Food Lobby Seeks to Smash Subsidies in Drive for War Profits
Food Lobby Seeks to Smash Subsidies in Drive for War Profits ReutWer Charges 'General Foods' Leads "Hunger Bloc" Campa^W (From The New Leader Ws*km**on Bureau) , WASHINGTON, D. C—The war on the...
...3. The significant timing of the bombshell announcement, simultaneously with the Soviet "scoop'' last Saturday, that the Communist Partisan guerrillas ia Yugoslavia had set up a- Communist Government in opposition to the official Yugoslavian 'Government now sitting in TV*- Vnm- *--'-sjsv government-in-exile is recogSd by the Al-, including the Soviet Union...
...and almost capacity occupancy of rental housing under war conditions as contrasted with a normal occupancy of 96 to 95 percent, and declining over-all expenses resulting from decreases in competitive decoration and unnecessary services...
...That the Teheran Declaration waa expected to be a diplomatic "block-buster" ia ruefully admitted in Administration circles...
...That it failed to achieve such explosive proportions is plain...
...d>al was made without participation of the United States...
...Rumors are flying fast...
...ami others...
...Mutual insurance companies are of coarse excluded from th* Southeastern Underwriters Association, so that the full impact of this combination hasfxAaa upon them...
...Once monopoly prstS* ticea have grown up in an industry, there is nS power that can deal with the problem exoept the federal government itself...
...The Teheran meeting of Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt ma$ sotftethjftg of an anti-climax...
...London relayed it here, saying it had been announced tbe same day by the Communist radio in Yugoslavia, By a rather remarkable coincidence, the pre-date national edition of the Svndar Worker aa received in Washington on Sun-Cay morning...
...The food stamp plan relies anon the existence of surplus supplies as its base...
...But more probably discussion of these, the feel and vital issues of the wsr, was postponed until the war's end for the sake of maintaining unity in waging war...
...The joint deaiaxation leaves everyone in the realm of speculation...
...I am therefore opposing this measure with all the vigor at my command and made a speech against it on October 28...
...5" - , Those who imagine that the pact of Moscow and subsequent conferences at Cairo and Teheran cancel or replace the Moscow Free German, National Committee and its program should- read an article in the CP's Sunday Worker of Dec 6, by the well known German Communist Paul Marker, secretary of the Latin American Committee of Free Germany...
...Further confirmation of the game of Soviet imperialism, and that the Comintern is a very live corpse indeed, came along last Saturday through a slip by the Communist propaganda machine in this country...
...Premium rates have bean ftpes-ey agreement, w-th the, result that no users than rone to the payment of losses...
...Stalin prefers pacts with the Eastern and Central European nations to a federation of these nations, because such pacts assure the predominant influence of Russia...
...In return for Balkan hege-sssny...
...Further giving the Me to the Hunger Bloc heads and the rapacious War Profiteers Lobby, a confidential OPA study on wages, prices and profits shows, it was learned exclusively by The New Leader this week, that from August...
...Everywhere Russia ia laying pleas far "free, democratic governments...
...If passed, this bill would prevent the Supreme Court from even passing 6a I case brought by the Anti-Trust Division of tin Department of...
...This poses before the United Nations a sharp Balkan problem, about which the Big Three were silent...
...Capital Comment How Did Daily Worker Get the 'Scoop on Tito By JONATHAN STOUT - WASHINGTON, D. C—Henest reporting reJy'zs bad pollticaHy as it was good militarily, lad it is interesting that what is good about the military picture was the further evidence of eaordination among .ail of the United Nations is the drive to crtfsh Nasi Germany: and that what is bad about the political picture is the further evidence of the lack of unity in the adfijM.obpactrves ctf all of the United Nations...
...Swifts Premiam Meats...
...The population of the 39 cities surveyed is more than 17 million, or over 19 percent of the total national population...
...Mo Congressman who is sincere in his support of fM teed of freedom of enterprise would in my Judgment ever vote to exempt any line of business from the operation of the anti-trust laws...
