TRENDS: Ideas in action; events as they reflect social tendencies
OAK, LISTON M.
TRENDS: Ideas in action; events as they reflect social tendencies By Liston M. Oak Fine Words Buffer No Parsnips and Liberate No Poles President Trimam Said: THE foreign policy of the United...
...When 1 a9ked htm for some little spark of encouragement, some glimpse of a silver lining, Jie blurted: "Well, the only constructive thing in the picture is this wave of strikes...
...He is running right now for the 1948 election...
...He's agin it...
...Truman should have declared that the USA will turn over the secret to the UNO when and if every mem Iter nanus agrees to: 1) universal disarmsment...
...The Chinese civil war flared up again, as predicted here, with fighting in 11 of China's 28 provinces...
...The Socialism got 4,78K^7I, and the new Catholic Papular Republican Movement (MKT -the party of Hidault and do Gaulle) got «,*ee,u0O...
...It is a strange idea of the democratic process...
...One thing nhont a lot of these liberals tied in with doings on what they call "the hill" struck me as bad...
...MacArthur refused Yo-» slnda's plea.for cancellation of the order of the U. S. State Department that all Japanese diplo natic representatives be recalled from neutral countries...
...On the outside the capital looked slick and bright and happy...
...It is improbable that Prince Konoya, selected by MacArthur and Hirohito to write a new constitution, will produce a democratic document...
...A man who was formerly deep in the business of war production said to me: "It's like reading a book about the depths to which we sank when we released the controls after the last war...
...Arembomb Scienfr.fi and Politic* It has been proved once again that the doctrine of mental discipline is false...
...How will the USA use it...
...30, preliminary figures indicate a gain for the Communists, loss of a Parliamentary majority for the Social Demo-crats...
...He answered, "sin...
...Like a Nhjbtmore of the Past ?vERYONE with any brains is thinking of the same thing: how can we climb out of our troubles, step up production, reduce, avoid, abolish unemployment...
...Mrs...
...Now the Brooklyn I lodgers have signed up Jackie Robinson to play shortstop on their Montreal team, the first of his race to break into the big leagues as a Negro...
...But in making the CP the strongest party, they voted in effect for disunity and continued paralysis...
...They are obviously Fascists, according to the Communist definition...
...it would disastrously restrict scientific investigation...
...It solves no problems, and ignores the basic fact that there is no international authority to which the secret can be entrusted, no world police force to prevent the use of atom bombs...
...As an illustration of it i effectiveness he told me a neat little tale of music-master Patrillo...
...by 12,000,00© to 6,000,000 the French voted for the Socialist-de Gaulle proposal to strengthen the executive so that Cabinets will net ha ousted every few months on minor issues...
...will act—and quick...
...The Negro has had as hard a time achieving recognition Of ability in sports as in any other field...
...The main dispute between the MRP and SP is over education...
...Appeasement has not been ended...
...At the conferences at Moscow, Teheran, and Yalta Roosevelt and Churchill repudiated the Atlantic Charter, surrendered the moral authority of the USA and Britain for democracy and justice, failed to use our tremendous power for peaceful progress...
...We believe in the eventual return of sovereign rights and self-government to all people* who have been deprived of them by force...
...To free the people of Poland, Bulgaria, Rumania, Hungary, Yugoslavia, the Baltic States, at wrll at the people of Argentina, Spain, China, and the .colonial world...
...What gives them acute pain is that the present session of Congress will close in four or five weeks and nothing at all will happen except that the compromise tax kill will be passed...
...The men whose names the committee want and have sosm chance of getting are northern lane...
...The acid comment of Guido Gonella in II Popoio of Rome is apropos: "We believed in the Fourteen Potato of President Wilson, in the eight points of the Atlantic ('barter, and in the Fear Freedoms of President Koose-velt...
...AU three major parties are socialist or eoUectivist in trend...
...Civing UNO the secret means giving it to potential enemies, and will not stop hut accelerate the armament rare for bigger and better bombs, surrendering our initial advantage...
...French Communists at first urged a government of the CP and SP, and continue to maneuver for a "single party of the proletariat...
...What did he say about sin...
