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Politics Seen' Pushing Partisan Needle Into Food-Saving Program 'Eat Less and Waste Less' Slogans Might Well Be Combined, Writer Says By David Lawrence Politics has already thrust its par tisan needle into the food-conserva tion program*. When Senator Taft, Republican, speaking in the West, suggested that Americans may find it neces sary to "eat less" if the conserva tion drive were to be successful, he was promptly assailed by Demo cratic spokesmen, particularly Sen ator Pepper, Democrat, of Florida, who immediately suggested that the people always "eat less" when the Republicans are in power. President Truman, shying away from the "eat less" slogan, came forward with one of his own : "Waste less." The truth is that "waste less" im plies that it is all right to waste food but that the people must prac tice moderation. Actually, there is a lot of food wasted every day by people who eat only a part of what they order or of what is set before them at home. But it is not always possible to measure in advance what the individual appetite will be. Should Combine Slogans. While It is desirable to avoid every bit of waste that can be foreseen, the whole conservation program de pends on eating less. The two slo gans should be combined: "Eat less and waste less." Maybe that's good bipartisan reasoning and would help prevent politically minded folks from seeking to take partisan ad vantage. There is another justification for "eat less." It is going to be neces sary for many people in America who have an abundance of food to cut down on their eating. Many such persons ought to do it, anyway, in the interest of good health, for some physicians say that overeating is the main cause of dietary dis orders. To save the amount of food need ed to help Europe will require a much more drastic curtailment of food consumption than can be ac complished merely by trying to waste less. It is not possible to feed Europe out of the garbage cans of America. It will be necessary to cut down on food use in the first instance. Food conservation is directly re lated to food prices. If the American Government is going to buy vast quantities of food, prices may be bid up and the lower-income groups may be deprived of food because they may not be able to afford to pay the high prices. This is a prob lem of major importance, for, unless the food-conservation program has the effect of bringing prices down, it cannot accomplish one of its main purposes. Already there is serious talk in official quarters about a revival of food rationing. The difficulties are numerous. It would take a long time to set up the rationing system and to print and distribute ration cards once more. It may be that the talk is primarily to impress on the American Deonle that unless voluntary conservation is effective it will be necessary to adopt war time rationing. Success in World War I. It should be possible to do enough by voluntary rationing or self-denial to conserve the quantities of grain needed for Europe. Voluntary cur tailment was a success in World War I. When supported by an alert and crusading spirit, such as is developed in war-loan drives, there is every chance to make it work. _ It will require organization, of course. This means national, State and city committees with the back ing of the radio and the press. Once the facts are clearly stated to the people and they are convinced of the real need, they usually co operate. Such a campaign will have collateral effects. It will help to make clear the purposes of the whole Marshall plan and will give to the Congress tfn idea of how concerned the people are over what is happening or is likely to happen in Europe. There is, on the other hand, no more certain way to kill a program of food conservation or any policy requiring bipartisan support than for petty politicians to begin sabotaging it for their own purposes. Instead of being assailed for his suggested slogan, "Eat less," Senator Taft should have been commended, especially since he did not attack the administration for such a pro gram but did indicate his support. Mr. Truman, incidentally, might better have abandoned his timidity toward an "eat less" program and struck forward boldly to ask the American people not only to end all waste of food but also to eat less if they have been in the habit of eating more than is necessary for good health. (Reproduction Rights Reserved.) This Changing World Desperate Needs of France Exploited Bv Communists, Bidault Tells Truman By Çonstantine Brown Foreign Minister Georges Bidault informed President Truman yester |day that unkss a stop-gap loan of $120,000,000 worth of food and fuel is extended im from Paris as the probable next premier if Paul Ramadier Constantine Brown decides that he cannot continue as hçad of the Government, spoké fac tually. He pointed out that the Communists were in a strong posi tion, since their warnings to the ( French people not to trust Ameri i can promises might be borne out. In France, as in Italy and other Western European countries, the powerfully organized Communist minority can do much more than the loosely knit majorities. The re construction of the French cabinet last spring, eliminating all Com munist members, was an attempt to put the French government de partments on a sounder basis. Instructions to Thorez. The Communists accepted tlieir dismissal