THE WEEK IN REVIEW
THE WEEK IN REVIEW TWO steamrollers were in the news this week, one actually functioning while the other was being greased for early use. At San Francisco, Secretary of State Edward R. Stettinius,...
...Even General of the Army Dwight Eisenhower, who returned to America this week as a conquering hero, was pressed into service in behalf of the legislation...
...The U. S. Supreme Court this week affirmed a lower court ruling finding that the Associated Press membership by-laws violate the Sherman Anti-Trust Act...
...Tobey also denounced certain GOP leaders who, he said, have been working with the lobbyists and checking over a list of Republicans who might be "brought into line...
...A significant indication of the type of defense that will be made of the Big 5 veto power by supporters of the provision was on display in the Senate last week...
...We planned a worldwide war as far as weapons were concerned, but failed to plan a worldwide war as far as food was concerned," he said at a Minneapolis meeting...
...Vander-grift, and many another military official loaded with braid and brass beat a path to the House Postwar Military Policy Committee which has been conducting hearings on the conscription measure...
...What reason could there be for settling such a large loan for such a small amount...
...The nation was shocked last week to learn that Brig...
...Among the major organizations lining up against the proposal last week were the American Federation of Labor, the National Grange, and the United Auto Workers...
...Bad Debt...
...Of the total of 1,002,887, 227,097 are dead, 607,468 wounded, 63,455 missing, and 104,867 taken prisoner...
...The beneficiaries, Bowles charged, would be the very business interests whose profits last year, after taxes, were more than double the highest peacetime earnings...
...Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson, Secretary of the Navy Forrestal, General of the Army Marshall, Fleet Admiral King, Marine Commandant Gen...
...Arthur Vandenberg, Michigan Republican and active member of the American delegation at San Francisco, summed up informed opinion when he predicted Senate ratification of the United Nations charter, but expressed doubt that it could be achieved by July 15...
...Guns will be antiquated in World War III and rocket propelled shells weighing up to 10 tons will be hurled against adversaries with minute precision, Sven Lindquist, noted Swedish munitions inventor, predicted last week...
...Prospects...
...He was strongly critical of poor and inadequate-planning in recent years...
...President Truman entered the fray with a sharp attack on the amendment, and there was every likelihood that it would be knocked out before the measure clears through Congress...
...The WPB also revoked its ban on production of electric floor lamps and table lamps for civilians...
...Names And Notes In The News Bridges Case...
...Militarists On Display The nation's military bureaucracy trotted out some of its biggest stars this week in an effort to mobilize sentiment for the immediate passage of legislation creating a system of permanent peacetime conscription...
...The Big a have won their demand for an arbitrary veto power by which each has a veto over virtually all the activities and decisions of the rest of the organization...
...The key to this national objective, he said, lies in "eliminating the discontent that flows from poverty and unemployment" while retaining the principle of "the exceptional reward for exceptional merit...
...Chester Bowles, OPA boss, asserted that the Taft amendment would "create a field day for the chisel-er and profiteer," and that it was "an invitation to profiteers to write their own ticket...
...And the time came when the best of Nazi soldiers, with long years of compulsory military service, came up against mighty armies from countries which had practiced no peacetime compulsion...
...Meanwhile, conference leaders at San Francisco sought desperately this week to break the series of deadlocks which threatened to wreck hopes for early adjournment...
...Harry Bridges, West Coast CIO leader, cannot be deported to his native Australia because of the charge he is a member of the Communist Party, the U. S. Supreme Court ruled last week in a 5 to 3 decision...
...The fight between the Great Powers and the other 45 nations extends to a number of other issues, and an analysis of the outcome of the battle on each subject will appear in The Progressive when the conference ends and all the evidence is in...
...In fact, we have a bitter path ahead of us as far as food is concerned," Anderson declared...
...U. S. war casualties passed the 1,000,-000 mark May 31...
...H. Styles Bridges, New Hampshire Republican, in demanding an early inquiry, asked these questions: "Did Mr...
...But there is certainly no sense in trying to club the Senate into approving this charter, and I will oppose any effort to do so...
...Robert A. Taft, Ohio Republican, which would have compelled OPA to fix prices that would yield manufacturers a profit on every item they turned out, regardless of their overall profit...
...Monopoly...
...Adoption of the amendment, he said, would add 9 billion dollars to the cost of living...
...In Washington, the Truman Administration was getting its own steamroller in shape as it publicly expressed the hope of ramming the treaty embodying the San Francisco results through the Senate by mid-July...
...Senate ratification of the San Francisco results is a foregone conclusion, but whether the Senate will want to waive its right to debate and discuss the issues in great detail is another problem...
...The link by which it is sought to tie him to subversive activities is an exceedingly tenuous one, if it may be said to exist at all...
...Robert F. Wagner, New York Democrat, asserted last week that the surest way to preserve democracy and free enterprise in the U. S. is "to abolish poverty without destroying the opportunity to get rich...
...Hartford try to collect" the money...
