of State himself who said in an address to George Washington University students only last June: "The fundamental interests of the United States in some situations are not crystal clear and may even be in conflict with one another." Cost of living goes up, up, up Meat, fish, and poultry cost exactly 10.7 percent more on the average today than 1 year ago. This is an average. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on October 1 its latest survey also showed: Bacon has jumped 42 percent in price in Detroit. This increase is almost the same for the country as a whole. Bacon that cost you, on the average, 67.2 cents a pound for a particular grade last year now costs you 93.2 cents. Hot dogs: the average increase across the Nation is 7 cents a pound. Potatoes in St. Louis have jumped 24 percent in cost. From coast to coast: pork sausage in Boston today is 35 percent over a year ago, and Chicago's average price of a pork roast costs 19 percent more; in Philadelphia, onions are up 22 percent; whole ham in Baltimore will cost you at least 21 percent more today while the popular shoulder picnic hams in Pittsburgh have gone even higher, 26 percent; rib roast in Washington, D.C., costs 16 percent more; pork chops in San Francisco now cost 16 percent more than last year. The President's own Council of Economic Advisers reported only last June the prices of certain tires were going up, the cost of stainless steel products had increased, the cost of paper containers had gone up, and the prices of copper and aluminum had gone up. In New York City, near the scene of the incredible multimilliondollar salad oil scandal of the Administration, this same salad and cooking oil costs 16 percent more today than a year ago. Call it galloping inflation, limping inflation, liesurely infla- It takes $153.68 today to match the buying power of $110 in 1952. It takes fully $22.58 today to buy what only $10 would buy in 1940. The facts set forth here give this warning: The American people had better look at the speedometer. Nearly every housewife in the Nation pays more today for cereals, bakery goods, dairy products, clothing, women's wear, fuel oil, and footwear. If this cost of living increases the average American consumertaxpayer could be the first of America's natural resources to be exhausted. What's ahead? companies have just announced price increases of A multitude of economic theories are advanced as reasons for the higher cost of living. The Great Society talks of stability. But no American housewife thinks of theories or sees stability when she goes to the grocery store to buy bacon and potatoes. She sees the cashier clicking off the higher prices and walks out with one grocery bag for a $10 bill. And, most of all, the cost of Government is going up-and up, and up. Only money gets cheaper. And for whatever the excuse, the new dimes and quarters we will soon use contain no silver; they will just be alloys of cheap base metals. Do foreigners want our dollars? By now nearly everyone knows they want our gold and they have been getting it. Our gold supply has been getting lower and lower until today it is the lowest since the late 1930's. Hardly had the new session opened before legislation was passed to eliminate the Federal Reserve Board's required gold reserves of 25 percent to back deposits. Then, silver was removed as backing for our dollar bills. We have seen the last of any Federal budget of less than $100 billion. We have a Federal payroll which increased more than 50,000 in the past year. The total is 2,542,590 and going up. This payroll is $17 billion per year, costliest in all U.S. history. Plenty of Federal checks are being written but there are no balances. Yet, a score of new Federal agencies have been created. And the interest on our national (public) debt cost the American people an estimated $22,000 per minute in this fiscal year. It will go even higher. Taxes in a majority of the States are up-an average increase of more than a billion dollars a year in the past 18 years. Social security taxes go up in January. Any tax reduction an American thought he received already has been wiped out. Thus far in 1965 property taxes throughout the country have gone up 7.3 percent since last year; sales taxes are up 8.7 percent; corporate taxes up 7.5 percent; individual income taxes up 6.3 percent. Just as in the past 10 months, 26 State Governors have asked for tax increases. This is not all: consumer, payroll, and service taxes are being imposed or asked at many local levels. Today the taxgatherer at all levels takes 35 percent of the national income. Some States find they must raise taxes in order to obtain Don't blame the farmer. He's paying more for family living items and being hit with higher production costs. Farmers in many areas of the country have been struck with a thickheaded Administration program preventing the usual use of migrant labor during the harvest season. The poverty program couldn't enlist enough such workers. Crops rotted and again the 55-068-0-65- 2 housewife was clipped. Even a former Democrat Secretary of Agriculture, who now sits in the U.S. Senate, declared only last August 13 the Great Society's farm programs were "a bust." Voting rights Despite Administration propaganda to the contrary, Abraham Lincoln was a Republican. And despite repeated attempts to cast the Republican Party in the role of bogeyman, there would have been no voting rights bill passed without vigorous and unflagging Republican leadership in both the House and the Senate. The Republican Party demonstrated its traditional and constant dedication to civil rights for all citizens by its near unanimous support for the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as well as the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Left to its own devices, without Republican prodding and support, it is doubtful that the Great Society could have produced anything constructive in the field of civil rights. Unanimity in support of equality for all American citizens is not a characteristic of the Democrat Party. Republicans will, as usual, continue their support for equal rights. They will also demand that the newly enacted civil rights legislation, as well as that enacted during the Eisenhower Administration, be more