without much fuss, be cause they were convinced that the new government would not be able to meet the problems which con fronted it. The Kremlin itself is reliably reported to have sent in structions to Thorez to start no major disturbances. Moscow be lieved that the non-Communist government would be discredited before winter and that the Com munists would be able to make a real appeal to the country and bring France into the Russian sphere. These expectations of the Rus sians seem to have proved well founded. The situation in France is now desperate, because of crop teilures and Communist-instigated local strikes. Moreover, the French people gainei the impression that the Marshall plan was a cut and-dried proposal to come to Eu rope's help with a couple of dozen billion dollars, and that all the French had to do was present a bill for how much they needed. The fact that the American Sec retary of State had not obtained Congress' approval and had not con sulted any one but the old-time sup porters of bipartisan foreign poli cies, was an unknown factor for the French. They had not been warned that Congress might snag the whole program. Now the question of assisting Europe with billions of dollars' worth of essential supplies is up in the air and it is unlikely that any discussion of the problem will occur in Congress before the end of the year or late November if Mr. Tru man decides to call a special session. Situation Exploited. This situation is exploited by the Communist Party in France and is being played up not only in the French labor unions but also among the peasants and middle classes, which are subject to a barrage of propaganda. The French foreign minister, who took time off from the General As sembly in New York to visit Presi dent Truman, did not ask for fulfill-, ment of the so-called Marshall plan. He merely pointed out the French larder and fuel bins had become empty and that unless a little help is supplied immediately by the UI11LCU OlttlCÙ, 1/J.IC UVU.I-V/IUiuaauaaaov political parties might just as well fold up. Mr. Bidault is not particular about where America gets the money to pay for assistance. He is willing to sign any kind of promise of repay ment, if American supplies only be gin moving from American to French ports. "Russia, in the opinion of Amer ican observers in France, can take over France by default unless $120, 000,000 worth of American food and fuel is sent to cover deficiencies in the next few months. On the Record Little Sense Seen in Soviet Propaganda 'Slandering' Leaders of United States By Dorothy Thompson Soviet leaders repeatedly have at tacked the American "capitalist" press for "slandering" the Soviet Union. The charge was repeated by Mr. Molotov inv the exchange of letters with the American Ambassador to Moscow, Walter Bedell Smith, occasioned by Mr. Smith's official protest against a per sonal attack on President Tru man in the Soviet "Literary Gazette." Mr. Molotov replied that the Dorothy Thompson. Soviet government "canont take the responsibility for this or that ar ticle," and that "from day to day the American press inserts lying and slanderous articles regarding the U. S. S. R. and * * * inflames hostility between peoples." Mr. Molotov's statement that the Soviet government cannot take re sponsibility for its press Is simply not true. The Soviet government repeatedly purges writers who fail to express the "correct" viewpoint. The second charge amounts to saying: "If American papers slan der us, we shall slander you"— which is childish. U. S. Opinion Alienated. But Mr. Molotov repeated that the Soviet press attaches "special significance to the strengthening of friendly relations between peoples." If it does, it is taking a strange way of going about it. For nothing written by anti-Soviet writers in America has so alienated American opinion from the hope of better relations with the Soviets as has the recent press campaign against the United States, launched by the Soviet government and taken up by every Soviet satellite. Americans are, by nature, skep tical. They do not believe all they read in the papers. Like all people everywhere, they hate war and sincerely hope for peace. 1 Being suspicious of propaganda, they have tended to doubt the arguments of some American writers regarding hostile Soviet intentions toward the United States. But they cannot doubt the hostile intentions of the current claque against the United States by Soviet writers reported during the last week ana carnea m um ucwo wiuuiiUJ, especially the summary of the Boris Gorbatov article, likening President Truman to Hitler, ridiculing his clothes, his bow tie, his former oc cupation as a haberdasher, his "colorless Baptist face," and declar ing him "a tool of the Wall Street Republicans." No American believes that when such articles are written—following attacks on Secretary Marshall as a "Shylock from Wall Street"—the Soviets are "attaching special sig nificance to strengthening friendly relations.