OCR Text |
Show WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS U. S. Registers Cold War Victory; Moscow Talks Headed for Failure; Truman, Congress in Budget Fight I By Bill Schoentgen, WNU Staff Writer (EDITOR'S NOTE : When opinions are expressed In these colnmns, thev are those of Western Newspaper Union's news analysts and not necessarily of this newspaper.) BUDGET: Unbalanced Will there be a surplus or deficit in the government's budget at the end of this fiscal year? It was a question good for a lot of political haymaking, and both President Truman and his Republican Republi-can opponents in congress went to work with a will. Mr. Truman's forecast was that the government would be 1.5 billion bil-lion dollars in the red next June. In his mid-year budget report he blamed the Republicans' "ill-timed" five-billlon-dollar tax cut for putting put-ting the nation back in the hole. Stricken with horror, GOP lawmakers law-makers rapped back sharply: Far from harboring a deficit, they said, the treasury will close its books next June with a surplus of between be-tween five and six billion dollars. The President had juggled figures for political campaign effect, the Republicans charged bitterly. "Another of the weird distortions which are coming from the White House while its occupant is a nervous nerv-ous candidate for re-election," commented com-mented Sen. Styles Bridges (Rep., N. H.) mordaciously. Mr. Truman had said that federal expenditures this year would hit 42 billion dollars, while Republicans claim that actual expenses will total to-tal 38 billion. They charged, too, that the President had figured the national income 3.4 billion dollars too low for the year. Just who was right in the matter, if anyone, was impossible to say. The entire affair had many of the characteristics of the kind of tempest tem-pest in a teapot that is a run-of-the-mill event in an election year. Actually, even if President Truman's Tru-man's estimate turns out to be the correct one, the books still will show an "adjusted surplus," despite the 1.5-billion-dollar operating deficit. That is because congress provided that three billion of the surplus last year should be shifted to this year's accounts to help meet foreign for-eign aid costs. PSYCHIATRY: War Cure How can the world prevent wars? Use of psychiatry would be a big help, according to Dr. John Milne Murray, professor of clinical psychiatry psy-chiatry at Boston university. A psychiatrist, he said, is one who seeks the reason for the failure fail-ure of human relations in the individual indi-vidual rather than in the mass. "But," he asked, "what is war except a mass breakdown of inadequate inade-quate relations ending up in a tremendous tre-mendous burst of self-destruction?" Take, for instance, the reactions of a child trying to adjust itself to a harsh environment. Under stress the child may revert to archaic forms of behavior and that is very similar to the impulse of destruction destruc-tion which, on a world-wide scale, becomes war. Therefore, knowledge of mass human hu-man reactions should be employed to abolish war. Dr. Murray concluded. con-cluded. Actually, it's all very simple. If people didn't act the way they do they wouldn't have to fight each other. The trick is to make them understand that MASARYK: Murdered? Last March 10 Jan Masaryk, foreign for-eign minister of Czechoslovakia under the Communist regime, fell to his death from a third-story window win-dow in the foreign office in Prague. Since then Masaryk's friends, as well as many who never knew him but admired him because of his hopeless fight in behalf of Czechoslovakia's Czecho-slovakia's national liberty, have speculated long as to whether he committed suicide or was killed by the Communists who wanted him out of the way. The official Communist version of the incident was suicide, but too many persons had too many doubts to let it rest at that. Then, suddenly, last month the doubts ware crystallized. Dr. Oskar Klinger, Masaryk's personal physician, physi-cian, asserted that the Czech statesman states-man did not commit suicide. He was sure of that, he said, because be-cause he and Masaryk had planned to escape by plane to Great Eritain on the very day that Masaryk died. Klinger said that the security police po-lice discovered Masaryk's plan to flee and came to his rooms that night to arrest or kill him. Defending Defend-ing himself, Masaryk shot and killed possibly four men. With the remaining men closing it, Klinger's version went, Masaryk was forced closer and closer to the window. Then, the men either threw him out the window or, overwhelmed over-whelmed by fear, Masaryk flung himself out. In proof of his conviction, Klinger offered this evidence: Masaryk would never have committed com-mitted suicide because he 'was afraid of physical pain. Also, he left no note or letter a usual practice prac-tice in suicides. Shots were heard in the building the night he died, and four coffins were carried from the place that morning before the Czech commission commis-sion arrived to inspect Masaryk's body, indicating that four persons might have been killed during the night. i i COLD WAR Villian Revealed At last something had happened that could and did make people understand un-derstand what this Russian situation situa-tion was all about. 