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United States

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as soon as he heard of the immigration plan."

The emigrants already en route had a variety of answers for the-inevitable, incredulous question:  "Why do you want to leave the U. S.?"  A good many were evidently catering to their Australian war brides.  A standard answer: "My wife's folks are down
there.  She'll feel better."

A returning bride explained helplessly: "You Yanks run around too much.  I can't keep up with you."  Another admitted: "I would prefer the States–if my people 
were here."  One male passenger walked aboard in a daze.  Twomonths ago his Australian mother-in-law had come for a visit, and now she was going back.  So was his wife.  So was he.

Some of the men planned to study at Australian universities, and down under their monthly GI benefits will stretch further.  However, most of the men planned to work with their fathers-in-law or on their own.  Onewanted to open a launderette.  Another gleefully declared: I've got the Australian franchise for frozen custard all tied up."

An ex-MP from New Hampshire said wryly: "I don't want to be a traitor but I prefer the climate down there."

"Whyncha Go Back ..." The 2500 Americans already settled in Australia knew better.  Australia, they admitted, can offer 45-cent steak dinners.  An American dollar could buy two pounds of sirloin, a dozen eggs, and a quart of milk.  But the cost of living is only cheaper, they added, "if you get rid of expensive tastes."

Radios are $55 up, cigarettes 37 cents a pack, gasoline 40 cents a gallon and American cars as much
as double Van Ness avenue prices.  Australian pay scales run from $18 weekly for a laborer to $45 for a well-paid young executive; $60 a week is the big time. Statistically, the cost of living is 40 per cent cheaper than in the U. S. but wages are 75 per cent
less.

The 2500 Americans in Australia stick it out, nevertheless, with few regrets.  They gather
nostalgically around the hamburger stands at American get-to-gether clubs in Brisbane andSydney, but they stoutly insist: "The people here are swell and there's a terrific friendship for Americans."

However, one Amer-Australian, ex-New Yorker Leon Black, last week found that Australian friendship can be strained.  Settler Black, who has become a theatrical producer in Brisbane, was invited to debate on the American - versus - the Australian way of life. 

He accepted, upheld the American way, and won the debate.  Since then he has been swamped with telegrams, letters and phone calls asking him the well-known old American question: "Whyncha go back where you came from if you don't like it here?"
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[[image - photograph of two women standing in front of American flag]]
[[caption]] BESS AND MARGARET TRUMAN
The First Lady would also rather be right
See PRESIDENT [[/caption]]

[[image - photograph of man on horse with people around him]]
[[caption]] IDAHO'S TAYLOR AT BEGINNING OF THE TREK
He and his horses went lame
See CONGRESS [[/caption]]


[[article]]
[[underlined]] PRESIDENT [[/underlined]]

Yes, If

Harry Truman wanted to know how much help the U. S. could send Europe without injuring its own economic health.  Last week he heard the good word from his Council of Economic Advisers.  The council said yes, the Nation could go ahead with the multi-billion-dollar Marshall Plan without suffering economic misery.  But the council added a string of "ifs":

• Grain, steel and other short commodities should be allocated among U. S. industrial users.

• "Speculation and hoarding of goods" would have to be curbed.

• Export controls, which will expire February 29, would have to be renewed by Congress.

• Federal taxes would have to remain where they are.

Nice Place to Visit

From the very start Harry Truman made it clear that he would rather be right.

When the vice presidency was offered to him he was less than unenthusiastic.

Later he moved into the White House with considerable reluctance.

Last week it was evident that Mrs. Truman shared her husband's sentiments about the White House.  In an interview with a Washington newspaper woman the First Lady said flatly that:

• She doubted if there would ever be a woman President, but if by chance one were elected she would not want the job.

• She would not want her daughter Margaret to be the wife of a President.

• If she had a son she would certainly not groom him for the presidency.
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[[article]]
[[underlined]] CONGRESS [[/underlined]]

Hi Yo, Taylor

Mrs. Glen Taylor, at least was pleased that President Truman called a special session of Congress November 17.  That meant that her husband, Idaho's Democratic Senator, would not have time to go through with his plan to ride horseback from coast to coast "to sound the alarm against U. S. foreign policy."

The re-year-old ex-cowhand had not been on a horse since 1942.  His doctors had warned against the trip.  Besides, Mrs. Taylor wailed, "he's out of condition.  He weighed 165 pounds when he went into the Senate, and he's up to 179 now."

Nevertheless, the singing Senator galloped away from Seal Beach, south of Los Angeles, fortnight ago on a frisky sorrel horse named Nugget.  To make the trip by the time Congress convened, he would have to ride most of the way in the car in which his wife and brother-in-law, Harold Pike, followed him.  (A spare horse followed in a trailer.)  But the Senator planned to do some horseback riding in every State he passed through.

