 It's time for the Lawn Jean Chronoscope, a television journal of the important issues of the hour brought to you every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, a presentation of the Lawn Jean Wittner Watch Company, maker of Lawn Jean, the world's most honored watch, and Wittner, distinguished companion to the world-honored Lawn Jean. Good evening. This is Frank Knight. May I introduce our co-editors for this edition of the Lawn Jean Chronoscope? Larry Lasser, CBS News Correspondent, and John B. Oakes from the editorial board of the New York Times. Our distinguished guest for this evening is the Honorable A.S. Mike Panroni, United States Senator from Oklahoma. Politics, like life, of course, is unpredictable. But as far as we can look ahead right now, we're going to be hearing about at least three issues in the next year. And they are taxes, farm prices, and power. That is, of course, if the foreign situation leaves us alone. Now, our guest tonight is one of the most experienced legislators in Congress, so I'd like to ask Senator Manroni. Since we've been arming a lot of countries abroad, Senator Manroni, do you think this is going to ease the tension overseas? Frankly, I believe we can ease some tensions by following out the NATO policy and arming Western Europe, our firm and old allies. I think this business of passing machine guns to every hot and top, and to try and place vast amounts of military equipment in the hands of Asians. Or in the Near East is very dangerous. I think you might start wars instead of prevent them in that way. Well, Senator, how do you feel about this so-called Marshall Plan or Stassen Plan for Asia? Do you go along with that? Well, I feel definitely there is a plan that needs to be given to Asia. I think we've got to win the hearts and minds of Asians to what democracy really means. And I'm afraid that if they're talking in terms of the Marshall Plan, in terms of multi-billion dollar projects with industrial development and with balance of payments and things of that kind, then you're going to get into an expensive operation that will do no good to winning the peasants and the people who have suffered so long from starvation and disease there. I think we need something else. Well, Senator, you don't sound as though you're a believer in the bipartisanship that we've been hearing so much about in the realm of foreign policy. Well, I think in bipartisanship, the Democrats should have a right to suggest some of the means as well as the Republicans and the administration. And by that, just because President Truman proposed Point 4, I don't think it should be reduced as it was last year. I think Point 4, to expand that, to help people to help themselves, to show them how to raise more food, to eliminate malaria and cholera and diseases, to help them on agricultural methods by replacing the wooden plow with the steel-pointed plow, is the way to get at this situation in Asia. Senator, speaking of the Far East, Senator Wiley has said that if the Chinese communists don't release those 11 airmen of ours that they're holding, he thinks we should go back to the United Nations and ask for the use of force. Can you go along with that? Well, I would rather see us trust the United Nations at this time. They're working on it. There's been a conference scheduled. And to go to the conference table with six shooters on their hip is not the way to resolve these things. I think it's despicable. The violation of international law for them to hold men in uniform has spied. But I think we should exhaust every single means possible, short of force, to get them returned to this country. And I feel sure we will. To get back a moment to the bipartisanship question, Senator, do you think that the President will actually be able to achieve what he is trying to achieve in this sphere of consultation prior to decision making? I believe so, Mr. Oaks, definitely. That if he sincerely wants bipartisanship, then democratic views on whether it should be vast billions or whether it should be a self-help program is subject to bipartisan discussion. And by discussing it, we may find that we do have a bipartisan foreign policy. But this doesn't apply to domestic policy. No, indeed. I think there'll be plenty of issues domestically before we finish these next two years. What do you conceive the main ones to be? Well, I think the farm issue will be one of the principal issues there that you're facing pretty hard times in the agricultural areas already. And when you find weak legislated downward by 56 cents a bushel when the Benson plan becomes fully operative, you're going to find bad business in small rural towns and bigger towns. Senator Moroni, you're obviously a supporter of rigid 90% parity, but what are we going to do with all these surpluses on the major commodities? Are they running out of our years right now? Well, we have piled up some, but bear in mind that we have cut the production down. These farmers voted to cut the production down. That's right, and your crops are reduced. Your acreage is reduced by about a third. If your acreage is reduced enough and you have a normal crop, then you will not pile up these vast surpluses in your five basic commodities that are supported by rigid. The rest have always been flexible. Nobody proposes they'd be anything else but flexible. But on your cotton, corn, wheat, peanuts, and tobacco, those are rigid. And the 90% support has brought prosperity to the farm community on those basic commodities. Is this the biggest political issue in your part of the country, Senator? I think it's the biggest political issue outside of your metropolitan centers, particularly after you cross the mountains. The big one in the metropolitan centers, too. Well, that's right. Considering the cost, we pay for food. Well, but did you see that Senate report of last week where, although the price supports on dairy have gone down, lowered by Benson from 90 to 75, that the consumers are paying more for dairy products now than they were before the reduction? Well, shouldn't there be some sort of investigation to find out why the farmers are losing money and the consumers are spending more for food? Well, it goes into transportation and processing. Your processing clients have shown larger profits this past year. Than they have in the past. Incidentally, Senator Ronner, you were active, I recall, in drafting the government reorganization bill back in 1946. Well, we're almost 10 years of past since then. Are you completely satisfied with the way that's worked out practically? No, indeed not. We realized only about 50% of the goal that Senator LaFollette and I had in mind. We did improve a considerable number of things in the Congress. We have run onto one bad mistake that I feel we made. And that was in giving the investigating powers to standing committees instead of to select special committees, which had to be established or reestablished every two years. When we give them