REDS' DRIVE ON CZECH LABOR RECALLS DAYS OF HAPSBURG
Martinek, Joseph
Trials arid Errors By Elmer Davis ANY ATTEMPT TO COVER THE NEWS these days must fall into two parts—the news of what is going on and being done in L the world; and the news of all the trials,...
...Wh^t have we got...
...These charges were brought up under Congressional immunity by a Republican Congressman, who mentioned them merely as ugly rumors, which he claims he hopes will be disproved...
...Elmer Davis is one of America's beat-known and most respected news analysts...
...But the record.of American Communists doesn't indicate that' they are that smart...
...Judgment in the trials will be rendered by the juries...
...This .could become a dangerous precedent...
...but not matters of very great importance, and riot apparently bearing on anything that is happening now...
...Reds' Drive on Czech Labor Recalls Days of Hapsburg By Joseph Martinek THE CASE OF JOSEF PACES is a celebrated one in the annals of the Czechoslovak labor movement...
...In September alone, 134 antiCommunists were given, collectively, 654 years in jail...
...twenty-two persons in the mining town of Most "received sentences totalling 92 years, for distributing illegal leaflets...
...The fact remains that Miss Coplon had some government documents which apparently she had no business having...
...but also in the interest of American .foreign policy, which may he seriously and unfavorably affected oy au tnese allegations or irtjusun, mismanagement arid corruption, unless the facts are known...
...According to the government's chief mouthpiece, Jludo Pravo (April 16, 1949), in one industry only 102,830 out of 203,044 eligible voters actually cast ballots in elections held in March and April...
...The hearings have not yet begun...
...Last October, twenty-eight members of the National Socialist (Benes) party were sentenced to a total of 137 years imprisonment, charged with publishing the illegal newspapers Svobodn* Sloi-o and Pochoden...
...Czech workers everywhere vividly recalled the Pace case when an almost exact repetition of it occurred a few months ago in Prague, only under a Communist regime which Joudly pro. claims its friendship for the workers...
...to support so sweeping a charge* or indeed any charge of mismanage. ment at all, aside from questions where the judgment of equally, honest and patriotic men could differ...
...THE NEW CZECH constitution (which the late President Eduaid Benes refused to sign) provides that "freedom of expression is guaranteed.'' Yet under this "guarantee" 147 editors were purged and expelled from the syndicate of newspaper workers, which means that they have been thrown out of their jobs, banned from the profession of writing, and compelled to seek work in mines or "factories under the handicap of being blacklisted...
...They are charged with conspiracy to teach and advocate the overthrow of the government by force and violence, which' to many people looks like trying them not for what they have done but for what they intend to do...
...but they might be as honorably, if less profitably, employed in stealing pennies out of blind men's tincups...
...A House committee will soon investigate allegations of the most nefarious kind of corruptions at the very top of the National Military Establisment—allegations .that the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of the Air Force have been basing the national defense largely on B 36's because of their personal interests...
...the State Goutt in Prague sentenced Vaclav Ksada, an employe of a cooperative store, to eighteen years imprisonment...
...publishing an illegal Socialist newspaper), and on November 21, 1885, sentenced to sixteen years' imprisonment, While in jail, two years were added to his original sentence for attacking a prison guard who maltreated him...
...Thereafter he was executive secretary of the Czechoslovak National Council oi America...
...it can't be dismissed as justji hot-weather neurosis...
...Their motives are no doubt patriotic...
...Unfortunately...
...when they themselves, by smears and exaggerations, are doing more harm to national security than the Communists have ever done...
...whether or not she intended to pass them on to a Russian agent the jury must decide...
...Liquidation of the Social Democrats, the oldest Czech labor party— whose first newspaper, incidentally, was published not in Prague but in Chicago, 1870—was carried out...
...Then there are Senator Hickenlooper's charges of incredible mismanagement by the Atomic Energy Commission which are still being . heard...
...latures, notably in Illinois and California, in trying to enforce their...
...All of which would give to foreign observers the picture of.a government shot through and through with corruption, incompetence, and Communism...
...About the same tim...
...Released after eighteen years, sick and broken but too proud to accept relief from his comrades, Paces emigrated to the United States, where he died in 1969...
...Unfortunately, "some individuals and some newspapers are encouraging us to make asses of ourselves, by trying to spread fear and hysteria...
...there is something in it, though not so much as has been alleged, and it is important to try to distinguish fact from fiction...
...This was recently evidenced by their widespread refusal to participate in elections of Factory Councils...
...It was to punish this group that Ksada was imprisoned, thus repeating almost identically the circumstances of the Paces case sixty yeaia before...
