THE WEEK IN REVIEW
THE WEEK IN REVIEW THE staggering job of reconverting America to a peacetime economy became the nation's number one problem this week. Failure of the Administration and Congress to set up an...
...Elbert Thomas, Utah Democrat who is chairman of the Military Affairs Committee, said there must be immediate action when Congress reconvenes in September...
...The prediction, WMC said, was "far too pessimistic," pointing out that current unemployment stands at 1,400,000 persons...
...patched by the War and Navy Departments, cancelling war contracts estimated at 12 billion dollars, principally for ships, planes, and munitions...
...In a thought-provoking editorialthis week, Labor, publication of the Rnilroad Brotherhoods, expressed the conviction that people generally were hopeful "about the future vistas opened by the bomb...
...Speaking at Topeka, Kan., Landon said that "the British election unquestionably means that a new high-pressure area has been formed...
...The nation's Social Security System observed its 10th birthday this week...
...The American New Dealers are feeling their oats...
...Draft Director Lewis Hershey indicated recently that inductions would continue at the rate of 100,000 men monthly even after the capitulation of Japan...
...Frankensteen...
...The rest of the cost has been met by borrowing...
...UNRRA...
...The Associated Press quoted unidentified "Congressional leaders" as believing that the draft act "should be terminated no later than Nov...
...The bill also would provide that men already inducted and not yet sent abroad be returned to their homes, and that those on furlough not be sent back overseas...
...3Government officials predicted that gasoline and ? shoe rationing would end soon after the final capitulation of Japan...
...Force, and its cult and its exaltation, have their punishment and their nemesis...
...From the tone of the comment by Senators this week it was clear that the draft might not even last until Nov...
...Or will those forces be locked up by some 'super-trust' to throw millions out of jobs and roll up fabulous profits ? "In war, who"will control these irresistible forces— the people or some tyrant armed with power undreamed of by Caesar, Napoleon, or Hitler...
...Mayor Jefferies finished second with 14,182 votes fewer...
...William Langer, North Dakota Republican, announced that as soon as Congress reconvenes, he will introduce legislation to stop the draft immediately...
...In this period the national debt rose to $262,749,845,000 (as of Aug...
...Truman...
...Large as this sum may seem," Lehman declared, "it will barely suffice to bridge the gap until the minimum of restoration has been achieved...
...Richard T. Frankensteen, 38-year-old international vice president of the United Automobile Workers (CIO), made a strong showing in Detroit's municipal primaries last week when he was nominated to oppose Mayor E. J. Jefferies in the Nov...
...It is true that Japan was warned either to surrender or to suffer fearful destruction...
...The last twilight of the war is colored by mortal flames never before seen on the horizons of the universe, from its heavenly dawn to this infernal era...
...The present draft act, which was reenacted last May 9, remains operative until next May 15 "or the date of the termination of hostilities in the present war, or on such earlier date as may be specified" by Congress...
...In a moral decision as overwhelming as this, knowing already that the use of such a relatively minor weapon as poison gas has* been avoided, it seems to this writer that Congress or the public might have been first consulted...
...Frankensteen led the field of 7 candidates with a vote of 82,936...
...Political parties mean nothing to them...
...A grim warning that as a result of the war the U. S. has made more enemies than friends was sounded at a U. S. Maritime Service graduation ceremony last week by V.ice Admiral Wilson Brown, former naval aide to President Roosevelt...
...Fortunately, as the discovery comes first in America, the answers to these portentous questions are still in the people's hands...
...President Truman conferred this week with officials who head up the war programs and with Congressional leaders...
...There are too many high-ranking New Deal casualties already to make them very happy with Mr...
...New Party...
...Travel restrictions will remain in effect for at least several months...
...Its great priests are not all dispersed and those who survive had better meditate...
...This compares with a total of 1,100,000 in June and 630,000 in March...
...Names And Notes In The News Social Security...
...Sen...
...The war gives us a catastrophic, conclusion that seems not to put an end to its apocalyptic surprises...
...Warning...
...The editorial recalled that Leonardo da Vinci destroyed his plans for a submarine because he feared that man would not apply it to progress, namely to the constructive uses of civilization, but to its ruin...
...Failure of the Administration and Congress to set up an advance plan of orderly reconversion is bound to make the vastly complicated assignment even more difficult, and for this the blame rests in large measure on the refusal of the military bureaucracy to sanction effective planning while hostilities continued...
...The total was expected to reach a much higher figure as soon as the formal papers of surrender were signed...
...How can the United States in the future appeal to the conscience of mankind not to use this new weapon...
...Although War Department brass hats would like to continue conscription, many members of Congress are convinced that the draft program should be ended at the earliest possible moment...
...Atomic Power Implications The unveiling of the terrifying atomic bomb in raids over Japan prompted avid and widespread discussion this week over the social and political as well as the military implications of this fantastic development in science...
...We will be envied and reviled by many we sought to help," Brown asserted...
