Washington and the Nation
Washington and the Nation An Editorial Two Roads to the Future SuMNER Welles' address delivered last week was in the nature of a chart showing our present position in the new world of...
...B"»s explained...
...Today, Ellis related, the Soviet radio industry has expanded to enormous proportions...
...This wss based.on his objections to the methods of Martin Dies rather than the continuance of the committee, as Courtney made clear this week...
...But actual military and political tendencies and commitments have now gone far beyond such Indications of wide international unity...
...The eagerness to secure in perpetuity the air bases established for war purpeses, the plans for post-war domination of air traffic, the rapidly proceeding arrangements for control of oil, metals, and other essential materials— these sre merely a few of the indications...
...Last week, however, he called in reveral hundred subordinates and guests from other WPB divisions, and gave them a private report on his Russian trip...
...Agreements reaching into the far future are being sought...
...The exit of Dies, Staines and Costello, all Democrats, leaves Courtney the ranking Democrat and Thomas the ranking Republican members of the committee...
...Ellis noted that despite such incentive schemes, there •Ml remained a huge gap between the wages paid Soviet radio workers and American radio workers...
...They would bring with them continued suffering and frustration for great populations like those of India, of China, and of Africa...
...It consists of a badge award...
...The drive toward the new imperialism is powerful and clearly defined in this country...
...During the war the committee acts like a watchdog ready to jump in immediately when it sees a rat...
...Welles gave u* a view of the main points of foreign policy in clear perspective without the slightest tendency to cast blame on Secretary Hull, President Roosevelt, or anyone else...
...They lead inevitably to disaster, to an anxious balance-of-power period and then—as sll history teaches—to another, war...
...Before June 22, 1941, Ellis said, Soviet radio factories numbered 15, a l l of them clustered about Leningrad and Moscow...
...The latter earned 115,000 a year, Ellis said...
...Ellis told of his visit to the home of the manager of one of the Soviet radio plants...
...All through his address was the implication that public opinion can force a right dicision...
...The books written about Russia are not sufficient...
...If the Republicans become the majority, the chairmanship will remain in doubt...
...They portend disaster to all small states and to the great majority of mankind in the large states...
...He practiced criminal law in Tennessee...
...The persistent tendency to m ike unilateral decisions Is a resounding notification to the world that the Stalin dictatorship does not intend to be interfered with...
...the purchasing power of which, apparently, is equivalent to about 190,000 a year in the United States, because this Soviet manager had "a beautiful home in the country, complete with tennis courts, 14 servants, a limousine and uniformed chauffeur...
...Ellis had, h e reported, a fourfold mission: ! 1—To synchronise the radio requirements of t he United State* and the Soviet Union...
...Washington and the Nation An Editorial Two Roads to the Future SuMNER Welles' address delivered last week was in the nature of a chart showing our present position in the new world of international affairs and indicating points on two possible roads leading to widely different futures...
...Parnell Thomas of New Jersey, Karl E. Mundt of South Dakota, and Fred E. Busbey of Illinois...
...The first of these would be the establishment of a United Nations Council with representation for nil cf the 34 nations among the Allies...
...We have, it is true, certain functioning agencies of the United Nation...
...Ellis spoke admiringly of the Soviet adaptations of * s Bedaux speed-up system and the incentive pay which American workers have resisted for so many rears...
...His, therefore, was the first report, he said, ever to reach American ears...
...So far, Courtney is unopposed in his district and appears certain of re-election...
...Passing from the scene at the same time will be three members of the committee: Martin Dies, who has decided not to run for re-election, and Joe Slarnes of Alabama and John M. Costello of California who were defeated in the recent primaries...
...He liked particularly his discovery of the similarity between Soviet bosses and American bosses...
...As a former employer of labor In General Motor* plants, EUis found, a community of interest with the heads of the Soviet radio industry...
...The projected acquisition of German hea^y industry and the use of millions of German workers are part of the picture as seen through Russian eyes...
...One of the interesting incentive bonuses, Ellis rented, is the one devised for groups, such as assembly Hue teams...
...In Russia the Soviet government has all the strings, industrial and commercial as well as military and political, in its hands...
...They have a class structure over thsrs," Ellis reported happily...
...Here is no carping partisan, no journalist seeking to give us the creeps...
...That is the end of one road, the one down which we are starting to blunder at the present time...
...If you have money, you can get ••ything you want, at inflated prices, on the black •*rket in Russia...
...They are doing their post-war planning now...
...Isolation, in its earlier form, as an issue is, I believe, dead...
...Whether these strong tides can be headed off no man can tell...
...The more likely Republican appointee would be Karl Mundt, reactionary South Dakotan...
...Unless we decide now, while historic forces are fluid, things may get set the wrong way...
...Such balances of armed might may be set up as cannot be altered excepting by cataclysmic collision...
...Their fsctories are almost completely tooled with American, tools, and their plants are as mdern as Westinghouse—which is reputed te be the most modern in America...
