THE EDITOR RESERVES THE LAST COLUMN
The Editor Reserves . . . The Last Column BOB LA FOLLETTE'S memorable foreign policy speech in the Senate has yielded a bale of newspaper clippings. I've been poring over them for the past day or...
...It just doesn't seem possible that trained reporters and editors could listen to or read the identically same speech and come up with such wildly contradictory interpretations of what the speaker said...
...But if you live in Chicago and read the Daily Times, you were told that Bob La Follette made it clear that he was "not a perfectionist," and that he wanted an "idealistic and enlightened America to pitch in and make it (the proposed world organization) work...
...But Patton's reason was breath-taking...
...William B. Hesseltine showed how the Army's policy of nonfraternization with Germans failed miserably during World War I, as the Army itself admitted...
...The fat and torpid Milwaukee Journal, for instance, which is trying to compensate for its old isolationism by being loudly and aggressively internationalist, could find in the speech only a sinister effort to create Allied disunity and torpedo the San Francisco conference...
...In my opinion," he said, "there will be another war" —and here is his dazzling display of logic—"because there have always been wars...
...I have yet to meet a soldier, whether he comes from London, the Mississippi Valley, or the Alberta wheatfields, who wants the ban continued...
...I've been poring over them for the past day or two and about all I have to show for my efforts is a feeling of complete bafflement...
...Perhaps the best illustration of the fantastic difference of interpretation turned up in the nation's 2 leading newsmagazines, Time and Newsweek...
...Excerpts: "Fraternization is widespread and increasing in Western Germany, regardless of all Allied military edicts...
...The Military Mind At Work For all his great success on the field of battle, Gen...
...Another Difference of Interpretation The same conflicting reaction to Bob La Follette's speech carried over in the ranks of labor...
...But Marquis Childs, nationally syndicated Washington columnist whose stuff the Journal sometimes prints, found the speech a "carefully prepared and carefully reasoned" effort to get at some of the basic weaknesses of our present foreign policy...
...For instance, the Communist-dominated Wisconsin Industrial Union Council, which purports to speak for the CIO in this state, launched a bitter broadside against the speech, mostly because it included sharp criticism of some of Soviet Russia's foreign policies—along with equally sharp criticism of American and British policies...
...In spite of this lesson, the same policy is now in force in Germany—American soldiers are forbidden to associate with German civilians...
...If you live in Los Angeles and read the Daily News you were told that Bob La Follette favored "the perfectionist approach" and was brewing "a perfectionist potion by which to poison our hopes for a better world...
...It ranges from open comaraderie in rural villages to bootlegged friendships in big towns...
...The legislative committee of the Racine Political Action Committee, for instance, repudiated the "vicious attack" and announced its determination to press for similar action when the full membership of the PAC-CIO meets soon...
...In summarizing nearly a full page of comment and quotations, Newsweek came to this conclusion: "La Follette's speech was no appeal to isolationism...
...M.H.R...
...But the small clique of Communists and fellow-travelers who dominate the Council and who issued the statement without consulting anyone else, were promptly repudiated by rank-and-file spokesmen...
...History Repeats Itself In his excellent article in The Progressive last week, Prof...
...Moreover, the Wisconsin Senator made it clear that he was ready to support a world organization operating on a majority rule principle and entailing a consequent sacrifice of United States sovereignty...
...It was instead a broad appeal to practical internationalism...
...It's a case of boy meets girl, and the ranks of Allied armies are in favor of it, whatever the home front may think...
...Speaking at Los Angeles last week, Patton demanded "a constant state of preparedness," which isn't especially unreasonable as long as world politics continue to be as unsettled and chaotic as now...
...In summarizing 2 full columns of material, Time said: "All this seemed to mean that La Follette, a hard and skillful fighter, was going to oppose, when the time came, the U. S. Senate's ratification of whatever charter came out of San Francisco...
...That the present policy is no more successful than the last one is clear enough from a variety of newspaper dispatches, one of the most revealing of which was filed last week by Daniel De Iace of the Associated Press...
...How are we punishing the German people by living as if we ourselves were in prison?' is the commonest question," De Luce reported...
...George S. ("Blood and Guts") Patton, Jr., still manages to sound pretty silly on occasion...
Vol. 9 • June 1945 • No. 26
