The Strategic Imoortance of the Balkans - Road to Germany
The Strategic Imoortance of the Balkans — Road to Germany Political Intrigues, Ambitions Prevent Needed Unity By KOSTA TODOROFF Author of the recently published "Balkan Firebrand" MOW thst...
...It appears that the practical application of the newer knowledge of nutrition wiH result in s serious dislocation of medical practice—a lot of physicians wiH have nothing to do...
...But what eaa they do about it...
...Donald Montgomery, former editor of the Consumer's Guide of the Department of Agriculture, as its Consumer Counsel...
...moreover, there is nothing in the past record of the O.P.A...
...HE situstion in the various Balkan easy * tries may be different from s formal rate point, but in actual fact it is wppraximstdy d* same- - . , Everywhere there sre cliques of pro-Germs coll shore tor*— while the groat 1*401111 of tb people shows in various degrees its Hostility te the Germans...
...t present,'-the Balkans sre divided but not only by their political frontiers which shape them into several independent states...
...Indeed, it is s *reet*mf»* mistakable evidence of the fact taat'iPt f*f testing member has the best interests ef nation very much at heart, for cleriealatete* rever yet failed to raise that spirit cTraaab ment which has done more harm to die «mmp than all the heresies of the last two thseauu years...
...E*ew people realize that the modern concept ; qf nutrition is revolutionizing progressively the orthodox practice of medicine...
...The declamation (parts of which my wife had to translate for me as she spent her youth among the natives of the southern mountain regions and is familiar with their vernacular) sounded like the sort of speech Hon, Nicholas Murray Butler used to make whenever he spoke on behalf of the Carnegie Institute for the Promotion of Peace 4 or whatever it was called...
...It is the public's business to elect politicians familiar enough with the total problem to enact progressive legislation in respect to a pure food and drug act...
...So do a great many Americans...
...For modern man, the exhortation, "let us eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die," might well be reversed...
...indeed, from before the cradle...
...It is probably true, of course, that the pro, gpsssive urbanization of America and the centralisation of the food processing industries are more, responsible for this rather startling lag I than the maintenance of high profit margins...
...But the Nazi youth is steeped' hi thhf Nftelungen hooey and it will be test fine...
...Bowles was merely executing the will of Congress...
...Meanwhile those problems insist upon taking care of themselves in a slightly ludicrous manner which makes us^ look like a lot of boobs...
...Mussolini haa now been accounted for, but what will we do when Adolf Hitler decides to keep the Pope safe from harm and has him...
...The last time we saw Mr...
...Information reaches as mat i number of Bulgers are to bef ouad ia his rash...
...Rumania is actively participating in the war against Soviet Russia, while Bulgaria has not gone beyond the role of policeman for Germany in the Balkans...
...The food culture of civilised peoples is more perverted and damaging to health than that of msny contemporaneous tribes • *7)ot 'enrages...
...The Ignorant Am4 tee Damned , /^UR people, who continue to insist span m|| ^ the worst informed neoni*" on Gedb tiff footstool, are hardly aware of the dangaaHJPf threaten them from the side of the dAgm campaign to reconquer lost territery**|j reconquer it right now'when the enw**W rageous acts of aggressiveness es" hVJM mitted in the name of Freedom ef I know, we have more information- pjg before us than any other people, sad tte «* day long we are exposed to newspspsr *P and radio reports and speeches by '^'S and Prime Ministers and SecreterhmJaf and Senators and commentators, but **••* or other we continue to exist without sap aj understanding of the motive which msbe*^ nations of Europe and Asia click the «tf do...
...It must hurdle tije '.barrier of punitive tariffs and paranoid eco. nomic autocracies...
...And those who benefit by the MB mm* dnaag of their American neighbors in this psifljmf respect sre making the best of their uapuihjd ties and whenever one—however humbly—maW a mild word of protest against the hnuaj||st amount of clericalism from which ear r*p>W is beginning to suffer, there is a storm •M""' test against such s lack of breedssaphmuui and such an outspoken manifestation *f fa* estant bigotism...
...Furthermore, it seems to be under the impression that by giving certain things certain names you turn them into the things into which you want to turn them...
...fcandat Wmamf" ^ess ere eneettens of net merely local, bat of all-European import...
