THE WEEK IN REVIEW
THE WEEK IN REVIEW AFAR-REACHING, seven billion dollar program of financial assistance to men and women demobilized from the armed services at the end of the war was introduced in Congress last...
...Thomas E. Dewey over President Roosevelt in 1944...
...Patton's fate was still in doubt at mid-week...
...Vice President Henry A. Wallace promptly characterized the report as fantastic and a "shocking slur" on our Good Neighbors...
...Separate bills covering unemployment compensation, social security credits, and mustering out pay were introduced in both houses a few days after President Roosevelt had called for quick action on a program of postwar demobilization...
...Patton Blows Up The nation was shocked last week to learn that one of its most colorful warriors, Lieut...
...His plea appeared to make few if any converts in the Senate...
...Party lines were scrambled when the House voted 278 to 117 to end food subsidies after Dec...
...Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Jr., who has just returned from a tour of the Mediterranean battlefront, renewed his demand for passage of the program submitted by his department...
...Josiah W. Bailey, North Carolina Democrat, has demanded a court martial of Patton, but no announcement of contemplated action has been made...
...Rationing...
...On the final vote 128 Republicans, 98 Democrats, one Progressive, and one Farmer-Laborite voted to abolish the payment of subsidies, while 100 Democrats, 15 Republicans, one Progressive, and one American Labor Party representative voted to keep alive the system of paying producers a subsidy in order to stabilize retail prices...
...The officers of these divisions in turn relayed this message to the enlisted men...
...Unemployment Compensation This program calls for $15 a week for single persons, with an additional $5 a week for a dependent wife, and $2.50 for each child, up to a total of $25 a week...
...This would run about four billions...
...Dwight Eisenhower's failure to remove Patton from command of troops although he did "rip the hide" off Patton and threatened to "break him" unless he made full and immediate amends...
...The Associated Press reported from Italy last week that American troops demand complete and unbiased coverage of the approaching political campaign and "they don't want to hear only the Administration point of view...
...I am confident that you will agree with me that Gen...
...The Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America appealed last week to "moulders of public opinion" to lend a hand in halting what it called the "widespread lowering of sex standards" throughout the nation...
...He told a Senate committee that the size of American food stocks and "the length of time the demand continues for feeding the devastated countries of Europe" will determine how long rationing will have to be extended after the war...
...Robert Wagner, New York Democrat and coauthor of the legislation, estimated that the cost of that phase of the program should not be more than the cost of "running the war for about two weeks during the present fiscal year...
...300 Mustering Out Pay Here are the principal provisions of the bills introduced in Congress: Mustering Out Pay All personnel below the grades of major in the Army and lieutenant commander in the Navy would qualify for mustering out pay...
...Social Security Credits These credits would be based on pay of $160 a month, for time spent in the service...
...Having acquired vast tracts of land for military training, the federal government now owns one fifth of the nation's land, Senate investigators disclosed last week...
...Two Administration Defeats The Roosevelt Administration was fighting a losing battle in the Senate this week on two major sectors of the home front...
...Recognizing the widespread apprehension about the future, the President told Congress that prompt action on demobilization plans is vital to assure the armed services that the people at home "do not propose to let them down...
...Homesickness "is becoming an epidemic" among American troops in Italy, according to H. R. Knickerbocker, chief of the Chicago Sun's foreign service...
...Secretary of Agriculture Claude R. Wickard predicted last week that the United States is in for continued rationing of food for an indefinite period after the war ends—perhaps on a more severe basis than at present...
...Landlord...
...Before the Senate Finance Committee, Morgenthau argued that without increased taxes the country faces black markets, ruptured price ceilings, and higher living costs...
...H. A. Butler, Nebraska Republican, charged that the Roosevelt Administration's "New Deal for Latin America" was a "naively conceived and badly coordinated program of boondoggling" which has helped keep military dictatorship in power...
...Patton's great services to his country . . . against an indefensible act . . . was Gen...
...Eisenhower sent a telegraphic report of the episode to Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson...
...Gen...
...Gen...
...Eisenhower's," Stimson pointed out...
...Morgenthau is said to be none too popular in Congress just now and there have been some demands, among Democrats, that he resign...
...John Rankin, Mississippi Democrat and relentless critic of Willkie's career as an anti-TVA utility magnate, said of Sparks' new book that it "exposed the criminal rigging" of the 1940 GOP convention...
...American casualties in Italy are increasing with stiffening Nazi resistance, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson reported last week...
