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Show MEIHIQUND kV YjLi DREW. PEARSON Dandelions for Dinner STUBBY, vocal Congressman Chester Ches-ter Gross of Pennsylvania joined the symphony of Truman accusers the other day, denouncing as "double-talk" the President's attacks on congress for inaction on farm legislation legis-lation and the high cost of living. To prove his point, Gross quoted a letter from a Lakeland, Fla., housewife house-wife who had received a department depart-ment of agriculture cookbook with 150 recipes for plentiful, inexpensive foods. "I have been a housekeeper for 52 years," she wrote Gross, "but we just cannot eat grass along with soybeans and all the stuff the cookbook cook-book says is so grand and nourishing. nourish-ing. Sure, the department of agriculture agri-culture is a crazy bunch." "I agree that she is exactly right," said Gross. "If that is all that the New Deal has to offer after af-ter 1G years of planning, is it any wonder that there is such a wave of righteous indignation rising all over the land?" What the Pennsylvania Republican forgot, however, was that recently he commented as follows on tha agriculture department's campaign for greater consumption of plentiful foods: "This time of year the body craves greens. ' This is the time to buy asparagus, no matter what the food experts tell us. But up in York we don't have to buy asparagus until the price is right We go out into the fields and get dandelions, mustard mus-tard greens and poke. These are weeds, the experts might say, but we know they are good eating. There's nothing better for a person in the spring than a nice mess of dandelions." G. I. Loan Frauds FAILURE OF SOME U. S. district dis-trict attorneys to prosecute cases of fraud against veterans finally has brought some abrupt action from the justice department. Two cases are involved, both in Temple, Tex., and both affecting so-called "prominent citizens" Gordon Duncan of Duncan Homes, and R. M. Newton, secretary of the First Federal Savings and Loan association. as-sociation. Veterans' administration officials offi-cials have reported to the justice department that veterans in Temple Tem-ple testified they were contacted by a man named Wilson M. Press-ley Press-ley who suggested that he knew how to make some easy money. They then were invited to get in touch with Gordon Duncan of the Duncan Home real estate office who in turn offered them $200 to $250 to sign the proper papers for a G. I. loan on a home that Duncan Dun-can was building. Veterans' administration reported to the justice department that through some legalistic sleight-of-hand the title of the house was juggled around so that the veteran got a fee and Duncan got the home. In most cases veterans didn't even see the homes for which they requested re-quested G. I. loans. These loans were financed through R. M. Newton who, according to the Veterans' administration's report, finagled government guarantees on the basis of false appraisals. E. C. Berry, Veterans' administration administra-tion appraiser, stated that he had "completely reviewed the property described in this report inside and out" But in each case, Veterans' administration officials claim, Berry had signed the reports without even seeing the property. Believe it or not, but Berry had been in Florida when 17 of the 36 appraisals were reported to have been made. The justice department now has agreed with Veterans' administration about cleaning these fraud cases up. Gag Rules in Congress THE 80TH SESSION of congress won't go down in history for de- votion to the common man, but it 1 did set a new high for gagging free and fair debate. Most people have the idea that congress is a deliberative body i which carefully debates the laws of the nation before passing them. J This is largely true in the senate. But in the house, the Republican leadership has been imposing a series ser-ies of gag rules. A gag rule is an order by the rules committee that a bill cannot I be changed or amended on the floor of congress. It means that a - handful of men in committee draft the bill, after which 400 other representatives take the bill as Is. They can only vote yes or no. Some of the most important pieces of legislation passed by congress at the 80th session were put through under a gag rule, including every I major bill reported out by the all- important ways and means commit-; commit-; tee. ! Czar Knutson, chairman of this ! committee, insisted on imposing a f gag rule on his Wall street-inspired tax "reduction bill," also on his reciprocal trade extension bill. Other Oth-er congressmen, not members of his committee, had no chance to amend there bills. They had to vote for or aginst them as drafted by Knutson and a small group on the ways and means committee. |