THE PRESIDENT'S APPOINTMENTS

...The President's Appointments IN his forthcoming new book, "Inside America," written before the death of President Roosevelt, John Gunther, the distinguished American correspondent, sought to assess the then Vice President Truman as Presidential timber...

...From there on, it would be up to them—and the Russians...

...Cerf breathlessly flashed this bulletin from the inner precincts of New York's swank night spot, the Stork Club: "A group of writers in the Cub Room of the Stork wondered what would become of the half million and more well-fed, unconverted Nazi prisoners now held in the United States...

...But us no buts The dirty job's for guys with guts...

...This type of a campaign is expensive, to be sure...

...Equally significant is the President's avowed in-tent ion of reorganizing, modernizing, and streamlining the executive branch of the Government...

...The expenses involved in this campaign, it is reported, will come'from the old power trust game of "kickback...

...In a recent column, Mr...

...President Truman's appointment of young, able, and aggressive men to 3 important Cab'net posts (see Page 3 for details) supports the belief that the President will not try to run the who'e show, but will assign definite, clear-cut responsibility to men of proven ability, and give them every chance to produce—or make way for men who will...

...What does Freedom triumph for Except for men to kill some more, Why else are other people slain But that we bluster might and main ? Let others do the dying, drilling, It's we who'll plan the postwar killing...

...It was to be expected that the power gang wouldn't giv- up this kind of cash without a struggle...

...It shows, too, a decided reliance on progressives—on men "whose past records disclose a willingness to stand up and fight for progressive principles, even when it means bucking powerful vested interests...

...That is the difference between what the people of the Missouri Valley are paying for their electricity and what the people of the Tennessee Valley are paying for theirs...

...Nine of this agency's slick promoters have been sent into the Missouri Valley at a salary of $1,000 a month each and large expense accounts...

...We'll keep our brave typewriters hot...

...Reading this bit of master strategy from the sodden soldiers of the Stork Club reminded us of Prof...

...Battle Of Befuddlement AS The Progressive recently pointed out editorially, it is worth $106,000,000 a year to the power trust to prevent the passage of legislation authorizing the Missouri Valley Authority...

...Let's make sure when Victory's won We'll be more savage than the Hun...

...Harry S. Truman's single most valuable quality," Gunther wrote, "is his knack of pick-ins...

...Streamlining of the executive branch, if accompanied by the projected modernization of Congress, will give America the strong and efficient instruments of government which this nation needs so urgently if 1) government is to be truly responsive to the will of the people...

...Soldiers have little time for loathing, / That's for us chaps in tailored clothing...

...Their purpose is to foment opposition to the MVA proposal...

...We would be responsible for them until they hit the docks at Vladivostok...

...Soldiers Of The Stork Club BENNETT CERF, the book publisher and raconteur, writes a column, "Trade Winds," for the Saturday Review of Literature which is both good and awful—good when he sticks to quips and anecdotes about writing folk, and awful when he strikes up a pose as political scientist, military strategist, social psychologist, and authority on the Germans...

...Do we mean us ? Oh, clearly not...

...It's worth reprinting now, and here it is: TO SOME BLOODTHIRSTY WRITERS At the Stork Club very late, Let us drink and drum up hate...

...Would they be sent back to Germany to resume their fight against democracy at just about the point they suspended operations when captured...

...The mushroom growth of agencies during the past decade, and especially in the war period, has left, in several vital areas, as in labor relations, for instance, a bureaucratic hodge-podge of baffling pro-po...

...Louis, Mo...

...It consists of the utilities overpaying someone for services or materials and then having the money kicked back to the utility...

...One suggestion cheered everybody: when the time comes to dispatch those fellows home, why can't we develop a sudden scarcity of tonnage in the Atlantic and route the lot of them via Siberia...

...They have hired a large public relations agency in New York to carry on the battle of befuddlement...

...President Truman's latest batch of appointments reveals more than a determination to pick strong, ab!e lieutenants...

...That MVA is the only feasible plan for developing the Valley on a multi-purpose basis can be seen from the fact that the utilities are not fighting hydro-electric development if it is done by the Army Engineers or the Reclamation Bureau, but only by an MVA...

...Waiter* some caviar, some sparkling wine, We're planning blood baths on the Rhine And we'll be here to toast in gin Nice peacetime slaughters in Berlin It's up to us, far from the front, To bay like wolf packs on a hunt, It's up to us who think and write To fume and writhe and rage and bite...

...Irwin Echnan...

...But expensive as it is, it will never cost $106,000,-000 a year...

...This was the method used, you will recall, in the notorious Union Electric scandals in St...

...Irwin Edman's verse in the New Yorker magazine a year or so ago...

...good men and then backing them up...

...2) if democracy is to survive and flourish in a world that more and more turns to totalitarianism—even as it wins wars in the name of democracy...

...James E. Murray, Montana Democrat and sponsor of the MVA bill, has disclosed that the utilities are sparing no expense to fight MVA...

...Devebpments of the past fortnight amply confirm at least half this judgment and prophecy of Gurither's...

...Another round, and while we swill, Arrange to kill, kill, kill, kill, kill...

...All Germans must die...

...The utility books thus show an ostensibly legitimate expense, but fail to show that the money was returned for illegitimate purposes...