...Grape Nats...
...They haveHhe nucleus of such governments for Spain, for Greece, for France, for Germany, for Yugoslavia, for Italy, for Poland, and for other countries...
...This hope has not yet been fulfilled...
...But it afSmVl to me very strange that any line of bbaWpl should think that the way to escape federal regulation is to get itself exempted from to) anti-trust laws...
...deep perturbation in the State Department...
...War Mobilixer Byrnes used no such language against the Fst Boys...
...M camouflage the real character of such "governments...
...said the OPA report, "are receiving larger operating margin* roaSor root control than m use pre-war years...
...This is what happened: The announcement, of the setting up of a puppet Communist regime in Yugoslavia was made last Saturday...
...And it contained a two-column spread en Page 2 announcing that "the Yugoslav people have formed their own democratic national assembly under the presidency of Dr...
...Perhaps the promised supplementary declaration will clarify these issues...
...But in Washington this evidence has caused great excitement in various diplomatic embassies and is arousing...
...In the "naked elash of Stations...
...Stalin plans no democratic socialist revolution in post-war Europe, but he does plan "democratic (palace) revolutions" which will displace the Nazi authorities...
...For the Teheran Declaration, in the light of th» Communist action in Yugoslavia, is Sew interpreted here as meaning that Steam is faffing an imperialistic game of power polities which freezes oat the democratic rights of the small nation*, that Britain is going along in the.jjame^gpor flint Amer1c»^refoTy,SrherPg dragged along willy-nilly in a game which is ajjLfta wlfl but which at the moment it is un-sftsfts Ofepose successfully...
...The sWrieg here" disclosed, on the basis of high roverhment authority, that,: "The...
...He first gives a distorted outline of the history of the German democratic republic, forgetting the disCommunist Psrty, then in its uhrs-revolution-sry "third period.** He does not repeat the fact that the Comintern considered the Social Democrats "social-fascists," and' more of an enemy than the Nazis...
...Insurance agents have been penalised for taking business from companies not belonging to this association and told that if they attempted to write insurance for any "non-board" company—that is a company not belonging tr the Southeastern Underwriters Assorts tamW they could not do business far any coaspahg 4mnt belonged to chat sssociation...
...In such a body not the four powers alone, but all of the' United Nations mutt have tome form of representation when political decisions art made...
...The pact between Czechoslovakia and Russia is another triumph for Soviet diplomacy...
...Instead, he allowed them higher war profits...
...D'wderheads now may, if they wish, go on haltering that Jhe Comintern is dissolved and no longer functioning, that the world-wide co-•rdihatioa of Communist strategy directed from sjbxKow no longer exists...
...There is no guarantee that international cooperation for the maintenance of a just peace will be realized in the post-war world...
...i The OPA study reveals that landlords have increased their profits between 34% and I S *— without raising rents—merely as the basis of better business eosditxms, fewer vacancies and lowered operating costs "Owners of rental housing...
...In so doing, it is my ¦¦ial|p belief that I wil] be helping, not tenting, the real interests of all the splendid citizens ex Set district and our state who are engaged in the insurance business...
...2erV The pressure bahtnd fMt hffl i* allege...
...Not Soankowski, but the Partisans . . . represent Poland's future...
...Through a 'Food Industry War Oiii—Htm they seek to tie food wholesalers and retailer* . to *• to their inflation program and have proposi tioned the farm bloc to team up tn the anti-sabaidy campaign...
...It was among the first to loin the United Nation, in - A ^mW x#nmusnmnaa«aiU» fighting the Nasi*, despite hopeless odds...
...Bakers Chocolate...
...Swanadown Cake Flow: Del Mont* Fraita and Vegetables...
...These conditions, favorable to landlords, revealed is studies covering 39 war production certters...
...Post Toss ties...
...Stalin engages ia double-talk and plays a double game of power politics...
