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Show WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS 1 France, Canada Urge Atomic Pact-British Pact-British Labor Gets Speedup Rule; G.M. Dividend Sets Industry Llark (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.) f - t N I' . ' ' - , , ' V. v ..: . . , . : i ' - ' V ' ' . , . . i ; ? ... NEW NAVAL OPERATIONS BOSS CONGRATULATED . . . U.S. Navy Secretary Francis Matthews (left) congratulates Adm. Forrest P. Sherman after the latter was named by President Truman as chief of naval operations to succeed Adm. Louis E. Denfeld. Denfeld was let out because of criticism of unification and defense policy in the armed services setup. RUSSIA: Direct Warning Soviet Russia was doing a bit of boasting nd chest-thumping about the atomirf bomb for her arms stockpile. ' ' IN A SPEECH broadcast from Moscow, Georgi N. Malenkov, a member of the Soviet inner circle, warned that with the atomic bomb in Russian hands a third World War would "wipe out capitalism." His was the main speech in celebration celebra-tion of the 32nd anniversary of the Bolshevist revolution. "If the imperialists unleash a third world war," he said, "this will not be the grave of individual capitalist countries, but of world capitalism as a whole." He said that atomic energy In the hands of capitalism is the "means of bringing death." Turning to a new note for the moment, he declared that "we do not want war and are doing everything to prevent it." Then, discussing atomic energy again, Malenkov asserted that atomic energy en-ergy "in the hands of the Soviet people must and will serve as a mighty weapon of unprecedented technical progress and further speedy growth of the productive forces of our country. FOLLOWING THE PARTY LINE right down to the final syllable, he charged that the United States has a plan to "enslave the entire world" and that this plan was "borrowed from the mad plans of Hitler and Tanaka (pre-war Japanese militarist) militar-ist) but different In that it exceeds both plans together." Despite all the boasting and the bombast, there existed In many i minds a doubt that Russia has the atomic bomb as we know it a weapon ready to be dropped at will. POLITICS: Sound & Fury ' The sound and fury of the 1950 congressional campaign was touched off rather prematurely by Minnesota's Harold E. Stassen in Minneapolis where he accused President Harry Truman of making "vicious and untrue" statements in his attacks on political enemies. AND STASSEN is one of those enemies, for the former Minnesota governor and now president of the University of Pennsylvania, is a certain candidate for the GOP presidential pres-idential nomination in 1952. Stassen charged that Truman used historical references in his recent re-cent St. Paul speech to "wrap the cloak of Jefferson around himself," but that actually the President "long ago personally trampled on the cloak of Jefferson." WITHOUT mentioning Truman by name. Stassen answered directly direct-ly the President's address at St. Paul in which the chief executive assailed "reactionaries" who, he said, had impeded progress of his welfare program in congress. Stassen praised congress for refusing re-fusing to go along with Truman on the "dangerous" Brannan farm plan, on the President's request for postwar retention of OPA, and on his demands for pyramided centralized power over a wide range of subjects." BLARNEY: A Sham Rock? Most folks know better than to get into an argument with an Irishman Irish-man particularly about anything that is peculiarly Irish, such as the blarney stone. BUT IN CALIFORNIA, as In Brooklyn, anything can happen, so it wasn't too surprising to find a row over Ireland's famed blarney stone breaking out there. It all happened when a 15-pound stone, believed by San Franciscans to be a chunk of the real blarney stone, was stolen from a church bazaar. Jim Cummins, custodian of the San Francisco stone chunk, declared he had "documentary proof my stone is authentic." On Trial Again ATOMIC PACT: Asked by Two France and Canada Joined at Lake Success In asking that all nations do everything in their power pow-er to ban use of atomic bombs and control atomic energy. THE APPEAL was directed to all and especially the Soviet union to forget traditional ideas of the sovereignty of nations and join an atomic pact that would promote security and peace. It was a sincere gesture, but about all that could be said of any results that might ensue was that it was a "nice try." The proposal did have the support sup-port of the others in the majority group of the 59-nation political committee of the U.N. general assembly, as-sembly, but Soviet Russia was still to be heard from on the suggestion. The French-Canadian resolution ictually meant the majority pow- FIRST BOMB WEIGHED TON According to Stephen M. Alexis, Haiti, the first atomic bomb weighed a ton. He made the statement at a United Nations Na-tions session. Statistics on the makeup of the bomb have not been officially disclosed, but Alexis said he had his information informa-tion from a scientist, and that In three or four