NOTES IN THE NEWS
NOTES IN THE NEWS Where Dulles is Popular We have long suspected, and sometimes suggested in these columns, that John Foster Dulles must enjoy a certain kind of popularity in the Soviet camp...
...The Chamber claimed that TVA's allocation of $184 million to flood control "is as much as $100 million too high...
...The Soviet Ur.ion itself might insist that Communist China be included, since there is no positive assurance that Communist China and the Soviet Union will always be on friendly terms...
...The Frankenstein is Walter P. Reuth-er, brilliant president of the United Automobile Workers and vice president of the AFL-CIO...
...The Phony Issue What pleased us most about the unprecedented Democratic sweep in Maine was the walloping the electorate gave to one of the phoniest issues yet contrived by bankrupt politicians...
...the board commented...
...A bi-partisan coalition of Southern Dixiecrats, furious at the Court for its rulings in behalf of racial integration, and Northern reactionaries, bitter over the Court's enlightened rulings in the field of civil liberties, was determined to get revenge by enacting legislation which would have circumscribed the Court's authority in critical areas involving the Bill of Rights...
...For the past two years Governor Harriman has followed this type of schedule persistently, and the only major change forecast by his aides is that he will intensify it...
...News-Sentinel pointed out: "These multi-purpose dams, plus the series of steam plants, must of necessity be under the control of a single agency...
...Brewster is one of the founders of a new organization for reaction, Americans for Constitutional Action, whose arch enemy is Reuther and "the Reuther road to socialism...
...Reuther was presented to the people of Maine as a sinister plotter bent on leading the nation to bankruptcy so it could more readily become putty in the hands of the radical socialists...
...It is in this hope that the United States makes this proposal...
...The Maine electorate was not scared...
...We say: we will regret it if President Eisenhower's sputnik leaves the State Department, for he helps us so...
...Chamber of Commerce, implacable foe of federal water and resource development unless, as one wit put it, "the utilities get the electricity and the public gets the fish ladders," recently loosed a new broadside against its special hate under the title "TVA: What's Next...
...Yet in spite of the cautious nature of the test ban proposal, in spite of the great propaganda advantage enjoyed by the Russians with their unilateral test suspension, in spite of the enormous public pressure at home and abroad to stop the tests, and in the face of State Department support of the President's proposal, the Defense Department and the Atomic Energy Commission retained their stubborn objection to the test suspension plan...
...Supporters of Knowland are circulating a pamphlet written by Joseph P. Kamp, a professional racist and rabble-rouser, entitled "Meet the Man Who Plans to Rule America...
...If responsibility were divided, the whole integrated system would collapse...
...Of this proposition, the Knoxville (Tenn...
...Its basis is the maximum exposure of the name and face of Averell Harriman to the maximum number of persons in the state...
...Russia's acceptance has cleared the way for the first concrete move in many discouraging months toward a cessation or at least a slackening of the arms race...
...It is in California that the shoddiest use is being made of this type of campaign trickery...
...For example, it is questionable whether Communist China would permit control posts and inspection inside its territory without becoming a party to the agreement...
...Against this dreary background, the opening of talks in Geneva on October 31 stands out even more sharply as a potentially hopeful step toward peace...
...Every crippling proposal, however, was beaten down—one of the most far-reaching of all by a single vote in the Senate, 41 to 40...
...Today the percentage of Americans who would put their votes on the Republicans to keep us out of war has dropped sharply—from 42 per cent to 26 per cent—while the Democrats have improved their peace standing from 17 per cent to 24 per cent...
...But the Reuther bogeyman is being used elsewhere—by Senator William F. Knowland in California, by Roland J. Steinle, Republican candidate for U.S...
...In comparison, direct flood damage averted at Chattanooga, Tennessee, alone has amounted to $120 million, a figure which even the Chamber concedes was reasonably arrived at...
...In Wisconsin Steinle confides to those who come to hear him that Reuther has captured the Democratic Party for socialism...
...Democrat Pat Brown of California is winning voters with similar strategy in his race for governor against the more austere William Knowland...
...Stumbling Blocks A report of Senator Humphrey's Subcommittee published in mid-September raises a matter of serious concern for the forthcoming test ban negotiations—the problem of Communist China and the American policy of non-recognition...
...Personality saturation has replaced the oratorical saturation of an earlier day...
...The Subcommittee is struck by the disparity in the effort the world is putting into thought and action for controlling and reducing armaments and the effort going into the development, fabrication, and build-up of armaments...
