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By JOHN L. SPRINGER
AP Newsfeature Writer
One word—Communism—dominated IfifiO. Its
menace over-shadowed all others in this mid-year
of the 20th Century
From the first days of 1050 to the last, threats
of Communism enveloped the earth. Eyary day,
they affected Americans more and more in their
thoughts, their work, their prayers.
In January, we could still debate the issue.
Should we step onto Formosa and aid the Chinese
Nationalists make a last-ditch defense against the
Reds who had overrun, their mainland? Twelve
months later, in December, the issue was real.
Weary Americans were retreating south in bomb-
pocked Korea to avoid massacre by the overwhelm
ing Red horde thrown against them from Manchur
ia.
Between those two months, Americans grimly
awakened to the fact that relations with Com
munism’s Motherland—Russia—fast were approach
ing crisis.
How Cold War Turned Hot
It was still the cold war that fateful morning
on June 25 when sharply-trained North Korean
Reds crossed the line, plunged past the 38th paral
lel and the defenses of the stunned South Koreans.
JAN. 5—President Truman backs Secretary of
State Acheson on hands-off policy in Fonnosa.
JAN. 7—37 women perish as fire sweeps mental
ward of Iowa hospital.
JAN. 9—Chinese Nationalist warships shell the
blockade-running U.S. freighter, Flying Arrow.
JAN. 14—U.S. orders all American official per
sonnel out of China.
JAN. 1.6—Soviet Union walks out of U.N. meet
ings when it fails to get Nationalist China expelled.
JAN. 17—Robbers take $1,500,000 in holdup of
Brinks, Boston.
< JAN. 31—Tinman orders Atomic Energy Com
mission to develop the hydrogen bomb.
FEB. 2—Ingrid Bergman gives birth to son.
FEB. 14—Russia and Red China sign 30-year
Treatv of Friendship.
FEB. 22—-Labor Party ekes out slim victory in
British election.
MARCH 4—United Mine Workers sign contract
ending 27-day strike of 370,000 coal miners.
MARCH 7—Judith Coplon and Valentin A. Gub-
itchev found guilty of conspiracy and attempted es
pionage.
MARCH 9—Dr. Herman N. Sander acquitted of
“mercy-killing” murder in Manchester court.
MARCH 15—House, by vote of 368 to 2, passes
administration bill to tighten laws covering espion
age, sabotage and subversion.
MARCH 26—Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, in
campaign against alleged Communists in govern
ment, says Owen J. Lattimore is Russia’s top secret
agent in the U.S.
MARCH 31—House passes $3,102,450,000 foreign
aid bill after approving Truman’s Point Four pro
gram.
APRIL 6—Lattimore replies that McCarthy is
“base and contemptible liar.”
APRIL 11—Soviet reports American plane “dift-
appeared” after brush with Russian fighter planes
oyer Latvia.
APRIL 18—U.S. accuses Russia of shooting down
unarmed American plane over the. Baltic Sea outside
Soviet territorial waters.
MAY 4—Hundred-day old strike of 89,000 United
Auto Workers ends against Chrysler.
MAY 13—Big Three foreign ministers announce
program to relax controls in Germany gradually.
MAY 15—U.N. Secretary General Trygve Lie
climaxes peace mission to Moscow with 90-minute
talk with Stalin.
MAY 18—Twelve foreign ministers of North At
lantic Treaty Council agree that security lies in
“balanced collective forces.”
MAY 19—Million pounds of mines and dynamite
blast South Amboy, N.J., in munitions barge explo
sion.
MAY 23—Auto Workers and General Motors
agree on new contract to run for an unprecedented
length of five years.
MAY 25—Congress approves $3,121,450,000 for
eign aid bill.
JUNE 20—Senate passes Social Security expan
sion bill to cover additional 10,000,000.
JUNE 25—North Korean Communists cross 38th
Parallel to invade South Korea.
JUNE 25—Soviet-boycotted U.N. Security Coun
cil tells North Koreans to “cease hostilities” and
Withdraw invasion forces.
