Milford chronicle., 1947-10-31


off his face" and suffered a severe political
and personal setback in his ambitions to be-
come dictator over the AFL. He also suf-
fered bad setback at the hands OF the ClO.
A leading editorial in the Washington
News said that the AFL and the Go have
affirmed, by deeds and not by words, the fact
that these two big labor organizations, with
total membership of around 14,OOO,OOO are
loyal and Democratic"
Lewis was vice-president No. IL in the
ALL. The AFL and CIO conventions both
turned their backs on Lewis. According to
the News: ''The heartening thing about the
outcome of these two convention struggles is
that it gives evidence that the labor move
ment has within it the will and ability to
clean its own house."
No one would be inclined to quarrel with
the AFL convention over its threat to COM
bat the Taft-Hartley law and other anti-labor
legislation" The Weekly News Service of
ALL has taken that position against the Act
of Congress.
IF the Taft-Hartley law is all that Con-
gress believes it to be, it should be enforced
wherever there is even suspicion that differ
ent branches of industrial organizations or
groups are wrong The proof of the pud-
ding is in the operation and enforcement.
Do not forget when you are cOndemning
the Taft-Hartley law the historic fact that
President Truman vetoed this legislation
twice. Congress overrode both of those We
toes in 1947 by more than two-thirds of the
total vote of the House of Representatives
and the Senate The Democrats voted with
the Republicans in Congress, because they
could not see any point of advantage to the
country in sustaining the arbitrary political
position of Mr.. Truman In trying to ride
roughshod over Congress that had legis-
lated in the public interests, honestly and in
telligently.
To be definite, the present Congress is the
only independent Congress the United States
has had in office since the New Deal was
launched to give President Franklin Delano
Roosevelt dictatorial power-which he used
constantly during all the long years that he
was at the head of the American govern
ment.
A GREAT DEAL is BEING written
about the startling decline in the size and
potency of our military forces. On VI Day,
we had the most powerful Army Navy Air
Force team on earth. Now, two years later,
we have a good but undermined Navy, a
small Army with handful of understrength
green divisions, and according to the experts
practically nothing in the way of modern
Air Force
One of the most thought-provoking ar
ticles on the possible significance of this has
been written by Francis and Katherine
Drake 1t is called "Our Next Pearl Harbor ??
And its tone is found in this sentence: "Our
land lies naked before weapon which, in the
words of the Smyth Report, is potentially
destructive beyond the widest Nightmares OF
the imagination: weapon so ideally suited tC
sudden, unannounced attack that country's
major cities might be destroyed overnight
by an ostensibly friendly power" And 3
little later on the brakes write: 1T is fact
that today the United States is virtually
helpless against such an attack with atomic
weapons) and that we have been sliding al
increasing speed towards a military impot
ence that is an open invitation to disaster
A good many people seem to think that
no power would dare to use the atomic boml
against us because of the fear of retaliation
"a factor which undoubtedly prevented tn,
use of poison gas in the last war. The pon
these people miss, in the brakes opinion, il
that we are dangerously short of retaliator!
instruments. We could stockpile atomic
bombs by the thousands, but they would no
serve us In war unless we had ready means
OF getting them to enemy targets-and get
ting them there at once. According to Majo
General Echols Russia is building some A,
OOO military planes this year. We are build
ing l,30O or So And it is known that Russ
is giving unlimited resources to war prepara
tons OF all kinds-with the atomic bomI
holding top priority.
just how strong is the once-great u. S
Air Forces? Our best bomber IS still tn
BIO, though most experts consider it obso
lete A whfIe ago the Air Forces got to
gether every operational BIG in the coun
try for a demonstration in the East. TIL
total muster produced 13O planes-and o
these % didn't get there General Kenne,
the commander of the demonstration, calle
his tiny armada "a futile force" And, sa
the brakes, the demonstration was so unin
pressive that onlookers gave it the nam
Operation FLOP! That, remember was tn
force that once numbered $4,000 comba