FIRST THINGS FIRST
First Things First THE current political crises in Greece, Italy, and Belgium—all nations liberated from the Nazi yoke by Allied arms—emphasize afresh the urgent need for a dynamic American foreign...
...Mandate For Suppression...
...The same Administration which is demanding immediate action to approve the still incompleted international organization mapped at Dumbarton Oaks, is making no visible effort to fight for the only kind of democratic, anti-imperialist peace which Americans would agree to enforce through the instrument of a world security council...
...Landis, who is resigning his post, has complained bitterly that although the United States is footing all the bills, British imperial policies are being placed in operation without effective American challenge and without regard for American principles...
...If President Roosevelt, at the Teheran Conference," he wrote, "deeded over the Balkan hegemony to Britain and Russia, without retaining any influence worth mentioning for the United States, he may have committed one of the Administration's gravest blunders in foreign policy...
...It found in the election outcome this mandate: "Once and for all the propaganda mills of isolationists must be stopped...
...And from Cairo comes word that James M. Lan-dis, former dean of the Harvard Law School and now senior economic representative of President Roosevelt in the Middle East, is thoroughly disgusted with America's failure to assert a democratic policy in Italy, Greece, and Near and Middle East areas...
...First Things First THE current political crises in Greece, Italy, and Belgium—all nations liberated from the Nazi yoke by Allied arms—emphasize afresh the urgent need for a dynamic American foreign policy— one which can give democratic direction to European peoples who want neither to be swallowed up by the Soviet Union nor to be saddled with pre-war monarchies and Tory regimes...
...Once and for all the theories of race superiority must be muzzled...
...The deal was consummated only after a long and bitter fight, during which the power trusters tried all their old tricks to block co-op acquisition...
...Congress could contribute greatly to building enduring peace on the foundation of a democratic settlement by concentrating in the months just ahead, in the field of foreign policy, on discussion, debate, and formulation of a democratic peace settlement;—and postpone action on the instrument of enforcement until we haye developed a peace program worth enforcing...
...7, the people of the United States did not mean to surrender the tiniest fraction of their freedom, not even at the behest of those who would have been stopped and muzzled long ago were it not for the freedom they seek now to destroy...
...HERBERT L. MATTHEWS wirelessed the New York Times from Rome that the Italians are "startled and shocked" by the British action—and by apparent American acquiescence...
...This disheartening picture of America's role— or lack of constructive role—in the liberated countries of Europe surely confirms the soundness of the position The Progressive has emphasized again and again...
...More recently the British have taken over the political stage to establish or protect European regimes which will play the game the British way, regardless of the feelings of the peoples concerned...
...For several months Moscow dominated the political stage, the Soviets making it clear that the Baltic nations, a slice of Poland, and large chunks of the Balkans are to become Russian territory or spheres of influence when the shooting ends...
...The reason given was Sforza's "unreliability," but Frederick Kuh, top-notch London correspondent for the Marshall Field papers, pointed out that "some observers believe that what the British Government really meant was that Sforza was unreliable for the Italian monarchy, unreliable for the House of Savoy that backed Mussolini, ravaged Ethiopia, and aligned Italy on the side of the Nazis in this war...
...Although American men, money, and munitions were used to liberate the nations concerned, American principles are neither embraced by our Allied partners nor pressed with any show of spirit by the Roosevelt Administration...
...The New Masses' proposal to muzzle opposition would not only constitute a fundamental violation of a basic guarantee in the American Bill of Rights —known as so much bourgeoise bunk in Communist circles—but would help make martyrs of all the little Hitlers bidding for their place in the headlines...
...A Cooperative Victory ONE of the most far-reaching steps in cooperative expansion in recent years was taken in Ohio recently when three rural electric cooperatives won a dramatic fight to purchase the Ohio Midland Company, one of the large utilities of the state...
...One of the first things the new cooperative did was to abolish the prohibitive $300 connection charge and substitute a $5 fee—the regular cooperative membership fee...
...Because of the alertness and determination of the cooperatives in seeing the purchase through, thousands of Ohio farmers will have electric power for the first time...
...George Weller cabled the Chicago Daily News from Athens that the Greeks are greatly disturbed by our refusal to intervene in behalf of a democratic settlement...
...However hateful the doctrines of "isolationism" and "race superiority" might be to them, freedom-loving Americans will fight'to the end any attempt by adherents of a totalitarian ideology to suppress the right of other citizens to voice such convictions, even the right of Communists to praise the dictatorship of the Kremlin and denounce the freedom of America...
...Indeed, the-Associated Gas and Electric sought to sell the property to a private purchaser whose bid was $100,000 less than the cooperative bid and despite the fact that the cooperative power system already in existence formed the most feasible and practical integration with the Midland system...
...THE New Masses, weekly mouthpiece of the Communists, had a typically totalitarian reaction to the recent elections...
...By their supreme effort in this war and by their votes in a free election Nov...
...Controlled by the giant utility holding company, Associated Gas and Electric, which was forced by a Securities and Exchange Commission order to "divest" the Ohio holding company, Midland was purchased for $2,115,000...
...These activities by the British in their quest for Empire security have evoked no public protest from the United States Government...
...This policy reached its climax last week when the British Government refused to permit the political parties of Italy to appoint Count Carlo Sforza as Italian Prime Minister or Foreign Minister...
Vol. 8 • December 1944 • No. 50
