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Show Page 2 THE UTAH STATESMAN A Weekly Newspaper Devoted to Good Government" HARRY B. MILLER, Publisher H. V. WRIGHT, Editor Entered as 2nd Class matter at the Post Office at Salt Lake City, Utah, under the Act of March S, 1179 Subscription rate f 1.00 per year Published weekly at 421 Church Street Salt Lake City, Utah VoU 13; No. 9 . Associate Editor Mrs. LaVerl Neilsen Editorial Mis. Janet Schoenhals Editorial i. .....Stats Central Committee i Lori Rytting NATION In Washington by Henry Aldous Dixon . Last week Representative James Whitten (D-Mis- s.) scurrilously attacked Secretary Benson and tried to blame him. for our mounting surpluses and the towering costs of the farm program. It " is regrettably true that the agriculture pro- gram is in a weird mess. Farm surpluses have increased, in January '53 to $6.8 billion (estimated) in June '59.-- Agricultural 'appropriations have been hiked from. $1.4 billion in fiscal 1952 to $4 billion (estimated) in 1960. I took a g , NATION-Congressm- an : Washington Roundup by Sen. Wallace F. Bennett As I am writing this, I have just returned from a trip to Detroit, where Sen. Paul Douglas and L as a two man Senate Subcommitee, held hearings on the Depressed Areas Bill. It was an experience. 1 had the privilege of questioning at great length Gov. G. Mennen Williams, who appeared before us, and who attempted to show that the way to cure financial problems caused by too much borrowing is simply to borrow more. The Michigan story is a revealing one. Americans everywhere can profit by studying what is happening there. On Feb. 15, the State of Michigan was broke. The state had been unable to supply funds foroper- eye-openin- March 13, 1959 Mrs. Madge H. Fairbanks... t Friday, March 13, 1959 THE UTAH STATESMAN half hour on the House Floor to answer recently said: "If our opponents in the Congress had shown as much vigor over the past few years in making needed overdue changes in the old legislation as some of them have in attacking the Secre-etar-y of Agriculture, we would together be doing a better job for agriculture and the nation." POST OFFICE MECHANIZE Post offices, which for a long time have been by the age of mechanization, are now coming into their own with the dedication of the world's most automated post office in Washington whivch I attended last week. by-passe- d General Summerfield described the event as being "fully as important as the start of railroad service for mail in 1831 or the inauguration of regular air mail service in 1918." Postmaster follows: Secretary Benson's program cannot be responsible for the farm mess because the Democratic Congresses have never enacted the Benson program. The Secretary can only administer the laws which Congress enacts, even though he disagrees with 1. them. 2. ' Representative Whitten concluded that low price support have forced the farmers to increase production in order to get enough to live on, thereby increasing' surpluses. The fact is that mounting farm production is the result of an explosive revolution techniques. In commodities without artificial price support, such as poultry and livestock, these amazing increases in production have moved into markets. The artificial price supports have prevented the basic crops from being priced so as to expand their markets, especially abroad and in industry. If we had continued the incentive of 90 price supports we would have even higher surpluses. The reason Commodity Credit Corporation inventories were low in January, 1953, was because of the Korean s After the ceremony visitors were conducted on a tour of the 330 tons of new steel equipment stretching out for six miles of conveyor belts and including mail dumpers, diverters, facing and canceling machines. letter sorting Especially interesting was a ' machine which feeds keys, telling the machine's electronic brain each letter's designation. Then the machine whipped each of the letters into 300 designation slots at the rate of 18,000 letters an hour. 61-fo- ot . - . ECONOMIC Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, to say the obvious, has had his impassioned critics as well as his impassioned partisans, both in this country This was inevitable and among our allies over-seafor several reasons. For one thing. Mr. Dulles is a man of utmost resolution who, once he believes a policy to be right, pursues it to the end with every resourse at his command. For another, Mr. Dulles, by the very nature of things, has had to deal with enormously delicate and complex problems, in areas of high international strategy which cannot help but be fogged with nagging doubts as to what will ultimately prove wise or foolish, and what will succeed or fail. For still another, the price of a major error on so high a level could be a war of indescribable destruction. s. . . one-thir- . - d, . Job. To create one new job in the automobile industry requires the investment of about $18,000. At this rate, to put Michigan's 400,000 back to work would require the ivestment of more than $6 billion. As I told Gov. Williams, the Douglas bill could never accomplish its. purpose, and is certainly not a substitute for having the state face up to its problems. There are many things Michigan must do. One is to overhaul its tax structure; another is to make a real effort to attract investment capital not from the Federal government, on the basis of need, but from private sources, on the basis of what the state has to offer; another is to do something about the labor attitudes in the