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Show jrahiJB8 iMliA Experts Needed to Set Impartial Budget Figure By BAUKHAGE News Analyst and Commentator. WNU Service, 1616 Eye Street, N. W., Washington, D. C. WASHINGTON. As the wrangle over the budget, ta::es and national debt continues, .m nirt be due to any Haukhage widely heralded "swing the axe," or go-called "economy "econ-omy drives" which congress often promises and seldom delivers. If the budget is proportionally smaller next year, It will be because figures prepared by the Bureau of the Budget Bud-get will have been checked by congressional con-gressional fiscal experts who get their jobs on merit and who are obligated obli-gated to no political party. These men now are being selected by a professional personnel expert loaned from the business world. At this writing the house and senate sen-ate are struggling to find a compromise compro-mise cut in the budget. Until they determine the size of the budget, they cant be sure of what they ought to do about taxes or reducing reduc-ing the national debt. If it weren't" that the budget were compiled by one party and authorized by another, we wouldn't have as much wrangling. wran-gling. Now there Is nothing wrong with having plenty of debate de-bate on a subject like this, provided pro-vided one or both sides are voting vot-ing on the basis of actual facts which are set forth by a disinterested disin-terested authority whom the public will accept. Such an authority au-thority will be provided, we hope, by the staff of fiscal experts ex-perts next year. Without such experts what happens? hap-pens? The house goes on record as to the budget cut it thinks it wants to make. The appropriations committee com-mittee cuts down the various items. A bill is submitted again to the house and the fight begins, each congressman con-gressman attempting to restore as much of the appropriation for his pet projects as possible. Log-rolling gets under way and the total is raised. The same thing happens in the senate where an individual senator's demands are accorded even more weight. Eventually the ante is raised a little more. And if it doesn't get back up to the President's original $37,500,000,000 estimate (which may have been too high itself) there will be a supplemental bill passed later which will absorb any extra dollars that are lying around. When Senator Taft was asked by Democratic Senator McMahon (who was attacking the Republican cut) if Taft wanted the senate to pass on the question "without having much information as to what we are doing," Taft frankly replied: "We can only make an Intelligent Intel-ligent guess. We have no information infor-mation before us as to the particular par-ticular items of the $37,500,000,-000 $37,500,000,-000 budget, in justification of the figure fixed by the budget (bureau) (bu-reau) ... we only know what is requested." That is the keynote: "We only know what is requested." Why should the opposition party take on faith the administration's figure We have two parties to check on each other. Taft admits the Republicans Re-publicans haven't the facts now but he adds that in "ordinary" years "we will have a staff working during dur-ing the recess" supposedly composed com-posed of these neutral experts who now are being hired "which can give us more intelligent informal than we now have." There's the hope. Music Basis for World Understanding Few Russians heard the early state department broadcasts, inaugurated inaug-urated last month, and those who did were critical of the musical selections, se-lections, objecting to "hillbilly" tunes like "Turkey In the Straw." They complained too about Bing Crosby's singing of Stephen Foster ditties. This is only one instance where music has segued into world news since H war. I remember visiting f the Opera House in Nuernberg when German musicians were first permitted per-mitted to assemble there. The house had four walls intact and part of the roof, but only part of It. The rest as covered with canvas which kept i out most of the falling snow but didn't keep out the cold. No protense i was made of heating the auditorium, and the place was freezing cold. Yet it was packed. The program ; however could not be completed. This was not due to the fact that the j audience walked out they stood or i sat with the snow seeping in on them. The musicians' fingers sim-ply sim-ply got too cold to function. That ; was a year ago last November. Today with the cooperation of the American military government, orchestras or-chestras have sprung up in every town in the American zone and a large part of the broadcast programs pro-grams are musical. Reeducating the German in the field of music will be a less Herculean task than It is in other oth-er fields, for music has always been part of the home training of the German child not merely something for which the music teacher was alone responsible. I remember a German home I , used to visit before World War I in which the short period after the evening meal and the time the youngest went to bed and the eldest went to his other studies was largely a musical hour. The most interested interest-ed and active member of the group was the father. Here In America we leave too much of the child's musical training to the schools. As the Hungarian composer Zoltan Kodaly, who is visiting vis-iting this country, remarked: "Our ears must be trained to perceive per-ceive the simpler musical phenomena phenom-ena before being able to follow the more complicated forms, and it is obviously the duty of public schools to give this first training to everybody." every-body." Germany of course has another great advantage that America lacks. Goebbels has been removed. America's Amer-ica's musical dictator has not. His organization has a standing resolution reso-lution which reads: "The federation urges its locals to use their political and economic strength to combat the encroachment of high school bands and orchestras." The dictator I refer to Is, of course, one I'etrillu of the American Amer-ican Federation of Musicians; the resolution is from their constitution con-stitution which in conferring authority au-thority on him uses phrases like this: "It shall be his duty and prerogative to make decisions in cases where in his opinion an emergency exists; to issue executive ex-ecutive orders which shall be conclusive and binding upon all members etc." Such a resolution and such absolute abso-lute authority runs directly counter to the advice of Kodaly and to the thinking of anyone interested in the cultural development of America or j in democracy itself for that matter. ! This is one of the many facets of our musical life which touch politics poli-tics as music touches many of the nation's other activities, past and present For example, during the 1 war cynicism was expressed in songs like "Lillie Belle" with its "Jingle, Jangle-Oh, Ain't You Glad You're Single." There were songs created out of a higher emotional level, too, like "God Bless America", Amer-ica", "There'll Always Be an England"; Eng-land"; "The White Cliffs of Dover," and what was perhaps an escape-song escape-song from all the sordidness of war, "Oh, What a Beautiful Morning." No, the Russians didn't like the hillbilly American music. And I doubt if the average American could absorb much of the somber and mournful Russian folk dirges although al-though they contain beauty enough to the ear accustomed to hearing 'hem and the mind trained to in-'crpret in-'crpret them. That must be remembered in considering con-sidering all cultural relationships to world peace. We must be informed not only about the world as a whole, but specifically about each other. Mature interpersonal understanding implies a knowledge of each other's environment and also the habits, tastes and thinking produced by that environment. Music is a part of everyone's life; an expression as well as an impression. We cannot live peacefully with each other in our homes or on the globe without the establishment of understanding intercommunication. Music, understood, under-stood, will be part of that necessary intercommunication. |