AN UNHOLY MESS'
'An Unholy Mess' THE UNITED STATES SENATE presented a cheerless spectacle last week when it voted to torpedo the work of the Radio Intelligence Division and the Foreign Broadcast Intelligence...
...Peace does not frighten him...
...What is here proposed is a gross perversion of our system of government—the impossible, wasteful, and unbusinesslike step- of managing from the halls of Congress a huge power system 500 miles from where we sit...
...In a recent speech he set forth a far-sighted and intelligent housing program for America in which he urged a joint effort of Federal and state governments, municipalities, banks, labor unions, insurance companies, and industries, all groups in society working together with "profits secondary to mass employment...
...The United Press reported that stocks "suffered their most severe decline of the month...
...No starry-eyed dreamer, Kaiser is a hard headed business man just as interested in profits as the next man...
...Sen...
...It would halt war production and affect adversely the interest of taxpayers all over the country...
...The adoption of these amendments would mean the destruction of the TVA power system...
...Sen...
...Lister Hill, Alabama Democrat, summed up the McKellar amendments best of all when he characterized them "an unholy mess...
...He sees in it an opportunity for the same kind of courageous industrial pioneering that has won him the name of "miracle man of production...
...McKellar, of course, has conducted a bitter and relentless feud against David Lilienthal, chairman of the TVA Board of Directors, and apparently isn't greatly concerned if the Federal program which has been benefiting his state so greatly is wrecked while he conducts his personal vendetta...
...There are signs that a new kind of industrial statesmanship is emerging in America, typified by the dynamic Henry J. Kaiser...
...It was the appropriation for this work and for the Radio Intelligence Division, the domestic police arm of the FCC, which a short-sighted Senate voted to slash last week...
...And yet these proposals taken as a whole will have the effect of preventing this gigantic enterprise, in which more than $750,000,-000 of the taxpayers' money has been invested, from operating on sound business principles...
...America needs more business men with the courage and foresight of Kaiser...
...Out of the shambles of this war in England, Russia, and Europe," Kaiser said, "there are certain to arise new cities—modern, safe, efficient, and beautiful...
...The Street, it is evident, believes that the alternative to war is economic chaos...
...Jobs Before Profits HENRY FORD'S prediction last week that the end of the war was not more than two months away threw the New York Stock Market into the doldrums...
...Sen...
...The Senate has thrown the affairs of the TVA into what Sen...
...In slashing appropriations for the FCC units, the Senate showed that, like some of the highest placed officials in the Roosevelt Administration, it has little understanding and less appreciation of the art of psychological warfare—an art which has enabled the Germans and the Japanese to win many a bloodless victory by using their brains...
...Several days later the Tory majority of the Senate struck again—this time at the heart of the TVA, which must be reckoned by any fair-minded American as one of the truly great achievements of the Roosevelt Administration...
...But, unlike the Wall Street crowd, he accepts the challenge of tomorrow and is not afraid to face it...
...Said Boss Crump, whose practiced ear is always close to the ground, "TVA is too dear to be trifled with...
...Cooperating with labor, agriculture, and government, this type of industrial leadership can build a new America free of the fears and dangers inherent in the buccaneering system of the peace-fearing speculators of Wall Street...
...His home state papers are lambasting him right and left...
...Can we afford to be laggards in such a march of progress...
...Hill has aptly described as "ah unholy mess...
...The people of Tennessee are becoming ever more impatient with McKellar's tactics...
...The House of Representatives has a challenging opportunity to rescue this vital agency of Government—and in so doing, to rescue5 their colleagues in the "Upper Chamber" from the "smear Congress" crowd, What Tennessee Thinks IT IS DIFFICULT for ordinary mortals to understand what prompts otherwise intelligent and public-spirited Senators to vote for spite legislation like the McKellar amendments...
...The FCC has been performing a valuable service for the war effort by listening to the foreign propaganda of our enemies and reporting to Government authorities so that we might deal with this effective arm of the Axis war machine...
...The conservative Nashville Tennesseean, for instance, went so far as to state that if a recall were possible in Tennessee "he would be removed from his office tomorrow...
...Robert M. La Follette, Jr., called attention to an interesting angle on the amendments which, he said, would "inevitably cripple and greatly impair the operations of the enterprise," when he made this statement: "It seems passing strange to me that support of these amendments should come in many instances from those who are often critical of the lack of business principle and practice in governmental operations...
...This widespread public disgust with McKellar's assault on TVA has grown to such an extent that Ed Crump, the big boss of the state and long a McKellar associate, rebuked the Senator last week for "seeing fit to interfere with the operations of TVA which is so beneficial to the people of Tennessee...
...Kenneth McKellar, Tennessee Democrat, "led the successful wrecking raid, winning Senate acceptance of amendments which would, if they become law, give him control over the appointment of TVA engineers, technicians, chemists, and other employes earning $4,500 or mere a year, and paralyze operations of the Authority by depriving it of its present power to spend its own receipts on vital public operations...
...Sen...
...To the American people, who daily hope and pray for an early peace, nothing could be more discouraging than signs of panic whenever Wall Street hears of an "ugly" peace rumor...
...An Unholy Mess' THE UNITED STATES SENATE presented a cheerless spectacle last week when it voted to torpedo the work of the Radio Intelligence Division and the Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service of the Federal Communications Commission, and followed this up a few days later by approving legislation which would cripple the program of the Tennessee Valley Authority...
...Fortunately we do not have to accept the formula of the jittery money-changers...
Vol. 8 • April 1944 • No. 14
