WHERE THE NEWS ENDS

...Others, under the compulsion to suggest sction, urge t» withdrawal of our embassy or the denial of loses...

...It was somewhat startling to read l.t-i month that the famous Pastor Niemoeller and his wife were the ln-t I Julian civilians who had arrived in America with regular visas since the end of the war...

...We have been cut off from contact from our natural friends and allies in Germany...

...The problem was thick with foreign intrigue and special European complications, but there was no turning away from American responsibility...

...But the reporting of this revelation of oppression and discussion of it in the American press prove a great deal...

...At the same time there is an iron curtain of our ohm which bus never served any useful purpose ami which should l>e lifted immediately...

...1 could see what line results were produced hv (lie visits of living Brown, of the AEL, or Max Brauer and llirtlolf Katz, old German Social Democratic leaders from the Ilamburg-Altona region...

...Outside of the newspaper I'M, whose correspondent, Italpli liigeisoll, gave a really nauseating exhibition of misrepresentation, 'our correspondents gave an excellent account of themselves...

...The issues were 4,000 miles away, but the American press gave it banner headlines...

...Where it flourishes, there we wish to be ss defenders...

...Could they go to the polls and vote in or vote out whomever they pleased...

...The sooner we lift the preposterous iron curtain which has been imposed none quite knows by whom for purposes which are anything hut clear, the sooner we iiiaytj>w for a rational and decent postwar European, jettlemeaj* * * * I FOLLOW British magazines and newspapers f»it| closely...

...Karh victor must fulfill his part— We drain the life-blood from the heart...

...Were they free...

...Could they speak their minds openly...

...And in the vanquished tyrant's place Strip off the flesh and pick the bones...

...We have the means, but hesitate to use them because, of the confusion of thought which our ow$ iron curtain has helped to create...

...An Editorial— Poland — What Can We Do...

...What has happened in Poland presents a tough problem to the American Government...

...Socialist and labor organisations in this country should have a chance to fjVieu in Dr...

...Where it is crushed—as it is in Poland— we remain uncompromising critics...

...nent starvation of Germany lock, stock and birrel which is keenly anxious to end the disgraceful ttm\, starvation in the western zone, is too impoverished to undertake any very decisive measures on iu 01n^ account...

...And (such a consolidation would, rrrnts ally, force the issur in the direction of a solution...

...This iu itself it far from futile...

...All are politically free In death's supreme democracy...

...It seems that he has been forbidden to discuss political questions, and Mr...

...would art nli,11 is most sorely needed in this country: an limit-islanding of prrsrnt-ilny conditions ami of lite steps which must be taken to prevent either a resiiryi-nrr of Nazism or a collapse into Communist lolalilaiiaiiis.il...

...Many editors content therasebei with vigorous expression of disapproval...

...Poland was the first battleground of World War II, and Americans wanted to know how far along the road the Poles had come after years of violence and destruction...

...that we are not getting and cannot get a full objective picture of conditions in the Soviet Union and many of its satellite states under present conditions...

...Out of straightforward talks by men who bore the burden of the incredibly difficult struggle against Nazism from within Germany, out of equally frank and searching questions from the sudicjices, wr...

...The Poles were pictured as they really areas eager for the rights of democracy, suffering [of lack of them and willing to sacrifice safety and lift in order to secure them...

...Both these suggestions are much to the poisU Another would be that the American delegation fom the whole matter to the attention of the United NatioBI Such a move would bring no immediate practicl results, but it would keep the subject on the agead of world discussion...

...I usually disagree...

...Even if Niemoeller were entirely free to talk, he is a specialist in ethics and theology, rather than in polities ami economics...

...The suppression of opposition papers and meetings, the use of troops and police,, the murder and imprisonment of candidates, tin: denial of the right of putting up candidates, the threatening of voters—the whole rolien business" was exposed in detailed despatches...

...IT IS a pretty notorious fact, except lo readers of Communist, fellow-traveler and totalitarian liberal publications, that an iron curtain of censorship and secrecy hangs over the Soviet Union and a Urge part of the East European area which the Soviet Union lias .annexed or brought under political control...

