Philadelphia PTC Strike

KHINOY, ANDREW

Washington and I In* Nation P^CJONATHAN STOUT CONTINUED) tjafere th" Sen»t*'* Temporary National Economic jEawpoly Committee by Auiitant Secretary of Stati Ia. Berle, Jr , »n May », 193D. That...

...If'$ flie Some Old World (Continued from Pag* One) potence of the League of Nations, Throughout the dii cussioiu the Russian delegation insisted upon a um nimity rule for the Security Council...
...He knows that their work is confined entirely to loan and credit relations between individual citizens and the government...
...And that, self-evidently, expresses the very opposite of what Dewey tried by misrepresentation to make Berle appear to be saying...
...This.week there came dramatic confirmation of that report when, following the Red Army's invasion of Yugoslavia, the British rushed troops into Greece and Albania to protect British claims to a hegemony over those two Mediterranean countries...
...An aspirant to the White House should have a more meticulous sense of honorl • * • HULL SPANKS DIWEY • The second incident came a couple of days later when Dewey sources fed certain selected newspapermen *la hush-hush pipelines the suggestion that Dewey, if (Jetted, intended to retain Cordell Hull as Secretary of State...
...Dewey owes Hull an apology for this deliberate attempt to east a shadow on his honor and integrity...
...Eventually it was scheduled to go to three percent in order to build up the insurance fund so that when large numbers begin to retire regularly every year, there would be enough money in the fund to cover the payments...
...Now Republican Senator Vandenberg of Michigan threstens to block the scheduled increase to two per cent agsin...
...i is a public document and therefore open to anyone t'o read for himself...
...Three years ago it should have gone to two percent in order to provide for the heavy drains when old-age retirements begin to show up in bulk...
...As a res jit, they see no prospect of lowering present Income taxes before 1947...
...Cordell Hull at 73 la a doughty old gentleman, still full of Are and quick wit, as the newspapermen who regularly cover the State Department have reason to know...
...What Berle roally said is written in the record...
...Russia, particularly, seek strategic frontiers while Britain and the U.S.A...
...The Republicans would raise the base to $11 a week...
...It forthrightly passed the lie right back to over-anxious Candidate Dewey...
...Payroll deductions for this purpose originally started with a one percent tax...
...POSTWAR TAXES—GO P. VS...
...Both propose raising the base at which taxes start from the present $600 a year, which is approximately $9.60 a week...
...I read the Berle report...
...It is insincere, dishonest and unfair It should have been beneath the dignity and high principle of a man who aspires to the highest honor within the power of the American people to bestow...
...Dewey ">ade tricky and ethically questionable use of the easy confusion between the terms "corporate" and "corporative...
...In that sentence, as he used it at Charleston...
...It is the definite function of the financial system to make this possible at aJl times...
...Instead of a realisation of the dream < Woodrow Wilson, we shall have something comparabl with the Holy Alliance...
...slaying the monster, our enemy number one—war...
...NEW DEAL • Treasury experts have been figuring what it will take in the way of taxes to pay for the war...
...Dewey knows that in fascist Italy under Mussolini the Council of Corporations was a legislative body, identical in function to that of Russia's Supreme Soviet, and parallel in position to that of our Congress...
...Each government plans the mainti nance of a gigantic military establishment, indicating lack of faith in collective security...
...Whereas the Home Owners Loan Corporation or the Reconstruction Finance Corporation or the Commodity Credit Corporation (to name only three of the examples of the 55 government corporations Dewey referred to), as any child knows, are not legislative bodies...
...The Democrats do s little better, raising it to $15 a week...
...Let as not cover the brntal facta with illusions and wishful thinking...
...According to th Russian plan no one of the live super-powers can t proceeded against without a unanimous decision—an no power is to be ruled off the jury while its own affaii are being settled...
...However, the New Desl promises some balancing compensations by advocating raising the hourly minimum of the Wage and Hour Law to at least 60 and perhaps 60 cents an hour...
...On the contrary, they are creations and creatures of Congress, and exist solely at the discretion of the Congress which we, the people, elected...
...As anyone with a more painstaking sense of honor Bight hsve known, such a suggestion was very near to implying that the Secretary of State was playing the President false, betraying him and secretly workins...
...The next largest iron deposits in the Western hemisphere sre in Brazil...
...There is a good deal of worry being quietly expressed in government circles st the rate at which America is stripping its natural resources In the furthering of the war effort...
...Because there could not be any question of a mistake, for only two paragraphs later Berle made very clear what his own views were, in the following words: "In a democratic organisation of economy, the obvious end should be to permit and require private initiative to do as much of the work as it can, consistent with maintaining the national economy on a reasonably even flow, distributing the burdens and benefits meanwhile so that no class will be unduly famed, no class unduly burdened, and a maximum of opportunity be provided for every one to use his abilities, with corresponding reward...
...There is quiet urging that the United States should require in its lend-lease contracts with other nations thst after the war all iron and other metal scrap which we have been sending abroad in the form of shells, jeeps, cannon, tanks, etc., be returned to this country...
...Nor was it honest of Dewey to quote the Senate's »yrd Committee report showing there are 65 government corporations as his basis for saying: "Little by little, the New Deal is developing its own »rm of Corporate State...
...In this connection it is interesting to contrast the Democratic end Republican postwar tax proposals...
