Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 25 May 1952 — Page 18

.

Department.

“probable”

How to Make Shortages “It W shalt aan ahinfien tells ws when ie Tried to find any potatoes lately? » » » ”. .

AMERICANS for Democratic Action cheered President Truman. He has kept their platform inviolate for

000 housing “How To Be

"The Indianapolis Times 7 —— "A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER i

Editor y Business Manager

PAGE 18

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Telephone PL ara 5551 Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Wap

§

Politics for Profit

8 POSTMASTER GEORGE RESS says, there was nothing illegal about his taking $1 million or so of federal deposits out of the bank where they had been for years and putting them in a bank controlled by a Democratic politician, There could have been no other possible reason for doing it, though, than to divert the profits on this business away from one institution to the other. Mr. Ress had just been appointed postmaster, by a Democratic President-—an appointment we felt he richly deserved after his 34 years of service in the Post Office His was, indeed, the first appointment in Indianapolis under the administration’s much-touted plan to “take the Post Office out of politics” and appoint postmasters for life, on their own merits. “nonpolitical” career postmasters. Almost his first official act was to shift government funds to the profit of a leader of the political party that_ had just given him the job.

He is the first of our

NO, THERE wasn’t a thing illegal about it. It fits snugly, though, into a pattern that has become so universal under this administration-that we aren't even. very much shocked any more at each new revelation of it. It is a pattern that appears to make no real distinction between public funds entrusted to public servants—and the private funds of administration favorites. In its prettiest aspects it turns up as pastel mink coats and “free” deep-freezers and lush Florida vacations, a bigger scale it runs to huge payments to firms with political connections for munitions that never were made and never were even ordered—and 6800 per cent profits in quickie stock deals—all perfectly legal. And on a still bigger screen come the Lustron corporations, and the public financing of private ventures for private profit, and the tax “fixes” and the “fast buck” shipping deals, and the literally scores of others that have so far been uncovered. It is a pattern that makes it the accepted course of action for political favorites to make fortunes out of government connections. i” .

On

. NO FINANCIAL harm has been done by Mr. Ress’ payment of a political debt with a purely political favor, The government—and the public—has lost nothing by it. Either bank is perfectly suitable for handling the deposits of public funds, and presumably one could do it as well as the other. : + eT a Ethically, though, this sudden transfer is simply a part of the political “spoils” system we believed had been finally eliminated from the Post Office with his appointment. "This transfer makes it clear that it hasn't been quite eliminated in spite of all the high-flown twaddle that aceompanied the plan to “take our postmasters out of politics.” Apparently what that really meant was take ‘em out of Republican politics. )

He Deserves'lt . ADMIRAL C. TURNER JOY is coming home to be perintendent of the United States Naval Academy at

. For 11 months, he has headed the United Nations delegation to the Ko

rean truce talks at Kaesong and Panmun-

Jom. He is the last of our original negotiators. «It is difficult to imagine a more thankless chore. Day after day, he had listened to the foul mouthings of the Reds’ negotiators. He has shown great patience, a willingness to be fair, but a stubborn determination not to yield on

We share the happiness and relief -of this fine naval officer and Mrs. Joy as they start home. In the superintendent’s residence overlooking the Severn River in historic old Annapolis, we hope they find the peace, the serenity, the contentment they have been denied for the past year. If ever a man deserved that, it is C. Turner Joy.

Possible and Probable

Weatherman is planning to take his foot out of

Working together, the Weather Bureau and the University of Chicago have set up a project they hope will make weather forecasting so exact that’ the words -“probable” and “possible” may be removed from the daily

.- No more of those “probable showers” warnings which "drive pedestrians to ‘distraction, trying to decide whether - to take an umbrella or take a chance. No more “possible stow flurries,” + If the project succeeds, the Weather Bureau will come right out flatly and say: “It's going to rain cats and dogs.” Meteorology being such a complex science, it is the boys won't make it, but just “possible”

ant and when to reap we efferson. ¢

never made a pass at it.

SEN, BYRD OF VIRGINIA says that Korean peace Js not in sight, bit that can’t be the reason Fair Dealers a. “ . rw: * » a SENATE investigation of Sen. McCarthy's $10,pamphlet should be published under the title An Author.” Lil

c — President Truman appoints

{from sheer necessity and “necessity .

Sunday, May 25, 1952 0 A

POLITICS . .

