THE WEEK IN REVIEW
THE WEEK IN REVIEW AWEARY and fretful Congress ended nearly six months of continuous deliberation when it agreed last week to recess for the remainder of the Summer. Republican members hurried to...
...In the bill as passed, the Comptroller General was denied the right to review settlements even after it was brought out that his office was created because of the innumerable disgraceful scandals disclosed after World War I. At that time, Congressional investigations disclosed that countless millions of dollars were wasted or stolen during the period of contract termina-tion...
...Its fund for lending activities was cut from $96,710,000 to $67,-500,000, and the administrative fund from $28,500,000 to $26,000,000...
...Whisky...
...At the same time, former Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles issued a grim warning that American prestige is waning in Latin America and the Good Neighbor Policy is endangered by our recent actions...
...And there's no doubt that the bill is going to cause some problems...
...Although he conceded that the measure, which now awaits the President's signature, will "create a lot of problems," Bowles added that he thought OPA "came out* (of the legislative battle) quite fortunately...
...If the present trend continues, we will enter the postwar period with a hopelessly divided, rather than a solidly united, New World...
...Labor Vote...
...Its struggle this session has been as hard as any...
...Only measure passed was the so-called contract termination measure designed to protect industry from loss in the termination of war contracts...
...James Mead, New York Democrat...
...The State of New York has ruled that vitamins "are drugs" and can be sold in concentrated form only-by drug stores...
...Also spared from mortal blows after serious threats were the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Farm Security Administration, the Price Control Act, the Fair Employment Practices Committee, and Social Security appropriations...
...After six months of blowing hot and cold, the United States last week accorded belated recognition to the revolutionary government of Bolivia...
...Patton asserted that the bill should be called the "Black Market Act of 1944," adding that it would, if signed, protect "war profiteers against effective price control...
...If he is in an artillery unit or service unit, that rule does not apply...
...Roosevelt would get 66 per cent of the vote, as compared with the 72 per cent he received in 1940 and the 80 per cent of 1936, Dr...
...Unless remedial action is taken, and taken immediately, by a return to the practice of the enlightened principles of the Good Neighbor Policy, as it was originally carried out, the deterioration in inter-American relations which has already set in cannot be arrested...
...The President's strength is greater in the CIO than in the AFL, the poll showed...
...They were shocked by a provision in the measure which prevents Comptroller General Lindsay C. Warren, Congress' own "watchdog," from challenging any settlement unless he is prepared to prove fraud and that, even defenders of the bill admitted, will be next to impossible, because of the conditions under which settlements are arranged...
...Robert M. La Follette, Jr., Of all times, Bob said, this was the worst time to weaken the only bulwark that stands between the workers and privation in the postwar world...
...The claim for the rush was that the bill would prevent unemployment, apparently, and under that claim or cloak it was passed...
...But the Bankhead and Disney amendments, the worst inflationary amendments, are gone, and I am sure we can continue to hold both prices and rents...
...Industrial Reconversion Congress recessed for the Summer without taking decisive action on the vital and far-ranging problem of reconversion to peacetime production...
...Said Rep...
...Although it often seemed poised to destroy what is left of the New Deal, this Congress wielded its axe on only a few occasions...
...Social Security Sen...
...Congressional investigation of war contracts comes along, it may discover what the bill really does for the big war contractors, and, also, what it will do to the Treasury...
...Commenting on this development, Labor, militant organ of the Railroad Brotherhoods, said last week: "A crippling blow aimed at the Social Security System was warded off by the Senate, and for that the lion's share of credit goes to Sen...
...Casualties on their way back from the Normandy beachhead will tax the railroads as never before...
...Chester Lake, whose post as representative of Harry Slattery, head of the Rural Electrification Administration, is being "abolished" by the Department of Agriculture, notified President Roosevelt last week that he intends to stage a hunger strike in protest against political domination of the REA program...
...Again, the Administration received just about every dime it requested for prosecution of the war...
...Southern Tories waged a bitter fight to kill the appropriation, but they were defeated by a 39 to 21 vote...
...Sen...
...He declared that the measure would leave terminations and settlements largely in the hands of the same Army and Navy officers who had awarded the contracts originally...
...Republican members hurried to Chicago for their party's national convention, while the other Senators and Representatives journeyed home to take stock with the home folks and wade into the political problems of a Presidential campaign year...
...Fair Employment Practices President Roosevelt's Fair Employment Practices Committee, established to break down racial discrimination in war production employment, won a major victory just before Congress recessed when the Senate concurred in House legislation granting the FEPC a $500,000 appropriation...
...Its greatest failure was in the field of war taxes, but it did save the valuable renegotiation act from emasculation...
...American distillers, notified that their August industrial alcohol output will not be needed for the war effort, will make more than 50,000,000 gallons of whisky during that month—the first since Oct...
...Warren and the General Accounting Office supervision and final control over the awards under contract cancellations were defeated...
