Where the News Ends

...Wha Japan attacked China, when Italy attattal Abyssinia, when the Franco fortes attentat republican Spain, our people had no idea eta) these things mteant to them...

...been lacking among ear Washington chiefs...

...And rf there te one thing that this natter 1 levee hatter than all others it is the qualities of a fighting man...

...We have laughs and thrflk ? those we are thankful Bat if for twenty pan the public had not been treated as s «s> tinentel kindergarten, we should be far tone able now te deal with this difficult world...

...FAILURE OP tNFOtMATMJ| IN the matter of tools for spreading uctattsv * tion the world is far better equipped ma ever before...

...A trade-union where the leader- ' ship la responsible to the rank-and-file and may be displaced by a free election offers infinitely more protection to the interests of its members than a trade-union where the leadership is responsible to a ruling political party...

...If we're to continue as s esa> icratic country it will be seats, ary for us to go mach ftawet Jong the lines of social lefkev ion and controls...

...Thar* ? state s complete lack of straight shooting Hsnfj ever a speaker comes clean with what anstatt and thinks...

...And* vary few in , America, even among our rabid howlers against all bureaucracy, would want to return to the simple agrarian-township society of the day before yesterday, a society where social controls and a large government apparatus were largely unnecessary...

...Armies cannot work psychological and political miracles...

...Then came Sunday's Detroit speech...

...The responsibility of this respected and comparatively conservative organisation is like that of union leaders for strikes...

...He ii sketching in general terms what we must do to get full production and employment after the war...

...During the past four weeks there has -beat a sensational upturn in the Vtee-Presideat'i standing...

...In a superficial sense our great pobtem agencies are doing a magnificent jobTltea, before was there such reporting cf attain, battles, bombings, destruction and moralt TV broadcasts, news reports, moving picturm taj the books following with unexpected presaa...

...We are inclined to think, at least, that it to intention—end Winston Churchill's—to do as much as can be done by military pressure . to remove the fascist way of doing things from conquered ceoacrtes...

...Another illustration was a communication which he published at the time of the fall of Tobruk in the summer of 1942, suggesting that this military defeat was largely the fault of the British economic system...

...Prossens*Beta tag, oa the other hand, speaks like « sssteni rather than aa a representative of tmrw Which one—of these two—represents j American tradition...

...The quality of the act and the quality of the man were emphasised by the sequel...

...Right now Henry A. Wallace is conspicuously at the head of the New Deal forces of this country...

...If the President had sufficient faith in Henry Wallace to appoint him as chief of the Board of Economic Welfare, and Wallace proved his administrative abilities aa Secretary of Agriculture, then it would seem logical that the necessary funds for the important work of the BEW should have been made easily available...

...No country ever has enough really good men...

...Experience has taught us that it is a long way from words to works...

...Since the New Deal originated and was developed in the Democratic Party, it is important that new and strong personalities should be developed there to carry it on...

...He gave the impression that their language and ways of thinking are his own...

...The radio, the newspapers, mj the movies have all within recent yearn asS increased their resources and their rsam Their technological means of gathscragj...

...EDITORIAL COMMENT C!--&* MO TRUCK WITH FASCISM *T*HE country hps every reason to be deeply - 1 content with the President's Wednesday night pronouncement...

...Then it would be brought home, even to relatively sheltered Americans, (hat it is our misfortune, and our challenge, to live in an age of almost unprecedented organized violence, an age comparable with the barbarian invasions of the Roman Empire or the Mongol sweep over Eastern Europe...

...Under these circumstances, the country has been rather pathetically straining its eyes for the emergence ef a good, honest, reliable and politically possible New Deal leader...

...The Mayor appointed an able and representative Committee on Interracial Peace...

...The joys and ssgs> ings of far-off popo anions are brought as> mately to our ears and eyes...

...Bat whan the President says, "We will permit no vestige ef fsajknn to remain," we are inclined to take him at his word...

