The Waterbury Democrat., 1946-04-11
AS The Democrats
 View If:

W
 washington, April il (NEA)-The real test of how good . President Harry g. Truman has been in his first year, say his Democratic sup- porters, Is to look at the condition of the country. If the country Is in good condition, Truman has been 6 good President.
 Perhaps the best opportunity to appraise the condition of the coun- try came on April 1, no foolin,' when the civilian Production Administra- ton issued It's monthly economic rec port and the Office of War Mohi- hxation issued its quarterly report as required by Congress. Both are admittedly partisan, administration sources. Yet both told essentially the same story in text and chart.
 Production was said to be at new high levels for both peace and war, at Q rate of i6O billion dollars year. Unemployment is about what 1t was in the boom year of 1929, be- fore the crash. Employment is high CT than 1t had ever been. Wage and salary payments are almost back to what they were on VI Day, In spite of shorter hours and less overtime. All but one of the big post-war ad- tustment labor disputes had been settled. Nine million workers had wage increases. Many prices had been raised to take account of in- aaaaanA aaaka avaA "a aaTS,a o . iVnaa,, tives for still more production. Yet the cost of living had advanced only one-half of one percent since VI Day.
 HONEST PROGRAM
 Barring some unforeseen crisis. in the next few months, his Democfa- tic handlers feel that Harry Truman can look back with complete satis- faction on the way he has steered the ship of state through the shoals, bringing 1t to the coast of a land that faced four or five years of con- tinued full production and prosper fly.
 Perhaps the best talking point the Democrats had was that their man Truman and his program were fundamentally honest. Elder Statesman Bernard Baruch called him "sound", which was Superlative praise. Truman had not yielded to pressure from anyone. Instead he had held business and labor and even agriculture in check.
 In his zeal to remove obnoxious government war time controls he had at times moved too fast. He may have killed off National War Labor Board too soon. His aim was to reNtore collective bargaining to labor and management and take government out of business confer ence-at the original suggestion of Republican Senator Vandenherg of Michigan. When 1t failed, Truman quickly asked Congress for legisla- ton to create fact.finding boards that could work towards ending in- dustrial strife.
 NO STALLING
 He had changed his wage.price policy three times to meet chang ing conditions in the tricky squalls of reconversion.
 He had abolished the office of Economic Stabilizatlon. When he saw that 1t would be necessary to re-eStablish 1t, he he'd not hesi- tated to do SO.
 Sometimes his decisions may have been wrong, but there had been no lack of decision, no stalling, no drifting. The man stood ready to take the consequences for any of his official acts.
 If he had made e few appoint. ments that had been open to ques- tion, he had made many more that were above criticism. Burton to the Supreme Court, Patterson to be Sec retary of War, Byrnes to State, Vim son to Treasury. Krug to Interior, Bowles to O.EIS., Porter to O.P.A., Marshall to China.
 He had his troubles with Con- sress = but what President had not2 Differences within his own party had delayed many parts of his legislative program. Yet he had made a good start.
 Congress had given him author. ity to reorganize the executive agencies of government. He had asked for and been given liberalized provision for veterans aid. He had . full employment bill. The excess profits tax had been repealed. Cor. poration and individual income taxes had been reduced.
 SPENDING DOWN
 For the first time in years, gov- ernment expenditures were below government receipts and the way was paved for a balanced budget in l947. The national debt had &C., tually started to go down.
 Other salient parts of the Tru- man administration program were in the works" Unification of the armed services, draft extension, atomic energy control, scientific re- search foundation, national health program, stockpiling of strategic materials, emergency housing, in-