...I do not si last I you to pay much attention to a letter tram just one agent in the United States, but I can assure you that I speak for a great group of American citizens when I say that these bills are dangerous...
...C. L Sulzberger in the New York Timet praises this pact, and comments that "it signifies that Russia is eager to guarantee the independence and security of Czechoslovakia, as weH as the future of other smalt eastern countries, but wishes to assure that they will not be dominated by other great powers...
...Personally, I wonder why a Congress of 1943 lhaald presume to interpret the meaning of the Congress of 1890, in passing the Sherman anti-trust law, to exempt the insurance companies from such s law...
...1 The coot of living has inert a sea' 24.2...
...Smith's appearance, particularly, served to offset the effort of the Hunger Bloc to picture America's farmers as opposed to subsidies and in favor of inflation That effort of the Hunger Bloc was spearheaded last week by Edward A O'Neal, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, aad Albert 8. Goes, • l i t e r of the Nations: Grange...
...On December 4 the "Free Yugoslav" Radio, located in Russia, announced that the Communist-led Yugoslav Partisans under Joseph Broz (Tito) had set up a provisional government in opfsJMtjon to the existing government-in-exile sitting in Cairo and recognised by the Allies, including Russia, which 4s headed- by King Peter, whose military chieftain is Mikhailovitch...
...1S89, to August, 1943: 1. Wage rates have increased 10...
...If a lotting international organisation tup-ported by public opinion—and no other kind will work—it to spring front the union of the nations at tear against the Axis, the nueleut of such an organization mutt be created note...
...2. Tbe 3-power agreement on the territorial integrity of Iran in which Russia paid off politically for H* swag in the deal of Inst September ia which Britain delivered to Stalin the political hegemony over the Balkans...
...While the Cairo conference was in session, Sumner Welles, ex-Under-Secretary of State, wrote ia the New York Herald-Tribune that it is unreasonable to presume that all the small nations of Western Europe, South America, and other areas, will support decisions affecting their sovereign rights and their future, in the making of which they had no voice, "I do not believe," Welles wrote, "that "after this war is won free men and women will for one instant willingly submit themselves to a four-power dictatorship, however benevolent, however paternally wise, it might at first prove to be...
...The catch in this announcement is that the pre-date edition of the Sunday Worker want to press on the Thursday before...
...Three factors, principally, contributed to this dispiriting result...
...A day later the Soviet paper, War and the Working Class, denounced the Polish govern-ment-in-exile in London as "pro-Nazi...
...For your information, yon eoaU demand that Senator Van Nuys show yon the letter that the Insurance Commissioner of West Virginia wrote pertaining to these bills...
...That story was first revealed in this column oh October 13 end supplemented on October 27...
...There has been a certain sequence of events which may have significance...
...I claim to be a citizen of the United States and am not afraid of any company...
...The appearances of Waiter Reuther and Russell Smith before the Senate Banking Committee wound up hearings on the subsidy ban...
...i*jM&k3Ut...
...Strange as it may seem, most agents do not like to ge on record in black anal white for fear they will get in bad with their companies...
...UM doe to the fact that the Insurance compwaatt do not went federal regulation...
...For if there it one thing fast makes public regulation absolutely asaaaMat, it is monopoly practices...
...Appeariag before the Senate BgajKag Committee, they tried to put the weight of America's farmers behind the inflationists' drive for higher war profits l a * toMimatiy e l O'Neal and Go** attapsftad to deflect attention from she shocking war profiteering of the food processors and distributors, as Hvsejfd by every government inquiry— including the OPA VTar Profits Studies and the reports of the Federal Trade Commission and Commerce Department—by representing the problem of food subsidies as a conflict between the farmera and industrial utoxkera...
...Any group which threatens to strike in wartime unless the executive or the legislative branch of the Govern meat meets its demands is using a political pistol The Government must say to such s group, "Lay that pistol down...