...These frontiers, bp the way, have at times little regard far either ethnography or national slrurity.] there is another aad more tragic factor: two of the Balkan states are on the Axis aide, while the other two are occupied by the invader with their legitimate governments ht exile and carrying on the struggle against Germany from England...
...Instead of which we send them polite visitors who . go straight from the railroad station to Holy Mass...
...The day we learn that lesson will be a happy day in tbe lives (then greatly prolonged) of the kids who are doing the magnificent fighting of our far-flung fronts and who by their courage and their skill undo...
...the compulsory governmental restriction of unnecessary, harmful types of food processing which make the processed food prodact nutritionally impotent...
...f*his column by the wsy, starts as a by-product * of a book in preparation on the economic, social, and political dimensions of the nutrition problem...
...As a result of this concept the layman,and to a Urge extent the average physician, accepted the thesis that diaesses are immutable, unpredictable decrees of Fate...
...Tvmorrov>, granting even an approximate utilisation of the potential power which the twin, weapons of modern agricultural technology and the maturing science of nutrition have placed in our handi, we shall wake up and begin to live op- • level of general health and well-being never before possible or even dreamed of...
...I shall try and forget it and continue to work on my next big opus, my "Ode to senility...
...We are called upon to core sickness...
...a ganda" of a food culture which has been insidiously foisted upon the unsophisticated consumer by the powerful vested interests of the food Industry which begins on the farm and ends iti the kitchen...
...Its transversa rMds |ead across the Darrobe and right into the heart of Germany...
...No health campaign can succeed unless the materials of which bodies are built ate sound...
...which in itself is nutritionally very deficient, as every inflationary period serves to prove...
...the conduct of nutritional research by a group of level-headed scientists uninfluenced by the vested interests of the food industry, the advertising industry, snd other related businesses...
...Jt was a paper speech if you know what I mean...
...This is our medical testament, given to all whom it may concern...
...Their production and supply are not bur functions...
...vH>i mflfrnte Hslksecamellias cease being an Important factor emoag the - general prateem* of the post-war period...
...A part of Greek and Yugoslav territory has been occupied by Bulger troops snd declared annexed to Bulgaria...
...Before the advent of the concept which has related' improper nutrition to an ever increasing, number of diseases and afflictions, the medical profession considered that bacterial infections and the diseases which they produced to be unavoidable and inexplicable happenings of, chance...
...Evidence is accumulating rapidly to sapport the conception that faulty nutrition may be either the remote or the immediate fundamental factor upon which bacterial infections and diseases are predicated...
...Which is...
...Bait,that still doesn't put food in the , mouths of those who need it this being presumably the objective to which the food „., distributors are dedicated...
...And neither can we...
...Croatia has been declared by the Axis an "independent Kingdom...
...Against this the labors of the doctor resemble those of Sysyphus...
...Am Allied army which would msrch through Bulgaria and Rumania would place the German forces Hi South Russia in a critical situation and would also deprive them of their oil supplies...
...Even our country people share the white bread, tinned salmon, dried milk regime...
...The mobilisation of available men in the Balkan countries would put at the disposal of the democratic allies over a million soldiers...
...too, delivered from his enemies by a brigade of parachutists ami taken to a Bavarian castle for protection against the Jewish-Capitalistic forces of the Allies ? But neither waa it considered possible that the Grand Duce should be set free in this airy manner...
...Nothing at all...
...The situation becomes even more paradoxical if we remember that Croatia, which is still juridically a part of Yugoslavia, has officially declared war against Crigland and" the United States and sent three divisions against Russia...
...But as we tighten our belts and go into the third year of our participation in the war, one can scarcely be blamed for worrying a bit -..,«, » • * ¦nmre can be no question, however, about the * "business efficiency" of our food distributors...
...Meanwhile, what has become of that brilliant and farsighted and altogether attractive gentleman who was King of Italy until last week...
...But the painful episode, one somehow or Other feels, might have been avoided if we had not been so ternSy nice Vnd polite about ft We are fighting the cleverest meanest lot of crooks who ever operated on the stage of history...
...I don't like it and most of the people I meet don't like it, but we all know that nothing can be done about it...
...T» a-hinge extentr it is up to the profession to formulate a plan and act in...
...Since 1890, the spread between what the farmer geU for his products and what the consumer pays for them has remained practically constant* it has even increased, a little...
