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Show , WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS . Church Raps Mindszenty Verdict; Dewey Dons Attire of Liberalism; People Checked Inflation Threat (EDITOR'S NOTE: When opinion! arc expressed In these column!, they are those of Western Newspaper Union's newt analysts and out necessarily of this newspaper.) GREEN LIGHT: Waits Faithfully Harry S. Truman, of Independence, Indepen-dence, Mo., Is getting into a habit of popping up as a poll topper in this or that department. "Man of the year . . . most popular, pop-ular, etc., etc . . . " are some of the poll winning titles be already possesses. Now, he has come up with another. an-other. Mr. Truman is the nation's No. 1' pedestrian. No leas an authority than that National Safety Council has so designated Mr. Truman. THE ASSOCIATION'S magazine, Public Safety, pictured Mr. Truman Tru-man on its cover and commended him for his interest in safety. The traffic advisory board of the District of Columbia hailed the President's "firm decision to wait faithfully for the green light be- MINDSZENTY: Gets Life Term The trial of Cardinal Mindszenty, primate of Hungary, was over and the verdict came as no surprise. The Cardinal was sentenced to life imprisonment on charges of treason trea-son and black marketing. If there were an unexpected element in the outcome it was that the primate's life had been spared. But at trial's end even that hung in the balance. Cardinal Mindszenty Mindszen-ty still could lose his life. Under Hungarian law, while his sentence of life could be appealed, the supreme su-preme peoples tribunal, last court of appeal, could increase the severity sever-ity of the sentence which, in this case, could mean only death. THE CARDINAL was doomed from the outset. His plight had so stirred the Christian world that denunciations de-nunciations of the Hungarian gov- CARDINAL MINDSZENTY For t$ principlt, lijt fore crossing Pennsylvania avenue." Mr. Truman turned down a suggestion sug-gestion that a special traffic control con-trol be established for his daily walks between his temporary residence resi-dence at Blair House and the White House. lr. Truman said he preferred to obey the traffic signals "like any other citizen." A-BOMB DATA: Reds Demand It The Russians just couldn't stay out of the news. But in an utterance which commanded com-manded American headlines, they revealed themselves as almost childishly naive. With the cold war as hot as it could be. short of the bullet stage, the ooviets had the gall to demand that the United States tell them how many A-bombs this country has and provide full data on armed ernment s actions were almost universal. uni-versal. Powerful western nations, through their leading churchmen, hud attacked the trial procedure anu this, in turn, had incensed the Communist-dominated Hungarian court to a point where the issue was sever in doubt. It was generally believed that it was only reluctance to make a martyr out of the Cardinal that averted the death penalty. Hungary lost no time in assailing assail-ing American representatives who actually, or purportedly, sided with thn cardinal. Amonff tarseta of GOP'S DEWEY: New Liberalism For a man who was strangely reticent about plans while seeking the presidency of the United States, New York's Thomas E. Dewey turned vocal and voluble in his Lincoln Lin-coln Day address in Washington. In the diminutive governor's remarks re-marks there was no apology for defeat and no supine bid for favor. Instead, he lashed out vigorously against party policy and advocated a puree of "anti-liberals" from forces and armaments. Never modest in demands, the Soviets set a deadline for receipt of this Information. It was March 31. 1949 HOWEVER, they wouldn't be completely selfish about the matter. They demanded that the report on these matters be made to the United Nations, of which Russia is a member. Warren R. Austin, U. S. delegate to the U. N., dubbed the Soviet resolution res-olution a "succotash of all the beans and different constituents" Russia has put to the U. N. on the arms and atomic questions since the world peace organization was formed. 1 Even a non-betting citizen might, be excused for risking a sawbuck that the Russians would have noth- ing but their pains in proposing I that the U. S. bare its atomic war potentials to the Kremlin. B-29'S: Direct Hits The army air force was making a point for its contention of its, importance as aa effective arm in, itself. Four ah- force B-29's seored direct hits on nine fighting ships' attacking Kodiak island in the navy'i north Pacific war games. An airman aboard one ef the bombers said the formation spotted spot-ted the nine ships 250 miles southeast south-east of Kodiak and registered bombing hits m three runs at 20.-000 20.-000 feet. THE SHIPS were part of a navy task force attempting to retake the these attacks were Cardinal Spell-man, Spell-man, of New York, who delivered a scathing sermon against prosecution prosecu-tion of Mindszenty, and Selden Chapin, U. S. envoy to Hungary. AMONG OTHER THINGS, Cardinal Cardi-nal Mindszenty was accused of gathering information for Chapin in a scheme to overthrow the Hungarian Hun-garian government. Chapin immediately im-mediately branded this charge as "pure fantasy." General opinion was that in the prosecution of the Cardinal Russian Rus-sian communism had made its first great blunder. For in the move was discerned the fact that religion and religious concepts whether Catholic or Protestant would not be permitted to stand in the way of Soviet aims of expansion and domination. The Russians had resurrected a policy which once before had so