...The deal involves a division of spheres of influence between Britain and Knssia, and provides for British military support of Josip Broz (Tito), Creation Communist leader of the Partisan guerrillas...
...These big firms produce: Maxwell House Coffe...
...Possibly the conflicting national interests of the world's dominant powers were resolved and a compromise was reached in line with our professed war aim...
...House Group Reports Bill to Save Profits Of Insurance Trust By Congressman JERRY VOORHIS By a vote of IS to 6 the Hoaae JudieUrj Committee has favorably reported to the Hoam H.R...
...For the kind of thing whine the Department of Justice is seeking to stop will ultimately result in the artificial fixing Ay agreement of premium rates which all eittmusn must pay, and in subjecting insurance agents to a domination by huge financial combinations which will leave them in no sense of the vera free business agents...
...5. Net income of all farm opera tors after all expenses rose 182...
...national fronts...
...Walter Reuther listed these companies as th« orjramzers of the Food Industry War Commute* to lobby for higher prices, against subsidies General Foods Corporation Swift A Company California Packing Corporation H J. Heinz Company National Biscuit Company Pilteburj Floor Mills Company The Borden Company Grocery Manufacturers of America...
...Brookneld Dairy Products: Basle Brand Milk...
...They were: • i. The Soviet "scoop" of the Teheran story last Saturday, leaving the Americans and British floundering along two days behind with the story on the following Monday...
...It is furthermore obvious what would happen to the average citizen if the insurance business became controlled in monopolistic fashion...
...After pro-Soviet governments have been established throughout this region, Russia will then promote a federation which she will control, for economic, political, and military purposes...
...7 Corporation profits rose 33S...
...protested the ase of sub-sidles to rail hack prices in a wire to the President on May 27...
...We small business men sometimes wonder why Congress should fail in some instances to represent all toe people and all businesses or an equal basis...
...4Me» Saturday there has been nothing bat jitters among the representatives of the smaB uatlosa in Washing-tons Embassy Row...
...ana since August, 1941, under the command of the Yugoslav Minister of War, General Dra>a Mi-hailovich, maintained the only land #M*t against the Nazis in Europe until the Americans and British invaded Italy...
...The Faad Industry s lobbying committee, declared Reuther...
...Merker predicts that this Free German movement will have "the strength to unite the representatives" of the German people, and "to fulfill its historic mission ., . to lead the eesso-cratic revolution in Germany to tfRery...
...Despite the rosy words in the official text of the Teheran Declaration about seeking "the cooperation and active participation of all nations, large and small" and about welcoming them 'into a world family of democratic nations," the evidence is all to the contrary and is the cause of the deepest gloom in the embassies of the small nations here...
...As every diplomat in Washington knew, this agreement was the political pay-off by Russia for the deal between Russia and Britain last September in which Britain, received political hegemony over Iran in return for giving Russia Political hegemony over the Balkans...
...No "epochal declaration" emerged...
...The political stinger at Teheran was the "declaration of the three powers concerning Iran" in which Russia, Britain and America ¦greed to maintain "the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iran...
...that the settlement win be Store satisfactory In 1944 , than in 1919...
...He is widely regarded here aa being aa much responsible as any one person can be for the present runaway coat of living...
...17 Vsrietien...
...Here is what one enjjt agent recently wrote to me after I made say speech against this legislation: "I have read something with reference to the stand you have taken in Congress ia regard to the bill protecting insurance firms I represent several substantial companies and happen to be broker for a certain institution handling millions of dollars eafia of insurance, and I want to assure yon that not only I concur in the stand you have taken but many, many other agents as watt...
...Justice against certain fir* Insurance companies of the southeastern portion of the United States for monopolistic practices engaged in by those companies...
...It is now possible to amplify further the fcature of that deal...
...The National Farmers Union is the only major farm group supporting the Administration subsidy program...
...Jetlo...
...This constitute* the largest sample of residential real estate ever surveyed...
