THE WEEK IN REVIEW
THE WEEK IN REVIEW ABITTER legislative struggle whose outcome will go far toward determining the political and economic course of postwar America was in the making this week. President Truman set...
...McNutt's main purpose, the President said, will be to expedite the rehabilitation of the islands and advance insofar as possible the date of their full independence, the deadline for which is fixed by law at July 4, 1946...
...REORGANIZATION—The President asked for authority to reorganize the Executive branch of tRe Government...
...The President called for comprehensive legislation to help private enterprise build between 10,000,000 and 15,000,000 houses in the next 10 years, Federal aid for slum clearance, resumption of the pre-war program of Federal aid for low-rent housing, and a speeding up of the program for rural housing, * * * VETERANS—Liberalization and clarification of provision for hospital and medical care, vocational training, education loan guarantees, and life insurance...
...The President said he wanted "modernization of the Federal tax structure" after passage of the transitional measure...
...Truman took a stand neither for nor against this concrete legislation...
...President Truman has abolished the Office of War Information and assigned the bulk of its international information functions to the State Department...
...FOREIGN ATDS—Mr...
...It was clear even to the least informed in Washington that the coming battle would cut across party lines, with liberal Republicans helping in the struggle to pass the President's program while reactionary Democrats join with their fellow Tories in the GOP to block and hamstring it...
...Tom Connally, Texas Democrat and chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, urged the U. S. to furnish a flying task force of atomic bombers to the United Nations Security Council but retain the secret of their awful power...
...Adolf Hitler continues to make the front pages...
...Tom Connally, Texas Democrat and potent force among the Southerners, opened fire on the unemployment compensation program, while Sen...
...SMALL BUSINESS—Aid was asked for small business men "to enable them to obtain adequate materials, private financing, technological improvements, and surplus property...
...His call for prompt liberalization of unemployment compensation, full employment legislation, a permanent Fair Employment Practices Committee, clarification of veterans' legislation, development of regional river valleys along lines of the TVA, etc., was largely repetition of earlier requests by both his predecessor, Mr...
...The test in the months just ahead will be Mr...
...Quisling...
...George Aiken, the hard-hitting progressive Republican from Vermont, who summed up Mr...
...Most important of all, Mr...
...AGRICULTURE—The President called for transfer of $500,000,000 of Lend-Lease funds to, the Commodity Credit Corporation for price support programs, a well-rounded crop insurance program, continuation and strengthening of scientific research for agriculture and forestry, development of farm export markets, and adjustment of farm programs to peacetime needs...
...The secret of the atomic bomb," he said, "ought to be retained by the U. S. We shall never use it except in the interest of world peace or our own necessary self defense...
...Sen...
...Bills embodying most of these objectives have been kicking around in Congress for several years, but the Administration has made little serious effort to get some of them passed...
...IT was Sen...
...If he decides to fight, he will have to abandon his present policy of seeking to satisfy everyone...
...Most of the President's important legislative demands were by no means new...
...Truman urged an intensive recruiting program, but called for continuation of the draft in the 18-25 year group to make up needs...
...Negro In Berlin...
...HOUSING—"The largest single opportunity for the rapid postwar expansion of private investment and employment lies in the field of housing, both urban and rural...
...Roosevelt, and himself...
...The President also promised a message later on peacetime universal training, unification of the armed forces, and use and control of atomic energy...
...President Truman provoked a storm of controversy in Washington last week when he told Congress that the U. S. ought to write off much of the 42 billion dollars worth of Lend-Lease aid granted our war Allies...
...Even Democratic leaders expressed grave concern that the President had all but destroyed the country's strong bargaining position for coming economic negotiations...
...A dispatch from London said officials of Britain's famed Scotland Yard believe Hitler is alive...
...It seemed clear from the preliminary skirmishes in Congress during the first week of the reconvened session that both the measure to liberalize unemployment compensation and to establish a national full employment budget would encounter stiff opposition from conservative forces in both Republican and Democratic Parties...
...Truman's job best when he said that the President will have "to roll up his-sleeves and make enemies...
...Truman asked for repeal of the Johnson Act to permit private loans to foreign countries which were in default on their World War I debts, and the appropriation of an additional $550,-000,000 for the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration...
...Congress must "resist pressures" to abandon wage, price, rent and rationing controls too quickly in order to obtain "an orderly, stabilized reconversion...
...Claude Pepper, Florida Democrat, and Robert M. La Follette, Jr., Wisconsin Progressive, but Mr...
...PUBLIC WORKS—A multi-billion dollar program for regional development of the natural resources of the country's great river valleys, construction of Federal buildings, roads and airports, grants to the states and municipalities for public works as well as Federal grants for hospital construction...
