The Aspermont Star (Aspermont, Tex.), Vol. 52, No. 14, Ed. 2 Thursday, December 23, 1948 Page: 2 of 8
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■WltKLY NCWS ANALYSIS
New Spy Ring Data Revives Prebe;
Tax Hike Bagaboo Frightens Some;
Berlin Red Vote Tightens Issue
■tfO'TOI
•1. KOtli When ipliltu art •sarnscd ta Ibwr Mlimn. Urn arc Ihou •
I NmHHi Ualaa'a aaaiyiia and aaenaarlly af lb la ■•w p prr.)
WITCHHUNT:
Pumpkin, Too
i Like a delayed Halloween epi-
sode, with macabre rather than hu-
morous undertones, was the revival
of the spy hunt in Washington. All
the ingredients were there—the
cornfield, the pumpkin, and the
specter of Stalin hovering over the
unsavory whole.
But there was nothing funny in
the situation to the house un-Amer-
ican activities committee or to a
federal grand jury seeking to rush
jindictments against suspected trai-
tors and espionage agents.
THE PROBE committee declared
it had "definite proof of one of the
most extensive espionage rings in
the history of the United States."
Bolstering this assertion was discov-
ery of microfilm documents, termed
by thy committee of "tremendous
importance," which had been re-
moved from the state department
for transmission to Russian agents.
The microfilm was revealed by
Whitaker Chambers, a senior edi-
tor of Time magazine, who admit-
ted its possession and declared Al-
ger Hiss, president of the Carnegie
Foundation for International Peace,
had given it to him for transmis-
sion to Russia. Hiss promptly de-
nied the charge.
PLACED ON the witness stand.
Chambers said he had not had pos-
session of the film during the years
after 1937, until recently, and de-
clined to name the persons in whose
hands the film rested before being
turned up in a pumpkin on Cham-
bers' farm.
Meanwhile, Summer Welles, form-
er undersecretary of state, studied
the microfilm documents, evaluated
their contents, but declined to di-
vulge their importance.
Chambers, an admitted member
of a Communist spy ring which op-
erated here a decade ago, was
slated for further witness stand ap-
pearances, as was Hiss, who main-
tains he was never a Russian agent.
HIGHER TAXES:
Some Frightened
Some business men and indus-
trialists, who feared a Truman vic-
tory might result in a new "sock-
the-rich" tax program, shivered
anew as they read a statement by
one of the leading proponents of
President Truman's twice-rejected
plea to impose a modified form of
the wartime excess profits tax.
THE SPEAKER was Wyoming's
Senator O'Mahoney. Democrat, who
cited the 1929 financial crash as an
argument for boosting taxes on ;
business profits.
The senator declared that "if cor-
porate profits of 1929 had been ad-
equately taxed, this government
would have been in a much better ,
fiscal position to meet the depres- j
sion."
He pointed out that corporate j
earnings now are piling up at the j
same rate as in 1929, although the
companies are bigger. So earnings
are greater than ever before.
HOWEVER, industrialists, lead-
ers of the big labor unions, account-
ants and economists have been re-
quested to give their view on what,
if anything, congress should do about
profits, estimated at a record 20
billion dollars this year.
O'Mahoney proposed that "little
business," or small, independent
corporations be given special ex-
emptions under any excess profits
tax plan.
GOLDEN FLEECE:
Pane Jason
The "golden fleece," subject of
one of mythology's most romantic,
colorful stories, crashed the world
press by proxy as a result of a
row over custody of its namesake.
The fleece, symbol of one of the
world's most exclusive orders of
nobility—not even the king of Eng-
land is a knight—may be "kid-
naped" bv the city of Dijon,
THE GOLDEN fleece—of which
small replicas were awarded the
knights—was kept in Dijon. France,
after the order was founded by
PhiJip the Good, Duke of Burgun-
dy, m 1429, for several gerj-.ii.inns
until Mary of Burgundy toolrit with
her to Austria when she married
Maximilian the Fair.
The fleece remained in Vienna
until the French army recaptured
the city during the last war and
returned the fleece to Dijon. Now.