...The outstanding lesson taught by World War II is that the nation which commands the air is the nation that can rule the world...
...Meanwhile, spokesmen for farm, labor, church, and educational organizations continued to roll up a great mass protest against peacetime conscription...
...This thing will not be the battle of the century, and I believe the Senate will accept the charter without too much trouble...
...C. C. Ewing, counsel for the A & P, disclosed that Hartford had written off the loan in his income tax report as "a bad debt...
...In a letter to the House Committee, Eisenhower declared that "fairness to the country and to the individual's chances of survival in war" deemed that able-bodied young men be given military training in peacetime...
...Atty...
...In this 5 to 3 ruling, Justices Black, Frankfurter, Douglas, Rutledge, and Reed ruled against the AP, while Chief Justice Stone and Justices Murphy and Roberts dissented...
...Guns...
...Lobbyists...
...At San Francisco, Secretary of State Edward R. Stettinius, Jr., chief of the American delegation to the United Nations conference, was driving hard for quick adjournment, with President Truman scheduled to address the delegates Saturday, June 23...
...Meanwhile, the Senate approved a year's extension to the Price Control (OPA) Act, but only after breaking away from Administration leadership long enough to adopt the Wherry-Shipstead amendment for a cost-plus plan of pricing farm products...
...Previously opposition had been announced by the Congress of Industrial Organizations and the National Farmers Union...
...The need for "numbers" in battle has been proven in the present war, he said, and the best method of providing those "numbers" for the future is to train a conscript citizen army, rather than a professional army, he claimed...
...Million Mark...
...Bridges had denied that he was a member of the Communist Party...
...It is important that no nation under the charter shall be called upon to perform an obligation which, when the time comes to perform it, it is likely to refuse...
...Stalin and Churchill near Berlin next month...
...The example of France, which in 1939 boasted the greatest and best trained regular army, the product of a compulsory law, certainly offers no good argument for the adoption of a system which did not save that army from rout and defeat in this war...
...The Senate rejected an amendment by Sen...
...Universal military training is a discredited, broken stick," Daniels told the Committee in urging an overwhelming air fleet as the best weapon to preserve peace...
...Harold H. Burton, Ohio Republican, characterized the veto provision as "a straightforward way of recognizing the limitation of powers of enforcement that are inherent in the charter...
...Bitter Path Ahead In Food Biggest home-front news of the week was food again...
...Elliot borrowed the money in 1939 to expand his radio properties, and Hartford agreed to advance the money after talking to President Roosevelt on the telephone...
...The President is anxious to have Senate approval in his pocket when he confers with the Messrs...
...Some sunshine in the dark recesses might be healthy for the nation...
...Members of Congress who demanded an investigation of the whole affair were quick to point out that the A & P has been faced with Federal anti-trust prosecution...
...The result is history...
...Clinton P. Anderson, chairman of the special House committee investigating the food problem and soon to become Secretary of Agriculture, warned the nation against accepting optimistic assurances of early improvement...
...Justice Douglas, in the majority opinion, concurred in by Justices Reed, Rutledge, Black, and Murphy, wrote: "The associations which Harry Bridges had with various Communist groups seems to indicate no more than cooperative measures to attain objectives which were wholly legitimate...
...Justice Jackson did not participate...
...Goal...
...The Example Of France One of the hardest-hitting attacks against the scheme for peacetime conscription came from old but still colorful Josephus Daniels, who was Secretary of the Navy under President Wilson...
...The citizen soldiers, quickly mastering the lessons of war in combat, came off victors over those who believed no soldier could fight unless from boyhood he had been compelled to make militarism a grind of his daily life...
...The New Hampshire Senator said he intended to introduce legislation which would require lobbyists to register and list their fees...
...Elliot Roosevelt, son of the late President, had borrowed $200,000 from John Hartford, president of the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., and had settled the loan in 1942 for only $4,000...
...Production of 600,000 civilian passenger cars in the next 11 months—214,678 of them in the last half of 1945—and the manufacture of 530,000 new, popularly-priced household refrigerators this year was approved recently by the War Production Board...
...Charles Tobey, New Hampshire Republican, unleashed a blistering attack on lobbyists for powerful interests who have been working for the defeat of the reciprocal trade agreement extension program...
...Relief from critical shortages was nowhere in sight...
...Francis Biddle had contended in behalf of the Government that Bridges was an undesirable alien as a member of the Communist Party which taught overthrow of the U. S. Government by "force and violence...
...The small and medium-sized nations were fighting a last, rearguard action in a gallant effort to win some concessions from the Great Powers, who have thus far fashioned an instrument which is not unlike a Big 5 military alliance, decked out with trimmings which provide the appearance of an international organization...
...A Last, Rearguard Action "I believe the Senate will be quite receptive to the charter when it is laid before it...
...Chief Justice Stone and Justices Frankfurter and Roberts dissented, and Justice Jackson did not participate...
Vol. 9 • June 1945 • No. 26