...Truman favors freedom of the seas, and this is highly laudable...
...New York State hospitals for the mentally ill rank among the best in the country...
...To a <le« f - and dumb man Washington would seem the spot farthest removed from the trophies of the time...
...But Robinson will . lie followed by other Negro ball players into tha Bix Sixteen teams...
...Kiernik was also attacked for his "western orientation...
...On the inside there is confusion, conflict, procrastination...
...He haa fought the Communists' hero, Toledano, boas of the Mexican and CTAL unions...
...As pie-dicted here, the Communists are raising the slogan of national unity, for which they argue that a national united front of Communists, Social Democrats, Liberal Democrats, and the Christian Democratic Union is a prerequisite...
...A hast of orientitir witnesses hire testified, but none of the brhaiawt illumination produced by the atom-hens* orpine iona enlightened (near opinions...
...Atomic Age?—The United Press reports that French troops captured an Amiamite how and an'<w factory at Mucuc, and that area is now quiet...
...It is good for the President, of the world's richest and moat powerful nation to reaffirm the principles of the Atlantic Charter, which, we'feared, had been irretrievably sunk to the bottom of the Atlantic...
...It coins that during the necent building service strike this leader of all the bands had to walk up 27 flights to his office...
...Among them were such important matters as Taxation, Disposal of Government Plants and Atomic Energy...
...Thus he implies that it may be a long, long time before these ideals of s peaceful cooperative world are realised...
...A scientist who can split the atom may have no understanding of fhe realities of power politica...
...Cynics will say that the.gulf between fine words and ugly deeds—such as the betrayal of Poland—has not yet been bridged...
...Unlets something happens to perk them up, they will still be connecting the host long after our industrial house has bets reduced to ruins...
...See what's happening to the President's program/* • • • Will Truman Fiqh...
...The Kuo-mintang troops are supplied with American munitions and trained by Americans...
...A scholar learned in Greek and Latin may have silly ideas about farming and sex...
...They followed Roosevelt for 12 years, and now, that he la gone, they stand around like orphans of the storm and murmur that steppapa Truman is not half the man that his predecessor was...
...2) inspection by UNO experts of the factories and laboratories of each country...
...To remedy thess ronditions, s People's Committee for Mental Hygiene has been organiied under the chairmanship of Ellen Phil-tine, at 673 West 227lh Street, New York 63...
...Moscow's Red Star urges cooperation of all three major parties, anil the French Communists will heed their master's voice...
...character and energy of whatever citixen happens for the time to preside at Whits House press conferences...
...The strange notion that life and death hanr on the word the chap who happens for the moment to occupy the spacious, tin-shaded mansion on Pennsylvania Avenue may be called the great Washington superstition...
...The committee points out that 40 percent of discharged patients are returned to the hospitals...
...More than 1,000 Japanese Socialists joined the employees of the paper, Yomiuri Hocki, in demanding 'that the editor, Matsutaro Shoriki, be tried as a war criminal for collaboration with tha militarists...
...The Norwegian Labor Party, victorious at the recent elections, has decided not to form a coalition govern-menl but to govern alone...
...The CP is the strongest party in Fraaoe, receiving 6,004,1?1 votes or over is perasnt of the total east...
...He will "get is there and fight" for anything which Im is sure enough (he voters want...
...But this fellow is one of the all-or-nothing boys...
...Perhaps Moscow is fearful that he may break down and tell the truth about Poland today ? The Vice-Premier was assailed by his colleagues in the Warsaw regime as a "Trojan horse for the reactionaries...
...But we have not learned enough to provide sgainst It in advance...
...The vote for the new parliamentary structure waa 18,000,000 to 700,000...
...Before it can be forced out on the floor, some 70 mote signatures of Congressmen are needed...
...Their vast knowledge of mathematics and physics does no* equip Rinstein and Oppenheimer to pass judgment on the political problems presented to the world with I lie advent of the atom bomb...
...So «k, is going >nv k to the districts from whirls these 70 men get their votes...
...The collapse of the Radical Socialists weakens the main support for liberal capitalism...
...Many of thoee "freed" ars ¦ent to forced labor camps...