JUNE 27—U.N. Security Council asks U.N.
members to supply military aid to South Korea;
President Truman orders U.S. forces into action and
sends 7th Fleet to protect Formosa against Chinese
Communists.
JUNE 30—President authorizes Gen. MacArthur
to use sea, ground and air forces against Korea.
JULY 5—American combat units overrun by
North Koreans in first contact.
JULY 12—U.N. forces fall back behind Kum
River.
JULY 18—Truman orders credit restrictions on
housing in move against inflation.
JULY 19—Truman proposes vast rearmament
program to help beat back Reds.
JULY 21—Americans lose temporary South Ko
rean capital of Taejon.
JULY 25—Truman calls on Congress to increase
individual and corporation income taxes by $5,000,-
000,000 a year.
JULY 29—Hwanggan falls to North Kroean Reds
as Lt. Gen. Walton H. Walker, U. S. 8th Army Com
mander, issues stand-or-die order.
JULY 31—First American reinforcements direct
from U.S. land at South Korea.
AUG. 1—Soviet Union returns to U.N. Security
Council with Soviet Deputy Malik in chair. At
tempt to oust Nationalist China defeated.
AUG. 7—U.S. Marines and Army launch first
major offensive in Korea.
AUG. 21—U.S. combat team blocks bloody attack
on Taegue; 15,000 Reds killed or wounded in three
days.
AUG. 25—Truman orders government seizure of
railroads to avert nation-wide strike.
SEPT. 10—New National Production Authority
set up under William Henry Harrison with sweep
ing powers to channel essential materials to war
industries.
SEPT. 12—Secretary of Defense Louis A. John
son resigns; Gen. George C. Marshall named his
successor.
SEPT. 15—Marines and Army troops land in
Inchon and drive toward Seoul, as U.N. troops
press attacks in south.
SEPT. 19—Opening session of 1950 U.N. General
Assembly defeats Indian and Russian resolution to
oust Nationalist China delegates and invite Red
China in.
SEPT. 26—MacArthur announecs liberation of
Seoul.
OCT. 10—Federal Reserve Board announces se
vere restrictions on new home mortgages.
OCT. 15—Tinman and MacArthur in three hour
talk at Wake Island.
' OCT. 26—South Koreans reach Yalu River, boun
dary line between Korea and Red China.
It was still the cold war when representatives of
the United Nations hurriedly conferred to meet
the crisis. It was still the cold war, too, U. N.
members feebly hoped, when American troops raced
up from Japan in a “police action” to put down
the aggressors.
But as American casualties mounted—above
those of the War of 1812, the Mexican War, and
the Spanish-American War, above all but four wars
in the nation’s history—no one could longer doubt
that the heat was on. We had come to armed grips
with Communism; when the fight would cease, or
how, no one dared to forecast.
Invasion and Aggression
At first, it looked like just another of the bor
der skirmishes the North and South Koreans had
been having since their country was divived at the
38th Parallel in a postwar settlement. But this
time the Reds did not fire a few shots and retreat.
“We’re repelling an invasion,” they said,
straight-faced, as the United Nations Security Coun
cil in a dramatic emergency session warned them
to cease hostilities and withdraw their forces. Then
the Council asked all U. N. members to supply
South Korea with military aid
President Truman ordered U. S. air and sea
forces into action. He sent the Seventh Fleet from
Philippine waters to defend Formosa. He author-
OCT. 31—Communist troops identified as part of
Chinese Red army attack U.N. positions in Korea.
NOV. 1—Attempt to assassinate President Tru
man foiled.
NOV. 3—U.N. General Assembly adopts “veto-
proof” plan to act against aggressors.
NOV. 6—MacArthur denounces Chinese interven
tion in Korea.
NOV. 7—Election gives Democrats slim margin
in Senate and House.
NOV. 9—MacArthur’s headquarters report strong
forces of Chinese Communists army have entered
Korean war.
NOV. 16—Communist forces pull back; Truman
assures Chinese Reds U.S. seeks to avoid extending
war.