...Congress was asked for a "transitional tax bill" to provide "limited tax reductions for 1946...
...President Truman made a flock of major appointments during the past week...
...Lend-Lease...
...President Truman set the stage for the battle when he sent to Congress last week a long, rambling message whose 18,000 words sought to chart a reconversion road for the nation...
...Atomic Plans...
...Karl Maron, deputy mayer of the German capital, as asserting that Hitler still lives, that none of the five bodies found near the chancellery shelter was the Fuehrer's...
...Congress was also asked to provide Social Security credit for the period of a veteran's service in uniform...
...As precedent he cited the fact that the belligerents generally lived up to their pledge against the use of poison gas in World War II...
...FAIR EMPLOYMENT PRACTICES—Legislation should be enacted promptly placing the Fair Employment Practices Committee, designed to combat racial and religious intolerance in hiring workers, on a permanent basis...
...Robert Taft, Ohio Republican, launched an attack on the pending Full Employment Bill by proposing a series of amendments which proponents of the original measure said would seriously cripple it...
...An audience of German civilians forgot their racist indoctrination last week and gave Rudolph Dunbar, young American Negro who was conducting the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, "an ovation of astonishing warmth," the Associated Press reported...
...Truman's willingness to stand up and fight for the program he outlined in his message...
...Sen...
...U. S. EMPLOYMENT SERVICE—This should be retained as a Federal agency with an additional $10,000,000 appropriation, but turned back to the states not sooner than June 30, 1947...
...President Truman himself invited criticism from friends of the Administration when, in branding the 40-cent minimum wage law "Obsolete," he declined to set a specific objective for Congress...
...Names And Notes In The News Appointments...
...William Benton, who is active in a variety of educational and promotional enterprises, to be assistant Secretary of State in charge of public and cultural relations, succeeding the ineffectual Archibald MacLeish, and Benjamin V. Cohen, one of the original New Deal brain-trusters, to be counselor of the State Department...
...James Mead, New York Democrat and chairman of the War Investigating Committee, proposed an international agreement to outlaw the use of atomic bombs in war...
...Pending legislation, providing for a 65-cents-an-hour minimum, was introduced some time ago by Sens...
...Vidkun Quisling, the Norwegian traitor, was sentenced this week to die before a firing squad...
...FULL EMPLOYMENT—President Truman called for early action on the Full Employment Bill to provide among other things machinery for a continuously functioning full employment policy, * * * WARTIME CONTROLS—Congress was asked not to proclaim the end of the war in order to preserve wartime powers and agencies which the Administration regards as vital...
...A report from Hamburg, Germany, disclosed that British security police are scouring the Schleswig-Holstein coast for a mysterious yacht on which the ex-Fuehrer is supposed to be sailing...
...SELECTIVE SERVICE—Mr...
...SURPLUS PROPERTY—The President repeated his request for a single administrator of surplus property disposal, replacing the present three-man board...
...Here in brief outline is the program submitted to both houses of Congress by President Truman: UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION—"I urgently renew my recommendation . . . that Congress take immediate action" to guarantee a minimum of $25 a week for 26 weeks for the unemployed and to extend coverage by providing compensation for Federal employes, members of the Merchant Marine, and others not now protected...
...Truman also completed his reshuffling of the State Department by appointing Donald S. Russell, former South Carolina law partner of Secretary of State James F. Byrnes, to be assistant Secretary of State...
...A news story from Berlin quoted Dr...
...CONGRESSIONAL PAY—President Truman urged a salary increase from $10,000 to $20,000 a year for members of Congress, repeal of the recently enacted House expense allowance, provisions for an adequate retirement system for members of Congress, and adequate wage scales for executive and judicial branches as well...
...OWI Abolished...
...Two proposals for controlling the deadly atomic bomb were placed before the nation last week...
...Truman, a strict party man, will have to go to bat against the Tories in his own Democratic Party who represent a formidable barrier to passage of his program...
...The term of draftees' service should be limited to two years, he said...
...Shortly afterward the War Labor Board will be abolished and the Department of Labor strengthened...
...LABOR DISPUTES—The President said he would soon convene a labor-management conference to work out agreements "to minimize labor disputes...
...MINIMUM WAGES—"An immediate and substantial upward revision" of the 40-cents minimum standard under the Fair Labor Standards Act, and extension of the law to cover "the large number of workers engaged in agricultural processing who are now excluded...
...TAXES—Little prospect was held out for early large-scale tax reductions...
...Aiken, "the President's course so far has met with the approval of most of the people...
...In general," said Sen...
...Paul V. McNutt, discredited War Manpower Commissioner, was named U. S. High Commissioner to the Philippines, a post he held previously...
...Hitler Alive...
Vol. 9 • October 1945 • No. 37