...Meanwhile, the representatives of the most powerful political party in Croatia are in exile in London and until recently^ i members of the Yugoslav government...
...This today prevails in every part of the woiJeVWM side of the United States...
...On the other hand, when one reads that 1 Bowles is replacing the discarded academicians with leading executives of the food industry, one can only hold on to one's poefcetboek snd gasp...
...IT is true, however, that the Balkans have not * yet reeehed the stage of unification...
...But we continue t* make lovely speeches about study eomnusadeoe arbteb ar* paying doe attention to the problems thai face us...
...There are also essential differences as to the degree of collaboration given to the Axis by Rumania and Bulgaria...
...This sewer, relatively receat conception of the fundamental cause (faulty nutrition) of sll disease, does not impeach er destroy the validity of the germ theory ef disease...
...we have had enough of the State Department for one day and I am going back to an old national habit...
...The fact is that today the great majority of us die needlessly, before our time, or struggle along neither merry nor ¦ •awttifedW U . Our food economy is organized, not te promote the maximum health and well-being of our people, but to make money...
...But there I am back again where I started...
...As nutritional research progresses, tab prestige of bacteria aa the fundamentally omnipotent and omnipresent cause of disease is being questioned seriously...
...But whose business is it...
...At the end one could verily Say "How true," but one did not have the slightest idea bow true it was of anything one knew about Meanwhile Signor Mussolini had been set free by the Nazi* and once again the Allies had cut a sad and sorrowful figure because once more the Nazis bad fooled them...
...Few American physicians are as forthright as the six-hundred panel (health insurance) doctors of the county of Cheshire in England, who in 1938 issued their famous "Testament" declaring that with respect to the prevention of illness the National Health Insurance Act had failed of its purpose...
...jL, ;. An army which, following in the footsteps of General Franc net d'Esperay's army in 1918, would march to the upper reaches of the Danube and invade Hungary—wouW thereby at once be threatening both...
...With the' uncertainty and incompletesens ef eat snfernmUsm about the Balkans, there slso comes , lively curiosity as to the actual situation there end to the part - their nations are going to play la the further development and the final stage of the jjBte, ajif gssfrThumphjptu of the Balkan penabels raannt be overestimated...
...Recently the CIO got smart and appointed Mr...
...It must cross man-made deserts of agriCultural exploitation and waste...
...Austria and Bavaria...
...It was full of those expressions so dearly beloved^ by the Professors of International Law when they meet once a year in Detroit or Dallas and are entertained at a banquet in the local YMCA...
...On Umf)*istict dad a Lack ef HIsfory 11/E have got the Italian Navy and that Navy " is new and has never been used...
...He does not add that ninety per cent of our ' fellow citizens feel that same way sbsstJ i ' dear general...
...Our State Department does not know its job because it does not know history and, therefore, lacks the necessary historical perspective to set in s truly statesmanlike fashion...
...Montgomery, he was speaking to a section meeting of the National Nutrition Conference...
...I never quite understood what (1st meant for it seems to me that the wages oft virtue, too, is death...
...Hence they feel very uncomfortable at the continued love-feast between the White House and the Vatican...
...WfH.^kay fsttssajas aba exetaaive ialaenee ef...
...Bulgaria has sent no troops against Russia and is even maintaining diplomatic relations with the Soviets...
...It had no connection anywhere with the actual facts of life as they are being lived on the battlefields...
...Those old Nibelungen boys were a tot offverjr^ordinary scoundrels and cutthroats who never kept a promise unless it suited .their interests said who would mnrder their best friend upon the slightest provocation or no provocation at all...
...Last year, according to a recent report, the dullest of our food distributors mode profits of 200 per cent, whereas the brighter ones did better than a thousand per cent Bowles himself is reputedly a capable man and his appointees may be on our side, that is to say, the consumer's side...
...As a result we seem tc be ignorant «*" fact that while a person (or a n*(*J*''-S be a most devout Catholic, he can st time be violently anti-clerical...
...Moreover, they shall collectively constitute themselves as teachers of nutritional truths to a bewildered and confused public now preoccupied with the pastime of swallowing vitamin pills, and lastly, it may be the business of organized labor which, having appointed health committees and studied the problem of distributing medical care, is beginning to get interested, like those honest Cheshire doctors, in something much more fundamental than treating diseases...
...I got exactly nothing out of it but that may be my own fault...