...He was sincerely On the right side...

...r^rl^|aeBa>^pllllylllffialIllfffffB|rsmag LETTERS TO THE EDITOR A By-Product of the Wallace-Jones Affair—Streamline theGov't Agencies from NAT COLEMAN To the Editor: The Wallace-Jones fracas highlights several important problems of the home-front For it's much more than a personal squabble, and there's more involved than the basic difference in social outlook of the two men, though that may be the main issue at the moment In a sense this most recent controversy on the banks of the Potomac brings home to roost the results of simply creating government * agency after agency whenever new problems arise...

...The raucous outburst of the responsible legal official of the great Michigan city goes fsr to show where the trouble lies...

...But he didn't pall a punch...

...And it makes one a little anxious as to the fate of the nonconformist in the planned order which Mr...

...But there "was an amusing similarity between Laski's attitude toward Russian Communism and the elder Lord Halifax's attitude toward the Roman Catholic Church...

...A keen and uncompromising critic of many contemporary political and economic institutions, he has enjoyed the widest publicity for his views in books, articles and lectures, both in Great Britain and in -America...

...It is a situation fraught with danger...

...His addresses and writings had the right note...

...And even those who admired him most for high purposes began to feel that he lacked the essentials required for political success...

...This fracas in Washington brings to the fore the necessity of revamping and streamlining the federal agencies, of reducing the possibilities of overlapping authority and hamstringing, by clear statements of the scope of each agency and the delegation of full responsibility within that held...

...fcSj following the way of what wa pteam...

...toanl Anglo-Saxon law and order...

...Though he was addressing trade union members, he did not assail their employers...

...Bat he is handicapped by certain doctrinaire preconceptions that lead him, in this writer's opinion, to undervalue very seriously the importance of liberty of ? thought and expression, and to certain errors of proportion and perspective in his comments on the Soviet Union...

...The expensive aad acinic ally beautiful moving-picture proasdaa For Whom the Bell Tollt is a east in peat In tin cutting cf the script for thk picture «? American people were treated lfte baton sr imbeciles...

...system had not prepared our people for sassr-standing of such events...

...In most respects he has done such s conspicuously good job, that we can forgive him if he does not at all times and in every respect come up to bit own standard with regard to domestic affairs...

...tag's intemperate outburst ^ In the meantime Walter White, asma* secretory of the NAACP...

...The opinion of him has 'been re versed in laBlioneof minds...

...The contrast ' between the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries is already written large in the devastations of air bombing that have spared nothing from the mud huts of Chinese peasants to the proud cultural monuments of Europe, in the record of two global wars and many violent revolutions, in the amazing number of persons who hare perished or have been uprooted by war and internal dislocation...

...It is this situation which creates the importance which now attaches to the person of Vice-President Henry A. Wallace...

...te rials and placing them before tte public ten been amazingly improved...

...there was the same insistence that a peaceful and friendly people constituted a threat of outrage...

...Wallace considered drag, ging it into the open ? matter of duty...

...So we had legion* of stent isolationists...

...Take the following description of the running of a Soviet factory: "The rules of an enterprise are not made at the discretion of an employer who owns it,, and who can run it, subject only to the limits a trade-union can impose, io his own way and for his own purposes...

...If no one did that, it is true that riete aright be postponed, but they would come—and their coming would be far more violent and destructive...

...His expressions of faith have been quickly followed by General Eisenhower's direct appeals to the population...

...The man is talking about difficult problems...

...It was generally understood at the time' of this committee's creation that it was to straighten out difficulties among the agencies . Of course there are those who continuously raise a fuas«»er the . New Deal bureaucracy a#d the Washington boi ssiigtsjfl And their solution...

...Our educates...

...Which is entirely as it should be...

...The radio is commonly kept so pore ¦ a be puerile Non-partisanship and ?oo-eagre vernal ism are sore to end in nor sens* ak cepting for an occasional forum pr t -an the* is a complete lack of lustiness and name about radio reporting and cum stint...

