WASHINGTON REPORT

...Benson has kept silent on this enlightened idea...

...The "book burning" issue is an excellent example...

...Everett Dirksen, the unctuous Illinois Republican, refrained from repeating the little lecture he gave during the Indian loan debate, to the effect that we should demand a quid pro quo for our aid, on the theory of the wise old judge's advice to a young lawyer—"Get your fee while the tears are hot...

...Wind Sock' The kind of Federal Trade Commission we shall have under President Eisenhower was clearly foreshadowed in a little-noticed speech by the President's appointee, Chairman Edward F. Howrey...

...Spingarn's term expires in September...

...Howrey's position is exactly what was expected when he was appointed, because the new chairman had spent two decades defending business clients against FTC enforcement of the anti-trust laws...

...Four of the 11 measures listed by Republican leaders on Feb...

...But at his next news conference he irritably repudiated the suggestion that he had been speaking in the context of the literal and figurative "book burnings" abroad induced by Sen...

...No wonder McCarthy exultantly kicked witnesses around the next few days and cockily welcomed Ike's public refusal to say that he had "meant" McCarthy's "school of thought...

...Asked whether he had meant his words to apply to the "school of thought" exemplified by McCarthy, he replied rebukingly that he never talked about personalities and the reporters ought to know that by this time...

...he will not be reappointed, and Howrey and his fellow Republicans will have complete control...

...The Court Wonders The Supreme Court, which hardly ever neglects the election returns, recently handled the thorny issue of school segregation in what seems to me a statesmanlike manner...

...A Cheer for Congress President Eisenhower scored one easy victory in Congress when both House and Senate, with unusual speed and a good deal of grace, passed the bill to give famine-threatened Pakistan a million bushels of our surplus wheat...

...When, eventually, one or two foreign currencies become convertible to dollars, the advances by the United States would be repaid in dollars for use in similar revolving Point Four projects...

...He did not know what State Department policy directives on the books were...

...Incidentally, Hall made this unusually candid comment in the same speech: "I cannot say as yet we are the majority party...

...Observers on Capitol Hill report that a great deal of anti-Semitic literature is circulating in Congress against this Watkins bill, although the measure mainly would bring in Italian and German Catholics...

...The Washington Wire Just before his June Philadelphia speech, in which he jabbed lightly at soft spots in the Eisenhower Administration, Harry Truman was advised in Washington to start swinging hard...

...Enigma It may seem an enigma that President Eisenhower himself still seems the biggest enigma of the Adminr-istration's "new team," but that is what he is considered by experienced observers who have no trouble understanding Sen...

...It asked for specific arguments by counsel on a series of pertinent questions involved in the highly important test cases on school segregation in the South now before the Court...

...Don't issue complaints against us on the basis of what we have done, they have urged...

...3. Even if the answers to these two questions are negative, can the Supreme Court construe the amendment so as to abolish segregation— immediately, gradually, or even perhaps through the appointment of a special master to recommend specific terms for court decrees...

...They also want a "rule of reason" to apply—again a request that the FTC follow a "soft" policy of enforcing the laws against unfair competition instead of a "hard" policy...

...President Eisenhower's sensitivity to press criticism is illustrated in a story told by Bob Riggs of the Louisville Courier-Journal...

...There is a bill in Congress, sponsored by Sen...

...The former President privately told cronies he was delighted to see President Eisenhower using the Truman foreign policy, but he wished "they had someone who cpuld run it...

...When he encountered Arthur Hays Sulzberger, publisher of the Times, at the Gridiron Club dinner, the President spoke up sharply...

...There was none of the bickering, the half-contemptuously revealed disdain for a younger and less wealthy power, that disgraced the debate during the wheat-for-India fight two years ago...

...The loss of Sen...

...Robert A. Taft's sure-handed floor leadership was quickly felt when Acting Leader William F. Knowland of California put the Eisenhower-opposed Brick-er constitutional amendment, which would limit the President's power in foreign affairs, on the Republican Policy Committee's "must" list and got things so fouled up with Sen...

...Democrats twice in a single week beat the Republicans on what turned out to be party-regularity test votes...

...If he gave away the lands, the big stockmen would have to pay taxes on them...

...Without bothering to clear his speech with fellow members of the Commission, Howrey, in Ann Arbor, Mich., announced that he wanted more "voluntary compliance" with the antitrust laws and less "legal process" compelling compliance...

...If we try,to pretend that certain unpopular ideas are not part of America, he said, then it is no longer America...

...The theme of the speech was abandoned, in fact, before Eisenhower's press conference, but few people knew it...

...In each case Mr...

...Chairman Howrey mentioned the fact that "supporters" of the FTC say that application of an alleged "rule of reason" would disastrously damage its work—but neglected to say whether he agreed or disagreed...

...One of the fabulous characters in Washington is George V. Allen, once sneering-ly described in the anti-Truman press as the White House "court jester...

...Benson seems more likely to plug for a low-price or "giveaway" in the world market—when, if ever, he gets around to admitting it...

...9 as making up the President's "must" list were buried...

...It is always dangerous to speculate what the nine black-robed justices will do on the basis of questions asked counsel by individual members of the Court...

...just call us in for a talk, and see if we won't promise to be good boys in the future...

...Ike had seen a story by James Reston of the New Yurk Times that was critical of Administration handling of foreign policy...

