Show WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS house group approves measure to draft ien men into armed forces hope tor for palestine lestine la agreement ebbs I 1 by bill staff writer EDITOR S NOTE when opinions lona are expressed in these columns they are those ol 01 western newspaper union a new news analysts nna lyet and not necessarily of this newspaper DRAFT BELL BILL on ott the way yielding to the pressure of the times congress was putting its h hand and gingerly to the business of passing a selective service act which would 91 give ve he nation s armed forces a total manpower of slightly more than two million in two years the house armed services commit tes tee had approved the measure after hearing defense secretary james forrestal term it an excellent one and passed it on to the floor of the house tor for debate thus for the first tune time since be fore the war congress was facing squarely the momentous issue of a national draft that this was hap pening during the hair trigger days of an election year only served to underline the apparent urgency of the matter As approved by the armed services committee the bill would raise total authorized manpower 1 of the armed forces to 2 army air force navy and marine corps require reg of men I 1 2 from 18 through 30 with those from 19 through 25 liable tor for two years service exempt most veterans from I 1 3 further service but those under 31 would have to reg ster allow seizure of industrial plants 4 by the government if they re fused to give top pr bonties to anna arma ment orders As it stood the draft plan was conceded to have a good chance of passage at this session of congress but complications were being threat ened by the senate armed services committee which seemed inclined to combine a universal military train tram ing measure with the draft bill the committee was waiting for army secretary kenneth royall to recommend details of a bill to call 18 year olds for a year s tram ing they would be taken in addi tion to men procured through the draft As a combination that didn dian t look so good to many republicans rep walter G andrews rep N Y chairman of the house armed service committee called the idea utterly foolish inconceivable and not called for OLEO TAX fight ahead one of the most pressing problems members of congress have bad had to decide this year is whether their po lotical bread Is spread with butter or oleomargarine it is further complicated by the fact that they might in choosing one or the other be letting the gravy get away from them for good or ill however the house of representatives made its decision it passed by a vote of to a b 11 to repeal all federal oleo marga rine taxes which have been on the books for 62 years those taxes are itemized as fol lows 10 cents a pound on colored oleo 14 cent a pound on uncolored a year on manufacturers on wholesalers of colored oleo on wholesalers of the uncolored product 48 43 on retailers of colored oleo and 8 6 on retailers of uncolored even if it the federal taxes were re pealed it still would be against the law to sen sell colored oleo in 20 states nevertheless the house had rid it sell self of the matter and now it was up to the senate where a battle royal was in prospect reason the oleo tax issue has a stiff fight ahead in the senate is that senators are elected by voters of entire states rather than by vot ers of districts within the states as are most representatives the result in this case is a split in the sentiment of constituents of many senators for example big northern states states such as illinois wisconsin michi gan and ohio are composed of con sumer cities and producer farms the country districts include dairy farmers and soy bean growers con sumers in cities want repeal of the taxes and so do the soy bean men whose product is used in ture of oleo the dairy farmers naturally want the tax to remain the dairy interests are strong they supporters in congress have been able to retain the eleo oleo tax by the simple process of shelving any repeal bills in committee it happened to the current bill in the house agricultural committee but a peti tion circulated among house mem bers hers forced the bill on to the floor where it was approved clouds in the east burke gy lve A ru M I 1 Q IRAN EGYPT SAUDI ARABIA I 1 IM jill I 1 I 1 I 1 i III 1 THE ARAB EAGUE amateur and professional mill mili tary experts now are weighing the pros and connof cons of war in the holy lana land palestine is completely en circled by arab states except for its mediterranean coastline nu derais indicate estimated fighting strength of the various arab states jewish forces in palest ne are said to number about 75 JERUSALEM confused time was running out in palestine and with it the hope for averting a jewish arab civil war for possession of jerusalem in the waning days before great britain removed her troops from the holy land upon exp ration of the british mandate on may 15 pales tine had become a savagely con fused moribund state bitterly the united nations trus council virtually abandoned its efforts to devise an effective plan to safeguard jerusalem from ravish ment by the warring factions dele gates could not hit upon a scheme that could be enforced nor was any arab jewish agree ment in sight which might result in a truce necessary to give any U N plan a chance like a little boy watching his father trying to get his kite out of a tree the council looked hopefully to jerusalem where the red cross was doing its best to bring a halt to the fight ng As far as the threatened invasion of palestine by neighboring arab states was concerned no one seemed able to sum up the situation accor abely jews were insisting in the face of denials that syrian and lebanese armies had invaded northern pales tine and the british were reported to have rushed troops back into the country to deal with what they called a seriously deteriorated situation still an unknown factor in the rapidly climaxing events was wily old king abdullah of trans jordan commander of the finest army in arabia the spike helmeted arab le glon gion he had been talking big about invading evad ng palestine from the east he had been talking too about mak ing himself king of palestine Palest me his ambition is a middle east amalgam of states that would be in the nature of a greater syria experts were not discounting the role abdullah and his power politick mg ing could play in the drama in the end he could turn out to be the cat clytic agent that might bring the un im regenerate events in palestine to a reasonable tt if not a happy slon sion COVENANTS just paper in a decision which may produce more extensive reaction than any I 1 designed civil rights legislative pro gram the U S supreme court hand ed down a decision that in effect outlaws so called restrictive cove i nants which bar racial or religious minorities from buying or occupying property in many areas throughout the country declaring the decision chief jus tice fred vinson held that enforce ment of restrictive covenants by state or federal courts was a viola tion of the amendment that amendment adopted in 1868 reads in part no state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the united states nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws the supreme court s decision did not declare that restrictive cove nants as such are violations of the constitution but by ruling that it is unconstitutional for the courts to en force the covenants it reduced them legally to mere scraps of paper for the most part covenants are agreements entered upon by real estate promoters and buyers of land or homes purchasers agree not to sell their land or homes to persons barred by the covenant terms of the agreement running from an average of 25 or 50 years to perpetuity BIG PLANES russian russia put some big four planes into the air over moscow lor for the annual soviet may day parade and managed thereby to instill a modicum of uneasiness in the hearts of U S military experts at last reports they were awaiting more detailed reports of the planes from U S observers in order to gain if possible a new insight into soviet airborne army equipment it is likely the experts thought that at least some of the planes were the soviet TU 70 an aircraft bearing close resemblance to the american B 29 assumption has been that the russians copied many of the tea fea tures of the five B known to have been forced down in soviet controlled areas during the war reported to be a hybrid transport bomber the TU 70 has a passenger capacity ot of 72 this probably could be increased substantially however if the plane were used strictly as a troop carrier THE BREAK colombia not quite a month after the abor tive revolution in april swept the capital city of bogota into turmoil and caused damage throughout ahe republic the government of colom bla bia formally severed diplomatic re lations with russia that the break was a direct result of the revolt reportedly communist led and inspired no one bothered to deny officially however no mention was made of the uprising foreign minister eduardo angel s note to the russian charge d affaires said sim ply that colombia considered that there were no ties which warranted a continuation of diplomatic and consular relations between the two countries in concordance with the diplomatic action the colombian government began to its troops and re organize administrative machinery to strengthen its hold and prevent further outbreaks by communists |