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About The Oregon statesman. (Salem, Or.) 1916-1980 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 21, 1954)
I J Determined tfiax-Cuttirig Drive by Democrats Threatens toGu t Holes in Ike's Revenue Flans By CHARLES F. BARRETT WASHINGTON A deter mined drive by congressional Dem ocrats bent on cutting personal in come taxes threatened Saturday to knock big boles in President Eisen hower's revenue program and force changes in his basic econom ic policy. ' At issue was not only bow many billions of dollars taxes would be cut but bow . the pie would be sliced as between business and in dividuals, and which cuts would best pull the nation out of the pres ent economic dip. The argument could bring the most explosive party-line battle of the year. Both sides agreed that it might, to a large extent, deter mine poliical fortunes in the fall congressional elections. - , Democratic leaders in both bouses said their members are lining up almost solidly behind proposals to increase personal income tax ex emptions for' each taxpayer and dependent from the present $600 In the- Senate, Democrats, cham pioned a surprise: bill by . Sen. George (D-Gaf to lift the exemp tions to $800 this year and to $1,000 next year. ;.; f f . ; . Many Free of Taxes The House proposal would cut revenues an additional IVt billion dollars annually. The proposed Senate uOl would I save taxpayers an estimated 4 -billion the first year, and 10; billion the second year. Millions! of taxpayers would be i relieved, from f any federal in tome tax at ill Democratic leaders forecast that some ; Republican! would break ranks and support an exemption increase. But ; win or lose in Con gress, they said the fight would be one of their biggest and best issues in the fall election. There were; a few signs of wav ering in Republican ranks. One key GOP member: of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Com mittee forecast privately that the House would, vote an exemption In the House, they aimed at $700. 1, increase over administration oppo- 1 aaui oeiiow unosen winner Of 1953 National BoolctAward By W. G. ROGERS r Associated Press Arts Editor NEW YORK UP) Literature and life are a long way apart, says Saul Bellow, a man who is doing a lot to bring them to gether. He's the author of The Ad ventures of Augie March," the novel which recently won the Na tional Book award. t In the opinion Of some novel ists and readers, it's the most worthwhile prize of its kind. This is not Bellow's only honor, how ever. He had a Guggenheim in 1948-49, and a National Institute of ' Arts and Letters award of $1,000 year before last Bellow has a ready smile, and ready answer for questions. His hair recedes on the sides, leaving a curly black tuft jutting toward his high brow. And "high brow" is.- part of the key to him. for he's not a hit-ormiss novel ist, as some of ' his fellows are, but a thoughtful and purposeful one who expects a novel to tell a story and have something to say, too. - Reason for Gap One reason for the gap be tween what we are and what we write, says novelist Bellow, is found in our schools: tlsn't it true that in high school most of us read every thing except what we are re quired to read in class?" He moved on to college which for him was a combination of the three universities of Chi cago, Northwestern and Wiscon sin: "The colleges take tne mi mor out of literature. They turn it into a serious and solemn busi ness, a sort of religion, like something for Sunday only." Still offering examples from his own varied experiences, he recalled his years in Chicago, and the "Chicago school" of writers consisting of Floyd Dell, Ben Hecht, Carl Sandburg, Sher wood Anderson, James T. Far tell and others: -Meant a Lot' "It meant a lot to us that Har riet Monroe published 'Poetry'' Magazine there, and that Covici even published books." He finds now that writers are using native material, the ma terial right af hand, under their noses. "For the first time they use as subjects something which, before, they were too immersed in to recognize as potential sub ject matter" , j But they must use it, he believes,-by writing in a domestic American style of their own: "You can't portray Chicago writ ing like Truman Capote." When we get novels composed out of this indigenous material, who's soinr to read them? "There is a limited number of things to which people respond with their deepest emotions. Bellow explained. "Right now those things are our great pro duction facilities, our manufac turine. our goods, our size, our science. But our social health. as well as our individual health, requires us to pay attention to other things, to the things of the heart, the personal things" out of which he wants novels to be made. Then those novels will matter to the public : more than the usual land of stories da Feelings Freely Shown While he was in Europe on a Guggenheim fellowship, he no ticed that people let their faces express their emotions, and they showed their feelings freely in their flowing gestures. In this country, "some , emotions are in danger of atrophy for lack of practice in expressing them. When I go to the theater, for ex ample, it seems to me sometimes that the actors and actresses are undergoing -a test to discover how much of then .hopes and fears and heartaches; they can keep from showing. 