1 It had been pretty difficult going for the world public to perceive the basic truth when it was obscured by confusing circumstances like currency reform in Berlin, control of the German Ruhr, a maze of spies at home and political annihilation annihila-tion of small European nations by Russia. What it all amounted to, as far as most people were concerned, was a mess of verbal pottage that they wouldn't trade for the comics page any day of the week. Then it happened. Mrs. Oksana Kosenkina', the Russian school teacher, jumped from a third-story window in the Soviet consulate in New York to achieve the liberty she so desperately sought. Mikhail Samarin, the other Russian Rus-sian school teacher, was wanted by the Russians but managed to retain his freedom. Refusing the Soviet demand de-mand that he return to Russia, he tossed this scallion for the Communists Commu-nists into the propaganda war: "I won't return to death." And finally, in England Olympic athletes from Czechoslovakia and other Soviet satellite states were steadfastly refusing to return to their home countries afte'r their taste of a free land. It all added up to the biggest break the western nations have had yet in their propaganda battle with the East. This was simple, basic, understandable: under-standable: These people from the land of the Soviets the schoolteachers schoolteach-ers and athletes utterly despised the idea of returning. They simply would not do it. Thus, it was in the end a few ordinary persons who destroyed the elaborate fabrication which Moscow had constructed to represent to the world the ideal way of life that existed in the Soviet Union. One Voice of America spokesman said: "This is what we have been waiting for in our war of words. This is something that can be easily understood by people all over the world." The Communists tried frantically to cover this breach in their curtain by calling it, among other things, an underground conspiracy in the U. S. to wreck any possibility for peace between the two nations. But the villain's disguise was off now and everyone knew him. Try as they might, the Communists never nev-er would be able to explain why two obscure school teachers would seek their freedom so desperately, nor why Russia was so determined to get them back. PARLEY: Failure From Moscow came crushing news for all those hoping for peace: The talks between the western democracies de-mocracies and Russia were reported report-ed to be on the brink of failure. Barring a last-minute miracle in the conferences between the U. S., England, France and Russia, the East-West stalemate would continue, along with the Soviet blockade of Berlin. It was reported that the western powers were getting ready to stay in Berlin under conditions of economic eco-nomic siege, planning to maintain and enlarge the air lift to supply the 2.5 million persons in their sectors. There was, however, one slim chance that utter failure could be avoided. -The three western ambassadors ambas-sadors were scheduled for a final talk with Premier Stalin, and it was a possibility that the negotiations negotia-tions might be rescued. But the odds against agreement stood at about five to one, officials said. If the conference ended in the anticipated failure, it was thought that the Big Four governments would try to conceal the extent of the fiasco from the public in order to avoid the even greater degeneration degenera-tion of East-West relationships that undoubtedly would result if everyone every-one knew just how hopeless the case was. However, if the Moscow talks did break up in futility it would not mean necessarily that all similar negotiations would be abandoned. It would mean that any further effort ef-fort to reopen them would be delayed de-layed until at least next spring-possibly spring-possibly March after the election and inauguration. ?. Current Events ? Here are five questions, based on recent happenirgs in the news, which are guaranteed not to keep you awake nights. Unless, that is, you stay up late to read the paper anyway. 1. Several witnesses before the house un-American activities committee, refusing to answer questions about Communist activities, ac-tivities, invoked the fifth amendment amend-ment to the Constitution. What does that amendment say? 2. President Truman said recently re-cently that a woman president of the U. S. "was not only a possibility, but a probability" some day. At present the Constitution Con-stitution prohibits a woman from becoming president. True or false? 3. Population of the V. S. Is 143,414,000. Name the nations that have larger populations In order of their size. 4. What outstanding war events took place three years ago on these dates: August 8, August 9, August 14? 5. Born in 1865, he was governor gov-ernor of Kansas from 1915 to 1919 and became a senator in 1919. Recently he retired from the senate as its senior member in point of service. Who Is he? ANSWERS 1. "No person . . . shall be compelled com-pelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself . . ." 2. False. Only presidential qualifications quali-fications required are that he be born in the U. S.. be a resident of the country for 14 years and at least 35 years old. 3. China (470 million), Union of India (389 million), U. S. S. R. (193 million). 4. August 8 Nagasaki was atom bombed: August 9 Russia declared war on Japan: Augiist 14 Japan surrendered. 5. Sen. Arthur Capper (Rep.. Kas.) BOXCARS: No Worries Despite all-time record production produc-tion and the bumper crops forecast for this year, U. S. railroads do not expect as tight a boxcar situation situa-tion this autumn as has prevailed during the past several years. Southwestern grain, bulking arger than any other section, has jegun to taper off, more cars are available in the Northwest this year than last and terminals still have space for storage. |