The potters herald. [volume] (East Liverpool, Ohio) 1899-1982, 1949-07-28
Senofe Rofifies Atlantic Pact Buf
Threatens Slash In Marshall Plan

Washington (LPA)-The Senate
last week ratified the Atlantic
Pact by the resounding vote of 81
to 13. The necessary majority of
two thirds was exceeded by Is, a
margin that would have been 19
had Senator Ellender Cd, La the
only Senator absent, been present.
Ratification of the Pact was
warmly received by the leaders Of
organized labor who had given it
their full support.
Three last-minute efforts, by the
same die-hard Republicans who
habitually vote against labor, to
weaken the Pact's text were de-
feated by approximately the same
margin by which the Pact itself
was passed. What would happen to
the request for military aid to the
Pact nations now was a matter
for speculation.
Among the 13 Senators opposing
the Pact were Taft Or, Ohio) and
Donnell (R, Mo- both marked by
organized labor for defeat in the
1850 elections, and Taylor d.,
Idaho) who was Henry Wallace's
running mate in last years pres
idential election.
Had Senator Taft and his col
leagues succeeded in altering or
amending the Pact's text they pro-
badly would have doomed it. The
State Department would have had
to renegotiate it, and the other
signatory nations might have been
made wary by such treatment,
supporters of the history-making
treaty declared.
PAC Director Jack Kroll, COM
menting on Senator Taft's opposi-
tion to the Pact, said:
, "On this issue, as on many
others, Senator Taft and the rep
resentatives of the Kremlin are
playing the same game, seeking to
plunge US into a depression from
which the only escape is war.
"We cannot afford m d e 1T
thinkers like Senator Taft. We can
not afford mental isolation any
more than we can afford PHYSICAL
isolation.
"As a citizen of Ohio, | feel sure
these facts of life will be brought
home to Senator Taft in the not
too distant future"
While the Senate was unthusias-
tically approving a shift in for
eign policy which for the first time
in history commits the US in ad-
vance to support the nations of
western Europe against an agres-
sor, large bloc of the same body |
was trying to slash and otherwise !
inhibit the funds to be appropri-
ated for the Marshall Plans sec
ond year, although it had been
made abundantly clear, labor OBJ
servers felt, that the effectiveness
of the Atlantic Pact would for the
next few years depend entirely on
the success of the Marshall Plan.
Specifically, the Senate Appro-
priations Committee recently voted
to slash eleven percent from the
total requested for the second
year, voted to earmark $4,000, 900
Tor Francois Fascist dictatorship
IN Spain, and voted to require ECA
20 purchase American farm pro-
iucts declared surplus by the Sec
'etary of Agriculture in full
specified in the original
.stimates whether needed by the
European beneficiaries or not.
.abor and other liberal observers
denounced all these amendments,
alling the last a trick to dump
arm products abroad.
A fourth amendment which was
arrowly defeated in committee
would have withheld Marshall Plan
id from any government nation +
lizing it's industries.
In letter addressed to all Sem
tors, President Walter Reuther of
he UAW urged defeat of all these
pnipfipu ont that the