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Show I WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS ; Nourse Raps Deficit Spending; Decontrol Fails to Boost Rent; Military Budget Tops 15 Billion F:f)ITOK'8 NOTF: When opinions are expressed In the columns, the? are those of W eater a Newspaper Lnluo's dcwi analysts and not necessarily of this newspaper.) Record's In r W l nm mm il i m kiimim i mifh tfcwflTiTii vr i"V Ti "r t INDUSTRY: British Threat How will the British devaluation of the pound and the resultant decrease de-crease in factory wage rates affect U.S. industry? Potentially, the threat of very real and devastating competition from that source is seen by James F. Lincoln, nationally-known U.S. industrialist and president of the Lincoln Electric company, Cleveland. Cleve-land. "IF WE were to send 10,000 American Amer-ican production experts to England and the European continent for one year, those countries could shut down every industrial plant in the United States," said Lincoln in an interview in Cleveland. He had just returned from a two-week tour of industrial concerns in England, Holland, Hol-land, Belgium and France. His judgment, he said, was based on the fact of the factory wag rate decreases in England, following devaluation, de-valuation, and a similar effect on nations affected to an average of pressures thus established. Lincoln Lin-coln declared that the devaluation action had cut wage rates in the nations effected to an average of only one-seventh of the wage level in this country. If these nations can continue to throw goods produced at those wage levels into this country, Lincoln observed, ob-served, there is a strong threat to American industry as a result. UP TO NOW, he pointed out, that hasn't been done because European manufacturers are still enjoying a seller's market, and European production pro-duction methods have not yet reached a stage of development , which will allow them to compete with American-made products. "The menace to United States industry in-dustry will come," Lincoln said, "when the home markets of these countries are satiated and when U.S. production methods are more widely applied abroad." RED A-BOMB: Not Bluffing Russia has had the atomic bomb as a "real weapon" since 1947. That was the statement of Russia's Rus-sia's Andrei Vishinsky as he put the blast on a campaign in the United Nations to put Yugoslavia on the security council. SO, whether or not the Russians really have the bomb developed to the actual threatening stage, the Soviets were playing right along with President Truman's announcement announce-ment that the bomb was really theirs. Possessors of the bomb or not, the Russians were now in an as advantageously strategic purpose diplomatically as if they had it. Vishinsky went on to predict "painful consequences" for the United Nations if Yugoslavia, with U.S. supprt, wins a security council coun-cil seat over Czechoslovakia. U.S. SPENDING: Deficit System Hit It seemed an obvious conclusion that the President's council of economic eco-nomic advisers was having little effect in influencing government officials of-ficials to insist upon a real effort by the administration to put its financial house in order. ANY such conclusion would have been bolstered by the fact that Dr. Edward G. Nourse, chairman of the council, was quitting that body. In an address before the national retail farm equipment association, Dr. Nourse hit hard at federal deficit def-icit spending and charged that the government is "slipping back into deficits as a way of life." Instead of deficit financing, he said, the government should be "putting its fiscal house In order and husbanding reserves to support the economy if less prosperous times overtake us." According to reports, Dr. Nourse had informed President Truman that he was going to leave the government, gov-ernment, although there was no word as to whether the President had accepted or would accept the resignation. WELL-PLACED official circles were said to believe that Nourse's decision to leave the advisers' council coun-cil was because of his belief that he had failed in what he regarded as a fight to keep the council on a strict professional plane of factfinding fact-finding and advice-giving, divorced from political issues. In his address, Nourse was critical crit-ical of elements among labor, agriculture agri-culture and management, chiding farmers for "demanding stimulative stimula-tive prices," labor for demanding shorter hours in the face of the need for increased production. RENTS: Keep Level A rather surprising thing had happened. A survey showed that lifting of rent control in more than 500 areas had not resulted in wholesale whole-sale rent increases. Lifting of con-jtrols, con-jtrols, put into effect in wartime, began last April 1. TAKEN as a whole, however, .rents in key decontrolled areas did I go up a little, but the hike was not as severe as most observers had President Harry S. Truman, with congress finally in adjournment, ad-journment, would have to go to the people with the record of that congress in the fight for Democratic seats in the 1950 elections. Little of his program was enacted, but there was little doubt he would defend the congress to the end. BIG DAY: Break for Kids Underprivileged children In more than 3,000 U.S. and Canadian communities com-munities will receive assistance from a far-reaching program of youth welfare announced by Ki-wanis Ki-wanis International and The National Na-tional Kids' Day Foundation, Inc. J. Hugh Jackson, Stanford, Calif., president of Kiwanis International, in announcing the cooperative effort, ef-fort, said "the problems of underprivileged under-privileged children are the problems prob-lems of the entire nation but their solution depends upon local action. There are more than 3,000 Kiwanis clubs which are geared for participation partici-pation in the program." FOCAL POINT of the campaign will be the observance of an annual an-nual "National Kids Day," the first to be held on Saturday, November 