THE EDITOR RESERVES THE LAST COLUMN
A Sound Proposal PRESIDENT TRUMAN stands on unassailable ground when he calls for an end of Big Three conferences on international issues and the substitution of democratic action by the United...
...A Present From The President (From the Christian Century) IF President Truman is seeking a way of observing the coming Christmas season which will acquaint his countrymen with his sense of justice and good purpose, let him announce an amnesty for all the young men held in Federal prisons as conscientious objectors...
...After all, Japan did lose the war...
...Truman, there's that MicAithur directive that unionism be encouraged so as to "safeguard the working man from exploitation...
...A good many more have been imprisoned since then...
...Predictions in The Progressive that the Potsdam settlement for Germany would not and could not last have now been borne out by President Truman himself, by his special envoy, Byron Price, and by the man who was placed in charge of administering an impossible program, Gen...
...Yet by far the greater part of these prisoners—2,724 out of the 3,224—are Jehovah's Witnesses who are behind the bars only because of a silly dispute with the Selective Service authorities over what does and what does not constitute a minister...
...We could urgently use many of the other MacArthur reforms—better public schools, democratization of economic control, suppression of monopoly, and wider distribution of income and ownership...
...There were 3,224 of them when the latest tabulation was published last June...
...If we could have that freedom in Dixie, he pointed out, that would mean elimination of "swashbuckling, company-paid policemen, armed to the hilt," who are used to terrorize workmen...
...Barrett has a real point there...
...While many of our industries are organized, there are numerous industrial establishments where managements join hands with officers of the law and vigilante committees in opposing organizations of workers...
...That right, Mr...
...He " sii.t down and wrote himself a letter to President Truman...
...Robert Taft, Ohio Republican, that the American representative on the UNO's Security Council be instructed to consider international jus-tire as well as the maintenance of peace in voting the use of American force against another nation...
...Is it fair for her to get the benefit of all the American-made social and economic reforms, while we travel the long road back to 1929 ? Birthday For The ACLU THE American Civil Liberties Union lately celebrated its 25th anniversary...
...Barrett...
...A Sound Proposal PRESIDENT TRUMAN stands on unassailable ground when he calls for an end of Big Three conferences on international issues and the substitution of democratic action by the United Nations Organization...
...AN important round in the fight for a peace based on justice was lost to the "realists" last week .jvhen the Senate refused, 41 to 18, to adopt a proposal by Sen...
...Also, armed thugs beat up our organizers at not too infrequent intervals...
...Some of those sentenced after the surrender of Japan have been sent up for as long as 18 months...
...Then, said Mr...
...We think Mr...
...Just as we trust that Selective Service will move rapidly to return to civilian life the men in the CPS camps, so we trust that the President will take advantage of the approaching Christmas season to empty the Federal prisons of all prisoners for conscience' sake...
...For instance, he told Mr...
...The wartime excuse—"military security"—for three men to hide out in castles and palaces away from the prying eyes of the people ceased to have any validity when the war ended...
...When they come out they are, unless given a Presidential pardon, deprived of their voting rights...
...He cited chapter and verse...
...The people of the United States have demonstrated over and over again that they are prepared to go as far as any other people in world cooperation to maintain peace, but the majority of the Senate is greatly mistaken if it thinks Americans will permit the use of their armed forces to crush independence movements or pull the Old World's imperial chestnuts out of the fire...
...MacArthur into the South and instruct him to put into effect here in our own country that fine program which he has outlined for the Japanese people...
...It was at the Prussian palace at Potsdam that the Big Three last met...
...The American Civil Liberties Union faces a great challenge in the tense months ahead, and it carries into that struggle the warm support of every American who has not been dazzled off his feet by totalitarian ideologies...
...And that's only a start, opined Mr...
...So, Mr...
...Bartlett, there's the MacArthur guarantee of "freedom from secret inquisition...
...The average of their terms has been longer than for such other Federal offenses as violation of the white slave, postal and narcotics laws...
...Barrett reminded his Chief Executive, is a right "we sorely need in the South...
...President," concluded Mr...
...Save Some For Us AMERICANS who have wondered if Gen...
...The United Nations Organization has existed on paper since last Summer, but it has not been allowed to organize and function...
...The Taft amendment, a mild attempt to make it clear to the world that America would not sanction the use of her armed forces to police and protect unjust settlements, was crushed by the united opposition of Democrats...
...Douglas MacArthur's program for Japan—the breaking up of monopolies, the encouragement of labor unions and cooperatives, wider distribution o'i wealth, and the democratization of the schools —ought not to be tried in this country as well, have found an eloquent spokesmen in James F. Barrett, seasoned labor leader and secretary of the Southern Labor Press Association...
...Eisenhower...
...Progressives everywhere, we are certain, join with The Progressive in extending heartiest congratulations to this vigilant champion of American freedom which refused, for the most part, to bow to the hysterical yelping for wartime suppression of free speech...
...No one who has watched the collapse of the agreement they reached behind locked and guarded doors can have any confidence in that method of "international cooperation...
...Barrett is obviously not the kind of man who lets things go with just wondering about them...
...And surely the remaining 500 who went to prison rather than accept what they regarded as the ambiguous status of war objectors who were still under Selective Service in CPS camps, have paid a sufficiently heavy price for their obedience to conscience to deserve Presidential clemency...
...Barrett, "we urge you as our Commander-in-Chief to send Gen...
...Instead, every major decision has been made by a handful of men at secret meetings, and the results (or as much of them as the Big Three cared to reveal) were handed out to the people as accomplished facts...
Vol. 9 • December 1945 • No. 49