...When I pressed him on the point, asked if we have not made some progress during the New Deal period, he finally remarked: "Well, yes...
...The division of seats in the Constituent Assembly will be as follows, hat lading Inasaanafeto rata ma frees North Attica and the Ematr* r_ ii usiiiii__in ftirlnhsts__141 MVP (Catholic)---------IW Radical Socialists- M Moderate., Bight Wing Parties and Independents- *• The ones dominant Radical Ssnis lists are thus in eclipse, and the SocioCsro have the choice of farming a wetritmet alliance with either the Communists, which means betrayal of democratic ideals and eventual ruin for the party, or with the MRP...
...It It—After All—Up to Us MUCH sounder view I got from a young woman who is out working as a member of the Committee for a Permanent FEPC...
...Very little good will com out of this present session of Congress, Our legislators are about as effectlv* ss an amateur Are department...
...They ran only reassert the ebviens truths that the atom bomb roof rents n* with the alternatives of eaalavement and freedom, destruction or salvation...
...The Liberssl The Home Front By WILLIAM E. BOHN Weekend in Washington MY two days in the gracious capital designed by Major I'Enfant leave me with two conflicting impressions...
...4) the fulfillment of the princrpJea of the Atlantic Charter, in-dusting the withdrawal of all armed 'forces from liberated countries and, 1) surrender of the veto sower anil of absolute sovereignty, Russia would not have agreed to these terms, and the f¦sends-liberaIs would have beeti robbed of a specious argument...
...And the genial Harry Truman iron Independence, Mo...
...How long, then, will it be brfore recognition is withdrawn from the totalitarian governments Imposed upon Poland and the Balkans by Soviet Russia...
...The bill, you all know, is stuck in a committee of the House...
...Matters of national investment and consumer demand are as familiar to him as grocery bills snd bank accounts are to Sn ordinary citizen...
...The French workers are still W, fuddled by Communist propaganda,,-06^ tober 21 is a black day in French history...
...Perhaps in those few years there will be internal changes within Russia and other potential enemy nations...
...Chungking spokesmen accuse Russia of supplying the rebels with arms seized from the Japanese, in violation of the recent treaty...
...And this young woman dew m depend on the President to g«t taaM signatures...
...Unfortunately We learned that oar naive faith is likely to meet with bitter disillusion...
...India...
...Indonesia...
...1 leans...
...The Communists do not support the new regime in Venesuela, now recognised by the USA, which ousted General Medina, with whom the Communists collaborated, the UmUg Worker of Oct 28 carried an article praising Medina far his reforms, damning the new President Komolu lletaio ourt as a Trotskyism They never forgive a "renegade...
...perhaps it will become possihle to build a world federation in winch all n aliens surrender their absolute sovereignty—without which a world government is impotent...
...Thus the General shares victory with his most violent opponents, and France remains in a deadlock between the heterogeneous but democratic forces surrounding de Gaulle and the totalitarian agents of a foreign power...
...thst the secret cannot long remain a secret...
...In the minds of youngsters like this the security of our institutions depends on the mind...
...De Gaulle's proposals for oonstitu-tional reforms, bitterly opposed by the Communists, supported by the Socialists, were spproved...
...Mikolacxyk in Quebec at the Food Conference was constantly shadowed by one M. Szyssko...
...At the third stop, as he stilled his palpitating heart and fortified his lungs with fresh air, he growled: "These goilamned trade unions are going to ruin this country...
...But I did not spend all of my 48 hours viewing vistas or drinking cocktails and tea inside the easy-swinging doors...
...But god-like revelations do not suffice...
...rV*«i« have they been achieved...
...Now We'd probably get scared and do something if it reached 8,000,000...
...Will they be kept...
...He knows exactly how we stepped up-annual production to the $200,000,000,000 * mark...
...Lists of points and promises have become a dm* on lh« market...
...Mahatms Branch Rickey got a lot of vituperative telegrams from prejudiced people, snd Happy Chandler of Kentucky is rather unhappy about it all...
...Ments) illnesses have increased greatly during the war, and more and better care for them is a crying need...
