THE WEEK IN REVIEW
THE WEEK IN REVIEW SECRETARY OF STATE Cordell Hull wrote a series of interesting postscripts last week to the declarations of the Moscow Conference, but the basic questions which the conference...
...A strong indication that the Senate would concur in the House tax verdict came from Sen...
...One set of figures, for instance, purported to show that the cost of living would rise 10 to 15 per cent, while another set from the same agency showed the rise would amount to three per cent...
...Gain...
...The Office of Price Administration issued dire warnings of a spectacular rise in the cost of living if subsidies were abolished, but the effect of its words was partly lost by the conflicting figures issued by different officials...
...Donald M. Nelson, chief of the War Production Board, disclosed last week that arms production in October made its biggest gain since April...
...The Administration invoked every conceivable pressure to win suport in the House, but made no headway in the face of almost unanimous opposition of farm organizations...
...Joseph C. Grew, former ambassador to Japan, appealed last week for fair treatment of loyal American citizens of Japanese descent...
...A House investigating committee, headed by Rep...
...Ceiling On New Taxes Meanwhile, the Administration was taking a decisive beating on another sector of the home front...
...Secretary Hull drew fire when he proposed that the Democrats and Republicans write the same plank on foreign policy into their 1944 platforms...
...Names And Notes In The News Distinction...
...To guarantee that its position prevails on the floor of the House without interference from individual members, the Ways and Means Committee received authority from the Rules Committee to gag the membership from submitting any amendments...
...Surplus...
...Harry Byrd's "Economy Committee...
...Another group of Representatives, however, denounced the report as "unfortunate, misleading, and harmful...
...Howard Smith, Virginia Democrat, released a blistering indictment of the agency and its multitudinous orders and called for reduction of OPA pewers...
...The American people were led astray—bamboozled is the word—by monopolists and cartelists so that other nations might build up at our expense," Sen...
...The 12,000-acre Scioto plant, completed only a few months ago at Marion, O., was among those ordered closed...
...Payroll...
...Hokum, A Congressional committee cited as typical of the legalistic hocus pocus used by OPA in its orders the following language in a new amendment: "All commodities listed in Appendix A are those known to the trade as such excepting therefrom such thereof, if any, while subject to another regulation...
...Walter F. George, Georgia Democrat, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, who revealed his support of the House bill in its present form and asserted that further increases would "shatter business morale...
...Kilgore charged that the country was prevented from developing synthetic gasoline, rubber, and other essential war commodities because business men, "seeking the exclusive right to exploit the people of the United States," entered into agreements with foreign concerns under which the nations of the world were divided up and production severely restricted...
...Sen...
...Van Nays indicated that recommendations for reform of present liquor legislation will almost certainly be made by...
...Pleading for a distinction between enemy aliens and loyal Americans of Japanese extraction, Grew asserted that, "like the Americans of German descent, the overwhelming majority of Americans of Japanese origin wish to be and are wholly loyal to the United States, and not only that, but they wish to prove that loyalty in service to their native land...
...In his speech before a joint session of Congress, which was interrupted by loud and frequent applause, the Secretary of State asserted that "at the end of the war, each of the United Nations . . . will have the same common interest in national security, in world order under law, in peace...
...Candidate...
...Nazi propagandists gave another demonstration this week of their adeptness at diverting attention from-real issues...
...No one at the -Moscow meeting, he said, desired to compromise it...
...If they succeed, he predicted, the people of the world will be cheated of the fruit of victory...
...There's no doubt," he said, "that large stocks of popular brands are being bootlegged today...
...Harley M. Kilgore, West Virginia Democrat who has been forging to the front as one of the Senate's most alert guardians of the public interest, made an extraordinary speech last week which was largely ignored by the press...
...We have given the Italian people good reason to be confused by our actions and by our inability to distinguish between our friends and our enemies," Willkie declared in a New York address...
...Don't worry too much about the war, they told the German people, because German astronomers have discovered a new planet, which may shortly collide with the sun, in which case the world will also come to an end...
...THE WEEK IN REVIEW SECRETARY OF STATE Cordell Hull wrote a series of interesting postscripts last week to the declarations of the Moscow Conference, but the basic questions which the conference left unanswered loomed larger than ever, leaving the scope of American commitments and the shape of American foreign policy only vaguely outlined...
...Bricker denounced the New Deal, called for the abolition of "waste and extravagance," urged "the careful revision of federal taxes," and endorsed a program of "international cooperation" to "prevent aggression...
...John W. Bricker formally threw his hat into the ring last week as a candidate for the Republican Presidential nomination...
...He has been waiting for weeks in Algiers for orders to begin civilian operations in Sicily, but up to now has been permitted only to visit the islands briefly on one occasion...
