Where the News Ends
CHAMBERLIN, WILLIAM HENRY
Where the News Ends By WILLIAM HENRY CHAMBERLIN Topical Briefs Am Overdue Sforeme.t from mr. Stottlnius IT bee come tethe attention of the Stat* Department that a group of individuals, without...
...This gave many a lyrical columnist bis opportunity...
...Now another Kremlin Gremlin is on the loose...
...I hi rewftn quote a few of his more printable effusions...
...Winston Churchill in his address to the House of Commons was not altogether happy in hia analyst* of th* word democratic...
...When he wanted to leave Poland ho asked for a visa for his daughter as well as himself...
...A Maslerplecn of Understatement •A HECENT New York Times story oil the looting in Rumania of the properties of foreign oil companies by the Soviet occupation authorities contained what might fairly be called a masterpiece of understatement...
...He was saying that trial of disloyal persons by the regular and deliberate action of courts is likely to lead to greater justice than can be achieved by mob violence...
...You have all the stylistic and intellectual qualifications for it, brother...
...The ones nt fault, tbegj arc Ihe lenders of the mobs, the ones who initiate tlj attack...
...They knew who was, guilty and they were taking no chances...
...It is as simple as that The newspaper correspondents are under the spell of these inherited meanings, and so they report: British soldiers in Athens—or* somewhere else—shot down the democratic forces...
...William Henry Chamherlin's self-styled and professed aa well as professional 'liberalism' Is only a warm, color infused by him purposely to disguise arM offset the colorless-black fascism by which his evil pen, hand and heart it ^slc) Informed...
...All attempts of Polish diplomatic representatives to get in touch nilh him during the period when diplomatic relations existed with the Soviet l.otern meat were in vain...
...The original action in the Hood River case followed the worst totalitarian models...
...Last year we had two lynching* in this country...
...If titere had been in those neighborhoods sheriffs or police wiftf* nerve enough to face those mobs with tesr-gas or rate chine guns, would liberal columnists wail that "tht democratic forces" had been shot down...
...But mob' violence |m'vtfl change, forces the rulers to stand on theii aiilhontj and defend (heir positions...
...This principle has found expression in the American attitude toward bogus governments in Msnchoukuo, in occupied China, in Latin.jtperiea, in Norway, In Croatia and other regions which have been victims of Axis violence...
...This man was a well-known lawyer and member of the Seym in prewar Poland...
...In fact the Nazia made a practice of doing that sort of thing with names of German veterans of the First World War who happened to be Jews...
...It ia .only one of many indications that we are painfully far from the Ideal ef eliminating race prejudice...
...the Case of dr...
...Our inherited stereotypes get in our way, We have the old picture of minions of the monarfha shooting down revolutionists in Paris, in Madrid, in St Petersburg, 80, in our minds, the mob in the street represent* deraoc racy...
...Both in Ik-lgitdJ in d in Greece elections will In- held as soon as possible But governments already exist...
...It is a perversion of language to call Ihrse md democrat ic forces...
...He was announced us n speaker at an inlei nntimial 'Jowjsh conference in Atlantic City...
...The reason...
...Throw the pig outl Let him join Hearst and Patterson...
...Kmil Sum* merstein...
...II Chamberlin is a journalistic bum...
...What Winston Churchill was trying to suy+e'djat mob violence is no cure, that violence -in the nitujfj of things—is undemocratic...
...i" «-'urop» there have been more lynching* in the p*«t six month* than we have had in this country during all our history...
...Suddenly he emerged ns a "Minister'', in the, self-styled provisional government...
...Men acquire office by 'various menu...
...He did not turn up...
...J Ibe means of democracy can go on excepting, at tM| moment, the use of ballot-boxes...
...The mobs in both cases «er4 made up of the common people of the neighborhood, They lacked faith in their country's courts, in the • l>d 1 in 1 ate and orderly process of justice duly provided...
...The State Department sees no reason to abandon this principle in the case of Poland...
...The ordinary American citizen reads auch statements and feel* his hackles rise...
...Unlike the sit wit ion in Italy, where the Russian members o) the Allied Commission have freedom of fiction toAelietier the military situation permits, the American and Itritith members of the Commission for Rumania have hem much more restricted in their more men Is...
...But the very cxi.stersJ of mobs paralyzes the entire process The existuj governments, good or bad, have some legal and popiiHf ¦status.*li iA/go bodies of citizens find fault with thfi they can he modified...
...For meanness the only competitor with the "heroes" of Hood River is the Arizona barber who pushed a wounded Japanese-American veteran on crutches out of his shop...
...It read as follows: "The flow of information from the American representatives on the Control Commission hue been very limited...
...Il sounded like a term in a si i icily guarded penitentiary...
...And I her*, with offer my unknown Kremlin-Gremlin admirer a bit of gratuitous, but sincere and friendly advice, ¦ . . ¦ „. Go to the next New Masses "literary" dinner with copies of your postcards and demand their first prize award...
...There ran be free speech and free press...
...Tomorrow it will ha somewhere else...
