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ete 7 ’ MARCH 8, 1948 éase to court or will the government . “do it for me?” The congressman. couldn’t answer any of his constituent’s questions. In- ~ stead, he mailed him a copy of the bill just passed by the Senate to extend rent controls for another 14 months. The tenant will find little comfort in the Senate bill. If his landlord did raise the rent within the next 14 months (which would violate the law), he would only be subject to a civil dam- age suit. The Senate knocked out a clause providing criminal penalties up to a * $1,000 fine and one year in jail for landlords guilty of a violation. If the a private home (as many college stu- dents, veterans and others do), the landlord can raise the rent as high as he likes. The Federal Housing Expe- diter no longer has power to file dam-, “age suits for rent violations. The -House has even nastier plans for the tenant. Representative ‘Jesse P. Wolcott (R, Mich.), chairman of the House Banking and Currency Commit- : tee, is now working on a rent bill. He hopes to get through a law to allow a straight 10-to-20-percent hike in all rents, exempt from any control rooms and apartments not now rented, and. give local boards (usually run by real- estate men) complete autonomy over enforcement of the law. Six Lives Saved PORTLAND, ORE, (NR correspondent) BECAUSE of the generosity of West Coast labor-union members, six young Spanish stowaways who arrived in the US last October will not have to return to Spain and a Franco firing squad (the NR, January 12). The refugees, former members of the Spanish underground, will be re- leased from a government detention | camp in Portland next month to go to Venezuela. : Agreement of the Venezuelan em- bassy in Washington, D. C., to sup- ply the detainees with visas ends a five-month campaign by labor to pre- vent extradition of the men to Spain. Their fares to Venezuela will be paid for from a $4,000 fund contributed by sympathizers all over the US. Unless members of the House are able to amend such a bill when it comes to the floor, rent “decontrol” ‘will be the law next year. a LONG AND TALMADGE Return of the Long and Talmadge machines to power has given a new boost to the Southern Governors’ ef- forts to rule or wreck ‘the National Democratic Party. Earl K. Long, brother of “The Kingfish,” and Her- man Talmadge, son of Eugene, have gained legal control of the Democratic Parties in Louisiana and Georgia. Earl Long, not so effective an orator - tenant is renting a furnished room.in_as.his brother but just as ambitious, was chosen as the next Governor of Louisiana in a runoff primary with Sam Houston Jones. Jones had defeated him in the 1940 race, so the victory a few days ago ended Long’s eighth politi- cally lean year.-He managed to weather attacks connecting him with the “Loui- vsiana Scandals” which sent Governor Richard Leche and ‘several other po- litical bosses to prison in 1939. "In Georgia, young Herman Talmadge won legal control over the state’s Democratic machinery when the Geor- gia Supreme Court voted unanimously to vest party power in the Talmadge faction. This ended ten months of con- test and confusion and probably ended also the political career of Governor M. E. Thompson. The Thompson group, which has been tacitly recog- nized by national Democratic officials, __was declared to be without any official standing. Each of the groups had held its own convention and branded the other as “rump Democrats” and “bolt- ers. , Uninstructed. Another important development has just come in Virginia. - Its Governor, William M. Tuck, has requested the state legislature to re- write the law to permit selection of uninstructed presidential electors. At the same time, he asked Virginia's General Assembly to pass a bill that would remove the names of candidates for President and Vice President from ballots in that state. The law would put only party lzbels on the ballots ce ee een Sng IO LEE GAR Fi nC GEA RSL ES moana 2 and would bar the name of any party unless it. had been listed in the’ last presidential election, or unless its can- didates polled 10 percent of the vote at some’ general election within the last | five years. oo ‘ Such a law would knock out Henry Wallace’s third party, as well as any move by Truman to enter Virginia's election with ‘some new modification of the Democratic Party label. The Mississippi .and South Carolina state legislatures, the only other two in the South meeting this year, are expected to follow Virginia’s lead in freeing theit electors to oppose Truman if and when the time comes. I HOLLYWOOD QUICKIE LOS ANGELES (NR correspondent) Looking much like a road-show company of the Thomas committee, California State Senator Jack -B. Ten- ney'and his troupe—the Fact-Finding - Committee on. Un-American Activities —descended on Los Angeles last week for a “quickie” four-day engagement. ' The performance had all the trap- pings of the Washington spectacle. It came complete with Hollywood glamor, ‘a “mystery witness” (who remained a mystery after it was all over), a Roose- velt smear and threatened contempt citations. First came the verdict. Fifty-one or- Planes to China GOP CONGRESSMEN who don’t like the non-military character of the pro- posed $570 million China loan learned a wartime secret last week. Air Secretary W. Stuart Symington informed them that in 1945 the US secretly agreed to supply Chiang with 1,071 warplanes, worth $300 million —enough to make China’s air force equal to that of Spain or Turkey. Already 936 of the planes have been delivered, Symington said. But his disclosure, intended to reassure the Republicans that President Tru- man is doing all right by Chiang, pro- duced some consternation as: well. It made it all the harder for some Senators to figure out how Chiang could be getting licked so badly by a gang of guerrillas.