NOV. 22—Seventy-eight killed in Long Island
Rail Road wreck at Richmond Hill, N.Y.
NOV. 24—MacArthur announces launching of a
“win the war” offensive.
NOV. 25—Gales and rain ravage east while bliz
zards cripple midwest.
NOV. 27—Chinese Reds come to U.N. to charge
U.S. aggression.
NOV. 28—Chinese Reds beat back U.N. forces;
MacArthur says they create a “new war.”
DEC. 4—Truman and Prime Minister Atlee of
Britain confer on “military disaster” in Korea.
DEC. 5—U.N. forces quit Pyongyang, former
capital of North Korea.
DEC. 8—Truman and Attlee urge China to solve
Korean problems peacefully.
DEC. 10—Marines break out of trap after 13-
day battle around Changjin reservoir.
By NEWS SPECIALISTS OF THE
ASSOCIATED PRESS
This symposium is written by the following
specialists of The Associated Press; J. M.
Roberts, Jr., foreign affairs; Howard W. Blakes-
lee, science; Sam Dawson,.economics; Dorothy
Roe, women; Alexander George, population;
James J. Strebig, aviation; David G. Bareuther,
construction; C. E. Butterfield, television; Gene
Handsaker, movies; Ovid A. Martin, agricul
ture; Ed Creagh, politics; Norman Walker, la
bor; David Taylor Marke, education.
# *
The last half of the 20th Century dawns with
fantastic promises shining through dark clouds.
Amid war and rumors of war, new terrors grip
the world, but hopes and dreams of the future
prevail.
The year 2000 looms nearer in the accelerating
pace of modem life than 1950 ever could have
seemed at the beginning of this century.
If the past i’ortells the future and present trends
point the way, many millions of persons alive today
will live to see peace, prosperity, health, longer life,
more leisure and greater luxuries than ever were
known.
A woman may be President!
These are some of the rewards envisaged for
the year 2000 by Associated Px-ess experts looking
ahead.
Here is how they size up prospects;
Population: Growth Slow
The population of the United States, which rose
from 76,000,000 in 1900 to 150,500,000 in 1950, may
not double again in the next half century. U. S.
Census Bureau experts doubt that it will reach
300,000,000 by the year 2000, but they are not haz
arding predictions that far ahead.
Population may reach 200,000,000 before the end
of the century and will keep on increasing well into
the 21st century.
While population' doubled in the last half cen
tury, it more than tripled in the previous 50 years
between 1850 and 1900. Between 1800 and 1850, it
had more than quadrupled.
Three shifts in U.S. population that have been
tremendous in the past 10 years are epected to keep
going strong. These are:
Movement of people from farms to town, migra
tion from the center of the countiy to border states,
particularly the Pacific coast and the South, and the
movement of city dwellers to the suburbs. These
trends will be further stimulated by industrial pro
duction needed for the new, long-range defense pro
gram and by farm mechanization.
World Affairs: Price of Peace
Students of history in the year 2000 will prob
ably look back on the 20th century as the era of
blood and money.
Blood because the earth will still be reeking
from the third world war.
Money, representing the material resources of the
western world, because it will have outweighed the
unfulfilled promises of Russian imperialistic Com
munism in unifying the world, or at least will be
on the way to that end.
More importantly, but bearing on both, will be
the recognition that a new world unifying power—
the United States—will have taken its place in the
center of international affairs; forging a new “em
pire,” different from Britain’s, different from
ized Gen. Douglas MacArthur, occupier of Japan,
to bomb military targets in North Korea and to
use ground forces and establish a naval blockade
of the entire Korean coast.
But help proved slow, Using modem equipment
bearing Moscow’s label, the North Koreans swept
down the peninsula. On July 5, the first American
combat uuits went into action. They were overrun
by 40 North Korean tanks in fighting south of
Suwon. A week later they fell back behind the Kum
River. Soon they were striving desperately to de
fend a narrow beachhead around Pusan, the coun
try’s major port.
