Capital Comment

...And you know what you csn expect from that type of mind...

...Only s few minutes before Snyder announced the order, OPA Administrator Bowles was urging a subcommittee of the Senate Small Business Committee to authorise price ceilings on new dwellings or "home prices will go sky-high in the biggest price boom ever...

...Snyder thinks the motor makers are entitled to a price increase, he can cancel and negate any wage increase which Mr...

...missar Molotoff formally announced that the Soviet Union also was after some imperialistic booty in the Mediterranean and that the Soviets wanted to take over the Italian eoldhy of Tripolitania...

...Low-income families can and will remain jammed up under the present Inadequate housing crisis...

...And there is no question that Americans of Italian descent or origin, who still retain an emotional stake in the land of their forebears, feel at this moment that they have been betrayed by the Administration...

...As matters stand now, there is a distinct lack o' cordiality between the Administration and any of the fqur largest nationality strains, while there haa been building up a deep anger on the part ef two of the groups...

...For two years the Italians fought side-by-side with the Americans snd British...

...Gene roso Pope, publisher of II Pro-gre$»o, oldest and largest Italian language daily in the United States, promptly left for Washington after the news from London to register his protest After the Administration which has let them down, Italian-American ire is directed at the Soviet Union...

...Capital Comment By Jonathan Stout U. S. Foreign Policies and American Minorities WASHINGTON, D. C —Serious conecrn $· felt her« by political chieftain- of the Democratic Party aa the result of a grass roots grounds well reaching the nation's capital from such concentrations of the Italian v..te as New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, Illinois, Michigan and California...

...It practically prevents the kind of competition that might result in lower costs to the buyer...

...The significant fact is that in his order, Snyder rejected by ommission OPA's plea for s ceiling price on new home construction...

...But, under the law as it still stands, sny wage increase agreed upon in such a settlement is contingent on the proviso that it does not require a price incresse to the public...

...Stalin in Moscow, but they'think they can reach Mr...

...From that time until recent days innumerable government officials from Presidents Roosevelt and Truman down, it is felt by leaders of Italian-American organizations in the United States, led them to believe that in recognition of those two years of co-belligerency the new democratic Italy would, at worst, be given only the most nominal of penalties...

...Luigi Antonini, venerated head of the Italian-American Labor Council, who practically worshipped Roosevelt and who had until a few days before spoken in the most glowing terms of Truman, alternated his phrases between fire and a deep depression in telling reporters last week-end that he felt it necessary to re-examine his position...

...And it is precisely in these areas and cities that the future of the Democratic Party is shakiest and needs the most help...

...But, equally apparently, Washington officialdom hasn't learned what to do about the dynamite...

...Americans of Italian descent may net be able to reach Mr...

...It provides him with plenty of cream to skim off the top from the high-income classes who are going to be first to be provided with new housing...

...That's the rough outline which spells out the central fact of importance...

...Under the new delegation of powers, therefore, if Mr...

...After the Germans and Irish, the Italians and Poles are the next largest nationality groups in the United States...

...What may be expected ef Mr...

...And what they heard—varying in tone from dismayed to curt and angry—portends an important shift of the Italian vote away from the Democratic Party...

...2. But necessary price increases will be granted to break "bottlenecks...

...And that is that Mr...

...The offices of Democratic Party Chairmen Bob Hann« in and of numerous Senators and ? presentativee started hearing from back home following last week-end's news from London that the American delegation to the meeting of the Big Five foreign ministers had accepted the power politics formula of stripping Italy of her colonies...

...When Italy became a co-belligerent of the Allies, a great emotional reaction set in among friends and relatives of the Italian people in America...

...The net meaning of the program ¦> that workers with moderate incomes will find.it impossible to get federal credit clearance in order to buy low-cost homes...

...That is the internal political reality which the Democratic Party leaders must face...

...This is another factor w kick appears to seal the doom ef the ambitions of William O'Dwyer to lecceed LaGuardis as mayor of New York...

...And this bodes 01 far Mr...

...For the concentration of the Italian and Polish votes coincide in the northern industrial states and, by a curious change of circumstance, in the same industrial cities, such as New York, Chicago, Jersey City, Newark, Trenton, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Buffalo, Boston, San Francisco...

...That the Russians, who spent the first two years of the war as allies of Hitler, and had net spilt a drop of their blood in overthrowing Mussolini, should share in the dismemberment of Italy, wh.ch had spent the last two years of the war in fighting Hitler, haa become for Italian-American circles the height of fascist-style effrontery...

