WASHINGTON AND THE NATION
STOUT, JONATHAN
Washington and the Nation America Forging New Foreign Policy By Jonathan Stout wrwr TASHINGTON, D. C.-As fore\\ cast here « week ago, the big ™ * newa in the National Capital this week waa...
...This vote, coming at a time when even the conservatives are wondering whether they were so smart in crippling OPA last year, marks a high in Republican insensitivity to the rising sullenness of people generally on the subject of the rising cost of living and the open greediness of the profiteers...
...This bill, instead of doing what can be done to remove causes of discontent, actually will tend to increase it...
...Roosevelt's secretaries "with a passion for anonymity...
...This news gets top priority even over the long-awaited Supreme Court decision on John L. Lewis and the mine workers, which for its im. portanee would have rated top billing any other week...
...It was weasel worded in just about ili.il way...
...Washington and the Nation America Forging New Foreign Policy By Jonathan Stout wrwr TASHINGTON, D. C.-As fore\\ cast here « week ago, the big ™ * newa in the National Capital this week waa the public emergence of the first steps in a new foreign policy by the United States...
...CAN COMMUNISM IE ABOLISHED BY LAW...
...Rut no law taking legal rights away from either Communists or Fascists will succeed in its purpose of banishing the specter of totalitarianism...
...It robs public employees of the right to strike without giving them any compensating advantages...
...Not on unprovable allegations that they are Communists—as in the l.ilienthal rase—but on the ground that they are stupid and inept, if not venal...
...But it is perfectly clear that no new foreign policy in the White House will mean much until two things happen: 1. First the architects of the ruinous policies of the past must be dismissed from the State Department and the environs of the White House...
...The Government, however, has the right and the duty to discharge from all agencies of government, and most importantly, from the State Department and the Army, those whose loyalty If to S foreign government and to an alien totalitarian philosophy...
...Schwellenbach asked...
...Schwellenbach himself gave one reason why his proposal will not work...
...Subway employees in New York City, driven to desperation by long neglect, threatened a walk-out...
...Had such a policy been in operation during the past two yeais we would not have been blackmailed into betrayal of the Atlantic Charter and of our allies in 1'oland and Yugoslavia...
...From June, 1942, until now our foreign policy was based on Uie premise that the world would not be organized on * basis of peace and stability without the wholehearted cooperation of the Soviet Union...
...DksPITF, the renewed hope, however, there are still dispiriting developments in Wsshington...
...Republican Congressman Taber of New York pulled the modem version of Marie Antoinette's "let them rat cake," when he chortled after the OPA vote, "let the people do their own rent regulating...
...The White House letter was signed by I.aurhlin Currie, at that time one of Mr...
...We approve of the exclusion of Communists from trade union leadership or even from Chambers of Commerce...
...I took the matter to the White House for an explanation...
...EDITORIAL NOTES . . . Governor Dewey Gets Tough NEVER have we been given a better example of the illusion that any difficulty can lie banished by law than that furnished in Albany during the past few days...
...The greatest «m,In impetus towards outlawing the Communist Party as a legal politiral party came in Washington this week from l.aboi Secretary Schwellenhai li Testifying Safari the House Labor Committee last Tuesday on the question whether Communists should be fired from positions of leadership in unions, Schwellenbach said that "doesn't go far enough...
...This week Secretary Marshal) in Moscow is presenting the arrogant Russians with the choice which The Sew Leader has urged fruitlessly for two years—¦ either build world peace with us in genuine cooperation and mutual compromise or we will build world peace Without you...
...The first occasion came to my attention just before the election campaign of 1944 when I discovered that a leading Communist had been appointed to a high official position on the United States delegation to the Bretton Woods Conference (to which the Soviet Union refused to send delegates...
...Two months ago politicos in Washington wouldn't have given you s plugged nickel for Truman's chances for reelection...
...In the course of investigating the matter I learned that it had been the personal endorsement of War Secretary Patterson which was responsible for the appointment of this Communist...
...Despite the adherence of the CIO and the British trade unions to the WFTU, ho realistic person doubts that the WFTU is the 1947 version of the 1930 Piorintern (Red International of Trade Unions with headquarters in Moscow...
...The punishments provided are so savage as to suggest that the employees are all regarded as potential criminals...
...There's an angry muttering at the grass roots, Mr...
...What pressure prevailed upon PatterSon this time to shoe-horn a pro-Soviet "mission" into Japan over MacArthur's objections remains as yet unanswered...
...The immediate question, he said, was whether it could In- done simply as an act of Congress or whether it would require a constitutional amendment...
