Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 5 February 1951 — Page 10

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“The Indianapolis Times

“Ee HENRY W. MANE Business Manager

A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER ROY W. HOWARD WALTER LECKRONE President Editor

PAGE 10 Monday, Feb. 5, 1051 RE CE rs DRE fos and Au rans

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Give Light and the People Will Ping Ther Uwn Way

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‘The RFC Mess

TWO YEARS ago the Hoover Commission observed that— “Direct lending by the government to persons or enterprise opens up dangerous possibilities of waste and favoritism to individuals or enterprises. It invites political and private pressure, or even corruption.” A year ago a Senate subcommittee headed by Democratic Sen. Fulbright of Arkansas began an investigation of the government's biggest direct lending agency, the Reconstruction Finance Corp. Now the Fulbright subcommittee is out with a blistering report, charging putrid conditions of waste, favoritism and yielding to political and private pressure, if not outright corruption in RFC operations over the last two years. Many loans have been approved without apparent good reason, and despite persuasive reasons for not making them, the report asserts.

. w 8 « 8 =»

A CHART shows an intricate network of close friendships, business and family relationships between numerous attorneys, borrowers and three of the RFC's five directors. _* The directors named—Walter L. Dunham, Repuplican, and C. Edward Rowe and William E. Willett, Democrats— were all appointed or reappointed by President Truman. Donald 8. Dawson, the President's personal adviser, and Chairman William M. Boyle Jr., of the Democratic National Committee, are mentioned as key figures in the use of influence on behalf of would-be borrowers. E. Merl Young, whose wife is a White House Secretary, figures prominently in the report. In 1940, when Mrs. Young worked in the then Sen. Truman's office, Mr. Young was a $1080-a-year government messenger. In 1945, after three years in the Marine Corps, he became an RFC examiner. He left that job to become an “expediter,” helping applicants to get RFC loans and asking large fees for his services. At one time he received simultaneous salaries of $18,000 and $10,000 as an official of two companies which were large RFC borrowers. :

MOST of the persons named in the report have denied improper use of influence or official power. But the Fulbright

~

$ubcommittee’s charges cannot be dismissed as politically

motivated. For the report was approved unanimously by the subcommittee's members. Four of them—Sens, Fulbright, Maybank, Frear and Douglas are Democrats; only two— .Sens. Tobey and Capehart—are Republicans. Their report was delayed considerably in the hope that President Truman would take such action. : Since the President has not acted, six of the subcommittee’s members propose that Congress replace the five " present RFC directors with a single independent administrator. : / Whether by this or some other method, the RFC mess cries for a thorough clean up.

Romulo, The Scrapper

N THE months-old fight to keep the Chinese Red outlaws "in proper perspective before the United Nations, Gen. Carlos Romulo has been one of the most consistent and valiant warriors against appeasement. As chief United Nations delegate and foreign secretary of the Philippines, a free and independent country, he has always stood ready to take on all comers who insist that they, and they alone, are the spokesmen for the Asiatic people. Last December when Red China's Wu snarled his accusations against the United States before a timorous United Nations, it was Gen. Romulo who made the most

"telling ‘counterattack, Point by point he answered Wu's

charges that “American capitalism” was trying to dominate Asia. And for a capper he devastateq Wu's pretenses that the Chinese Red was speaking for the people of the orient.

AFTER Wu went home, Sir Benegal Rau of India took the lead in the appeasement bloc. He, too, assumed to be the voice of Asia. But fortunately Gen.. Romulo was always " there to challenge that. When the United Nations voted to negotiate with the Chinese Reds on Korea, it was Gen. Romulo who delivered the most stinging indictment of the sell out—at a time when the U. 8. delegation went along with the appeasement crowd. / Last Thursday the United Nations finally approved a watered-down resolution naming the Chinese Reds as aggressors—over the pious protest of India’s delegate who said: : “We should like to have it on the record that when

“the world was marching—that is, in our view—toward dis-

aster, we, most of the Asian powers, did all we could to halt the march.” : > Once more, Gen, Romulo leaped to the, challenge. “We cannot,” he said, “allow to pass unanswered the invidious claim of any delegation that it alone, together with those that shared its views, was dedicated to the cause of peace, while others that did not share those views were, by implication, committed to the disastrous course of war . .. we shall vote in favor of this resolution, as we did in committee, because we are convinced more than ever that, of the two paths that were shown to us, this is the surer way to peace.”