19, when each community will be asked to enlist the support of its citizens in meeting the problems of local youth. The Kiwanis president emphasized empha-sized that National Kids' Day will not be celebrated as a holiday or AT a news conference the Soviet representative remirded reporters of a Tass communique last September Sep-tember which disclosed that Russia Rus-sia has had an atomic weapon. And that was the farthest Vishinsky Vish-insky had gone in the current U.N. session concerning Russia's possesion posses-ion of the bomb. On September 23 he had declared that the U.S. had no monopoly on the bomb, but had not amplified that statement. WAGES: 75c Minimum More than a million and a half workers in. interstate commerce were due for a pay hike as a result - of congressional approval of a bill ; raising the minimum wage rate ' from 40 to 75 cents an hour. The i estimated annual cost was 800 mil-1 mil-1 lion dollars. While raising the wage floor, the bill changed the language of the ! wage-hour law so as to remove cov-! cov-! erage from possibly several hun- dred thousand of the persons now ! under its provisions. The bill went to President Truman where early approval was predicted. Champ Cow . ...... The survey disclosed that landlord land-lord reaction to decontrol was I spotty. One major factor in the i over-all rent picture was said to be the number of vacancies available a factor which might, after all, have considerable restraining effect ef-fect on any appreciable over-all rent increase. Some landlords raised rents, but had to cut them again when tenants moved out. Also some landlords were still bound by leases issued In the period before decontrol. According to the survey, increases in-creases were scattered, rather than general, in most places. THUS THE PICTURE of the rent situation generally is clouded by the factors enumerated, factors which may of themselves have enough restraint value to hold down rent hike, as well as a disinclination dis-inclination of landlords to raise rentals to levels most Americans expected. Continuing strikes, loss of income, more accessibility of housing sites may all combine to keep any general gen-eral and extensive rent increases from being made in the near future. fu-ture. MILITARY: 15.5 Billions If war comes, America intends to be ready. Demonstrating that fact, congress finally got together on a record peace-time military appropriations appro-priations bill totalling approximately approximate-ly 15.5 billion dollars, including funds to build the air force up to 58 groups. BREAKING a month-long deadlock dead-lock and spurred, no doubt, by reports re-ports that Russia has the atomic bomb, house and senate hurried through the details of the final measure which went to President Truman for approval. In this action, the senate finally bowed to house insistence on giving the air force some 10 groups and 740 million dollars more than President Pres-ident Truman had requested for it. CONCERN over the possibility of enemy atomic attack was indicated when congress also appropriated 50 million dollars to start construction construc-tion of a vast radar screen designed de-signed to warn the United States of any enemy air attack. used as a gift-giving occasion. "It is our intention to use the observance observ-ance of this day as a means of rallying the forces of each community com-munity toward solving local juvenile juve-nile problems," he continued. "By this means, we hope to raise additional ad-ditional funds to carry on a year-round year-round program of youth activity in cities and towns in the U.S. and Canada. Money raised in each community com-munity will be spent in the same community for the benefit of children." chil-dren." CHARLES PETTIJOHN, executive execu-tive secretary of The National Kids' Day Foundation, Hollywood, Calif., said his organization was formed last year to call national attention to the right of underprivileged youth to enjoy some of the benefits normally nor-mally accruing to boys and girls in more fortunate circumstances. The Foundation also seeks to attract attention at-tention to the accomplishments of youth and to stimulate additional interest in the problems of youth. DEFENSE: A Speedup The United States was moving swiftly to meet the threat of Soviet possession of the atomic bomb. President Truman and the atomic energy commission had ordered a 30 million dollar expansion of atom bomb facilities at Oak Ridge, Tenn., and Hanford, Wash. THUS THE RACE to see whether the U.S. or Soviet Russia could produce pro-duce the most bombs seemed to be on, and with it went any immediate hope, at least, for any international control of atomic energy. The extent ex-tent of the U.S. effort in the race was seen when authoritative quarters quar-ters announced that the new atomic-plant-construction program ultimately ulti-mately would cost 300 million dollars. dol-lars. Chairman McMahon (D., Conn.) of the congressional atomic energy committee, called the project a "major expansion effort." McMahon Mc-Mahon would not say that the action ac-tion stemmed from Russian progress prog-ress with atomic fission, but there was a certain evidence of haste inasmuch in-asmuch as White House clearance f;r the project came just six days after President Truman announced the atomic explosion in Russia. 1 L' '1: I .. . . . The American Guernsey club' of Pcterboro, N. II., proudly presents Spar-Hill Clematic, seven-year-old pure-bred golden gold-en Guernsev as choice for champion cow of the year. During Dur-ing the year, the cow gave 23,000 pounds of milk and 1,200 pounds of buttcrfat, four times the average yield. THE 'W ITCH': A New Prison Swearing and muttering, Ilse Koch, blonde "witch of Buchen-wald," Buchen-wald," was trans tcrred frtim an American military prison to the custody of German I olice who have charged her with 29 Buchenwald murders. With er charged crimes reading like a .Lst of horrors from medieval history, the wife of the one-time Buchenwald concentration camp commandant was widely accused. |