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Show MJ AGf PEW PEARSON Washington, D. C. ITALIANS BITTER AGAINST DUCE Official and uncensored U. S. reports re-ports from Italy tell an amazing story of resentment against Mussolini. Musso-lini. It is so strong that, according to U. S. observers, the present Fascist Fas-cist regime could not remain in office of-fice without the support of German troops. Most significant of all is .the fact that most of the Italian army is heartily out of sympathy with II Duce, and Field Marshal Badoglio, ex-chief of staff, does not even attempt at-tempt to conceal his criticism. Apparently Ap-parently Badoglio is so popular that Mussolini cannot touch him, for no attempt has been made to jail or exile him. The sentiment of the Italian army explains in large part the recent failures fail-ures in Albania and North Africa, where thousands of Italians have surrendered. sur-rendered. On the other hand, fighting fight-ing in Ethiopia has been just the opposite, op-posite, with the Italians putting up a fierce resistance. This is explained ex-plained by the fact that the Italian army in Ethiopia has not been in touch with conditions in Italy. There are now more Gestapo officers of-ficers (German secret police) in Rome than in Berlin. Together Vith about 136.000 Nazi troops, the Gestapo are also stationed in every other key city in Italy. It is the Gestapo which has been particularly active in isolating the American embassy, with the result re-sult that Ambassador Phillips at present is able to see few people. If found talking to Phillips, his old Italian friends are warned, then arrested. ar-rested. Even other foreign diplomats diplo-mats in Italy have received Gestapo warnings not to communicate with American diplomats. Americans, however, are extremely ex-tremely popular with the Italian people, who remember the efforts of President Roosevelt to prevent the war in the first place, and to keep Italy from entering the war. Also, the state department has facilitated the passage of certain Italo-Amer-icans back to Italy. Their work has been effective. Meanwhile, food scarcity in Italy has increased to the point where even the upper classes feel the food pinch. Poorer people are starving. All the reports indicate that when the break finally does come in Italy, it will be an explosion of major proportions. pro-portions. AAA CORN BATTLE Inside the agriculture department a savage row is raging between AAA advocates of acreage control and apostles of larger farm production. This time the battle is over com. A referendum has been set for May 31 to permit farmers to vote on wheat marketing quotas, and the dispute is whether to conduct a similar sim-ilar election on corn. Some of Claude Wickard's boys say corn is threatened with a price decline due to the loss of export pork markets in embattled Europe, but experts contend that pork is in for a big boom under the defense and lend-lease lend-lease programs. Inside fact is that Secretary Wick-ard Wick-ard has just about decided to call off a plebiscite among corn-hog farmers, unofficially scheduled for next fall, despite the loud demands from Triple-A boss Rudolph M. Evans, that one should be held. Evans, spokesman of the big "cash-income" "cash-income" farmers, has been arguing that it is just as important to control con-trol corn as wheat. For a time he seemed to have Wickard convinced. Up to a month ago, Wickard was planning to slap a 10 per cent curb on this year's corn crop by declaring marketing quotas, with stilt penalty taxes on excess production. The matter was to be put up to corn-hog farmers in a referendum next falL However, Wickard now takes the position espoused by small farm champions, particularly Milo Perkins, Per-kins, aggressive chief of the Surplus Sur-plus Marketing administration, that rising meat, poultry and dairy prices will prevent a surplus this year, since farmers always fatten up their stock when prices Justify it Also, it is certain that a considerable consid-erable portion of the huge 700.000,-000-bushel carryover of torn from last year will be bought for foreign shipment under the lend-lease program. pro-gram. The Commodity Credit corporation, cor-poration, which owns, or has under loan, about 500,000,000 bushels of the carryover, is strongly banking on this. So it looks as If Evans, who has been warning farmers of a corn quota election this year, will have to eat his words. DIVIDENDS VS. WAGES More altruistic than most big business leaders Is Dollar-a-Ycar Man Edward Steltinitn. chairman of the giant U. S. Steel corporation, which maintains cordial relations with SWOC, a C I O. union. Last year U, S. Steel paid stockholders $100,000,000. This year it should pay about $150,000,000. Iiut now the Steel Workers union Is demanding a wage boost. Ktettinius wants to y the additional addi-tional dividends. Labor wonts to get the additional pay. |