The battle of the build-up began: And the
Yankees won. By August they annihilated a Red,
regiment trying to break through to Pusan. By
mid-September they were ready for their big of
fensive. While MacArthur’s troops hammered for a
break-through in the south, he made a master
gamble. He sent 262 ships and 40,000 fighting men
north to Inchon, far behind the Communist lines.
The gamble won.
Troops raced for Kimpo airfields, then up to
South Korea’s capital at Seoul. Others roared
south to meet the Cavalry moving up from. Pusan.
Thousands of Communists were caught in Mac
Arthur’s trap.
The police action became an offensive. U. N.
forces chased the Reds to the Parallel and beyond.
The troops, it seemed, would be out of the trench
es by Christmas. Prestige of the U. N. was never
higher.
The Hordes From Manchuria
Then China’s Communists intervened.
They first appeared as the U. N. troops neared
the Manchurian border in October. Then, myster
iously, they pulled back into the mountains.
On Nov. 16, Truman reassured the Chinese
Reds the United States would take every honorable
step to avoid extending the war. The next day the
Peiping radio replied: “The Chinese people are not
deceived by what they see through this curtain of
lies and bellicosity ”
Despite this danger signal, American troops con
tinued to thrust to the Manchurian border. Mac-
Arthur flew to the front and announced a general
assault which “should for all practical purposes
end the war, restore peace and unity to Korea, en
able the prompt withdrawal of United Nations
military forces and permit the complete assumption
by the Korean people and nation of full sover
eignty and international equality.”
Wu Hsiu-chuan, head of the Chinese Red dele
gation, came to the United Nations meeting in
New York to charge U. S. aggression. But the
offensive proved more than a diplomatic one.
In waves, thousands of Chinese hurled them
selves against the Allies. Like locusts they poured
out of Manchuria, and behind them lay millions
more.
It was a new war ... a war, said MacArthur,
whose issues must be solved “within the councils
of the United Nations and the chancelleries of the
world.”
While the chancelleries stirred, the Allies retreat
ed grimly. For 13 days, in a battle that will rank
with the most despei’ate in their annals, the
Marines fought their way out of a trap around the
Changjin reservoir. The bulk of the U. N. forces
went south of the parallel, seeking to build up a
new defense.
Rome’s, indeed not an empire at all in the old sense,
but nevertheless a new core, a new catalytic force.
This central position of the United States will
grow out of its already-demonstrated willingness to
base its relations with other nations on a community
of interest; out of its capabilities for lending aid to
the underdeveloped out of its refusal to divide the
world after World War II, into spheres of influence
for the benefit of the great powers.
The Third World War—barring such a miracle
as has never yet occurred in relations between coun
tries so greatly at odds—will grow out of Russia’s
exactly opposite attempts to unify the world by
force.
By the year 2000 some sort of world federation
idea should have taken real form, with the United
States, because of its commercial interest in the
development of other lands, because of the blood it
will have shed in their behalf, holding a lot of votes.
% % %
Science: A Man-Made Planet
The first man-made star will be circling around
the earth by the yfar 2000.
This star’s light will be like that of the moon, re
flected sunshine. It will be visible before sunrise
and after sunset. It will circle 400 to 500 miles
away from earth, or possibly farther.
This little planet is likely to be the first of the
space ships, because there are a lot of practical rea
sons for building it, regardless of the future of in
terplanetary travel. It will be the nose of a step-
rocket, one which fires in sections, each part drop
ping off to fall back to earth, until the final piece
attains the speed of seven miles a second. At that
velocity the end piece will not fall back, but will be
come a satellite of earth.
Practical uses are numerous. One is a radar bea
con. Another to reflect radio signals, for scientific
study. Three of these small ships, high enough and
evenly spaced around the earth might become relays
to serve the entire world with television.
The first ship is unlikely to be manned. But it
may get power enough from the sun’s heat to drive
electronic equipment indefinitely.
In 2,000 we shall be able to fly around the world
in a day. We shall be neighbors of evei-yone else
on earth, to whom we wish to be neighborly.
The atomic age should be getting under way.
Atomic power will become useful in those areas
where coal and oil are expensive and where water
power is not available.