...Aa much ss the rest of ha-inanity, thia marvelous and terrihh) disravory Inda tkeaa unprepared...
...The May-Johnson bill pending l>efor« Congress (recommended by the House Military Affairs Committee) would grsnt dictatorial power to nine scientists and politicians in the Atomic Energy Commission...
...Korea...
...Cooiidge once asked President Coclidge what the ministers's sermon was about...
...it is similar lo the Peruvian APRA...
...The inviting vistas leading to the familiar national shrines, Rock Creek Park Bglow with color in the bright October sun, the friendly faces and freely-spilled conversation inside taxkabs, along the avenues snd even in government offices it sll gives an outsider — especially a New Yorker the notion that there is something old-fashioned, something southern, something quaintly native and hearty about it...
...the MRP wants state subsidies for parochial schools...
...The Communists accuse the Government of concentrating 800,000 troops, including Japanese, for a drive to wipe out the rival armies...
...Desperately I heard one young man cry: 'Truman must get in there and fight" Ha has been so shaped by our recent hero-worshiping period that ha actually thinks the fste of 140,000,000 persons depends on the actions of an agreeable gentleman who happened to be the Vice-Presidential choice of the Democratic National Convention...
...The principal thing absut a Congressman.-' «he said to me, "i, that he wants to he re-elected...
...He mskes the mine familiar promises...
...American statesmen arc addicted to glittering generalities in place of concrete proposals on foreign policy...
...Without higher wages there'll be no tmti'ket and we'll all go down together...
...We know what happened then...
...Uetancourt, exiled by Dictator Come/., became the leader of the Costa Rican Communist Party, but 'deserted" the ranks of the faithful and founded the moderate, so rialistic, middle-class Democratic Action Party in his native land...
...We believe that all peoples who are prepared for self-government should be permitted to choose their own form of government by their own freely expressed choice, without interference from any foreign sourer That is true in Euros*, in Asia, in Africa, as well as in the Western Hemisphere...
...With millions living amid ruins, from which not all dead bodies have been removed, when winter comes the suffering will be unimaginable...
...The executive committee was unanimous in rejecting a Communist proposal for collaboration...
...Now Trumsn reiterates the same high moral principles, and asha for mora and mora power...
...Truman believes in the right of small mil Hum to independence but Byrnes ¦ays wa recognise Russia's ' si>f< ml security interests" in Central and Eastern Europe » • • ( •nasnltf t and de Gaulle Wim Fmek Election* The Communist wave has not yet subsides!—except in those countries in the Russian sphere of influence where the prestige and popularity of the Red Army and the Communists have fallen...
...thai atomic energy should he internationally controlled, and ntilised constructs»l< This get us no further than Trumaa'l moral platitudes...
...This man, who has never had anything lo do with unions, went on to describe the techniques of the present snti-union propaganda drive...
...The level of Unemployment which impels us to action is lower than it was during the thirties...
...But the smug self-righteous tone •f Truman's pronunciamento will irritate many people who had placed thrir faith in the USA, and are now disillusioned...
...In voting for a strong centralised executive as urged by de Gaulle, in contrast to the weak prewar governments, frequently changed and paralyzed by a multiplicity of parties, the French voted far national unity...
...That much we have learned from experience...
...Without pur pose aforethought I met people...
...I asked questions...
...10,000 are dying each month already...
...Nevertheless it rs imperative to keep the secret of manufacturing atom bombs from the hands of dictators, even if it can be done for only a few years...
...But, like a man in a bad dream, wa go right on doing tbe things that will lead to low production and unemployment...
...Heretofore the few players of Negro blood who have broken into the big leagues wers called Indians, Cubans, or Mexicans...
...An>' then he showed me two lists which he had worked out...
...And that something will not happen unless we make it happen...
...it ignores the fact that Russia is an aggressive, imperialist nation bent on territorial conquest...
...De Gaulle is trying to form a government of national unity...
...He is a member and defender of the ruling oligarchy,, n reactionary, and a militarist...
...But Truman added that in thousands of years the Ten Commandments "have net been universally achieved...
