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Show WEEKLY KEWS fifiwLVj.3 . Record Cudgel Given to Gngrees; Acheson Confirmation Predicted; British Say Israel Llonaces Pease ! (EDITOR'S NOTE: When opinions are expressprj In these columns, they are those of j WesLern Newspaper Union's news analysis and not necessarily of this newspaper.) Truman's Flag CHAIN STORES: I Food Dollar Chart j Despite the prevalence of manj convictions to the contrary, con- . sumers who lay a dollar down on the counter of a chain food store gets food that costs the chain an average of 83 cents. This leaves 17 cents to the chain with which it must pay all its incidental in-cidental expenses and 10 cents oi this, or about three fifths, goes out in wages to employes of the chain. IN PAYING 17 cents to the chair, the customer thus lays out that amount for the chain's combined wholesale and retail services. After the 10 cents goes to employes, the remainder is allocated in this manner: man-ner: one and a half cents for rem and maintenance; two cents foi warehousing and cartage; a little over one cent for shrinkage, spoilage spoil-age and theft, and one-half cent for advertising. This leaves from one to one and a half cents net profit to the chain, less income taxes of one-half to one cent. These figures were developed in the latest in a series of price studies by the family economics bureau of the Northwestern National Life Insurance In-surance company. The survey disclosed that individual in-dividual markups vary widely, of course, within the store, being much higher than the general 17 per cent average on perishable items like fresh fruits and vegetables, vegeta-bles, and much lower than everage : on very competitive staples like sugar. ! Eu-l . , v - RECORD BUDGET: Asked of Congress President Truman, presenting a proposal for the largest peacetime budget in U. S. history to the congress, con-gress, was greeted with the expected ex-pected reaction. Democrats ap-p ap-p 1 a u d e d, Republicans instantly demanded deep slashes in recommended recom-mended outlay. It became evident quickly that the fight on adoption of the budget would be carried out strictly along party lines. THE PRESIDENT declared it would take 41 billion, 858 million dollars to run the government right for the next year. And the punch line was that half of every American Amer-ican tax dollar would be spent to hold back the Communist tide in the world. On a party line basis, approval of the budget was assured, assuming, of course, that the Democrats hold fast. The President has a comfortable comfor-table majority in both houses and there should be no difficulty in getting get-ting his proposal adopted. But the 41 billion-plus figure Ilere Is the silk flag which was presented to President Truman at his inauguration January 20. It is held by Lucy E. Notaro, civilian employe, and Brig. Gen. Hugh B. Hester, commander of the Philadelphia quartermaster depot. The flag was made in the embroidery section of the depot. ACHESON: Should Make It General belief was that Dean Acheson would be confirmed by the senate as secretary of state. Named by President Truman to succeed resigned George C. Marshall, Ache-son Ache-son is certain to be taken over the hurdles in public hearings on his appointment. Protege of Justice Felix Frankfurter Frank-furter and former intimate and employe em-ploye of Franklin D. Roosevelt, intimate in-timate with and a former employer of Alger Hiss and a law partner of Donald Hiss, Acheson must inevitably inevita-bly be reminded of these facts by some of his interrogators. On the other hand, he can point to a long and distinguished record of public service in which his loyalties loyal-ties have never been questioned. But in view of the current spy hunt in Washington and Acheson's connection con-nection with some of its principal figures, it would be little less than a miracle if his appointment were to go unquestioned. According to the record, Acheson began his state department career with an attitude sympathetic to Russia that is, to the extent that he believed the United States should do everything possible to get along with the Russians. But, since Yalta and Potsdam, observers report that attitude has changed and he is now one of the most determined anti-appeasers. anti-appeasers. The ghost of Franklin Roosevelt will walk and the echoes of the Yalta and Potsdam parleys will rustle as the Acheson hearings progress. DESTRUCTION: Nothing to Chance ACCORDING TO the study result, the average food chain markup before be-fore the war was 22Vi cents a third greater than today. Today's far greater dollar volume per store, and therefore per employe, is mainly main-ly responsible for the lower handling han-dling costs per dollar of sales. Should either prices or total volume vol-ume shrink materially, however, the cent or so profit margin per dollar would vanish rather quickly and "red ink" would take its place. Before the war, the farmer received re-ceived an average of 40 cents of the consumer's food dollar and 60 cents went for processing, canning, shipping, ship-ping, wholesaling and retaining. Today To-day the farmer gets 53 cents per dollar and 47 cents covers all the various steps in processing and distribution. dis-tribution. LONGER LIFE: Science Has Key It parents would insure long lives for their progeny, they must marry j young. DR. A. I. LANSING of the Washington Wash-ington university school of medicine, medi-cine, St. Louis, reported to the Gerontological society of New York the discovery of a mysterious chemical, called X, which seems to time how fast a human being grows old. "X" is something that parents transmit to their offspring and it is set like a