NOTES IN THE NEWS
NOTES in the NEWS Free Ride on the Farm Only a few months ago the nation's housewives staged a widespread revolt against the rising cost of food: boycotting supermarkets, holding rallies, and...
...There is a lesson in this experience...
...rather than, "This is the price...
...Button, N.Y...
...It is that not only do we have a moral obligation to our fellow men, regardless of the cost in money, but that human ingenuity can find ways to surmount the temporary economic and technical crises that arise when we make a social breakthrough...
...Eilberg, Pa...
...If any one man can be singled out as outstanding in the effort that won Senate approval at last, it is Senator Thruston Morton, the Kentucky Republican...
...Green, Pa...
...In the higher prices paid by the housewife are increases that go for costlier forms of processing, packaging, advertising, and marketing, not increases for the farmer...
...Howard Rusk, the reputable medical authority for The New York Times, toured twenty civilian hospitals in South Vietnam in mid-March and then wrote: "To many Americans, Vietnam is a distant and devastated country filled with children who have been burned by American napalm bombs...
...Yates, III...
...Machines for working and harvesting other crops are under rapid development, spurred by the loss of miserably paid labor under the bracero program...
...The Committee seeks to raise funds to bring Vietnamese children burned by napalm to the United States for skin-grafting and other reconstructive procedures...
...In the April issue we strongly commended Senator Morse and Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin for casting the only Senate votes against the $4.5 billion supplemental authorization for the Vietnam war...
...As an added thrill, Lurleen will stand on the rickety old Nullification Doctrine while bravely screaming at the Ferocious Feds to "cease and desist...
...He spoke up vigorously for the consular treaty in spite of the fact that the rightists had deluged him with mail that ran one hundred to one against it...
...One study revealed that the machines picked tomatoes at $11 an acre, compared with $17 an acre with cheap hand labor...
...Rusk, "and others had seen but a single case...
...Supreme Court being the whipping boy for those who feel that "civil rights has gone too far too fast," television sponsors may find themselves taking the blame because the Harlem or Watts Negro who is urged by commercials to buy a cerise-colored refrigerator with two-way doors and automatic defrosting may get uppity and demand a good job from industry to help him pay for it...
...These Pentagon leaders roundly condemn the Red Chinese government for mass indoctrination of its population...
...Scheuer, N.,Y...
...Tenzer, N.Y...
...If the Senate discovers that the sky has not fallen because of its vote on the consular treaty, it may decide that the American electorate will tolerate—as we are sure it will—other understandings with the Soviets, including a space treaty, East-West trade arrangements, curbs on nuclear proliferation, and, most critical of all, a U.S.-Soviet approach to head off a new nuclear arms race...
...As they say under the Big Top, there's one born every minute...
...The picture simply is not true...
...Burton, Cal...
...How much horror we have inflicted with napalm should be authoritatively established by some respected international body as well as by the proposed House inquiry...
...Television commercials," he said in a speech quoted by the Associated Press, "may have had as much to do with the civil rights revolution...
...Further evidence that it is the consumer who is being subsidized is found in the fact that the 1950 proportion of the consumer's budget going for food was about twenty-two per cent while today it has declined to eighteen per cent— the lowest proportion of any country in the world...
...The Journal points out, for example, that only three per cent of California's tomatoes were machine-picked in 1964...
...Loevinger to be erected in Radio City, the admen should consider if it would not be wiser to avoid calling attention to television advertising's contribution to the civil rights movement and similar subversive activities...
...Yet in one decade their productivity soared an impressive 94.5 per cent while non-farm productivity was rising 30.4 per cent...
...For more than fifteen years now, we've been buying groceries for something less than a reasonable price...
...New High against HUAC The tide against the House Un-American Activities Committee rises ever so slowly—but it rises...
...The Bracero Sequel When The Progressive, along with other publications and socially-minded organizations, was pressing Congress to abolish the bracero farm labor system finally outlawed two years ago, two principal results of its abolition were forecast: a rise in pay and living standards of domestic farm help, and a rapid growth in mechanization to replace the virtually slave labor engendered by the bracero program of employing Latin Americans for stoop labor at starvation wages...
...But the testimony is by no means one-sided...
...We are happy to add our accolade to others bestowed on the Senate for its approval of the U.S.Soviet consular treaty...
...One of the more recent, if minor, Orwellian developments is a half-hour movie, Why Vietnam?, commissioned by the Defense Department...
...Dingell, Mich...
...Gruening's Courage Senator Ernest Gruening of Alaska and Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon, both Democrats, are the charter members of the "dove" group in the Senate...
...There are estimated to be more than one million refugees in South Vietnam, most of them living under intolerable conditions...