HATS off to Gen. Romulo. And, while quoting him, it's pertinent tp add these wise words he said the other night when he was awarded a degree at Boston University: . “The true power of America does nét rest on the dollar and the atom bomb. - oily “The strength of America still rests on the conviction held by the free peoples of the world that America stands for justice, for freedom, for equality, for progress, for all

; the great humane values of our civilization, ’ :

“If this. faith in America is lost, the dollar cannot

+ redeem it and the atom bomb cannot restore it.”

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~~ -

DEAR BOSS . .. By Dan Kidney

Knock ‘em Out

With an Order |

NPA Can Destroy Factory ~ With One Pen Stroke : WASHINGTON, Feb. 5—It doesn't take an A-bombh to destroy an American factory. The

National Production Authority can do it with an order. That is what many small manufactur

E. Capehart (R. Ind.) and freshman Republican Rep. Shepard J. Crumpacker, South Bend. Both were sympathetic. As a small manufacturer (Packard Company, Indianapolis) and also a member of the Small Business Subcommittee of the Senate Banking and Currency Commit. tee, Ben. Capehart is thoroughly familiar with such early casualties in war preparedness. i

Premature Order? -

HE WILL try and get the government to install machines to make war orders in the plant he said. Large sheets of aluminum were used, in shipping airplane motors and other’ such materiel which needed absolute waterproofing, in World War II. : Mr. Crumpacker contends that the stockpile of aluminum pig is great enough to make such an NPA order premature. He criticized the cut-

rison, president and director of the International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation. Nevertheless, Mr, Crumpacker contended that such NPA orders as that on aluminum are issued by ‘“control-happy bureaucrats.” He cited lack. of information on aluminum supplies as testified to by an official before the .Senate Small Business Committee, : :

Unlimited Capital

“All of this proves once more that the Truman administration’s oft-repeated concern for what it calls the little fellow is synthetic. Its actions continually tend to make big business bigger and to squeeze the little fellow out.”

FOSTER'S FOLLIES

NEW YORK--Chang, a middle-aged elephant, which has become unruly will be used as a $500 trade-in for two baby elephants and a llama, by the Central Park Zoo. .

Those fellows who work in the Central Park Zoo Are wonderful traders it seems,

Of which type our government might use a few In some of its bargaining schemes.

The zoo makes a trade-in and gets a great deal. They're cagey, you'll have to agree.

i But when we sold Chiang, with our usual zeal

"Twas right down the river—for free,

What Others Say—

UNLESS we have a constant awareness that our purpose is to maintain the peace so that the democratic values we cherish may continue their fruition, we run the risk of allowing power to become an end in ‘itself. — Dean Acheson, :

RELIGION is no part-time matter nor an isolated matter. It shouldn't be regarded as an tvory tower into which a person shut out the hardships of the times t for his own peace of mind at the expense of others.— Radio preacher Dr. Ralph Sockman.

LABOR . . . By John Love

° counting Office at

retire to -

Yin

Hell's-a-Poppin'

MATTER ,OF CASH . + . By Frederick C. Orn Milkman—Here’s a Good Way To Skim the Cream for $60,000

WASHINGTON, Feb. 5—The time has come to consider, as has the Senate Banking Committee, the meteoric career of E. Merl Young,

' *the milkman who met the right people and now -

finds himself earning $60,000 per year. Seems that in 1937 he was working for a local dairy. Then he if an : went home with his ° wife, Loretta, to +Jerico Springs, Mo. for a couple of years In 1940 Mrs. Young landed herself a job here in the office of Sen. Harry 8. Truman. Her husband | came along and got himself a spot as an assistant messenger in the General Ac-