'Born in 1915 in Quebec, Bel low came here , at nine with his parents. He his taught at the University 'of Minnesota and at Princton and is now on the fac ulty of Bard, a college a few miles up the Hudson from this city, ; i s He has thought of trying news paper work, but teaching gives him, he figures, more time to write. He goes at it slowly, too, it seems; his Jirst novel, "Dan gling Man;" appeared in 1944; his second. TThe Victim," in 1947. This! is his third. The five judges who selected "Augie Marcbf from the hun dreds of other 1953 novels for this fifth I National Book award were David I Dempsey, Leon EdeL Mary McCarthy, Arthur Mizener and Gerald Sykes. Win ners, already announced, in the other tw) fields were conraa Aiken fori his 3"Collected Poems" and Bruce Carton for "A Still ness at Appomattox." 2 Rosenberg Boys Given to Jit Grandmother NEW YORK UP A court sent the two sons of executed atom spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg to live with! their grandmother Mrs. Sophie Rosenberg, Saturday on her promise to bring them up to love the United States. The City Welfare Department and the Socitty for Prevention of Cruelty to Children had com plained that the boys, Michael. 11, and Robert, 1 6, were being ex ploited for pund-raising proposi tions" by! Communist groups. The boys had been living with Abel Merropol, a song lyricist? and his wife Ann, both of whom have denied 'they allowed any ex ploitation! They said that, on the contrary. 1 they shielded the child ren "as much as is humanly pos sible." ? The Merrdpols were friends of Emanuel JBldch, the Rosenberg de fense attorney who died Jan. 30. The -Rosenbergs specified in their wills that they wanted Bloch to be named legal guardian of the boys. State Supreme Court Justice James B. M. McNally gave cus tody of i'thi boys to the grand mother pending outcome of hearing Tuesday on a petition by the Crtyiwelfare Department McNally 1 spoke, however, as though the children would continue to live with the grandmother. When i McNally announced his decision j Michael walked up, shook hands with' him, and said: "God bless you, Judge. The bcjys parents were executed last June 19 for conspiring to steal American atom bomb secrets for Soviet Russia. . i sition unless - Republicans them selves proposed new income tax CUU. .i- i r Retreat Slightly And Republicans on the Ways and Means Committee retreated slightly Friday softening a pre viously approved cut in taxes on stock dividends, which was under strong Democratic assault But administration officials and most Republican congressional leaders generally held firm, de nouncing the Democratic move as political and predicting it still would be beaten. i Democrats generally are sound ing a war cry that a program proposed by President Eisenhower is a "neb man s tax bill tuu of give-aways" to big business, and wealthy stockholders, providing only light and scattered relief for the average taxpayer. - I Republicans are tuning up their oratorical thunder to declare the Democratic alarums are political eyewash that the program is carefully balanced to give neeaea benefits to all, to help expand busi ness production and provide more and better Jobs and mgner living standards for years ahead. t More Incentives Democrats counter that business can't sell as much as it can pro duce right now. What is needed, they say. is not to give more in centives to expand production but to pour more money into the hands of consumers to increase purchas ing power. Republicans come back with the argument that this huge revenue loss, on top of other cuts in effect or planned this year, would wreck the budget and the administra tion's effort to fight inflation.; If this cut were enacted at the ex pense of business incentives, they contend, the workers it is supposed to help actually would be hurt most They say simply: More tax cuts from the paycheck will be of little value if there is no job to make the paycheck in the first place. And Republican leaders vow con fidence they can beat the exemp tion increase in the closely divided House: 219 Republicans, 215 Dem ocrats, 1 Independent Argument Growing : Thus the argument has been building up, bit by bit, before con gressional committees and in the cloakrooms for weeks. It looks like a real two-party fight, with party leaders claiming few defections from either side actually a rela tively rare lineup. It is scheduled to explode on the House floor within about two weeks, when the Ways and Means Committee presents an 800-page bill rewriting almost all the ; na tion's tax laws and giving a basic new look to the tax structure. The committee has been work ing on the bill off and on for more than a year, and daily for the past several weeks. It changes no ma jor rates, but includes scores of provisions removing alleged ; in equities for both individuals and business. As it stands now, it would save taxpayers altogether about 1 billion dollars the first year, probably more later. What is the proposed new look for the tax structure? For individuals, it is aimed al relieving many sore points that do not add up relatively to a lot of total dollars but may be very pain ful to those affected. Bigger Deductions It allows much bigger deduc tions for medical expenses; a