...I don't think the vote last fall indicated a great approval of the Republican Party...

...Boiled down, these questions were: 1. Did Congress and the states, when they passed and ratified the Fourteenth Amendment, intend to abolish school segregation on a racial basis...

...Pat McCarran, Nevada Democrat, the measure was blockaded until beyond the time when it could help Premier De Gaspari in the Italian elections...

...The hard fact is that we can't have a reasonably high price "floor" for farmers without (a) acreage and production controls or (b) unmanageable and uneconomic surpluses, unless we dump the surpluses abroad at a low-price or absolutely free figure...

...The White House refuses to confirm this, but it was reliably reported that the President, immediately on returning to Washington, sent a legislative aide to tell McCarthy privately that Ike "hadn't meant him...

...Republican National Committee Chairman Leonard W. Hall said in a St...

...First the President, in what was clearly a spontaneous "off-the-cuff" speech at Dartmouth College, urged Young America not to be afraid of ideas, not to "join the book burners...

...He despises government interference with "free markets"—that is, with markets controlled by middlemen and speculators...

...majority" in the next Congress...

...Among the successes scored by the President on his "must" list were the receipt of power to reorganize government agencies, continue reciprocal trade policy, and continue mutual security...

...He'll let them have the beneficial use of the lands on their own terms and they won't have to pay taxes...

...But it would be surprising if some of the Justices did not earnestly endeavor to obtain judicial understanding of the sociological and political facts—as well as the answers to the legal questions they asked attorneys to argue...

...In the meantime, a calm and careful Southern reporter named George McMillan, writing a special story for the Washington Post, flatly said that the South was awaiting the Court's eventual ruling with self-control and without bloody-shirt agitation...

...Former Secretary Charles Brannan understood this, and he frankly recommended controls...

...I thought you were my friend," he barked, on the theory that no friendly publisher would permit a staff member to write a critical appraisal...

...James E. Murray, Montana Democrat, and others, to use our excess surpluses abroad on a multilateral basis keyed to the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization...

...Other nations could buy our products in their own currencies, and the money would be Used to promote Point Four projects in their countries...

...The Court delayed a decision on the segregation cases until at least late this year, perhaps until as late as June, 1954...

...The brave principles of the Dartmouth speech against "book burners," in short, were repudiated in great measure a few days later...

...He declined, insisting it would be a mistake to open heavy fire until "the whites of their eyes" were visible...

...Eisenhower needed Democratic votes to save him from Old Guardsmen of the Republican Party...

...This is exactly what business interests have demanded for years...

...But the politics of America can tolerate no farm depression...

...These included statehood for Hawaii, Taft-Hartley Act revision, expansion of social security, and simplification of customs procedures...

...Louis speech that the people ought to give Ike a "clear-cut G.O.P...

...Actually, the Jewish lobbies on the Hill are fairly cool to the Watkins bill...

...The press officer of the Commission described the speech as "a kind of wind sock hung up so people could see which way the wind is blowing...

...If they do, the President may never again be able to get any of By Willard Shelton his "forward-looking" programs through Capitol Hill...

...Interior Secretary Douglas McKay and his Democratic predecessor, Oscar Chapman, bumped into each other at a Washington cocktail party recently...

...Lyndon Johnson, Texas, minority floor leader, that the Democrats charged bad faith in the handling of controversial bills...

...I know because I asked them...

...Sen...

...This significant speech, specifically declaring that Howrey wanted a Bureau of Consultation established, specifically suggesting that the old ground rules be altered sharply, was not seen in advance by Commissioners James Mead, Stephen Spingarn, or Lowell Mason...

...Agriculture Secretary Ezra Taft Benson hates acreage controls...

...Mr...

...Chapman later told friends: "I know he's not...

...Taft...

...Oscar," said McKay, "I'm really not going to give away the public grazing lines...

...Now, however, the press has little to say as Allen continues his old role for President Eisenhower...

...Violently opposed by vindictive old Sen...

...2. If not, was it the "understanding" of the "framers" of the amendment that a future Congress or the Court might, on the basis of the new organic law, abolish segregation...

...He didn't care, he said, whether the State Department abroad burned pro-Communist books or not...

...Benson's Dilemma The opposite side of the coin is that this Administration may be forced to adopt "give-away" programs, on a fairly large scale, as a method of getting rid of embarrassing farm surpluses...

...Joseph McCarthy's attack on State Department libraries...

...Another measure urgently requested, later on, by Eisenhower, was special legislation, to be known as the Watkins bill, to admit 240,000 European refugees outside of quotas...

...On the outskirts of Charleston, S. O, reported McMillan, Negro officers were commanding mixed Negro and white Army trainees "and there was 'no trouble.' " Negro and white workers were sweating side by side elsewhere in the South, on an equal basis, and there was "no trouble...

...Eisenhower's subsequent letter eloquently defending intellectual freedom, transmitted a week later to the American Library Association, read beautifully, but nobody at this point knew how seriously it could be taken, or how soon it would be diluted or repudiated...

...The Court presumably cannot take judicial notice of McMillan's story...

...But here, surely, there are clear guideposts indicating that the Justices are gravely disturbed...

...The latter hugely enjoys Allen's inexhaustible fund of stories and has him in the White House as often as three times a week...