Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 19 July 1950 — Page 16

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Trillions, Now ?

:/(CONSIDER, for a moment, the letter just sent to Presi-

Auto Workers. 5 Mr. Reuther proposes that United States “can strip ithe Kremlin of its power” by spending $13 billion , . . es, billions . . . a year on foreign aid for the next 100 ears. That would make the downtrodden peoples of the gworld so happy and prosperous that they wouldn't fight Ywars of aggression for Stalin, he feels. ¢ Seeing how much choice the people already fighting Hor Stalin have in the matter we rather doubt that, but let's suppose it would. Where would the money come from? The United States Treasury. And where would the United States Treasury get it? + - Out of the pockets of American workers, many thousands of them members of Mr. Reuther's union. There isn't any other place to get it. ;

EACH of those workers already forks over one-fourth of every cent he earns for federal taxes. Mr. Reuther has contended quite recently in contract negotiations, that these members of his union don't draw enough pay to enable them to live decently . . . after the tax is taken out of their pay-checks, of course. If a tax is raised that is Just a straight cut in pay for Mr. Reuther's members . . . and all other worke s. The federal government collects around $40 billion a Year in taxes just now, and not only spends all of it but runs into the red and has to borrow a few billions. Mr. Reuther’s $13 billion for foreign aid can't come out of that, obviously. It would have to come from making the present tax higher. {To raise $13 billion more the tax every worker pays would have to be raised about one-third. For the worker drawing $60 a week now and paying $15 a week taxes . . . . some of them hidden, but taxes, just the same , . . it would : raise his weekly dues to $20, and mean a pay-cut, to him, "of $5 a week. : Mr. Reuther would no doubt suggest that his pay be . raised by that much, or more, but that's hardly the answer, because the pay increase would just be added on to the price of everything he buys, and Mr. Reuther has been contending for a long time now that the price of things is too high already. . =» : : . no» WHICHEVER way you do it, Mr. Reuther’s plan would t cut the pay and lower the living standards of every ker in America, for the next 100 years. = Whatever that did for the other peoples of the world we suspect it wouldn't make our own people particularly : happy, and we know it wouldn't make them prosperous. ~ | It would also reduce, by about qne-fourth, what our defense © department considers we must spend for defense each year | if Stalin attacks us, and so make us about one-fourth easier : to defeat, especially if Stalin decided not to wait 100 years : for his conquest but to go ahead with it right now with : what he’s already got in hand. ve | We hope the White House secretaries are on the job | in Washington this week. i President Truman is a busy man, with lots on his mind. He oughtn’t to be bothered with such moonshine.’

Broken Plank

“WE FAVOR,” said the Republican Party's 1948 platform, “a revision of the procedure for election of the President and Vice President which will more exactly reflect the popular vote.” A Massachusetts Republican, Sen. Lodge took leader- + ship in fighting for a proposed constitutional amendment to make that platform plank effective. He was joined by a Texas Democrat, Rep. Gossett, and by other members of Congress of both parties. . Last February the Senate voted, 64 to 27, to submit #he Lodge-Gossett amendment to the states for ratification or rejection. : '#& But now an almost solid array of House Republicans, ‘toge! er with a group of “liberal” Democrats, has turned down the amendment by a 210-to-134 vote. The Republi18 feared that fair division of each state's electoral votes samong various candidates, in ratio to their shares of popu‘would make it more difficult to elect Repub“lican Presidents. * uo» :s x ®

THE “liberal” Democrats feared it would lessen the

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d eastern states. ; So, for the time being, the states will have no opportunity to say whether three-fourths of them favor discarding the outmoded electoral college, with its always present danger of thwarting the will of a majority of the country’s voters, and electing Presidents and Vice Presi dents by a procedure ‘which would more exactly reflect the : vote, "But the principle of the Lodge-Gossett amendment ~~ remains sound and right. And the dangers and unfairness of the present system will continue to demand cor-

_ rection in accordance with that principle. : :