...The State Department believes that it has reflected the will of the American people in consistently refusing to recognise such poppet government as legitimate and to carry on any official relations with them...
...All in all, it was an impressive object lesson both in the weakness** and in ihe redemptive possibilities of our democracy...
...Our trouble arises from the us* of word...
...The American Government does not recognize the validity of any alleged international acts l>y this selfstyled Provisional Government of Poland and specifically repudiates any American responsibility for frontier changes which this "Government" may pretend toTraHiy^Dnth the whole question is settled by •..freely negotiated settlement with genuine representatives of the Polish people the American Government recognizes as legitimate only the Polish frontiers of HKitt...
...Arrested after Soviet troops entered Eastern Poland, he was held in prison for a long time...
...But not the sequel...
...The AMD authorities decided that it he wished Jo take his daughter with him he might Merer rums ton /. He might even lell a few unpleasant truths when he reached America...
...Instead of exciting emulation it was widely denounced...
...Other post* of the Legion offered to take in the Americans of Japanese origin who were serving their country and who had been insulted in this way...
...aauhortai-What Are "the Democratic Force** constantly hear or read that tb* democrat!*, forces of a liberated country are being suppressed/M may be In Belgium, in Greece...
...And he heaped moral obloquy on the brigands who came down;, from tho mountains and — far from being patient enough to await election day—were intent on righting things by breaking heads...
...But it is also an indication that, where freedom of speech and press and opinion persists, an outrageous injustice cannot be universalized, as it so often is under the totalitarian pattern...
...The incident was widely publicized...
...It gives one a smug sense of intellectual superiority to be an object of this kind of "criticism...
...Freedom once sgain flung her banner from her mountain height...
...The heroism and iuih ring of the Polish people in the present uiir give them a double claim to the elementary right of every people, q government of their own choice...
...Chamberlin must go...
...Il was a fatal slip...
...This is not the end of the saga of l»r...
...So he remains a pathetic, scared, lonely (iguro in a terrorized puppul regime...
...SommeTstoin...
...It was a pushover for the unanalytical *a*> tionalista...
...The soldiers with guns in their hands represent tyranny...
...Hut what Churchill meant was all to the good, as meant that democracy implies rule by all the people) expressing their will in a rational and regular way...
...One of the most respectable names in the curious amalgam of obscure Communists and fellow-travelers and prewar corruptionlata ami reactionaries that one finds in the misnamed l.uhlin Committee of National Liberation is that of Dr...
...The reason why this .seemed to me a restrained piclure of the actual situation is that a foreign diplomat who was recently stationed in Moscow gave a vivid account of how literally every step taken by a member of n foreign embassy in Russia is watched and checked by a minion of the omnipotent and omnipresent NKVIl...
...How many injustices have been committed n» one will ever be able to determine...
...Sommersfein \f the way of the transgressor is proverbially hard, the path of the member of a pupptt government is also not Btrewn with roses...
...He meant that actions taken quickly and violently «r« liable to be unjust...
...The State Departoi at takes thi* occasion to affirm its continued recogn: ioi, ¦" t»ie legitimate Polish Government, with ten»p*<*r> pen Iquartera in London, and to assert categoric*UrjnLt it will recognize no other government In Poland SrUk free elections, unaffected by foreign political and mtiitary pressure, are held in that country...
...We in fighting a war for democracy—and then the troops of one of our allies shoot up democratic forces...
...The courts are a session...
...Bnt this is worth noting as an instance when (he alternative to acceptance of "ministerial" rank was indefinite imprisonmrnl...
...He leaned over-heavlly on the idea that democracy depends Upon voting...
...The creatlon of a puppet government, under a regime o( foreign military occupation, ha* been an all too frequent means of violating the principles of liberty and national selfdetermination to which the American Government and its allies are pledged under the Atlantic Charter...
...The oppresses once more appealed to the hills from which their help rometh...
...A Kremlin Gremlin on the Loose OnCE before in this column I shared with my leaders my own amusement over the incoherently abusive screeds which "Kremlin Gremlins," Communists and fellow-travelers, occasionally bestow on me...
...Stottlnius IT bee come tethe attention of the Stat* Department that a group of individuals, without any popular . mandate whatever, hot apparently acting under Strong foreign pressure and mitigation, has called itself the Provisional Government of Poland...
...Throw him outl...
...How can such things be...
...This aspect of the problem should be relatively easy for Americana to understand...
...and you ought to break every dish in the place if you don't get it...
...What goes on...
...Hood River Disgrace—and Redrets tlle action of the Hood River Post of the American Legion in erasing the names of sixteen JapaneseAmerican soldiers from its war memorial is just the kind of lowdown action that one would expect in a totalitarian state...
...In lees troubled times ffall readily agree that to attain justice, wo require dig cuasion, accomodation, compromise...
...He seems to be ell hot ajjd bothered* about this column and favors The New Leader* with five tw*teh poaVdird* an the subject **ery day...
...they resohed for ropes and gun...
Vol. 28 • January 1945 • No. 1
