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About The Oregon statesman. (Salem, Or.) 1916-1980 | View Entire Issue (March 7, 1950)
V, -Tho Stcdetmcm Sc3oml 'Origan. ' tuwitar MarcnT". '1950 rcfioti Jfo JTtcof Sways U, Wo fear Shall AmT , Frees Pint Statesaeaa, March U, 1151 THE STATESMAN PUBLISHING COBIPANY ' CHAFW A SPRAGUE. Editor and Publisher patered at the postofflce at galea, Oregon, aa second elaaa matter ender act af eongress March S. 117. Fabllihed every mornlag. BiiIwm efflee IIS 8. Cemmereial. Salem, Oregon. Telephone t-llil. Commission for Coal Study President Truman, alow to invoke the Taft Hartley law, was quick to pull back his request tor powers to seize the mines. He was criti cised severely for bis slowness in using the powers given him under T-H. In view of what happened when he did move it is not clear that be would have got more coal mined if he had. Unless we are ready to get into government i operation of major industries and perhaps na- , tionalization we shouldn't be too eager to have the executive take over. One recommendation made by the president , was the establishment of a commission to in vestigate the coal industry, especially in its labor-management relations. He gave as one purpose: "to restore the coal industry to eco nomic health". We fear this last may be be yond the capacity, of any commission. "A thorough, impartial Inquiry in the state , of coal-mining is long overdue. It should be made by engineers, economists, J labor repre sentatives, consumers i sort of "Hoover commission'' on coal. Surely it could come up with some answers along with a clear state-, ment of the problem. One thing it would find is overproduction. There are too many mines for the market which has been shrinking since the war time peak. Oil and natural gas have proved more con venient, more dependable and often more eco nomical substitutes. Each mine shutdown drove many coal users to oil, except when it was ra tioned. To shrinking demand should be added mech anization as a cause for inability of mines to. offer steady employment to all coal miners. Lewis' pension plan was more than just wel fare, it was a move to take older miners out 1 of the labor market. " Much is' made of absentee landlordism, and It is true that lands bearing coal are owned usually by non-residents, often by corporations whose stockholders are scattered all . over the xJfeountry. But such has been the competitive condition in the industry that except for for tunately situated properties coal mining has not been very profitable for stockholders ever since the first worUI war. The Statesman hopes that congress will fdl- low the president's suggestion and constitute a commission to study coal-mining. It should . at least clear the air and provide the public and 3 those directly conqerned with the industry with factual information of real value. i Meantime there Is satisfaction that tha new contract ru0 to 1952; and considering the dirty, .hard work" they do the wage of $14.73 to miners does not seem excessive. , - - Commies Stir up Trouble The commies are causing trouble in the west again. With the economic improvement under the Marshall planj they drew back their claws In" Italy and France. Aside from a few com munist inspired strikes the countries were quite peaceful. With the red star rising in conse quence of China's" conquest out come the red '. claws. ''',". In the Italian parliament a fierce hand-to-hand battle raged in parliament, quelled only by the arrival of guards. The French assembly became almost a riot as the red deputies pro tested mover of the Bidault government to end sabotage at seaports. - In fact Eduard Her- Figures on Air Strength Declared to Point Up Johnson Attempt to Deceive American People By Stewart Alsep ! WASHINGTON Amon oth j er gassy generalities. Defense Secretary Louis Johnson -made the state ment In his New York speech last week that "the United States is sow making sub stantial gains towards the achievement of its goal of peace thru strength." Leave aside V which Johnson Is weakening American strength. Consider the air alone. The blunt truth is that accord ing to the judgment of the most competent aviation authorities In this country, the United States is now oemg provided with less than half the strength necessary, not to win a war, but to "prevent ' the loss ef a war at the eatset ef hostilities." This means simply that, despite assurances to the contrary, , Johnsonian "econo mies" are now inviting nothing less than defeat in war. More over, the evidence clearly sug- Erts that Johnson's subordinates ow it. Some days before 'his New York speech, Johnson held an anonymous press conference, in. which