...Actually, nothing would do the American people more good than In listen to lectures, Completely I rank ami uninhibited lectures, on the rise and fail of Nazism and on the political, social anil economic conditions lli.it have prevailed in Germany under tin: occupation, not only from Niemoeller, but from other anti-Nail Germans of varying points of view...

...Schumacher, who lost an arm in the First World War, survived years of bestial maltreatment In a conceittrail on camp...

...Our interim achievement stands, We keep starvation in control, And if they perish upon our hands As ordered famine takes its toll...

...There is as question about public opinion in this country...

...It would force the Soviet Covets nicnt and its satellites to face up to their misdreA It would consolidate the democratic forces os I world basis...

...I allude to the iron curtain against contacts with Germans of proved JiiliNa/i sympathies...

...And, except for I'M, there was no hypocritical pretense that this sort of thing is good enough for the people of Eastern Europe...

...On.: of the main purposes of totalitarian censorship i-* to Iwfinlille and confuse public opinion in free countries where thought control is unknown, rhere arc still too many Americans who believe that a critic of Communism would have no more ilifiiculiv in entering Ifussia than a foreign critic of American ways of life would experience in coming to the United Slates...

...The Polish election crisis, which came to a head last Sunday, was precisely that rare thing—a touchstone for judging how .serious we are about political rights, civil liberties, a free world, our whole democratic faith...

...We ought lo be hearing from men like Jacob Kaiser, Christian trade-union leader, and flora: othei* who, like him, look part in the plot against Hitler's life wliieli miscarried on July 20, 1944...

...The story ol that awkward imitation of an election is told on another page by Liston M. Oak...

...Or was totalitarianism still in the saddle...

...And western-oriented Germans, through the crassest stupidity, have been deliberately isolated from books, magazines, newspapers which express the ideas of western democracies...

...It seems to me that there is a special obligation fur the press and radio in this country lo publicise every authenticated fact about tin- .Soviet iron curtain, every instance of censorship, expulsion and refusal of an entrance visa, to such .1 degree tlicit only (lie incurably blind would fail to iccngni/i...

...1 'I'lli-s excludes, of course, scientists who were brought by the Army for technical information...

...with the London New Statesman for the same reason that I dissent from 77ie New Republic and The Sationa tendency to survey the world scene through Mosco* tinted lenses...

...Even the visit of Niemoeller, who spent eight years in the concentration camps of Dachau and Sachsenhausrn, was apparently hedged about with conditions...

...As 1 could see during my trip to Germany last summer, our iron curtain has worked two ways, ami lias made no sense either way...

...Even in a world divided by an iroa <iiilain, public opinion will in the end have its dfaxV But the editorials published far and wide during the past few days show how hard we are put to it ts suggest any practical action calculated to influeaca the course of events in Poland and other lands wjtsui the Soviet orbit...

...It proves all over again what we have often said about the way things are done in countries controlled by Soviet Russia...

...Their attitude toward the German problem is far-more ae*ult and intelligent than our 0WBi ^ seems a pity thut Great Britain, which lias ilie Will toscrap the infamous Potsdam scheme for the permi...

...Hut what has been done up to this time in permitting exchanges of visits and ideas between likeminded Germans and Americans, in promoting normal rontacjjp between trade unions, universities, churches in the two countries, comes definitely under llie heading: Too little and too late...

...Eleanor Roosevelt greeted his airi>al wiili the sour remark that MI Vanned quite see why we should be asked to listen to his lectures...

...IT is seldom that American public opinion is confjjpnled nilli a perfect international test-case...

...They show, above all, that we have in this country a solid basis for honest and critical thought...

...But I was deeply impressed by* thtV spirit of a poem, ironically entitled ''Denazification,'* which appeared in The New Statesman, of which j quote two typical stanzas: The masters of the master-rare Administer half-famished zones...

...Theft is only one criterion for a free world—and that '» freedom...

...It is a vigorous weapon for the reconstruction of a war-ravaged world...

...Kurt Schumacher, outstanding personality in the Social Democratic Early, who ha* only recently been received with honor by (he British Labor Party and the British Foreign Oleic in London...

...The democratic way is not among us something for parliamentarians and students of political science...

...There isn't very much we can do about that iron curtain except to keep on mentioning the farl that it is there...