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Show I Washington, D. C. CONGRESSIONAL BROADCASTS Although congress has consistently consistent-ly refused to permit its proceedings to be broadcast to the taxpayers who foot the bills, one New York radio station has now taken the bull by the horns, will dramatize congress con-gress to its listeners once a week. Station WMCA, New York, has decided de-cided to take the most interesting portions of each week's debate on the floor of the house and senate, re-broadcast re-broadcast them with actors portraying portray-ing the legislators, give the public a sample of what sort of representation repre-sentation it is getting in the nation's capital. The idea was originally proposed to Florida's Sen. Claude Pepper by WMCA's new owner, former Federal Housing Administrator Nathan Straus. Pepper then introduced a resolution in the senate urging that debates be broadcast, but has been able to get nowhere with his resolution. resolu-tion. Meanwhile, Straus polled the radio ra-dio industry on his plan, found that many other stations want to do the same thing and will probably broadcast broad-cast dramatizations similar to that being worked up by WMCA. Congress Con-gress can't stop stations from dramatizing its debates, so will probably watch its speeches more carefully when it learns what is being be-ing done. MANPOWER SHORTAGE .The War Manpower commission is considering a drastic new plan to provide manpower for war plants1 which are now having difficulty getting get-ting enough labor. In the shortage areas, according accord-ing to WMC's new plan, factories which have recently been put back on peacetime production after having hav-ing worked on war contracts will be closed until the war plants have sufficient suf-ficient labor. This should remedy the fact that workers are flocking to those plants which have already been reconverted, figuring that the jobs there are more permanent. PRICE OF BUTTER UP Because OPA's dairy price chief, Arnold J. Burke, refuses to place a ceiling price on cream sold by producers, the price of butter may soon go up five cents per pound. This is to permit butter-makers to compete with ice cream and cream cheese manufacturers in buying cream. The latter have been getting better prices for their products, prod-ucts, so have been able to pay more for cream than the butter factories. To solve this inequality, the War Food administration has proposed to OPA that the price of butter to the public be Increased five cents per pound. Despite its attempt to hold down prices, OPA may have to go along. This increase will not solve the problem, though it will mean slightly more butter. Early this month, the butter industry in-dustry advisory committeee urged OPA to place a ceiling price on cream at the producer level, but Burke would not consider it. NOTE Burke, incidentally, submitted sub-mitted his resignation to OPA some time ago, but his resignation was never acted upon. It will be shortly, to his chagrin. REPORT ON CHINESE COMMUNISTS U. S. concern regarding the long-smouldering long-smouldering Chinese situation is coming to a head as a result of two developments: 1. It became apparent that the Japs could not be licked merely by island-to-island operations in the Pacific. This type of warfare might destroy even the Japanese main islands, is-lands, but because the Japs have been moving their war industries to China, a major campaign on the Chinese mainland is going to be necessary. 2. The United States was able to send an official mission to visit the Chinese Communists or Agrarians for the first time in five years. This was arranged as a result of Vice President Wallace's trip. The mission's mis-sion's subsequent report, recently reaching the president's desk, con-Tinced con-Tinced him that somehow or other the two divergent factions inside China must be coordinated. HOW GUERRILLAS OPERATE The American mission's report to the White House is a very human document. It tells a vivid story of the lengths to which free people will go to fight an aggressor. With no ammunition to speak of perhaps per-haps averaging 20 rounds to a man Chinese guerrillas will attack a much stronger Jap force in order to take away their supplies. One of their most effective weapons is home-made dynamite, manufactured from saltpetre, and sometimes mixed with odds and end3 of metal to make hand grenades. gre-nades. Dynamite has been too precious pre-cious to use in blowing up railroads, so the guerrillas rip up railroad ties and rails by hand. To thwart them, the Japs now rivet their rails together. to-gether. So many telegraph poles have been sawed off by the Communists that the Japs now have to go to the trouble of making concrete pole. |