he claimed that a "pro gram of expansion" had "brought the nation's offensive air arm up to the equivalent of the. 70 groups" recommended by the Finletter. commission. In his signed report to congress on his "economy" program he sharply reduced this claim. He asserted that, the air force now has the ."equivalent of 52 groups." : I Contrast these Johnsonian, as- aertions with the testimony of -i Air s Secretary Stuart Symington .nd his aides in secret session before the house appropriations f committee. Symington (obvious ! ly with the Soviet atom bomb in mind) warned that the 70-group rogram envisaged in the Fin-, etter report might well be too j low. He then stated flatly; di- Strachey in Line of Fire When Prime Minister' Attlee put John Strachey in as war minister in his revamped cabinet the London Standard blasted the latter as a communist. Denials followed, including one by Attlee himself, a rare event for the PM to answer a newspaper. But the agitation con tinues and Attlee's government is ihus off to a rocky, start. Strachey was in the former government, but not in so vital an office as the war ministry. And the record of his communist leanings is pretty well established.1 Our own reference book, Twentieth Century Authors, has this paragraph in its biographical sketch: "Although Strachey denies that he has ever been a member of the communist party, until recently he was generally considered a Com munist and was frank in his Communist sym- Sithies. This led to two contretemps with the nited States government once in 1935 when he was arrested during" a lecture tour and held for deportation, the charge being dismissed af ter strong protests by American publishers and the American Civil liberties Union; and again in 1938 when his visa was canceled While he was en route to this country, and he was held for three months in Ellis island and then had to return to England." Strachey it seems was one of the intellectual communists, not a member of the party but its apologist. Maybe he thinks straight now and has foresworn his old sympathies. Even so in these troubled times he seems quite out of place as minister of war, for which surely he has very limited qualifications. Members of com mons can embarrass the government over the Strachey appointment. It is doubtful if the .point wil) be pressed to a division however be cause neither of the big parties is anxious for a fresh election. The British are worried how ever because of the possible American reaction to the Strachey appointment, coming as it does after the conviction of Karl Fuchs for espionage in atomic warfare. A woman! at Cave Junction, Josephine coun ty, has filed for nomination for state represen tative. Among her affiliations is listed member ship in the Rough and Ready Riding club. That should prove an excellent qualification for leg islative service. rectly contradicting Johnson's claims, that the air force now has, not 70, or 52ft, but 43 or 44" modern groups. It is only possible to. conclude that Johnson has been attempt ing to deceive the American peo ple on the vital subject of air' strength in being. Yet this is by no means all Johnson Is doing. An air force and the nation it must protectstands or falls by the rate atwhich obsolescent planes are replaced by new, modern types. "We know," Sym ington testified, "that We cannot maintain a 48 group program from the standpoint of modern airplanes under .the present amount of money being allocated for procurement" Maj. Gen. Frederick Smith then went on to spell Out Symington's mean ing. Under the level of procure ment projected for fiscal 1951, he said, "in about five years we would have about 34 modern groups." The whole subject of defense is technical and difficult, which is one reason why Johnson's de ceptions have escaped detection for so long. The most accurate way of estimating replacement rates and hence our strength in the air is in terms of air-frame weight, the weight of aircraft annually . delivered to the air force. Figures are dull, but the figures quoted below are worth pondering. The Finletter- report, to which Johnson referred, recommended a minimum annual delivery to the air force of 58,000000 pounds of airframe weight by the end of 1949. The curve was to continue upward until the United States had a fully ready air force ; by 1952, this being the too optimis tic estimate of the date, when the Soviet Union would begin quantity stockpiling of atomic weapons. , The lowest estimate of needed annual airframe weight was giv en by the joint congressional aviation board, whose work parallelled that of the Finletter commission. After hearing the country's leading aviation au thorities, this