...legislation to aid the wounded and homeless, Representative William Ryan of New York, who with ten other Democrats and two Republicans sponsored the bill, told the House, "There is ample evidence that we as Americans and Congressmen have a deep responsibility to do as much as we can for the victims of this conflict...
...The Senate's Good Deed So rarely does the Senate vote for foreign policy actions which challenge cold war doctrines that any step taken by that cranky body on behalf of better relations between East and West is warmly welcomed by the peace-minded...
...Ironically, the ending of the bracero program may well benefit the very growers who protested its termination most vociferously...
...Roybal, Cal...
...The Senate's approval of the consular treaty may be a fresh start to what could become a vastly improved relationship between the world's two greatest powers...
...Green, Ore...
...The feat won favor a few seasons back with crowds in Maryland, Indiana, and Wisconsin, and George is eager to take it on a nationwide tour...
...The real effect of the system is to allow farmers to stay in business even though their market prices remain at 1950 levels...
...The Sensational Segs are adding some new turns to their hair-raising repertoire...
...We failed to note that Senator Gruening paired in opposition to the bill...
...Trouble for the Sponsors From time to time unkind comments on television commercials have appeared in these pages...
...It was designed to boost the morale of the men in the armed forces fighting in that wretched war, but has now been released for showing to U.S...
...A recent Wall Street Journal survey provides evidence that vindicates both predictions...
...While the viewers can dismiss "the improbable heroes and heroines" of television programs "as fictional and their environment can be regarded as fragments of a dream world," this is "not so in the commercials...
...John J. Heimburger, former counsel of the House Agricultural Committee for twenty-two years, recently analyzed the problem in blunt language: "I think it's time we Americans stopped kidding ourselves about the price of food," he wrote...
...Reuss, Wis...
...He has been caught in a squeeze between falling prices for his produce and rising outlays for fertilizer, labor, machinery, and taxes...
...The huge campaign mounted by the rightists could mobilize only fifteen Democrats and thirteen Republicans...
...We've been getting a free ride...
...The treaty would have been submitted to a Senate test in 1965 if the Administration had not feared it lacked the votes in the face of opposition by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, who contended that Soviet consulates opened here would be havens for Soviet spies, and the frenzied resistance of the Liberty Lobby and other right-wing forces...
...It is small wonder dairy farmers are leaving their farms in record numbers...
...Ashley, Ohio Barrett, Pa...
...NOTES in the NEWS Free Ride on the Farm Only a few months ago the nation's housewives staged a widespread revolt against the rising cost of food: boycotting supermarkets, holding rallies, and pressuring politicians in an effort to drive food prices down...
...The list of the forty-six Representatives who courageously opposed funds for HUAC follows: Annunzio, III...
...the wages of manufacturing workers are up 87.2 per cent...
...Nedzi, Mich-Nix, Pa...
...There are some private groups such as the Committee of Responsibility, Inc., which have already acted on this responsibility...
...Department of Agriculture figures for mid-February revealed that prices received by farmers were down as compared with last year's highs by amounts ranging from 6.1 per cent less for milk to 31.1 per cent less for hogs...
...Ottinger, N.Y...
...Is this what we are fighting for...
...Dow, N.Y...
...But there is no one else...
...Circus Family It's circus time and the Wonderful Wallaces, George and Lurleen, are ready once again to entertain youngsters of all ages with their crowd-pleasing antics...
...Secretary of Agriculture Orville Freeman pointed out that today's prices paid to farmers are nine per cent less than in 1947—two decades ago...
...Longer than any other Senators they have been outspoken and courageous opponents of military escalation in Vietnam and dedicated advocates of strong peace initiatives designed to save American and Vietnamese lives by bringing the adversaries to the negotiating table...
...Diggs, Mich...
...The burden is too large to be borne solely by private groups...
...Leggett, Cal...
...is planning to repeat his daredevil stunt, the free-style run-for-Presidency...
...Cohelan, Cal...
...Further, the film depicts Ho Chi Minh as a sort of sly, grandfatherly Hitler, an image which drew the scorn of Senator J. W. Fulbright, whose most flattering comment on the film was that "it is not only not very accurate, but it is not relevant...
...Senator Gruening, a lifelong crusading liberal with a distinguished record in the Senate, consistenly has demonstrated his courage by offering bold proposals both for domestic reform and international cooperation...
...In 1965 critics of HUAC mustered sixty-four House votes in favor of a public hearing on the Committee's appropriation and thirty-two against granting the funds...
...Agile George (He Stood Up for Alabama...
...The American people would be wise to pay the price necessary to keep our family farmers healthy and in step with the rest of the economy, instead of perpetuating a system that is driving them off the land...
...The film dredges up the dreary, discredited analogy with Hitler and Munich as a major justification of the U.S...
...Not that HUAC is in imminent danger...