new deduction for child-care expenses of widows, widowers or separated parents who work; a $1,200 deduc tion for retirement income; an ex emption for dependent children even though they make $600 or more a year (forbidden now); re duced tax .rates for single heads of families; and a deduction for the soil conservation expenses of farmers. All these savings would add tip to roughly 600 million dollars year. " v One provision would aid both In dividuals and' business a cut in taxes on stock dividends. Some four million individuals would ben efit through lower tax bills. if amounting to 240 million dollars the first year and up to a billion or f more the third year, as the bill stands now. Weald Aid Buiness Business would tend to benefit because the plan would help com panies sell stock to finance ex pansion, some businessmen are concerned because in the . past 10 years, 75 per cent of business fi nancing has been through sale of bonds, bank borrowing or other fixed indebtnesa. They say a busi ness heavily in debt, with fixed obligations to pay, doesn't venture as readily into new fields: and if .business should turn down, the pinch is sharper and more immediate. Democrats have concentrated most of their fire on this proposal, charging that 80 per cent of the relief would go to 300.000 wealthy families who own more than $25,- 000 each in stocks. They figure the aver are 'of these 300,000 fam ilies would save $9,000 in taxes in the third year, as the. proposal was originally approved. Was Originally Approved But the committee voted Friday to knock out the third round of the original three-stage plan, thus re ducing the ultimate tax saving in volved from $1,250,000,000 to $866 millions. t The other big Incentive to busi ness is a proposal to allow much more rapid tax deductions for de preciation of new plants and equip ment Although ever a period of 20 years or more this theoretically would result in no loss in revenue. it amounts to about 350 million dollars the first year and much more the second year. Encourage Expansioa The idea is to encourage, by bigger immediate deductions, ex pansion into new ventures and new products; and to encourage replac ing of outmoded and inefficient plants and equipment Sponsors say many such "mar ginal plants are the ones that are closing now because they can t make the grade as business gets more competitive, thus contribu ting to the present economic dip. The program also provides scores of other steps to help busi ness encouraging research, let ting a business keep more profits for future growth, letting more losses in bad years be used ' to offset profits in good years, re ducing taxes on operations abroad; and generally giving business freer, more sympathetic tax cli mate. Would all this really give busi ness a nit and put tne economy back on the high road? Many Democrats say the ap proach is basically wrong, that the key still is to put more purchasing power in the hands of consumers. Production will expand automatic ally to satisfy a growing consumer market they say but no amount of incentives will lead to business expansion if markets are weak. Republicans ate recent billion- dollar expansion programs an nounced by General Motors and the steel industry as specific ex amples of the shot in the arm they expect from the tax program. One administration official has advised friends that within three days, 50 business firms reported they were ready to embark on new plants, new products or other expansion ventures if what they considered to be restrictive tax laws are amended and the tax climate is made more favorable for risk-taking. New Products The key to market doldrums, Republican spokesmen argue, is 'o get rid of outmoded equipment and to produce at lower prices, to de velop new products and new uses for older products. Secretary of the Treasury Humphrey has esti mated roughly that two-thirds of the jobs provided by the economy today stem from products that were almost unheard of 30 years ago and said the same thing will be true 30 years from now, if business is given a climate to advance. As for the division of tax bene fits between business and individu als. Humphrey has contended the overall full-year program must be considered not just the revision bill. I - not just tt billion dollars in annual Individual income tax cuts and two billion dollars is reductions from expira tion of the excess profits tax on corporations, both Ion last Jan. L Provided by Demos Democrats point; to the fact that these cuts were provided in legis lation .passed i by t Congress when it was under Democratic control. Republicans reply that the cuts couldn't have been permitted to take effect except for economies made by the Eisenhower adminis tration. .