Where the News Ends

...To stand np for democracy and fair play in little ekirwishes of this kind doesn't require the heroism thst it takes to defy a Gestapo or an Ogpu...

...What is evident is that in all of these regions the sheer weight of Russian power will rule...

...And added to this heve come tales of th* interning or actual execution of underground leader* in Vilna and other places...

...Now the odds on a favorable decision of a civil liberties case by the Supreme Court are at least five to four...

...A sentence in their decision is worth quoting, because it places the sanction of high legal authority on a distinction thaa wartime courts are likely to overlook between intemperate language and definitely criminal action: "An American citizen has the right to discuss these matters, either by temperate reasoning or by Immoderate and vicious invective without running afoul of the espionage set...

...The office of the President began to ring with threatea that these obnoxious "Japs" would be run out of town if he did not dismiss them...

...Pacifist ministers who took the Sermon on the Mount literally were sometimes hounded from their pulpits by the war fanaticism of their congregation...

...The individual group that threatens violence if some mean or ungenerous action la net Carried out usually proves to bp s bluffer, with little genuine mass support if the bluff is firmly called...

...The average pastor, even if he is not a pacifist, is averse to blessing wsr or to degrading his conception of God to the status cf s tribsl deity...

...The Russian Army had practically surrounded the city—as the Allied troops later havered about Parts, it was...

...PeieonaUy 1 p-ould rather tee a hundred Hartzele go free than fun the riek that one Debs might be convicted...

...What help was givea to the 26,000 underground fighters came from Mediterranean airfields 870 miles away rather than from the Russian forces which were within a few minutes' flight by air...

...Our record in this war is not letter perfect, from the sUndpoint ef one who believes that civil liberties must be upheld to the utmost feasible limit, in war as ia peace, beet we should pat ourselves cn our collective backs too eoaaplaeently, it is well to recall a few ef the dark spats ia this record...

...And western Europe >« one of the world's leading centers of democratic civilisation...

...And now, after four day* struggle in the ¦Areata, buildings and public places, W.000 FFI troops, grafted by the Allies aad aided by practically the entire population, have re won Paris, thst ancient center ef the French struggle for liberty Last week The New Leader sadly sketched a picture which offers sharp contrasts to all of this...

...All that is needed is a reasonable measure of intestinal fortitude ' and clear thinking...

...Great cities, hundreds of villages, many great regions hsve been torn from the Germans by such irregular forces...

...I happened to learn of two auch victories in the course of a recent trip in the Middle West., Milton Mayer had been invited to speak before a forum in a small town nearChicago...

...What is tsking forril before our eyes is a vast sphere of influence dominated by the USSR...

...of this sort of thing in the present conflict...

...She fell because of rottenness in high places, but her population has proved that it is sound...

...They are standing up pretty well now...

...Nearly a month ago Ha underground fighters rose te challenge the Gestapo oppreaeers...

...Little victories for decency and fair play and common sense have been definitely more numerous in this war than in the last one, in my judgment...

...Tha Supreme Court of 1917-18 would have been a discouragement to...

...And I'm not swearing either...

...The pamphlets which had led to his indictment were full of abuse of the President, the British and the Jews...

...Treatment of conscientious objectors, with very few exceptions, has been free from the gross brutality that marked the handling of this problem in the last war...

...It already practically includes Poland, the Baltic ststes and the Balkans...

...takes for granted that they would continue their campaign, that the' Germans would b* caught between the forees within and without th* city...

...But the President stood firm...

...The loudest and shrillest of these, perhaps, belongs to a former writer of detective stories, who, with about as much knowledge of history arid international affairs as a medieval barber had of modern surgery, is now doing his best, or worst, to insure a bad peace...

...the great city of Warsaw is being crucified rather than liberated...

...Mob violence, intolerance ef all kinds, race tensions, flourish in a hectic wartime atmosphere...

...Paris, Moscow, Europe The fall of Paris te Us* French Farces ef the Interior emphasises the ftaoet feature of Allied French cant, paign...

...But the forum stood firm...

...Shortly before his talk a hostile Chicago newspaper played up hia objection to military service...

...For more than three weeks the men and women of the underground, poorly armed and supplied, have been desperately struggling against vastly superior forces...

...They fell down dismally on that job in the lf§j par...

...He spoke, and there was no violence, and everyone felt better about it afterwards...

...And from Moscow have come denials of responsibility and cynical belittling of the part of the underground everywhere...

...Her population may not be great and her territory much less than that of the great military powers...