...Simultaneously, the ManehmUr Guardian, noted Liberal British newspaper, made the first open declaration coming from British sources that "Britain and the Soviet Union are out of step on practically everything except their fight against a common foe...
...That comes to $570 and $780 a year, respectively, and anybody can see that's more money than a workers' family would know what to do with, anyway...
...The threat of a race I: armaments parallels the danger of economic warfar in the race for markets...
...Behind the Republican strategy to spare employers increased social security taxes is the cynical and cold-blooded figuring that the casualties of American blood in the war can be turned to financial advantage...
...ar not planning to relinquish strategic bases, coloniei sources of raw materials...
...That will mean a long and expensive haul to the Pittsburgh steel mills and will have a widespread affect on our internal economy...
...for Dewey...
...We have, at best, merely taken the first few feeble, faltering steps toward...
...As a lawyer and as the Governor of a great state, he knows that it was necessary to create these government corporations in order to make it possible for private citizens to borrow* money or receive credit from the Government, that otherwise private citizens could not have received aid from the public treasury...
...also, war injuries snd lowered resistsnce will keep thousands more from living long enough to reech retirement age...
...If Russia refuses to back down, we shall have a flv< power alliance (actually dominated by the big three but no international security organisation...
...Dewey owes Berle an apology for tearing out that ana sentence and presenting it in such a way as to try to make Berle say the very opposite of what he actually was saying...
...I wish to ¦aks clear that my support and loyalty belong pri-» marily to the Government and its present official head, President Roosevelt...
...Government experts, for instance, report that the Mesaba iron range, the nation's largest source of iron ore, is very nearly worked out...
...The New Deal tax program also promises a reduction for the upper personal income brackets and business taxes, but not so generously as the Republicans...
...The retort constituted such a verbal spanking as only • gentleman of the old school knows how to administer *hen he feels that his honor is falsely impngned...
...1 he three examples of misrepresentation cited above tend to confirm the view that, after all, Dewey is merely an over-ambitious young fellow "on the make," and with no saving scruples about how he makes it...
...To the Dewey sneak punch, Mr...
...All of the international conferences which have been held, and more to come, hold* forth the hope of peaceful cooperation...
...There wl be no one to judge the judges or to police the polio A disturbing influence arising in Germany will be take care of, but not one originating in any of Ave grei empires...
...OUT OP STEP • Three weeks ago this column noted the fact that Stalin's imperialist designs on the Balkans and the Mediterranean area have caused a deep rift between Britain and the Soviet Union...
...Each plays the gam of power politics in the same old way, but streamline to meet 1944 requirements...
...Dewey knows the difference between a "corporation* in the customary business use of that term, and a "corporative state" in the fascist use of that term...
...And it is crystal clear...
...And in order that no American citixen may be misled, this will continue to be my attitude...
...Dewey knows thst the powers of these 56 corporations are limited solely to administrative functions under laws and rules prescribed by Congress and democratically conceived...
...He knew very well there was no honest comparison with fascism there...
...That is to say, wage earners In low wage brackets would pay a smaller percentage on their wages than those in higher wage brackets...
...And while the little man goes on supporting the crushing burden with his meager pennies, the Republican program calls for reduction of personal income tax ates in the upper brackets, and alterstion and reduction of the income tax on corporations, and complete rescinding of the excess profit surtaxes...
...This is what Dewey tried to misrepresent in that slippery sentence...
...They make no laws...
...That sentence was: ff*Over a period of ytars the government will •W<Ju»:iy come to owit moat of the productive planti ¦F^M United States " JMffce impression nrfended to be left was that thii ttsutsnce expressed HerU'a personal views, that BerU ffgrefore was a < .•mmunist and, beinf a leading Net* #Daal«' that consequently the New Deal was com• The effort i" i>->ni»/ Berle as a Communist is more than ridiculous...
...Hull retorted with sharp asperity: "While the subject matter of the publicity is complimentary to that portion of the work done by the Present national Administration to insure lasting peace, 1 must object to it or anything of the kind regardless «f whether it is authorised or unauthorized...
...It was i« ausassing up one of these policies— which Berle thought would be bad for America— that he pointed oat the result would be that "over a period of years the Government will gradually casts to own saost of the productive plants of the United States...
...KNIFING SOCIAL SECURITY • For the past three years the reactionary majority in Congress has been blocking the Increase in social security taxes for old-age insurance as originally scheduled under the law...
...In the meantime notehlng is happening within an of the great contracting states which gives hope c any real change...
...I found that he was diseassing government fiscal policies as an aid to business recovery and had devoted several lengthy pais, graps to describing all of the possible policies—both good and bad—which might be pursued and what could result in each case...
...It isn't the kind of thing about which one can make a mistake...
...But thus far, it is still the same old world...
...The argument is that a lot of American boys won't be coming back from abroad to collect old-age insurance...
...It also advocates the reform of basing social security taxes on the principle of ability to pay rather than on the present simple payroll percentage...

Vol. 27 • October 1944 • No. 42


 
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