Washington

on the World Today

PRESIDENT TRUMAN as the unavowed candidate to succeed himself is worried and confused. The Democratic Party, of which he is the head, always has been an uneasy coalition. Only a man of the political genius of Franklin Roosevelt could supply the cement. The party after Roosevelt’s death reverted to a loose alliance, and it is now breaking up before the Administration’s eyes.

Mr. Truman was the first to recognize the menace of Henry Wallace. A wit in the Capital said, “The Democratic Party can win only with the lunatic fringe, and now Wallace has captured the lunatic fringe.” If there is one sure thing about the political scene, it is that Wallace can tip the scale in Republican favor in the populous states of New York, Illinois, and California, and perhaps in Massachusetts. Since the Wallace entry, Truman has been trying to out-Wallace Wallace in flirting with minorities.

In this category was his civil rights message. The message gained him nothing from the Wallace camp and politically affronted the entire South. The angry roar that went up south of Mason and Dixon’s Line grows louder. There is talk of a rump convention, which would give the electorate a choice of four instead of three candidates, or of instructions to the state electors to remain free for manipulation after the election.

With many of the projects outlined in the Truman message many Southerners would agree. The creation of a civil rights division in the Justice Department and the establishment of a permanent Commission on Civil Rights to serve as a sort of national conscience in public education and policymaking are legitimate Federal undertakings, especially in a day when civil liberties are under attack everywhere.

But the President invited Southern wrath when he advocated anti-poll tax and anti-lynching measures. It made Southerners gag when he called these “practical, workable arrangements,” for Southerners regard states’ rights as a constitutional barrier against Federal legislation prohibiting both abuses. They were furious that the President should ignore the fact that lynching has been virtually stamped out in the South without “outside” interference.

It was the Presidential frown on segregation that was the real red rag to the Southerners. He wants to ban segregation in interstate transport. In this particular the President was seeking merely to apply a recent Supreme Court decision, but the judiciary’s efforts to chip away at segregation and discrimination are not regarded as on a par with those of a politically-minded President.

Deflation?

Whether we are at the beginning of deflation or at a pause in the inflation the pundits do not say. They keep a “masterly silence,” as Dr. Edwin G. Nourse, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, puts it, and watch events. If the postwar inflation is monetary, as most economists think, then the lower level of prices is a temporary phenomenon.

A howl of protest arose when the steel industry announced a price increase. In addition to the Council of Economic Advisers, the Departments of Justice and Commerce announced inquiries. On the Hill, Senator Taft summoned to Washington the leading steel executives for an explanation to the Joint Economic Committee. The step elicited wide approval. “At this time and under these conditions,” said Senator Flanders, “any rise in steel prices has to be defended on public grounds as well as for business reasons.” Note the names of Taft and Flanders in the anti-steel chorus. They are gallant defenders of free enterprise, yet in this case they called on industry to justify private decisions.

The facts are rising superior to philosophy: when industrial units attain a degree of power that makes their price policies a matter of vital public concern, the legislators cannot help reacting as if a public trust were involved in any change in those policies. Economic philosophers like Dr. Nourse see an organic connection. In his Price-Making in a Democracy, he shows that these price policies enter into the public domain because they are administered by an industry as a whole. What he means is that there is now a twilight zone of prices which are neither determined by individuals in unorganized free markets nor fixed by government.

Action toward deflation has been going on through the banks and through the Treasury Department. The banks are carrying out a voluntary contraction of credits, so as to head off the special reserve system under discussion. And the Treasury has just received the largest tax collections in the fiscal year. But these two anti-inflationary influences are not permanent.

It is worry enough for the Council of Economic Advisers to have to read the inflation-deflation horoscope. But it is now the victim of the cheeseparers in Congress. The agency has a modest budget and was disconcerted to see the Appropriations Committee cut it down. Perhaps the reason lies not so much in the Council’s work as in t he lack of selfadvertisement of its members: Nourse, chairman, Leon H. Keyserling, and John D. Clark.

Dr. Nourse, formerly vice-president of the Brookings Institution, sets the pace for the Council’s diffidence. He was put on the list of wit nesses on the Marshall Plan, but had his name withdrawn. He declines to submit himself to questioning before the Joint Committee on the Economic Report. Perhaps this reluctance is justifiable, for Dr. Nourse made a poor impression before the Appropriations Committee, and his budget suffered accordingly. Like many academicians, he is not very comfortable in face-to-face cross-examination, though his two colleagues, who are made of sterner stuff, would welcome the opportunity of testifying before Congress.

Sit tight, say nothing

When Representative Leon E. Allen assumed the chairmanship of the powerful House Rules Committee, he promised not to be a tyrant, and said he would simply be a traffic governor. That is to say, he would let bills go to the floor of the House without hindrance. He it is who largely determines the order in which bills come before his committee, and the committee has general power to say what bills shall be considered by the House.

Allen has not kept his word on the bill for universal military training, which he is keeping bottled up. The reason is that he is against the bill. The pro-UMT school is inveighing constantly against Chairman Allen for responsibility for what Justice Roberts calls this “travesty of the American system of representative government.” Chairman Allen remains unmovable, thereby showing that the temptation of acting like a czar in his position — which is second in power to the Speaker’s — is too strong to be resisted. Allen’s veto power on proposed legislation is almost absolute.

One lesson the GOP has learned since it got control of Congress is that the seniority rule is the worst handicap from which the party is suffering. Allen is a tyrant, but he is not senile; some other chairmen are both. The La Follette-Monroney report recommended abolition of the seniority rule. This recommendation did not get into the act, as the result of Republican opposition. Now the Republicans wish they hadn’t been so traditional.

They are weak on chairmen, as is natural in view of their long wait for office. It is disquieting to see them nod over their jobs, half-asleep and totally unable to follow the hearings they are ostensibly conducting. A suggestion has been made that the party select the chairmen of the standing committees of both chambers.

The Mood of the Capital

The Capital is fascinated by the box in which Truman’s leftism has put him. The Southern revolt, of course, isn’t new. In 1944 Texas wanted to teach Roosevelt a lesson by electing delegates pledged to support another candidate, but the threat came to nothing. One cannot so easily dismiss the splinterites this year. If there were four parties, no candidate would be likely to get a clear majority, and in that event the issue would be thrust into the House of Representatives.

At this distance, Truman appears unable to survive the threat of Wallace’s third party. Those who think Wallace will withdraw, now that he has intimidated Truman, don’t know their man. The Capital interprets Wallace’s action as an effort to even up an old score with the President. Washington does not agree that Wallace wants to see a hardboiled conservative Republican in the White House for four years, so that he can lead a united liberal party to victory in 1952. Events are not so pliable. In four years Wallace will see other contenders in the field, perhaps including Eisenhower.

The Democratic split does not mean that all is serene in the GOP camp. There are young Republicans who are restive over leadership, and the man who makes the party look solid is Vandenberg. That cohesion will, of course, fall apart at Philadelphia. But a lot of history will be written before the GOP delegates assemble.