This Job n has passed a bill to suspend for one year ly reimposed tax of $40 a ton on imported

should follow suit without delay. this tax to remain in. effect now, when produce and when an expanding

dent Truman by Walter Reuther, president of the United:

are drafted,” the general de-

SIDE GLANCES

Storekeepers, automohile and appliance dealers, home builders and even the loan companies have been reporting that business was seldom better, Some bankers feel it is too good. The result is that President Truman may again ‘ask Congress for stand-by authority to permit the Federal Reserve Board to put limits on consumer credit, if the boom gets out of hand. Federal Reserve had this power to control credit during the war. It expired June 30, 1949. The President recommended extension of the authority, but Congress would have none of it. At that time, of course, the country was at the beginning of the 1949 slump. Business of some of the automobile companies in particular

was falling off. They claimed it was due to too rigid federal controls. So a terrific drive was put

DEAR BOSS . . . By Dan Kidney

Hoosier Heads National Draft

* Gen. Hershey Has Record In Three Wars of U. §.

WASHINGTON, July 19—DEAR BOSS—A one-time red-headed Hoosier, whose hair had grown gray-white planning and developing the Selective Service system which put more than 10 million men into the armed services in World War II, is back on the job and as bustiling as ever, 4 ik He is Maj. Gen. Lewis B. Hershey, who, despite a cagey Congress, enough of a skeleton organization together so that it was ready to function again when the President ordered a draft call for the Korean fighting. At 57, Gen, Hershey has the same wit and homespun philosophy to apply to each new ; task that he developed as a " Hoosler schoolmaster, before Gen. Hershey . .he joined the Indiana National «+ Get Ready Guard and marched off to the Mexican border and a career that made him by far the best known soldier that was ever born in Steuben County,

He had three degrees from Tri-State College and was elected second lieutenant of his guard company. In 1917 he married Ellen Dygert, his hometown sweetheart. After the Mexican border incident, he stayed on in World War I and became an artillery officer in France.

Draft His Life's Work

REMAINING in the Army and going through the usual officer assignments, he returned to the U. 8. A. from Ft. Shafter, Hawaii, in 1936 and took over a vacancy in the post of secretary to the Joint Army and Navy Selective Service Committee. From that day to this, Selective Service has been Gen. Hershey's life work. He refuses to guess when he can report “mission completed.” Good soldier that he is, Gen. Hershey has never lost the feel that parents have when their boys are summoned to active military service. Both he and Mrs. Hershey spent anxious days when two sons were in World War II. One of them, 1st Lt. Gilbert R. Hershey, is in the Marine Corps. He has just been ordered to leave his wife and new baby and report to San Francisco and then Pear! Harbor. The other son, George, is an aeronautical engineer with the Boeing company on the West Coast. He is a lieutenant (JG) in the Navy whera he had fofir vears of war service. He is expecting a call when the reserves are needed.

Six Grandchildren

A DAUGHTER is the bride of Lt. Sam Barth, who is on regular Army assignment at Nurnberg, Germany. There is another daughter and a total of six grandchildren. “80 I certainly know how parents feel when their sons

clared. He is serving his second } term as president of the Indiana State Society of Washington. Should things get to a fuil * mobilization, he likely. would have to abandon such social activities. Right now he will need to resume his old role of congressional witness to get 4 Congress to give him enough P money .to run the draft ma-'ng. Truman... chinery efficiently. A Deaf Ear He commahded an army of 27,000 paid workers and 185,000 volunteers during the World War II assignment. A believer in decentralization, Gen. Hershey felt that the: 6600 local boards and 265 appeals boards, made up of neighbors of the selectees, were in the best position to decide who should bear arms or work on the home front, His war experience proved this right he maintains. After the war, Gén, Hershey was a strong advocate of universal military training, with all youngsters being drafted to serve. When the clamor arose to bring home the occupation troops, a Senator roared at the draft director... “General, you are in the saddle!” “I'm in the saddle,” Gen, Hershey replied, “but I've lost my stirrups.”

