 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? They are CBS News Correspondents Larry Lassur and Robert Trout. Our distinguished guest for this evening is the Honorable John J. Spockman, United States Senator from Alabama. What we've been able to gather on Chronoscope in the past few weeks, the congressional emphasis in the next year will be on trying to keep this country at its present high level of economic prosperity. Our guest tonight, the Democratic candidate for Vice President in 1952, will be the chairman of the Joint Congressional Economic Committee. Senator Spockman, do you think there's anything out of line with the economy right now? How about the stock market, for example? Well, Larry, let me say, of course, it would be pretty difficult at any time to say that everything was in line. Some things are out of line, of course, and the stock market, I think, is one of them. Generally speaking, we have a reasonable degree of stability, but the stock market has been acting up here of late. And frankly, I don't know what causes it. Well, do you think it's running ahead of prospects for business in the coming years, sir? Larry, the thing about it, it's been jumpy. It has gone up unusually fast, spurty, and I think that is something that, well, I don't know what it means. I think it's something we ought to watch pretty carefully. Do you actually mean that Congress should set up a new committee to look into it? Oh, no, no, no, no, no. No, I would not have Congress set up a new committee. There are ample committees already with jurisdiction, or there are committees with ample jurisdiction, the Banking and Currency Committee, the Finance Committee, the Joint Economic Committee. Anyone of them could look into it. Well, Senator Sparklin, this has been a year when big businesses seem to get bigger. They merge with a lot of smaller businesses. Do you think that this is a healthy sign for the economy? No, I do not. I think it's something that might very well be a danger signal. We get a stronger economy and a better economy by having a multitude of smaller businesses rather than having a concentration of big businesses only. Senator, what is a big business? What's a small business? I'm never quite sure. That's about the hardest definition in the world. In fact, I'm not sure that anyone has ever given a satisfactory definition. Back during the war, the Defense Department set up an arbitrary definition of small business to the effect that any business was a small business if it and its affiliates or associates did not employ more than 500 persons. Now, that's a pretty broad definition. I think about the best definition I ever heard was one that was given, I believe, by former Senator Benton of Connecticut. He said any business that wasn't able to maintain its own representative in Washington was a small business. Senator Sparklin, do you think small businesses are going to do well next year? Is this going to be a coming year of very tough competition? Larry, a small business has been having a pretty hard time now for some time. These mergers are just one thing that you mentioned. I'm hopeful that Congress will enact some legislation that will make it easier for small business. I hope there will be a careful checking into this movement of mergers, monopoly, and restrictive practices of that kind. And then I think something ought to be done positively for small business. By the way, I'll remind you that President Eisenhower in announcing his program a few days ago indicated that he would advocate some such remedial legislation for the benefit of small business. Well, that'll have to start in your committee, though, Senator, won't it next time? That's true. The Banking and Currency Committee is the committee that has legislative jurisdiction. I am a member of that committee. How about the well-known consumer, Senator Sparklin, how are we going to make out? Is this going to be a period of stable prices or are they going to go up, too? I hope that it'll be a period of stable prices. Things are pretty stable right now. And if we can maintain the present stability, the consumer will not be too badly cult. Well, Senator Sparklin is a member of the Foreign Relations Committee. Are you satisfied with the way that the administration conducted our foreign relations in the past couple of years? Well, you know, I'm a great believer in bipartisan foreign policy or, as Senator Vandenberg used to say, non-partisanship in foreign policy. And I don't like to say something that might sound partisan with reference to foreign policy. I have said this many times, and I think I'm correct in it, that unfortunately our friends in the Republican Party made the foreign policy a political issue in 1952. You remember, they promised that people something new and dynamic. Now, they tried to deliver on that for about the first 15 months or 18 months of the administration. And they got us into hot water a good many times. And we actually lost the initiative back about the time of the trouble in Indochina when it broke, then the Berlin Conference and then the Geneva Conference. But finally, I think we regained the initiative, and I'd say that for the last two or three months or so, we've been doing very well. You think we'll have a bipartisan foreign policy or a nonpartisan, Senator? I hope we'll have, either you want to call it, I hope it will be completely bipartisan or nonpartisan. That