vigorously enforced than is now the case. The poverty program The real sugar bill of the Great Society during this session has been in the poverty program. Most of the controversy within the Great Society itself has not been about the poor, but about who was going to control the loot. Poverty money from the Federal Government could well be a kitty which could sway elections more than money passed out directly by a political party. The poverty program had theories sounding as wholesome as blueberry pie but right at the very start it ran afoul of hanky-panky events which are still continuing. Here are some of these events taken from press reports: The so-called war on poverty began with such items as a $25,000 loan to a fruitcake maker. Willow Village, a community in southeast Michigan, was notified of a grant of $188,252 to finance a program of self-help for 4,500 residents. The township supervisor said the poverty report was absolutely false. There was not a home more than 10 years old. The homes had an average value of $12,000. No one could be found unemployed. Residents said the poverty program was a fraud and a disgrace. Gum Springs, Va., a small area near Washington, D.C., was notified of a $74,000 poverty grant-with all but $20,000 going for salaries. The New Jersey poverty office chief was hired at $25,000 a year, a salary greater than any member of the Governor's cabinet. Two assistants were hired at $19,000 each. The Newark, N.J., poverty office hired 26 staff members at salaries ranging from $10,000 to $23,000. In Mobile, Ala., an officer of the League of Women Voters declared "we've got nothing but chaos" in the poverty program. The poverty program began paying Job Corps volunteers more money than an Army or Navy recruit or draftee. In Dallas, as well as in Los Angeles, young people hired for work after school were making more per hour than their parents who worked full time. In New York, a poverty consultant was hired at $500 per week, two other consultants at $60 and $65 per day, and a program director at $22,500 a year. A Department of Health, Education, and Welfare official said: "Somehow, the Office of Economic Opportunity seems to be able to pay better salaries than other agencies and is decimating existing welfare staffs." In Washington, D.C., the poverty office organized itself with five top jobs paying from $27,000 to $30,000 a year and 40 various assistants at salaries from $18,935 a year to $24,500 a year. In Kentucky, a poverty program coordinator said the whole poverty program "thing" was a mess. Then, a $300,000 contract was awarded a university to teach the poor in a public housing area how to organize themselves as a political force. The poverty office reported the cost per Job Corps enrollee for 9 months was "only" $4,650, or about twice the tuition cost at Harvard. U.S. News & World Report stated April 26 all poverty projects had to be cleared through political channels and that there was "suspicion" that "vast amounts of money to be poured out to fight poverty will be used either to build new political machines in cities. or to lubricate those now in operation." The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors ordered an inquiry to determine whether administrative salaries totaling $408,336 for the Youth Opportunities Board were justified. In St. Petersburg, Fla., the new Women's Job Corps center turned out to be a former resort hotel. Dropout girls were enrolled and maintained at a cost of $700 per month per pupil; scandals were uncovered; some girls were arrested for drunkenness; the city council asked the school to move elsewhere. In Washington, a special program was announced to hire 2,150 college graduates to "study the culture of poverty." In Chicago, it was announced by a poverty official that money would be used to develop rock-and-roll choral groups. The poverty office paid $87,000 to a private research group which compiled a catalog showing 170 Federal programs, in addition to those set up by the poverty office, which already help the poor. A poverty kindergarten program was started at a cost per child of more than the annual tuition for the most expensive university in the Washington, D.C., area. The poverty office in Washington had, by October, become 34 times the size of the National Security Council, the Nation's supreme strategy planning board. There were Job Corps camp riots in four different States. Some camp enrollees who were arrested for being drunk were bailed out of jail with poverty program money. At one camp, a gang was organized to extort and prey on the other enrollees. Shootings by Job Corps enrollees were reported from Texas to Montana. If these examples didn't serve to warn the public what the poverty program was all about, then there was one about Project Head Start in Mississippi for which almost $1.5 million had been allocated. There were these expenses: $100 in rent to use a bathroom in a church for 8 weeks; $10 to rent a garbage can; $100 to rent a sink; $120 to use a refrigerator; $110 for a stove; and $92 for use of a carpet-all for 8 weeks. To top it all off, one of the project officials chartered a twin-engined airplane for a 200-mile flight to address a graduating class of Head Start pupils-all between ages 5 and 6. II Examples of a Few of the Many Republican Legislative Activities in the First Session Despite the overwhelming 2-to-1 Democrat majority, Republicans were able to add amendments to many major bills of the session, either in committee or in the Senate and House, in an attempt to improve legislation, protect the public, prevent inflation, and eliminate plainly bad, politically inspired programs. In case after case, however, the Administration's seemingly one-party autocracy prevented action in most cases on individual Republican programs, but in several instances Republican-originated programs were introduced by Administration supporters. Here are a few samples of Republican activity: The new Federal aid to higher education law was sharpened and refined by more than 25 Republican amendments to the bill, completely revising whole sections of the measure to help students of poor families, stressing scholarship, and giving States more supervisory authority. Republicans unanimously fought for and won, over Presi- |