National Reports
SHELDON", "HENRY M. CHRISTMAN, G. M. LANZILOTTI, COURTNEY
National Reports Kansas Farmer-Labor Alliance Grows By Henry M. Christman TOPEKA "If you get the index of farm | income and the indexes on unemployment, you will find that as farm income comes...
...But, judging from the failure of any serious criticism to develop, such funds now apparently have the good-politics-seal-of-ap-proval from most voters...
...A series of scare advertisements were published, charging that "youthful hoodlum mobs" were roaming the streets of Milwaukee terrorizing decent citizens—this despite Milwaukee's national reputation for low general and juvenile crime rates...
...Police Chief John W. Poleyn denounced the charge as the "most infamous falsehood ever perpetrated against the citizens of Milwaukee...
...Ironically, it was physical calamities—disastrous floods followed by devastating drought?that drew the two groups together...
...the most catastrophic floods in the area's history swept through eastern Kansas...
...he has been out of touch with state affairs in recent years...
...A labor survey of 10 Southern states failed to turn up one such appeal, except for two Wisconsin employers' services who are seeking summer agricultural help from Mississippi...
...Subsequently, he won his first elective office as Congressman from the First District (Hartford...
...he bluntly refused a decoration from the Polish Communist Government for his work at Nuremberg...
...And that is why we are interested in the income of the American farmers, both as a matter of economic justice and as a matter of economic necessity...
...Dodd, who has specialized in foreign affairs, is expected to attack Administration foreign policy and Bush's support of it...
...Under the able and dedicated leadership of Executive Secretary Jim Yount...
...For the first time in history, Kansas became an urban state last year...
...In the continuing search for a scare issue, the anti-Zeidler forces launched a whispering campaign concerning Negro migration...
...Because a series of local circumstances, including rapid industrialization, falling farm income, extensive flood and drought devastation, and population growth, have combined to make the Sunflower State a uniquely appropriate testing ground...
...the Kansas CIO initiated a scholarship program for students in stale teachers colleges...
...Today, manufacturing payrolls contribute more to the personal income of Kansuns than any other source...
...Coming from a consumer area, his vote against the natural-gas bill was popular...
...As a variation on this theme, the McGuire adherents threw out vague, unproven charges that private enterprise has been skirting Milwaukee, a highly industrial city of long standing...
...Kansas is generally thought of as an agricultural slate, which it is...
...He first achieved prominence as a U.S...
...appointment of a committee to survey the problem of flood control and water conservation...
...When Eisenhower vetoed the bill, Bush's position looked even better politically...
...In 1949...
...A drop in wheat production—Kansas is the largest wheat-producing state in the union—or in cattle sales causes an immediate layoff in the mills or packinghouses and related industries...
...The larger urban centers—the areas encompassing Kansas City and Wichita—contain a quarter of the entire state population and accounted for more than two-thirds of last year's increase...
...In the larger population centers, these meetings have featured labor speakers of national reputation...
...Here, too, McGuire finally issued a repudiation...
...As for the voters of Milwaukee, a city with a long tradition of Socialist mayors, the election again proved that they arc too polilically sophisticated to he frightened In false issues...
...a new mental-health plan...
...In addition, there are thousands of "weekend farmers" who are forced by declining farm income to live five days in the city working in a factory and then spend the weekend tending their family farms...
...Only time will reveal the ultimate outcome of these developments...
...At the same time...
...Connecticut Senate Race Pits Bush Against Dodd By Courtney Sheldon At the same time, the CIO has thrown its support to legislation which it felt advanced the public good...
...When farm income slumped in 1954 and the Kansas situation was especially critical because of local drought conditions, teams of labor spokesmen went out to confer with farmers on a program of mutual action...
...His well-publicized championing of Federal flood-relief legislation has earned him dividends in Connecticut areas devastated by last year's floods...
...The seat now held by Republican Prescott Bush has been commonly regarded as a weak spot in the GOP's 9-to-3 grip on Senate seats from New England...
...The "we" refers to the CIO, and in so many words did Walter Reu-ther express the outlook of his organization on farmer-labor interdependence...
...The only drawback was that the proposed dam would permanently inundate a number of small Kansas towns and a vast area of fertile farmland...