* * *
Medicine: Longer Life Span
Medicine by the year 2000 will have advanced the
length of life of women to an expectation of nearly
80 and men to over 75.
The record will be better if the cause and cure
of cancer is discovered. Cancer is a form of growth.
It is part of metabolism. Concerning growth, noth
ing is now known. Metabolism is not such a com
plete mystery, but is complex. Most of the chronic
diseases, except infections caused by germs and vir
uses, are based on metabolism gone wrong.
Growth, metabolism and cancer studies will make
the first break into clearing another mystery, the
causes of aging. After that is known it will be pos
sible to control aging so that elderly persons will
be healthy to nearly the end of their lives.
Hope is very good for restricting cancer’s at
tack before 50 more years, but not for eradicating
it. For it now appears that cancer is not a single
disease, but takes manv forms.
The prevention of baldness depends on studies of
growth, aging and death mone than on any other
now known factor.
These events in faraway Korea produced deep and
wide-reaching effects in America When the first
U. S. troops stepped upon Korean soil, historians
may truly say, an old way of life—an easy-going
way of life—ended.
Let headlines sketch the changing pattern:
“Truman Authorizes Armed Forces to Draft Men
and Call Up Reserves.”
“RFC to Reactivate Synthetic Rubber Plants.”
“New York City Maps Plans for Evacuation.”
“Truman Asks Vast Rearmanent Program, Ten
Billion in New Defense Funds.”
“Congress to Boost Individual and Corporation
Income Taxes.”
The President said it:
“The world responsibilities of the United States
have become heavy. Clearly, they will become still
heavier before the united efforts' of the free nations
of th world produce a lasting peace.”
The battered, bruised and beraggled cost of
living index took another pounding as an early
effect of war. Almost immediately, their mem
ories of World War II shortages still keen, many
persons raced to strip their grocer’s shelves of
sugar and soap. “It’s like the week before Christ
mas jammed into a day,” groaned a clerk in an
electrical appliance store.
As the military outlook brightened, scare buy
ing subsided. Prices did not.
Americans paid more for meat and bread, for
cocoa and cotton. Gone (forever?) was the nickel
cup of coffee. The price of suits went up. Washing
machines cost 10 per cent more Auto makers
posted new advances. That postwar phenomenon,
the nickel candy bar that actually sold for a nickel,
proved short-lived. The price went up again to
six cents. The list was endless: cigarettes and car
peting, beefsteak and beer, sofas and shoeshines.
The Inflationary Spiral
Along with prices, wages took another turn on
the inflationary whirl. Detroit’s auto workers won
“voluntary” pay increases and General Motors
signed an unprecedented five year contracts. As
defense spending gradually grew—by November it
was at the rate of 50 million dollars a day—rriany
industries began scrambling for labor. Partial mob
ilization took men under 25 out of industry, and older
workers found that they could demand—and get—
working conditions reminiscent of the 1941 defense
days. West Coast aircraft plants eyed the east
for skilled mechanics, and the “labor recruiter” re
turned to high favor.
That hardy bedfellow of world crisis, the na
tional debt, like-wise fattened. Soon after the Ko
rean invasion, the President asked Congress for an
other 10 billion dollars for military needs, and no
one doubted that this was but the beginning of a
new round of spending. Taxpayers felt the pinch
almost immediately. On October 1, a bigger “Pay-
as-you-go” wedge was driven into their paychecks,
and corporation taxes also were increased.
Conti'ols came back. Congress conferees agi’eed
to give Truman a free hand in allocating and es
tablishing priorities for scarce materials needed in
war. To fight off inflation, severe restrictions were
placed on new home mortgages, non-essential
building was drastically curbed, and buyers of new
automobiles found credit terms far stiffer. Buyers
of copper for civilians uses were told to cut their
consumption. By December, businessmen were anti
cipating price and wage controls, and talk of ration
ing became widespread.
Public health will improve, especially the knowl
edge of how air carries infections, like the common
cold, from person to person. Before 2000, the air
probably will be made as safe from disease-spread
ing as water and food were during the first half of
this century.