...This conditional modification of "the germ theory," paradoxically, resolves itself into s far more comprehensive, constructive, biologic - concept which has been, and will increasingly . continue to be, the approach toward a sounder appreciation and understanding of the fundamental cause of poor health and disease...
...Here we had had the old Due* at oar mercy for seven weeks snd during these seven weeks our ministers had been using the ex-Dictator as proof of the fact that the wages of' sin is death...
...And all the cartoonists had been terribly funny about the little man with the big jaw who was now dead and gone and shorn of all authority, but now he is free oojee more and why did not we use those seven Weeks to get him away to Madagascar or Trinidad or Brooklyn or somewhere a little.nearer home than Central Italy...
...On the other hand, the Tm slav guerillas are unfortunately oivides tea two hostile groups, but are still continuing tb battle begun by the then Colonel Mikteikmu} in 1941...
...And as the friend of Bennett Cerf said, "He did not believe in that kind of thing as be was anti-semantic...
...it is not the business of physicians to either produce or supply the fundamental means of health, which is an adequate wellbalanced diet of natural foods, un-debased by the profit-motivated sophistications of our food processors...
...In spite of these obstacles and hurdles, the read can and must' be built on a sound foundation,*'fbr that "fourth freedom" of the President's dTeam obviously underlies all the others...
...The ItalWk^S example, are outspokenly anti-clericai...
...And Little Adolf will rant about his Nibelungen Trep...
...Rumania under the dictatorship of General Antonescu, and Bulgaria under -King Boris (recently deceased or assassinated) are officially the allies of the Axis, while Yugoslavia and Greece, in spite of their heroic struggle (which is still going on) have been overrun by , the enemy and are ruled by brutal terror...
...i • . ^ J Clericalism 4sd ftelieiefl TTHIS is a painful subject but it is most pap * ful of all to millions of Ameateans wtM» thoroughly believe in their neighbors' frsahp of religion that they dare not ask certain css> Hons for fear of interfering with this truem* of religious opinion...
...for them' to see how the great Fuehrer kept bis faith with his friend...
...I am going to have a second cup of coffee at eleven o'clock of the morning...
...they remain faithful sons and daughter* ef^B Church...
...Will these countries return to their pre-war Umtut • e«e...
...If the Serbs have- wen the greater fan* aad have been decimated for their ssssr-f passed heroism, the other Balsas astern are alee under the heel of the uvaser, bat those who have been invaded by temate) as well as thee* wh* hsve boos astrayej, by their base dictatorial govissmash, m t spite of all, eve* on this negative bask the Balkans show their essential sap...
...The authors, of this report went on to say, "Our daily work brings us repeatedly to the same point—this illness results from a life-time of wrong nutrition...
...Whole Yugoslav provinces have been annexed by Germany, Italy or Hungary...
...With the Nazis, all things are possible...
...I-Inhsppily, the road to that tomorrow is long...
...the restriction of the employment of means to artificially supplement or enrich processed foods...
...to show that the deposed professors were miracle, men...
...I suspect that that friend will be murdered within a week by some disgruntled Italian patriot whom he sold the wrong bill of goods...
...At present they are not Probably half our work is wasted, since oar patients are so fed from the cradle...
...an advisory capacity to the legislative branch of the Government...
...Yet all of us could have a sufficient quantity of foods rich in nutritional essentials...
...He made sense then, and there is every reason to believe that he will make a great deal of sense for the CIO...
...WiH the, be able to overcome their pslbmiat pnsndsaa and achieve aaineatteu...
...But this time the dominies had got something, for Mussolini ( I was beginning to forget how to write his name and now I shall have to ream that all ever again) to them was an example of what will happen to those who set themselves up as tyrants and as ye reap so you shall sow or words to that effect...
...We can do no more than point to the means of health...
...Having thus shown that they are on the right side, they approach the Franco's and their ! henchmen by wsy of the Papal Nuncio who arranges a common breakfast party where everything is peace and harmony and the coffee is excellent And next thing our representative is apologizing to the dear general for the rough way in which some of Our fellow citizens talk about him...
...Put a firm floor under the single, most important factor concerned with the.^ promotion of public health and welfare*-' (proper ¦ nutrition) and the tensions of classes, of nations, and of races will perhaps relax sufficiently so that man can for the first ¦time grasp a working perspective of his destiny and'proceed to mold and shape it on a global scale, .without recourse to the repetitive, historic expediency of wars and revolutions...
