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PAGE TWO THE NEWBERRY SUN, NEWBERRY, SOUTH CAROLINA THURSDAY, SEPT. 24, 1969 1218 Cottege Street NEWBERRY. S. C. PUBLISHED EVERY THURSDAY O. F. Armfield, Jr., Owner Second-Class postage paid at Newberry, South Carolina. SUBSCRIPTION RATES: $2.00 per year in ad vance; six months, $1.25. COMMENTS ON MEN AND THINGS By SPECTATOR Do you remember that Russia and Hitler were allies at one time during the Second World War? And Russia and Japan were allies. But when the time seemed ripe to grab a whole empire Hitler turned against Russia. When it seemed that Russia might reap an enormous harvest with very little effort Russia turned against Japan. President Eisenhower has tried to convert Russia to the American way of life. What is the prospect of thwarting Russia’s greed for territory and power? Nothing but such military might as may convince Russia that she can’t win. How did Russia grow so strong and so arrogant? Did Russia win all the countries she now dominates? Try to remember that Hitler nearly won his campaign against Russia and would certinly have won if it had not been for America’s timely and incalculable contribution of tanks, guns, ammunition and food. So strong was the German attack against Russia, even though British, Americans and French forces were at war in the West that Russia called and called for intensified campaigns by Americans and British to relieve the pressure by Germans in the East. gate pugilism, so as to curb it or promote it, or tax it. That reminds me, what was ever done about the million or more or less that the news reports told us was a matter of prolonged negotiations ? And there is the Reverend Adam Clayton Powell, who is a Congressman and is said to control several hundred thousand votes. Have those matters been settled, or are they still pending? I am asking for informa tion bcause I haven’t seen any recent mention of those cases. They may have been settled in full, of course, without publicity. After all is said and done we don’t know what’s going on, do we? I wonder, however, w^hy the Congress of the United States w r ould become snarled in a matter of pugilism. Shall the Congress legislate, or investigate the size and weight of golf balls? A more fruitful topic, it seems, would be a thorough investigation of auto tires, the price of parts, the excessive combustibility of fuel—and all that. If Congress really wishes to investigate a vital interest it might choose a highly expert Commission and try to tell the public whats wrong with the Yankees. Of course I mean the New York team of the American League. Hund reds of thousand of enthusiastic fans follow the games on the radio, play by play; many dignified, sedate men of af fairs take it more quietly but they read the stock market first and then the baseball, even ignoring for a while the sage counsel of the Editor. Even the photogenic ladies who will marry or have just married or are willing to marry, even that comes after the big league games. By the way, since the men-editors play up the marrying and marriageable lassies why don’t the women editors play up the men? This, let us imagine, Samuel William Henpeck, son of Charles T. and Mrs. Mary Henpeck, of Nightengale Boule vard will marry Miss Evangeline Pretty. The groom will w r ear—well I fall down there. something ought to be done for the groom since there can't be a wadding without a man, though nobody knows he’s there. Now, then, should the Congress investigate the failure of equal justice for the groom? He must surely be entitled to Civil Rights! We swapped German control of vast territory and sev eral nations for Russian control. We won the war and lost the peace. America seems to do that all the time. Let us hope that the disastrous conces sions made to Russia by Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Truman may not now lead Mr. Eisenhower to concede even more. Russia has followed the swashbuckling Mussolini and the crusading egoist Hitler, magnifying their iniquities. America has been duped and imposed on by all other na tions. Strangely enough we glory in our lack of common- sense and rejoice in our prodigal spending to uplift all the world, except this Country. The Government of this nation has never been generous to the States of the South. At no time and in no manner has our Federal Government treated so generously and gra ciously our States of the South as it has treated Germany and Japan. We had to conquer both Germany and Japan at enormous cost in men and money, then we poured out the money, bil lions of dollars to rebuild those nations. We have even dis criminated against our own people—and still do so—in or der to promote their rebuilding. Nothing like that in the South; w r e are still the unloved stepchildren and our breth ren are our oppressors. President Eisenhower is a man of many noble qualities, a man of splendid purpose, a patriot at heart, but he has been the most oppressive man to the South that w r e have known in a long time. His very idealistic concern has griev ously misled him.. “So runs my dream, but what am I? An infant crying in the night, An infant crying for the light And with no language but a cry.” So said Tennyson in his grief for his dead comrade. So say I for we seem to be sailing on a broad sea with poor charts and defective compasses. I am not a connoisseur in any field. I made no claim to artistic appreciation, though I spent hours in the Louvre in Paris, as well as in the Metropolitan Museum in New York. I have seen beautiful palaces and Chateau, great Cathed rals and all that but I recall the stained glass—or glass of some special quality—letting in the light over the black onyx sarcophagus which holds the body of Napoleon Bona parte. It is something very extraordinary and seems to catch the light even from the gloom. I’ve seen the gem-encrusted books in some of the World’s great libraries, but the wondrous beauty of the stained glass in the cathedrals is always impressively signifi cant. . **i*lt: I gloried in the marvelous stained glass of the great cath- edral at Bourges and the Notre Dame in France. I think some of the most beautiful of all these artistic fabrications I saw in Brussels and Antwerp. I am not surprised that we are waking up to the exqui site creations of the old world and beginning to appropriate the ideas here. Natural gas is our latest wonder-worker. “Fortune”, a great magazine of commerce, industry and everything per