...The sensational charge that supporters of Wendell L. Willkie "bought" delegates with a "roomful of money" at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia in 1940 was published last week in One Man—Wendell Willkie, a book written by C. Nelson Sparks, former mayor of Akron, O., long an intimate acquaintance of Willkie's, and now apparently one of his bitterest political foes...
...In forwarding the report to the Senate, Stimson asserted that Eisenhower is completely responsible for all matters of discipline in his theater...
...The cost of mustering out pay was put roughly at three billions...
...In his report, Eisenhower said he demanded that Patton make prompt and complete amends "before his whole army," and that Patton did seek out and make full apologies to the individuals involved and the persons who were present when the incident occurred...
...Patton's aggressive, winning leadership in the bitter battles which are to come before final victory...
...The House voted by the lopsided margin of 200 to 27 to pass the $2,140,000,000 tax bill written by its Ways and Means Committee in defiance of the Treasury Department which had demanded enactment of $10,500,000,000 in new taxes...
...His forecast was based, he said, on the prospective demands on American supplies for the feeding of other peoples...
...Wendell L. Willkie would be the weakest GOP contender against the President, the poll showed...
...They would receive $100 for less than four months service, $200 for four to six months service, and $300 for six months or more service...
...Farm Favorite...
...Apart from inflationary dangers, he said, failure to levy additional taxes would work an injustice on returning servicemen and women...
...For those who were covered under the social security program while civilians, the effect of the credits would be to increase the prospective amount of the coverage...
...George S. ("Blood and Guts") Patton, Jr., had struck a shell shocked enlisted man in a hospital tent in Sicily last August, and, in a towering rage, had called him and other wounded and shell shocked soldiers "yellow bellies...
...Casualties...
...Report...
...Payments would be made to all unemployed veterans during the first 15 months after leaving service, except to those refusing "suitable employment...
...A nation-wide poll of farmers, conducted by Successful Farming, disclosed that rural sentiment favors Gen...
...He urged that post-war planners see to it that the tillable land among the 20 million acres taken for war purposes be returned to farming promptly after the war, either through sale or lease by the government...
...Rectifying An 'Historic Mistake' Only the formality of a Presidential signature remained this week for the rectification of what President Roosevelt has called an "historic mistake...
...Eisenhower Explains "The decision to weigh Lieut...
...Washington observers noted that the division was largely between the big cities on the one hand and the rest of the country on the other...
...Epidemic...
...Plea...
...Douglas MacArthur or Gov...
...Eisenhower's decision, under these difficult circumstances, was right and proper...
...Names And Notes In The News Charge...
...As his report shows, Eisenhower in making his decision also considered the value to our country of Gen...
...I am confident," the President had said, "that if industry and labor and government tackle the problems of economic adjustment after the war with the same unity of purpose and with the same ingenuity, resourcefulness, and boldness that they have employed to such advantage in wartime production, they can solve them...
...Coverage...
...Total casualties in the Italian theater thus far are 1,613 killed, 6,361 wounded, and 2,685 missing, a total of 10,659...
...While Patton's shameful behavior was under sharp attack in Congress and throughout the nation, there was also Congressional criticism of the Army's suppression of the story for four months and Gen...
...In addition, he visited each and every division of the Seventh Army and called together all officers to whom he registered his regret that he should have been guilty of conduct which could be considered unfair or un-American...
...Sen...
...The announced cost of the program, seven billion dollars, is approximate...
...THE WEEK IN REVIEW AFAR-REACHING, seven billion dollar program of financial assistance to men and women demobilized from the armed services at the end of the war was introduced in Congress last week...
...Senate approval by a voice vote completed Congressional action on the bill to abolish the Chinese Exclusion Acts from the law books...
...In the struggle over a new tax program, the Roosevelt Administration was also in full retreat...
...It is impossible, for instance, to forecast the cost of unemployment compensation...
...Its retreat in the upper chamber came after it had been roundly trounced in the House on both issues—subsidies and taxes...
...When President Roosevelt signs the bill into law, Chinese who are lawful permanent residents of the United States will have the right to become naturalized citizens and immigration barriers will be lowered to admit 105 Chinese annually...
...They would have the effect of bringing under old age and survivors insurance thousands of service men and women who were not covered in civilian life...
...Sparks charges that Thomas Lamont, head of the firm of J. P. Morgan & Company, and others picked Willkie, and that Willkie endorsed an interventionist foreign policy because he had promised a group of international bankers, Tory publishers, and British aristocracy that he would support American involvement in the war...
...Reporting on a 20,000-mile tour of Latin America, Sen...
...Supporters of the legislation have pointed out that its passage would aid greatly in combatting Japanese propaganda...
Vol. 7 • December 1943 • No. 49