. By Irving Leibowitz

¥

Top State GOP Leaders Boost Harrell to Beat George Craig

© Without fanfare, top Indi- - ana Republicans have unvelled their ‘‘secret weapon” to beat George Craig for Governor Sam Harrell, Noblesville businessman, In politically intense Indiana, it is sometimes hard to tell who is on whose side in a red hot election campaign. Today, two weeks before the Republican State Convention, it is becoming increasingly apparent certain key GOP organization leaders are behind Mr, Harrell's bid for governor in a united effort to “stop” Mr. Craig, former national American legion commander, Top GOP organization leaders have nothing personal Against Mr. Craig, feel he is a personable and popular can‘didate. But they believe, despite his denials, he is tied up with the Eisenhower-for-Presi-dent camp in Indiana. And that's a “political sin” among Indiana’s overwhelmingly Taft Republicans. A visit to the strongly proTaft Republican State headquarters in the Claypool Hotel gives visitors the impression every move, every strategy, every organization - backed candidate exists for the sole purpose of handing Sen. Taft all 32 Indiana delegates to the national convention in Chicago.

Craig Is Exception

EVERY candidate for Governor, except Mr. Craig, has declared his solid support of Sen. Taft for President. So, Mr, Craig, Indianapolis attorney, faces an uphill fight to line up organization backing. Most politicians feel Mr, Craig is so far out front in the Governor's Sweepstakes he can lick all other candidates one at a time—but certainly not all at once, which he may have to do to win the nomination, So far, three powerful Republicans appear to be lining

up with Mr, Harrell. They are: John Lauer, former GOP

state chairman and now a member of the - all-powerful state committee. He is Mr. Harrell's campaign manager.

U. 8. Sen. Homer E. Capehart who is from Mr, Craig's own homie district. State Chairman Cale J. Holder, an ardent Taft supporter, who would—and could ~ wield tremendous influence

to prevent the nomination’ of any candidate who had the slightest Eisenhower tinge.

Appears Hand Picked

SO FAST has Mr. Harrell progressed, it almost appears as if he was the organization's handpicked candidate from the start.

But Mr. Harrell is going to’ have - his chief conventi trouble not from the other candidates for governor, but from a candidate for lieutenant governor — William Fortune, Carmel. Both came from Hamilton County and it is doubtful convention delegates would nominate two men from the same area for top posts.

State Sen. Handley's switch from the governor's race to the contest for lieutenant governor was a clear cut effort to provide “tough opposition” for Mr. Fortune and help Mr. Harreil. But Mr. Fortune's popu- : larity is such with rank and file Republicans and county GOP leaders that Mr. Handley, La Porte businessman, could easily lose even with organization support.

There is a good chance W. O. Hughes, Ft. Wayne attorney and Speaker of the Indiana House of Representatives, might be shifted at the last* moment behind Mr. Harrell. He is a strict party disciplinarian and a strong Taft supporter. Presumably, he would do almost anything the organization wanted.

VanNess Stands Alone

ONE candidate for governor, John VanNess, Valparaiso merchant, is expected to win or lose all by himself with no deals. He is running on his record as State Senate GOP leader. However, in a final showdown between Craig and Harrell, he would be expected to throw his support behind Mr. Harrell. . Secretary of State Leland Smith, one of the leading contenders for governor, has a personal political machine -—

HOOSIER SKEFCHBOOK

s« governor. In

thanks to his control over the patronage - lush county license brangh bureaus, The state organization possibly would “take” him over Mr, Craig, but they are afraid of his rebellious nature. He was one of the Republican “rebels” who opposed the GOP leadership on the welfare secrecy fight in the 1951 State Legislature. Mr. Smith was against opening the welfare rolls to the public for fear it might result in curtailment of federal funds for Indiana. But even Mr. Smith, Logansport attorney, has an “ace-in-the-hole.” One of his old political chums and supporters, Robert Kyle, Culver, is headquarters manager for Francis T. McCarty, Brimfield industrialist, another candidate for a convention showdown, Mr. Kyle presumably could deliver to Mr. Smith whatever support Mr. McCarty had, if any.

Barbs—

AFTER ALL, horse sense is just good old stable thinking. tf J w » ONE great problem. says a scientist, is to find something worthwhile to do with leisure time. That ought to be a good laugh for mother. i. 8 8 A FLORIDA boy caught a fish with three pennies in it. Not bad, when you consider the fins it also had. LJ " » TWO operations in one: a wife's face lifted and a husband's jaw dropped-—when he sees the hill, ” ” ”

NATURE is often too consistent—never making an egotist without giving him plenty of tongues! = . = = AJUDGE suggests that cars ‘be taken away from all habitually careless drivers. That would be one way of cutting

’

, down traffic congestion.

vA CHECK on autos in an Illinois town showed that one

in every spven was faulty. A check on drivers might be more interesting.