clock, either for long or short life. The age clock was found in rotifiers, but a little human evidence evi-dence was cited. Rotifiers are microscopic water bugs, swimming with long lashes that make them look like whirling dervishes. The setting of the X-clock in rotifiers ro-tifiers depend on how early they wasn't all. Mr. Truman served notice no-tice he will ask more funds later to supply arms to non-Communist nations, a step which would push the budget even higher. THE ONLY possible bar to approval ap-proval of the Truman budget was public reaction to the plan to finance with 50 cents of every American dollar anti-Red activities abroad. Would the people go along with American foreign policy and the theories of policy-makers that such a step was the only answer to Communist Com-munist menace? Apparently the President is confident, because of his victory at the polls, that the people will support him in such a move and thus showed no hesitancy In his budget proposals nor in making his declaration that he plans to call upon the American people for even more money to stem the Communist tide. Already thoughts are turning to the 1950 congressional elections and ! congressmen whose senses were not I completely lulled by the 1948 Demo-! Demo-! cratic sweep, may want to sound i out public sentiment on the huge expenditure program. If that is the case, public opinion may be the final factor in its adoption. PALESTINE: Toil And Trouble The British lion was roaring at a gnat. In a prepared statement, the English Eng-lish government declared that Palestine Pal-estine developments are "gravely threatening world peace." Coupled with the dither was a report re-port that Ernest Bevin, British foreign secretary, had offered to resign because of his Palestine policy and that Prime Minister Attlee had refused to accept the resignation. mated. IT APPEARS, Dr. Lansing stated, that the amount of X stuff in a fertilized egg sets the clock. When there is little X, the rotifier lives long. As parents get older, the eggs contain more X and life is shorter He also said that the mysterious stuff also regulates growth as the volume of X increases, growth stops. The human exidence is indirect. Dr. Lansing said. A study by Dr Louis Dublin, showed a tendency for children of young parents to live longer than those born later. And, it must be remembered, humans come from eggs. Destruction would be certain . . . there would be nothing left to chance if military scientists perfect per-fect their newest idea of a guided missile. This -would be no "ordinary" "ordi-nary" guided missile. That's no fantastic dream of the men who plan the weapons of war. A hint of its imminence was contained con-tained in a "glossary of guided missile terms" made public by the federal research and development board. The glossary's reference to the subject was terse, saying merely this: "Guidance, homing, active A system of homing guidance wherein where-in the source, for illuminating the target, and the receiver are carried within the missile." Here was the general idea: A guided missile (it could be a rocket or merely a pilotless plane) is fitted with a television set and a picture of the intended target perhaps per-haps an aerial photograph of a city. The missile is launched in the general gen-eral direction of the target. When it arrives at a point when the pattern of the picture matches what its television "eye" sees, the missile "homes in" on the target. That's an over-simplified description de-scription because thousands of complex com-plex electronic actuating computing devices must make instantaneous and accurate reckonings; link the "eye" and the "brain" of the missile to its controls, and relay back to the base from which the missile was launched information on where it is and what it "sees." Man's ingenuity in developing destructive de-structive devjees apparently has not yet reached its zenith. When it does, those who fear man's ultimate destruction by his own hand may not be altogether given over to morbid mor-bid imaginings. ! THIS WAS instantly and emphatically emphat-ically denied. All these developments came as Israel formally filed with the U. N. security council at Lake Success a complaint that the British were fomenting fo-menting an "artificial crisis" over Palestine by troop movements and various actions just as negotiations were about to open with Egypt. The British foreign office statement state-ment warned that the security council coun-cil has been "losing control over events" and said it had reason to fear new Jewish violations of the cease-fire orders in the Holy Land. Meanwhile, critics of British policy pol-icy in the Middle East prepared to demand that Secretary Bevin explain ex-plain how it happened that five RAF planes were shot down by the Israelis Is-raelis near the Palestine border. Britain's air ministry asserted all five planes were shot down while flying over Egypt. IT COULD NOT be denied that the situation was difficult. Broken down to its basic essentials, it is a condition where one people must, or have been told they must, give way to the infiltration of another people the Jews moving into Palestine Pales-tine and the Holy Land area, the Arabs moving out. It has never been a secret that British sympathies, sym-pathies, for whatever reason, lie with the Arabs and John Bull looks with jaundiced eye on the partition action and the influx of the Jews. But the United States and some other nations have, sided with the movement to return the Jews to their homeland. It may yet require organization of a United Nations police force to settle the affair, but how that might be done without British cooperation is an even weightier problem. |
