THE WHOLE TRUTH
The Whole Truth PRESIDENT TRUMAN'S attempt to dump most of the blame for the Pearl Harbor disaster on the people of America backfired so loudly that the Administration shrewdly performed a quick...
...If the country were not ready for preparedness—and remember we're using an "if"—then clearly it was not the people's fault because: 1. Our Government, almost up to the last moment, continued to sanction the shipment of war materials to Japan despite the overwhelming opposition of the people as expressed in polls of public opinion, and 2. The nation generally was kept in total darkness regarding the course of our relations with Japan and knew nothing whatever about the strong demands we suddenly made on the Japanese...
...Warren asks us to consider these facts: 1. The field of transportation is divided among 75 bureaus, divisions, and agencies...
...Simpered The Nation: "Not elegant...
...These instances, said Warren, are "merely a drop in the bucket of things which the President should be empowered to look into and remedy...
...Newspaper files show, too, that whenever they vere questioned in any poll of public opinion, the p»_"-pie responded by equally one-sided majorities in behalf of full preparedness...
...5. There are at least 12 Federal retirement systems, each with its own rules...
...Obviously this is the time for prompt and decisive action...
...All of which reminds us of what hard-hitting Lt...
...Congress has voted a full and frank investigation into the whole affair...
...The buck-passing strategy of the White House, ami also of the brass-hats and the "me, too" press, finds expression in this statement by President Truman: "The country itself was not ready for preparedness...
...The Government's travel and freight bill in 1944 ran to as much as it cost to run the whole Federal Government 30 years ago...
...Truman's second assertion—that President Roosevelt's efforts to get a preparedness program through Congress was "stifled"—is completely without foundation...
...They want to know the truth—¦ the whole truth—not only to keep the record of the past straight, but far more important, to prevent America from drifting into disaster in the future...
...Neither is this the time for shameful buck-passing...
...2. Public housing is financed and administered by 15 different agencies...
...Time For Action PRESIDENT TRUMAN'S request of Congress for authority to reorganize and streamline the Executive Department of our Government should l)j granted at the earliest possible moment if our democratic institutions are to be strengthened for the long, tough pull ahead...
...But very exact and satisfying—and somehow reassuring...
...The people do not want the inquiry to be a political jamboree or a personal vendetta...
...Let's analyze those two sentences...
...I would have liked to kick each Japanese delegate in the face," bellowed the Bull...
...Every time the President made an effort to get a preparedness program through the Congress, it was stifled...
...Vandercook launched out the other night on a tirade against Gen...
...He knew, he said, that some of the folks at home wanted rough treatment of Japanese civilians, but, he added, the GIs themselves, the boys who had fought their way to the gateway to Japan, felt differently...
...Eichelberger, who has fought gallantly all through the war in the Pacific, said the other day to American newsmen in Japan...
...Odd, isn't it, to have an Eichelberger talking the way he does and a MacArthur acting as he does, while the editors of The Nation and a radio patent medicine peddler masquerading as Kberals spew out their hatred from 12,000 miles away...
...The Nation Magazine, for instance, once a frontline crusader for progressive principles, found occasion last week to examine Admiral Bull Halsey's apoplectic remark about the signing of peace on the U. S. S. Missouri...
...Their calm attitude, he pointed out, was in keeping with the American tradition of never indulging in persecution or punishment of civilians after an enemy nation had surrendered...
...Not polite...
...The New Liberalism THE new liberalism is daily become less and less distinguishable from the old jingoism...
...3. Labor relations are administered'by no less than eight departments and bureaus...
...And just as obviously it is possible to frame a bill giving the President broad authority to act, within the proper safeguards of Congressional surveillance, to make our cumbersome bureaucracy a streamlined instrument responsive to the needs of a new age...
...Douglas MacArthur's policy of tolerance, justice, and freedom in Japan as being too soft and not realistic enough, and expressed a desire for more of the policy of revenge and dismemberment which has worked so badly in Germany...
...Another example was provided by John W. Van-dercook, the bearded buncombe artist who peddles pink pills on the radio and doubles as a news analyst...
...That The Nation could find this jibberish "satisfying" and "reassuring" demonstrates on what wobbly crutches the new liberalism is hobbling about in the United States today...
...4. Government land is controlled by a dozen bureaus...
...The Whole Truth PRESIDENT TRUMAN'S attempt to dump most of the blame for the Pearl Harbor disaster on the people of America backfired so loudly that the Administration shrewdly performed a quick somersault and took the initiative itself for a full-scale Congressional investigation—after first opposing such a move...
...Some indication of the crazy-quilt development of the past decade or two was given recently by Comptroller-General Lindsay C. Warren, known as "the watchdog of the treasury," who characterized the present system as "a hodge-podge of duplications, overlappings, inefficiencies, and inconsistencies...
...The records show conclusively that every proposal for preparedness recommended by the late President was passed by both houses of Congress, often by overwhelming majorities...
...THIS is certainly no time for recriminations...
Vol. 9 • October 1945 • No. 37