...Few people feel that any evidence has so far been presented...
...Barely 65,000 out of 450,000 entered the Communist fold...
...And the trial of Judith Coplon, which so far has been chiefly important in its revelations of the contents of certain FBI reports, which have been unfairly interpreted as reflecting on the FBI...
...Joining the Czech labor movement at a time when imperial Austrian and German tyranny made it necessary to form workers' organizations i* seerecy, Josef Paces was entrusted hy bis comrades with operating a small, clandestine printing press in Northern Bohemia...
...and the news of all the trials, investigations and allegations that are causing such an unroar in this country—what ah editorial in the New York Times calls our noonday madness...
...state legis...
...the jury will have to decide whether or not Hiss lied in saying that he didn't give them to Chambers...
...ON OCTOBER 4. 194...
...e « THESE THREE TRIALS have of course been started, and are being prosecuted, by the administration...
...Then there is the trial of Alger Hiss for perjury, in which the verdict will inevitably imply the jury's opinion as to, whether he did or did not give secret government documents to Whit taker Chambers...
...linger, despite threats and cajolery, there is an activev opposition to the Gottwald regime which is considered dangerous...
...There has been some espionage-inside the government...
...Three trials: first, the trial of the Communist leaders in New York which has been going on for months...
...Beyond all this there, is the Committee's demand on colleges and universities for a list of books that students are encouraged to read...
...but the fact remains that he got secret documents from somebody, documents which he should not have had...
...in both cases then judgment will be rendered on the basis of facts, not of allegations or newspaper headlines...
...Reports from the Czech underground state that the number of imprisoned patriots has risen to 60,000, not including inmates of concentration camps* Joseph Martinek was assist—fa editor of, the Prague Social Democratic daily Ptvvo Wu, from I93i until the Nasi occupation in 1939...
...views oMoyalty on university professors...
...through the traitor Zdenek Fierlinger against the will of the huge majority of its membership...
...The free press has been driven into illegality...
...A former editor of the New York Times, Mr...
...IT IS THE BEST ADVERTISING American Communists have...
...Davis served as director of the Office of War Information after a stint with CBS...
...but Who did it is not yet known, and most of the evidence deals with what happened years ago...
...Ksada was a right wing Social Democrat...
...He now broadcasts dally for ABC at 7:15 p. m. (ESTK This article Is based on bis broadcast of Juno-15...
...Publishers of illegal newspapers are sentenced to from ten to eighteen years...
...This is by no means an isolated instance of how a police state works...
...Betrayed by a co-worker, he was arrested by the Austrian ponce, charged with treason and lese majestc (for...
...Despite a wave of terror which surpasses that of the old Austrian police state, opposition to the Communist regime grows...
...selves are not behind this drive to spread suspicion and fear, to make every man distrust his neighbor and especially to distrust public ofR-'' cials...
...What is going on has many sources, and mixed motives—including genuine concern, and irrational panic...
...Now as to the attacks against the administration—that is, the investigations...
...reactionaries to discredit,.not 'Communists, but moderate liberals../ •But I have been unable to find any evidence of any such conspiracy...
...but we are in danger of making asses of ourselves...
...it is up to the jury to decide whether what they have done constitutes overt acts...
...pending presentation, of . evidence, it is fair to say that very few if any people around Washington think there is anything whatever in this story...
...judgments in the investigations by the investigating committees...
...ever had—far better than any they could ever give themselves...
...Other people think it is a concerted drive'by...
...And in the meantime we might all usefully keep cool...
...As in the Paces case, Ksada was charged with publishing an illegal newspaper, Soctalni Dcwiokretf, and with committing "lese majeste" by insulting the Communist Czech President Klement Gottwald...
...so • much so that some people have wondered if the Communists theni...
...Important not...
...and the actions...
...This nation seems to be in no immediate danger, either . from foreign foes or from their domestic agents...
...Among those refusing to follow Fier...
...And Anally there are the continued hearings of the Uh-American Activities Committee which have produced some convincing evidence as to what happened years ago...
...That fact has encouraged suspicious men — whose suspicions may, in most cases, be motivated by zeal for the public welfare—to attack everybody who disagrees with them as at least a security risk, and probably a traitor...
...Davis is a member of the Washington chapter of Americans for Democratic Action...
...For Communists tho most painful aspect of this is that dislike of the government is strong among the workers...
...only for the sanity of the American people...
...Chambers has admitted that he has repeatedly .perjured himself...
...Illegal Socialist newspapers are persecuted more savagely than any other...
Vol. 32 • July 1949 • No. 27
