WHERE THE NEWS ENDS
CHAMBERLIN, WILLIAM HENRY
Where the News Ends By William Henry Chamberlin The Right Note At Last CHICAGO—A witty and cynical commentator developed the habit of referring to the President as Harry S. (for nothing)...
...The immediate Inline looked dark...
...The realities of 1917 have turned out to be something quite different...
...This gibe lost its barb after March 12...
...He has taken up the long series of challenges thrown out by the Soviet Government...
...One can already see in the making a loose coalition of three opposition forces, the fellowtravelers, the United Nations wishful thinkers and the diehard isolationists...
...They would do away with war controls over prices...
...A progressive one has • chance to win...
...Instead, they ran into the public opinion of 1947...
...It will not be read with pleasure by the masters of the Kremlin or by their puppets in Warsaw, Bucharest and Sofia...
...Anyone who listened to their tslk during the final months of l'> lo was convinced lhat they had little chance of ataging a come-back for years to come...
...Hut does il make practical sense to talk of referrring what is essentially a problem of curbing Soviet aggression to a body in which the Soviet Union possesses a veto power...
...Totalitarian regimes imposed on free peoples, by direct or indirect aggression, undermine the foundations of international peace and heme the security of the United States, The people* of a number of countries of the world have recently had totalitarian regimes forced upon them against their will...
...There was to be a return to normalcy...
...For Tinman did more than tskc a wise decision in deciding to go all-out in Mocking Soviet aggressive expansion in the Near Last...
...s a • » I A MAY be overopriinislit...
...In the meantime, ihe Republicans were riding high...
...The Government of the I nited States has made frequent protests against coercion and intimidation, in violation of the I alia Agreement, in Poland, Rumania anil Bulgaria:' Here is surely a moral derecognition and disavowal of every Red Quisling regime from the Baltic lo the Black Sea...
...The Chicago Tribune, anything but colorless, fulminates as usual about the supposed sinister hand of Britain and ihr danger of risking American lives and dollars for iinapprecialive foreigners...
...They might still draw their salaries, but funds for their operations would be restricted...
...A ie> turn to .good old American Ways of doing things would rapidly pul things in applepie order...
...TllAT was the Republican dream of November, 1946...
...They would cut taxes 20 percent across the board...
...What happens in 1918 depends os) how well the liberal and labor voters organise them* selves in 1917...
...The Chicago Sun, while more restrained'tlian Marshall Field's PM (which some wit happily dubbed I'ravda Minor) is hospitsble to the viewpoint summed up in the familiar introductory phrase "Fin not a Communist, but...
...He put the case for this policy in admirably logical terms...
...It has been openly said—and by Republicans—that the results of the presidential election of 1918 are hy no means to be taken for granted...
...It is true that Truman's recently acquired prestige as a leader in foreign affairs gives him an advantage...
...Yet here in the Middle West, in cities like Chicago mil Milwaukee, where opposition to American involve•t nt in the Second World War was strong before Pearl iarhor, I am rather surprised by the amount of ipport for Truman's policy which one finds in casual i ui\ 11 -.it11in...
...Others had been let out by President Truman...
...The American Government would be m a stronger • potttion if the clear, unequivocal note of the Truman.: message had been struck earlier, if we bad not sacri, * i hoed our friends in Poland, ifVe had supported net ally, Mihailovitch, not onr enemy, Tito, in YugosliwSt But there is still every reason to hope that the new policy is not a matter-of "too little and too late,** especially if it is applied consistently in every part of the glol>e snd is accompanied by a drastic shift of policy toward Germany and Japan...
...Where the News Ends By William Henry Chamberlin The Right Note At Last CHICAGO—A witty and cynical commentator developed the habit of referring to the President as Harry S. (for nothing) Truman...
...Those who were still in office rould see no future for themselves or their ideas during the life of the 80th Congress...
...But thus far his leadership with regard lo full employment, housing, health, social security, has been less than dynamic...
...Neither one has leaders who can claim wide confidence...
...Giving business its head would soon step up production...
...What—for lack of a betler name—we call liberalism was in retreat...
...The new policy will not he firmly established without a struggle...
...Candidates who had the support of trade unions had fared badly...
...The Daily News, » rajher colorless paper editorially, regrets thai the Ignited Nations was not brought into the picture...
...If vigorously pursued the Truman policy offers the prospect that the line may not only be held, but rolled hack...
...In an ideal world where the' United Nations possessed the authority and independence of a parliament of man, reference of the Near Eastern crisis to its authority would be logical...
...They would put trade unions in their place...