state. But most of all, the state must make up its mind to spend less, to cut back on some of the burdensome welfare programs which have been responsible for much of its financial difficulty. Utah, .with a per capita debt of only $5.08, is lucky. Only two states have lower per capita debts. In some states it runs as high as $336 for every man, woman and childl The experience of Michigan, which I saw at first hand this week, impressed upon me more than ever the need for living within our means. And this principle must be. applied not only to states and individuals, but to our Federal government as well. NATION: Dulles Firm Policy Representative Whitten blamed Secretary War and our responsibilities to feed the world. Benson for soaring agricultural expenditures. Actually three of the past four years the Democratically-controlle- d Congresses have appropriated and forced Secretary Benson to spend more money than he requested or wanted to spend. Those who criticized Secretary Benson on the floor this week for extravagance had previously voted for bills which would have hiked agricultural spending even higher and would have forced the Secretary to hire thousands of new employees. These included the billion dollar a year com bill, a billion dollar price support freeze bill which the President had courage enough But Mr. Dulles has never been criticized for to veto, a billion and a half dollar omnibus farm, bill, and a billion and a half dollar food stamp plan. sparing himself. He is one of the most dedicated of men. It has been revealed that when a malignancy 4. The fourth fallacy was that price supports was discovered a little more than two years ago are the solution for the small farmer. To the contrary, he was advised by his physicians to take the time the primary effect of the programs ha's been to subfor radiation treatments But there was work to be sidize and enrich the big farms, since they are the done, and Mr. Dulles refused, putting what he conbig producers. In 1956, of;. our farm proceived to be the interest of the nation and the free ducts came from less than 3 per cent of the farmers world first. Now, the malignancy has spread. of farm products from 50 and '91 of the farms. The upshot of this aside from the personal Thus half of the farmers the small farmers who need involved is that, in the words of U. S. News the help produced only 9 of the farm products. tragedy & World Report, Mr. Dulles has become "the West's This Congress has the responsibility of working indisensable man." The worry is that there is no one out a constructive realistic and courageous long-ru- n to adequately replace him, if it turns out he must solution to the farm problem instead. of. weakly, sittstep down.. The magazine observes that in Conanding back trying to escape the problems by gress all criticism of Mr.. Dulles was stilled, and at Secretary Benson. As the Secretary that a prominent Democrat said that he "knows complaining , ation of its universities since last November. The universities had been borrowing from banks in order to pay professors and keep their buildings heated. Michigan residents had been dreading the approach of Feb. 15, which they referred to as "Collapse Day." Free enterprise, fortunately, came to the rescue of the state, and manufacturing .concerns handed over to Michigan $35 million in taxes from two to four months ahead of their due date. Thus, the state has avoided financial collapse temporarily. Gov. Williams' solution to this problem is a simple one. He doesn't ask for lower state expenditures, or cutting the frills from any state programs. He simply advocates more borrowing and more taxing. Sen. Douglas and I were there to conduct hearings on a bill introduced by Sen. Douglas to help areas such as Detroit by lending them Federal money to use in attracting and building new industry. I am opposed to the bill not only because of the $375 million price tag, but because" it' wouldn't do the more about this whole foreign problem than any; other Americans." The hard fact is that the world is in another crisis, perhaps the most serious of all. The Berlin situation is now at the heart of it. The Kremlin has presented its ultimatum that the Allied powers must remove themselves from the city by May 27, or else. Whether this would be supported with drastic action no one can tell. But the risks are incredibly grave. For the first time in all history, the world seems to have armed itself to the extent where it can totally destroy itself. A foreign ministers' conference of the great powers is projected for the Spring. An enormous amount of work must be done in preparation, and decisions of the most decisive kind must be made. As U. S. News puts it: "Ordinarly, Mr. Dulles would be overseeing every detail." But that hardly seems possible now. Mr. Dulles, of course, will remain in a top advisory and policy-makin- g position. But others will be called upon to carry the heaviest of loads. There are several likely candidates. Under Secretary Herter, an able man who has spent most of his life in public service and was intimately associated with Herbert Hoover in foreign relief work, is one. Another is Under Secretary Dillon, who is the State Department's economic specialist. A third is Henry Cabot Lodge, leader of our delegation to the United Nations. And the name of Thomas Dewey is also mentioned as a possible Secretary. In any event, the firm Dulles policies will be carried on the President has made that clear. And Mr. Dulles, whatever the future brings, has made his lasting mark on history. , . -- . |