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Show WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS Arabs and km Go Back to War As U.N. Truce Fails in Palestine; Truman Oils Farm Price Support ' By Bill Schoentgen, TOU Staff Writer ' (EDITOR'S NOTE: When opinions are expressed In these celomris, they are those of Western Newspaper Union's news analysts and not necessarily of this newspaper.; Stage Manager I 1 A -J Li.:- .:....k.....;...u:...V...i,. Si ,.;,'... J Rep. Hugh D. Scott Jr. of Pennsylvania has been chosen by Republican leaders as the national chairman to lead the party in the forthcoming presidential presi-dential campaign. Scott is 47, a World War II veteran and represents the Germantown-Chestnut Germantown-Chestnut Hill district of Philadelphia Phila-delphia in the house of representatives. RAILROADS: Ao Strike Federal Judge T. Alan Goldsbor-ough Goldsbor-ough was not a man to stand idly by and watch society disintegrate, as he termed it, so he issued an injunction in-junction forbidding a national rail strike. The injunction was a permanent one replacing the temporary "no strike" order h'e issued last May alter the government had seized the railroads in the face of an impending impend-ing strike by the three operating brotherhoods. Justifying his action, Goldsborough said that if he had not issued the order "the whole economic and political po-litical system of the nation would be upset." Although rail unions had protested that a permanent injunction was unnecessary, un-necessary, Goldsborough said they could not be permitted "to adopt a process which will disintegrate society so-ciety itself." That held true, he pointed out, regardless of whatever merits the union's case might hold. "Our political influence throughout through-out the world would be done away with, we'd become a laughing stock. To permit a strike of this kind is something society should not be forced to tolerate." But as the stalemate dragged on the disputants apparently lost some of their zest for the contest. Finally a series of conferences, arranged ar-ranged by John R. Steelman, presidential pres-idential assistant, resulted in a more or less amicable settlement: The unions agreed to accept a wage increase in-crease of 15 cents an hour, plus some changes in operating rules. Chortled President Truman as he called the labor and management representatives into his office: "You did this on your own hook and I feel very good about it. I congratulate all of you on it." CYCLES: Freezing People who are addicted to the theory that human existence is defined de-fined by cycles have made a horrendous hor-rendous prediction: This will be a world of dictators for the next 250 years. That prognostication was made in a "law of growth of nations," published pub-lished by the Foundation for the Study of Cycles. This law indicates further that after the period of die; tators will come a static or "frozen" civilization. This "frozen" civilization probably prob-ably will be a happy one, but it is, nevertheless, doomed to deteriorate. deteri-orate. The end is foreseen when younger peoples, eager for the loot of the world, rise to give the coup de grace to the emasculated western west-ern powers. Who these younger peoples are is not revealed. They may be a fresh group of barbarians or near-barbarians near-barbarians who will come sweeping sweep-ing down from the north or up from the south. FAILURE: U.N. Truce There was not peace, but once more a sword in Palestine. The United Nations truce had failed. As the four-week interruption of hostilities between Arabs and Jews dragged somberly through its final hours, combatants on both sides were making preparations to resume re-sume warfare. They had failed to come to terms, and that failure arose out of the fact that there had existed no political po-litical or social basis upon which a peace agreement could be rested, nor were either the Jews or Arabs particularly eager to create one. Their attitude throughout the truce negotiations had been that the contest over whether the state of Israel should be allowed to exist must necessarily be a flat, win-or-lose battle with no middle ground solution possible. Count Folks Bernadotte, U.N. mediator in Palestine, had tried hard, but he had had to carry out his negotiations in what might be termed a spiritual vacuum between the Jews and Arabs. There simply was no meeting of minds upon which he might have capitalized. 3efore the truce expired Bernadotte Ber-nadotte had endeavored to get it extended and continue the negotiations. negotia-tions. Israel had agreed to such an extension but the Arab league opposed it. Previously, during the last days of the truce, the Arabs had rejected re-jected a plan submitted by Bernadotte Berna-dotte which included an extensive revision of the now defunct U.N. partition scheme. Bernadotte's proposal would have restored the area of Palestine to what it was before Trans-Jordan was separated from it, and that total area then would have been partitioned into independent Arab and Jewish states. The plan, as presented, had a ring of desperation in it. It must have been obvious, even to Bernadotte, Ber-nadotte, that the Arabs would not accept such a scheme, particularly since they had violently opposed the original U.N. partition idea. Trans-Jordan was especially antagonistic an-tagonistic to the plan, insisting that it would put the nation under at least partial jurisdiction of the United Nations, thus making it no better than a dependent state. As Bernadotte and his staff left Palestine guns already were firing and the Holy Land had relapsed into a condition of war. FARM BILL: Price Support