to permanent standing committees, you have no way of ending the investigation or transferring it to other people, other committees. And I think we need to do something about that to put the power back in the Senate over its agents because our committees and investigations are the agents of the full Senate. Well, do you feel that is why the Senate subcommittee on investigations ran away with the whole situation, the McCarthy committee? Well, I think it ran away because of a runaway chairman. But bear in mind, the Senate had no way of dealing with that committee procedures. Well, excuse me. If you had amended the law, would you think this would have avoided the whole Senator McCarthy episode and the necessity to call a special session? Well, I don't think it would in that case because it had gone too far. But I do think the mechanics of our Senate rules were wrong in that we couldn't discharge the special committee from investigations over which it had no jurisdiction. By that, I mean that the Foreign Relations Committee should have investigated the voice of America and the overseas information service instead of Mr. Cohen and Shine. Yeah, they did. They did at the same time. Yeah. But nobody ever heard about that because Cohen and Shine were running over all the face of Europe and grabbing the headlines. Is the Senate really going to do something about this committee situation, this session for years, various proposals have been made? Are they really going to do something now? Well, I definitely feel, John, that they are going to, one, give us a code of ethics that unfair play for Senate investigations. But that will do no good if you've got a willful chairman that doesn't pay any attention to him because he's the judge who has to administer this code of ethics. So I think the Senate itself should have a weapon so that we can discharge that committee from that investigation and transfer it to another standing committee that has a better jurisdiction and a better understanding. Mrs. May Boomerang, against the Democrats since they are in a majority in Congress, should you want to spend a long time investigating, we'll say, power like the Dixon Yates bill. On incidentally, on that subject, the chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, Mr. Stroz, has said that he now regrets that Dixon Yates negotiated with the Atomic Energy Commission instead of with the TVA, but he feels the bill is ideal otherwise. Do you share his regrets and his feeling that it's ideal? Well, I don't share that at all. And I think that that's going to be debated a great deal in this coming Congress, because we still think it's special privilege and it's a bad deal for the government. But worse than that, I think Admiral Stroz is right that using the Atomic Energy Commission as a dummy to a contract breaks down the independent status of the Atomic Energy Commission whose job it is to keep us ahead of the world on atomic and hydrogen development. I'd like to ask you about a political dilemma, if you will answer, Senator. And that is that if the Democrats in control of Congress build up a good record this session, both that were down to the benefit of the Republican administration in 1956, and doesn't this happen when you have a split? Yeah, but that's a problem I guess we have to face. I think the Democrats would choose to look like a responsible political party rather than an irresponsible political party. I believe that was why the Republicans stayed in the minority so long that their opposition to the president was so great and so blind that the people just got the idea that the Republican party was irresponsible. We were a responsible party of opposition in the last two years and supported the president many times better than his own party. But I still think we can find plenty of issues on which honest men can differ and we can take our points to the public in a campaign. You Democrats seem to be getting more conservative every day now. You're not going to spend vast money on martial plans. But tell me this, Senator Monroni, of all the issues that are bound to come up, as far as you can see ahead now, domestic issues, we'll say. Which one do you think is going to be the most important in the forthcoming year? Well, undoubtedly, I think the means to maintain national prosperity is going to be one of the principal issues. How we go about that, there'll be many arguments, whether it's farm price supports, whether it's a maintained annual wage, whether it is amendments for the Taft-Hartley bill, whether it's improved unemployment compensation, whether it's lower interest rates or government lending, all of these things will be fully discussed. But I believe your national prosperity will be the key issue in this campaign on domestic policy. Thank you very much, Senator Monroni. Well, thank you, Mr. Sears. It's a pleasure to be here with you. The opinions expressed on the Laun Jean Chronoscope were those of the speakers. The editorial board for this edition of the Laun Jean Chronoscope was Larry Lecer and John D. Oaks. Our distinguished guest was the Honorable A.S. Mike Monroni, United States Senator from Oklahoma. To give a Laun Jean watch this Christmas is to give just about the finest watch made anywhere in the world. Made to the unique standards of excellence which have won for Laun Jean, 10 World's Fair Grand Prizes, 28 gold medals, highest honors for accuracy in fields of precise timing. For a lady, there are superb examples of the jewelers art such as these. Made in the traditional Laun Jean manner, they're exclusive in style, exquisite in taste, and uncomfortable in timekeeping. There's a Laun Jean watch for every personality, one suitable for every occasion. For a man, the variety of Laun Jean watches is equally extensive. There are watches for dress and sport, many self-winding. There are Laun Jean waterproof and shock resistant watches for rugged service. Laun Jean Chronograph watches for sportsmen and for scientists. Yes, to give a Laun Jean watch this Christmas is to give just about the finest watch made anywhere in the world. Yet, your jeweler can show you many models of Laun Jean watches priced as low as 7150. Laun Jean, the world's most honored watch. The world's most honored Christmas gift. Premier product of the Laun Jean Wittner watch company since 1866. Maker of watches of the highest character. This is Frank Knight reminding you that Laun Jean and Wittner watches are sold and serviced from coast to coast by more than 4,000 leading jewelers who proudly display this emblem. Agency for Laun Jean Wittner watches. You're cordially invited to see the sixth annual Laun Jean Wittner Christmas Festival, an hour of story and song, presenting Michelle Piastro, Eugene Lowell, the Laun Jean symphonet and the corollaires and our special guests, Miss Judith Anderson and Mr. Monty Woolley, distinguished stars of the American stage. On this station, Christmas afternoon, the Laun Jean Wittner Christmas Festival.