/

DEAR BOSS . . By Dan Kidney

Vey

COs

Hoosier Congressmen Find Waste In Defense During Global Flight

WASHINGTON, May 24— Two Indiana “members of Congress, who “flew around the “world to try and save the taxpayers money, today are “pointing with pride” to their accomplishments. They are Reps. Charles Brownson, Indianapolis, and Cetil Harden, Covington. The latter also is the GOP national committeewoman from Indiana.

bureaucracies continue relatively. undisturbed and frequently operate in ways unknown to the chairman of the board, or to his superior, the Secretary of Defense. “The cardinal principle of civilian -control over the military is vitiated in the process.’

hb DD

THE “CIVILIAN” chairman of the munle

Their world waste findings are incorporated ™' tions board is John ®. Small, a Texas business-

in a pamphlet entitled “Sixteenth Intermediate Report of the Committee on Expenditures in the Executive Departments.” That it is not a partisan job is shown from the fact the whole report was approved by the Overseas Survey Committee headed by Herbert C. Bonner (D. N. C.). The final draft was approved by the full committee of which Rep. William IL, Dawson (D. Ill.) is chairman, Everywhere the Bonner Subcommitteemen went, they held hearings. These #re to’ he published shortly and will justify in détail their findings. according to both Hoosier members.

we ale

THE MAIN finding was that the’ Defense Secretary has not yet put into actual practice the mass purchase of “common use” items for the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines. Quite the contrary, the report states, the Air Force is setting up a third supply system and the Army and Navy still retain their own, Democrats and Republicans alike took a dim view. of this procedure. It is this failure to make obvious savings in supply that results in big cuts in defense ppropriations, they pointed out. The Munitions Board; charged with making unification of supply recommendations to Defense Secretary Lovett, and the Secretary's own office hayen’t dome much in this matter, the committee found. “Directives have been issued in profusion,” the Bonner report states. “But the vast military

AREER MRIINRRRAn

TORT RTIENA TRAN IRRNORTRRPNPRRRNNINES MR. EDITOR: : It makes me just a little sick t6 read about

those “highly-interested-in-college-to-keep-out-

of-service” boys spending their time going on pantie raids while their less fortunate buddies 80 on Communist raids in Korea. I say, get rid of that law that allows those lazy, pantie snaring college boys to keep out of service, and let them all have a taste of gunfire. They would find raiding in Korea a lot different than raiding girls’ rooms in the United States. Do they call that kind of immoral thing

.

La E ENE r aur RESON A RIOR Ra NNN s aR ae RESIN AA Re RRS TESNNseTnie sess tat asssiintistsns nisiils

Hoosier Forum—‘Pantie Craze’

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

. Shame on them all,

man with a.naval background. He was one of the 150 “big businéssmen’ listed this week by Sen. Homer E. Capehart (R, Ind.) as holding top-flight jobs with the Truman administration, He was graduated from the U. 8. Naval Academy in 1915. During World War II he returned to the Navy and rose to the revived rank of commodore. % Sen. Capehart listed his big business connectiong as heing:, President of Maxson Food Systems, and vice president of Dry Ice Corp. Because they concluded that the present setup has failed to function and effect, what they consider easily obtainable, savings of mil. lions and perhaps billions of dollars, the committeemen recommend another type.

alle. w

THEY WOULD create the office of Assistant Secretary of Defense for Supply. This office would assume the functions of the Munitions Board. The job proposed for the new assistant secretary would be to carry out in the supply field what Congress intended when it voted for unification of the Armed Services. He would develop procedures, recruit a com, petent staff and develop standardjzed supply depots and service installations throughout the United States and “unified logistic organizations overseas.” Both the globe circling Indiana Congress. man say “amen” to that.” “We just want our defense dollars to make more sense,” Mr. Brownson said.

Inc,

. "wr PARNER PERRIN NAIR RRIRNER TTR RRP RIP R NE

enough to make a boy worthy of an education® I have no son in Korea, but I feel shame that. we have other people’s sons here in the United

' States “playing games” while these poor unedu-

cated boys face the game of death and protect such wishy-washy college bums as these pantie party boys. Line them up and draft them, every one, They deserve nothing better. I'm so disgusted with this scandal I could personally go and slap every one of these college boys—and hard. —A Citizen, City.

HE WAS A GOOD HOST . . . By Frederick C. Othman Suave Jack Threw Some Party; Even the President Paid a Visit

WASHINGTON, May 24 — We might as well be practical about this. If I'd been Secretary of Agriculture, I'd also have taken my sweet time

"about firing Jack I. Cowart

from the government as a common, garden-variety craok. He had friends. Take the“time the suave Jack with the broad-brimmed hat and the drawl from the wide open spaces tossed a little birthday luncheon for Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn. All the Texas Congressmen were there. So were most other Texans in the government, from Supreme Court Justice Tom Clark (who then was Attorney General) on down. A wonderful host was Jack. He really spread out a feed, Well, Sir, just as Speaker Rayburn was taking his first bite of brofled Alaska salmon

steak, who should walk in but

President Truman, himself. This was in 1948, The Speaker was 66 years old. The party over, Jack dropped back to the Agriculture Department, where he was a $10,-000-a-year official of the Pro-

duction and Marketing Ad-

ministration. Soon there came hints that maybe Jack was a chiseler and also a shakedowp artist.

