Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 17 February 1951 — Page 10

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: The Indiana lis Times CONTINENTAL ARMY ./. . By Ludwell Benny nf nr 2 ; or et 1 ro = Paris Conference—Same Old Story—Germany, France Can’t Agree |

A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER

HENRY W. MANZ Business Manager

PAGE 10 Saturday, Feb. 17, 1951 TR A Ne . 9. wi CEE ERLE ENR Bl sis Somer satis U3 Smenans, Telephone RI ley 5551 Give Light end the People Will Find Their Own Way

" ROY W. HOWARD WALTER LECKRONE President Editor :

Stalin’s Two-Way Lie PREMIER STALIN was talking out of both sides of his mouth yesterday when he sounded off to the Kremlin's newspaper, Pravda. He said the United States and Britain faced certain defeat in Korea if they did not accept Red China's “peace” proposals.

At the same time, he said Russia was so hard at work

on a peacetime economy it couldn't build up its armed forces for war without risking bankruptcy. A “demobilized” Russia, Stalin would have us believe, is in no shape to go to war; consequently the United States and Britain have nothing to fear from her. » » » w ” ” IN THAT CASE, who is going to hand the Allies that “certain defeat” he promises in Korea? Obviously, Red China lacking an air force, ships, heavy guns and transports, cannot win the war in Korea without Russian aid. : So, what Stalin says cancels itself out in a two-way lie in the face of facts: Russia has built up a tremendous war machine, and Russia, by all signs, is supplying the materials with which the Chinese Reds are fighting. ¥ » . » . ~ AS FOR Red China's “peace” proposals, there weren't any. Only a demand forgvirtual surrender—which a timid United Nations almost atcepted. It would have been the height of stupidity for the United States to have agreed to participate in Peiping’s proposed seven-power conference with the conferees stacked against us by a five-to-two vote, including Russia's. Peiping's terms have not materially changed. : And the situation is not changed by Stalin's bombast. The United States and her Allies are still up against the threat of a predatory, relentless foe on the march for world conquest.

Call on the Gals

| DISCLOSING the United States’ plan to send four more divisions to Europe, Defense Secretary Marshall said Thursday this would involve about 100,000 men. This figure, he explained, would include about 72,000 in the four divisions, and. 20,000 more in “supporting troops.” : Evidently the Army is clinging to its old luxury standards in manpower. Gen, Clark, Chief of the Army Field Forces, warned recently that more men’ woth have to be put into infantry units to get the most out of olr authorized strength. He said too many were getting cushy jobs in rear-echelon forces. The 20,000 “supporting troops,” Gen. Marshall says we're planning to send to Europe might be more than enough to make up another division if the Army would tighten its belt. :

# » » ” » » FIRST, by cutting down on those special service units which look after the soldiers’ recreation and off-duty welfare, taking a particularly big slice out of the “information and education” branch. And second, by enlisting more women—more WACs. World War II proved what women in service could do. At first they were accepted dubiously and assigned only to the simplest, least responsible tasks. But by the end of the war they had taken over some 200 military occupational specialties. And Gen. Eisenhower and Adm. Nimitz were saying they'd never seen anything like it.