But last week the Senator was driving, pulling his horses behind him.  The horses were completely worn out and one had a cut leg.  Just as Mrs. Taylor expected, the Senator was worn out, too.  Nevertheless, he borrowed a horse and eased himself gingerly into the saddle to ride into Tucson, Ariz.  He still said he would make a speech anywhere anytime anybody wanted him to.  He even planned to fly to New York from El Paso, Texas, to appear on a radio program.  Then he would fly back and set off anew on fresh horses.
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[[article]]
[[underlined]] FOOD [[/underlined]]

Friendship Train

Chairman Charles Luckman of the Citizens' Food Committee announced a fortnight ago that a "friendship train" would cross the country to gather foodstuff for Europe, under the sponsorship of his committee.  If there was a hint of resignation in his voice it was understandable.

Luckman's committee had been needled into sponsoring the friendship train.  Early in October Columnist Drew Pearson (Washington Merry-Go-Round) wrote an open letter to Luckman suggesting the train.  "I hesitate to butt into your business," wrote the columnist unhesitatingly, "but . . . it seems to me the hardest job we face is making sure this food is genuinely appreciated by the people of Europe . . .

"Last year when we sent food to Europe several million tons were unloaded efficiently and unostentatiously at the Havre docks–all accepted by most Frenchmen as a matter of course.  Simultaneously, in Marseille a cargo of Soviet wheat ("a mere driblet" comparatively) entered with flags flying, bands playing.  There were street parades, a municipal holiday and paeans of praise for the great benefactor of the French people–Soviet Russia."

As a countermeasure, Pearson suggested that newsreel cameramen go along with the friendship train to record for European audiences the sight of Americans bearing gifts to the freight cars.

The whole project met with silence from Luckman's committee but Pearson plugged away.  As a result complete plans were made (by citizens who wrote Pearson volunteering their services) by the time the committee got around to offering its sponsorship.

Last week the train rolled out of Los Angeles already loaded with five cars of grain purchased by the Los Angeles committee Harry Warner whipped together.  The train was furnished by the American Association of Railroads.  Dan Tobin had promised his teamsters would supervise the loadings all the way across the country.  Public officials had promised co-operation.  Even Hawaii's Governor Ingram M. Stainback flew across to add a carload of sugar to the train at Oakland.

The friendship train rolled up the coast to Oakland to go straight across the country from there.  Citizens from coast to coast were getting together the items asked for:  bulk wheat, flour, dried beans, peas and milk, macaroni, noodles and spaghetti.  They had promised enough to lead Pearson to predict that the engine would be hauling more than 100 cars when it reached New York.

As the food-stuffed train rolled on its way, Luckman's committee had still not credited Pearson with the idea.  But Pearson had already passed the credit along to "the American people" who "with no help whatsoever from the Government ... decided the friendship train would definitely roll. ... Most important of all is the fact that the friendship train is almost entirely spontaneous."
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[[article]]
Fantasia
Last week history was enriched by these human frailties:

• Mrs. Henry C. Thomas of Bellevue, Ky., reported her son and daughter-in-law had been missing eight years, explained:  "I didn't want to mention it earlier because I didn't want to embarrass him."

• Clinton I. Fleming of Detroit was pantsed by an outraged bandit who held him up only to discover Fleming had no money.

• L. C. Merchant of Columbia, S. C., entered seven cakes in the State fair, frosted the women contestants by winning all seven prizes for the third time.

• Ronald Jacobson, 14, of Kenosha, Wis., decided he had had enough, ran away from home, asked his parents to give him a sporting chance and refrain from calling the cops for 24 hours.

• Virginia Ferstead of Los Angeles complained to police that neighbors who objected to her piano playing had smeared the keyboard with glue.

• Eva Marsicky of Detroit won a divorce when she complained that she had to sleep in telephone booths after her husband, John, chased her out of their house.

• Vittorio Abbati, a perfume salesman of Rome, fulfilled a lifelong ambition by hiring a hall and a 93-piece symphony, and conducting a program of operatic selections although unable to read a note of music.

• Lauro Garcia of Mexico City caught Jose Marcos stealing a can of lard, beat him up, landed in jail along with Marcos when police decided he had gone too far in protecting his property.

• Rev. Charles D. Bullock of Sioux Falls, S. D., won a liars' contest when he described a well which had to be put through a wringer during a drought to make it produce drinking water.

• Parnell Morck of Kenyon, Minn., who signed up for a refrigerator and began saving Jefferson nickels in 1944, last week got his refrigerator and paid for it with 60 pounds of nickels ($269).

• Howard Barrett of Sioux City, Iowa, crawled into a cement mixer to clean it, got a rough whirl when a fellow worker accidentally started it.  He emerged dizzy and cut up.
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All photographs by Associated Press unless otherwise indicated.
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