$1080 a year. From 1942 to 1945 | he served with the Marine Corps; when ? ; he returned his wife was working at the White House as secretary to the President's secretary; Merl got a job as a $4500-a-year examiner at the Reconstruction Finance Corp. By 1948 he was earning $7193 a year and by then things were beginning to happen in the life of Merl Young. . The F. L. Jacobs Co, of Detroit, a manufacturer of auto parts, borrowed a few million from the RFC to go into the washing machine business. The Lustron Corp., of Columbus, O., simultaneously borrowed a few more millions to make prefabricated houses, Merl resigned from that tricky-track little job with the RFC. Now he was a vice president of the Lustron Corp. at $18,000 a year. At the same time he was an official of the Jacobs Co., at $10,000 a year. “It seems that Mr. Young acquired and held these positions because of “the influential atmosphere which surrounds him,” the Senators commented in their official report. That was not all, The Jacobs Co. now was making its automatic launderall, Jacobs official Young agreed with Lustron Vice President Young that it would be nice if Lustron installed Jacobs washing machines in its houses. Carl Stanlund, the inventor of the house and the president of the company, told about

SIDE GLANCES

this. He said if he put the Jacobs machine into his tight-fitting house he'd have to redesign the whole business. Not only that, but he'd need to rebuild the trailer trucks to deliver it. Then he learned that Mr. Young was to get $15 for each washing machine sold, He said he rebelled and thereafter, he charged, the RFC board did its dangdest to wreck his housing business. Wrecked, it certainly was. It went bankrupt, with us taxpayers holding the bag for $37 million. The Jacobs Co. decided a little later to get out of the washing machine business and Mr. Young concluded the time had come to be'an insurance agent.

$60,000 A Year SEN. J. WILLIAM FULBRIGHT ¢(D. Ark.) and Co. investigating the. RFC these many months, discovered that Mr. Young estimated his 1950 income at $60;000. They also learned that his insurance business had been financed Senators also took to task Donald Dawson, the President's adviser on personnel problems, for allegedly trying to exert influence on the RFC. They mentioned the fact that his wife still works for the lending agency and they issued a chart showing friendships and marital relationships between an assortment of RFC officials, attorneys and borrowers, Sen. Homer Capehart (R. Ind.) said he believed Mr. Truman should fire Mr. Dawson. Sen. Paul H. Douglas (D. Ill.) said he felt only pity for the men ‘involved, while Sen. Fulbright said if any of them believed they'd been unjustly treated he'd be delighted to let them defend themselves at a public hearing. 4 Should be an interesting meeting, develops.

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MY PIPE AND |

MY pipe and I have heen old friends . . . for many, many years . . . we've seen the rapid changes of . . . a world that lives in fears .. . each puff I take enraptures me... with peaceful deep content . . . I marvel at the smoky clouds « » » 28 through the air they're sent . . . the handcarved bowl so marble-like . . . gives off with glowing heat . . . a warmth that’s like no other warmth . . . so like when old friends meet . . . my pipe and I are really that . . . the best of dear old friends. . . . he’s still around and going strong . . . when other friendship ends. -—By Ben Burroughs

By Galbraith

Can Fewer People TeLERNON Do More Work? a | 4 o More Work: ® = WASHINGTON, Feb. 5—Movements are getting slowly : A 5 4 under way to lengthen the working hours in the week and the - Le working years in the lifetime. The’ undertakings are delicate Rd * i ones, naturally, and progress will be slow. : 3 i terror squad. There is no legal limit, of course, to the number of hours §

which men may work, provided they are paid time and a half,

for the time they put In over

Here

.. MR, EDITOR:

“do not agres with a word that you say, & ‘ I will defend to the death your right fo sey #.

We Need Truth

Let me express : for the Londom dispatch by William McGaffin in The Times, (Thursday, February 1; page 18). The main point of the article is that the majority sgntiment in England is backing up Mr, Al

ONE: Their dislike of Gen. MacArthur. : TWO: Their feeling that Americans are “too impetuous” and swayed by passion and hysteria. x THREE: Their feeling that Red China has considerable “right” on its side. CIR FOUR: Distrust of our continupd support of Chiang Kai-shek. Americans have been a little shocked recently to find our official policies under fire from nations we thought were our best friends, Our reaction has been in the main self-righteous resentment. We were right. They were wrong. If they wanted to negotiate, they were “appeasers.” China was an aggressor. Aggressors