Surgery, which has been the fastest-moving side
of medical science, will by 2000, be able to repair
bodies damaged by disease, by accidents or by her
edity so that the “lame and the halt” will nearly
disappear. Polio probably will be i stopped well be
fore 2000.
* * *
Economics: New Standards
The nation’s industrial and agricultural plant will
be able to support 300 million persons 50 years from
now—twice the present population. Land now un
productive will be made to yield. Science will stead
ily increase crop production per acre. Technological,
industrial and economic advances will give the
American people living standards eight times as
high as now.
Dr. Harold G. Moulton, president of the Brook
ings Institution, in his book, “Controlling Factors
in Economic Development,” predicts that in the next
century the nation’s expenditures for food will be
eight times what it is now.
The total expended each year for housing will be
16 times the present outlay; for apparel 20 times
more; for health and education 30 times more; and
for recreation and travel 33 times more.
Technical advances will be well distributed
throughout the economy. For example, a housewife
may use an electronic stove and prepare roast beef
in less time than it takes to set the table.
Other economists agree with Dr. Moulton. The
Twentieth Century Fund, looking ahead only 10
years, foresees an American population of 155 mil
lion (a conservative estimate) who, as consumers,
will he spending 159 billion dollai’s a year. By 1960,
they predict, the nation will be putting 45 billion
dollars annually into additional capital goods, for
further expansion of the industrial plant.
* * • *
Air War: New Terrors Ahead
Space will replace speed as air war’s big prob
lem before the world rockets into the year 2000.
Distance between points should have disappeared
as an element of military planning. Optimum speeds
up to the so-called “escape speed” of 25,000 miles
an hour, at which a flying object would sail out of
the earth’s gravitational pull, will be available:
Space for maneuvering will be an important factor,
and scientists will be striving for better control to
pemit use of top speeds.
Long-range military thinkers speak now in terms
of some newer source of propulsion, still undefined
except in such broad terms as simpler, cheaper, uni
versally available, inexhaustible. It may be solar
radiation, atmospheric decomposition or some new
nuclear fission process.
Space platforms, sent out from earth, will end
mid-century’s “iron curtain” era by bringing the en
tire globe under constant surveillance.
The 5,000-mile range intercontinental atmospher
ic missile will be in service long before 2000 A.D.
There likely will be intercontinental ballistic mis
siles, capable of being shot out of the atmosphere
and descending meteor-like on a target.
Guided missiles to seek targets in flight or on
the ground will have been developed to extreme
sensitivity. They will be launched from continuous
Day after day in troubled 1950, some aspect of
the Communist Question produced scare, shock, or
increased determination to do something about it.
Start with January:
• The Chinese Reds were threatening Formosa.
• In international waters off Communist China,
Nationalist warships shelled the blockade-running
U. S. freighter Flying Arrow.
• The U. S. ordered all official personnel out of
China as a result of the Reds’ seizure of the U. S.
Consulate General at Peiping.
• The Russians walked out of U. N. meetings
because they couldn’t get the Nationalist Chinese
out of, and the Communist Chinese into, the or
ganization.
• A federal jury found Alger Hiss guilty of
lying when he denied that he had ever turned secret
State Department documens over to then-Commun-
ist Whittaker Chambers in 1938.
® After much discussion over Russia’s atomic
prowess,, the President decided we must strive to
keep ahead of her. He ordered construction, if pos
sible, of the horrible, holocaust-making H-bomb.
In February, the U. S. broke off relations with
Communist Bulgaria and a Red Hungarian court
sentenced Robert A Voeglar to 15 years in prison
for “spying.” In March, Atomic Scientist Klaus
Fuchs was sentenced to 14 years for spying for
Russia. Former Government Girl Judith Coplon was
found guilty of conspiracy and attempted espionage
for Russia. (The verdict was upset later on tech
nical grounds.)