« ES: 1

managed to: hold’

S00 190 0 set m7. 1 05. 8 or gi ou think you'd do better business with a of

Payments trom 18 fo 36 months. OF * ¢ ©

AMERICAN consumer debt dropped from a total of $16 billion at the end of 1948 to $15 bilHon as of July 1, 1949. But when the brakes were then taken off, volume started to increase again, It was $18.8 billion at the end of 1949. As

of June 1, 1950-—latest figure available—it was

$10.1 billion. This is the highest it has ever been. It is an increase of over $3 billion in the past year. Increases are in almost every field of credit. = : The one thing which is leading the parade in the consumer credit field, however, is the big boom in housing. Every new house naturally creates a demand for new furniture and house hold appliances which also have to be bought on time. The thing snowballs. At the end of 1948, the total U. 8. mortgage debt on one-to-four family nonfarm houses was $33 billion. At the end of 1949 it was over $37 billion. Today it is estimated at $40 billion. Easy government money in FHA and GI guaranteed loans does the trick. :

down payments and extend time longer.

increasing load of

of the ratio between total consumer credit outstanding and disposable income. This is the way It staeks up for four critical periods:

Churchill Had a Phrase for If

TWO DEMANDS . . . By John W. Love Long-Time Full Employment Seen

WASHINGTON, July 19-—One of the few certainties to be snatched from the swirl of surmise is that for a long time there will be plenty of employment and work. Employment, which everybody loves, at least for others; work, which nobody likes. Whether in semi - war or war itself there will be so much work we can't perform it all in the time we now spare for it, Probably its hours will have to be lengthened again. Two additional demands for goods will have to be taken care of, one the extra requirements of defense, the other the effect of whatever anticipatory buying takes place. The latter may not amount to much if the public has confidence in the government's and industry's ability to see that enough goods are provided, The welfare state wasn't able to assure us enough coal during the coal strike, but

PR/C CONTRo,

a garrison state might have better luck. (Coal -

is a good buy this summer.) The extra needs for defense will be disclosed when it's realized we've defied the Russians and

had better be prepared for anything. Unless additional orders are to be permitted to crowd civilian production and crate shortages, the working hours in industry will lengthen,

Higher Costs, Prices

TO INCREASE them beyond 40 hours will call for overtime payments and run up costs and prices. We're still in the regime of business and politics as usual, and price controls are not expected before election. : A country which contemplated the possibility of a major war might stop to consider whether overtime payments ought not to be dropped. The democratic way, though, as we found in the late war, is to let costs rise as much as necessary and take away the improvement by means of taxes and more or less compulsory saving. Direct price controls are invoked later on.

Designed to Spread Work

PEOPLE with long memories may recall that the 40-hour week and penalty’ overtime payments were set up to spread employment when jobs were scarce. There even were people who maintained that as much work was done in 40 hours as in longer periods. This fiction was tossed aside when we got into the war, but the overtime premiums remained. Apparently all the work on defense is to be paid for at $1 an hour or better. Congress recently balked at raising the national minimum wage beyond 75 cents, but the government, under the Walsh-Healey Act, is setting scales of $1 or so for companies working on government contracts. Aircraft is first at a minimum of £1.05, : The politics of this are slick, but they make the defense load heavier than the last time, and affect other prices as well.

By Galbraith REDS HAVE THE BALL . . . By Marquis Childs

Income ....oovune Consumer credit ass rcentage o! ‘ PE sasssssnss 92 114 68. 93 Mortgage debt as a percentage of income .......s4..238 Total ratio of consumer credit plus mortgage debt as percentage of income .....,..... 328 365 194 200 What this table shows is that consumer debts have risen sharply since the end of the war, But they are ‘still below the record ratios of 1929 and 1939.

Faced with these ratios, it is highly improbable that Congress will pay much attention to new demands for credit curbs. The story might be entirely different, however, if the Korean incident blossomed into a full-blown world war,

OOSIE CORUM

“I do not agree with a word that you say, but | vill defend to the death your right to say it."

How Come Korea? By Average Man TT THINGS seem to be going from bad to worse in Korea. How come we haven't been using the atom bomb, hailed as the greatest weapon on the face of the earth? Why not let loose with a few north of the 38th parallel and try to knock out some of that concentrated power the Reds seem to have? I'm just a little guy sitting out here in the Midwest. I don't have any special information taps in Washington by which I ean get official word on the war situation. But still I think I have the right to ask some questions and hope that someone will read them and .come up with a good answer, . * To & WE'VE got bombers over there—B-20s. How could the Reds mass men and weapons on one side of the Kum river and escape a concen trated bombing attack? I thought we had quite a big buildup of supplies in Japan just in case something like Korea broke out. Are they still there or was that just talk? Biggest question of all: Why is the U. 8. taking a beating in Korea at all? We're supposed to be far ahead of the rest of the world in the fine art of industrial pro duction. How come some of that productive power hasn't been set aside for continuous war production purposes? Seems to be a little too much that official Washington hasn't or can’t answer, How come?