, must be punished. If aggressors were not pun-

ished, the United Nations would collapse. It was-as simple as Yat-in HS Americans, BUT as McGaffin's’ article shows, there is evidence that all is not as simple as many

inflexible and provocative, : They are not happy that our President holds in his hands the atom bomb. There is wide-

territory. She has a case in defending the hydro-electric plants on the Yalu River. She has a case in claiming a seat in the United Nations. We are being told by many authorities that America is failing to win minds of the people of Asia. ‘My plea to the press is, give us more world opinion to help us to “see ourselves as others see us.” We need the corrective of world opinion. Give us more of the facts, even when they hurt our pride a bit. We need the truth. When Edwin M. Stanton, Lincoln's Beoretary of War, cailed Lincoln a fool, the President’s reply was, “I must consider this very seriously; Stanton usually is right” ~L. Willard Reynolds, West Newton

- Price Freeze, Ha

MR. EDITOR: x So, we finally got a price and wage freeze, and away back to Jan. 25, 1851, too. Pardon me, the freeze is the highest price charged be-

"tween Dec. 15, 1950 and Jan. 25, 1951. That is

to be sure the boys who have been having afterXmas sales won't get caught with those nasty low prices, but rather can charge the pre-Xmas prices. Of course, the poor fair-haired farmer isn't included in the freeze. He is the man who has his trade organized to the point that he has politicians in both parties jumping through hoops to get his vote every two years. They try to comfort us, caught in this jam, that “some” prices will be rolled back and wages will be “thawed.” Yes, away back to a base of Jan. 1, 1950 for wages. Prices started this climb after the Korean War began, the last of June, 1950, and any adjustment of wages should take that into consideration. § In my opinion, this is the rawest deal ever pulled on the. working people in this country in my lifetime, and I am not young. But what can you expect when working people flock into the polling places and vote with the rich -and the They thought they did something

A fas oi Clee

and enjoy your wage freeze. But you will have to pardon me for screaming my head off—I didn't vote for a single man who favored the rich over labor. I am entitled to gripe. ~F. M., City.

Protect Freedom

MR. EDITOR: ’ The conscientious objector believes in democracy as much as any American, but in the present struggle with communism he believes that democracy will not win out by “enforeing” it in other countries or in our own. : He believes that, in the long run, freedom for all men is not accomplished by violence. The very freedom of thought and action which produces the CO will defy enslavement by any other ideology or state. (If you will notice, in the process of defending our freedoms, we are enjoying fewer and fewer of them.) If everyone waited for someone else to make the first move we would never get any place. The CO is ready to make the first move in renouncing war, instead of waiting for everybody else to do it first, Does Mr. Ruark know that, during the last war, CO’s gave invaluable service in mental hospitals—jobs which were certainly not nice and clean and safe? As a result of their efforts, mental health drives have been started. Others were subjected to guinea-pig experiments, risking their lives that men might live free from famine and disease,

—E. Carter, Oity

MALAYA .. . By Clyde Farnsworth

2 Reds Play Rough In Quest for Rubber

; SINGAPORE, Feb. 5 (UP)—Up in th A 4 n the Malayan jungle, § killing of a rubber planter and a gunpoint colle of Jungle phe his workers rates a.Stalin medal for the leader of a Communist

That's just a part payment In international comm ) u long-range bid for Malayan rubber—with Malaya thrown uniamy in Singapore, : :

where

's - policy of qgution. It sets down several reasons . why Britons are disturbed about America: ?

40 hours. The change would consist of postponing the hour

at which the overtime would

begin. No limit exists even in custom for the number of years a man may work, but in the rapid increase in pension plans lately, the practice of retiring at age 65 has been spreading. Proposals are now being made that these retirements be pushed backwards. » " » THE AMOUNT of work to be done is growing and the number of people capable of doing it is declining. The working force is being shrunk by the draft at one end and the spread of retirements at the other. The armament task is being forced upon us, and the time left for producing the re< quirements of civilian life is being cut. The question left for us, in reality, is whether we are willing to work harder for less goods than we“have enjoyed, or. work no harder than before and get along with still fewer

goods. The government is

going to try to keep prices from rising, but that effort will fail if premium overtime’ has to be paid. Those people who believe t premiums ought and will