The McCarthy Story
Then “Communist influences at home” because
big news, as Republican Senator Joseph R. McCar
thy of Wisconsin charged Red infiltration into the
State Department and provoked bitter controver
sy over his charges that Owen J. Lattimore, one
time State Department associate, was “Russia’s top
secret agent” in. the United States. Lattimore flat
ly denied it, Truman called McCarthy a Soviet as
set in the cold war. McCarthy asserted that Tru-
maii, by refusing to open up secret loyalty files,
was giving aid and comfort to the enemy.
The McCarthy story faded out but another Com
munist story was there to burgeon in. An Ameri
can Navy plane, the Privateer, flew over the Baltic
Sea and never returned. The Soviets shot it down.
The Privateer had fired first, they said, while fly
ing over Soviet Latvia. “Untrue,” the U. S. replied.
The plane was unarmed and had flown only outside
Soviet territorial waters. International blood pres
sures rose still more when the Reds rejected Amer
ican protests and replied that they’d do the same
thing again.
Their eyes on Moscow, the foreign ministers of
the “Big Three” (U S., Britain, France) announ
ced they would gradually relax controls in Ger
many and the 12 foreign ministers of the North
Atlantic treaty council accepted the principle that
their “security lies in balanced collective forces.”
Still the outlook was hopeful. On June 1, in fact,
the President could say confidentally that the earth
was nearer to peace than at any time since the end
of World War If.
But even then the Reds were accembling their
forces in North Korea, preparing to plunge into a
war that might spread throughout the globe.
patrol aircraft, able to stay aloft as long as ships
stay at sea. Electronic eyes will eliminate errors in
detection and identification.
An air attack of the next century will he as rel
atively unstoppable as today. Effectiveness of air
borne weapons will have become such that the first
problem will be survival of “round one”-—the initial
attack.
$ *
Women: For President!
The woman of the year 2000 will he an outsize
Diana, anthropologists and beauty experts predict.
She will be more than six feet tall, wear a size 11
shoe, have shoulders like a wrestler and muscles like
a truck driver.
Chances are she will be doing a man’s job, and
for this reason will dress to fit her role. Her hair
will be cropped short, so as not to get in the way.
She probably will wear the most functional clothes
in the daytime, go frilly only after dark.
Slacks probably will be her usual workaday cos
tume. These will be of synthetic fiber, treated to
keep her warm in winter and cool in summer, admit
the beneficial ultra-violet rays and keep out the
burning ones. They will be light weight and equip
ped with pockets for food capsules, which she will
eat instead of meat and potatoes.
Her proportions will he perfect, though Amaz
onian, because science will have perfected a balanced
ration of vitamins, proteins and minerals that will
produce the maimum bodily efficiency, the minimum
of fat.
She will go in for all kinds of sports—probably
will compete with men athletes in football, baseball,
prizefighting and wrestling.
She’ll be in on all the high-level groups of finance,
business and government.
She may even be president.
* * *
Labor: A Short Work Week
There is every reason to believe that the steady
growth of organized labor in the first half of 1950
will continue along the same trend in the scond half
of the century.
Labor developed to where it is today from prac
tically nothing at the beginning of the 20th century.
It’s still in the process of growth. .The various ele
ments and cliques making up the American economy
—labor is just one of them—are learning more and
more that the national security and well-being re
quires them to remain strong and work together.
So as labor comes closer to reaching maturity
it is likely to win greater acceptance from other ele
ments of American life. This in itself would tend to
eliminate some of the great labor-management
struggles and create a smoother-working American
team.
From every indication labor is in politics to stay,
probably playing an expanding role as the years
progress. By the end of the century labor may have
its own party, as is the case in several European
countries.
It’s a good bet, too, that by the end of the cen
tury many government plans now avoided as forms
of socialism will be accepted as commonplace. Who
in 1900 thought that by mid-centry there would be
government-regulated pensions and a work week
limited to 40 hours, a minimum wage, child labor
curbs and unemployment compensation ?
So tell your children not to be surprised if the
year 2000 finds a 35 or even a 30,-hour work week
fixed by law.
The Year, Day-By-Day
Changes Noted In The Next Half Century...
Predictions Of This Nation And Affairs In 2000