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Show ' WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS Truman Signs Bill for Extension Of European Aid Another 15 Months; 0. S. Launches Oond Sale Orive (EDITOR'S NOTE: When opinions are expressed in these columns, they are those of Western Newspaper Union's news analysts and not necessarily of this newspaper.) Men Who Found Kathy Remembered by Mail The men who dug for little Kathy Fiscus, 3-year old who died in a California well shaft, were being remembered all over the nation. More than 2,200 letters had been received by the Kathy Fiscus Fis-cus rescue fund from virtually every state in the union. Mayor Clark E. Bell, San Marino, chairman of the fund committee, said the first envelopes opened contained $1,020 an average contribution of $5.10. Donations ranged from 10 cents to $50. It was pointed out that if the average continued, it would mean a total of more than $11,000 for the men who worked for 52 hours to reach the child who fell to her death 92 feet down the well pipe. BOND DRIVE: Plan for Security Kick-off speaker at the opening of the "Opportunity Bond Drive," in which the government hopes to sell one billion, 40 million dollars worth of U.S. savings bonds to its people, President Truman keyed his remarks to the need for national nation-al security. HE PICTURED the bond drive as providing another opportunity for purchasers to assure security for themselves and their country. Among other things, the President said: "We know that we cannot have a sound and secure nation unless security se-curity is the common possession of our people. Farmer, factory worker, work-er, banker, merchant, school teacher, teach-er, housewife all are buying security se-curity for themselves and each other when they buy savings bonds." He added that "every bond they have bought has given them much more reason to feel secure about the future their own and their country's." THE PRESIDENT said the kick-off kick-off dinner was to honor three million mil-lion volunteers in the bond sales program, and declared they would be joined by another 250,000 newsboys news-boys who would "ring the nation's doorbells, bringing the message of the Opportunity Bond Drive into 12 million American homes. Top question plaguing bond officials offi-cials was the recession in employment, employ-ment, lower prices and less consumer con-sumer cash interfering with the bond drive's reaching its goal. OASI COST: In Billions American taxpayers in covered employment would have to dig into their pockets to the tune of 3.75 billion dollars by 1955 to finance old age and survivors insurance under the proposals advanced by President Presi-dent Truman and his administration. administra-tion. BY THE YEAR 2,000 when the program is expected to hit its peak the proposed cost would have mounted to approximately 13 billion bil-lion dollars. This estimate, made by the Research Re-search Council for Economic Security, Se-curity, Chicago, is based on a report re-port from the advisory council on social security to the 80th congress. Of a labor force of over 60 million, mil-lion, OASI now covers about 35 million, or roughly three out of five jobs. Coverage is now limited to persons employed in industry and commerce. It is proposed that the system be extended to cover the entire labor force. In presenting both sides of the question, the council's report includes in-cludes a full page of pros and cons. Each side might be summarized as follows: ON THE ONE HAND, if employees em-ployees of commerce and industry are entitled to this protection, why not employees on the farm and in the household? If the goal of the system is to provide even a minimum mini-mum of subsistence, benefits must be raised now to keep in step with living costs.- An adequate OASI system-will reduce substantially the heavy burden of old age assistance. On the other hand, opponents of the proposed extension point out that of those excluded, the majority are either protected by other systems or are able to provide for themselves, while the lowest income in-come classes are employed too irregularly to earn insured status under any program. If the cost of living is a valid reason for raising benefits now, then logically the whole system should be geared to the cost of living, fluctuating down as well as up. The bigger the system, the better the promises of bigger and better pensions. AID BILL: Has Truman Okay A bill to give 5.58 billion dollars to the European recovery program over the next 15 months with one billion available at once was signed by President Truman. MR. TRUMAN, as is a quaint capital custom in such matters, signed the bill with several pens eight, in fact. Even Mr. Truman, himself, was moved to observe jestingly jest-ingly that "this will probably look like a forgery, but it really isn't." The bill which Mr. Truman signed allots more than one-eighth of the entire budget of the United States to foreign aid. Mr. Truman, ever a meticulous man, carefully wiped the points of the pens, handed one each to seven witnesses to the signing, and kept one for Sen. Arthur Vandenberg, who was unable to attend. THERE WAS a check and balance bal-ance in the bill, however. With the billion dollars to be made available at once, aid could be kept flowing to the Marshall plan countries of western Europe until congress votes the rest of the cash later. CHURCHMEN: UN Asks Facts The United Nations wasn't heeding heed-ing protests of Hungary and Bulgaria Bul-garia against its consideration of the trials of Cardinal Mindszenty " and Protestant churchmen. Instead, the UN invited the two Soviet ' satellite countries to tell their stories of the imprisonment of the Cardinal and other clergymen. ' THE RUSSIAN delegation indicated indi-cated the two nations would disregard disre-gard the invitation, since both