‘maintained and that people

who reach age 65 ought and will retire on pension®, have a tip on the prices of goods, one on which they might do well to act. They may not realize it, but their convictions’ would argue that still higher prices are coming. . » “ MARRINER S. ECCLES, member of the Federal Reserve Board, has suggested that overtime payments should be put off to the 45th hour of the week, instead of the present 41st. President Truman said in his economic message recently that workers would have to. put in longer hours, and later in a cautiously worded paragraph that the inflationary effects of the premium payments might be avoided if the premiums went into increased social security payments. other words, that the overtime bonus be checked off into pension and unemployment funds. Charles E. Wilson, president of General Motors, has for several years been saying we ought to work 45 hours before overtime began to be collected. He said the nation’s job was

a wes— ¢

COPA NA SEEVCE PC TM. REGU. 8. PAT. OFF,

"I'm sure your friend will enjoy a blind date with her, Rodney— she's just bursting with personality!"

' beyond 85. “The loss of produc-

tion from premature retire.

ménts (he writes) has become one of the principal wastes in “the economy. It is conserva ’ tive to estimate that the labor force

big ~nough to call for it—and ' is nearly 1.5 million smaller

now (he job becomes a great deal bigger, .

.. 8 ~ AS for retirements, Prof. Sumner H. Slichter of Harvard

exténding the working years os ; Jk “i ; 0 o

*

than it would be if the workers rather than the employers usually determined the time of retirement, and that the loss of

“output from premature retirewarns ‘that we must consider -

ments is over $5 million a year?

. 2 a i ”»,

Many companies -are concerned over their loss of useful people in the upper ages. Generfll Electric has ended. its compulsory retirement plan. A concern in Cleveland has commenced hiring ds" substitutes the same men it retires. They continue working, that is, but they get pensions and substitutes pay, the latter about 90 per cent of what they h

received. before. ni P)

_ five-fold increase of

more than half of ‘the world’s rubber production is exported, or re-exported, from Malaya, Borneo, Indonesia, Thailand and Indo-China, international communism is pressing a short-range program with hard cash. Reds are buying unprecedented quantities of this prime

. war material.

Singapore, together with

Hong Kong and Britain itself, o

are gaping holes through which not less than 10 per cent and perhaps 20 per cent of Southeast Asia's rubber is going to Russia and satellites, while the United States, the biggest customer, is trying to stockpile the same items. » ” »

IN the British book, this

comes under the heading of “business as usual.” It is possble that the recent Singa-

pore’s. rubber shipments to

"Red China figures in Britain's

disapproval of any economic reprisals by the United Nations against Red China. A study of Singapore statistics for 1950, just made available, disclosed that Russia and her gatellites stepped up their purchases by 27.6 per cent over 1949, though direct consignments to Russia

“ showed a slight decline.

. This decline may be offset by reported - shipments of 10,000 tons nionthly for the past few

a.

‘months direct from Britain to :

oe a

Russia. So far as Singapore's statistics go, such tonnages would be carried as exports to the United Kingdom.

~ " ~ A FURTHER conservative error in calculating Communist stockpiling of rubber must be allowed for in consignments to non-Communist European countries other than Britain. Out of 1,106,483 tons cleared by Singapore in 1950, -Russia and its satellites got 11 per cent. By adding Hong Kong's share to Russian and satellite receipts, the percentage increases to 14. ’ Finnish imports, which may also find their way to Russia, would raise Russian-controlled

imports as of record to"15 per

cent, or 173,717 tons. The United States got 376,724 tons,

” ” » WITH this kind of competi-’ tion, the rubber price touched 2.30 Malayan dollars (about 76 cents in U. 48, money) per pound, the highest since 1911, and brought artificial prosperity to Malaya despite depredations of Red guerrillas. The Reds’ fdvorite victims are rubs ber planters, their privaté

' guards, and British soldiers and

policemen. i % Malaya's: second economic prop, tin, which touched an alltime high of $42 Malayan dollars a.picul (13314 ds) attracted no substanti

. competition from the iron curtain. ~

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