE . . . By Andrew Tully : Truman's Days Aren't So Tough

WASHINGTON, Jue 24 — President Truman's gripe to those college students about how

* he works an 18-hour day left me cold, I've never

compiled any statistics, but if Mr. Truman wants to make it a contest I'll stack my day up against his any time, ; ; Mr. Truman'say, I understand, begins at 6:30 a. m. Well, so does any man's whose youngest child is under five years. Mr. Truman's starts with a two-mile walk. Hah! If anybody in my family ever caught me going out for even a two-block walk at 6:3¢ a. m, they'd think 1 was crazy or trying to blow town. In either case, the consequences would be dire. So, my day starts with a 3-year-old son, composed of equal parts of dynamité and atomic energy, bounding into my bedroom with a shriek that would curdle the blood of Sitting

. Bull himself. One death-defying leap, and Skip

{s athwart my head, prying my eyes open with what feels like red hot chisels but which turn

out to be merely his childish thumbs.

After a futile attempt to convince Skip that sleeping late will make little boys as strong -as Tarzan, 1 am led, stumbling, into his room to examine a hypothetical lion he has just shot, stabbed, strangled or bombed—depending on what day of the week it.is. Then I am pushed downstairs to find some breakfast. The refrigerator being bare of the “good ol’

* puffaler steak” he demands, I toss him a couple

of crackers or some left-over meat balls or anything that comes to hand. Then I brew a pot of. coffee, scramble some eggs and settle down, I think, to sustenance and the morning paper. ;

THE PEOPLE PAY . . . By Paul R. Leach

But no. With the thunder of a stampeding herd, down the stairs hurtle the three daughters of the house, aged 6, 7 and 10. Immediately the breakfast table becomes a raucous, no-holds-barred facsimile of the Chicago Round Table of the Air. From a scholarly perusal of the latest developments in the Amerasia case, I am dragged suddenly into the role of umpiring what roughly resembles a free-for-all among a swarm

"of Leo Durochers.

Things to Get

MEANWHILE, the lady of the house has made her stately way downstairs. She has, as usual, a list-of-things-to-get-downtown. This

list is distinguished for (1) requiring visits to >

stores as far apart as possible, and (2) containng items which would confound the muscles of a dray horse. Things like bicycles, pickaxes and lawn mowers. ; Upstairs again for the morning shave in comparative privacy. I say comparative because there are always the guided tours conducted for the neighborhood children by my offsprings —tours in which such items of interest are . pointed out as my old bathrobe and Mary's new rubber girdle with the holes in it. Then to work. You either miss the bus or it's crowded and you can’t find a seat. At the office you slave under a boss who is always refusing to let you cover that bathing beauty contest in Hawaii. For lunch you go to one of three or four old, familiar places—the food is old and the cockroaches are familiar. At the office the Washington afternoon is hot and the air conditioning is mythical.

Afternoon Chores

“~~ BACK home again on the same jammed bus, only this time with fumes from a broken exhaust. Ah! A choice of a variety of interesting and challenging chores. Mow the lawn. Paint the porch floor. Weed the flower garden. Or put up those screens. Incidently, Liz, needs braces on her teeth. Martha's got to have a piano, Sheila punched the neighbor's boy in the nose. ' Replace two light bulbs. Fix that stuck drawer in the desk. Submit to four goodnight kisses that would strangte an elephant. Finally to bed. But, wait. First either close or open the windows, depending upon their current status. Put out the downstairs lights. Lock the doors. Get four drinks of water. Drag sleeping son out of bed and into bathroom. Persuade him that Hopalong Cassidy always goes to the bathroom in the middle of the night. : Nighty-night, everybody. Nighty-night-—es-‘pecially—to poor Mr. Truman.