Hungary Hun-gary and Bulgaria have contended the trials were internal matters and no business of the UN. The world organization, however, voted 30 to 7 to put the ahurch cases on its agenda and to go on with a full discussion of them. U. S. delegate Benjamin V. Cohen argued the committee should delay inviting any nations or churches to send spokesmen until it decides how it wants to deal with the question. ques-tion. Russia's Jacob A. Malik indicated indi-cated the two Russian satellites would reject such an invitation and accused Bolivia of violating the UN charter by seeking to invite religious re-ligious organizations. To the casual observer, the entire matter was even less than a tempest tem-pest in a tea pot. Whatever the UN might find as a result of rehashing the convictions of the churchmen what could UN do about it? The force of UN in world peace retention reten-tion efforts has been so meager as to cause critics to begin comparing it already with the old League of Nations which died i of impotency. FARM SURPLUS: May Hasten Subsidy The administration's farm experts ex-perts weren't being too subtle in a movement to hasten payment of direct subsidies' to farmers. They were pointing out in the capital that an over-supply of pork and milk expected within the next two months, may require President Truman to ask immediate authority for such action. SECRETARY of Agriculture Brannan said he already had discussed dis-cussed such a proposal with the President. At the present time the government is committed to support sup-port prices of those commodities by buying any surplus - and taking it off the market. This is supposed to keep the retail price up. Farm legislation passed by the 80th congress authorized direct payments pay-ments to farmers for pork and milk, but this law does not go into effect until January 1, 1950. Meanwhile, the agriculture secre- ' tary said consumer prices on pork and milk probably would fall il the admisistration was allowed to make direct subsidy payments to producers. produ-cers. I DESPITE much sentiment to the contrary, Brannan said his department depart-ment has had a "quite favorable" reaction to the proposed farm pro-' gram which, briefly, would let farm products find their own price level through supply and demand, with the government paying the farmer the difference in this and the support sup-port price in cash. Congressional critics of the farm program declare its cost will run into billions of dollars and that it will benefit neither the farmer nor the taxpayer, because, in the end, the farmer and the taxpayer will be paying additional taxes to finance the program. CANCER: Progress Seen The men in white who wage an unceasing battle against cancer caught a glimmer of hope they, felt sure they had discovered, as they put it, "what is for all practical prac-tical purposes a simple, cheap and reasonably sure blood test for cancer." can-cer." THE ANNOUNCEMENT was made with the customary caution and restraint of the men who work with test tubes "reasonably sure" was how they described the test. But if they had made such a discovery, dis-covery, it was a great stride forward for-ward toward victory over the terrible terri-ble disease. According to the announcement, comparative studies at the University Uni-versity of Chicago of the blood serum of cancer patients and normal nor-mal and other non-cancerous individuals indi-viduals had revealed significant differences that led to the statement state-ment of the new cancer blood test. Report of the university findings was made by Professor Charles B. Huggins, who 10 years ago originated origi-nated a new treatment for prostatic pros-tatic cancer which has kept more than 25 per cent of the victims alive and well for more than eight years. DISCUSSING the new test, he said that tests on almost 300 individuals indi-viduals equally divided into cancer patients, apparently healthy persons, per-sons, and patients with non-cancerous diseases proved positive for all cancer cases, negative for all normal persons and negative for all others tested, except those with lung tuberculosis and massive acute infections. Inasmuch as tuberculosis and inflammatory in-flammatory processes can be readily read-ily diagnosed, it was explained, the test was not expected to confound cancer with other conditions. KIWI: Rare Chick Nature lovers in New Zealana rejoiced. A sturdy male kiwi chick was hatched at the Hawke's Bay game farm, bringing to six the only known existing family. of this nocturnal, noc-turnal, flightless bird which was thought to be extinct until a few years ago. The male bird spent 81 days on the latest egg before the newconver burst through the thick shell. - i S100 S27.5I) S41.2S S41.2S 61,88 S20.63 S30.94 S48.13 80.00 160 33 00 48 76 49.60 73 13 24.76 36.66 67.76 97.60 200 38.60 66.25 67 75 84.38 28.88 42.19 67.38 112.51 250 44.00 63.75 66.00 96.63 33.00 47.81 77.00 127.60 300 " 44.00 71 25 66 00 106 88 " 33.00 63.44 77.00 142.51 350 1 44.00 78.75 (6.00 118.13 33.00 59.06 1 77.00 1 67.50 COMPARATIVE BENEFITS . . . Under present provision of the social security law It is assumed the worker has 10 years of coverage. Under proposed provisions, however, monthly benefits would not be affected by length of time spent In covered employment. Chart, prepared by Research Council for Economic Security, offers'- comparison of present benefit scales with those proposed in the administration program. ACCIDENTS: fewer Noted Hope was indicated that the appalling ap-palling toll of death and injury on U.S. streets and highways might be lessened. The National Safety Council Coun-cil reported that 92 cities of more than 10,000 population went through all of 1948 without a traffic death. The council reported that Med-ford, Med-ford, Mass., with a population of 67,477, was the largest no-death city last year. |
