Show WEEKLY NEWS NEVIS ANALYSIS eary congress ends session with welter of bills truman finishes political tour in search of nomination by BILL staff writer CONGRESS adjourned and fatigued the tha gross gress nevertheless managed to spew forth a batch of important legislation with the relentlessness of a doughnut machine before it adjourned for the national political conventions in the waning hours before ad lourn ment the dog tired senators and representatives pushed through farm arm legislation and a peacetime draft together with bills having to 0 do with housing displaced persons the atomic energy commission commissi ayi wages of federal employees and foreign aid appropriations republican leaders made it apparent that although congress had adjourned its session the way was being left open tor for it to reconvene later this year eaket of the house joe martin cl 1 that congress probably would de be recalled he indicated that the republicans want to be ready to tight fight back it if president truman makes the past record of congress any more of an issue in the cam despite this however the congress had run its formal course and that it was a vital exciting course and one that had produced some momentous legislation no one would gainsay partly responsible tor for this character of congress of course was the tact fact that president truman had written a record number of vetoes some of the high points of congress record FOREIGN AID congress issued billions tor for the support of greece and turkey and tor for general foreign relief capping that by underwriting the marshall plan for world economic survival and revival and establishing the economic cooperation administration as a further investment in the future of 18 16 friendly european nations NATIONAL DEFENSE aware of the implications of the realistic foreign policy the U S had begun to follow congress adopted a peacetime draft demanded a 70 group air force appropriated funds to modernize the army and navy enacted a law to unify the armed forces and created the atomic energy commission HIGH PRICES congress ignored president enaris Tr Tn aris repeated and stent demands tor for authority to s atrol prices and wages and kept to the classic republican conception of laissez faire with regard to business and industry it reduced personal income taxes and reduced the domestic budget by two billion dollars LABOR the taft hartley law was enacted over president tru mans veto in an effort to curb union excesses and restore a better balance between labor and management the minimum wage law growing constantly less useful as prices and wages rose was not revised RETURN truman IF N president resident truman was back in ze me 7 white house after journeying journey in political miles one of them on a ski lift at sun valley to bring hla his story before U S voters that story was primarily his bitter characterization of the present congress as wallowing in detection defection tec fec tion As a U S president going before the people to seek re nomina tion by his own party he summed up his stand in a single tough tough phrase made during his speech speech at harrisburg pa if the vot voters don t make a change in congress this november he said in effect they can stew in your own juice whether or not the spectacle of the president stumping the country in search of popular support Is viewed as admirable or otherwise it certainly must be regarded as a phenomenal pilgrimage in the tha annals of american politics at first flaunting a nonpolitical non political banner which he soon discarded mr truman traveled miles on eight different railroads miles by automobile miles by air 25 miles across puget sound by yacht and one mile by ski lift in that political hegira the president brought the public up to date on the background of what is probably the most bitter feud between a Pr president eident and congress since the days of andrew johnson mr truman himself seemed to be aware of that parallel with the johnson administration at one point he termed the present congress the worst since the congress of thad stevens in the reconstruction era after the civil war there is no doubt that the president safely back at his desk in washington was feeling that he had accomplished pretty much what he had set out to do the arousing of voter interest in the issues ot at stake and the presentation of himself to the people in the role of a comradely but hard hitting president who is 13 the watchdog of their welfare EDITORS NOTE when opinion jr at or pressed in these ha columns they ar are t hose of western newspaper unions news analyst analysis and not necessarily ol of this newspaper DRAFTEES back again with the peacetime draft a reality in the U S again tor for the first time since 1941 many thousands of young men 19 through 25 are face to face with the prospect of wearing GI clothing tor for 21 months most of them were destined to go into the army since the navy and air force are scheduled to receive an extremely small percentage of the draftees for those non veterans who wanted to escape the draft there was at least one reasonable method of doing so enlistment in the national guard or reserves before the president signed the bill and national guard officers all over the country reported that they were receiving a most gratifying number of inquiries from prospective enlistees enli meanwhile gen omar N bradley army chief of staff reported jovially that the army would try to take on as many as draftees a month under the new act selective service he b said will back aback our leadership in the world and will strengthen our foreign policy that certainly was the hope of most americans notwithstanding the furious last ditch efforts of isolationists in congress to block passage of the draft law the chief of staff revealed that at present there is only one domestic army division up to full strength he ha said the draft and enlistments will bring the army up from to Is there any immediate emergency that must be met by a prepared army force most authorities think not and general bradley himself soft pedalled the idea pre preferring ferrin 9 to emphasize the element of uncertainty in present conditions were faced with the possibility anything might happen no one knows unless it would be 14 men in the kremlin but as ai I 1 told a senate committee as your army advisor id be ba remiss in my duty if I 1 failed to point out that we cant risk our security PALESTINE mediation although the situation in palestine the truce between warring arabs arab and jews has hag