Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that a Cabinet Food Committee, comprised of Secretary of State Marshall, Secretary of Agriculture Clinton Anderson, and Secretary of Commerce Averell Harriman, had agreed on the amount of future food exports it would recommend to the President. Secretary Anderson provided no details on the agreement. It was the first Cabinet meeting on how to aid Europe prior to implementation of the Marshall Plan, not expected until spring. Also being considered was whether the President should call a special session of Congress.

Senator Homer Ferguson of Michigan desired a session as soon as all the cards were on the table, but he stated that he did not expect the cards to be shown before January.

In Paris, the 16-nation conference which had met to determine the nations' needs under the Marshall Plan, made public its report, seeking 19.3 billion dollars of U.S. aid during the ensuing four years.

At the U.N., the British delegate addressed the General Assembly, saying that unless Russia refrained from forcing its own will on the world, the unstable peace would "crumble and crash". He ridiculed the charge by Andrei Vishinsky of U.S. warmongering, referring to his speech as a "comedy piece". He urged Russia to open its doors to the world.

Former President Herbert Hoover addressed an audience at Madison Square Garden, a meeting on behalf of the German relief fund, saying that 1948 would be a "grim food year", with a disastrous decrease of 32 million tons of grain being produced, only partially offset by an increase of four million tons of bread grains. His prognosis, gleaned from his recent European tour undertaken at the request of the President, did not include Russia and he hoped that the Russians would be able to offset the bleak numbers to some degree, as they had reportedly enjoyed some crop improvement.

American farmers, he recommended, had to resist the temptation to feed bread grains to livestock so that it could benefit needy humans. Unnecessary consumption and waste of food had to be stopped. Help needed to come from other countries with surpluses, with elimination of black markets and control of distribution in deficit countries. Price increases in the U.S., he said, were the result of over-export of food. He recommended stopping the hoarding of food in speculation of higher prices and decreasing waste and unnecessary consumption. He believed that with world organization, a disaster could be averted as in 1945.

Rainstorms apparently prevented speakers from showing up in New York City at the first Congressional hearings on prices. The hall was nearly empty. Several groups were scheduled to speak.

The best of butter had dropped to 80 cents per pound, seven cents below the price a week earlier in New York.

Hal Boyle reports from New Orleans on the hurricane damage which had occurred from the violent storm of the previous Thursday. The only man who received advantage from "Ole Double Debbil Eye" was John Quarrier, an amateur trumpet player who had worked the night before the storm editing news for the Associated Press. He took up his trumpet and played the "The Storm" from the "William Tell Overture", matching "Ole Debbil" note for note as it hit. He said that he had always wanted to try out the trumpet part during an actual storm.

Mr. Boyle states that alligator wrestling had the advantage over storm chasing that one could actually grab an alligator. And if you caught a hurricane, there was not much you could do with it. You could not light a cigar easily.

Having been through a couple, we can appreciate the sentiment.

He had caught up with the storm at Fort Pierce, Fla., and followed it by plane, train, motor car and on foot until it finally blew itself out in Louisiana. When he first saw it, it made him feel as if he were in a Hollywood "B" picture, with the wind appearing to be driven by a machine.

But when he stepped into it outside, the feeling quickly was replaced by the wind clawing at his breath, drenching him through to the skin. Trying to walk into it was like climbing the Washington Monument. If one lost his balance, he would immediately be pummeled to the ground. A correspondent from Alabama had to crawl two blocks through sailing debris to reach a telephone in West Palm Beach. Palm fronds being hurled by such winds suddenly became as knives.

Many war correspondents on the scene were reminded of the war, but as a veteran remarked, at least he knew no one was deliberately pointing the storm at him.

The damage appeared worst along the Mississippi Gulf Coast, where tidal waves were whipped to such frenzy that whole beach villages were blown and washed away.

By this date, "Ole Debbil" could not blow up a paper bag. But along the area through which it had passed, people would be talking about it for a long time.