...It is the ultimate appeal WW C o m p e t i t i o n With R.ltla tower 4 m e r l e o n W a n e s? RaY ELLIS, Director of the War Production Board's Radio and Radar Division, returned from a hush-hush trip to the Soviet Union three weeks ago...
...As The New Leader has frequently pointed out, the actual trend is not toward world unity but toward new and greater imperialisms...
...A better break for the nation would be the defeat of Mundt at the polls...
...Before his trip, Ellis told his audience, the United States had no information on the progress Russia had aude in the radio industry...
...Apparently this had come as a surprise to him, because he warned his audience that "Die American people do not have true information on Russia...
...Most of them, apparently, have been written in hotel looms in Moscow...
...With masterly condensation the former Undersecretary of State gave to each move, each institution, each declaration, each problem or tendency, its proper weight and place...
...The control of neighbor states and the objection to federations of free peoples is park of the effort to keep the field completely open for Russian enterprise...
...He served a number of times as a special prosecutor, and for seven years he was a State Circuit Judge...
...The badge award," Ellis said, "carries with it not °nly recognition of a job well done, but it means more food stamps, more gasoline, better seats at the opera •an theatre, and 25 per cent discount on the black •srket...
...In Great Britain all of the same tendencies are evident...
...Courtney is 54...
...If the Democrats control the next House, it would appear equally certain that Courtney will be offered the chairmanship of the committee...
...I, on the contrary, traveled 8,000 miles inland, talked with the people, saw how they lived, saw how and where they worked,, and under what conditions...
...The British government is openly opposed to any political overturns that might interfere with what it cenceives of as the interests of the Empire...
...This is, definitely the choice before us...
...The nob of the whole business as it looks from the American point of view is summed ap in a few pregnant sentences: "I doubt whether, when the war is won, the American people will be called spun to choose between international cooperation and isolation...
...Ellis, who came to WPB from General Motor's Delco Radio Division, has declined thus far to discuss Ms trip with newsmen here...
...Most interesting portion of Ellis' report, however, **re his observations of Soviet industrial relations ••d his estimates of postwar competition between the United States and t he Soviet Union...
...Remaining in Congress if they are re-elected will be the following members of the committee: Democrats— Wirt Courtney of Tennessee and Herman P. Eberharter of Pennsylvania...
...The time for choice may not be over-long...
...Either the Democrat Courtney or the Republican Busbey would make ah excellent chairman of the Committee to Investigate Un-American Activities...
...Busbey has the support of the American Federation of Labor in his campaign for re-election...
...It seems far more likely that the two policies between which they may be forced to make their choice will he a policy of true world organisation and a policy based upon military alliances, the indefinite piling up- of armaments, and their inevitable ad)auct, stark imperialism...
...The life of the present committee expires with this Congress at the end of the year...
...Courtney, Eberharter and Busbey are liberals...
...Fat* of Dins C o m m i t t ee A LEGISLATIVE survey of Capitol Hill indicates that the next Congress will continue the existence of the House Committee to Investigate Un-American Activities, which under the regime of ita current chairman came more widely to be known as the Dies Committee...
...Courtney, four months ago, voted against the appropriation for the Dies Committee...
...He is one of the few Congressmen, too, who can lay real claim to being an expert on Communist activities...
...When he was Americanitation Director of the American Legion in Chicago, he went to the trouble of attending the Communist Workers School there in order to acquire understanding of Communist methods and techniques...
...It has kepi people on the alert during the past six years," Courtney said, "particularly when Communism was rampant in the government...
...He told reporters that he felt the committee should continue its work...
...His thought is that if we a re ever to have a cooperative world we must take steps now, before the war is ended...
...Republicans—J...
...Speaking from his background as a General Motors ***• executive, Ellis thought it would be a good idea ™ lower the American wage level to that of the Soviet "Ws will not be able te eompsts with them mftsr the war," Ellis told his audience, "if ws continue to pay high wages...
...4—To visit Soviet research laboratories and factories and study their methods...
...1—To discuss with the Soviet plaaaers their method of scheduling and distributing critical materials in the electronic field 9—To discuss with Soviet officials their postwar requirements in the electronic field...
...We have, alio, such exalted promises as those issued at Moscow and Teheran...
...The fovernment operates the black market...
...By the time the peace conference meets they will have their organizations all set for large-scale exploitation...
...The Soviet factories, Ellis reported, were nothing more than assembly plants...
...Welles clearly and calmly indteated the opposite course which would lead to a f a r happier result...
...Under Busbey, the committee would become a real investigating body devoted to uncovering totalitarian* of whatever color...
...The men behind these moves do not slumber...
...British industrialists, merchants, and transport moguls are planning either against or in union with their American rivals...
...His obvious fairness and judicial reserve should lead us to regard his conclusions with the utmost seriousness...
...Conferences are constantly taking place...
Vol. 27 • May 1944 • No. 22
