Washington

The Atlantic Report on the World Today

WHETHER the Truman-Barkley ticket has a chance this year is a question that has become less important than that of the future of the Democratic Party. It is usual for a political party to show decay and division after a long run of office. But the fissure in the Democratic Party is not explicable by sixteen years of power. Here is a historical and inevitable break on doctrine, and a seemingly permanent break. For the first time there was no South-North compromise in the party platform. A revolt of the Southern states’-righters against the federalization of Democratic doctrine met a counterrevolt from the federalists, and the counterrevolters won.

President Truman’s civil rights message to Congress grew out of the Report of the Committee on Civil Rights which he appointed in December, 1946. The chairman was one of our top businessmen, Charles E. Wilson, head of the General Electric Company, a man who has the convictions of a Garrison.

The Committee’s Report was a historic document. It cited four basic rights as essential to the well-being of the individual and to the progress of society: the right to safety and security of the person; the right to citizenship and its privileges; the right to freedom of conscience and expression; and the right to equality of opportunity. The Report was an indictment of the way the nation has fallen short of these requirements. “The pervasive gap between our aims and what we actually do,” the Report stated, “is creating a kind of moral dry rot which eats away at the emotional and rational bases of democratic belief.”

Most of the suggestions in the President’s civil rights message fell in the category of legitimate Federal undertakings. That is certainly true of the plan to build up the civil rights division in the Department of Justice and to establish a permanent Commission on Civil Rights to serve as a sort of national conscience in this important area of public education and policy-making.

There may, of course, be some question as to whether existing agencies might not suffice for policy-making. It has been suggested, for instance, that the problem might be met by changing the names of the committees handling legislation on this subject to “The Committees on the Judiciary and Civil Rights.” But there was no dissent from the general proposal, though there was no followthrough from the White House in the shape of specific legislation.

Freedom of economic opportunity is intended to be safeguarded by the setting up of a Fair Employment Practices Commission. Governor Dewey has such a commission in New York, which is said to be working well. The movement for a Federal statute grew out of the executive commission which functioned during the war years, when it would have been almost impossible to do without it.

Few people, doubtless, would object to the prohibition of discrimination in interstate transport facilities. But a violent argument raged over the President’s plea for Federal anti-lynching and anti-poll-tax legislation. Even non-Southerners question whether Congress would be well advised, in dealing with either problem, to invade the states. Senator Ferguson suggested one way around the constitutional difficulty with reference to antilynching legislation. His proposed bill is drawn with scrupulous regard for constitutional limitations, and in this respect differs markedly from the Case bill in the House.

Wanted: a cheap house

Figures for the six-month period ending June 30 show that the building industry is at the peak of performance. Thirty-five per cent more has been spent on construction in 1948 than in the corresponding period in 1947. The industry is fully occupied, with demand so great that the pressure has forced prices to astronomical heights. The Taft-Ellender-Wagner bill, which Mr. Truman is pressing for, would pump more credit into the industry by guaranteeing home mortgages up to 90 per cent of current construction costs on singlefamily dwellings.

Would this new credit produce the needed houses, in view of the present condition of the building industry? Clearly not. What it would most assuredly do is force the cost of new houses still higher. Many families in congested areas want small houses at a price they can afford. For this purpose the materials are short, though the lack is being made good rapidly. Reforms in building codes and labor practice have been urgent for a long time, but there is no hope of improvement in the immediate future.

Competition for men and materials could be reduced by retarding public construction, and the lessening of demand would help bring prices down. There is, of course, no possibility of control through a sort of Public Issues Board, but something could surely be done by agreement among the states.

Dollars for deficits

Discussions in Europe over the bilateral agreements governing Marshall aid produced some resentment here. To be sure, the initial draft was clumsily drawn, but it was put together so that every contingency should be met, preparatory to screening by all the authorities concerned. The trouble was that too many copies were made and the original draft was regarded abroad as the final document. There were howls against the wording, which was on the brusque side, and against the conditions.

The phraseology in due course was toned down; some of the objectionable clauses were deleted; but the grumbling against the conditions persisted. Actually the conditions in the bilateral agreements were lifted from the conditions that the participating governments themselves proposed in response to the Marshall initiative.

The enthusiasm about the Marshall Plan seems to have cooled off somewhat in Europe. The Plan appears to be regarded as a dollar-providing device for covering Europe’s deficits in international payments. Any such device would do nothing to put Europe on its economic feet. It would leave Europe dependent on America. European reconstruction requires more than grants of consumer goods, more than shopping lists for individual nations. It calls for capital provided on loan by America, and projects agreed upon by the nations of Europe for the common benefit of the whole continent. But along this line there has been little activity as yet.

ECA Administrator Paul G. Hoffman would like to see the Organization for European Economic Coöperation in Paris set up a group which would screen alt programs of aid. That, of course, would require a delegation of sovereignty — a delegation that the Europeans have not yet faced. They have also failed to set up a program for the four years. The various nations in Europe have scheduled only their own individual requirements for the next quarter. ECA would like the Europeans to act together on allocations instead of letting them be made by Averell Harriman. If the Americans do it, the hope of an integration of European economies would go glimmering.