...O'Dwyer in New York City who not only is backed by the Democratic Administration but also by the Communists...

...There was none so happy as these millions of Americans of Italian extraction when the Italian people seized the opportunity to arise and overthrow Mussolini...

...And the latter part of that determination, President Truman at the same time , delegated to John W. Snyder, Director of War Mobilization and Reconversion, when he also gave Snyder the Office of Economic Stabilization...

...The shock of discovering that the phrases of friendship for the new democratic Italy by Presidents Roosevelt and Truman and State Secretaries Hull, Stet-tinioa and Byrnes apparently were empty and insincere, haa caused the violence of current reaction against the Administration, precisely because it was the source of the high hopes entertained in Italian circles here...

...It's the fear that a wave of strikes may delay the reconversion period so seriously that the postwar unemployed may equal or exceed the ante-bellum jobless...

...And these Americans take great pride in the fact that the Italian people did not wait until the American and British armies were in Rome, but overthrew the tyrant usurper when Allied help was still far away...

...C L. Sulzberger reported Wednesday in the New Yer* Timu that the Big Five Council of Foreign Ministers was "slightly startled" when Foreign Com...

...That puts the low-income buyer out of the market That, in turn, that fewer houses will be built than will meet the demand...

...Washington officialdom has apparently learned only one thing from the depression, and that is that unemployment ia political' as well as economic dynamite...

...The convention of the Maxxini Society in New York City last week-end sent a cable to Secretary Byrnes in London pleading that "punishment of Italy now for - the crimes of fascism during the Mussolini regime in effect and in fact becomes punishment of a new democratic nation and is a most discouraging rebuff to democratic reconstitution of the Italian nation...

...Detroit, etc...

...These Americans shsred to the fullest the unhappiness of the Italian people themselves at the very idea of Italy being at war with the United States...

...Reconversion Ghost Begins to Materialize Washington, d. c—The ghost thst has haunted the thoughts of Washington officialdom since the day Japan's surrender brought the war to a close, has now materialised...

...For more than a month the Administration has known that it must take constructive action on lay-offs because of war contract cancellations, on providing unemployment insurance for the soldiers of the home front," on deep wage cuts ih Jveekly take-home because of shortening ttaf-Jnork-week from as high as 60 howts sTVeek to a fairly universal 40-hour week...

...But the Administration waited until the quick-moving and aggressive Auto Workers Union moved to tie up the motor industry...

...In addition to the Italian vote, the Democratic Administration already Das estranged the Polish vote, as well as that of the Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians...

...What this creates, in effect, is a real estate speculator's idea of heaven...

...Well, the Big Five Council in being "slightly startled" was a study in restraint compared to Italian-American circles in the United States...

...Or, certainly, it cannot with impunity stand the angry repudiation ol millions of American voters of foreign extraction smarting under a feeling of betrayal...

...And that's what is disturbing Democratic Psrty chieftains in Washington...

...Only a strong and dramatic reversal of the Administration's position at the London parley and a successful insistence by Secretary of State Byrnes that Russia, Britain and France abandon their imperialistic betrayal of the clause in the Atlantic Charter which promised that none of the United Nations "seek territorial aggrandisement for themselves" can halt the domestic political repercussions In the United States...

...Schwellenbach may approve, thereby bringing everything back to the status quo ante-bellum for no hits, no runs and two errors...

...As an example, reports from New Verk City, where a close race between mayoralty appeared in the offing, have built up the impression here that the news from London over the past week-end has broken the neek-and-neck contest ami that O'Dwyer, who is backed by the national Administration, already is a licked candidate...

...3. Federal credit agencies will "discourage excessive and unsound lending on mortgages to minimise the danger of inflated prices due to excessive demand...

...Snyder is Indicated by his order lifting all restrictions on home and building construction as of October 15...

...This serves at the same time to maintain the inflated war-profiteering prices current on family dwellings and will keep prices on new construction high...

...O'Dwyer in New York City...

...Snyder completely ignored this self-evident fact in announcing his program, which included the following points: 1. Price controls will be strengthened on building material manufacturers to counteract inflationary pressure...

...The common understanding swept aside the juridical technicality of co-belligerency and regarded the new democratic Italian nation as Allies in fact, if not by technical definition...

...Snyder is the kind of government official who thinks in terms of profits, net in terms of human needs...