Return of an Issue

Henry Wallace strode into the green-carpeted House Ways & Means Committee room to take up the cudgels again in an old, familiar fight: for reciprocal trade agreements. But this time, with the nations gathered at San Francisco, the old bickerings had a new implication. The committee was considering the bill to renew the eleven-year-old Reciprocal Trade Agreements Law and to permit further tariff reductions.

Henry Wallace warned that a return to the high-tariff policies of the 19203 and 19303 would "indicate to the world that the U.S. had gone isolationist." Solemnly he said that, if the law were allowed to expire, small nations would conclude that soon the U.S. would raise tariffs.

Said he: in the U.S. handling of tariffs lies a chance to prevent a third World War.

But to Republican committee members, wistfully talking of high-tariff prosperity and solidly opposed to further reductions, Henry Wallace looked like a symbol of their discontent. They quizzed him about everything from killing pigs to full em ployment. To Minnesota's finance-minded Harold Knutson he looked like the fattest target he had seen in months.

Wrangle, Wrangle. Representative Knutson asked the Secretary of Commerce whether lowering tariffs was not comparable to lowering immigration restrictions (apparently meaning that U.S. labor would have to compete with cheaper foreign labor). Henry Wallace said the question was too complicated to answer offhand.

Harold Knutson snapped that he would wait and ask it of a witness of ordinary intelligence.

Again, Knutson commented that he envied Wallace his "naiveness." Said Wallace: "I pity yours."

Finally, Knutson demanded: "Is it your thought that we are going to create 60,000,000 jobs after the war by running a fine-tooth comb through American industries and eliminating the inefficient?" After a pause Henry Wallace said: "I'm not beating my wife any more, Mr. Congressman." Next day Knutson apologized for the remark about Wallace's intelligence.

Later, owlish Fred Vinson, President Truman's War Mobilizer, told the committee that the San Francisco conference would be helped by prompt action on both reciprocal trade agreements and the Bretton Woods monetary plan. Fred Vinson, an old hand at Congressional quizzing, was in no mood for fooling. When Knutson asked him if lower tariffs were not like lower immigration controls, he replied: "I read the newspapers, you know. You asked that question of another fellow. You reared up and operated on him and then apologized."

The Question. Beneath this bumbling Congressional show lay a live and vital issue. Franklin Roosevelt had asked for power to make additional tariff slashes of as much as 50% below the levels of Jan. i, 1945, and Harry Truman had given his support. Republicans charged that this would allow cuts of as much as 75% below the Smoot-Hawley levels of 1930-34 but administration spokesmen pointed out that such cuts could occur in less than 40% of U.S. imports. The Administration's main point: further authority for reductions was basic to the U.S. policy of world collaboration.

Since the present law expires June 12, it was plain that soon the U.S. Congress would have to quit doodling and face the issue. It was equally plain that on the tariff Harry Truman would face his first big test in Congress.

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