...Though the Catholic MRP got the votes of large numbers of conservatives, it has a radical reformist program, paralleling the minimum demands of the Socialists and similar to the program of the National Committee of Resistance adopted during the underground struggle which will probably be the governmental progrsm...
...Truman's message is no more eloquent, breathes no more of the spirit of democratic idealism, than those cf Roosevelt, and Wilson before him...
...When tr*j hear from the folks back borne, the...
...I hi* American Navy will rule the waves, and other powers will hardly consider this freedom of the seas...
...Leon Blum has declared that the French Socialists will not enter any coalition from which either the Communists or the MRP representatives are excluded...
...events as they reflect social tendencies By Liston M. Oak Fine Words Buffer No Parsnips and Liberate No Poles President Trimam Said: THE foreign policy of the United Sl»u« is based firmly on fundamental prin-I ciples of righteousness and justice . . . wa ihall not give our approval to any compromise with evil...
...One is of the beauty, the openness, the hospitality of the city...
...We shall approve m territorial changes in any friendly part of the world unlaaa they accord with the freely expressed wishes of the people concerned...
...And What colonial countries are "prepared for self-government...
...Hut in Frame* tkt Commtmilt* sAnrsd ri'eforg w.r* «V Gaullt...
...they may find it impossible to function efficiently on the basis of any common program...
...that there can he no effective de-fonne against atom bombs...
...Then we let it go up to 13,000,000...
...Under the heading "Fields in Which Adequate Kills Are Offered" he noted 12 areas: Full Employment, Unemployment Insurance, etc Under the title "Fields in Which No Adequate Kills Have Been Offered" he had put down 21' topics...
...I met one chap with a bookkeeper mind, and he said to me: "That lot of bills listed in the President's message was full of holes...
...It seems that Truman is against sin in international relations...
...We shall refuse tor recognize sny government imposed upon any nation by the foroe of amy foreign power...
...But I must confess that my fries* on the Potomac are right about their main point...
...Norwegian authorities have warned that all goods made for the Cermana before the war's end should lie carefully inspected, because workers in all Scandinavian countries used to insert TNT in cans labeled "sausages," etc...
...In the elections in Denmark on Oct...
...Hut Congress is about to pass-a resolution for a Navy which will be larger than the fleets of all other nations combined...
...Gladwin Hill of the rimes reports that there is an epidemic of tuberculosis in Poland...
...But the Dawson Investigating Committee appointed by Governor Dewey made a report that is an indictment of prevailing conditions...
...8) complete freedom of foreign proas correspondents to collect ami re pert fasts...
...They talked...
...The CP of Venesuela has gone through a factional fight which has left it divided...
...This will be difficult to achieve...
...This man is an economist, and he had an enlightening experience as one uf the administrators of our wartime economy...
...IN SUMMARY: demand the end of censorship of the press, restoration of civil liberties, a truly representative government to pro-pare the elections, the end of the dictatorship, disarmament of political organisations, an Interallied Commission to supervise the elections...
...We know that it will happen again...
...In Summary TThE Rnmanian National liberal Party (conservative but democratic) declared in a manifesto that free elections are impossible under present conditions, and the Yalta agreement cannot be fulfilled...
...Most" Washington liberals would be satisfied with' the passage of three or four bills dealing with basic needs—say Full -Employment, Minimum Wages, Housing, a Permanent FEPC, snd Unemployment Insurance...
...There were a few Congressmen, now and then an executive employee, here and there a trade union man...
...And the composite picture which left upon my mind is a disturbing one...
...But Communist sabotage ami recalcitrance will lead to trouble and continued deadlock (they are already demanding key posts), and the only future hope lies in a coalition government of the Socialists, the MRP, the Radical Socialists, and lesser parties...
...is exactly like i Congressman...
...WASHINGTON liberals are convinced that the Truman program is lost...
...Despite the official amnesty, only 401 political prisoners have besn freed about 30,000...
...Walter Ulb'richt, German Communist I- defied (,'ciieinl Eisenhower's . ban on the formation of .political'blocs in the American xone and announced that their1' four-party coalition will be extended throughout the Reich...
Vol. 28 • November 1945 • No. 44
