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Show The Observations Of Mr. Jones Our European Headaches It is fair to say that Secretary of State Marshall is recognized as an outstanding official in the Federal Government. Nevertheless, Neverthe-less, Senator Taft will lead the opposition forces who will demand de-mand that European relief must be furnished in "installments." The two branches of Congress are not likely to okay the recent requests from the White House for seven-and-one-half billions of dollars to carry on foreign relief until next July. And China and other nations will get far less than our Administration asks for. Make no mistake about it the Capital of the United States houses more people with headaches head-aches than any other spot in America. The whole World is cracking down on us crying for help. It would be bad enough if we did not have so many internal inter-nal troubles. Sorry to relate, but there is more crime being committed m Washington than "any other city in the United States of comparable compar-able size. There are Just as many poor people scratching the bottom of the barrel and trying to make a living in Washington as there are anywhere else in the United States. Secretary Marshall says: "We can act for our own good by acting act-ing for the World's good," Nevertheless, you and I re- j member that the European debtors deb-tors in the first World War never paid their debts to the United States. Marshall paints a black picture, pic-ture, but he lays the situation bare. We're On The Spot, Too! The cold, cruel facts are that consumers prices have advanced within the past year 23 per cent. Food prices have jumped 40 per cent; clothing 18 per cent. Business Busi-ness large and small have struggled strug-gled under Increasing costs of wages and materials. The latter having shot up wholesale quotations quota-tions 40 per cent in less than a year-and-a-half. There is no denying de-nying the fact, .as much as we hate to admit it, that there is a lot of inflation in a lot of places. There is plenty of employment in the country as shown by the fact that 60,000.000 persons are employed. A half a dozen years ago that was the goal that the New Deal was always striving to reach but never reached. Nevertheless, high wages and plenty of industrial activity has boosted the Nation to higher levels. lev-els. Maybe this" a poor illustration, illustra-tion, but wise statisticians tell us that meat consumption for- merly leveled off at 125 pounds per capita a year, but now it is 155 pounds, at double the price that it was in the "good old days." But youfcan't measure National Nation-al inflation or prosperity by the old yardstick. But we do know that an increasing number dt well-to-do people are wondering how they are going to continue to keep up the old habits. Uncle Sam's legs are a little shaky. And believe it or not. inflation in-flation still is the danger. Not Wishful Thinking This observer went out on the limb several months ago in predicting pre-dicting that there would be a gradually diminishing number of union-labor strikes. We banked our belief on the fact that the labor leaders were losing their grip. It seems to have started that way when Jhn L. Lewis, leader of the coal miners, was hauled into court. ' : The Taft-Hartley Labor Law which seemed so reasonable in its provisions that the Republicans Republi-cans and Democrats in the two branches of Congress backed the legislation and enacted it into law over Presidential vetoes. So, it has come to pass that labor leaders are skipping the idea of forcing showdown struggles with their employers. At the same time the demands of union labor for hieher wages is already materializing. ma-terializing. But unless all the signs in the industrial horizon are deceiving it is reasonable to expect that wage disputes are approaching the time when employers em-ployers and workers' will sit down and talk it over and agree. " Good, If True Top . business authorities are telling us that a business upswing up-swing of 43 per cent is here. It all goes to show that people who cat and wear good clothes "step out" even if they have to use up their small change to satisfy their own wishes and keep up appearances. And so the headlines head-lines day after day report the doubtful news that "the business up-swing continues." |