taining to our economic development, has this to say: “This Spring the American Gas Association made a confident prediction: the performance of the Naturallgas industry, phenomenal enough during the past decade, will continue to astonish the world for the next dozen years. By 1970 the gas industry’s 18 billion dollar worth of gross plant will have grown to almost $50 billion. Instead of the thirty two million customers now being served by 100-odd inter state pipelines and some 1300 distributing companies, there will be almost 44 million using the “immaculate fuel.” Since we have no serious problems to discuss and solve, such as the sad state of the dollar, our national extrava gance, and so forth the Congress seems about to investi- Well here is something just like biting the hand that feeds us. What say you? An Associated Press dispatch from Knoxville tells us the following: “The Tennessee Valley Authority spent three times as much money on foreign-made equipment during the yar ended June 30 as it did during all the previous years since its inception in 1933. This was disclosed here as the TVA reported purchases totaling $125,936,788 during the fiscal year for materials, equipment, supplies and non-personal services. Of the total $86,924,517 was for manufactured goods such as turbines, generators and transmission lines, $52,931,238 «for raw materials such as coal and $7,081,033 for miscel laneous services. The latter category includes barging of coal, labor costs in installation contracts and the like. Some 27% of the money for manufactured equipment went to foreign firms. This amounted to $17,900,000, com pared with $5,600,000 on such purchases for all previous years since 1933. All but a small fraction of the foreign purchases went for generators and transformers. The stepped-up foreign purchases have drawn protests from do mestic manufacturers and some Congressmen, who contend they are unfair competition. About 41', of the total, or $51,000,000, went for coal purchases for TVA steam plants. This was $33,500,000 less than the previous year.” A concern feeding on the taxpayers of all the nation and spending this money of the taxpayers, decides to buy ma chinery in foreign countries, thereby by-passing the tax payers and American labor, for in buying abroad our tax payers, our steel-workers, our coal miners—and all Am erican enterprise, all are slighted and our money spent abroad. It seems to me that it is quite bad enough for our Con gress to throw the taxpayers’ money all over the world with out the TVA doing the same thing. September 21. Review of Congressional Actions In retrospect, the two principal issues which faced the 86th Congress were in the fields of fiscal policy and labor reform. Judging on these two issues, the first session of the 86th Congress was a great improvement over the 85th Congress. In the second session of the 85th Congress, deficit spend ing was rampart. From legislation enacted principally dur ing that session, the Federal Government incurred the high est peace-time deficit in its history—approximately $13 bil lion. The reaction of the public was primarily responsible for the changed attitude in the first session of the 86th Congress, where spending was actually reduced below bud get requests. Only two appropriation (spending) bills fi nally passed by Congress were in excess of budget estimates. The first of these was the appropriation for the Depart ment of Labor and the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, which was $259 million more than requested by those departments. I w^as disappointed that the president did not veto this appropriation bill. The first public works appropriation bill was approximately $30 million over the budget, but after the President’s veto was sustained it was reduced to within the budget requests. Much of the money spent by the Federal Government each year is by “backdoor” financing. “Backdoor” financing is a method of legislative authorization for spending which does not follow the appropriation procedure. By diligent ef forts, we were able to considerably reduce “backdoor” fi nancing this year and to prevent the use of the unwise spend ing procedure in new programs. There was an effort to in corporate “backdoor” financing in the foreign aid program. The defeat of this effort was one of the most encouraging occurrences in this session. The efforts of the 85th Congress to enact reform legis lation in the field of labor-management relations were abor tive. Despite the revelations of corruption by the McClel lan committee, the initial action by the Senate on the la- * bor reform legislation this year gave every indication of a repeat performance. It was an aroused public opinion that changed the attitude of legislators and made possible the passage of a constructive labor reform bill. Although the legislation which was enacted was not adequate in all re spects, it was a major victory for the public and the work ing man. Housing legislation was the most recurring issue in the 1959 session. Of the three housing bills which the Congress passed, the President wisely vetoed the first two. All three bills contained additional public housing and urban renew al, which, in addition to being socialistic and costly, are tools for integration of the races. The Senate lowered its reputation for fair-play in refus ing to confirm a great patriot, Admiral Strauss, as Secre tary of Commerce. The American people were the real los ers. So-called civil rights was a plaguing issue throughout the session. A change in the rules of the Senate confront ed us as soon as we convened, but any serious change was averted. Bills which embodied a “conquered province” at titude toward the South were suppressed, and only an ex tension of the commission, created in 1957, was passed. On the whole, the South and the American public gener ally, fared better in the first session of the 86th Congress than at any session in recent years. The groundwork is being laid for a difficult session next year, however. Many proposals which are repugnant to the people of South Caro lina will be pushed in that presidential election year. Only our most vigorous efforts will prevent their passage. t The relatively good showing of Congress this year was largely due to the well-expressed attitude of an aroused, let ter-writing public. If the public keeps the pressure on in 1960, Congress can improve its record even more. 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