been overshadowed in the U S by the clamorous news from the tha republican convention count folke ber na dottes negotiations were continuing and so was the tension there were no indications however that the united nations mediator was having any signal successes in bringing israel and the arab states together on terms As the truce went into its second week the U S assigned three destroyers st in the mediterranean to immediate duty with the palestine mediator to help supervise the armistice mi stice the destroyers american officials said were not empowered to use force of any kind in patrol duties nor would they be allowed to stop or board any ships meanwhile to inject a further atmosphere of law and order into palestine the first united nations army had been started on a shoestring thirty permanent U N guards from lake success were flown east to help supervise the truce along with 20 other volunteers selected from U N secretariat employees main job of the group in no way intended to serve seriously as a U N army was to patrol the all important highway between jerusalem and tel aviv MEAT too popular with the exception of vegetarians and some carrot juice addicts nearly everyone likes meat and in the U S everyone eats a lot of it that is why all the mr and mrs jack sprats in america are deeply incensed whenever the meat supply falls oft off from the normally prodigious amounts available to the consumer A condition of that general description currently prevails in the U S and according to R J eggert of the american meat institute it will take at least a year following good crops in 1948 to bring about any substantial increase in the amounts of beefsteaks beef steaks pork chops and bacon on the table not that this condition in any way could be termed a shortage As a matter of tact fact a summer run of grass tat fat beet beef and a heavy backlog of frozen pork will keep consumers consumer s pretty well supplied with meat through september biggest trouble eggert said Is that the ratio of the eaters to the edibles has grown too top heavy since the war in this country he said there are only 54 cattle and calves for every people this Is a decline of 44 per cent from the peak hog numbers were 61 per persons in 1944 only 33 today sheep numbers are down 81 per cent wartime drain of flocks and herds and last years short corn crop are responsible for the currently declining animal population but there is no comparable decline in demand in sight the meat industry forecasts a continuing steady demand for meat because incomes are near an all time high the real income actual purchasing pur chasin g power of the average consumer is is one fourth greater than in 1939 population has increased 15 million in the past decade people are convinced of the nutritive value of meat TARGETS fleet test battleships new york and nevada survivors of the bikini atom bomb test were scheduled to be sunk this month as targets during pacific fleet tests the two old battlewagons battle wagons will he towed 50 miles south of honolulu to play their final role with the navy they have served through two wars they will be used to test weapons of the fleet in tactical maneuvers according to plans the 34 year old new york will be attacked by planes from the carriers boxer and princeton and by shore based navy marine corps and air force planes in sinking the nevada the navy will experiment with new explosives these explosives will be placed aboard the old battleship and then detonated she will be finished off with gunfire the nevada was the central target ship for the first bikini atom test SHIPMENTS restricted esric ed widespread agitation by politicians clans new newspapers shapers and just plain people over shipment of critical U S goods to russia had paid off in what economists might term an unfavorable balance of trade with the soviets during april when the clamp down on exports to russia first took full effect the united states received ceide d more goods from the soviet union than it shipped whether that imbalance will turn out to be strategically unfavorable to the U S if the controversy with russia continues to expand is a question that the next few years probably will answer in its simplest form the situation is a paradox it is an axiom in international ter relations that unrestricted trade among nations is one of the best guarantors guaran tors of peace yet vet the restrictions on export trade to russia last april were imposed to prevent shipment of potential war goods to the soviets latest figures stack up like this U S shipments to russia in april ca came m e t to 0 only 3 9 8 4 less than tonly h half a af 0 of f the M march a r c h t figures i agures gures while april imports from russia were only below march As a rule russia buys much more from this country than it sells here in 1947 the soviets bought 1495 million dollars and sold million dollars worth of goods in return significant is the fact that U S imports from russia were higher in april than in any other month this year except march indicating that there has been no immediate effort by moscow to retaliate for the tightened U S controls one oddity perhaps also significant was dussias Rus sias shipment of worth of manganese and chrome both basic items in the manufacture of war materials MAGINOT try again frances maginot line that supposedly impenetrable concrete and steel system of static defense that failed to stop the nazis in 1940 is i being touted now as a shield against possible russian attacks some french army engineers even go so far as to say that the united states would be wise to finance the reconditioning of the maginot line as insurance against the red army abdat least one of frances francea top military leaders gen jean de lattre de Tas signy is reported to believe that the line should be ba investigated vesti gated with the idea that its immense underground forts might be transformed into atomic bomb shelters so far no rousing response to these proposals has been heard in the U S when the fortresses came into allied hands near the close of the tha war it was discovered that the nazis had removed much less of the armament and equipment than had been believed most of the guns minus only the breech blocks had been left in place simple fact however and it is accepted by most U S military men is that the maginot line is badly outmoded by present swift and mobile m methods of warfare and further that it was outmoded even before the start of world war IL that was proved by the ease with which nazi forces overran france |