Fair Representation

EACH member of the U. S. House of Representatives ought to represent approximately the same number of people. There are good reasons why each can’t represent exactly the same number. But there's no good reason for, and no fairness in, the huge disparities that now exist. One Ohio representative, for example, has over 908,000 people in his district. = Another from the same state has only 167,000. And one from South Dakota has only 148,000. : In six states there is a difference of more than 400,000 between the populations of the largest and smallest Congressional Districts. In six other states, the gap is more than 300,000. In 12 others, it is more than 200,000. «a s = ” » » . THAT'S NOT all. Some states, instead of forming new districts as their populations increase, elect Represent-atives-At-Large. And many states have districts “gerrymandered” into peculiar shapes to block in or block out groups of voters for political advantage. Growth of the nation's population, as shown by the 1950 census, means that some states are now entitled to more seats in the House, others to fewer, others to their present number. The bill proposes: That each state entitled to more than one Representative shall establish a Congressional District for each Representative. (To stop the practice of electing Congressmen “at large.”) - That each district shall be composed of compact and contiguous territory. (To stop gerrymandering.) » » » » ~ ~ THAT each district's population shall not be more than 15 per cent larger or smaller than the average number obtained by dividing the state's total population by the number of districts in the state. (To insure that each Representative shall represent as nearly as possible the same number of people.) Mr. Celler’s bill would enforce itself by denying a seat Zz the House to any Representative elected from a district aot conforming to the bill's requirements. He says the eme Court has held that Congress has power to set up standards which the states must follow. . Many politicians, in and out of Congress; may not like - this bill because it would deprive them of unfair political

FRANKFURT, Feb. 17—Germany will not agree to the French plan for a European army at the Paris Conference now in progress, Neither the Adenauer coalition cabinet which approves the idea in principle, nor the large Socialist opposition party which damns it, thinks France should or can control an integrated continental army, as the French desire. A German veto on French control would kill the Pleven Plan even if the Allies were enthusiastic for it, which they are not. Most Atlantic Pact members will be represented at the conference only by observers. Even those sending delegates—Italy, Belgium and Luxembourg, be-

Eskimo Pie

sides Germany—doubt that the plan is practicable and they are too small to swing it, anyway. “Though the conference was launched with a formal Truman-Acheson blessing and the United States will have an observer there, the U. 8. Government has no faith in it. Washington is merely making a gesture of friendship to the Paris Government, now having domestic troubles, and keeping the bargain made at the Brussels Conference in Decembér. There, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization obtained Fren~h agreement to German rearmament by allowing France to hold a European army conference providing she didn't delay the organi-

By Talburt

WHISKY OUTPUT . . . By Earl Richert

Distillers Pour on the Steam To Beat Possible Curtailment

WASHINGTON, Feb. 17—There are now more than five gallons of hard liquor (whisky, gin and rum) in bonded warehouses for every man, woman and child in the U. 8.—the largest stocks in history. At the 1950 rate of consumption, this is A equivalent to a five to six year supply. And it doesn't count the liquor now stacked to the rafters in most wholesale and retail houses. But despite this flood of liquor, the distillers are still going full blast, just as they have been since Korea. And many of them are spending millions to build new warehouses to ctore the new liquor. Their Charles Brannan old warehouses are full. wily hogs and corn Reason for this frantic manufacturing and stockpiling of whisky is the fear that the government will curtail whisky production as it did in World War II. And it is a real fear. The Agriculture Department several times since the beginning of the Korean War has seriously considered ordering a reduction in whisky output. At the moment, no order is imminent. But the department is getting ready.

A study is now being made of grain needs for the livestock industry and of the amount used by the whisky industry. The department is set to name a whisky industry advisory committee which will be consulted on a ‘standby’ order. Purpose is to have a curtailment order “in the drawer” all ready to go when it is found necessary to conserve grain for livestock and food purposes. All that would be needed would

SIDE GLANCES

~~. "I'll help you, Mom, after | answer these letters from boys in the service—we have to be patrioticl”

By Galbraith

be insertion of a figure, to limit the distilling industry to a certain percentage of its preKorean production. The order will be issued, according to Agri-

““gulture Secretary Charles Brannan, “whenever

we find that the distillers are competing with our hogs for corn.” He estimates that the country will be feeding 101 million head of hogs this year. On Jan. 1, there were 65 million hogs on farms, about five million more than a year earlier. And cattle on farms are near an all-time pegk, the number on Jan, 1, 1951, being 84,175, 000—four million more than a year earlier. Corn is used heavily for cattle feeding.

At the start of the corn harvesting season last October, the country had a record carryover of 800 million bushels. But heavy livestock feeding has caused this corn and the new crop to disappear at a much faster than expected rate. And department experts estimate that the

start of the 1951 corn harvest will find the

country with a much smaller carryover.