...Kamp has twice been cited for contempt of Congress...
...Disarmament Hopes The hope voiced by Senator Hubert Humphrey in the August issue of The Progressive that the midsummer conference of technical experts on the problem of detection of nuclear tests was "a turning point for disarmament" was recently given new life with the announcement that the United States, the Soviet Union, and Britain will open discussion on a nuclear test ban agreement in Geneva October 31...
...greeting workers and "grasping for their hands as if they were golden nuggets...
...The 85th The 85th Congress adjourned last month with a better press than most of its recent predecessors—better than we think it deserved...
...Supreme Court...
...The Gallup Poll makes no guesses as to why the voters have changed their minds in such large numbers, but it seems clear that the widespread uneasiness over John Foster Dulles' brinkmanship and the considerable alarm at the Administration's brash policies in the Middle East and in the China crisis could only be reflected in a loss of faith in the Republicans as the "peace" party...
...The strategy does not depend on subtlety, on warmth of personality, on dramatic flair or on enticing oratory," Weaver wrote...
...Former Senator Owen Brewster, a thoroughly discredited politician, headed the drive to make the Democratic Party synonymous with Reuther and Reuther synonymous with socialism...
...If the traditionally conservative gentry of the Pine Tree State rejected this specious strategy so overwhelmingly, we feel reasonably certain that the traditionally more progressive populace of other states will have little difficulty seeing through this phony issue...
...Changing Campaign Styles Robert M. LaFollette, Sr., campaigning for reelection as governor of Wisconsin in 1904, arrived at 9:30 one evening at the town of Antigo where a crowd of 1400 people had been waiting patiently for more than an hour to hear him speak...
...NOTES IN THE NEWS Where Dulles is Popular We have long suspected, and sometimes suggested in these columns, that John Foster Dulles must enjoy a certain kind of popularity in the Soviet camp because his policies so often play squarely into Communist hands...
...Harriman, running for reelection as governor this fall, has perfected a new and different strategy better suited to his personality and abilities...
...Senator in Wisconsin, by Senator Charles E. Potter of Michigan, and others...
...Warren Weaver, Jr., writing in the New York Times, sums up the strategy in one key word: saturation...
...The disclosure came during an address at the Harvard School of Business Administration in which after making it clear that he was "not speaking for the Administration," the Vice President advocated a tax reduction program that almost precisely parallels the hopelessly reactionary position of the National Association of Manufacturers and the U.S...
...During that campaign LaFollette delivered more than 200 major speeches that averaged from two to five hours, and upwards of a thousand "short" speeches of half-hour to an hour duration...
...Chamber of Commerce...
...Analysis of the latest of a long series of assaults on TVA by the Chamber indicated that it is becoming more and more difficult to discredit TVA's success...
...Today no politician in his right mind would hope to hold an audience for three hours...
...The theory, of course, is old hat—the notion so thoroughly discredited under Herbert Hoover that if the rich are permitted to get richer, through tax cuts, the benefits will somehow trickle down to the rest of the people...
...Reduction of income taxes for those in the highest brackets...
...He deserves a special accolade for performing an overnight miracle in rounding up the necessary votes to repel what had seemed the day before to be a Know-Nothing majority...
...The ultimate in hypothetical finance is achieved, however, in the attempt to show that corporation income taxes are not validly related to net income...
...The TVA board welcomes fair and constructive criticism," the board said this time...
...TV A Fights Back The U.S...
...Item...
...And last year when Wisconsin sent William Proxmire to the Senate, it was aften seven years of stumping the state during which Proxmire shook hands with over a million Wisconsin citizens...
...On the debit side Congress failed to provide a penny for desperately needed school construction, refused to reduce taxes for low and moderate income families as a measure to combat the recession, killed the Kennedy-Ives bill to curb labor racketeering, declined to pass a public works program, starved the housing program, ignored the need for immigration law reform, by-passed action on campaign expenditures, failed to pass the self-financing plan for the Tennessee Valley Authority, and refused to liberalize the Fair Labor Standards Act...
...More liberal depreciation allowance for business...
...in fact it showed its contempt for this kind of campaigning by voting more enthusiastically for the Democratic Party than at any time this century...
...demilitarized zones along sensitive frontiers...
...The technique has proved effective with others and may well keep Harriman in the governor's chair...
...But we do object strongly to attacks which mislead the public as to the value of this program and reflect upon the integrity of TVA...
...Item...
