The Great Deed

Even New York's America-firsting Daily News threw in the sponge. "The Marshall Plan parade," grumped the News last week, "is swinging down the avenue ... in full blast now, and among the paraders are most of the leading politicians of both parties." It was true. As they had not done since the end of the war, Congressmen and the Administration were marching last week with practically everyone in step towards a common objective--the saving of Europe.

Sighed the News: "The only real fight ... is likely to be over the question of the way in which this job is to be handled." Even over that question, everyone showed surprising harmony.

EGA for ERP. It was generally agreed that there should be a separate body set up to administer the European Recovery Program. Three different groups had plans for such a body: the State Department, the Herter Committee, the Harriman Committee. On basic principles, they saw eye to eye. The boss should be appointed by the President, subject to Senate confirmation. The administering body should have wide and flexible authority to procure goods and facilities, administer and allocate funds. It should work in close cooperation with the State Department. It should make frequent and complete reports to Congress. Appropriations should be. on an annual basis.

State's plan called for a "European Cooperation Administration" under a director. His diplomatic assistant would be an Ambassador-at-large, with headquarters somewhere in Europe. The Herter Committee recommended that the agency be a corporation with a board of directors. acting with the advice of other Government agency experts. If Congress preferred this setup, State would not oppose it. The committee's plan, in essence, differed little from State's EGA.

Spark for an Engine. The Harriman Committee concerned itself less with administrative details than with the ability of the U.S. to meet Europe's needs. The very bulk of its 3-lb. 14-oz. report inspired confidence. Its air of hardheaded realism, resulting largely from the shirtsleeve editing of ex-Senator Robert La Follette (see cut), was calculated to appeal even to Senator Robert Taft. Its main points:

P: The U.S., representing less than 7% of the world's population, is not expected to carry half the world on its shoulders. The 16 nations and Western Germany included in ERP comprise over 275 million people, possess great resources. "Aid must be viewed not as a means of supporting Europe, but as a spark which can fire the engine."

P: The requests made by the Paris conferees are not excessive. But the U.S. will not be able to supply everything asked for. Because of the uncertainties of weather, it is questionable whether the U.S. can fill the food needs. Steel, mining machinery, heavy electrical equipment, farm machinery? "Little likelihood that these requirements . . . can be [fully] met?'

P: The needs of Germany have been badly underestimated, will have to be revised upward.

P: The cost of U.S. aid can be kept under the State Department's estimated $8 billion if Congress will vote the stopgap aid for France, Italy and Austria before their economies deteriorate. That means immediately. If Congress comes through, the committee estimates that the first-year cost to the U.S. in appropriations and investments will be $7 billion.

P: The committee's estimate of the four-year total ranged "from $17 to $23 billion."

Rows Postponed. Appropriations, said the committee, should not come out of Government borrowing but out of taxes. The Treasury, therefore, should keep a fat surplus on hand; i.e., Congress had better not cut taxes. That was an issue which was likely to cause a. row.

But some Republicans were even willing to postpone the tax fight in order to get on with the aid program. Speaker of the House Joe Martin announced that as far as he was concerned, G.O.P. tax legislation would not be introduced until the regular session in January. Harry Truman did his part by announcing that price legislation need not have priority over foreign aid. Everyone was dedicated to the great deed.

Let Them Eat It. There were a lot of problems left. One of these was still the conflict between State's solicitude for the dignity and sovereignty of the 16 nations and Congressmen's determination that every dollar spent should be supervised by U.S. agents.

The congressional attitude toward any European objections to U.S. interference in Europe's internal affairs was summed up succinctly in the crisp statement of an influential Democratic Senator: "Let them eat sovereignty then, instead of our dollars, if that's the way they feel about it." Europe would have to be saved on U.S. terms.

This week Congress went to work on such details. The Senate foreign relations and House foreign affairs committees swung into action, summoning as their first witness Secretary of State George Marshall.

Marshall outlined the State Department's program and added some "important principles": that outright grants should be made of such nondurable commodities as food, fuel, fertilizer; that transactions be in the form of loans when they covered capital equipment or raw material which could be used to produce the means of repayment; that in every case agreements should be made between the U.S. and each separate country, not between the U.S. and the 16 nations as a whole.

These points were for ERP, the long-term program. Once again Marshall pressed upon the congressional committeemen the Administration's plea that ERP should not stand in the way of the stopgap program for France, Italy and Austria. His latest figure for it: $597 million. "The urgency of the situation is so great that I recommend that no new agency be set up to handle this interim program."

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