...This year, Connecticut is operating under a new primary law...
...Farm families have been invited to visit labor families in the cities, and farm wives have been treated to special "kitchen tours" in labor homes...
...The combined farmer-labor fories eventually lost their battle against the big-dam scheme, but in l952 they succeeded in sending to Washington Representative Howard Miller, the first Democrat ever elected in the First Congressional District...
...This has included: state aid to the hard-pressed high schools of Kansas, which before last year were supported exclusively by a county property tax...
...And as unemployment goes up, farm income comes down...
...As an investment banker (Brown Brothers, Harriman), Bush is in more than nodding agreement with the Eisenhower Administration's policies and is also regarded as an internationalist...
...At this point, the slate CIO stepped in on behalf of the farmers...
...Zeidler has six children, all under 15...
...Kansas labor has backed programs for the general welfare...
...But his enemies, led by Mayoralty candidate Milton McGuire...
...They have welcomed labor's attitude of not trying to decide what is best for the farmers, but rather waiting until the farmers themselves determine a course of action and then pledging labor's support...
...This has further stimulated the already vigorous labor movement...
...creation of a state commission to preserve natural resources and develop new public parks and recreational areas through bond programs...
...Before Nuremberg, he was in the Justice Department and earlier had been an FBI agent...
...The Democratic city of Torrington, for example, sent him a resolution praising his efforts in the city's behalf...
...a Democrat generally supported by the more reactionary Republican groups in the "non-parlisan" election, leveled personal attacks at Zeidler as a Socialist who might expose Milwaukee to a "Marxist," "Communist" menace if he were continued in office...
...they have been held in schools and churches and, in some cases, in the open air...
...Eisenhower took Connecticut by 130,000 votes in 1952, while Bush's margin of victory was less than 30,000...
...But it has now become clear that Ike's popularity is not Bush's only visible asset...
...The voters may have done the politicians one better and made up their minds in advance of the November elections...
...Yet, things of this kind do not necessarily make for farmer-labor collaboration...
...From 1939 to 1954, manufacturing employment increased 187 per cent...
...Both Dodd and Bush are expected to prevail even if challenged at the convention or in a primary...
...51.5 per cent of Kansans now live in towns or cities...
...Farmer-labor friendship is promoted by the fact that the Kansas labor movement is home-grown...
...Industry, they declared, was refusing to locate in the community?or was moving away—because of the "socialism" of its Mayor (who has, in fact, been honored by such respected conservative groups as the U.S...
...When the campaign against the "socialist" bogey ran out of gas, the Mayor's opponents resorted to more desperate tactics...
...a new social-welfare rehabilitation program...
...Dodd is the only Democratic Congressman from Connecticut...
...Zeidler attempted to keep the campaign on a high level, discussing the normal issues of city government honestly and intelligently...
...Quotes by Russian leaders, taken out of context, were dragged in to prove that "socialism"—whether Zeidler's, Stalin's or Khrushchev's—is the "first step" toward world revolution and Communism...
...a real live Socialist in the democratic Milwaukee tradition, was re-elected to a third four-year term after a campaign in which the opposition threw problems of municipal welfare completely overboard in favor of "anti-socialism" and other fake issues...
...But his best opportunity for a renewed public career is apparently as Secretary of State should Adlai Stevenson be elected President...
...But few of those who heard and read Reuther's strongly worded testimony before the House Committee on Agriculture last year realized that in President Eisenhower's home state of Kansas the CIO was having considerable success in implementing these very ideas...
...Meanwhile, labor spokesmen have been articulate in presenting their views through local meetings conducted on town-hall lines...
...But, as other Midwestern states become industrialized, the pattern of farmer-labor cooperation set in Kansas may well spread...
...Milwaukee Socialist Mayor Re-elected By G. M. Lanzillotti Milwaukee The issue was "socialism" in the recent Milwaukee Mayoralty election...
...Junior Chamber of Commerce...
...State leaders of the three main national farm organizations, the Grange, the Farmers' Union and the Farm Bureau, have all responded to labor's overtures...
...at least, the opponents of Mayor Frank P. Zeidler tried to make it that...
...A great clamor arose for a system of flood control to prevent a recurrence, and Kansas City industrial and commercial interests pressed for construction of a huge dam...
