PSYCHOLOGICAL BLOCKBUSTER
Psychological Blockbuster PRESIDENT TRUMAN has given our forces in the Pacific a psychological weapon of war worth an armada of B-29's in the struggle to bring the Japanese conflict to a quick and...
...It is a scale of values, a way of life, an attitude of thought, which can be learned by observation, by hearing or reading what democrats think, and best of all, by experience...
...For the Japanese people, he said in a statement being short-waved into Japanese homes, unconditional surrender of the military and naval forces will bear the following fruits: "It means the end of the war...
...President Truman could make his psychological offensive even more effective if he followed up his assurances that the United States does not propose destruction or enslavement of the Japanese people with an affirmative and specific declaration of American aims in the Pacific...
...Yet today people carried away by the hate and hysteria that have come in the wake of the revelations concerning brutal Nazi atrocities, seriously advocate Elmer's tactics as a means of indoctrinating the people of Germany with democratic principles...
...It means not prolonging the present agony and suffering of the Japanese in the vain hope of victory...
...This Congressman apparently did not realize that he was proposing an utterly impossible course of action— action so self-contradictory that it embodies its own inevitable failure...
...It means provision for the return of soldiers and sailors to their families, their farms, their jobs...
...In an outstanding editorial calling attention to the absurdity of the doctrine of "forcible indoctrination," the Christian Science Monitor recently sounded a warning that the whole country should hear...
...America must not become a nation of Elmer Gantrys...
...The following table breaks the figures down state by state, showing how much it is costing each one every year MVA is postponed...
...The first column of figures shows total cost of electric power in 1944...
...By his magnificent statement of what unconditional surrender will mean to the people of Japan he has undone much of the damage caused by the ignorant and bloodthirsty statements of men like Admiral William Halsey and Paul V. McNutt...
...If the same amount of power had been sold to them at TVA rates, which would be practically the same under an MVA, they would have paid $143,000,000...
...Democracy is not just a body of doctrine, which can be taught by rote," the Monitor said...
...It is in this intelligent light that the Army, to some extent, is facing the problem...
...Because the utilities are determined to protect a tribute of $106,000,000 now being drained out of the Missouri Valley states...
...To compel a soldier trained in the Nazi climate to learn or even to listen to mere words about democracy would confirm his belief that democracy is a sham...
...We must not now make our staggering task more difficult by yielding to the temptation of an emotional orgy...
...All the skull-and-cross-bones bottles that were hauled off the propaganda shelves to defeat the Tennessee Valley Authority are being dumped into the Missouri Valley...
...A Florida Congressman who recently called for "forcible indoctrination" in democracy of German prisoners of war reflects how freely we are indulging in emotional luxuries which we can't afford if we are to meet the critical test ahead...
...It is this attitude that threatens the rehabilitation of democratic order in Gemany...
...The second column shows what it would have cost at TVA rates...
...The $106,000,000 difference, the utilities believe, is something to get excited about, and right they are...
...One is the roiled waters of "OP Muddy" itself and the other is a river of poison loosed by the power trust to burn the insides out of the proposal for a Missouri Valley Authority...
...Open minded prisoners are being encouraged to observe and inquire into the democratic way...
...It means the termination of the influence of the military leaders who have brought Japan to the present brink of disaster...
...Psychological Blockbuster PRESIDENT TRUMAN has given our forces in the Pacific a psychological weapon of war worth an armada of B-29's in the struggle to bring the Japanese conflict to a quick and decisive decision...
...He was often described roaring from the platform at unbelievers to step up and have some belief beaten into their heads by his own inspired fists...
...Unfortunately, however, the program is running into the hysterical objections of unthinking civilians who see in it another example of "coddling...
...To lay the foundations for European peace we will have need of every democratic minded man and woman within Germany...
...The power trust alchemists are working a double swing shift...
...The stiff and inhuman unconditional surrender terms to which this nation has clung since the Casablanca Conference were given a new and more helpful meaning by the President's definition of what they will mean to the people of Japan...
...Reading the book, people thought Elmer a rather ridiculous character...
...Unconditional surrender does not mean the extermination or enslavement of the Japanese people...
...Elmer Gantry Orgies ONE of Sinclair Lewis' memorable characters, Elmer Gantry, was a revivalist who believed that belief in divine doctrine could be pounded into people...
...College and university extension courses are being made available...
...Nine states in the Missouri Valley paid $249,-000,000 for their electricity in 1944...
...In one inspired stroke, the President has deprived the propagandists of the Japanese war lords of one of the most powerful means they have of maintaining the people's will to resist...
...Such a declaration, embodying a positive guarantee against imperialism and exploitation of the peoples of Asia by any Western Power, would help not only to drive a deeper wedge between the Japanese militarists and the rest of the people, but to win to our banner the peoples of the other lands of Asia who are determined that the end of hostilities shall not mean the substitution of one form of despotism for another...
...With our B-29's rocking the Japanese homeland, Truman's psychological blockbuster is almost certain to be of great importance in speeding the end of the war in the Pacific...
...Cost at State 1944 Costs TVA Rates Colorado '_________$23,496,348 $12,740,912 Iowa ____________ 50,219,659 27,766,961 Kansas __________ 35,815,823 19,951,748 Missouri_________ 80,299,053 49,325,355 Nebraska_________ 22,390,736 12,832,318 North Dakota______ 7,644,613 3,516,570 South Dakota_____ 8,418,186 3,930,091 Montana_________ 16,223,289 11,059,019 Wyoming ________ 4,574,946 2,191,733 The difference between these two columns of figures explains better than words why there are two rivers flowing down the Missouri Valley these days...
...River Of Poison THERE are two rivers flowing down the Missouri Valley these days...
Vol. 9 • May 1945 • No. 21