board devised what Statesman riot remarked: "This may be the end of par liamentary government The French commies have seized on de livery of arms under the Atlantic pact as oc casion for disturbing the peace. Red dock workers say they'll not unload the war mater ials. This prompted Bidault to call for fresh legislation. Of course it is part of a pattern. The west ern reds move pretty much on Moscow's stop go signals. Russia wants to keep the west im potent militarily and economically and politic ally. The present means are intended to cause confusion, and the French political system lends itself well to such disturbance. Divide and conquer may be as effective a way of aggres sion as warfare. Hitler tried it successfully until he took on Poland. ' Russia is using the pressure and scare techniques but so far has refrained from pressing its cause with military force. Fortunately the western nations are alive to communist tactics and pretty well prepared to take care of agitators, strikers and marplots. The arms will get unloaded in France. was called "Plan B." Plan B was the rock-bottom minimum, re commendation for American air strength. It was frankly design ed, not to permit the capacity of strong defense or continuing re taliation, but to provide just suf ficient strength "to prevent the loss of a war upon the outset of hostilities." , Plan B called for annual pro curement of 45,000,000 tons of airframe weight for the air force. Now consider . the Johnsonian . "economy" program. For fiscal 1950, deliveries of airframe weight to the air force were per mitted, not of 58,000,000 pounds, or 45,000,000 pounds, but of 23, 500,000 pounds. Moreover, in the Johnsonian budget for 1951, pro jected deliveries are to be actu ally reduced by more than 2,000, 000 pounds, back close to the 1947 level of 21,000,000 pounds. What this means is quite ob vious. Behind all Johnson's win dy assurances that "we are alert to the dangers of our times," and are "girding our loins according ly," there is not. strength but weakness. We are not headed for "peace through strength." In stead, If the best aviation experts in the country are to be trusted, we are- headed straight for dis aster, straight to "the loss of a war upon the outset of hostili ties." There may be some mysterious reason why American air power must be whittled away in the year of Soviet mastery of atomic energy and the loss, of China. There may be some mysterious reason why the richest country in the world Is too poor to pro vide the strength required to prevent defeat in case of war. But if this is so, we should at least know what we are doing, and why. What is happening in stead is that the official charged with responsibility for the' de fense of the United States is consistently and: demonstrably deceiving the American people on a matter which intimately concerns the very survival of every one of us. (Copyright i 1950. New York Herald Tribune Inc.) r Question HOVvTOCliTIT DOWN ! WTO OUT BAVlfiQ it GROW RlGtVT BACK? Pressure of Modern Life Affects Dogs 4 By Henry McLemore DAYTONA BEACH, Fla.. March 6 Where are the dogs of yesteryear? I mean those pooches who didn t know thei difference be- tween a veter inarian and an I investment banker but who managed to live to a ripe old age. The dogs of today are sensitive as a spinster at a wedding, and spend so much time at the "vet's" that many of them know how to use a stethoscope and take their own temperature. When I was a youngster the back yard was always filled with a "passel" of dogs, and there were always two or three sleeping in the shade of the front steps. If there were any "vets" operating in the neighborhood none of us knew about it, and yet our dogs usually died of old age at a good old age. And most of them hunt ed right up to the end, ranging the fields and scrub for quail and rabbit. They ate those dogs of yester yeartable scraps and what they could forage on their wanderings about town. But the dogs of to day have to have a diet that is as carefully supervised as that of Bonnie Prince Charlie of Eng land. Their food must contain all the vitamins in the alphabet, cod liver oil, garlic, and various other items to keep them from falling apart at the seams. Let them have nothing but the food left from dining room tables and they would go into a decline within a week. - And the clothes they wear! Yes, clothes. There are thousands of dogs in the U. S. with ward robes as extensive as those of movie queens or international playboys. Heavy sweaters for cold weather, light panties and jackets for weather less bracing. GRIN AND BEAR IT ' ; MM K - J V 2 -IS f 1 1 J I Tea, it was a frightening lecture en the H-Bomb . . . bat what really gave me the shadders waa that outfit en Mrs. Sneedbyt ..." PROBLEM IN UBERbOT mam m mm m -m m ai m ' w - ca mm ' and boots to protect their feet against rain, slush and ice. And their food must be served from specially-designed platters to prevent them from getting their ears greasy or their muzzles untidy. I have read ads, so help me, for jeweled clips for the ears of floppy-eared types such as the cocker, the bloodhound and the setter. My own dogs, Dinah and Bum ble, spend so much time at the "vet's" that they have acquired quite a good bedside manner, and when they find the "vet" out on a call they treat themselves. They both have become terrible hypochondriacs, and looking' through their pen the other day I found a shelff ul of medicine they had purchased with their bone allowance. What has caused this change in dogs? My guess is that the high-pressure life of the modem day world has gotten them down;. Loving their masters so much! they have taken it upon them-i selves to fret about the taxes' their masters have to pay, the danger offered by the A- and H - Bombs, the never-ending speed of business life. One of these nights I am going to eavesdrop outsid4he pen and listen to what Dinah and Bumble talk about. Ill be sure to let all you dog lovers and dog owners know what I hear. There is a chance that by not letting them listen to the radio or look at television and taking away their newspapers we will be able to return the dog to his former sturdy state. (McNausht SyndicaU. Inc.) Better English By D. C. Williams 1. What is wrong with this sentence? "This is all the faster my car can go." 2. What is the correct pronun ciation of "debonair"? 3. Which one of these words Is misspelled? Antiseptic, anuity, animosity, annulment. 4. What does the word "volu bility" mean? 5. What is a word beginning with der that means "disparag ing"? ANSWERS 1. Say, "This is as fast as my car can go." 2. Pronounce deb-o-nair, e as In bed, as in no by Lichty The Safety Valve Asks Abemt Censms To the Editor: I have been reading your art! cle on the coming census and I am wondering if it would be pos sible to get any of those sheets to fill out beforehand as it would save time for the enumerator and we would have more time to get all the facts together. , Mrs. Carl Hoffman Route 2 Box 243 f Aurora, Oregon Agricultural schedules are to be mailed from Washington, D.C., to arrive at farms a week to 10 days prior to April 1, accord ing to Cornelius Bateson. district census supervisor. He urges each farm family to complete the forms as soon as possible to save time when the enumerator ar rives. Any farm person who has not received such a schedule when notice of their receipt is given through the newspapers may write or call for one at the Salem census office. Market and Capitol sts. Widow Files Suit in Wreck Thelma King, widow of David King, who was killed Oct 1, 1949, in an auto accident near Sisters, Monday filed suit against the driver of the auto in which her husband was riding. Mrs. King asks $15,000 judg ment against Victor Bousquet. The complaint alleges Bousquet was intoxicated at the time of the accident and that his negligence caused the death of his passenger. The suit was filed in Marlon county circuit court. unstressed, a as in care, accent last syllable. 3. Annuity. 4. Fluency of words, as In speak ing. "There are people who have volubility without depth." Col ton. 8. Derogatory. t e i m.r Serving Salem and Vicinity as Funeral Director lor 21 Years Convenient location for both friends and family. Direct route to cemeteries no cross traffic. New modern building ample parking space. Com plete funeral services within the means of everyone. Virgil Ki South Comandol St Meet Called to Discuss Traffic. Safety Council -I Groundwork for organizing Sa lem's first traffic safety council will be laid Friday at a luncheon meeting of representative from local clubs and other organiza tions. Police Chief Clyde A. Warren said the civic groups have been asked to meet at the Senator ho tel for an explanation of the new council and suggestions as to its membership. r Salem's city council last week inaugurated a traffic safety pro gram by authorizing both a safety commission and a safety council. The latter group will be appoint ed by Mayor R. L. EUstrom and the commission will consist of po lice chief, city engineer and city manager. . . j Mam duty of the council will be to plan and carry out a public ed ucation program aimed at traffic safety. The commission wUl rec ommend legislation on the sub ject The city council wDl remain the final authority on traffic mat ters. Under the council mandate, the mayor may fix the