alarmed them that they had for-awora for-awora it But now they were publicly pub-licly and dramatically recommitted to a policy of the Kremlin versus ver-sus Christ, and this time the Soviet Union was up against an adversary for wham there can be no defeat. INFLATION: People Curbed It The people, themselves, e a n claim major credit for the recant check to national inflation. That is the conclusion of the family fam-ily economics bureau of the Northwestern North-western National Life Insurance Company which conducted a study of the subject. THE STUDY developed that a glowdown, halt, or reverse of six main factors in the 76 per cent rise from pre-war price levels had been brought about. It found that as late as last September, the public still was bidding bid-ding frantically against each other for mere goods than were being produced in many lines. But in the final two months of 1948, consumers con-sumers suddenly quit trying to outbid out-bid each other. With industrial production in high gear and comparatively free from interruptions, output and available supplies of most consumer consum-er goods were gaining steadily. Government bidding for grain in Europe, which ran grain prices up to record heights last year, slowed down as world grain production recovered. THE LONG RISE in wage-costs-per-unit of goods was slowing down, the study said. Continuing its listing of the six factors, the study reported that GOP ranks. That there was a noticeable paradox para-dox in his position apparently disturbed dis-turbed him not at all. While crying cry-ing for those who oppose "liberal progressive" policies to get out of the party, he struck out also at New Dealish elements inside the organization. Urging his party to stop bemoaning bemoan-ing the past, he recommended that it dedicate itself anew to forward-looking forward-looking programs of social progress but without "trying to outbid the Democrats with the public money." It was Dewey's first public address ad-dress since his defeat last November, Novem-ber, and in it he reminded his listeners lis-teners that the last GOP platform expressed wholehearted belief in unemployment insurance, increased old-age assistance, broader social security generally, slum clearance and public housing, public development develop-ment of water power, and farm price supports. These words must have left some of his hearers stunned. Surely, they must have asked themselves, why weren't some of these things mentioned men-tioned during the multiple appearances appear-ances of their presidential candidate candi-date last year? But, Dewey, ever the realist in facing a situation, however he may react to it, conceded that the party par-ty was split wide opea in a fight between two extremes of thought. And then he uttered a remark which must have brought some sly smiles. He said: "What we ought to do ... is to make it everlastingly everlasting-ly clear to the country where we stand and why." INCOME: Average $3,000 The average annual income of the American family was climbing. In 1947 the average was $3,000, highest ever recorded up to that time. The federal census bureau, which issued the report, found that income in-come was distributed among the country's 37 million families in this manner: FOUR MILLION had under $1,000; six million had $1,000 to $2,000; eight million, $2,000 to $3,000; eight million. $3,000 to $4,000; four million, $4,000 to $5,000; three million. $5,000 to $6,000; three million $6,000 to $10,-000, $10,-000, and one million, $10,000 or more. Thus only four million families or slightly fewer than one out of each nine families in the country-had country-had in that year the $8,000 which island from a theoretical enemy. The report was significant from two standpoints. First, beeause the air force termed it important enough to report. Since that was done, it was motivated, probably, by the fact that the air force wanted to show that It had demon-of demon-of land-based planes in an off-! strated the efficacy of the power, shore attack. Closeup eSW!SSMIllWM(iiipyu rapid expansion in money supply, both cash and credit, due to vast government borrowing, had also slowed down. Borrowing by business for expansion ex-pansion was listed as the sixth factor fac-tor which was slowed down because of tightened restrictions. But the first and foremost cause of the current price deflation, the study concludes, has been the halt in the public's scramble for goods. By trimming their demands to fit within available supplies, the people peo-ple have recaptured some of their normal control over prices. President Truman has suggested as the starting point for the income tax increase he asked Congress to consider. An interesting factor is that in one fourth of the families, women earned 25 per cent or more of the family income, and more than two million families were supported entirely en-tirely be female breadwinners. Who fared best in the average-income average-income increase? Farm wage-workers came out best. The income of this class had jumped from an average of $300 in 1939 to $900 in 1947. This latest excellent profile of General of the Army Douglas MacArthur was made when he arrived ar-rived at Haneda airport, Tokyo, to welcome ranking generals and officials of the far east command. ALLIGATOR: Nothing Fatal In Alencon, France, Santos Du-mot. Du-mot. circus performer, stuck his head into the mouth of a 300-pound alligator his regular act. As usual, us-ual, the audience oohed and aahed. But this time, the alligator snapped snap-ped his big jaws shut. The actor's father rushed to the rescue with an iron bar and forced the jaws open. The younger Dumot suffered deep head wounds, but will live |