Austria is asking for it back. But
the good Burgundians of Dijon
have petitioned the city council to
urge the French government to re-
fuse the Austrian bid and to re-
tain the fleece in Dijon,
EMPLOYMENT OF MALE
WORLD HEAR I VETERAN 9
SEPTEMBER 19*8
■ EMPLOYED*
NON-AGRICULTURAL)
wCVLTuMi)
Three years after the war
most veterans, by and large,
are firmly established in civil-
ian employment, according to
statistics compiled by the Re-
search Council for Economic
Security, Chicago. Eighty-nine
of the estimated 14.9 million
living veterans of World War U
were employed as of last Sep-
tember. Of these, about 900,000
were on farms and another 900,-
000 in school. About 450,000
were unemployed, while an ad-
ditional 300,000 were "resting"
or unable to work.
DEAD END:
Reds Block W ay
The struggle for a Berlin peace
dragged wearily on, extended by
Russian establishment of a Com-
munist "government" in the Reich
capital.
Demanding elections be held on
a "city-wide basis," the United
States, Britain and France told the
Soviet union that there could be no
solution to the Berlin impasse un-
til the Russians disown the newly-
installed Berlin government. The
terms were clearly expressed in a
note accompanying a list of Soviet
violations of the Berlin constitu-
tion that the three powers had sub-
mitted for guidance.
ALTHOUGH FORMALLY ad-
dressed to a United Nations com-
mittee, the note obviously was
meant as a strongly worded warn-
ing to Moscow. It indicated that if
what it termed the "illegal body"
in the Soviet sector were not dis-
banded. the western powers would
take a series of measures required
by the fact, in their opinion, that
the "legal, unified administration"
of Berlin had ceased to exist.
The western powers placed no
time limit for the Soviet union
to make a decision on whether to
continue collaboration. However,
the tone of the note, as informed
sources stressed, indicated that un-
less the normal administrative con-
ditions were reestablished "pretty
soon," a new policy would be
adopted.
FROM BEGINNING to end the
note gave what the western powers
regard as detailed proof that the
Soviets have pursued in Berlin a
policy of systematic violation of all
quadripartite agreements.
POTATOES:
\o More Doubt
There was no longer any doubt.
Farmers, at Inst, had a full-blown
portrait of the American house-
wife's ideal potato. The U. S. de-
partment of agriculture even sug-
gested that farmers tack it up in
the barn for quick reference.
The department found, after a
survey among 3,300 housewl ves.
that farmers and shippers w uld
see to it that potatoes prepared for
market are:
CLEAN, of medium size, mar ted
by few "eyes," light in color, un-
damaged and of such quality that
they will cook up soft, mealy and
evenly throughout, without falling
apart
Housewives like medium sized
potatoes because the/ rate them
easiest to peel and handle, and best
for judging individual portions—the
all-purpose potato, they say.
The survey showed more than n
fourth of the householders dis-
turbed by "mechanical and han-
dling injuries" to potatoes. Saul
the department:
"IT IS PRETTY good evidence
that too many potatoes arc being
dug and handled with improper ma-
chinery and tools, and that the pe-
tatoes are not properly culled be-
fore being sent to market."
Immediate question to arise: Will
potato growers and shippers do any-
thing about it?
ROBOT EAR:
New Magic
Alexander Graham Bell would
have approved. Science had moved
to make his telephone even more
serviceable. Tom Edison also would
have nodded in approbation, for
these same scientists had tied to-
gether two great contributions to
living to make their convenience
even more marked, more appre-
ciated.
A NEW robot ear that hears the
phone ring and turns on the light
was shown to doctors at the Amer-
ican Medical association meeting
in St. Louis.
The ear could be used when no
one is at home to turn on the light
outside the front door. When the
householder got ready to go home,
he could call his house and tee
ear would turn on the light. No
one need answer the phone.
THE ROBOT is a box on which
the telephone sets. When the phone
rings, the noise of the bell vibrates
a salt crystal in the box. The vi-
bration makes electricity flow in
the salt, and the current is ampli-
fied to turn on the light switch.