...The style has changed greatly, and for candidates like Governor Averell Harriman of New York, who is an ineffective speaker, the shift in campaign fashions away from oratory has been a political life-saver...
...The Chamber used "unreasonable and unwarranted assumptions as to interest and taxes" to make power operations "appear subsidized...
...An agreement in this respect is significant," he said, "if it leads to other and more substantial agreements relating to limitation and reduction of fissionable material for weapons and to other essential phases of disarmament...
...Other highlights of the Subcommittee's recommendations were to push for the creation of a permanent United Nations police force...
...Extension of the sales tax for all of us...
...Chamber of Commerce...
...Twenty per cent saw no difference and 21 per cent had no opinion...
...Treasury is more than the federal income taxes a private company with the same net earnings would have paid...
...TVA's board of directors launched a prompt salvo in reply...
...The scientists' unanimous statement—following seven weeks of discussion—that a world ban on nuclear tests could be policed was followed almost immediately by a conditional offer by the United States and Britain to suspend tests on a year-to-year basis if agreement on an international control system could be reached...
...In it Reuther is characterized, among other things, as "a foul-mouthed agitator," "vile purveyor of vicious slander," "ruthless, reckless, lawless labor goon," "double-talking rabble rousing opportunist," "an evil genius," and "a Marxist who has been both a Socialist and a pro-Communist...
...As a "long range solution" for TVA, the Chamber advocates that the agency's activities be split up and parceled out, giving flood control and navigation to the Army Engineers and transferring power operations to states and municipalities in the region...
...Even taking out these two items, TVA pointed out, the transportation savings in 1957 were $15.3 million, or $6 million more than the highest figure the Chamber could cite as the cost of operating the waterway...
...Attempting to down-grade navigation on the Tennessee, the Chamber claimed that coal shipments to TVA steam plants and sand and gravel movements should be eliminated from commercial freight statistics although the U.S...
...It relies on the theory that the greater the number of all these the better off you are politically...
...Considering that the reservoirs are virtually at the beginning of their useful lives, which in most cases may be measured in hundreds of years, the future as well as the past benefits in averting only direct damage will dwarf quite obviously the investment in flood control," TVA said...
...There is nothing especially new in Chamber of Commerce attacks on TVA...
...Army Engineers regularly report similar statistics for all streams and harbors...
...a study of the international arms trade...
...and pursuit of an outer space control plan...
...Recently, however, Nixon revealed that he is back on the reactionary sauce—if indeed he ever gave it up...
...LaFollette bathed, changed, and then spoke for three hours...
...The United States must begin to recognize that such complications may occur...
...In Maine, as in other states, Republicans unwilling to campaign on the issues have fabricated a redheaded Frankenstein who is said to own and rule the Democratic Party and to be committed to lead it down the road of radicalism and socialism...
...A Gallup Poll just before that election disclosed that 42 per cent of the voters felt that the Republican Party was the party most likely to keep the peace, while only 17 per cent placed their faith in the Democrats...
...We are confident, this last time around, that as Maine goes, so goes the nation...
...What we like most about the 85th Congress is something it didn't do— curb the powers of the U.S...
...Brown is often out at 6 a.m...
...The physical activity dictated by the strategy is rigorous, and its 18-hour, fast-moving days would be a strain on a man of far fewer years than Harriman's 66...
...On the credit side Congress reorganized the defense establishment, extended the reciprocal trade program, voted a new if heavily military-minded foreign aid appropriation, granted statehood to Alaska, enacted a watered-down and still-to-be-tested civil rights law, provided loans for needy students, liberalized social security, increased grants for hospital construction, and strengthened the federally aided program of medical research...
...The trend seemed likely to continue in the face of the Eisenhower Administration's increasingly bellicose policy in the Formosa Straits...
...The amount of TVA's net earnings above the cost of money to the U.S...
...Item...
...We'll hardly get a more helpful opponent.' " Specifically on the question of the Middle East, Stevenson noted that "the Western intervention to protect Lebanon and Jordan in one respect was probably a welcome relief to Khrushchev...
...Same Old Nixon There have been moments in the past when we confessed—to the horror of many of our subscribers—that Vice President Richard M. Nixon might be toying with the notion of reforming...
...The Subcommittee is of the opinion," the report states, "that greater attention must be paid to the question of including Communist China in any disarmament agreement which would provide for the suspension of nuclear weapons tests with inspection...
...What struck us as especially noteworthy is the fact that the TVA board of directors, all Eisenhower appointees, has been none too cordial to the program it administers and has sometimes seemed reluctant to reply to attacks...
