THE TIME IS NOW
The Time Is Now ALTHOUGH our own State Department has persistently denied reports that Japan is offering peace terms, continued discussion of the question in the highest circles of Government...
...Such a clarification, when made known to the Japanese authorities and people, might soften the Japanese will to continue a hopeless struggle, might hasten the day of surrender, and might result in the saving of the lives of thousands of America's sons...
...Barrier after barrier was dropped and recently the Bureau of Naval Personnel at the Great Lakes base abandoned segregation in the training of naval recruits...
...They are quite capable of seeing the handwriting on the wall...
...In 1942, the Navy began to abandon the harsh Jim Crow standards after several Negroes, such as Dorie Miller at Pearl Harbor, had shown magnificent heroism in battle...
...Some of these leaders who see the wisdom of aiding Russia and China and South America in developing their resources cry to high heaven about projects or proposals that use American dollars for the regional development of the resources of American valleys—the Missouri, the Arkansas, the St...
...The Japanese are not the consummate icfiots that Admiral Halsey thinks they are...
...It is their right to determine whether those terms are acceptable...
...Negroes will be assigned to training on the same basis as whites...
...IF such overtures have in fact been made, the people of America have every right to know about them...
...Wallace White, Maine, Senate Republican leader, and two members of the Cabinet whose identities have not been disclosed, are among the growing list of public officials who believe that provocative peace overtures have been made...
...Moreover, on the purely deductive level of the argument, there is every reason to believe that Tokyo would be intensely interested in peace at the present time...
...Lilienthal went on to broader subjects...
...He was "mystified," he said, by the attitude of some leaders in this country who are urging long term credits and technical assistance for foreign countries and are actively hostile toward the encouragement of industrial expansion in this country...
...The Department might find some help if it consulted President Truman's first address to Congress in which he specifically stated that Unconditional Surrender "does not mean the extermination or enslavement of the Japanese people...
...It is my belief that the President should make as explicit a statement of this concept of Unconditional Surrender as circumstances permit...
...It is a heartening step, however modest, in giving meaning to our fine phrases about the Four Freedoms for the rest of the world that Jim Crow should be dishonorably discharged from the service here at home...
...It may be that the Japanese have asked us for terms and our State Department is trying to decide what the barren and indefinite Unconditional Surrender formula really means...
...Sen...
...CEN...
...Well spoken, David Lilienthal...
...Certainly, it is time for an all-out psychological offensive in the Pacific...
...The investment in power production facilities has reached $450,000,000...
...WHITE expressed the conviction of count-^ less Americans the other day when he said to \he Senate: "President Truman has said that 'Unconditional Surrender' does not mean the extermination or the enslavement of the Japanese people, but neither the American people nor the Japanese people has been informed in any detail what such surrender does entail...
...What possible reason can there be to keep this information from the people...
...Lawrence, and the Columbia," he said...
...They should be told fully and frankly what terms the Japanese offered, if any...
...Some of this is properly charged against all of the United States because it is for "navigation, just as navigation projects in New York Harbor and the Mississippi River are paid for out of Federal funds...
...At the time, The Progressive hailed the President's statement as a "psychological blockbuster" which would almost certainly contribute to speeding the end of the war...
...Or are we developing a new brand of intelligence whereby we withhold information from the enemy which he gave us ? There is another possible reason for keeping peace feelers secret...
...Why is it good business and good policy to risk our money on the Volga and the Dneiper and the Amazon, but 'wasteful and extravagant' to develop our own rivers...
...The Time Is Now ALTHOUGH our own State Department has persistently denied reports that Japan is offering peace terms, continued discussion of the question in the highest circles of Government raises the distinct possibility that behind all the smoke there may well be some fire...
...A Citadel Taken FOR many years the U. S. Navy has been the citadel of Negro discrimination in our armed forces...
...Setting forth some of the basic facts about TV Awhich the power trust has twisted all out of shape, he made the following points: ' ' The Government has invested $750,000,000 in TVA...
...There is no question of military security...
...They have seen what our bombers did to Ger-r mny and they have had a taste of the mounting :' ury loosed from the skies by our B-29s...
...This investment is yielding an average return of 4 per cent per year and will repay the total cost of the power project in 30 years...
...Negro personnel was allowed to perform only the most menial tasks...
...Some Pertinent Questions DAVID LILIENTHAL went up to New York recently to speak some simple truths about the Tennessee Valley Authority in particular and sensible economic planning in general...
...And there should be no repetition of the old hush-hush buncombe...
...We should announce to the people of Asia a Pacific charter embodying specific guarantees against imperialism and exploitation by the Western Powers and the opportunity to work out their own destiny under their own free governments...
...If these men can see so clearly the advantage in building up industry in China and Russia, why don't more of them, and the national organizations for which they speak, give the industrially undeveloped American regions a boost in their fight for greater opportunities...
...We'd like to know the answers to those questions too...
...A Negro could not acquire a rating, no matter how meritorious his service record...
...Then Mr...
...And that does not mean just the right to know whether they have been made or not...
...Certainly if the Japanese made the offer, they know about it...
...Gratifying as the President's statement was in giving some warmth and meaning to Unconditional Surrender, we have reached a stage of the war where we must go even further if thousands of American lives are to be saved from needless slaughter...
...They will belong to the same companies, share the same living quarters, recreation halls and other facilities...
Vol. 9 • July 1945 • No. 29
