Where the News Ends

...But that will not be the end of the story...

...The Crimean War was only an extreme expression of an almost unbroken record of suspicion and latent hostility between Great Britain and Russia...

...This is not to suggest that the maintenance of the friendliest pos-' sbi* relatione between these powers is not eminently desirable in the period after the war...

...The George Bill and the proposed Colmer Rill srt the direct antithesis to all this...

...Where the News Ends By WILLIAM HENRY CHAMBERLIN The Permanent Coalition Hoax ONE of the moot dangerous hoaxes now being perpetrated en the American people in the name of enduring peace ia the dogmatic assertion that there is something intrinsically eternal and indestructible about the present wartime alliance of the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union and China...

...They will probably be beaten in the House as their friends have been beaten in the Senate...

...To bring output up to such a level will require the close cooperation of government, management and labor...

...America had little reason to regard Great Britain as a nstursl ally or as an upholder of the Monroe Doctrine during the crises of the Civil War and the French-sponsored setting up of Maximilian aa Emperor in Mexico...

...All who have given thought to this vital matter have agreed on certain general principle...

...His syndiTfca fundi* C*M !f0|jmnf j" * Magi not Line against questioning letters...

...As the need of war controls fades, the reactionaries are collaborating to* end all controls...

...The statement about the "alliance" of France and Great Britain "ever since the rise of German imperial aggression" is also conspicuously inaccurate...

...Great Britain became involved in repeated conflicts with China and acted as a spearhead of imperialist aggression against China's sovereign rights...

...But two allies of 1917-18, Japan and Italy, have been in the enemy camp in the present conflict...

...that the United States and Russia, under the Tsars and under the Soviets, have always in vital matters been on the same side...

...THAT this avoidance of criticism and check-up is directed by very sound prudential considerations was forcibly brought home to me recently...

...The character of these two bills pose* a straight issu...

...Moreover, American-Russian diplomatic point* of contact were so few and unimportant that it would be difficult to make out a convincing case for cordial cooperation between two major powers which lived almost on separate planets, so far as their spheres of interest in the nineteenth century were concerned...

...How is it possible to assert with such dogmatic assurance that the ally of today may not be the enemy of tomorrow...

...The length of the period of British-American military cooperation was not "over a hundred years," but less than thirfy yean...

...Private industries must be encouraged and assisted...

...The Pundit must entertsin sn extraordinarily low opinion of the historical knowledge of his readers...

...Congressmen Celler and Voorhis and the others who meet with the "liberal-minded" group are performing a great service...

...They will sharpen the issues...

...Th* Colmer Bill, providing for the disposal of government-owned stocks of goods worth some 175,000,000,000, Involves the same principlea aa the measure fathered by Senator George, its whole purpose is to turn that* immense stocks over to private purchaser* aa quickly as possible...

...If there were not more numerous and more serious clashes it wss because the art of killing in the nineteenth century did not make it possible for a major sea power and a major land power to strike at each other effectively...

...The House Postwar Planning Committee, in fact, came out on Wednesday with a confession that it does not believe in planning...

...This fight of the liberals against the reactionaries should lie made the basic issue in the presidential and congressional campaign...

...Otherwise we might a* well begin to pick our sides and call the time for the Third World War...

...11 is almost ludicrously untrue to assert that the United States, Great Britain, Russia and China behaved toward each other like "natural allies" for "more than a century...

...They will demonstrate the meaning of what is happening...

...but it is not true, that the Allies of today may be the enemies of tomorrow...

...There is no thought of securing fair payment or of protecting the public interest...

...But this is a most improbable contingency...

...The purpose is, not only to give corporation capital and private enterprise a free field...

...It is not a Coincidence that Britain and Russia have found themselves allied ever since the rise of German imperial aggression...

...that for more than a hundred years Britain and America have in the end always found that against the mortal enemy of either they would support one another and that France, which did so much to liberate America, has twice in her mortal peril found us at last beside her...

...For factual mistakes in this rsttling, glib passage are as thick aa blackberries in a summer briar patch...

...We are now getting down to rock bottom about thia business of reconversion...

...Equally absurd is the statement that the United States and Russia in vital matters have always been on the tame aide...

...Government-owned plants must be used—snd u ed in the best wsys...

