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    "label": "Memorandum from Edwin Locke to President Harry S. Truman",
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    "title": "Memorandum from Edwin Locke to President Harry S. Truman",
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    "ocrText": "- 18 -\n3.\nWidespread corruption. Official corruption is of\ncourse an old story in China. It is especially hard to eliminate\nbecause of the institutional quality which it has taken on as\na\nresult of centuries of \"squeeze\". Government salaries in\nmany cases are so small that government employees cannot\nexist without supplementing their incomes by whatever means\ncome to hand; and political graft is taken for granted among\nthem. The people, I was told, are becoming increasingly indignant\nas they see government and Kuomintang officials fattening their\npurses at the public expense, and without even providing efficient\nadministration in return. I heard indignation particularly\ndirected at provincial and municipal officials who, starved for\npolitical spoils during the war years, have now descended on\nthe liberated provinces and cities like hungry locusts.\nThe Generalissimo has indicated his determination to bring\nabout needed political reforms in China. For example, in establishing\nthe Supreme Economic Council he promised the people that corrupt\nofficials would be sought out, removed from the government and severely\npunished for their crimes. Moral reform would certainly help China\ngreatly. But China's primary need is for far-reaching action by\nthe Central Government not only to reform but to transform itself\ninto a government representative of the people and working for the true\ninterests of the people."
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