...Unless the party of Roosevelt can get together and develop-more vision and power, the election of 1948 is liable lo be • languid affair...
...As for the isolationist position, it has been greatly undermined by two consequences of the late war: the invention of the atomic bomb and the destruction of any semblance of power In Europe and in AsiaflF This jast consequence is emphasised by the ma iked ' weakening in the position of Great Britain...
...Stormy hearings on taxation, labor legists* tion, housing and what to do about Communism have led to division and dissent rather than to agreement The tempestuous reactionary leaders who went stoat* ing into the opening sessions sll set to cut taxation, fire "pink" employees and put s straitjacket on labor are now orating in a minor key...
...The independent voters ate the ones who win elections, ana they—for the most part—are those of the sort who supported llie New Deal...
...The world pas simply become too small for a large nation like the United States to hide in...
...Many of ihem had resigned in disgust even before the election...
...Consider, for example, ihe ibtttreJHy of Henry Wallace bleating over the rlher waves 'VNo loan to undemocratic Turkey" when he has been a voi iferous advocate of loans to the iufinllelv mere "undemocratic" Soviet Union awd its satellites, which are not even allowed to practice indigenous brands of "undemocracy...
...Neither one has a program which ran command a wide following...
...These men expected to have behind their moves in America like that of 1922...
...A conservative Democratic Psrty will surrlv lose...
...The 80th Congress has been in session for well over two months and no legislation has been passed...
...The Bepublieans, on the contrary, felt and acted as if they had the world by the tail and could keep it under control for years to come...
...The Soviet Union today is not Germany in 1911...
...wherever its rulers look in their ramshackle empire they see hunger, discontent snd staggering economic problems...
...A constructive program putting the government at ihe service of the people is the only sort which can win aguinst the Republicans...
...It is exhausted, bled white...
...There is every reason to expect that the Soviet career of aggression can be slopped without war, if our leaders recognise the strength of the cards they hold and play them boldly, and if onr public opinion rises to the grave* snd challenge of this crisis of the peace...
...Even during the war, when reviewers were organizing lynching bees for William L. White, I found midwr«lein lecture audiences quite responsive to straightforward accounts ol what Soviet totalitarianism meant...
...TV heart of the President's message, which goes fsr beyond the immediate issue of bolstering up Greece and Turkey against Soviet intrigues and threatened aggression, is contained in the following words...
...He has committed this country to the proposition of holding the invisible frontier that has been marked out between the Soviet sphere of influence and the outside world...
...Under these circumstances ihe New Dealers who had so much to do with the social advances of the past dorm years began lo speak of themselves as "the government in exile...
...Republican liberals like Senator Wayne Morse, of Oregon, and Senator Charles W. Tobey, of New Hampshire, have not Item slow lo remind them that they have been given no blank check by the voters, thst they must make good or suffer the consequences...
...He made no pretense that whal was contemplated in regard to Turkey and Greece was a routine relief operation...
...There is slill lime for liberal arid labor forces la organize, unify, educate—and put on a winning campaign in I'lilt...
...which is something quite different...
...They looked forward confidently lo the election of a Republican President in 1948...
...High production would rapidly bring down prices...
...Two discredited parties will battle for the msslerv...
...The Democrats and all of their supporting legions of New Dealers, liberals snd trade unionists took for grsnted that they had entered upon a period of decline and defeat...
...It is really a revival of lend-lease, although the word was not used, made necessary by s crisis of the peace which is no less threatening and challenging than the crises of the wsr...
...Trade union oicials and liberal political leaders alike retired to lick their wounds and reform their lines...
...They had a commission directly from the people...
...Here in Chicago one can see a reflection of each of these influences in one of the larger newspapers...
...Il mii-i he i-onfoased lhat the waning prestige of tne Republicans and the proportional gain on the pait of President Truman and the Democrats is due t > Republican blundering rather than to any aigns of effective Democratic leadership...
...One explanation of this fact is that this part of the country was never so badly bamboozled as some cities on the Last and West coasts about the true character of the Soviet regimr...
...But I think ihe fellowImveler tread in American thinking is on ihe decline...
...Loose talk of imminent war is not logical...
...Many of the most progressive members of Congress had been relegated lo private life...
...The President has struck the right note at last He lias buried a policy of appeasement that was both unrealistic snd ignoble...
...An Editorial— The Republicans Learn the Facts of Life THE election of November, 1946, was generally accepted as a green light lor reaction...
...It involves so many contradictions and iiicousislem-ics • Ii ii only the most hsrdenrd addicts sir in< lined to persist...
...They would turn housing over to private interests...
Vol. 30 • March 1947 • No. 12