251 128 201

‘Prosperity at a Price’ By V. Peters, Franklin, Ind. In reply to a letter by a Democrat who says grow up Republicans: He didn’t sign his name, and I don’t blame him. He says some of us would have sold the nation down the river to the Nazis to have gained in a monetary way. Look who's speake= ing. Who can say we haven't been sold down the river. We won't say grow up Democrats, Not after

' they have been in power for almost 20 years, -

We agree with him that we have had a little prosperity, but what a price,

Address Unknown By Joe Blow, City 80. Tanks were on their way out, huh? And foot-slogging Joe could be put out to pasture with the cavairy hoss. That, at least, has been the line of patter put out—Ilo, these many moons now—by The

Pentagon's brass, who in war are Our Fathers Who Art in Washington. All future wars, they as much as assured us, would be fought in the air. - What air? Hot air? A new address might be in order for The Pentagon. If one is, I humbly suggest: No, 1 Bubblehead Row. Cable Address: .Yakkity= Yak, Washington.

THE greatest guy in the world is what any man would be if he lived up to what his kids think of him, ’

IN AN Oklahoma prison a man is serving two life sentences. In some states that would keep a fellow confined for several years,

FIGURES show that more women than men

grow to be 100. That knocks in the head that old theory about talking themselves to death.

A CHICAGO drunk, heading for home, hailed a police cruiser instead of a taxi, He was taken to a new home,

femme . ® 0.0 ° ¥ ° ; ° Communists Grab Peace Petition Initiative WASHINGTON, July 19—In theory, at least, we credit the Russian Communists with being pretty hardboiled operators. We

of the earth. reasons why world commu-

and money circulating the socalled Stockholm Peace Petition. This is the petition that calls fer outlawing the atomic bomb and tor: peace. It came out of a Com munist - con. trolled peace conference in

den, which was the third of a series. The first was held at the WaldorfAstoria Hotel in New York and the second in Paris. At the Waldorf conference Mos"cow sent some of her leading intellectuals and musicians as window-dressing to .join in the Communist cry for peace,

. have been of persons in of the

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“nism has spent a lot of time

The Stockholm petitions

the credit them with spending their energies and resources on practical and immediate goal of world conquest of the peoples

Since this is so, it is time we looked realistically into the spond to 2 passionate hope in

the hearts of people everywhere that the world will not once again be torn by a new and more terrible war.

2 » ” THEY are being circulated in the United States. Down in Winston-Salem, N. C., which is a long way from Moscow, they were recently handed around by W. A. McGirt Jr, an organizer for the Food, Tobacco, Agricultural and Allied Workers Union. This is a Communist - dominated union

striving to control local unfons in which there is a high

petitions in his home town was not to say, “tut, tut, this is bad, wicked, evil!” It was to take the offensive for an honest peace. ~ rn = THE JOURNAL is now circulating an “appeal for a true peace.” In the first day or two several hundred signers responded. The appeal as circulated by the Journal is as follows: : “The war in Korea is a danger to the peace of all peoples. “We believe that the Korean War can be stopped and that peace can be saved if the North Korean forces will obey the United Nations and go

ments and peoples of the world can persuade them to do this,

WE HAVE nothing like an organized party, such as the Communists have, to do that for us. But, I feel confident the

friends of freedom and true peace in almost every country

_ would take it up if the initi-

ative came from the United States.

That is the trouble and the

negative and almost always defensive. By default almost we have let communism pick up -and- pervert such noble

“words as “peace” and “democ-

racy.” - 5

the Stockholm petitions by crying “chicanery.” How childish

fairly co

. scrap for

To dat been fig} 150 Sovie IL-10s, § The Wor considere ers in pi The Y: 330 nau