Faculty Splits on Truman's State of the Union Speech

Faculty experts were split in their opinions about taxes but generally supported the rest of President Truman's program for the nation as outlined in yesterday's State of the Union message to Congress.

Lamont University Professor Sumner H. Slichter lashed out against Mr. Truman's plan of raising corporation taxes. Said Slichter: "The President's proposal for a $4,000,000,000 increase in taxes is an economic blunder of the first magnitude. The President is apparently unaware that the economic situation of the country has materially changed during the last six months from one of inflation to one in which inflationary and deflationary influences are in rough balance."

Slichter's view was not shared by Alvin H. Hansen, Littauer Professor of Political Economy, and Seymour E. Harris '20, professor of Economics, who stamped full approval on the tax program. Harris rejected the claim that the new tax would curtail industrial expansion dangerously. "Industry has been expanding too rapidly already, and large corporation profits will only aggravate the inflation," he said.

Minimum Wage Hike Backed

Increase of the minimum wage to 75 cents is a long overdue measure and should be passed by Congress without difficulty, Hansen said. "It is a very modest proposal," he said, "and actually the purchasing power of the new minimum wage will be less than that of the 40 percent minimum wage when it was originally passed."

Both Hansen and Harris backed Truman's request for support of farm prices to avert an agricultural depression as supply catches up with demand.

"Can the Nation Afford it?"

Business School Professor of Finance, Dan T. Smith '33, believed business will strongly oppose government subsidies in the steel industry as suggested by Truman. Smith declared that, "on the whole the President's program includes many things which would be socially desirable. The question is can be nation afford it with the financial burdens already on it."

The President's request for changes in the Taft-Harley Act is on the whole sound legislation, according to Benjamin M. Selekman, Kirstein Professor of Labor Relations at the Business School. The major need in labor relations today is a law to prevent strikes on a national scale in vital-industries, Selekman said.