...There has been extremely litfle...

...The Jerry-built structure of Hitler is rapidly collapsing...

...Which is pretty good odds, in time of wsr...

...French ideslism still lives and the French spirit has found the basis for a new lease on life...

...From one end of the country to the other the Maquis and many thousand* of civilians have risen te do their part...

...The prison sentence* imposed on the 18 members of the Minneapolis Teamsters' Union (Trotzkyists) are a flagrant ease of pereerutiui for opinion, rsther than for overt acta...

...They made this dangerous, move after what they supposed was aa understanding with the approaching Red Army forces (eee page 1...

...The rapid, many pronged sweep of our invasion 1* much more than a military triumph...

...Official newspapers have denied that Polish fighters anywhere have collaborated in the struggle...

...Stay-at-home patriots darkly threatened violence if he should be permitted to speak...

...It is .Hiy too sstursl that the lupreme insanity of rasas sUaghter, organised by an aasoant of labor, technical skill and natural wealth that could hare created a higher standard of living than the world baa ever known, if it had been applied to constructive objectives, should generate all sorts of minor aberrations and neuroses...

...Officially condoned mob violence as a means of pressing the sale of war bonds has been happily omitted...

...Obviously the Justices considered Hartzel a pretty undesirable and contetttptable sort of person...

...TriK courts should be a main line of defense far the rights of the unpopular individual...

...Friends University, in Wichita, had accepted two Japanese-American students from one of the "relocation centres...

...When the municipal administration was considering whether to banish the students, a delegation of mi tens appeared, headed by a Catholic priest imd several Protestant mi listers, and gave the city fathers some useful lesson* in the provisions of the American Constitution...

...But the majority of the Justices found that Hartzel had done nothing specific to cause mutiny in the military forces, and therefore was not guilty of violating the espionage act...

...But from that moment on the Red Army wa» stricken w ith an unusual sort of paralysis...

...In this grest section of Europe there will be for the itnmediste future only as much democracy as the Soviet Government permits...

...The worst of these, both for the principle involved snd for tha number «f person* affected, is the herding into concentration camps, euphemistically called relocation centres, of over a hundred thousand persons of Japanese ancestry, the majority of them American citizens...

...It was a commonplace for a pastor in the last war, probably secretly rejoicing in the release from inhibitions, to pound the pulpit and bellow at his congregation: "And I say: God DAMN the Kaiser...

...By allowing the French—so far as possible— to'liberate themselves, we have made a start in this direction...

...There has been no war againsi Beethoven and Wagner, no crusade against the German language in the schools...

...Rhetorical comparisons of our enemies to apes, snakes and other members of the animal kingdom, while not altogether absent, are notably less frequent than was the case in the other war...

...Liberalism which, in its true meaning, is always concerned with individual liberty, and -hence with the liberty of unpopular individuals, seemed' to be in a perpetual minority of two against, seven...

...By treating these fellow-citizens of Japanese origin on a mass basis, Instead of handling each case individually, we made a dangerous concession to the racist philosophy of our enemies...

...A year from now France will not be a little, poor, helpless country rescued by puissant neighbors...

...But there would be fewer CO's in pristn if the administration of tht law had been more sympathetic and flexible and the rights of the nonreligious objector were more adequately safeguarded...

...She will again be the old Prance proudly taking her place among the great powers...

...Under these circumstances it is of immense importance that France be built up as a democratic counterweight...

...The egitstion died down and the students are still there...

...The two, of course, were the magnificent Civil [War veteran Holmes and the forward-looking Brandeis...

...I think the Supreme Court buttressed the frsmework of our democracy (and true democracy is always based on individual liberty) 'when, in the first week of the invasion of Europe, it set aside the conviction of Elmer Hartzel, on a charge of having violated the espionage set...

...And of course individual voices of folly an- raised in, the land...

...BUT, when we look back to 1917-1918, to the barbarously long prison sentences imposed on F'ugene Debs, Victor Berger, the I.W.VV.a and the six New York Anarchists, we can well be thankful for a much saner, more levelheaded mood of public opinion under the stress of a longer and harder war...

...Thomas Jefferson, if he could have revisited the Republic...

...As we go to press there comes the news that Rumania has surrendered to the Allies...

...The churches have behaved with vastly more dignity and sobriety and self-respect...

...But with Germany reduced in stature, she will naturally take her place as the leading power of western and central Europe...

...So far as this vast territory and great population are concerned there can be no thought of achieving high-sounding war objectives...