The box and phone are set in th«
circuit with the light to be turned
on. In this way, the ear could be
used to light any lamp in the house,
or outside.
The device comes from wartime
submarine and surface ship detec-
tion by sound. Nothing but the vi-
bration of a phone bell affects this
ear.
Besides doctors, FBI men have
been getting these ears because
they are on call 24 hours a day.
Undertakers are getting them be-
cause more people seem to die at
night,
RAIN-MAKER:
In the Bag
Perhaps it was in the bag. but
Franklin Fenenga. an archeologist i
of California university wasn't say-
ing. All he would say was that he
did have the bag.
THE BAG was a complete rain- ;
making outfit he had acquired from |
an Indian whose grandfather was a
medicine man.
The bag and its potentialities
came to light when Kern county, in
the southern part of California's
central valley, had its first rainfall
in eight months not long ago. Fen-
enga was right there in the middle
of the downpour. And, when he re-
turned to Berkeley, the rain came
down there in torrents.
NATURALLY, speculation arose
concerning the properties of the
rain-making bag, for, when the out-
fit, including the tail of a beaver,
a bag of snapdragon seeds, a bag
of eagle down, a fossil fish vertebra
and various charm stones and peb- j
bles, was brought out of storage, |
the rain started.
Fenenga had the bag with him \
when he entered Berkeley in a
storm. It is now in possession of
the university.
Polio Poster Girl
Washington Digest
Baukhage Finds Old Dates
Of Interest in Year 1948
By BAUKHAGE
Newt Analyst snJ Commentator.
WASHINGTON.—New Year's day, accoiding to an ency-
clopedia which I once remember consulting, is celebrated in the
western world by merrymaking and, theoretically at least, in the
meeting of old friends.
I remember when we took the idea of New Year's "calls" seriously.
That was back in western New York. I also remember later, when I was
a student in Europe, three of us living in the same "pension" (a word
which Americans abroad prefer to "boarding house"). We made our calls
consecutively so that the one pair of gloves and one silk hat, which we
possessed collectively, could serve for all. In that day and place both
were essential.
uary 6
r
BAUKHAGE
O.i'ida Brown, 4, of San An-
tonio, Tex., has been selected
the poster girl for the 1919
March of Dimes, January 14 to
31. Stricken with polio two and
a half years ago, Linda was
treated at the llobert 15. Greene
hospital in San Antonio with
funds derived from the March
of Dimes. She now walks with-
out braces and has only a slight
limp.
HAN KIN:
()ittuard Hound?
Rep. John E. Rankin (D., Miss.)
one of the foremost house oppo-
nents of President Truman's civil
rights program, faces a strong
fight by northern Democrats in
congress to force h:rn off the house
un-An ( re ,.n activities committee.
UNDER THE seniority system,
Rankin is slated to become chair-
man of the house veterans' affairs
committee. The attempt to oust
him from the un-American investi-
gating group will be based on the
general house rule that the chair-
man of a our,mittee may hold only
ore < omni it tee p< >st
The northern Democrats will ar-
gue that if I-i.nl'in accepts the sat
erar.s' affair-- <a.:c:mttee chairman
shir, he should be restricted t
that
POOR RICHARDS ALMANAC
BIKINI:
S'it'll he/iocs
Anniversary Highlights Book's Effect
Poor Richard's anniversary, Jan-
uary 17. I!M9, highlights the in-
fluence of the almanac on Ameri-
can life Poor Richard was the
noni ri> plume of Benjamin Frank-
lin, whose Poor Rich,aid's Almanac
bi gaa the popularity of this typo of
[ eblieation
In hundreds of thousands of
homes, rural households especially,
I the almanac hangs on a ivg i
| living room or kitchen. -re, .i
ready, the 1941) almanac has U-gu
to hide the 1948 and earlier edition'
The almanac is maify things t
many prop I • ft carries an >
sary-list'tvi calendar, astronomic.
I data, information on how to get. t.
j of rats, raise healthy chicks, how t
i stay awake in arch.