...To suggest that an American-British-Soviet-Chinese alliance, based on nothng but the old ambitions of power politics, would outlast very long the emergency that called -it Into being is to ignore all the teachings of history and to build tho structure of international peace on a foundation of sand...

...On that issue President Roosevelt can win, and on that issue we ran elect a liberal Congress...

...Upon Ha outcome dope da the nature of our American economic world after the war...

...A widely read syndicated journalist whom the irreverent editors of §Timt occasionally christen Pundit, ia the most vocal and indefatigable sponsor of this idea of a 20th century holy alliance , hat is supposed to last for ss long a period as anyone can see ahead, Pei haps the epithet Pundit waa well selected...

...There must be an extensive program of local and national public works...

...American diplomatic support and public sympathy were on the aide of Japan, not Russia, at the time of the Russo-Japanese War...

...In the first place, production must be kep' to something like 150 billions ¦ year in order to avoid serious unemployment...

...and there was a good.deal of suspicious antagonism between the two wars...

...But Senator Harry Truman, his running mate, is in it up to his neck...

...There was a grand alliance in 1917-18, just as there has been a grand alliance in 1941-44...

...President Roosevelt hat not yet taken a direct hand in thit conflict...

...They are the first steps in the direction of an inglorious retreat from planning...

...But they must function a* leaders, not as dictators, as trustees, not as tyrants...

...What is needed is not an unscrupulous power combination, an Axis triple alliance in reverse for th* domination of the world, but a universal organization for the building of genuine peace under a generally recognized system of law and equity...

...He fought hard for the Kilgore-Murray Bill...

...The Pundit's other statements on a similar level of accuracy...

...Our present alliance against Germany is no temporary contraption...

...It holds, on the contrary, that the job of providing employment and sustaining adequate national income rests >u "private enterprise...

...American and Russian diplomacies were* at swords' points over the "Open Door" issue in Manchuria...

...In some cases it may be necessary to afford them the advantages of government financing...

...I quote: "It is easy to say...

...For the writer in question does not like to expose his pontifical views to the dust and heat of the controversial aWaWJJj arena...

...And the central weakness of the Pundit's case can be briefly stated as follows: Coalitions are formed against strength, or abuse of strength, not against weakness...

...Obviously the strongest countries among the United Nations will play leading parts in such an organization...

...An Editorial Congress Plans to Abolish Planning Congressman emanuel celler haa shown an understanding of the legislative situation by calling a meeting of 50 "liberal-minded" member* of the House, Hi* purpose is to put power behind a constructive industrial demobilisation program...

...Witness Fashoda and the marked coolness between France and Great Britain in the twenties...

...And, above all, the general public must be so employed and so paid as to furnish an expanding consumer market...

...I came across an excerpt from the Pundit's syndicated works which is a combination of flat misstatements with an stray of historical facts so highly selective, so carefully purged of equally indisputable facts pointing in an opposite direction that as evidence they add up to little or nothing...

...No such program as this can be carried out if all the machinery for public control over industry, over social security, over lsbor standard* is scuttled by Congress...

...He does not participate in radio or other public debates...

...The fight about thi* problem is basic...

...So the idea of an eternal combination of four, or three -major powera pointing guns at a defeated, disarmed and prostrate Germany and Japan aeems to lack any element of realistic probability...

...The National Resources Planning Board and numerous unofficial bodies have drawn plans for the shift from war Industry to peace-time production...

...The mildett plans for the postwar treatment of Germany and Japan include provisions for rigorous and thorcugh disarmament...

...Russia muscled in on Chinese territory in Manchuria and Outer Mongolia...

...Who can foresee with certainty the line-up in a war, should such a misfortune take place, in 1965 or 1970...

...The reactionaries, Republicans, and southern Democrat* took th* offensive in forcing the George Bill through the Senate...

...The only care that is exerted is to prevent competition which might lead to price reduction* on the market...

...It is an alignment of nations which, despite mi.'.y disputes, much suspicion and even short and local wars like the Crimean, have for more than a century been natural allies...

...ShOULD the war end in a victory for the Axis or in a draw, leaving Germany and Japan in the position of powerful states, the chances for the permanence of me "Big Four" or "Big Three" coalition would be much better...

...m So many scrambled facts, so much muddled history could only be inveked to support s weak case...

...It ia now scheduled to com* before the Houa...

...But if these friendly relations are to remain, it can only be aa part of a much wider constructive program of building international peace...