...Strout declared that the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan was a mistake and "perhaps a calamity in its moral consequences...
...Most food controls, including rationing, will net be discarded for the present although there was no clear-cut statement of plans- at mid-week...
...1, regardless of whether fighting is still continuing in the Pacific...
...In Washington, Sen...
...Our fears of starvation and disease are stark realities now...
...Strout asserted that popular discussion should have preceded the use of "this awful weapon," and added: "By its use the United States has incurred a terrible responsibility to history which now, unfortunately, can never be withdrawn...
...Unemployment...
...We will be bitterly hated by our present recognized enemies...
...Strongest condemnation of the use of the atomic bomb in terror raids came from the Osservatore Romano, official Vatican City newspaper, which said that "this incredible destructive instrument remains a temptation for posterity...
...He destroyed that possible instrument of destruction...
...The rest of the pack was far behind...
...Battle Over Draft A major battle may develop over the size of the Army and the continuance of Selective Service...
...Alf M. Landon, Republican Presidential nominee in 1936, predicted last week that "left-wing New Dealers," encouraged by the sweeping Labor Party victory in Great Britain, will form a third party if President Truman does not yield to their demands...
...Herbert Lehman, director of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, estimated last week that more than 2 billion dollars in new funds is required to carry on UNRRA relief work because the work has been "suddenly doubled" by the approach of the end of the war in the Pacific...
...It was the United States which first used it...
...War Costs...
...It will be foolish," he said, "to keep on drafting boys into the Army after the war ends...
...8, will almost certainly be called back before that date, probably on Sept...
...It is true that an object lesson may have been needed...
...9), an increase of 211 billion dollars since the start of the defense program in 1940...
...War Manpower Commission officials reported last week that Government predictions around V-E Day that 2,000,000 persons would be jobless by August were high of the mark by at least 30 per cent...
...But on the other hand, there was no fear that Japan would win the war...
...It is inconceivable that the United Nations could abandon the liberated peoples at this moment of their greatest peril...
...A Moral Calamity One of the most thoughtful comments in this country was written by Richard L. Strout, Washington correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor...
...Landon said he did not think that "after this British election the left-wing New Dealers will stand for any middle-ground position...
...2The War Department announced that it will speed ? up the discharge of men from the Army, but its first statement asserted that the strength of the land and air forces would not be less than 3,000,000 men a full year after V-J Day...
...Meanwhile, the tentative picture of immediate and imminent home-front developments looked something like this at mid-week: 1Hundreds of "stop work" telegrams were dis...
...6 election...
...4Production of such items as vacuum cleaners, elec...
...In politics, it is easy to confuse personalities and policies...
...trie refrigerators, washing machines, and toasters ¦—heretofore not expected in any great volume before mid-1946—will be speeded up tremendously...
...Barkley admitted after his session at the White House that much of the needed legislation is not ready for action, and that he and the President agreed there is "no use" calling Congress back until a lot more spade work has been done...
...5The release of vast quantities of steel will permit ? the manufacture of 500.000 automobiles in 1945— double the number planned previously...
...1—regardless of the wishes of the brass hats...
...Has not the moral ground for such an appeal been cut away from under our feet...
...The Federal Government has put 2 billion dollars into atomic bomb development—more than it has invested in all other war research projects combined...
...It behooves us to be strong in our own defense and to be fair and decent in the treatment of our less powerful neighbors lest, in our might, we find ourselves in the unenviable role of bully and tyrant...
...Harley Kil-gore, West Virginia Democrat, chairman of a special Senate investigating committee, announced that a complete inquiry into the ownership of the patents will be launched when Congress reconvenes...
...Congress, which is in recess until Oct...
...The War Department reported last week that more than 800,000 servicemen, both in the U. S. and overseas, have taken correspondence and self-teaching courses in their off duty hours from the U. S. Armed Forces Institute, an agency sponsored jointly by the Army and the Navy...
...The war cost the U. S. more than 325 billion dollars, or 9 times the entire cost of World War I. Only about 40 per cent of the total expenditures during the period from July 1, 1940, to the present time, or about $135,000,000,000, has been met by current revenues...
...The Kilgore Committee and the Department of Justice have already started investigations into other Government-financed inventions and have found that there is "no consistent policy" of protecting the public interest...
...In that period nearly $8,750,000,000 in benefits have been paid out, of which $5,779,000,000 was for public assistance, $2,218,000,000 for unemployment compensation, and $750,000,000 for old age and survivors' insurance...
...Truman...
...GI Education...
...4. Senate Majority Leader Alben Barkley said after conferring with Mr...
...Does it mean that—sooner or later—hard labor will be abolished, and human beings set free to guide the enormous forces loosed from atoms...
...Japan is already defeated...
...Passenger tires will also become more plentiful, the War Production Board promised, with the end of rationing seen in 2 or 3 months...
Vol. 9 • August 1945 • No. 34