Excise Tax Reductions Argued

‘WASHINGTON, June 24 — Mama would profit from the new House tax bill by excise reductions, so would papa in a lot of retail buying. But papa would pay in the end because of the upper bracket corporafe tax boost from 38 to 41 per cent.” o That corporate increase is one reason why the Senate is inclined so far to cast a fishy eye upon the measure the House will start debating next week. Sy : ets Under the House bill mama ‘would be able -to buy ‘baby oil, lotions and talcum, as - well as her new handbag, without paying any federal excise tax on them. ™ : But federal taxes are a part of manufactur.ing costs. And who do you think pays. in the windup? 3 Here is what the House Ways and Means E its bill: Mee

Truman, who wan

reductions writing | "would be balanced by closing a ) n. Presiden i holes. 10 Corpo! pine

cuts, sai® he would veto any bill that did not carry new tax revenue to make up the difference. So the committee tightened loopholes in the law through which colleges, churches, and foundations operating businesses have been able to ‘escape paying taxes as nonprofit institutions, although their businesses compete with taxpayers. R : That was ealcuiated to pick up some $500 million in revenue. The corporate increase was expected to add another $433 million. Now leading Senate tax writers, including Chairman George (D. Ga.) of the Finance Committee: ranking Republican Millikin of Colorado, ‘Sen. Byrd -(D. Va.) and Republican Policy

Chairman Taft of Ohio, are already seeking

billion

or an American airline already is established, then you holler “monopoly.’ That trumps the trick. Even if thera are a half dozen foreign airlines going intp the same place, it makes no difference. It's still monopoly unless two or more American lines go there. Here's where you come in. Suppose a place is already served with an American airline, and suppose it costs $100,000 a year. (This fs just a silly little imaginary figure; they really cost a lot more than that.) Suppose there are enough passengers to pay for half— $50,000. That leaves $50,000. This last $50,000 you pay, thru a mail subsidy. Then along comes another bunch of fellows with their airplanes, and lawyers. They want in. Maybe some bureaucrat with a conscience, down at the Civil Aeronaiitics Board, says “no.” When this happens, it is a great situation, good for everybody. Particularly for lawyers with a reputation and possibly a past for crusading in the public weal, but who are now in business for themselves. Still wearing the old shining armor, but jousting now at so

: much per joust, for whatever team hires best.

Cry of ‘Monopoly’ : ALSO FOR politicos whose stock in trade is charging windmills at public expense. ‘Anyway, here’s what happens: . Immediately, the lawyers holler “monopoly” and phone their trained Congressmen, and write a reiease which the press agents get out to the newspapers. The Congressmen make a powerful speech about stifling free enterprise, and threaten to cut either the appropriation or the gizzards of the conniving, anti-social villains who stood between the public trough and the fellows who own the Congressmen. The wires carry the story. .

Memo to Congress: Federal taxes have gone up 5849 per cent in the last 37 years.

tJ ” Ways to eliminate waste and unnecessary spending will have to be found.

* Hoosier Forum "| do not agree with a word that you say, but | will defend to the death your right to say it."

‘Women in Politics’ By C. D. C,, Terre Haute. : Being born in the old school, I have always had great respect for women. However, I did have an article published in the Forum recently which described a type of female politician which is part and parcel of both the New and the Fair Deal that we have been plagued with since 1932. 2 Mrs. Walter Haggerty stated in a letter not so long ago that no one ever paid any attention to unsigned letters, so you can well imagine my surprise when I discovered that Mrs. Haggerty had not only read the letter, but literally speaking, believed the coat fit her so well that she put it en and started wearing it. In fact, Mrs. Haggerty has become so upset over the matter she believes that I at least should be denied freedom of the press.. gi . I believe I did mention in the letter something about these women politicians calling names and in the same true spirit she has been calling me a fuddleduddie. I haven't been able to find the word in the dictionary, so I don’t know exactly what it means. Since she suggested not long ago that all of us old tightwads should burn our bonds, it might be someone who hasn't burned his bonds. Or, on the other hand, it might mean a person with enough gray hairs in his head to know that a person in politics who goes out on a limb is liable to get ‘it sawed off from under him, or a politician who sticks out his neck may get his head cut off, or give a political calf enough rope and he will hang himself. These seem to be some of the things these younger peliticians- who have had the wrong kind of teachers have not yet learned, so people who know better are called fuddleduddies.

‘Wearing Dollar Signs’ By H. E. Martz, Indianapolis Oh, yes, Mr. Hoover wants the budget balanced. He had his chance to balance it, and he did. But what happened to. the rest of us shouldn't happen to Hoover and ‘his crowd— and didn't. : These anguished cries for budget-balancing are but the echoes of the suffering of humans when they were sacrificed on the altar of

fiscal stagnation by those who wear a dollar _

sign where their hearts ought ‘to be. A balanced budget is a fine thing if you can also balance your human values. When we can produce for peace on the same scale we are now producing for war, that fine ideal may be achieved.