Rikm
eel oirg
Prci
chargo
stipprcs
atomic hi;
wai-
st!
i urn
th.
rial
Pr
y
at a r
svver
Bradle
H use
Bikini
con It rent e,
0 an assertion
it- v •••-.- that
1 vl ''lamped th
findings.
denied a
•> lit *:':e bad
to:! on the
• at II
statement, made
a n-
v,
u is in
Whi'r
an thr
The birthday of a slate. May
II—Israel is born.
Dewey wins the primary in Ore-
gon on May 2-i. Later he won the
state.
A veteran steps down Prime Min-
ister Smuts of South Africa is de-
feated on May 28
Oregon in the news again, trag-
ically The little town of Vanport
is inundated. May 31.
Tragedy for a neighbor state on
June 10. Secretary of Labor Schwel-
Icrihach Washington state dies
at the a£e "1 53.
Outdoors. Philadelphia was cloudy
and gray on June 21 Inside Re| ub-
licnn headquarters it was rowdy and
gay Dewey -starts his shock and
blitz luetics against the field. Cor-
ra ;[ undents discuss the mystery of
the va< ant ."cuts in the gallery.
(Did tlvs Con-shadow the absence
of the Deviey voters from the pulls
en election day?) The attractive
Republican glamour Ir.dy, Clare
(th Luce, hurls her barbs in a
Today I have been meeting some^k
old "dates of 1948."
The first I have to record is Jan-
Baukhage talking . . .
from the radio
gallery of the
house of repre-
sentatives after
having watched
the opening of the
second session of
the historic 80th
congress." Note
the word "histor-
ic." Nooneguessed
then that other
adjectives applied
to tiiat legislative
body were to help
cause one of the
great "upset"
election victories
I of American history.
| On January 7 (my birthday)
! there was "a bright sun shining
down on the Capitol but," I broad-
cast, "the shadows beneath it are
deep and dark."
On that day the President de-
livered his message and the
next day the Associated Press
said: "Most of President Tru-
man's 1918 legislative propos-
als, particularly his tax reduc-
tion and anti-inflation plans
appeared headed today for a
congressional waste basket."
How true that was and how it
helped re-elect him. In his an-
nual message he is to present
most of them again, more hope-
fully.
January 12 was a cold day in
I\'e>v York which had just emerged
from a blizzard. I was there cov-
ering the assembly of the United
Nations and that day the Palestine
commission was preparing its pro-
gram of partition which was to be
completed with bayonets and hand-
grenades.
JANUARY 23. At 11:30 a. m. a
message came over the news tick-
er, and such a sigh of relief went
up from the White House and from
both Republican and Democratic
headquarters that the trees on Con-
necticut avenue bent nearly dou-
ble. "I am not available for and
could not accept nomination to high
political office." Signed—General
Dwight D. Eisenhower.
JANUARY 30. Gandhi is dead.
The priest and prophet of Indian
independence was shot to death at
his prayer meeting on the lawn of
the estate where he lived.
MARCH 9. Truman announces
his candidacy; MacArthur re-
nounces his.
MARCH 10. Jan Masaryk is dead.
TVIuch died with that name.
From the house radio gallery
again on March 17 I report the re-
enunciation by the President of
what was then called the "Truman
Doctrine."
MARCH 19. Wallace attacks the
President's foreign policy.
It was i o April Fool's dav
joke when the Russians stopped
the trains in Berlin.
The next day. April 2, our
counter move: Congress passes
the European recovery pro-
gram.
The gaygrcen of leaf and lawn
on this 12th day of April are not
enough to dispel Washington's con-
cern over the revolution in Bogota.
(Remember? A Communist-directed
affair. Secretary of State Marshall
was there.)
At 10:30 in the morning of April
19, Justice T. Allen Goldsborough
ruled John Lewis guilty of crim-
inal contempt.
On April 27 come the rumors of
war from Palestine.
The Moscow newspapers of May
II are bought out.—Ambassador
Bedell Smith is conferring with
Molotev.
clever speech without revealing
that she and her husband are going
to plump for Vandenberg later.