To the accompaniment of his now customary blast at the 80th congress con-gress President Truman signed into in-to law a farm bill that extends present pres-ent prjee support policies for 15 months and establishes a long-range, flexible support program to begin January 1, 1950. Signing the biH, the President said: "I wish to make it plain once again that legislation for price supports sup-ports is only part of the action this congress should have taken to meet the problems of American agriculture." agricul-ture." Thus, he was not criticizing the farm price support bill in itself but rather giving another re-run to the familiar theme whereby he has been castigating congress for doing do-ing a little when a lot more was needed. Congress, he said, failed to enact en-act legislation to strengthen the soil conservation program; it did not provide the necessary funds for marketing research; it did not act on the international wheat agreement agree-ment It failed, he specified, to meet "the serious problems of rural housing, health and education." educa-tion." "In the field of agriculture, as in so many others, most of the business busi-ness of the 80th congress was left unfinished," Mr. Truman observed. Under the extension bill farm prices generally will be supported at their present levels. However, the support price for cotton will drop from 92 to 90 per cent of parity. The idea behind parity farm prices is to insure the farmer the same buying power, compared with the rest of the community, that he had during a favorable crop period Usually the standard interval upon which parity prices are based are the five years from 1909 to 1914. Five other basic crops will continue con-tinue to be supported at 90 per cent of parity. They are wheat, corn, rice, peanuts and tobacco. Low Finance , vn BERLIN: Trouble As U. S. planes continued to fly tons of food into beleaguered Berlin Ber-lin the East-West stalemate over Germany was solidifying in a stubborn stub-born mold. The Russian blockade of Berlin had brought the painful German issue is-sue to a head, and both the Soviets and the western powers were anticipating an-ticipating that events might begin to move very rapidly soon. There were these developments: The Communists announced that they were drawing up a constitution for a German republic and also a two-year plan to link Berlin economically eco-nomically with the Soviet zone. At the same time, on the free side of the iron curtain, German political leaders were expressing their opposition to the western powers' plans for a West German federal government. In Berlin, power cuts were ordered or-dered in the three western sectors of the city to save the dwindling coal stocks. The action was taken despite the fact that coal shipments had begun to arrive by air. Key to the situation, perhaps, was the Communist proposal for a new constitution. The Soviet-sponsored German People's Congress of eastern Germany announced that the document would be official. In a statement the group said that "Germany is an indivisible republic repub-lic made up of states and that executive execu-tive power stems from the people." That appeared to bring Soviet intentions in-tentions more or less out in the open. It means that Russia "apparently "appar-ently is determined either to force the western democracies out of Berlin Ber-lin or bludgeon them into an agreement agree-ment whereby the Soviets would be in virtual control of the city. REPUBLICAN: Changes, If Although the presidency ' of the United States still is far from a reality for Gov. Thomas E. Dewey of New York, the Republican nominee nom-inee nevertheless is giving considerable consid-erable thought to some of the problems prob-lems that will face him if he does get elected to the office. If, for instance, he is to make good his promise to sweep out "16 years of Democratic cobwebs" from the federal government, these are some of the tasks he will be expected to perform: Replace hundreds of officials in Washington and. all over the nation with men of his choice who will put his policies into effect. Establish with congress a coordinated coordi-nated program of policies for all federal departments, both foreign and domestic. Streamline government functions and eliminate duplications in the present structure of alphabetical agencies and bureaus. It will be a gigantic task. Policies Pol-icies that a Republican president would have to establish would range through the current conduct of foreign for-eign affairs; domestic spending of taxpayers' money; federal relations with private business, labor and industry; housing, veterans, agriculture agri-culture and social improvements. Then there will be the matter of choosing a cabinet that will be geographically representative of the entire nation. PRICES: Up Again Consumer's price index, formerly called the cost of living index, for mid-May this year rose .6 per cent above that for mid-April to reach a new all-time high, according to figures released by National Industrial Indus-trial Conference board. Expressed in 1923 dollars, the purchasing pur-chasing power of the dollar stood at 61.3 cents in May That represents repre-sents a drop of .6 per cent from April and 7.4 per cent from June. 1B47. In addition to giving Russia a false incentive toward becoming becom-ing particularly nasty in Berlin, the recent currency revaluation in Germany's western zones caused a certain amount of personal per-sonal financial confusion also. This German hausfrau turned in her old currency for the new money sponsored by the western powers, receiving 40 new marks for 60 of the old. But the new money will buy as much as the old she hopes. |