...It is a strange thing, indeed, that Jesse Jones of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation should be able to veto or delay the BEW program developed -by experts...

...He had just two alternatives: to go through with a public, confession performance or to shoot himself...

...Qualities which make for...

...It's interesting to note that Senator Taft a conservative of no mean repute himself, cautioned the new- Congress at tha beginning of this year against a headlong attack upon every Washington bureau, for it waa Understood that the success of' such an attack could have only brought chaos...

...We've seen innumerable agencies created with frequent duplication of work, overlapping aptbority, and the possibilities of one hamstringing the ether...

...In this project the Commander' and Chief and the New Deal President are combined...

...The association of a man who likes to play the role of a left-wing critic in the ranks of Labor with a Tory High Churchman may seem curious...

...The British system has not changed appreciably during the last year and it is doubtful whether General Montgomery is any more enamored of social reconstruction on Laski's principles than his less fortunate predecessors...

...In the tough field of American politics a man must net only be good...

...there was the same denunciation of the constituted government as a band of robbers and reactionaries...

...But this fact does deflate some of his more extrem« contentions about suppression of criticism in a "capitalist democracy...

...The real battles remain to be fought And this is just as true of political rehabilitation as It is of military conquest There will be many Badoglios to deal with before our job is done...

...In both these important fields of paste s> lationa—radio and the moving pktuii that is far too little independence...

...Both yearned wistfully for union with an organization that, by its very nature, would accept union only on its own terms...

...Harold Laski brings to the consideration of dar age an imaginative mind, a style that is brilliant in its better passages, a considerable stock of learning in the history of the British and French Revolutions...

...That will be far from taking ear* ef "the last vestiges...

...Its members stand up for the underdog, call attention to injustice, try to right palpable wrongs...

...We see the political and tastery leaders strut their stuff...

...A smaller man would have shriveled away...

...Laski is more realistic about Russia in this book than he has been in some of his other writings...

...The President punished the Vice-President by hacking down the Board of Economic Warfare...

...Just, when Laski would have made up his mind that the stage was set for union of British labor with Russian Communism there would always be some new atrocity in Russia that would upset his hopes...

...One hopeful aspirant after another has risen above the horizon and slowly faded...

...Wallace's star was rising...

...The Byrds, the Cannallys and the Georges who have attained reputations in the upper chamber are not the men who can be expected to lead the party or the nation onward...

...We liked Cleveland, Wilson and the two Roosevelts because—in toe presidential chair or oat of it—they could stand up and hand it out and also take it...

...Wallace could take the blow squarely aad stand up under it After the experience he stood taller and straighter than before...

...It also brings to the fore the langer in President kusmssffi requent practice of filling sstate-stmtive posts as the payment of Kdrtical debts instead of final sseb teste with efficient aetata sta-atore and professional eat mrte...

...But slowly he seemed to lose his hold on the popular imagination...

...It isn't surprising that tte passion' for anonymity" end I eeling of social respoasibffltT— haracteristics of good sdnusav rators in a democracy—have at >fte...

...The President seemed teas alarmed than Mr...

...Henry A. Wallace seems suddenly to shine with thi« quality, and we begin to like him...

...Laski personally, but I have * always mentally .bracketed him with the late Lord Halifax, father of the present British Ambassador to the United States...

...It waa hindering the war effort too much...

...Bat business-as-usual had gone too far...

...He was addressing a great audience of working men, but there is not in the entire address a line of the usual political bunk The man did not insult his hearers by talking down...

...This address is a fine example of high good sense distilled into plain American speech...

...But the President has solemnly given a promise: "No truck with Fascism...

...Excepting for fascistic and imperialistic groups, hie remarks on the thinking and purposes of business organizations were characterised by moderation and good sense...

...Who the Fascists are and «tat Communists have done is important ntwl ? these days The picture was emaaeuunta a* meaning...