...Thompson, N.J...
...Under the Federal minimum wage law, no employer is allowed to pay a wage that low...
...Once again he, and Senators Morse and Nelson, cast the only votes against added billions for enlargement of the war in Vietnam...
...Insistently they say this is real, this is available, this is for sale and you should have it...
...What is the Commissioner trying to do—get the House Un-American Activities Committee to make trouble for General Electric...
...There seems to be no authoritative answer—and this is one of the subjects which the proposed House committee inquiry could explore...
...These were record highs for the opposition, indicating that revulsion against HUAC is growing in the House year by year...
...We offer no simple solutions to the farmers' problems...
...Instead of the U.S...
...Net income of California farms has bounced back to within a fraction of the record high of 1964—with some 60,000 fewer laborers...
...By mobilizing the support of other Senate Republicans, he built a big enough fire under Senator Everett Dirksen, the Minority Leader, to scorch that specialist in last-minute heroics and induce him to line up with him and twenty other Republicans—and forty-four Democrats—in voting for the treaty...
...This time it will be Lurleen (Come See the Lady Governor...
...Senator Stephen Young, Ohio Democrat, described the film—accurately —as "nothing but propaganda...
...Hawkins, Cal...
...Vietnam Victims A group of liberal Congressmen have introduced a bill to establish a bipartisan committee of the House to investigate the civilian casualty and refugee problems in South Vietnam and determine the feasibility of special U.S...
...Wolff, N.Y...
...Senator Gaylord A. Nelson, Democrat of Wisconsin, the nation's number one dairy state, pointed out, "It is one of the ironies of history that our American dairy farmers—the most efficient in the world—are receiving an hourly rate of income of $1 or less per hour...
...Replacement of bracero labor with domestic help has been moderate because growers have chosen to turn to mechanization, the substitute for manpower for which the United States is traditionally celebrated, but which— largely because of the cheap labor previously available—has come only recently to the "factory-farm" scene...
...Holland, Pa...
...How many napalm-burned Vietnamese children and adults are there...
...Brown, Cal...
...Five million dollars have gone into improving housing for farm workers in California alone...
...The word from Alabama, where the act is based, is that this season's show will be better than ever...
...Dr...
...His advance men report the early bookings are encouraging, and we're not surprised...
...The number of farmers and their political power steadily diminish...
...The economic facts support the farmer's case for higher prices...
...What about Federal farm subsidies— $13.5 billion in the past ten years...
...This is imperative, not only so that the American people may know what is done—or not done—in their name, and as "military necessity," but to determine the scope and nature of the additional medical care which the U.S...
...He said he saw every burn case in these hospitals and "among them was not a single case of burns due to napalm and but two from phosphorus shells...
...Government and private groups should provide for the wounded civilians of South Vietnam...
...civilian gatherings—mainly veterans' groups, "patriotic" organizations, and captive audiences of school children...
...Now Federal Communications Commissioner Lee Loevinger has defended them with the shrewdest of thrusts at our liberal hearts...
...What lies behind this seeming paradox...
...His paired vote clearly put him on record as standing with Morse and Nelson against the appropriation for escalation of the war...
...Kupferman, N.Y...
...As Loevinger explained it, millions of Americans "have seen the material accoutrements of prosperous middle-class living in which these things were shown to them in the contrasting poverty of their own surroundings and yet held out as things which they should desire, which were available, and which everyone might reasonably expect to get...
...The Committee of Responsibility, whose leaders and sponsors include many outstanding medical men, and some distinguished theologians and educators, asserted that "Thousands of war-injured civilians, requiring major surgery and sustained delicate care," constitute "insurmountable problems" in a land with greatly overburdened hospital and health facilities and only "one doctor and nine nurses to care for every 100,000 people...
...The film," said Senator Young, "is filled with gory pictures of Vietcong terrorism, but not one picture of destruction and human suffering caused by our bombing or of children burned by our napalm bombs...
...Holifield, Cal...
...Conyers, Mich...
...Writing in Redbook in January, 1967, Richard E. Perry, an American doctor who did volunteer work in South Vietnam, reported that "nothing could have prepared me for my encounters with Vietnamese women and children burned by napalm...
...as court decisions...
...presence in Vietnam...
...farmers' net income has gone up only 3.9 per cent...
...Gilbert, N.Y...
...Before Madison Avenue begins the drive to raise funds for a mammoth soap sculpture of Mr...
...Only the farmer goes into the market asking, "How much will you pay me...
...Today the farmers who provide the nation's food supply have launched a campaign to force prices up: dumping milk, holding livestock off the market, and refusing to buy farm machinery and automobiles...
...Resnick, N.Y...
...Rees, Cal...