Another storm, with winds up to 60 mph, was forming off the coast of Florida, only half the wind speeds of the hurricane of the previous week. The new storm appeared headed for Fort Myers and Tampa, where it was expected to move inland this night. Forty-three persons were known to have died in the prior storm, in Florida, Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi. Property damage was extensive and flooding continued to plague the storm-hit areas. Raw sewage in many flooded areas had become a health hazard.

On the woman's pages, a report appears of a French perfume seller telling the woman's editor about the use and care of perfume.

Send some of it down yonder.

On the editorial page, "Warmongering in America" remarks on the charges by Andrei Vishinsky that certain Americans were warmongers. Two of the named persons, former Pennsylvania Governor George Earle and Congressman William Dorn of South Carolina, had responded the previous week, Mr. Earle saying that if Mr. Vishinsky meant to say that Mr. Earle wanted the country to drop the atomic bomb on Russia before it had a chance to obtain the bomb and drop it first, then he was right, that Mr. Earle was a warmonger. Mr. Dorn had denied the charge, admitting only that he wanted a first rate Air Force which could take the "armed might" of America anywhere in the world where the country's security was threatened.

"Tax Relief for Married Couples" favors the proposed bill to be introduced in the coming session of Congress to provide for the community property tax basis for the entire nation, allowing couples to divide their income for tax purposes. It would save Americans 774 million dollars in taxes. But it would mainly benefit high income brackets and do little for the average taxpayer. It favors doing something for the latter group.

"Little Man with Big Heart" pays homage to Fiorello La Guardia who had died on Saturday. His vigorous governance of New York City and irrepressible personality as he did so had left an indelibly positive mark. He had provided 13 years of honest government while restoring the city's fiscal stability. Even his bitterest political enemies never lost a sense of personal affection for him.

A piece from the Louisville Courier-Journal, titled "Footnote on Rebel Yell", tells of the Kentucky Historical Society having inquired as to how the Rebel yell sounded. Fresh recollections of stories told at past Confederate reunions revealed that there was no set pattern, but the yell had as a common goal the desire to strike terror in the listener while asserting pride and confidence. At times it was guttural, other times, shrill, depending on the voice of the yeller. It was individualistic and unmatchable, according to those who heard it.

If you want to know the truth, it apparently sounded like a bunch of dogs in heat.

Drew Pearson tells of Secretary of State Marshall having not maintained enough contact with the press through regular press conferences to keep the public informed. He had held only a few conferences since becoming Secretary at the beginning of the year, breaking a continuing practice begun with Charles Evans Hughes over 20 years earlier, interrupted only by Secretary of State Hull's failing health during the war. Secretary Byrnes held conferences intermittently. He notes that Frank Kellogg, successor to Mr. Hughes in the latter Twenties, had stated that he learned much from the conferences because it kept him in touch with what Americans were thinking.

Marquis Childs, in Athens, tells of the city of two million being a shock to most Americans who came to work on the aid mission. He cites the unreliable telephone service as example, producing more wrong numbers than right.

Victor Riesel gives praise to the Robertshaw Thermostat Co. of Youngwood, Pa., a company which, in raising profits, had union support of its steelworkers because it believed that its workers should receive a good living wage. When the company reported that it was losing money on a particular product, a union representative was sent to address the 2,000 workers on the need to increase productivity so that the company could bring down the cost per unit and become competitive on the product. Otherwise, 700 jobs would be lost.

A letter writer is skeptical of the ability of the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe, based on the failure of the Dawes Plan after World War I to rebuild Germany and prevent the rise of Nazism. He nevertheless believes the Plan needed to be implemented posthaste.

A letter writer thinks there was no such thing as isolationism, that only Russia was attempting isolation. He thinks the giving of aid under the Marshall Plan would be like giving dope to stop pain. It would not cure the pain. He believed that free trade with Europe would go further in enabling its recovery, that it might stand on its own feet.

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