Calls for Hike

MR. BRANNAN has called for a six millionacre increase in corn plantings this year. “What we're doing is watching everything closely,” said one official. “If corn plantings go up as we hope and if there isn’t too great a disappearance in the corn supply, then we may not have to order a curtailment in whisky production. Nothing is imminent right now. But things can change mighty fast.” Whisky industry spokesmen deny reports that the industry, with supplies bulging, would welcome a curtailment order. They say that when a curtailment order is put into effect someone is always treated unfairly by it. The whisky industry says it uses less than 1 per cent of the country’s total corn supplies: Consumption of all distilled spirits for 1850 is estimated at 1.20 gallons per person, a slight increase from the 1.17 in 1949.

Detroit this time.

munitions effort. In the last war it produced about a third of the nation’s total output in goods made of metal. Again today orders are beginning to pour in for almost every conceivable kind of war weapon. Yet big orders are going elsewhere, too. Chrysler's big order for tank engines, made previously by Continental Motors Corp. and concentrateddin Michigan, is to be filled in New. Orleans. The story is that Continental has been told to increase its own capacity but not in Michigan— and it's turning southward for & new plant.

” " » CHRYSLER has an order for about $500 million-of medium and heavy tanks—but they're to be assembled In a new plant in Delaware. Cadillac's tank order, also close to $500 million, is to be filled in Cleveland. ~ Ford's contract for 4000horsepower Pratt and Whitney: engines for the B-36 bomber. is to be filled in Detroit. « * General Motors will build

zation of Eisenhower's Atlantic Pact army with Britain opposes the plan for a separate continental army as out of line with the larger At-

lantic force conception, even though French Premier Rene Pleven it would be under

Gen. Eisenhower's over-all command, al with

separate American and British units. Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin's earlier statement on this was franker than Prime Minister Attlee’s explanation to Parliament Monday. Mr. Attlee said Britain was not clear on the plan, but wasn’t throwing cold water on it. Not even the French Government takes its own plan seriously, in the sense of wanting

prompt German participation in the western de- -

fense. French policy is to delay German rearmament as long as possible and when it becomes inevitable, then minimize its dangers by French control of German troops. France wants to delay: ONE: In hope that Russia at the proposed Big Four Conference will agree to a compromise in the cold war which will make West German rearmament unnece A TWO: If that fails, then France hopes to have time to build up her own military strength, with American aid, before Germany is allowed to get started. THREE: Finally, France hopes that Germany, a year or two hence, will be more will than now to accept French majority con in a France-Benelux-German political union capping the proposed Schuman Plan for economic partrership and the Pleven Plan for a military merger. * &

» THE GERMAN government wants the Paris Conference to delay instead of speed action be« cause: ONE: Chancellor Konrad Adenauer cannot face West German hostility to rearmament without at least a limited bipartisan foreign policy agreement with the Socialist opposition leader, Kurt Schumaker. He needs time for these delicate domestic political negotiations especially as Mr. Schumaker is demanding a national referendum election. 3 . Adenauer has a better i power at Petersberg than at Paris. Datsuining berg, outside the West German capital, his experts are negotiating with the Americans, British and French under the Brussels Conference mandate for German rearmament, instead of with the French only as at the Paris Conference. In the Petersberg sessions he has two advantages: He can stall more easily because the conversations are only “exploratory,” and he can play the friendlier United States against the reluctant French and British. THREE: The Germans figure they can get better rearmament terms and more Veale from the Allies after the failure of a Big Four Conference proves their troops are urgently necessary to the Atlantic defense. i oe oo WHILE the Paris Conference is not e to result in any binding agreements SEpeun from possible agreement in principle which is meaningless—it will give both sides an opportunity to show their hands more than hitherto. France probably won't insist too much on the original Pleven idea of a European defense minister subject to a European Council of Ministers to control the proposed European army, The , United States insists on North Atlantic Treaty Organization control in any event, and the Ger-

Confession of Defeat MR. EDITOR:

Your editorial, Confession of Defeat, goes to the very heart of our fight to control the United Nations, and secure a condemnation of Red China as the aggressor. After the most awkward burlesque of Parliamentary Law ever heard of we won. But as your editorial points

out we really won nothing by winning and we lost a great deal.