...National Reports Kansas Farmer-Labor Alliance Grows By Henry M. Christman TOPEKA "If you get the index of farm | income and the indexes on unemployment, you will find that as farm income comes down unemployment goes up," the speaker told a hushed Congressional committee...
...As he moves into his third term, he can be expected to be the same honest, effective Mayor he has been in the past...
...But if a defeated candidate at the convention receives at least 20 per cent of the vote on any ballot, he can force a primary by filing a petition signed by a required number of voters...
...But it is expanding industrially...
...The Senator has been aware of the value of regularly visiting his constituents and has carefully solicited voter opinion...
...He is also critical of Eisenhower's defense program...
...Zeidler —generally supported by most Democratic party groups—had been elected by 117.912 votes to 95.969...
...Why Kansas, of all places...
...Instead of promoting only its own interests...
...Bowles's strength, at this point, is not formidable...
...But Milwaukee voters rejected the attempt to frighten them with scare charges which seem to emerge every four years, although perhaps never before with this year's viciousness...
...Midway in his term, there was a flurry of comment on the Senator Bush Citizens Committee, which helped finance the Senator's between-election forays into voting districts...
...Milwaukee, with some 30.000 Negroes out of a metropolitan population of one million, has maintained a high level of racial good will...
...Hartford Connecticut Republicans and Democrats have apparently selected their candidates for the U.S...
...prosecutor in the Nuremberg war-crime trials...
...As before, the conventions nominate the candidates...
...When the returns were in...
...The nature of the Kansas economy makes Walter Reuther's words on farmer-labor interdependence particularly meaningful to both groups in that state...
...Sinking farm income results in sinking purchasing power...
...The Democratic nominee-to-be is Representative Thomas J. Dodd, currently unopposed for the nomination and likely to remain so unless the chances of electing a Democratic Senator improve perceptibly...
...In 1951...
...And, on the other hand, industrial layoffs bring an immediate decline in the purchase of farm commodities...
...Former Governor Chester Bowles has flirted with the prospect of battling for Bush's seat...
...In the end...
...it was insinuated, the Mayor was seeking to encourage an influx of Negroes into Milwaukee and had posted appeals in Southern states...
...The Democratic-dominated State Legislature in neighboring Rhode Island passed a similar resolution...
...At statewide and county fairs, labor booths have been prominent, distributing literature about the farmer-labor program...
...Senate comfortably in advance of their June and July nominating conventions...
...the fund looked a little like the Nixon fund of 1952...
...He must also post a fee of 5 per cent of the annual salary of the position he seeks—which he regains if he polls 15 per cent of the primary vote...
...Zeidler...
...As an alternative, the farmers of the threatened region suggested a system of smaller dams which would avoid permanent inundation...
...Now 28 NFL-CIO scholarships are given every term, and plans are under way to raise the nunber to 30...
...Until the President's decision to run for re-election, GOP strategists were inclined to scant Bush's chances...
...Kansas is growing in population much faster than its Midwestern neighbors...
...Democrats are conceding privately that Senator Bush now has more than coattail strength...
...A church-going Lutheran and former Sunday-school teacher, who has never advocated any policy of "socialism" for the city, he declared that he was interested only in keeping Milwaukee the "cleanest and brightest city in the United States" and cited his program of slum clearance, law enforcement, etc...
...McGuire repudiated the ads...
...recognition of the Soviet Union in 1933 had been pushed by "mixed-up intellectuals, misguided labor leaders, soft-headed liberals, and greedy, self-seeking business interests...
...In a speech in 1951, Dodd charged that U.S...
...creation of a committee of experts to investigate and appraise the Kansas penal and correctional system...
...The whispers also insisted that at least two female members of Zeidler's family, including a daughter, were married to Negroes...
...a small-loan law banning exorbitant interest charges, and a commission to enforce it...
...These are the economic factors which have enhanced labor's influence in the state—reflected politically when labor defeated the so-called "right-to-work' legislation...
...Dodd wrote the Polish Ambassador that "any honor at the hands of your government" would "debase" the Nuremberg principle of "peace by law under justice...
Vol. 39 • April 1956 • No. 18