Television is most unkind to what
should have been a most telegenic
subject.
JUNE 23. A heavy mist hung
over the city of brotherly love
on the day of the convention's
crucial session. I had left the
hall at 4 o'clock that morning.
We had witnessed a stirring and
a pathetic scene when the blind
veteran, Harlan Kelly, nomi-
nated General MacArthur in a
clear, unhesitating voice which
held in it the ring of a true
devotee. Earlier, there had been
the longest demonstration so far,
for Taft. Stassen's had been the
most vigorous.
JUNE 24. I was looking over the
public opinion polls and mentioned
that qualities the voters said they
would prefer in a presidential can-
didate were those of "the humani-
tarian, the protector of the weak,
the benevolent guardian of the chil-
dren, of the common man." Per-
haps that was a better guide to
what the choice was to be than the
figures the pollsters provided us.
It was late in the evening when
candidate Dewey, accepting the
nomination, raised his hand and
swore that he had made no com-
mitments to anv man.
JUNE 26—The Berlin airlift,
which with the Marshall plan
achieve the two greatest victories
in the cold war, begins.
JULY 12. The other side: a le-
thargic Democratic convention
woke to life with a 28-minute dem-
onstration for keynoter Barkley
which "had more real feeling and
spontaneity in it," I broadcast at
the time, "than anything which
even the super-confident Repub-
licans produced."
JULY 13. This was a day of the
battle of the extremes against the
middle. The Negro attacking the
Dixiecrats; Southerners begging for
a candidate acceptable to the South.
So heated were the arguments on
the floor that policemen walfied
into the aisles several times. The
Democrats' glamour girl had her
chance, and Helen Gahagan Doug-
las, for some reason or other more i
telegenic than her Republican rival, !
emerged equally triumphant, foren-
sically.
JULY 14. The President finally is j
nominated and makes his accept- j
ante in the small hours, offering
a sample "f what was to come forth ;
in the campaign. Many had already
left the hall. He called for the spe-
cial turnip day session of congress.
"I h'.ive run into perhaps four or
five people," I commented next ,
dav, "who venture the assertion
ttv.U perhaps he might still win." :
But everyone else laughs at the j
thought. The calling of the congress '
proved good strategy.
Thousands of people braved j
Washington's hrat of July 19 to
line the long, slow march of the
caisson hearing the General of
the Armies, John J. Pershing,
to his last rest in Arlington.
On tlie afternoon of Friday, the
13th of August, as we were leaving
the White House press and radio
conference, Stephanove Kasenkina
jumped from the window of the
Soviet consulate in New York City.
She lived to become the symbol of
the escape which so many human
beings, suffocated behind the iron
curtain, have sought before and
since.
AUGUST 10. The diamond's rough
diamond, beloved Babe Ruth, dies.
SEPTEMBER 17. Tragic end of
a man who had lived and died for
peace. Count Bernadotte.
SEPTEMBER 20. A stormy ses-
sion of the United Nations begins.
Its deliberations all but forgotten in
the heat of the presidential cam-
paign.
NOVEMBER 2. The election of a
President who nobody believed when
he went to bed that night—or e'-'.-n
in the early hours of the next day
—had won.
NOVEMBER 3. A little before
noon in a New York hotel Gover-
nor Dewey announced one of the
greatest upsets iri American po-
litical history when he conceded
his defeat and congratulated "the
champ."
NOVEMBER It. A male heir-pre-
sumptive to the British throne is
born.
DECEMitElt 13. Baukhage re-
turns from his vacation with a lot
of lies about the fish he caught..
I hope m> readers will uiidetstand
that t:.' La: I h.-ctit: day.- of the year
have been recorded in the daily
press and are fresii in your mem-
ories. Hence I think they can b*
safely omitted.
Tniman Qui Slow
TALKING to a close friend last
week, President Truman con-
fided that he did not intend to make
any cabinet changes before Jan.
20, at which time several cabinet
members would go.