-" There is something funny, about proletarian revolutionaries emerging as sartorial experts. Hundreds of thousands of Americans wear bow ties and, therefore, are personally offended. A "Baptist face" is praise, not blame, to the thousands of American Baptists who are thereby also insulted. All Americans en gaged in the men's clothing busi ness—and there are many thousands of them, too—are going to take of fense at the ridicule of their occupa tion as fit only for morons. Respect for Presidency. Lots of Americans care little for Mr. Truman and many, maybe a majority, will vote against him. But Americans do respect the presidency, do not engage in this sort of insult— even in heated campaigns—and if outsiders ridicule our President it makes us hot under the collar. Tne soview ana meir it-uuw howlers also have managed to lump together for attack such a disparate group of American persons that everybody has some one to defend: John Foster Dulles and Mrs. Roose velt; William Randolph Hearst and Walter Winchell—whom Mr. Vishin sky's press conference somehow elevated to a par with the Secretary of State. Whatever Americans think of Secretary Marshall, no American thinks he is a "Shylock from Wall Street." Americans are pretty sick anyhow of being called "Shylocks," particularly by countries to whom they have given—for free—billions of dollars' worth of goods. If there's any sense in the Soviet campaign, its object must be to make us disgustedly isolationist—and leave the world to the Soviets. But I don't think we should answer. Let our actions—rather—speak for us, while we recall an old American gag about the kind of contest one never should engage in with a certain kind of better-equipped animal. (Released by the Btll Syndicate, Inc.) Man to Man « Writer Says Truman 'Is Passing Buck' With Failure to Gall Special Congress By Harold L. Ickes • It was something less than a mountain that conceived and brought forth a mouse in the White House when President Truman, with brow fur rowed by deep JF thought, decided gj^v that the best 9 «$|| "statesmanship" Κ . : :|||apl of which he was 1^^ capable in this WWBfrsB&Sgh: Êt time of crisis for κ Western Europe Senator Van denberg, the Re publican leader A MBm In foreign ai- BjlHg fairs, had quite properly sug gested, while Harold L. Ickes. President Truman was having a gay time In Rio de Janeiro, that it was up to the President to decide whether or not a special session of the Congress should be called. As a matter of fact, it not only is the duty of the President to call a special session in a time of crisis, it is his privilege. However, in this instance when the situation called for firm and imaginative leader ship, the President flinched. Why should he worry about the dwin dling food and coal in Europe? He and his Missouri gang will not lack for either nourishment or heat dur ing the winter, and there is a na tional election just a little more than a year away. Failure in Leadership. Here was a shameful failure in leadership, one result of which may have disastrous political results for Mr. Truman. He is making a place for himself in history that will cause future generations of Amer icans hurriedly to shuffle through the few and unflattering pages that will be devoted to a sum mary of his administration. He is like a man who hobblèfe himself, and then takes his place on the starting line of a race. Foolishly, just before the adjournment of the Congress, he in effect pledged him self not to call a special session. Such an abdication of power should nave been louowea Dy ms resigna tion, even if he would have been succeeded by that other Dromio in the play in the person of Speaker Joseph W. Martin. Subsequently, he undertook to prove that he is not a leader, but a diminutive figure in the rear rank. While proceeding to Washington from Rio de Janeiro with lagging feet, he said that he was not con vinced that there should be a special session of the Congress, although he must have known that Secre tary of State Marshall, Undersec retary of State Lovett and others, had practically committed the ad ministration to the urgent necessity of a special session. What does the vacillating Presi I dent Truman propose to do to çupply Western Europe with food and coal? As I have said, he has produced a buck. But not the kind of buck that even a starving man can eat, or a freezing one can burn in his furnace. It-is the kind of buck that indicates a lack of leadership, a want of courage, a willingness that others may suffer and that commu nism may engulf a large part of Western Europe. But if .such a catastrophe does overtake Western Europe, Mr. Truman will find that in sacrificing our friends and allies to want and the Inevitable commu nism that will follow, he will be sacrificing his own future. „ Consider Prance as an example. Last winter was the coldest there in more than fifty years. Food was short. So was coal, which cost the French householder from $20 to $22 a ton. Hope revived with the spring, but it was given short shrift by an implacable nature. Excessive heat propagated a drought that burned up the crops, leaving a bread-eating nation with practically no wheat of its own. Down to Last Dollar. The French government is down to practically its last dollar, and without dollars It cannot buy in American markets. Nor can either France or England or Italy afford to buy in Argentina. The grasping and heartless dictator of that coun try, Peron, demands $5 in cash today for a bushel of Argentine wheat, for which he generously pays the Argentine fanner $1.35. And yet our Government embraces this "friend" as an equal, as though he were a humane Christian gentle man. We used at, least to pretend that of all the peoples we particularly esteemed the French. This regard, expressed in Truman currency, is at an all-time