The most sorrowful part of the affair was that the Asiatic bloc for the first time stood solidly together—fighting to the bitter end—not under our banner, but under that of Russia. The spirit of Asia for the Asiatics was very much in evidence in this session of the U. N.—and Soviet Russia was the champion of that revived spirit. I imagine Joe Stalin is very well pleased with the result of this session. He didn’t make any mistake. His amendment purposely came at the last minute and‘ caused a parliamentary furor-—just as he wanted it to do. % HIS AMENDMENT, as the delegate from Liberia pointed out, was of no significance—except to delay, but it succeeded in provoking a parliamentary. battle high jirikks and in the process of that high jinks the Soviet succeeded in putting the halter on the Asiatic bloc and leading it out of the affair—an oppressed minority trampled on by an arbitrary majority, The delegates of the United Kingdom and Norway saw the Soviet strategy and tried to stave off the U. S. steam roller. But the convention went on its course just like a Democratic convention down in deep Louisiana. The affair was disgusting even to an American—let alone an Asiatic, Thanks to our U, 8. delegates to the U. N. the Soviet has succeeded in putting the halter on the Asiatic bloc and getting the Asiatic bloc used to that halter, Mr, Austin won his battle of spite like a true small ward American politiclan, and Joe Stalin won his battle of diplomatic strategy. Stalin won't have to suffer many defeats like this before he becomes complete master of the Asiatic situation. : —Joe E. DeLancey, Crawfordsville.

WAR PRECAUTION . . . By Charles Lucey.

- U. S. Spreading Out Defense Production

“I do not agree with a word that you say, but

mans don’t want a Frenchman as European Defense 5 Shan

r will be mainly interpretation of “equality.” fragt it in principe but the Germans demand f 18 tact. ; The French are unwilling to grant the Ger-

mans a national army in addijjoristo troops in the European army, though ce as well as Britain and the United States have their

own national armies besides ‘their forces as signed to Gen. Eisenhower, 0 The total number of German forces according to the French should not exceed 20 per cent of the European army, Germany would prefer 20 per cent of the larger Atlantic forces. The French originally wanted no German military units but only German soldiers scattered thrbugh a glorified Foreign Legion-type army. Under United States and British pres-

sure the French agreed in the Brussels Pact that Germany could have a combat team or brigade group as a maximum unit of one-third division size. This was variously estimated from 4000 to 6000. The military consensus of the Allies as well as Germany is that a division is the minimum practicable unit. Related issues include the size and type of allowable German air force and general staff representation. All these technical problems, however, are less important than two basic questions: Is German rearmament as urgent as the Brussels Conference agreed and as U. 8. representatives here still insist, or is it seco! and merely a possibility for exploration, as the French and now the British maintain? Is Germany to be liberated from Allied cone trols and restored to full equality before rearming—which she wants—or are the two developments to be parallel and gradual, as the Allies intended at Brussels? Because there is no agreement on these questions, no progress has been made at Petersberg and even less is expected at the Paris Conference. With France, Britain and Germany all stalling for different reasons, and only the United States speed, there is no prospect of real progress at least until after a Big Four Conference gives Stalin a chance to arrange a phony settlement.

| will defend to the death your right to say it."

