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Show NEWS REVIEW Aid for China Asked; Senate OKs Budget Cut Although it was obvious that his heart wasn't in it, President Truman Tru-man presented congress with a request re-quest for 570 million dollars to be sent to China as a prop for the foundering economy of Chiang Kai-shek's Kai-shek's Nationalist government. White House and state department depart-ment sources admitted that the request re-quest was something less than a half-measure and claimed that the President had acted under pressure from the Republican congress which has insisted that the U. S. must support Chiang against the Communist revolution in connection with the European recovery plan. At best the 570 million dollars is a token gesture just a chip in relation rela-tion to the vast amount of timber that would be needed to restore the rotting derelict of Chiang's government. v ' 9 IRELAND; Neiv Premier Even to members of the Eire assembly as-sembly who had helped defeat him it was strange to see Eamon De Valera, premier of Ireland for 16 years, sitting quietly on the opposite side of the house as leader of the opposition. In his place as premier was John A. Costello, former attorney general, gen-eral, whom the assembly had voted into office after a new six-party coalition co-alition had taken control of the legislative leg-islative group as a result of the previous elections. Costello, in a dignified speech to the assembly, explained his sudden emergence as premier of Ireland: "I consented to this nomination at the request of a number of parties who felt that the interest of the country required that there should be an inter-party government and that the premier of that government govern-ment should occupy a position in political life detached from the controversial con-troversial bitterness of the past." The "inter-party government" whose choice Costello was is compounded com-pounded of six political parties of apparently divergent ideals: Republican, Re-publican, United Ireland, Labor, National Na-tional Labor, Independent and Farmers. Just how long a government made up of so many diverse components com-ponents would last was the subject of much speculation in Ireland. In their present cooperative mood the parties of the coalition may carry on for a year or two, but few were prepared to give the government a much longer span of life. CAT FEET: First a Dream Like the fog that "comes on little cat feet," Carl Sandburg, honored and honorable free-verse poet and voluminous biographer of Lincoln, was creeping into the senatorial race in Illinois. A hitherto almost imperceptible drive supporting Sandburg as a pos- sible candidate for sion of aid, which will be used to finance Chinese imports of cereals, petroleum, coal, fertilizer and so forth, is that the money will enable Chiang's government to free other resources for purchase of arms and ammunition to continue the fight against the Communist guerrillas. But that is more of an idle hope than a valid theory, because the government forces, despite their American arms and equipment, are being bested consistently by the Communists. BUDGET CUT: Indifferent With little discussion and a good deal of outright indifference, the senate adopted a resolution to cut President Truman's fiscal 1949 budget by 2.5 billion dollars. How much significance the senate sen-ate resolution would have in the final analysis was questionable, in view of prevailing uncertainties which might affect both sides of the ledger. The 2.5-biDion-dollar reduction would leave an estimated 10 billion dollars for tax cuts and debt reduction. reduc-tion. Republicans, therefore, were feeling increasingly confident that an income tax slash of up to 5 billion bil-lion dollars could be enacted. Brevity of the senate discussion and its lack of apoplectic oratory was in direct contrast to last year's strident contest over the budget committee's recommendation of a 6-billion-dollar cut in the 1948 budget. Democrats made no effort to block the proposed spending slash which had been recommended by the house-senate budget committee. It still requires house adoption. Biggest bug in the senate's budget recommendation was the fact that it probably embodied a number of inaccurate estimates. Republican sponsors of the measure admitted that accurate estimates of budget needs were impossible at the time. Sen. Styles Bridges (Rep., N. H.), chairman of the budget committee, compared the estimates with "a pre-game guess at the final score." But Sen. Alben Barkley (Dem., Ky.) called the procedure "a step in the dark." senator picked up considerable impetus impe-tus with the release of a public opinion pjll indicating that he might become a popular choice over the Democratic candidate, Paul H. Douglas, and the Republican candi-SANDBURG candi-SANDBURG date, Sen. C. Way-land Way-land Brooks. As far as the question of how a poet can turn into a politician is concerned, those favoring him say he is a "good man," he understands the common people and is educated and well-informed about the country's coun-try's needs. The opposition claims he is politically inexperienced and, since he is a writer, is an impractical impracti-cal dreamer and an idealist. But Sandburg, the poet, once wrote: "The republic is a dream. Nothing happens unless first a dream." |