Senator Taft had been chiefly responsible for blocking UMT during the 1947 session of Congress. Yet, he did not believe that cooperation was possible between East and West. His ultimate stance appeared to be a return to his pre-war isolationism of the type championed by the Chicago Tribune and Robert McCormick, its publisher. He clung to the old belief that two oceans provided insularity to the United States, an idea proved false during World War II, and now completely obsolete in the nuclear and jet age.

Former Supreme Court Justice Owen Roberts, a Republican who favored UMT, had looked up Senator Taft's former isolationist record and the piece provides the chronolog: he had opposed Selective Service in April, 1940; had stated in February, 1941 that there was no danger of an attack by Japan on the U.S.; in the same month, had found an invasion by the German Army of the U.S. as unlikely as an invasion of Germany by the U.S. Army; had declared in August, 1941 the situation safe for the U.S.; and had found much less danger in September, 1941 than two years earlier at the start of the war in Poland.

It concludes that Senator Taft was both a false and stubborn prophet.

In the case in Statesville, the two defendants were remanded to the juvenile court which could only send them to reform school. Had they been fourteen, they would have been tried in adult court for murder.

The piece finds the Judge to have defined the problem and made it plain that reform was needed in the juvenile justice system in the state.

Some flag designers had suggested to Washington that the arrangement of the stars be set forth therefore anew. One design proposed an eagle formation, with outstretched wings.

It quotes from the Continental Congress on the design of the flag, with the stars being representative of the constellation Lyra, signifying harmony. The blue was from the Covenanters banner in Scotland. The thirteen stripes represented the original Colonies at the time of the Revolution. Red denoted daring and white stood for purity.

It concludes that no matter how many stars or stripes it had, it would remain the "grand old flag" of George M. Cohan. It suggests reflection on the virtues for which it stood.

The problem was ultimately obviated by delaying admission of Hawaii until 1959, seven months after admission of Alaska in 1959 to become the 49th state. So the imbalance was short-lived.

Had they re-arranged the pattern in the early 50's, they might have had one grouping of stars showing a witch on a broomstick, with another grouping showing a lynching, both crunched over on the extreme right side of the flag, with a few free-floating stars throughout the rest of the body, eliminating completely the stripes, as the Founders had come under strong suspicion of being Communist radicals.

Today, of course, they might as well just arrange the stars in a large dollar sign, and put on each side the two words of the new slogan of the country: "Bought - Sold", and have a big ocean wave rushing in from the right to engulf the whole of it.

Foreign policy was largely conducted on a bipartisan basis with the highlight being the approval of the President's Turkish-Greek military aid bill for 400 million dollars and approval of allocation of another 350 million for humanitarian aid in Europe. Both programs were heavily opposed by Midwestern Republicans, as they had opposed the loan to Britain in 1946.

The biggest piece of domestic legislation passed was Taft-Hartley, vetoed by the President and overridden. The bill to extend rent control through the following February, with the proviso that rents could be raised 15 percent on leases extending through 1948, was another important piece of legislation.

Soil conservation and reclamation were cut drastically by the House, as were school lunch programs, public power projects, Agricultural Adjustment Administration payments, and contributions to Public Housing Authorities at the local level.

Secretary Marshall was challenged as to why German coal production was only 40 percent of pre-war capacity when the mines had been back in operation for a year and a half, the delegation refusing to accept the offered excuses that some of the larger mines had been bombed during the war and that a hearty diet was required for work in the mines.

Congressman George Sadowski of Michigan responded that the miner was getting 4,000 calories per day and that the Polish miner was working on 3,500 calories and producing 50 percent more coal than the Germans. He also pointed to the fact that only fifteen important mines had been bombed. He believed the slowdown was the result of deliberate German sabotage to prevent industrial recovery of non-German countries so that Germany could be the first to recover. He pointed out that German coal production was largely under the supervision of Dr. Lahr, a key official in the coal and steel industries under the Nazis.

Secretary Marshall admitted that the coal program was not working and needed reform, but stated that de-Nazification was a tough problem, requiring a lot of personnel.

The members complained that former President Hoover and John Foster Dulles were having too much to say about the occupation of Germany. Secretary Marshall replied that President Hoover had been sent primarily to study the food situation with a view to politics, hopefully to act as a liaison to the Republican Congress. While in Germany, he had met, on his own initiative, with industrialists and came back urging re-industrialization. He stated that Mr. Dulles also had a hand in convincing the Republican Congress to support the aid program. But he assured that neither were determining policy. Congressman Sabath insisted, however, that they were bringing to the Secretary only one side of the picture and that he was basing his policies on that information.

The members reminded that two Dillon-Reed associates were heavily involved in occupation and State Department policy, and that firm had, in 1926, loaned 125 million dollars to Germany to set up Europe's largest steel combine. They believed that Mr. Dulles represented the I. G. Farben cartel in disposing of its property, and believed in consequence that German-American cartels would result again from the participation of former President Hoover and Mr. Dulles, who had been Thomas Dewey's foreign policy adviser in 1944.

Secretary Marshall praised General William Draper, formerly of Dillon-Reed, for his role as chief economic adviser of the American occupation of Germany.

Mr. Pearson promises another column on the meeting.

Mark Ethridge of the Louisville Courier-Journal, a progressive liberal who had been sent to the Balkans two years earlier by the President on a fact-finding mission and was on the Balkans Subcommittee which had reported back that the guerrillas in northern Greece were being trained and supplied by Yugoslavia, Albania, and Bulgaria, had endeavored to report the facts as he had seen them.

Mr. Ethridge had reported back to the President two years earlier of having witnessed Communist repression and brutality. He had fought to bring forth the facts while a member of the Subcommittee, against opposition from Russia and Poland, both of which dissented from the Subcommittee report. He was a fair-minded liberal who became convinced of the reality of a Soviet plot in the Balkans. He might have played an important role in the U.S. aid to Greece but for the "petty spite" of certain Senators.

Mr. Childs concludes that the U.N. was not suited to providing the emergency aid needed in Greece.

He compares the Plan to raising a baby, needing nurturing as it grew. The Plan represented progress toward "heightened political morality", and it remained the case despite its odd supporters in some quarters.