...Teheran Seen as Anti-Climax, Political Decisions Avoided By LISTON M.OAK "THIS historic conferences between the Big Three and the Big rfowr, at Msmuw...
...Silver leaf Lard: Jewel Shortening...
...Reuther charged the General Foods Corporation with heading an organised group of "the big food manufacturers of America lined up against subsidies in a campaign to lift the lid on food prices...
...HA ^fermamWtt* reached are a guarantee that the Big Three willl wage united coal»on warfare against the common enemy...
...Some detected irony in Byrnes' words on the radio last Tuesday night when, dealing with the strike threat of the Railway Brotherhoods, the War Mobiliser declared: "No group has a right to .bold a political pistol at the bead of the Congress or of any administrative agency and say that they will strike...
...the othnr mM having been devoted to overhead, ptrsaha JEan atane^would indicate thal'sonae compK-Bar* needed to protect the people...
...have developed eospite the fixlhefef rest ceilings which according to estimates based on pre-rent control trends, prevented more than one billion dollars from being added to the nation's 1S43 rent bill...
...Then this Soviet agent proceeds to defend the Free German Committee ia Moscow and its Union of German Officers, including General Walther von Seidlitz and other Prussians who served Hitler until JSptsjrsnl a* Bftisnyrad...
...11, Francis again attacked subsidies ill a press release, Reatiter stated: The rnnrlnnian is in eaeapaaie that the food companies' attack Smith attacked the proposal that low-income families, unable to keep up with spiralling prices whoa labsidies are removed, be fed through a Federal food stamp plan, as was done waring the depression...
...Over 75,000 rental dwelling units were used in the reports...
...Ivan*Ribar...
...Subsidies, he churned, constituted a disguised wage increase for labor, and gave ind as trial workers an economic advantage at the expense of the farmer . Gees echoed the same line, saying that "labor coats have lad the spiral upward all along the wavy, and farm prices are Still lagging behind," Neither of the Hanger Bloc heads made any reference to the revelations that the packers, assesses and food wholesalers have atrrraasi their war areata bet seen 400% aad 1.000% over pre-war levels, aad that . these swollen war profits have cosaa throagh holding down prices paid to the farmer at one end and boosting prices to the consumer at the other...
...Welles hoped that the Big Three at Teheran would set up at once a United Nations Council in which the small nations would participate...
...Nineteen of these industrial centers have 'roil-back' mojumum rant dates or freeze dates in 1941...
...Kretnlia spokesman, Eugene Tarle, demanded that Poles sup-1 port the Red Army and its Xosciuszko division * and the Communist Union of Polish Patriots who will form the government, of Poland when the Rod Army marches in to liquidate the antifascist Polish underground...
...people's fronts," in which the Comintern is the decisive influence, finding stooges of all political trends from liberals to reaetJoaarief...
...Smith said, "and there ate no surpluses now...
...Either we will really have "freedom of enterprise" or else we will not have it...
...Food Lobby Seeks to Smash Subsidies in Drive for War Profits ReutWer Charges 'General Foods' Leads "Hunger Bloc" Campa^W (From The New Leader Ws*km**on Bureau) , WASHINGTON, D. C—The war on the home front rivaled the battle tronU in public interest this week as the race to keep the War Profiteers from wiping out food subsidies moved into the home stretch in Congress...
...Prospects of defeating the inflationist Hunger Bloc appeared slim, depite pleas of UAM Vice-President Walter Reuther and National Farmers Union Legislative Representative Russell Smith before the Senate Banking Committee...
...The Communists also have the greatest organized strength in most of the underground movements...
...As though offering a timoly yardstick by which to measure the claims aad counter-claims in the food-subsidy fight, there came to light this week a recent study by the OPA on rental housing...
...nor does he say that the Communists made a united fratft wftfc the Nazis oa several occasions and qthutaa a united front with the socialism and htjgfala Meraer attempts to blame the Social Democrats alone for the triumph of Hitlerism...