‘Giving Public the Truth’ By Wayne Simms, Postmaster, Waveland, Ind. I am writing to commend. The Times on the editorial entitled “Misdirected Griping” appearing in the Sunday edition of The Indianapolis Times on the editorial page. 5% The editorial was timely and demonstrates and investigation of the troubles

‘that the Postal Department ‘is ‘having during. - the current curtailment of services by this de- .

partment of the government. The fault certainly les with the Congress, as you state, but they desperately to

pass the buck to Mr. Donaldson postmaster general ,

truth.

The heat’s on. . . .

So it goes. Apenny Another brave new airline is made. Intrep-

idly it sets out to cover a route already cove ered, to a town already serviced, to fly onto "a nice well-established airfield complete with control tower, all built, probably by you, some

years ago.

Double Cost .

INSTEAD of one line costing £100,000 -a year, there now are two lines. costing $200,000 a year, But the town hasn't doubled in size, so the passengers don’t double because the planes have. The same passengers still pay $50,000 in fares, except to two lines for twife as many flights. But you now pay of $50,000. See?

$159,000 a year instead

That's the way you play airplane business. s __ If airlines, operators and lobbyists intend to match and to duplicate American flag lines on all routes run by foreign airlines, there's a lot of room for expansion. Look at the lines. on the maps. The field has hardly been scratched, if the ultimate goal is two American airlines for one of everybody else's, everywhere. But it will cost you a lot of money. .Last year, to subsidize all American airlines running abroad, it cost you $61,000,000. That's just for last year. Something over a million dollars a week. And after all the pay passen= gers had bought their tickets. Maybe it's time to take .a second look. Maybe we should compete with foreign airlines, but maybe we don't have to do it two, . three _ and four times over, just for the fun of keeping fellows ‘in the airplane business at public expense.

monopoly in the

LOSSES . . . By Bruce Biossat

Postal Deficit. Study Urged

Need Seen for Congress To Find Real Solution

WASHINGTON, June 24—Bills to rescind-the Post Office Department's recent cuts in mail service await floor action in both houses of Congress. But the lawmakers might better devote their ‘energy to something else, for these measures won't mean anything even should they become law. > The. reason is simple: Congress won't provide th¢ money needed to restore the service reductions. In fact, the department in all likelihood will enter the 1950-51 fiscal year with its budget somewhat trimmed. It's another case of the legislators trying to have their cake and eat it, too. Post Office deficits are chronic. The Congress never has faced up to the problem of how to put the department on a consistently paying basis. This year postal operations are $545 million in the red.

Business Suffering

. IF THE cuts ordered by Postmaster Donaldson serve to stir the public enough to push lawe makers toward some real solution, they may be a good thing. Even though, according to an early survey of the effects of the changes, a considerable number of business firms are suf fering. -- - The reductions in service themselves are certainly no solution. At best it was hoped they would chop $30 million off ‘opérating costs, but experience to date suggests the saving may be substantially less. The big money losers in the department are the second, third and fourth class mall services handling, respectively, newspapers and magazines, advertising circulars, and parcel post. Only first class mail and postal savings earn their way. Each of these red-ink services ought to be examined closely by’ Congress with a view to streamlining it and getting it onto the most

"efficient basis possible. Wherever they apply, the"

recommendations of the Hoover Commission should. be adopted.

Rate Raise Seen

IF such revamping does not produce the economies needed to wipe out the deficits in these categories, then Congress would seem to have no choice but to raise rates so operations can get into the black. Any other course amounts to flat ace knowledgement that Congress is prepared to , carry the Post Office Department indefinitely as a cumbersome, inefficient ' giant that cannot earn its salt. If the lawmakers should surprise by really buckling down to this taSk, they ought also to énd for all time the absurd fiction of “air mail subsidies” to the airlines. : American civil aviation may need subsidies to survive; that's a problem of another sort. But what is thought wise forthe airlines has nothing to do with running the air mail service, which should function according to costs and stande ards suitable to its own special nature,

Barbs— AN old golf club and a new husband make

excellent rug beaters, :

:. . HANDWRITING is a key to character, says «a professor. Especially when found on that little piece of paper marked “insufficient funds.”

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