Show WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS revolt interrupts bogota parley miners get pension ead Walh j GOP aspirants en in primaries fight 0 by bill staff writer EDITOR S NOTE when opinions are expressed in these columns they are re those of t western newspaper News piper union unions news analysts anal yit and not necessarily necess arly ly of the th newspaper REVOLT bogota it was a peaceful early afternoon in bogota colombia and the inter american conference was droning along in customary style in the capt tol building on the plaza bolivar then with the firing of four assas ansas sin s bullets into the body of jorge iorge J elicier gaitan ga artan popular leader of colombia s liberal party one of the worst revolts latin american has seen exploded into violence during the first afternoon bogota descended into a state of complete anarchy mobs prowled ahe streets burring bum ng and looting scores were killed hilled the residence of president ospina perez was attacked and win dows were broken before army broo troops ps drove away the crowd above the confused clamor of the throng could be heard shouts of down with the government down with the conservatives three days later as the riots sim to a halt person were dead many others injured down town bogota was a welter of de st ruction colombia had broken re lations with soviet russia and the inter american conference had al most cracked up with delegates un certa n as to whether they could con dinue on the face of it the revolt was a sudden eruption of violent senti ment merit of liberal party followers against the conservative govern ment in power ate result was the formation of a new coall tion cabinet equally composed of liberals and conservatives big question was how much corn com had to do with the bogota riots US U S secretary of state george marshal marshall who with other americans in bogota got through the riots un scathed claimed the revolt was communist the occurrence goes beyond colombia it Is ot of the same definite patterns as the occurrences which provoked strikes in france and italy and the colombian government in severing relations with russia de dared that a communist insurrect ta in surree tion had touched off the mob fury finally it was announced from bogota that the inter american con ference would resume so that corn com could not triumph over co lambla lombia and the rest of the nations of the hemisphere settlement coal strike john L lewis wasn gasn t exactly in the position ef of a man who had asked friends out to dinner and then found he couldn coulden t pay the check but he was verging on some such situation half a million soft coal miners started to straggle back to work after a 28 day strike when lewis in formed them that the I 1 for a month pensions had been won but lewis himself had to appear before federal judge T alan goldsborough to answer a contempt of court charge lewis was cited for contempt by goldsborough his 1947 1047 nemesis on the grounds that he ignored an april 3 court order to call off the strike ike apart from the contempt of court citation settlement of the coal strike was distinguished mainly by a slightly marvelous amalgam of po lotical action and expedient compro comero mise beginning of the end came when speaker of the house joseph martin rep mass moved into the d s by persuading lewis and ezra ara van horn a mine operator to meet with him in his office mart n then suggested that sen styles bridges rep N H be named the third member of the board which admin aisters the miners welfare and re ti rement fund lewis and van horn are the other two members at a subsequent meeting of the three bridges proposed a plan that would give a month pensions to 62 year old miners with 20 years of service lee who retired after may 28 1946 the date on which the in ners welfare fund was set up bridges plan was accepted and the strike called aff actually lewis in approving the new hampshire senator senators s proposal had descended several notches from his original demands politically the most fascinating aspect of the affair was how joe martin managed to take the play away from the administration tn in arranging for a settlement EDUCATION nearly half of the 5 world war II 11 veterans who entered special ed education and training programs under the G I 1 bill of rights have abandoned their courses veterans administration says more than completed their work however of them under the G I 1 bill and the rest under au the uie rehabilitation program tor for dis 4 bled veterans many of those that quit plan to return later it was indi bated fea fra on wisconsin A e P in his south st paul home stassen grinned with the comfortable cheer of a cat who had just swiped all the cream in wisconsin as he sat with his wife and received re ports stating that he had rna run off with 19 of the 27 delegates in that state s primary election PRIMARIES wisconsin wisconsin s presidential primary election to choose delegates to the republican national convention in philadelphia on june 21 was regard ed as usual as a straw in the wind but this year the political breeze was a shift ng one for harold stassen ex governor of M a hard thorough cam daian laign waged by himself and bis his volunteer supporters up and down the state paid off nobly when wis conom voters granted him a total of 19 of the state s 27 delegates to the GOP convent on gen douglas macarthur took the remaining eight to rl run a poor sec ond despite a flamboyant publicity drive carried out by his backers notably the hearst newspapers which was built around the theory that he is the only roan man equipped to deal with russia gov thomas E dewey of new york drew a complete blank in wis consul where he had been the re publican favorite in 1940 and again in 1944 As a result of the wisconsin elec tion lion stassen was catapulted into public consciousness as a leading lead ng