...but bore...
...Huh will undoubtedly quote you the name of the treaty for he sure knows his treaties) and so we left him to the mercy of s few enterprising Nazi boys and they did the trick...
...The wrong nutrition begins where life begins----Nutrition and the quality of food are the paramount factors in fitness...
...The gentlemen who look after our military interests know their job...
...hence, if are so frequently speak of it, it is because we have faith* in the prospects of such s union in she future...
...The medical profession has ah important .role to J?1?*5 in tins,program...
...The great majority of Us lofoten are unquestionably on the side of Gearra - Mikhailovitch...
...The peninsula supplies Geramny, with,.considerable part of her raw nrnteruhv K m.a}»|'a large reservoir of human metsiiet...
...also, becaase these lands already show remarkable unity from the geographical spd ernsmaral iMnijitilal^ag wall as in their common more*, although these phenomena have not yet found their politiraj expression...
...More power to him . . . Van Loon's Diary On the State Dep't and the Vatican 'THE ether riighj I listened to the Venerable Bed* of the State Department I listeiied attentively «0d with a heart full of respect...
...a comprehensive agricultural program...
...The Strategic Imoortance of the Balkans — Road to Germany Political Intrigues, Ambitions Prevent Needed Unity By KOSTA TODOROFF Author of the recently published "Balkan Firebrand" MOW thst the world tragedy is moving to its 11 close, the eve* growing importance of the Barkens is felt by all, and the attentions and interest of Use nations waging the struggle for peace and frve6\»i is tamed more sad more to - the Southeastern end ef Europe...
...of course, about the last thing they want to happen...
...What we need just now is a wrecking crew of hard-fisted realists who will rid us of the trouble makers of the General Franco variety...
...A New Department "Tomorrow We Eat" By N. PHILIP NORMAN, M.D., and JAMES RORTY •PJlE diifene providence which is attentive to the faH of sparrows will doubtless it fake care of the eight professors fired by Chester Bowles, the advertising...
...And the dear general maun-l I is safe and he shoots a few more prisoner* at I when we object to this useless s.augster t I sre called Bolsheviks and Martin ¦Dms anal gates us and wants to know whal out gnu father meant by going to Russia in 1SSI SJ' and get that railroad contract which ami ' went to a French concern which wis *¦ i cleverer at bribery than poor respectable fnm > pa who thought he would get snbiewbem.* ¦ cause he had the best rails st the most ranaP able terms...
...r,5f In Belgrade itself the pro-German gang si General Neditch at its head is collahantfj with the Germans who bsve slaughtered , dreds of thousands of Serbs, while in Safey t > seat of the government officially alliee-vi , Germany, terrorists are killing off jiinsiii ; pro-Germans, It is quite possible that King Boris was am tally wounded by one of these terrorism as mm dispatches claim...
...In short, sn energetic offensive in the Balkans in 1944 might bring the same respite an the Allied offensive there in Oeto, her 1118 which, "aa the world remembers, dealt 4 mortal blow to th* central powers...
...man ' wiro is how general manager of the O.P.A...
...And what moat Italians seem to fear is that the present upheaval may end by an increase of the political power of the Church...
...We conceive it to be our duty in the present state of knowledge to point out that much, perhaps most, of the sickness is preventable and would be prevented by the right feeding of our people . . ." • • • No...
...But that would have been against some kind of treaty (Mr...
...that they are certain contributions to a C-3 (the equivalent of our 4-F), that is to say, Under par and sickly , nation...
...to rigidly supervise s food distribution program which would insure the producer of the raw product sn equitable return snd the consumer a square deal at the retailer's counter...
...It also reminded one of the sort of editorial one expected to read about it in the Tunes the next morning...
...It will have to be hewn through the jungles.of professional mind-sets, the unfounded prejudices of a cross-section of a poorly informed public, the "educational prop...
...I But a hatred for clericalism his ndmmf » do with religion...
...Give us freedom from want, and the rest of ttv» dream will come true...
...That required some business legerdemain, because, during the same period the productivity of agriculture has steadily increased, while the coming of the motor truck and other major technological changes heve revolutionized food distribution...
Vol. 26 • September 1943 • No. 39