‘Remember Their Stand’ MR. EDITOR: a

« + « When we consider that welfare is one of the minor administrations in our complex government, what would we face if we had the socialized medicine and the socialistic-commu-nistic Brannan farm plan, and a few other of the fringegsoclalistic schemes, added to what we already have? Any child would know that when the bureaucrats can make grown men dance like monkeys at the crack of their whip, we would not be far from a completely sovietized government. When we consider that over night, without time for sound reasoning or other extenuating consideration, men'—not adolescents—whom we elected to office to represent us, and who had publicly announced their views on the Welfare bill No. 86, completely reversed themselves, without a word of explanation or alibi. Only one conclusion can be drawn from such antics— someone got to them. Ought we not all be proud of such representation? Any man who has the courage of his convictions and takes a public stand on his views, but who is convinced by sound reasoning that he is wrong and is man enough to so say, is deserving of the highest respect. But when we know that reasoning was not the cause of the change of heart, that it was scare-tactics such actions aré not even excusable. And I sincerely hope the constituents of these men will remember them at the polls next time. —A. J. Schneider, City.

A WORKER'S PRAYER

Dear God, give me the health and strength «++ 80 I can make my way . . . give me the faith to follow through . . . however dark the day . . . instill in me the will to do . . . what ever may be right . . . so I can know true happiness . . . and make each new day bright . . , my God, hold me within your fold . . . and keep me safe from harm . . . and should I chance to stray from You... please take me by the arm + +» +» 80 that when day comes to an end ... I can go back home . . . where I will live by your dear grace . . , until again I roam. --By Ben Burroughs.

The French

DETROIT, Feb. 17—Bombs and sabotage can get in their best licks where defense plants are piled closely together, and so a lot of the big military orders are being channeled away from

This town’s vast labor force has a savvy you just can’t buy in. many places, and it always will figure heavily in any big

Thunderjet engines in Kansas City, Kas. Where it can, the Defense Department is. getting defense production side-by-side with civilian production. At Dodge, military: and commercial vehicles have been rolling off the same production lines. GMC trucks for both military and civilian use are flowing from the same plant. At KaiserFrazer, plane and auto lines will run side-by-side. » » » IN GENERAL, auto companies are being asked now to make items they showed they could produce efficiently during World War II. The companies themselves are interested in sticking to their lasts—Ford, for example, has lots of experience in forging, casting, shaping and machining metals, electrical instrument work, assembly. It is interested particularly in bidding on defense work fitting into these crafts

Jt knows best.

Some World War II facilities, built as the very finest then,

won't do the job today. Ford made Pratt & Whitney airplane engines at River Rouge, for example—but not the monsters they're making for the B-36 bombers today, The 18-cylinder engine built here in World War II measured 2800 cubic inches. Today's 28-cylinder job runs 4360 cubic inches. The machinery that handled the smaller simply can’t take the larger parts. The engineers out here say that, in any cage, it’s often faster and more economical to build a whole new plant than to tear out an old one and retool a new job. The biggest standard auto engines today are about 150 horsepower, It requires a different production line to turn out .500-horsepower tank engines,

= ¥ ~ GENERAL purpose machine tools may be shifted from civilian to defense work, but much of Detroit's mass production magic has been built on special purpose machine tools. A multiple drill which can work over a crankshaft in fine style would be of no use in a defense job calling for altogether different parts. Ca But it will be months—more than a year, in some cases— before the production lines on

the way to conversion here are in actual defense operations, and the fight of the auto coms panies today is to get enqugh raw materials to stay in business. Both management and union leaders have succeeded in getting original Washington orders on aluminum relaxed and are battling now to stave off deep steel cuts, -

” ” ” 4 FORD people estimated at one point that if originally scheduled heavy aluminum cuts were: ordered it would have been laying off 50,000 men at once. The biggest problem in aluminum is pistons. Shifting from aluminum to cast iron means the whole weight balance of an engine is changed, and it demands extensive redesigning and retooling, The auto industry knows it will have to cut back ag defense output grows, but it is asking for gradual cuts. And United Auto Workers President Walter Reuther has told Wash-

ington he thinks it's more im- -

portant to build autos and expand the country’s transportation pool than to impose flat, across-the-board cuts which treat this industry the same as factories making aluminum ash trays and copper beer . mugs.

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