-. :. I ;' 1 The over-all 1 tax program to which Humphrey referred also in cludes the tax revisions on which the f House committee has been working; and cancellation of a two billion dollar; cut in corporation taxes and a one, billion dollar re duction in excise or sales taxes. both set automatically for April X. In Humphrey's view, the Idea of bolstering the! economy by def icit spending and restrictive busi ness taxes has been tried, and failed. His argument goes like this: Inflate Spiral j After seven, years of the New Deal, 9tt million persons still were jobless in 1939. Then the buildup for i world War II. war itself, the pent-up demand for goods after the! war, and finally the Korean I conflict an kept business on an J artificially stimu lated and inflationary spiral But sow the economy la at a crossroads. Barring new defense emergencies, business is going to have to learn to get along again without inflation on its own. Thus a tax program is needed to encourage business to expand and bridge the gap; left by reduction of government spending. Expan sion, he emphasizes, means more jobs and that chasing power. means more pur- But Democrats also argue that the Republican theory they call ttj the "tricklei down" theory was tried . curing the 1920 s and in other periods and always has brought depression. In the background of all this argument is the fact that Repub licans concede if the economy really heads toward a tailspin they wiU use more tax reductions and a host of other weapons to fight depression. rAnd some Republicans in Con gress facing election campaigns within a few months are no ticeably more restive over the tax- cutting issue than some adminis tration officials. Monks From : Korea Camps Now in Reich 5 ,, By RETVHOLD. G. EN'SZ -WUERZBURG. Germany to Eight Benedictine monks who en dured the hell on earth of Korean prison camps have settled in a peaceful; monastery here in the Bavarian mils. i Now. as they go their appointed religious rounds, they recall the days when they were forbidden even to ; fold their hands in pray er. !-v-. i ;;V- v - All were arrested on the night of May , 1949, and thrown into a Pyongyang Prison where 20 per sons often occupied a room only 25 feet ! sauare. The Communists said their arrests were necessary to "ensure freedom of religion. By freedom of religion.' says one bearded monk, "they meant freedom from religion or com pulsory atneism." And another added, "w were not permitted to read a word in five years nor could we write to anyone. - s; Moved to Maacaaria . ' From Pyongyang they were tak en to a prison camp in what they caned "ueatn canyon." Later. when United Nations troops drew near, they were moved to Man churia, when the UJV. troops re treated they were marched back to ; "Death Canyon." The march, said one. came "aft er We had spent two nights and a day almost freezing to death on a frozen Manchurian field." Back in camp they found that 62 prisoners were herded into two small t houses. They built eight more houses themselves and set about ; growing crops. . But their guards not they got the eggs their hens laid and the vegetables their garden yielded. "Our Red captors had left us to die alone," said one, "and 17 of our men and two of our sisters succumbed to their evil wish. Ev en the sick were forced to work when one was too sick to move he was permitted to remain indoors and his starvation ration was cut in half." Services Allowed ! Religious services were permit ted once, a day in camp. An old box served as altar. The guards constantly interrupted mass by shouting out the names of those who were to report for work de tails. Suddenly last Nov. 19 things changed. They were taken to an other camp and given food "fit for kings." Then began their home ward journey across Siberia "the empire of silence, one calls it "Between the Yak and the Oder people know how to keen secrets. Not only do the lips of the people Statoammv Salem, Grew Smw Feb 21 1S34 Cee. S3--8 Trio Arrested On Forgery Counts Here - ; S i ' . : p EUGENE (A Three men were in : jail here - Friday! on forgery charges after a tip by a suspicious merchant had led to their arrest by state police, as they drove be tween Albany and Salem. City police were trying to find out who had passed several bad checks in Eugene and Springfield stores Thursday afternoon when the merchant called in the license number of a car in which a man who had tried to cash a check had driven away.:. , . j k -,. Arrested in the car were Allen Welsh. 23. and Scott JewelL SO. both of Seattle, and Lyle Fleisber, 24, Longview. i Six bad checks were passed, most of them for $25 but one for $50. refrain from uttering a sound, but also their faces dare not show any expression.M De they want to stay here in this land of plenty? Ho. All want to return to Korea. As one put it: "Our lives .are there.- - j . ' . Neuberger,; 1 Hess Tie fori Demo Honor .... . . PORTLAND (J) After a tie between State Sen. Richard L. Neuberger and U.S. Dist Atty. Henry Hess, the Willamette Demo cratic Society decided Saturday to wait until after the Hay primary election before voting again on the Democrat of the Year for 1951 Neuberger and Hess got seven votes each, and Mike DeOcco, president, of the society, then pro posed the postponement, comment ing. 1 wouldn't want such a se lection to give one primary candi date an advantage over another.' Neither Hess nor Neuberger has declared for office this year, but both have toen mentioned as pos sible . Democratic candidates for governor. There also has bees speculation that Neuberger might seek nomination for the U.S. Sea ate. - . - . f- .i , Americans, on the ! average, drink about a pint of win a week and Frenchmen about a pint a day.- . ; feffalWQeJ OplMMlfMb ! - SPECIAl EMERGENCY SEXYlCf arnpalref ftaael VATa MM OvMMAoMOTfHhefr iOt nltaOa 9eT f&ttt&J on AMMnr ' ' i. 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