years there would be a smaller bomb for use by smaller countries. ers want the general assembly once more to endorse their proposal for atomic control and to order secret talks to continue between the Big Five and Canada. SIR BENEGAL N. RAU, India's chief delegate, offered another Idea in the debate outlining officially official-ly his plan for the international law commission to draw up a World declaration for prohibition of the bomb and for control of atomic energy. But, it was said in official circles, that the French-Canadian proposal was as far as the majority powers wanted to go at this time. DIVIDENDS: New High Was it a symbol, a portent of the future? Did it indicate the strength of the nation's economic situation, or was it as temporary signboard at the mercy of any real wind of economic recession? WHATEVER its real significance, Industrialists and economists took cheer for it. It was a vote by General Gen-eral Motors corporation of the largest cash-dividend total in the history of American industry. The company, which recently reported a record net profit of mqre than 502 million dollars from the first nine months of this year, would send checks cotaling $190,436,055 to 436.005 holders of its common and preferred stock. The distribution would represent a year-end payment pay-ment of $4.25 a share on the outstanding out-standing issue, raising to $8 a share the amount declared on the common com-mon stock this year. GENERAL MOTORS was also expected ex-pected to establish a record when it retired out of its own corporate ' funds its entire long-term debt of 125 million dollars 17 to 27 years before the notes are due. Plane Record Commercial planes were darting about the world faster and faster. Latest speed record for commercial planes was claimed by Pan American Ameri-can lines which reported its strato-cruiser strato-cruiser Westward Ho landed at London in 9 hours and 12 minutes after leaving New York. Cap. Robert D. Fordyce, Jackson Heights, N. Y., commander of the Westward Ho, did it with the aid of a tail wind which at times reached a speed of 75 miles an hour. The plane traveled the Great Circle route and its average speed was about 385 miles an hour. The plane carried 21 passengers and a crew of 10. Only a day before, a Pan American Amer-ican plane flew from New York to London in 9 hours, 21 minutes, which had bettered the existing mark by 20 minutes. BRITISH LABOR: More for More It has been a fairly well established estab-lished philosophy of trade unions to frown on the "eager beaver" who likes to demonstrate how fast he can work or how much he can produce pro-duce in a given time. In fact, some unions prohibit members from engaging en-gaging in any type of production speed contest. The philosophy is understandable, if not popular. It is one which takes care of the union member who hasn't the ability, the skills or the physical stamina to keep up with the would-be speed demon. The philosophy has been applied often enough for critics to charge that it has amounted, in many instances, to an actual work "slow down." ALL THIS being a matter of record, England's labor government's govern-ment's move to allocate higher rewards re-wards for greater labor productivity productiv-ity came as a surprise to many U. S. supporters of the Atlee regime. re-gime. They began to speculate whether the prime minister was laying up trouble for himself among his labor adherents. The British government's turning away from this traditional philosophy phil-osophy of labor was explained on the basis that it must be done to meet growing demands for higher wages to offset higher living costs. Therefore, the ministry is advocating advoca-ting a system of tying wages to the rate of production, rather than the price index. GOLD HOARD: Really There Those skeptical, apprehensive citizens whose dreams had begun to be haunted by the awful spectre of doubt that Uncle Sam's purported gold store at Fort Knox wasn't there at all could all relax. The gold was there, all of it. ASSURANCE came from a source certainly qualified to know, for that source was Leland Howard, assistant director of the U.S. bureau of the mint. It is his duty to examine ex-amine personally the gold hoard at least once a year. "There's more than 12,000 tons of it (gold) at the Ft. Knox depository," deposi-tory," he reports. That's more than half of the 24 billion dollars worth of the stuff which the government keeps under lock and key. ; : 'X :..:.- . Alger Hiss (left) Is shown with his attorney as they left federal court in New York after Hiss had been refused a three-week three-week delay in his second trial on charges of perjury. The first trial ended in a hung jury. GEESE: Farmer Burned Near Allegan, Mich., nearly 13.000 Canadian geese were making themselves at home in the grain fields of farmer Andrew Degeus. The loud yackety-yak of the birds as tl'.j devoured the grain attracted at-tracted about 5.000 sight-seers. At times, nearly 4.000 of the birds would rise into the air in a black cloud. Spectators thought it was great fun to watch the birds eatintf their dinner on the farm. |