...Until now the White House and State Department were willing to pay any price in the hope of obtaining this wholehearted cooperation...
...No publication realizes that Communism is a threat more clearly than this one...
...Truman's comeback in popularity is an amazing phenomenon...
...What is needed is not more secrecy but more publicity...
...Why should we recognize the Communist Party in the United States...
...To settle all such matters anil make things move smoothly, the Governor and his friends have now put through the .Stale Senate the CondonV\ ..II-., Bill...
...t. Second, they must be replaced by men who on provable records are marked by two qualities—technical competence and a demonstrated loyalty to the United States and to democratic principles, * * * In the meantime, the new hardening on the international scene finds a companion movement on the domestic scene...
...The pendulum now is swinging the other way...
...I therefore pursued the inquiry to the War Department...
...Yet, to my knowledge, this is the second time he bas permitted himself to be sn instrument in assisting the Communists in an important matter...
...For this chance, Truntan is deeply indebted also to the Republicans...
...Marshall in Mosrow, account in part for the rising popularity of President Truman as evidenced in the latest Gallup Poll...
...To build world peace without the Russians, tranalated into action, means that the United States will block Russian expansion in the Mediterranean areas of Greece and Italy, in the Near Kast Moslem areas, and in the Far Kast areas of China, Japan and Korea...
...I was shown the letter from the White House asking Patterson to make the endorsement...
...Why should they be able to elect people to public office and, theoretically, elect members ol Congress...
...But they will also agree that the only way to secure effective service from such employees is to maintain their morale...
...And the Russians, correctly gauging such simple-mindedness, were running a highly remunerative blackmail racket under these favorable circumstances...
...can't you hear it...
...Schwellrnbach said that Communists "should be excluded from any type of public activity, including the right to run for public office, to sit in Chambers of Commerce or to hold office in trsde uuins...
...At the War Department I was officially informed that Patterson knew nothing about this Communist, but had written the letter of endorsement at the request of the White House...
...Whatever may be the right way to improve the situation with regard to the danger of strikes by public employees, this measure is not it...
...One of them came to light this week when War Secretary Patterson overruled General MacArthur and okayed the sending of a WFTU (World Federation of Trade Unions) mission to Japan...
...It is impossible to frame a law depriving Communists and Fascists of their civil liberties which could not at some future time be used by a reactionary regime against Socialists" and even liberals...
...Tafl...
...That still remains the premise—but there is now a new interpretation of its development...
...From Currie's letter one might have inferred reasonably that Currie was merely the go-between in paasing the request along...
...He said that the difficulty in getting rid of the totalitarians in the ttade unions is thst it is bard to pin them down, to prove that a man is a Communist...
...This brought the promise from Chairman Hartley of the House Committee' that he would introduce legislation outlawing the Communist Party...
...ThE opinions voiced by his Secretary of Labor and the new policy instructions to Cen...
...Amu Hi';it example of the prevalent mania for abolishing trouble by law Is Secretary of Labor Schwellenbarh's proposal to outlaw the Communist Party...
...but those organizations should clean house for themselves...
...Or it might have left one wondering whether it was not Currie's own ides...
...I got no explanation, only the assurance that things like this made Currie more ot a liability than he was worth and that the White House was going to ease him out...
...Practically everyone will agree with the Democratic opponents of this measure that strikes by employees of states and municipalities are undesirable...
...The teachers ol Buffalo, who had been left dangling for years with salaries below the standard of living, filially went on strike...
...But even labor circles in Washington were prone to agree this week that the fight which will now ensue on the issues raised by the Supreme Court in the mine workers' case is somewhat less urgent and less fateful for the whole world than the implications in America's emerging new foreign policy...
...Another Republican contribution to the Tinman 1948 campaign was made this week when the Republican majority in the Mouse whooped through the final death of (ll'A —and with it the death of rent control...
...So far as I have been able to discover, Patterson has not the vaguest inclination towarda the Communists...
...The Communist conspirators against democracy must be smoked out, tagged as Communists or fellow-travelers, like poison sold under the terms of the Pure Food and Drug Act, so that the American people can take appropriate action...
...If it is hard to prove that Harry Bridges is a Communist now, when the CP is legal, consider how much more difficult it would be if the whole subversive movement is driven underground...
...The Hem Leader's editors an.I contributors are often accused tf being Red-baiters...
...At a time when Russian expansionism is whipping up its Communist agents in the Far F.sst to fevered activities, it seems an incredible stupidity thst the wise order of General MacArthur barring the WFTU mission from Japan should be overruled by Republican War Secretary Patterson...
Vol. 30 • March 1947 • No. 11
