THE RELIEF MUDDLE
The Relief Muddle SWEEPING reform of the international relief policies of the United States and the United Nations has now become imperative. For weeks a mass of conflicting statements regarding...
...ASAMPLE of the sort of policy that dismays Americans was Secretary Ickes' recent statement that we must ship 6,000,000 tons of coal to Europe although we face a desperate shortage here at home this Winter...
...Every one of them declared the rights and interests of the states had been strengthened...
...We must not assume for one instant that the mere adoption of the charter means peace, or even that world approval of the charter means peace...
...Said Mr...
...We must not forget that poverty, degradation, and indecent standards of living exist today, that boundary disputes exist today, that rivalries between nations for economic advantage and trade exist today, that even hatreds and fears of one people for another exist today...
...Few Americans have the faintest notion of how much is being spent, what for, and by whom, and whether anything is being accomplished toward relieving genuine distress in Europe...
...The TVA Dictatorship' ALETTER received by The Progressive from a soldier in a Southern camp, tells of the "vicious, full-page" ads being run in Southern papers by the power trust, tying up the Tennessee Valley Authority with the "Nazi socialistic" program...
...Americans have proven through the years that they are a most generous people...
...Obviously their needs ought to come before those of Spain and Argentina, which have been getting 25,000 tons of coal per month from us for more than a year...
...The Senator said he was proud to vote for the charter "as a step in the right direction"—and then proceeded to get at the heart of the issue: "Will the charter give the U. S. and the world an enduring peace...
...We and the people of all other nations must continue to work for peace...
...Finley had heard of was this: TVA has saved electric power users in the area millions of dollars, has paid its own operating expenses, pays more taxes than the private companies used to pay, and has benefited workers, farmers, business and professional men...
...The two items together would leave UNRRA just about broke...
...We must keep these goals constantly before us...
...McFarland's speech was not headline stuff, of course...
...Ffreir great desire today to lend a helping hand to the genuinely impoverished of the world is clear enough, but they have a right to expect that the hundreds of millions they are called upon to pay will not become a political grab-bag or that the governments of Europe will make impossible demands at a time when we are fighting a costly war, just about single-handedly, in the Pacific...
...What do the people of the Tennessee Valley think of the TVA "dictatorship...
...Finley, everyone in the region would fight if they tried to take the TVA "dictatorship" away...
...To add to the confusion, Soviet Russia, which up to now has made it clear that she does not want UNRRA relief, suddenly announced last week that she will take $700,000,000 worth...
...We must fight for peace as hard as we are fighting this war...
...And how about the other units of local government...
...Quite apart from the coal itself, Ickes' request would place a crushing burden on our already battered transportation system...
...For weeks a mass of conflicting statements regarding the operations of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) has come pouring out of Washington and the capitals of Europe...
...Not long ago the St...
...Those of us who recently visited Europe and Africa saw plainly that the whole world is seething with unrest...
...In fact, added Mr...
...Soviet-dominated Poland has also put in her order for $700,000,000 worth of relief...
...Finley, "If the TVA has ever had a preconceived plan to completely do over its area, or to revise the lives of the people there, I have never heard of it...
...Of the total amount expected to be available altogether—according to the latest batch of figures $1 852,000,000—the United States is committed to putting up $1,350,000,000, or 74 per cent...
...HPHE time has come for some sound and sensible overall planning of America's capacities and America's needs...
...TVA is being pictured as a huge bureaucratic monster dominating the lives of all the people in the Tennessee Valley...
...The Simple Truth TN all the torrent of Senatorial oratory on the -*- United Nations Charter the two-minute speech of Sen...
...Sen...
...Basically, the answer to this question lies in our ability—yes, in the ability of all nations—to remove the causes of war and keep them removed...
...S. R. Finley, general superintendent of the Chattanooga, Tenn., electric power board, recently spoke in Muskogee, Okla...
...It would take 300,000 cars to transport the coal from the mines to tidewater—in the midst of the worst rail snarl in U. S. history...
...Contributions to meet these demands have fallen far behind schedule—except those of the United States...
...Louis Post-Dispatch asked the governors of the 7 Tennessee Valley states how states' rights had fared with TVA operating in the area...
...China has put in her bid for something just under a billion, which if met, would leave UNRRA with a pittance to meet the demands of all the other countries...
...Hart of Connecticut, former commander-in-chief of our Asiatic fleet, estimated in the Senate last week that if we use our best ships, about 700 round trips would be required to get the coal to Eurone—and this at a time when shipping is at a premium for the vast distances of the Pacific...
...A former private utility engineer, Finley emphasized that he was not employed by TVA...
...Certainly with Washington jam-pa^ced with coordinating agencies and super-co-o^dinating agencies there ought to be some way of chtermining what we need for military operations against Japan and what our home-front requirements are, and on that basis allot what we can decently and reasonably spare for the suffering people of Europe who have borne so heavy a burden in the war...
...With one exception, German militarism, which we hope has been crushed forever—every, cause of war which existed before the present war exists today...
...Their contributions to the victims of disaster everywhere in the world have been without parallel in modern times...
...The charter is no panacea, no cure-all medicine, no guaranty that once it is adopted we shall have peace everywhere at once...
...It was too sensible for that, but it comes closer to expressing the simple truth of the charter than all the oratory that made Page One...
...What Mr...
...If we expect the charter to work, we must help see to it that the causes of war are removed...
...Ernest McFarland, Arizona Democrat, stands out almost alone as an example of sound common sense...
...This is the type of poison the utilities are pouring throughout the country to achieve the defeat of the Missouri Valley Authority...
Vol. 9 • August 1945 • No. 32