...However, when millions of Americans— even school children—are being shown at taxpayers' expense a film which so distorts facts, one may ask: 'What are we really fighting for?' " Senator Fulbright highlighted the grim significance of this phony propaganda film when he said that in it "we come mighty close to what we have always objected to in an authoritarian state...
...Rosenthal, N.Y...
...Farm wages climbed to $1.58 an hour last October in California, the state which has always used, by far, the greatest number of braceros...
...Rusk's testimony does not necessarily collide with the evidence of others because he inspected different hospitals at a different time...
...The Journal study discloses that hourly wages have climbed twenty-two cents per hour against an increase of only three cents the last year the bracero program was effective...
...All the Soviet spy-scare literature of the Liberty Lobby and the paper blizzard it showered on Senators (Charles Percy, for example, received 7,000 letters against the treaty and only fifty for it, but the Illinois Republican voted with Morton), turned out to be futile...
...Eckhart, Tex...
...The alternative cost, in the long run, could be much higher...
...Brasco, N.Y...
...Three weeks later, after we had gone to press, Senator Gruening voted against the $12 billion supplemental appropriation (including the previously voted $4.5 billion) for the war...
...It is against this background that The Progressive confesses to an error in reporting which did Senator Gruening a grave injustice...
...Gallagher, N.J...
...Who has the stronger case—the housewife or the farmer...
...The United States and its military forces have been charged with com-miting at least as many savage deeds as the Vietcong...
...the 1966 figure soared to seventy per cent...
...Approved by a sixty-six to twenty-eight vote—three more than the two-thirds majority required for Senate acceptance of a treaty—the agreement provides for resumption of consular relations between this country and the Soviet Union which were broken off in 1948...
...Many of the doctors he queried had seen no napalm-burned cases, said Dr...
...The apparent conflict, however, heightens the need for a full-scale inquiry...
...Heimburger contended these are "a consumer subsidy...
...This break in the cold war pattern may be more symbolic than substantive, but there are some hopeful indications that it will lead to other improvements in relations with the Russians...
...But the nation's general prosperity, the drain of the war in Vietnam, and higher interest rates under the tight-money policy of banking interests and the Federal Reserve System force him to pay considerably higher prices for everything he buys...
...Ryan, N.Y...
...Helstoski, N.J...
...Fraser, Minn...
...Loevinger's notion that commercials spur civil rights may delight Martin Luther King, Jr., and other liberals but it will terrify the sponsors...
...The recent votes on HUAC's new appropriation recorded ninety-five Representatives in support of the hearing and forty-six opposing new funds for the Committee...
...It was granted $350,000 (after a $50,000 cut from last year's figure was agreed upon by the House Administration Committee, which proposed fund reductions for all House committees) by a vote of 352 to 46...
...Farbstein, N.Y...
...Bingham, N.Y...
...Commercials, Loevinger rhapsodized further, are "the most important and influential message that television has carried to a large segment of its audience during the last ten years...
...who does the death-defying stand-in-the-school-house-door...
...It was shocking and sickening, even for a physician, to see and smell the blackened flesh...
...fortunately, the President did so...
...An Orwellian Film As the calendar creeps closer to 1984 there are more and more signs that at least some of George Orwell's prophecies of two decades ago were frighteningly accurate...
...He is now seeking, as he attempted to do in the previous Congress, to amend the Selective Service act so that no draftees can be sent to fight, against their will, in Vietnam...
...Furthermore, a modern farmer has an enormous capital investment in his land, livestock, buildings, and equipment—$75,000 to $100,000 is not uncommon—on which he realizes little or no return...
...Ronan, III...
...Boiling, Mo...
...Senator George McGovern said in January, 1966, "I had visited a hopelessly overcrowded hospital in Danang with all its torn victims of the war . . . old men, mothers, and infants blasted and burned by napalm jelly, some mutilated almost beyond recognition...
...We did not choose to be the guardian at the gate," President Johnson says in one of his five appearances in the film...
...Possibly most important was the message that Senator Morton sent to President Johnson in the early stage of the struggle: Speak out strongly for the treaty or risk its defeat...
...Edwards, Cal...
...No mention is made in the film that General Ky, Our Boy in Saigon, has stated publicly that he considers Hitler his only authentic hero...
...In the past two decades the income of business and professional men has risen 110 per cent...
...Equally useless was the vocal and written opposition of the American Legion, the National Captive Nations Committee, the John Birch Society, and similar groups...
...As laudable as private efforts are and as much as they should be encouraged, our Government must also take responsibility...
...O'Hara, III...
...Kastenmeier, Wis...
...The chief counsel of a large steel corporation observed several years ago that the only major segments of our society that depended on free market rather than administered prices were the stock market and agriculture...
Vol. 31 • May 1967 • No. 5