...In Michigan, for example, Potter has taken to muttering about "a kind of super-general with red hair...
...But it is not the saturation of issues that characterized Bob LaFol-lette's campaigning...
...Nothing much happened for months to indicate if our hunch were right or wrong, for the Vice President is a cagy character who does not tip his hand until he has worked over all the angles...
...The Chamber's report, the directors said, is "based on fundamental misconceptions of Congressional policy and TVA administration" and "constitutes a misrepresentation of TVA and a disservice to the general public and the members of the U.S...
...For the President made it clear that his offer contemplated much more 6 The PROGRESSIVE than merely a ban on further testing of nuclear weapons...
...Several liberal Senators, including Thomas C. Hennings, Jr., of Missouri, Paul H. Douglas of Illinois, Wayne Morse of Oregon, and John A. Carroll of Colorado, all Democrats, played a significant role in this triumph for liberty and liberalism...
...Here it is: • Reduction in corporation taxes...
...But he has mastered it as an essential part of the saturation technique...
...Its tests are the number of stories and pictures in newspapers and magazines, the number of speeches made and the number of hands shaken...
...Knowland seems to have no objection...
...Much of the defection from the Republican standard has not favored the Democrats, but has gone into the "no difference" column, bringing a substantial increase—from 20 per cent to 30 per cent—in the number of voters who think neither party is more likely than the other to prevent another war...
...But there has been a radical change in the voters' views in the two years since that critical autumn, according to a new Gallup Poll on the subject...
...Under this saturation strategy, a typical Harriman visit to a New York community will include a press conference, one or more taped radio interviews, a live television show, dedication of a new highway, a visit to a local industry, a tour of a local institution, a Chamber of Commerce luncheon, a political gathering, a reception, and a walking tour of the shopping section to shake hands with potential voters...
...Looks like the same old Nixon...
...Confirmation has now come straight from the Kremlin...
...In this respect the Subcommittee is disappointed that the State Department has not seen fit to create, as recommended previously by the Subcommittee, special advisory groups of non-governmental experts to explore specific aspects of the disarmament problem...
...This last gambit came hard for Harriman at first—walking up to a total stranger, interrupting whatever he was doing and extending the hand with a gratuitous introduction...
...The late Senator Robert A. Taft once said he was "particularly disgusted" by Kamp's writings...
...The report concludes on a sad note: "There are only some six or seven persons who work full time on disarmament in the State Department...
...Including the two items, the savings were about $21.5 million...
...President Eisenhower made the offer subject to negotiation on the part of all nations involved in nuclear testing beginning October 31...
...At one stage Khrushchev confided in me," Stevenson reported, "that when the leaders of the Communist countries get together, they always toast their best friend, the American Secretary of State...
...It strongly urges the executive branch to take action to remedy this situation...
...War and Peace and Party When the Hungarian and Suez crises broke on the eve of the 1956 Presidential election, an estimated three million voters turned away from the Democratic Party and voted Republican, believing that President Eisenhower and the Republican Party could best handle the international situation and keep the United States out of World War III...
...The Friends (Quaker) Committee on National Legislation has pointed out that the only advisory group selected to study disarmament consists exclusively of retired generals and former Defense Department secretaries, and that total government expenditures on disarmament problems have actually declined to less than one dollar out of every million in the budget...
...Nor was this an unusual occurrence...
...No one but a congenital crank would deny that its list of achievements is a long one— but so is its list of failures...
...Senator Humphrey, who has worked diligently on disarmament as chairman of the Senate Subcommittee dealing with the problem, saw a ray of hope in this first, tentative step simply because it was so uncomplicated, so unencumbered with politically unrealistic conditions, and so universally supported by the peoples of the world...
...Besides achieving Congressional purposes of wide use of electricity at low cost, "TVA's power revenues have covered all expenses including depreciation and state and local taxes and have provided a return of four per cent on the investment in power facilities," the TVA board said...
...As a sop to those who might feel that this was bourbonism run wild, Nixon also called for extension of social security and unemployment insurance coverage, but by far the biggest part of the package was tax reduction for the country's wealthiest corporations and individuals...
...he received a tremendous ovation...
...But the crucial contribution came from a Senator we have often criticized in these columns, Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson of Texas...
...To include Communist China might introduce some complex political considerations in United States foreign policy...
...Adlai Stevenson carried it out with him when he emerged from a long interview with Nikita Khrushchev recently...
Vol. 22 • October 1958 • No. 10