» » - THESE RUMORS were difficult for Secretary of Agriculture Charles Brannan to believe. A fellow with pals like Jack's simply couldn't: be a louse, or so thought his bosses. Jack continued to throw his weight around. He tried to get a piece of a warehouse in Baton Louge, La. on threats that the gov-

" ernment never would rent fit

if he didn’t. He also tried to put the bite on some gents

By O’Donnell

who later were fined $50,000 for the way they ran a cotton warehouse at Corpus Christi, Tex. These were serious charges, all right, but it was almost a year later before Jack finally was fired as a no-good. What the Senate Agriculture Committee wanted to know was. why did the Secretary take so long tossing out Jack?

= = " ME, I SYMPATHIZED with the Secretary, The answer was obvious, You've got to treat a gent with powerful pals gently until you're dead sure You've got the goods on him. “You go to this party Cowart gave for the Speaker?” asked Sen. George D. Aiken (R. Vt). “The one the President attended?” “Yes, sir,” said Mr. Brannan. “I believe I was there.” The suspicious Sen. Aiken sent his office girl out to look

up the date of the Speaker's birthday and then over to the Congressional Library to see whether this affair of Jack's was mentioned in the society columns. She struck it rieh, The Senator read aloud the account of the party, about the tears in the Speaker's eyes and about how he was about to clamp down on that pink fish when the President walked in. Carefully, Sen. Aiken read the guest list of big-shot Texans and agriculture officials. He couldn't find the name of Secretary Brannan.

‘Cowart really had the friends,” said the Senator, “but Mr. Secretary, I don't believe you were at this lunch.” Brannan said he guessed he wasn’t. But, he’s pretty sure he’d been invited, and he still wished he could have made it, The way I figure it, the Secre~ tary fancies broiled salmon.

DEFENSE CUT MOTIVES . .. By Peter Edson Reduction Means Less Armamentand Morale

\ WASHINGTON, May 24 -—Two principal motives. are given for the congressional desire to hack a billion dollar or bigger cut off President Truman’s proposed $6.9 billion forgign ald program for next year, The first is a sincere desire to balance the U, 8. budget and prevent deficit financing. The second is a critical reaction to waste by the Department of Defense... There was a general feeling that if greater efficiency was used in military procurement, just as much defense could be purchased and a billion dollars would be saved. The real, die-hard isolationists who believe that any money spent overseas is wasted were found to be few in number in the foreign affairs committees, The size of the final cuts is still undetermined. The Senate Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees agreed on a 12.66 per cent cut on all items, right across the board. The House proposes a 20 per cent cut on European aid only, with a 10 per cent cut on defense support, économie -assistance.

May Be Cut Further

THE final figure will haye to be determined in conference between the two branches of Congress. ’ ? A few guides on ‘what arms aid costs are given by the office of Military Assistance Di‘rector, Brig. Gen. George H. Olmstead. . 5 On the average, the U. SN. contribution to rearming each new European division has been $133 million. Each eountry furnishes its own men, _ pays, feeds, uniforms, shelters and furnishes basic equipment. To equip one fighter-homb-er squadron. with tactical aircraft costs the U, 8. $25 million. Three are needed for®™

each land division. Add this

$75 million for air support to the $133 million for a division.

}

less,

of ground forces and you get $208. million. A billion-dollar cut is therefore the equivalent of sacrificing arms for five European divisions. Another unclassified figure is that it costs $400,000 a day to keep the artillery of one division supplied with ammunitior in time of war, with all guns firing. A billion dollars is therefore the equivalent of the reserve ammunition sup ply of Europe's 25 active divisions for only 100 days.

Return Can Be Doubled C. TYLER WOOD, deputy director of MSA, who has been working with the congressional committees on the fore eign aid bill, presents another estimate on what cuts in economic aid money may mean. The $1.4 billion requested for defense-support raw materials is estimated to give a twoand - a - half - times return, or $3.5 billion worth of military supplies which the European countries would be able to produce for themselves, This amounts to their half of the equipment for 10 European divisions, plus 750 fighter aircraft, plus 40 mine sweepers, plus 30 destroyer escorts, If the U. 8. were required to make up this amount of equipment, producing it in this country, it would cost five times the $1.4 billion, or $7 billion. : Making big cuts in the foreign aid program may have no great effect on the European rearmament program this year. Where this will hit hardest,

“however, is in equipping the 12

new German army divisions, which have to be started from u

> scratch. :

Two effects of the cuts may be felt immediately. The first will be a slow-down of U. 8, defense production, due to re. duction of orders. The second

“will be a drop in morale of Eu-

ropean allies who have been

urged to do more, only to find that the U. 8, proposes to do -

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