means that the Democrats will be willing to take off as well as the crashes? Yeah, you mean be in on the take off as well as the crashes. That is correct. Yes, a prior consultation, I think, is probably a good way to state it. Well, Senator Sparkman, you Democrats have always been known as big spenders. How do you feel about these proposed financial programs for Asia, so-called Marshall or Stassen plans? Well, you know, we haven't been given much on that program. A lot of it has come as rumor, and then somebody would come along and deny it. I don't mind stating my own views. It was indicated at first that we were going to have a Marshall plan for Asia. You know, a Marshall plan for Europe was fine, because we were dealing there with nations that had a high productive level prior to the war. They had the machinery and the equipment and the trained personnel with which to do the job. Now, in Asia and the underdeveloped countries of the world, that's not true. They don't have the techniques and the skills and the plants and the equipment. So when you talk about a Marshall plan, if you're thinking the kind of a plan we had in Europe, it just won't work in those countries. I'll tell you in a few words what I think will work. That is a good, active point for program. Sharing skills and techniques with those people. Using those skills and techniques to find out what programs of economic development might be worthwhile. And then having some kind of a loan and grant program to help those countries with an economic development within their own country. That kind of a program will work. You Democrats seem to be getting more and more moderate now. Oh, no, we've always advocated that kind of a program. Well, I'd like to ask you, since we've seen in the previous presidential campaigns that it's very difficult for a southerner to actually become a national figure. Do you think it is possible for a conservative southerner to move north and become a national presidential nominee? Well, Larry, I might say facetiously I can't conceive of a southerner moving north. But getting back to your question, I have never felt that the geography out to bar a person from eligibility on the national ticket, I just won't concede that a southerner hasn't as much right there as a man from any other section of the country. Well, what about the prospects of a liberal northerner moving south, we'll say, then, and becoming the nominee of the entire south? I just don't go along with you about the moving from one section to another in order to become a candidate. I don't think a man ought to be barred by reason of his living in any particular section of the country. Well, Senator, you, in 1952, before you were nominated for the Vice Presidency, you ran Senator Richard Russell's campaign, didn't you, in Chicago? Yes, I was supporting Senator Russell. Well, Senator Sparkman, since you were, of course, the Vice Presidential candidate in 1952, what do you think metasses for the same ticket running again, you and Adelaide, for 1956? Well, Larry, let me say this, I'm very strong for Governor Stevenson for 1956, and I think he will be our candidate. Now, as you know, good many factors enter into the selection of Vice President. You try to balance the ticket. I have no idea what the requirements may be in 1956 or in what way it needs to be balanced or anything. You just don't run for Vice President. I'm certainly for Governor Stevenson, for our presidential candidate, and I believe he will be it. Well, actually, Senator Sparkman, you said before that you objected to people from any region not being able to represent the whole country nationally, but it certainly was true. A formula was erected in Chicago where a liberal northerner or a moderate northerner and a liberal southerner yourself made up the Democratic ticket. And won't the formula be the same in 1956 as it was in 1952? Well, it could be or it could... Other factors may enter into it by that time. I don't know what the issues will be or we don't know who will be on the other ticket, the Republican ticket that might serve to balance that, don't you see? I see what you mean, sir. Thank you very much, Senator Sparkman, for coming up here tonight and talking to us. Well, I've enjoyed being with you. The opinions expressed on the Longeen Chronoscope were those of the speakers. The editorial board for this edition of the Longeen Chronoscope was Larry LeSerre and Robert Trout. Our distinguished guest was the Honorable John J. Sparkman, the United States Senator from Alabama. An important contribution which Longeen watchmakers have made to the science of timing was to originate the idea that sports events should be timed with identical watches of known and proven accuracy. Now, to implement this idea, Longeen created a series of new watches, accurate second by second, which timed to a fifth, a tenth, and a hundredth of a second. In observatory tests, these watches show a degree of accuracy greater than that required by all international sports and contest associations for timing world records. The investment of millions of dollars and years of time in the development of ever-finally timepieces has resulted in new watchmaking principles and methods that have made it possible to give greater accuracy and dependability to all Longeen watches, including the Longeen watch which you now wear on your wrist. 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