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Stalin and Congress. The last time U. S. Reds were investigated—by Attorney-General A. Mitchell Palmer in 1919— some 5,000 people were arrested and 263 deported. Such action today would mean a staggering loss to Business—cancellation of Soviet contracts by the tens of millions. However, not all Congressmen are businessmen. Some think that to stamp out U. S. Communism now would be a national boon, cheap at any price.
On this theory last week Representative Hamilton Fish Jr. of New York, red-hot anti-Red, was appointed chairman of a Congressional committee of five who will begin the 1930 Red hunt by calling three star witnesses: 1) Attorney-General Mitchell for the Department of Justice; 2) Secretary of Labor Davis for informaton about Red immigrants; 3) Third Vice President Matthew Woll of the American Federation of Labor.
Stalin and Friends. Among potent U. S. business friends of Josef Vissarionovitch Dzhugashvili are:
Standard Oil, whose famed Ivy Ledbetter Lee is commonly said in Wall Street to be "the Soviet publicity man in the U. S." Naturally no one thinks that Mr. Lee is "in the pay of the Reds." He is simply friendly to friends of his employers who buy gargantuan quantities of Red Oil.
General Electric is building, as part of a $100,000,000 contract, the four largest hydroelectric generators in the world (100,000 h. p. each) for installation some 200 miles from Odessa on the Dnieper River.
Austin Co. of Cleveland, under a $50,000,000 contract are erecting the City of Austingrad, complete with tractor and automobile factories involving an additional $30,000,000 contract for parts and technical assistance with Ford Motor Corp.
Other business friends are General Motors, DuPont de Nemours, International Harvester, John Deere Co., Caterpillar Tractor, Radio Corp. and the U. S. Shipping Board, which sold the Reds a fleet of 25 cargo steamers (TIME, Jan. 27). Banks which sent business-getters to Moscow last year include National City. Chase National, Equitable Trust.
No friends of Stalin are W. A. Harriman & Co. who obtained a 22-year Russian manganese concession in 1925 but gave it up at a loss after three years, because the Soviet Government resorted to "petty abuses," imposed "impossible conditions." Today the Anglo-U. S. concessionaires of the Lena Gold Fields claim that they are being forced out by means equally "unfair."
Reports that President Ralph Budd of the U. S. Great Northern R. R. would spend "several years" assisting Soviet railway builders (TIME, May 12) simmered down to the fact that he and his son John, just graduated from Yale's scientific school, sailed from Manhattan last week "to spend several weeks in making a survey of the Russian-Siberian Railway facilities for the Soviet Government."
Five-Year Plan. Quoting official Soviet statistics, Comrade Bron shows in his book that the Five-Year Plan, now in its second year, has more than attained its industrial objectives, has fallen somewhat short in persuading the stubborn Russian peasant to plant as much seed as the Government wishes, to sell it at the price fixed by the Government, and to espouse with proper enthusiasm the Government's program of "collective farms" (TIME. Oct. 21, et seq.). Nevertheless 10,530,000 acres are now under collective cultivation.