...you cannot have both...
...Committee objectives are to determine the cause of soaring liquor prices, the general scarcity of alcoholic beverages on retail shelves, the scope of black market or bootlegging operations, and the cause of the spectacular rise of whisky shares on the New York Stock Market...
...From Wendell L. Willkie, who is touring the country trying to round up progressive support for his Presidential ambitions, came a sharp denunciation of Allied policy in Italy...
...Ohio's colorless Gov...
...Washington dispatches also indicated that Wesley Sturges, Yale professor of law, will also resign as sub-area director for Sicily...
...A previous veto, last Summer, was sustained by a slender margin...
...Grew pointed out that "it does not make for loyalty to be constantly under suspicion when grounds for suspicion are absent...
...C. B. Baldwin, former chief of the Farm Security Administration, had been named Italian area director for the Office of Foreign Economic Administration, but was reported this week to have resigned in disgust...
...Kilgore charged that monopolistic agreements between our industrialists and those of Germany are largely responsible for the fact that we are at war today...
...Senate concurrence in this opposition would almost certainly bring a Presidential veto, with the issue then in doubt...
...Kilgore, who is a member of the Truman Investigating Committee, declared...
...Kilgore warned the Legionnaires that the war has not stopped the cartels—"the black economic internationals...
...Hull, for instance, told his press conference that the people of each of the restored European countries would be given free and untrammeled right to choose their own form of government under their own leaders, but he indicated that the designation of what were liberated countries would •be left to the victorious powers...
...The powerful House Ways and Means Committee announced that the public can stand no more taxes and told the Administration to cut expenditures if it wants to block inflation...
...the investigators...
...Hull failed to come out with a clear-cut reply...
...House Opposes Subsidies The Roosevelt Administration conceded loss of the first round of its fight to retain the right to distribute subsidies as a means of stabilizing the cost of food when the House of Representatives showed overwhelming opposition to continuance of the subsidy program...
...On the contrary, he pointed out, leading American industrialists and those of other nations are preparing plans now to "harvest profits through scarcity rather than profit through volume...
...Probe...
...Asked at his press conference if the Atlantic Charter had been "compromised" at Moscow, Mr...
...Clarence Buddington Kelland, director of publicity for the Republican National Committee, joined the internationalist chorus for bi-partisan agreement on foreign policy which would leave the voters without a choice in the 1944 elections...
...Italy The Example In reply to questions at his press conference, the aged Secretary of State declared that the tri-power declaration at Moscow regarding Italy, promising an Italian regime based on freedom of speech, religion, press, political belief, and of public meeting, is the pattern to be followed in the liberated countries of the rest of Europe...
...The Administration had requested $10,500,000,000 in new levies...
...By keeping the people of America, and of Britain also, bamboozled, certain of our industrialists were able to ply their trade with Hitler, with the Japanese, with Franco of Spain, and with Mussolini...
...A slash of 300,000 employes from the federal payroll was demanded last week by Sen...
...in the principles and spirit of the Atlantic Charter...
...Speaking at a dinner at which he received a medal for dis-tingushed achievement, Grew predicted that Germany would crack up "in the not too distant future," but warned that Japan would be a tougher enemy...
...The bi-partisan Committee majority said that its new tax bill, which calls for $2,140,-000,000 in new taxes, is all that "can reasonably be borne by the taxpayers at this time...
...j "If the war should end in March," Sen...
...An indication of new fiscal developments in the making was the disclosure last week that the Army has more money than it needs and is turning back 13 billion dollars to the Budget Bureau...
...Either there is freedom for cartels to operate or there is freedom for the people of the world...
...Sen...
...Black Economic Internationals' Sen...
...As an example, he cited the need for regulation of transactions in warehouse receipts, by which, he said, it is now possible for a few individuals to get control of large stocks of liquor...
...But Allied handling of the political problem in Italy has thus far failed to win anything resembling rapturous applause even from the most consistent apologists for the Administration, and it became known this week that the State Department has conceded to Great Britain the primary leadership in directing economic and political affairs in Italy...
...Worry...
...Frederick Van Nuys, Indiana Democrat...
...A surplus of ammunition brought orders last week for the closing of three large ordnance plants, in Ohio, Wisconsin, and Utah...
...Speaking to the West Virginia American Legion, Sen...
...Burton K. Wheeler, Montana Democrat and sharp critic of the Administration, warned that such a course "would Undoubtedly mean the formation of a strong third party...
...A far-ranging investigation of the nation's hard liquor industry was launched this week by a Senate committee headed by Sen...
...George declared, "a substantial number of the American people might be broke because of the liability for that year...
...The OPA itself was under sharp attack...
Vol. 7 • November 1943 • No. 48
