COSTLY ALLIANCE
Costly Alliance THE exposure of widespread corruption in the federal service, especially in so vital and sensitive an area as the Bureau of Internal Revenue, has focused the national spotlight on...
...The Court reversed itself a month later...
...While the November issue was still on the press Sen...
...Significant confirmation of long-held views on the causes and cures of intolerance was found in both the League's report and a parallel finding by the Chicago Association of Commerce and Industry...
...Costly Alliance THE exposure of widespread corruption in the federal service, especially in so vital and sensitive an area as the Bureau of Internal Revenue, has focused the national spotlight on the untidy housekeeping habits, the low-grade appointments, and the loose morality which have kept the Truman Administration groaning in hot water for some time...
...While the press has raucously featured every scandal dealing with the extra-curricular income of wayward politicians, it has been shy to the point of speechlessness in reporting another and vastly more profitable shearing of the American public—this one by powerful economic interests, helped on their way, of course, by obliging politicians...
...Subsequently, Prof...
...It showed the Ohio Republican encouraging the Wisconsin character-assassin in his emulation of the "Big Lie Method of the Nazis...
...The Anti-Defamation League's survey over the years disclosed that prejudice and intolerance shot steadily upward during the tensions and strains of World War II and reached their peak as the war ended...
...One—The report of the Anti-Defamation 'League of B'nai B'rith that there has been a "dramatic drop" of some 40 per cent in racial and religious prejudice since the end of World War II...
...Taft WE went to press last month with a cartoon that was captioned "The McCarthy-Taft Axis...
...Five—The rallying of diverse forces in Ohio against the arbitrary Ohio State University rule requiring advance screening of campus speakers...
...The Chief Executive's right hand, however, soon performed an act which destroyed all the gain his left had achieved...
...Then, a few days later, Taft wandered into Sioux Falls, S. D., and came up with this appraisal of his headline-hungry colleague: "I think Senator McCarthy has done a great service by calling attention to the extent of Communists in government...
...Two—The U.S...
...He appointed Wallgren chairman of the Federal Power Commission and Wallgren's first major official act was to "enact" the Kerr Bill by administrative ruling and thus reverse the result of the President's veto...
...The Kerr-FPC-Phillips-Wallgren deal is a few months old—which is pretty old as news goes these days...
...The Other Side THE Bill of Rights, the very heart of what we like to call "The American Way," has taken a frightful pounding in recent years, and The Progressive has played the reluctant role of chronicler of this un-American retreat...
...the most Rev...
...this, in effect, meant conviction and imprisonment without trial...
...The attempt by university trustees to curb free speech was defeated in the face of protests from the Ohio Council of Churches, made up of major Protestant denominations...
...Here at The Progressive we were helpless to remove the Taft-Mc-Carthy cartoon...
...That's why, as the holiday season approaches, we're delighted that a few modest developments during the past month enable us, in good conscience, to present "the other side" of a never-ending, always-changing story...
...The bill passed through Congress, but it was vetoed by President Truman...
...Five mildly hopeful developments during a month hardly call for loud cheers and certainly for no relaxation of vigilance, but they are cited here because they are part of the story of our time and because they bear eloquent testimony to the need for redoubled efforts to achieve greater gains...
...Phillips, owner of 14 trillion feet of gas reserves, was in effect told to charge any price it wanted...
...Robert Kerr, Oklahoma Democrat and millionaire oil and gas magnate, had proposed to wipe out federal regulation of natural gas producers...
...The Wallgren ruling opened the gate to overcharging consumers to a tune which, one member of the Commission estimated, might be "hundreds of millions of dollars"—or certainly somewhat more than the ham 6 hardware take of the "fixit" politicians on whom the press has been lavishing its attention...
...The Court had denied them a hearing in June...
...This is the recently cemented alliance of politicians and the utility crowd—an alliance that has already delivered the Federal Power Commission to the very interests it is paid by the taxpayers to regulate...
...Although primarily concerned with anti-Semitism, the League's findings showed a comparable decline in prejudice against other minority groups, notably Catholics and Negroes...
...Readers of The Progressive doubtless remember the bitter fight over the Kerr Bill two years ago...
...Supreme Court's decision to reverse itself and grant a hearing to six attorneys held in contempt by Judge Harold R. Medina for their conduct during the 1949 conspiracy trial of eleven Communist Party leaders...
...What really bothers us is the uneasy feeling that we're in for a full year of the same as Taft demonstrates to the country what he has established in Congress—that he stands four-square on both sides of controversial issues...
...Truman has fought for his Fair Deal program, but we do know his batting average in a Congress dominated by Dixiecrats and Tory Republicans is not much more than a miserable goose egg...
...Taft vs...
...We are using our new cartoon anyway, because we had already paid for the engraving, and besides, Taft may again be anti-McCarthy by the time this issue reaches readers of The Progressive...
...Charles Alan Wright of the University of Minnesota Law School called attention to the grave short-circuiting of freedom involved in the Court's decision, in an article in the September Progressive—one of the few commentaries on the case published in the country...
...Taft, barnstorming into Des Moines, seemed to accuse McCarthy of "overstating" his case—presumably against the State Department—and then added: "There are certain points on which I wouldn't agree with" McCarthy...
...Michael J. Ready, Roman Catholic bishop of Columbus...
...Supreme Court's indignant reversal, as "arbitrary" and akin to totalitarianism, of lower court action in fixing $50,000 bail each for 12 persons accused of Communist activity...
...case...
...With only a few distinguished exceptions, the correspondents writing out of Washington have been so bemused by the traffic in mink coats, deep-freezes, RFC grabs, and the like that they have overlooked an equally newsworthy and perhaps even more sinister federation of forces in Washington...
...Wallgren's ruling came in the famous Phillips Petroleum Co...
...We have no way of evaluating how hard Mr...
...Correspondents on tour with Taft fanned the comment into a Taft "disavowal" of at least some of McCarthy's charges, and papers generally gave serious attention to the story of Taft's cooling off toward the political gangster from Wisconsin...
...Three—The U.S...
...Four—The U. S. Supreme Court refusal to set aside a lower court decision that FBI informants may be sued for libel and slander if their statements are motivated by malice...
...Obviously if the present alliance continues to prevent the enactment of a progressive domestic program, President Truman's only hope of preventing the gutting of such liberal legislation as was approved in the past is the filling of key administrative posts with able, fearless, incorruptible Americans dedicated to representing the public interest against the predatory raids of special interests...
...the Ohio Education Association, representing most of the 41,000 public school teachers, and the Ohio CIO...
...The architect of the new alliance is former Gov...
...Conversely, the Chicago business survey showed that racial and religious differences dropped to an all-time low during "the improved economic conditions" of recent years...
...But we did make another engraving for the December issue, this one showing Taft urging McCarthy away from his platform...
...But what is news, or will be news when it breaks, is President Truman's appointment of Wallgren's successor to head the Federal Power Commission...
...Anything less would make the Administration a partner of the wrecking crew it is sworn to oppose...
...Mon Wallgren of Washington, poker crony of the President's, who has just stepped down as chairman of the Federal Power Commission—but not before inviting some of the utility crowd to help themselves to unlimited profits...
Vol. 15 • December 1951 • No. 12
