Honolulu Record, August 26, 1948, vol. 1 no. 4, p. 2
Like a couple of thoroughly winded, glazed-eyed fighters haymakering their way through the last round, Truman and congress spent last week in a weary clinch. However, Truman got the nod for delivering two blows while congress only had energy enough left for one.
Truman’s Pessimism
The president's first punch was in the form of a mid-year budget review. In it he used sharp words in speaking of the $5,000,000,000 tax cut the GOP-dominated congress had pushed through last winter. Pointing out that the cut was "ill-timed," he said that in the year ending next June 30, federal spending will be soaring around $42,200,000,000—$6,000,000,000 more than last year.
However, forecast Mr. Truman, instead of the all-time high surplus of last June— $8,400,000,000—the treasury faces an operating deficit of 1,500,000,000 and a return to "deficit financing."
Congressmen’s Optimism
GOP Congressmen, adding to the confusion but apparently failing to distract Mr. Truman from his gloomy vision, hotly stated that the treasury will wind up between $5,000,000,000 and $6,000,000,000 to the good. In reply to the president's prediction that "we may face an expanded debt even in a period of high national income," congressmen insisted that not only will there be enough money to pare down the national debt but enough to reduce taxes still further.
Mr. Truman's next swing was from the anti-inflation corner. Declaring that congress "failed to meet its responsibility to the American people," he grudgingly signed the GOP sponsored anti-inflation bill. A well watered-down version of the bill he wanted passed, the president called the measure "a feeble response" to the public demand "for strong, positive action to relieve us from the hardships of exhorbitant prices and to protect us from inflationary dangers which threaten our prosperity."
He Serves Also
Truman had requested the special session to legislate wage and price controls, and a war-time form of food rationing, as an inflation curb. He described the congress failure to do this as "final proof of the determination of the men who controlled the 80th congress to follow a course which serves the ends of special privilege rather than the welfare of the whole nation."
When the bell rang to end the fight, congress scampered but of the ring leaving Mr. Truman with a law which allows him to tighten controls on bank credit and to return to controls, similar to those during the war, over installment buying.
Truman described this as "a tiny fraction of what we need."
Thomas Again
Meanwhile, the president was being assailed from another angle. Like a small dog yapping at the heels of a postman, busy Mr. J. Parnell Thomas, Republican head of the house un-American committee, charged Truman with trying to suppress information about a brand new spy ring which he, Thomas, claims he discovered. "The complete story" spluttered Thomas, "is locked in the Administration files." But Mr. Thomas was not to be stopped. Brushing aside Mr. Truman's claim that Thomas-created headlines were designed to conceal the shame of a "do nothing" congress, J. Parnell cryed [sic] that all the facts would eventually be uncovered "by time and painstaking investigation." The committee reconvenes Sept, 7.
Thomas' "painstaking investigation" was directly responsible for the death of Henry Dexter White, according to Frank Coe and Henry Wallace, third party presidential candidate. Coe was a friend, governmental associate, and un-American fellow target of White's. White died of a heart attack shortly after being grilled by the committee. At that time he denied all charges brought by Thomas' pet finger-pointer Elisabeth Bentley.
A Cruel Death
Said Wallace of the former Assistant Secretary of Treasury, "When Mr. White privately explained to Chairman Thomas that his bad heart could not stand too much strain much without rest periods Mr. Thomas showed no concern." Wallace recalled that White had resigned from government service last year because of ill health.
Coe's words were stronger. "Harry White did not die — he was killed! He was killed slowly and cruelly by insidious slander, ceaseless investigation and finally, when his strength was gone, by public scandal."
Meat Boycott
Last week livestock prices climbed to a new high and retail meat dealers said they would not be able to absorb the increase.
Meanwhile, in the face of surprisingly strong buyer resistance, the Meat Institute of America, meat trust propaganda organ, added still more to the cost of meat. In large ads the Institute explained to skeptical housewives how the Big Pour meat packers served the nation. As for the strike, meat dealers in major cities were busy affirming or denying — depending on their individual strategy. Those who affirmed, indicated that in major cities from coast to coast meat buying was off anywhere from 20 to 50 per cent.
Sparked by labor, civic and consumer groups, said to represent more than 1,400,000, New Yorkers planned to continue their strike still another week. Meantime, the trend across the country was not to buy meat selling for more than 65 cents a pound. As a result many butchers who denied any fall-off in purchasing, did admit that a growing backlog of choice cuts were going begging.
Blacklist
In California, canning industry employers were also balking at high prices. Over a period of years the 47 companies which comprise the multi-million dollar industry developed a very effective blacklist system. One thousand three hundred workers, members of the CIO Food, Tobacco and Agricultural Workers Union, now have more than $500,000 in back pay coming to them, according to union spokesmen. The workers were blacklisted during the 1946 bargaining election for union activity. J. Paul St. Sure, smooth-tongued industry attorney, was arguing before the NLRB trial examiner last week that the charges should be dismissed. His grounds were that the FTA-CIO had not complied with the "non-Communist" affidavit requirements of the Taft-Hartley Act. The request was denied as trial examiner Isadore Greenburg pointed out that the union had presented the workers' back pay claim long before the Act became law.