However, Mr. Truman, who
knows what it is to be broke, said
he didn't want any cabinet mem-
ber to appear to be fired, for fear
it might hurt his future, earning
power.
"And I'm not going to throw them
out while the newspapers are snip*
ing at me," he added. "Whan the
newspapers stop picking my cab-
inet for me, I'll pick my own."
• • •
News Omission
U. S. newspapers outside New
York and Washington sometimes
get mentally kicked around by
their readers through no fault of
their own. They are at the mercy
of the press associations which fre-
quently take their lead from the
big Washington-New York dailies.
Here is a case in point.
Front-page news in the big
metropolitan dailies recently
was the report of Ex-senator
D. Worth Clark of Idaho urging
. that several billion dollars be
dumped into China. Clark had
been sent to China by Repub-
lican members of the senate ap-
propriations committee and al-
most every newspaper front-
paged his demand for Chinese
aid.
However, not one paper carried
the very important fact that Ex-
Senator Clark was a former part-
ner in a law firm which was paid
$100,000 by T. V. Soong, brother-in-
law of Generalissimo Chiang Kai<-
shek, for the express purpose of
getting aid for China.
• • •
Qualified Public Servant
Mayor John F. Davis ofRSBdlhg,.
Pa., tells this story on himself.
"Shortly after I was elected, I.
began to learn about the qualifica-
tions for government office. A
friend dropped in and suggested
that I give a job to George Schultze
down in the 6th ward.
" 'What can he do?' I asked.
" 'Nothing,' replied my friend.
" 'Then let's hire him right
away,' I said. 'We won't have to.
break him in.' "
• • •
Doctor Shortage
Unassuming Oscar Ewing, the-
federal security administrator, has:
been doing some quiet digging on
the all-important problem of get-
ting more U. S. doctors, dentists
and nurses.
"Even today, three years after
the end of the war," says Ewing,
"there are large sections of the
country woefully lacking in doc-
tors."
Meanwhile, medical schools are
overcrowded and medical faculties,
are so understaffed that, if new
medical schools were started, it
would be difficult to find enough
professors to staff them.
Ewing is working on a plan
for federal loans to medical ,
students as one way to ease the
doctor shortage. Local banks
would grant tdition-loans to
qualified students, with the
government guaranteeing the
loans 100 per, cent.
lie is also hoping that the biil
introduced by Senator Thomas of
Utah will pass the next congress
giving government subsidies to
medical schools based on the num-
ber of students they turn out.
• * •
Truman's Jaw
Comments W. F, Bond, Missis-
sippi's commissioner of public wel-
fare: "Samson slew 1,000 Philis-
tines with the jawbone of an ass--
a record which stood for over 6,000
years, and was not broken yntil
November, when Harry Truman
with Ins own jawbone slew over
21,000,000 Republicans." -
• • *
Labor Diplomat
President Truman's advisers are
seriously considering the appoint-
ment of a labor leader as assistant
secretary of state.
Hitherto, high state department
jobs have usually gone to Wall
stneeters, as for instance the pres-
ent Undersecretary of State Rob.
ert Lovett, a big investment bank-
er. and Assistant Secretary Charles
Saltzinan. former vice president of
the New York Stock exchange.
However, most European
governments are nuw dominat-
ed by labor. In fact, the mod-
erate labor leaders nf Western
Europe are considered the be*t
bulwark against Russia, and It
is vital that U. 8. diplomats
understand their point of view.
That s why a labor leoder mi't*
be among the new state
ment executives, also why
v-
m
\
Ilrown, the international iabor.'
flee representative in Europe, Way
bo appointed U. S. ambassador to
a western European country.
Brown's quiet work among Euro-
pean labor leaders has done moro
to combat Soviet ism man it whole
crew of the old fashioned U S. dip*
lomaU combined.
■-n
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Richards, Afton E. The Aspermont Star (Aspermont, Tex.), Vol. 52, No. 14, Ed. 2 Thursday, December 23, 1948, newspaper, December 23, 1948; Aspermont, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth127273/m1/2/: accessed May 21, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Stonewall County Library.