...The most important decisions affecting wages, hours, piecework rates, etc., are often taken by the Communist Party leadership and then imposed on the workers through the machinery created by simultaneous Communist control of the Soviet Government, the organs of industrial administration and the trade-unions...

...We have seen what has happened, bat tea understood too little of why it happened...

...The book contains suggestive analysis of the psychology that leads to purges and terrorism, some interesting parallels between the religious fanaticism of the seventeenth century Puritans and the politico-intellectual fanaticism of modern Communists and an excellent summary of one aspect of the Communist dictatorship in the following sentences: "The cult of Stalin, indeed, has become a •veritable religion, with the Politbureau as a College of Cardinals, and the secret police acting as inquisitors for a Bolshevik Pope...

...When Mikhail Tomsky, for many years head of the Soviet taade-union organization, objected to some of the sacrifices that were being imposed on the workers, to some of the speed-up methods that were being put into effect, he had no chance to state his ideas publicly, and appeal to the Soviet trade-union members to support or reject his leadership...

...Pro* cally all of the voices that cease eat ef tte W ceiving set maintain their sugary soma tat sugary sentiments so consistently that * s difficult to tell where the commercia sstaasj the news begins...

...For it is in the Senate that we normally expect new men to come to the top...

...rire if the government agaeafR rested for the purpose of thar mention veto the work ef est mother and pull in all diraritaav . The beet laid plans ef mke set"' nen...

...shows the lusejtasv of at least eaa colored man to one srkitema...

...Laski seems to regard as the ideal solution for the crisis of our times...

...And-many of them created without an adequate statement of scope and responsibilities, headed by individuals appointed with an eye on the .party machine and the votes...

...success in politics seem moat often, to be coupled with mediocre talents and character...

...But Tobruk and all North Africa have been won since certain simple Mosaic military conditions were fulfilled: better generalship, more men, more and better tanks and airplanes...

...Evidently the .President's address is closely tied in with actual policy...

...Both the President and the party have suffered from the southern leadership of this ancient organization...

...Laski seems strangely insensitive to what might seem an obvious fact...

...THE RISING STOCK OF WALLACE IN times like these personalities may have * crucial importance...

...This is one illustration of the abstract doctrinaire quality in Laski's thinking that makes him an unreliable guide on many questions...

...Churchill st thavprcspect of popular disorder...

...Laski is unwilling or unable to realize that it is not only in the technique of attacking Finland that a significant parallelism can be found between Communist and Fascist methods...

...One heard the remark that a good heart is not enough...

...He was for a New Deal both at home and abroad...

...The longest, toughest' part of the road lies ahead...

...Six months ago Mr...

...He is becoming more and more the Commander in Chief—less and less the people's leader of domestic reform...

...The gentle mystk who wants a quart of milk pa every docrstef has suddenly Ait Bed into a magnificent fighter...

...If the BEW program was to be dependent upon the RFC for its fulfillment and if the RFC was to independently carry out some economic warfare functions, then why the establishment of the BEW as a separate agency ? And while angry words fly thick and fast in Washington, the Byrnes-Baruch committee only recently established with so much fanfare, sits by idly...

...He sees, apparently, leas importance in the transitional government and has more faith in the will of the Italian people...

...And there was no hick of deft phrases, of the ability to wrap an important point in a quick, sharp sentence...

...Bvt Mr...

...The rules are genuinely the outcome of a real discussion in which men and management participate...

...We mite reason to be especislly sceptical Of Ugh ideals expressed ia the midst of battle...

...Ha calmly offers to submit evidente ef sb2 crimes committed daring the riots...

...It's usually a simple one, the smashing of the bureaucracy by the dismantling of the agencies.' Yet moat intelligent observers realise that in our complicated industrial society where social regulations and controls are necessary for the common welfare, there's no getting away from the establishment of a permanent government apparatus...

...Shouting oat boldly, as he did, might easily have wf naked his career...