...Major actions taken by Congress before it recessed were these: * * * Price Control Extension A bitter struggle over legislation extending the Emergency Price Control Aet of 1942 ended with & compromise which appeared to be acceptable to spokesmen for the Roosevelt Administration...
...Mead warned the Senate that to destroy the FEPC now in the midst of a war supposedly being fought for the Four Freedoms would "leave America the laughing stock of the world...
...Gurney contended, however, that reports keep coming in of boys who have been in the Army only a few weeks finding themselves fighting in Italy with the result that the good faith of the War Department, as well as the lawmakers, is being challenged...
...All attempts to protect the Treasury by giving Mr...
...The fight for FEPC was led by Sens...
...Strike...
...The Disney amendment proposed a 35-cents-a-barrel increase in the price of crude oil...
...La Follette took the floor and warned that the cut would seriously impair efficiency of the unemployment compensation system...
...Names And Notes In The News Protest...
...Running against New York's Gov...
...Eventually, when some future...
...Many American parents have lodged protests with Government authorities against the reported use of incompletely trained 18-year-old youths in combat service, it was disclosed at a Senate committee hearing last week...
...Joseph T. McNarney, deputy chief of staff, to whom Sen...
...Of course, no bill was ever perfect," Bowles said, "and no one was ever wholly satisfied...
...Arthur Capper, Kansas Republican, and Dennis Chavez, New Mexico Democrat...
...Chester Bowles, OP A boss who administers the act, expressed confidence that the new bill would enable the Government to hold the line on prices and rents...
...They had charged that the FEPC was a Communist plot to take over American business...
...Thomas E. Dewey, Mr...
...Robert M. La Follette, Jr., Wisconsin Progressive, led the successful fight which checked a Senate move to knock out $10,000,000 from the Social Security appropriations for unemployment compensation...
...Supporters for the agency which has done so much to help the small, family-sized farmer in America vowed to resume the fight for adequate appropriations when Congress reconvenes in the Fall...
...Administration acceptance of the compromise bill did not prevent the outbreak of sharp criticism of the final version...
...8, 1942...
...He illustrated by mentioning numerous settlements which cost the Treasury millions...
...The Roosevelt Administration has been losing strength steadily in the ranks of organized labor, the Gallup Poll disclosed last week...
...Merlin Hull, Wisconsin Progressive, who opposed handcuffing the Comptroller General: "Several weeks ago Lindsay Warren, the honest and efficient Comptroller and head of the General Accounting Office, appeared before Congressional committees in denunciation of the plan, stating that it would open the door to the most extensive frauds in our history...
...Chan Gurney, South Dakota Republican, revealed the presence of a growing volume of complaints that the Army is violating a pledge to keep 18-year-old youths in training for a full year before sending them into combat...
...Farm Security Administration Long a target of Tory farm groups, the Farm Security Administration finds it necessary to make a new fight for its life each year...
...Vitamins...
...As a result the ODT is instituting a ruthless program of "bumping" civilian passengers from trains to make way for the wounded...
...The Senate appeared on the verge of approving the slash when Sen...
...The Senate yielded and voted 45 to 19 to appropriate an additional $6,000,-000...
...Transport...
...Gurney directed his remarks, replied that he thought examination of the record would show the War Department never had promised that no 18-year-olds would be used as replacements, but added: "I have a rule in the Army ground forces that no young man under 19 years of age assigned to the infantry will be sent overseas...
...A greatly watered down version was finally adopted...
...Mead pointed out that a recent survey had shown 51 per cent of the corporations had policies discriminating against Negroes at a time when their services were urgently needed for the war production program...
...George Gallup asserted last week...
...Under its provisions, it was estimated in debate, contracts with a total value of $75,000,000,000 will be adjusted...
...The nation's railroads face a further emergency in an already acute transportation situation, the Office of Defense Transportation disclosed last week...
...The Bankhead proposal would have raised the price of cotton textiles...
...The danger signals are flying in many parts of the New World," he said, citing the Bolivia run-around as an example...
...William Green, president of the American Federation of Labor, and James Patton, president of the National Farmers' Union, denounced the measure as "inflationary" and urged the President to veto it...
...Critics of the bill denounced provisions which authorize settlement of contracts behind closed doors, without an audit and with no opportunity for adequate administrative review...
...Last-minute approval of additional appropriations brought the actual total for the year to $92,006,000,000, Rep...
...Losses...
...Clarence Cannon, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, reported, adding that this Congress has voted more money than was spent by the United States in all previous wars combined...
...Last week it won a one-year reprieve, although on a greatly reduced budget...
...Warning...
...On the third anniversary of the German attack on Russia, the Soviet Information Bureau last week issued a survey which claimed that more than 7,800,000 Germans have been killed or captured since Jupe, 1941, compared with 5,300,000 Russians killed, missing, or captured...
Vol. 8 • July 1944 • No. 27