...The conferences at Moscow, Cairo, and Teheran, despite their promises of international cooperation, offer no guarantee, as yet...
...Therefore," me one way that insurance or any other line of business can avoid federal regulation is by having an affective enforcement of the antitrust laws in its particular line of business...
...Actual figures taken from the books of land* lords throughout the country show that the rate of set operating income for operator* of apartment houses during the six months of rent control was 34 per cent greater than w 1939, while the increase in net operating income for landlords of small structures over the same period was 86 per cent...
...For the first time the Kremlin attacked, by name, Stan-islaw Mikolajcyzk, the Polish Premier, and Gen...
...The War Profiteers Lobby here has utilised every opportunity to drive a wedge between the workers and farmers, whose coalition made a success of the early New Deal program and saved America in the darkest days of the depression...
...It was recalled that whfs>t»e Meat Trust and the Dairy Trust last U$ wa|R an strike against America and aAaalljr did starve the nation into allowing higher price ceilings and higher war profits...
...4. Clothing prices have increased 32.6...
...Wo >ms were, even discussed...
...Stalin cedes Iran as a British hegemony...
...The Administration took to the air this week in defense of the subsidy program But many here thought it might hare picked a better spokesman for the purpose than War Mobilisation Director James F. Byrnes...
...1943 and 1940...
...It is not expected that War Mobilizer Byrnes, or OPA Administrator Chester Bowles who, coder pressure of the Food Profiteers Lobby, suppressed the OPA War Profits studies on the fcod processing and distribution industries, will now issue a report explaining why the example of the experience of the landlords in getting richer under booming business conditions even though they didn't raise rents was not applied from the beginning to the inSatiesist Hanger Bloc...
...it held a press conference oa Jane 2 at which Clarence Francis, president of Genera, Feeds Corp, demanded abolition of ceiling prices at retail and of all food subsidies...
...3. Food prices have increased 47.8...
...It reflects Stalin's determination to dominate the Balkans and all of Eastern and Central Europe...
...It foreshadows similar maneuvers elsewhere within occupied countries by Russia and its Comintern...
...The results are, therefore, considered exceptionally reliable as indications of the general trends of rental housing experience...
...The remaining 20 have March 1, 1942, as their maximum rent date...
...These three factors came as a terrific blow to the hopes of the small nations that out of this war would, come a real world family of democratic nations...
...And, as a result...
...interests, the imperialism of Russia constitutes the main danger to World federation and to the spread of democracy...
...Three factors contributing to this favorable paetare for owners are: a rent increase of from 3 to 4 per cent from 1938-1940 level* before rents were frozen ia 1941 add 1942...
...Food subsidies, charged Hunger Bloc heed O'Neal, were adopted by the Administration to "appease the unjustifiable demands of labor leaders" for wage increases...
...Gold Medal Flour NaMaco...
...on Nov...
...while employing all the devices known to diplomacy, he simultaneously organizes committees and govern-ments-in-exile and "peopie's'* movements with the perspective of controlling as many European governments as possible as soon as occupied countries are liberated from the Nazis...
...Kazimierx Soankowski, WerMinister, as fascists and "murderers of Polish Bslrtisans...
...3270...
...Of all urban tenant-occupied dwelling . units in the United States, 24 percent are in the 39 cities...
...Thus, the Communist propaganda machine In America knew what was going to happen in Yugoslavia before it happened, and went to press with it more than two days before it was announced to the world...
...Whetherjpr not any agreement was achieved on any of the comp^ex^Jalaluif Ul'tth-f peaee...
...Reiterat- , ing the hypocritical Soviet position for a "free, strong, democratic Poland...
...Cairo Mi Teheran, ensure military victory, but not peace...
...6. Nan-farm income per capita, rose 91...
...The perplexing problems faced by the peace conference at Versailles twenty-five years ago 1 are still very much isr evidence, to aggravated form...
Vol. 26 • December 1943 • No. 50