...But it was in no such philosophical sense that Prosecutor William E. Dowling, raised to national prominence by the Detroit riots, lays the blame for attacks on Negroes at the door of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People...

...Where the News Ends By WILLIAM HENRY CHAMBERLIN Of Laski and the Revolution of Our Time ?< his latest book, "Reflections on the Revolution of Our Time" (Viking), Harold J. Laaki deals with a subject that is big and fascinating, but slio complex and uncompleted to such a degree that only a very wise or very lucky man could hope to analyze it now in terms that will seem acceptable ten or twenty years hence...

...But no matte iow well intentioned such steal nay be, they're bound to go...

...Here hia own experience refutes his own theory...

...In the midst of the toaerte military and ideological struggle whkm Hi world has known these men talk like eat pupils of Dale Carnegie Nobody hut tie etfi and a Hitler or Mussolini brings down s raging denunciation...

...The book pictures a fight agate* fascists and tells boldly the part plays* to Communists...

...His heart was conspicuously in the right place...

...He chose the latter...

...What he has to say about the Soviet attack -on Finland is straight thinking and straight speaking: I "Every {tern in the Soviet adventure in Finland coincided in character with that Fascist technique of aggression upon which, for six years, the Soviet Government had been foremost in heaping execration- There was the same manufacture of frontier incidents...

...And yet one who regards the long eoartt a events since the time when Mussolini msiatej on Rcme must acknowledge that in Uusssaatry the chief failure has been that of irifonsaskn...

...He must be able to put his goodness over...

...At least no country ever has enough good men who can get to the top...

...Wallace seemed —in port—to be standing np against the President...

...A feeling went ? round- that the man was an idealist in the wrong sense, that his goodness was vitiated by mysticism...

...PHIS idyllic picture completely ignores the * tremendous pressure on the individual worker that inevitably is created when government, management and the trade-union are all under the control of a single agency, the Communist Party...

...Deviation from orthodoxy is, as in a militant religion, punished by imprisonment or death...

...But it will go as far as outside force can go...

...No one can object to it All patriotic motives put power behind it But if we provide jobs and social security for 10,000,000 soldiers, we are well on the way to accepting the idea of jobs and security for all...

...And he falls into the familiar Communist-Fascist practice of disparaging the significance and reality of the liberty which the individual enjoys under a democratic system...

...But in other passages the author lapses into comment on Soviet conditions that is fancifully far removed from reality...

...For ? msn who has spent his life in the study of labor movements Mr...

...In the fight against J esse Jones and all those whom he represents, Mr...

...He* gives the impression of a man who—if he does not know all the answers— knows where the right answers lie and how to reach them...

...So we have—even new—mffltea of persons who have practically no aha a* what the shooting is all about One thing definitely wrong is that then is too much pussyfooting in mov nr-pictsraj and radio broadcasts...

...The radio, the ata» papers and the moving-pictures gave too ssaa> ftcial an account...

...If the necrologue of the last quarter of a century could be compiled, if all the corpses of two World Wars could rise from the dead and join hands .with the innumerable civilian victims of Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini and the Japanese militarists one of the mightiest hosts ever assembled on this planet would be the result...

...ness keep us almost hour by hour m touea am the swift-moving events on ecuutlesa steam fronts...

...His five-point program for the rehabilitation of our soldiers is a master stroke of leadership...

...Within these past few weeks Henry A. Wallace—by the exhibition of positive qualities rather than by any exertion of political cleverness — has been filling the place left vacant - A COLORED MAN AND A WHITE MAN IN a deep sense the slave is responsible for * slavery and the victim for the crime...

...I DO not know Mr...

...The President is running a war...

...This committee asked for a grand Jury investigation ? si hinan» and point the way to amaiicratisVfS tempers te suggestion was met by...

...It was the New Deal which gave both votes and meaning to the party, but in the Senate all of the party leaders are anti-New Dealers...