low. We ought not to put ourselves in a class with the Argentine dicta tor who apparently is willing to sacrifice hungry human beings to selfish greed. Here was a chance for the President to make the American people proud of him. In stead they hang their heads, when the only solution that he can offer in this crisis is to default on his own leadership and tell the Republi can leaders to call together four Congressional committees to decide upon help "for Europe. Necessarily it will be weeks before the com mittees can meçt, and it will be additional weeks before any action can be taken. It would have been more manly for President Truman to have said in words what he has proclaimed by his cowardly action: "We have the wheat and the coal; let the devil take the hindmost." And there is every chance that this is precisely what the devil, in the form of com munism. will do. (Copyright 1947.) McLemore— Meets Some Friends, So Wife Is It By Jean McLemore ANCON, Canal Zone, Panama— When Henry and I came back to the hotel this afternoon after oh-lng and ah-ing at the Panama Canal we ran right into a friend of Henry's, John Leonard, whom he hadn't seen since they were in Manila. You would have thought they were a couple of Spaniards the way they embraced each other. Within a matter of seconds, Comdr. Jess Carver, an old friend from news paper days before the war. Joined the group and as the three of them, arm in arm, headed for the cocktail lounge I knew, with out being told, that I was it again. So, kind of by way of getting even, I want to tell you about some thing that happened to Henry in Trinidad that makes me snicker every time I think of it. We were being driven around the town and suddenly Henry de cided that life wouldn't be worth living unless he could see a bush master. "Deadliest of all snakes," he kept saying. "Deadliest of all snakes." Personally I can't see what difference that makes. If any snake bites you and kills you it wouldn't make much difference to you whether he was the deadliest of all snakes or maybe just the fourth r*r fifth HooHHeet Stop at Private Zoo. Anyway, the driver stopped at a small, privatiely-owned zoo and the woman owner took us into a small courtyard. The thing you noticed first was a big, old, black baboon, or ape or something. He was chained to a pole and he'd swing out and show his teeth. The woman assured us that he was very friendly, but we all kept our distance. We looked at the bushmasters and strolled toward the entrance. Henry stopped and turned back to the rest of us, keeping up a steady lecture on the bushmaster. Unknowingly TROUSERS To Match §4.95 UD Odd Coat, UP EISEMAN'S—F at 7th he was in reach of the baboon who leaned down and put a friendly arm around Henry's shoulder. Henry, thinking that it was either our friend Mac, who was traveling with us, or me, paid no attention to the embrace till it finally dawned on him that both of us were standing in front of him. He slowly looked down at his right shoulder and here was an enormous black paw. In all the years I've known Henry I've never known that he could jump so far or so high. I was awfully proud of him. Guess I'd better be sporting and tell a monkey story on myself. It happened just a week ago today in Quito. We had gone out to walk in the gardens back of the hotel and we saw a 'cute gray monkey on a chain sitting by a tree. A sign in formed his admirers that his name was Norman. Henry patted him and he was very friendly so Henry decided to go back to the hotel to see if he could get something to feed him. Puts on the Bite. The monkey went up the tree and I stood waiting, thinking about food prices at home, or how much I'd really have to tip the maid, or some thing, when all of a sudden Norman leaped down on my shoulder, bit me on the hand, grabbed my pocketbook and started off with It. I ran at him to scare him and he dropped the pocketbook all right, but he quickly bit me on the ankle before leaping up the tree. When Henry came back I showed him my two bleeding bites and he. said, "I guess Norman didn't like you," and proceeded to feed the little fool popcorn. I was so mad I stalked into the hotel and told the manager that his monkey had bit ten me. "He dus nawt like womens." he told me and reached for the anti septic they keep handy to put on the "womens" Norman bites. This made me even more furious. I wanted sympathy, so I spoke to a strange man in the lobby and told him that a monkey had bitten me. He spoke no English and was evidently under the impression that I was trying to make his acquaintance because he fled. I sort of hoped I'd get monkey fever, or whatever you get from monkey bites, and be gravely ill just to serve every one right, but all I have to show for my experience are some little teeth marks. I hate old Norman. Now, at the end of our trip, I would like to tell you folks one thing. Both Henry and I speak Spanish without any accent what soever. We don't speak Spanish. (Distributed by McNauiht Syndicate, Inc.) APARTMENTS FOR RENT—LOWER EAST COAST OF FLORIDA. Aroil able thirty-eight new completely furnished 1-bedroom apartments on Fort Pierce Beach, Florida. Seasonal rentals $35 to $50 per week. Write Fort Pierce Beoch Development Com pany, Box 716, Fort Pierce, Florida. G.LxUjtJ uiihûwumtual CIGARETTE CASE Jewelers custom styled model In rich brushed gold-like case. 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