number of members and th length of terms for the safety council. I Chief Warren said he expected some 30 civic leaders at the Fri day luncheon. Horse Show The Willamette Valley Horse man's association will sponsor Its annual horse show in Salem Anril IS and 18, President Lee .Eyerly announced Monday night. Both matinee and evening per formances will be scheduled. Site of the show will be ' announced later. General chairman for the event wUl be Art Smithers. Other J offi cials and committee heads will In clude: Al Inglis, official host; Ce cil Edwards, ring steward; Grant reins, cutting horse event; Dr. Fred Elhs, tickets; Walter Zozel and Graham Sharkey, urogram. The sponsoring body comnrises the Oregon Mounted Posse . and the Salem Saddle club. Ransom Given Alaska Project W. R. Ransom. SaVm fontr. ior. nas neen awarded tha mtimh. ing and heating contract on a new SI .2 00. 000 government hmmltal at Anchorage, Alaska. Ransom Monday" night said construction of the 500-bed struc ture would take two or three years. The building will be used by the department of interior in connection with its Indian field service. Four fialcm wvVm vMnflv left far Anchorage via tha AVn highway through Canada. They were: jl. unmtn, neaung lore man: Ray R. Ransom plumber; P. M. Hilmoe, labor foreman; and Bud Ramshire, winch operator. A fifth workers, Robert Hansen, Dlumbinr foreman, will fl-w nnrth this week. t Halsey Area Road Contract Awarded Contract for navin as mn.. of the Halsey-Cra wf ordsville sec tion of the Halsey-Sweet Home secondarr hlfhwa-r- vu awrfri Monday to Porter W. Yett of Port land on a low bid of $113,010, the state highway department an nounced. There were six bidders for th job. Bids were received at the last meeting of the state highway commission in Portland. j I&CC38 Tax Dclanu Made Oat By CeasaUaat J. Y7. Ccizrn j 1571 Market Ph. 2(541 ft - I IH. fan a Set in April T. Golden Go. nortaary ' J ' TJhoo. 4-2U7 Realty Excliange 7 Firm Organizes jsiaousnment of Salem's Real Estate exchange, a new local bus iness, was announced Monday by partners V. J. (BOD Oska Mrs. Alta L. Wells. The real estate firm will oper ate from offices at 468 Court st where Osko will continue to man age the Farmers Insurance Co. The new firm will specialize la negotiations involving the ex- auuci. JOTS. WCUI has been in the real estate busin ess for some time. Tax Men Seek in More uniformity in tax state ments and summaries Issued by Oregon counties is amonr nmS- lems being discussed by the leg islature's interim tax committee which met Monday in Salem. State Sen. Eugene Marsh, Mc- committee assigned to Investigate this Drooout Commissioner ?tabr ff.lM in charge of the assessment and taxation division of the state tax - fl . m. . m .a . ,i ... he was outlining suggestions to' assessors and tax collectors en unified procedure. Maclean said there was wide variance in tax statements now being Issued in' the several counties and there was no reason why they should not be uniform. , Seagestiea Made The tax commissioner suggest ed that his office print and furn ish all tax forms to the counties. Chairman Howard Belton sug gested that if the forms were printed by the state tax commis sion they could be paid for by' the counties. Centralised FBrchaatng Centralized purchasing and aud iting zor an school districts with-. in the counties Is beina studied bv on schools, the tax interim group the legislative interim committee was advised by Dr. T. C Holy. -who is conducting! a survev oi ary school system. Belton said if this suggestion finally was ap proved there would be a sub stantial financial saving to the school districts.'. , ' . Attorney General George Neu her in a letter to tha commit advised that he doubted If the proposed 2 per cent levy on In come tax exemptions would be constitutional. Neuner said such a tax would be in the nature of a poll tax. Chamber Hears Lockman Tall; on Delayed Education A mat of mfddl veara ddprlh. ed his deferred education to the Salem Chamber of Commerce Monday at luncheon. speaker was Frank M. Lock man who qualified for a high school diploma and entered col lea after hm retired fmm m txuf- ness Of e SO years, following his one year in mgn scnooi. Lockman said he found on re tirement that accomnllshment f his earnings goal was not enough; hence he entered college. He la now a Willamette university stu dent specializing in speech work. Ha haa wna mcanst nHVIn, nriwm in intercollegiate competition and nas acquirea an urge to go on for a master's degree in speech after his graduation here. ' r Allcniion LOGGERS TOP PRICES PAID FOR LOGS Dcrhl&rd Limber Turner. Ore. Ph. 111S w J tw aua mum swwva Unifonnity County Reports