PLAIN TAKING NEEDED

Plain Talking Needed THE TRUMAN COMMITTEE of the Senate continued last week to justify its billing as the nation's No. 1 watchdog over the war effort. In a sharply worded report to the Senate, the...

...In a sharply worded report to the Senate, the Committee reminded the country's allies that Lend-Lease never was intended "as a device to shift Allied war costs" to the United States and it demanded that the Allies furnish greater quantities of reverse Lend-Lease supplies and be compelled to use their own resources before asking for American aid...
...Members of the Truman Committee apparently share our conviction that international relations must be based on plain talking, honest dealing, reciprocity, and a free, realistic give-and-take of ideas, criticisms, and suggestions, and not on the "Britain can do no wrong," "Russia can do no wrong," "blame everything on America" doctrine preached by our Anglophiles and Russophiles...
...The Committee's report displays, on the whole, an alert, vigilant determination to protect America's interests and to prevent the Lend-Lease program from becoming a greater global grab-bag or gravy train than it is...
...But unless it puts an end to the present one-side-edness that has shocked and disgusted discriminating listeners, the people will call it to account for the brazen betrayal of its trust...
...The threat comes not only from the Southern poll-tax bloc, whose obstructionist tactics have constituted a shameful debasing of representative government, but from many sincere opponents of the poll tax who feel that a fundamental constitutional issue is at stake...
...On another occasion he was told, "You don't have to keep mentioning that $25,000-a-year story...
...Moreover, the Danaher proposal strikes at the most vulnerable point in the political armor of the Southern Bourbons...
...If our relations with our allies are balanced on so slender a thread that we endanger harmony by indulging in criticism, however constructive, the people of America ought to know now how delicate is the condition of their alliances...
...Every effort should be made to reduce the cost of our taxpayers to a minimum," the Committee declared, "both by obtaining reverse Lend-Lease and by compelling the recipients of Lend-Lease to utilize the resources they have to a maximum before requesting aid from us...
...A show, complete with $125,000 worth of charts, sound and slide film, and psychological studies, will visit 114 cities to convince the merchants of their erring advertising habits...
...That Congress has clear authority under the 14th Amendment to do this even the most bitter end poll-taxer will not deny...
...A study of the 1942 election returns, for example, shows that Tennessee and Arkansas together sent 17 representatives to Congress by a vote of only five per cent of their total population...
...While the debate between the two schools of legal interpretation raged in Senate committee hearings last week, Connecticut's able Republican Senator, John Danaher, in his usual quiet way, came forward with a suggestion that might well prove to be the answer to the objection that the present bill is an unconstitutional infringement of the right of the states to fix election requirements...
...This is just fine...
...He was also warned to "stop talking about the American workers...
...Danaher's proposal...
...After all, you ought to realize that if it goes through it will affect the people upstairs who pay your salary...
...If the objections to the present legislation cannot be overcome, Congress should give prompt and favorable consideration to Sen...
...Four per cent of the people in Texas elected 21 Congressmen, while Virginia, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina elected a total of 41 Congressmen with even lower voting percentages...
...We agree that radio has a very serious responsibility in the task of keeping the public informed...
...Another time 11 lines referring to Standard Oil's hook-up with I. G. Farben were cut from his broadcast with this comment: "Go easy on Standard Oil...
...Radio And The Truth THE NATIONAL Association of Broadcasters is out to persuade the small business men of the country that advertising over local radio stations is far superior to newspaper advertising...
...After first explaining that psychology professors have demonstrated that the American people would die of loneliness if their radios aren't blaring 24 hours out of the day, the traveling master of ceremonies describes to the merchants how radio is carrying its grave responsibilities: "Radio," he asserts, "eliminates the bewilderment and helps formulate standards of judgment for the millions of Americans who just don't read...
...We should insure that we will never again be the victims of the plan by which we were forced in the '20s to pay exorbitant prices for rubber at the same time we were being called Shylocks in the English press for requesting repayment of war loans which we had made to England...
...One of them, according to correspondence on file in the Federal Communications Commission, bluntly told one of its commentators to "lay off that stuff" when he broadcast that General Motors had defied a government agency...
...You know we carry plenty of their business...
...But lately we have been hearing a good deal about just how the radio networks have been going about,helping fashion public opinion...
...We are all in favor of helping Americans, lazy or otherwise, to formulate judgments...
...The Committee's report dealt with a number of specific materials, including petroleum, nickel, copper, tin, and iron, which could be made available to the United States by Great Britain in return for our Lend-Lease aid, but its comment on rubber struck us as most trenchant and timely...
...Make The Bourbons Pay THE CHALLENGE of the constitutionality of the anti-poll tax bill now before the United States Senate threatens again to stall decisive action on this vitally-needed legislation...
...For ourselves, we are convinced that the British and the Russian officials are sincere realists and prefer an outspoken exchange of ideas, including criticism, to the gushing adulation practiced by so many of our trembling liberals...
...Danaher proposed that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution be invoked and the bill be amended to read that any state abridging the right to vote shall have its Congressional representation reduced...
...It is obvious that strict enforcement of the 14th Amendment would mean that the poll tax states pay a just and logical price for their stubborn disregard of fundamental democratic rights...

Vol. 7 • November 1943 • No. 46


 
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