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Show LAST October In a speech at Memplfs, Tennessee, .President .Presi-dent Eisenhower praised T. V. A. and said it "has helped conserve . national resources, control floods and' promote national defense." As a result of that speech he received a large vote in the Chattanooga Chat-tanooga and Knoxville areas. In fact, he carried those areas which are usually heavily Democratic. In a more recent speech, however; how-ever; the President has criticised T. V. A. and used rt as an example of "creeping socialism." This criticism crit-icism is having a bad reaction in Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, Virginia Vir-ginia a"nd Mississippi, states served by T. V. A. The reaction' is being felt in Washington and may have a direct result on congressional elections in 1954. A number of influential newspapers, newspa-pers, .who have supported the President's Pres-ident's program thus far, -have taken tak-en issue with him on the subject of T. V. A. They are pointing out that: (1) T. V. A. has repaid the Federal Fed-eral Treasury $181,131,519. since r944I" Every penny will be repaid by 1992. (2) T. V. A. is more' than $9,000,-000 $9,000,-000 ahead of schedule in its payment pay-ment to the federal government. (3) After paying taxes, operating operat-ing costs and.allowiog .for depreciation, deprecia-tion, T. V, -A. is showing a new earning of 4.3 per cent on money which the government borrowed at 2 per cent.' In other words, the government Is making a profit of 2.3 per cent. The kindest reaction to the President's Presi-dent's latest statement concerning T. V. A. in the seven states mentioned men-tioned is that he is "mistaken about his facts." A number of conclusions have been reached by political observers observ-ers who watched the East Germany Ger-many riots that indicates there was, after all, sound reasoning behind Russia's recent peace bids (1) Russian leaders realized that East Germany's puppet regime and other satellite governments have been built on shaky foundations. founda-tions. It was time to ease the ten sion in these countries (2) There is some measure of discontent in the Soviet Union it sp'f and the average Russian doe.' not want a war with the West. (3) Russian leaders realized tht only way to increase living standards stand-ards in the Soviet Union and it.' satellites, and thus make the dis contented contented, would be tc turn its industrial facilities from war to peace-time production. This cannot be accomplished unless the huge supplies sent Red China are cut back sharply. For that rea son peace in Korea was of topmost top-most importance. (4) The Chinese people have been almost continuously at war with someone for almost 30 years No country can make much progress prog-ress under such conditions. The Chinese people are beginning to want some of the better things of life that can be had only during peace times. These, say the experts, are some of the main reasons behind Russia's peace offensive of the past few months. |