contender for the republican norm nomi nation it was certain that his top heavy victory there would be reflect ed in the other primaries to follow and that he hid h id gained considerable stature la in the midwest it was difficult to tell which of the two losers dewey or macarthur had been hit harder by his defeat dewey who received no delegates might seem to be in a position simi lar to that of wendell willkie in 1944 when he withdrew w from the GOP race after losing ignominiously in the wisconsin primary but the new york governor previously had beaten stassen in the new hampshire mary and also he hao the full slate of new york delegates pledged to him it was on macarthur who had claimed wisconsin as his home state that the axe of public d appeared to have fallen with great est force more to come from wisconsin the election year wind swung to the plains of nebraska where seven leading contenders in the republican presidential race fought it out in a free for all match with stassen again emerging as the big winner after nebraska the battlefield shifted to pennsylvania and massa mass a chu on april 27 A total of delegates to the GOP convention was at stake on may 4 harold stassen was to carry the tight fight to sen howard taft s home arena the state of ohio it was no secret that taft was wor ned ried over which way h s fellow ohio ans might go and a good showing by stassen would hamper materially taft s white house ambitions in his second pitched battle with governor dewey new hampshire was the first stassen was slated to invade oregon tor for that state 3 GOP primary on may 21 while results of the oregon primary were not ex pecked to be conclusive they would serve to provide a first sampling of west coast opinion final state presidential primary on the can side occurs in cal forma fornia on june I 1 ear earl warren is unopposed as the state s favorite son for the GOP nomination finns TREATY russ russia had what it wanted from finland a buffer state to the north west the two nations signed a 10 yeal treaty of mutual assistance 1 which binds finland to I 1 within its own borders in the event either country is attacked finland and russia stated the pact would battle side by side tc to repel aggression by germany 01 0 another state allied with germany the treaty circumspectly tailed failed to ment on any other state by name despite the act fact that finland s delegation virtually had been corn com banded to appear at moscow to sigr a treaty with russia premier josel stalin beamed expansively after the agreement had been concluded bail hall ing it as a treaty between equals and he said I 1 would like to see us pass from a long period at cd mutual distrust against each other to a new period in our relations to a period of mu trust actually the finns got a better deal from russia than they might have hoped for their nation had not been forced into a tight arbi arary military accord with the soviets nor had finland lost its sov although it was brought firmly into the bloc of states along loz russia s exposed western flank ATOM BOMB no secret secretary of defense james for restal put a name and a definitive edge after a fashion to all the rest less postwar fears americans have been experiencing he did it by announcing annot meing to the house armed services committee that russia knows how to make the atomic bomb more specifically the russians possess the knowledge of how to put the bomb together but so tar far do not have the industrial capacity to capitalize on that knowl edge russia does not yet have an atom bomb but the days of U S monopoly of A bomb production are num bared forrestal said he told the congressional committee that he got his information from dr vannevar bush chairman of the U S research and development board during the course of his testimony regarding a two year draft of men 19 through 25 the defense secretary answered queries with I 1 said they do not riot have the atom bomb I 1 did not say they do not have the secret of the acomb bomb I 1 am informed by dr bush that the scientific knowledge and cal procedure involved in the manu facture of the atom bomb are known to russia thus US russian relations on the atomic level had developed tc the point where there was only one unknown quantity how ilow soon would woul d the soviets acquire the industrial capacity to produce atom bombs secretary forrestal admitted he didn dian t know italian style A U S ambassador to italy james clement dunn right peers at an italian worker in taranto as he tastes grain that was among the foodstuffs delivered aboard the relief ship to bring food to italy CONTROLS cold shoulder the jeering specter of price wag wail and ration controls was invoked again by president truman s coun cil oil of economic advisers whid called for nationwide discipline tc prevent inflation under the impact ot of the new defense program As usual this advice rattled cheer lessly among the stony hearts ol 01 electioneering congressmen in its report covering the first three months of 1948 the council de bounced the tax cut law as iffla and recommended new taxes if U the planned defense spend ing is not offset by reduced govern ment costs in other areas republican dominated congress received rather happily the coun cil oil s call for reduced government govern meni spending but maintained a glum silence on the subject of selective price wage and ration controls ind bated that the want to study possible inflationary effects of the preparedness program and foreign aid spending spend ng under the th marshall plan before they give any an serio serious us consideration to resurrect ing economic controls although the council admitted thai thal foreign spending coupled with a bil defense outlay will not swamp economy nor require us to pass from free enterprise to regimentation if il added that some rather system aU and vigorous discipline must be ex excised |