MARCH 24, 1952 25 CENTS EISENHOWER vs. TAFT-THE VITAL ISSUE Lawrence R. Brown COMMUNISM'S SECRET STRE'NGTH Towner Phelan MENACE OF THE RUBLE BLOC Franz Pick ASSAULT ON OUR SOVEREIGNTY Joseph H. Ballew PROTECTING THE SCHOOLS An Editorial Editors: John C:hamberlain • Henry Hazlitt • Suzanne La Follette fheFREEMAN ~~?-~'.:." A WORD combi?~::r'the with which ;s magazine, PLAIN TALK ABOUT Editors, JOHN CHAMBERLAIN HENRY HAZLITT OUR Managing Editor, SUZA~NE LA FOLlETTE .Business Manager, 'KURT LASSEN C'ONTRI'BUTORS MARCH 24, 1952 CONTENTS VOL. 2 - NO. 13 LAWRENCE R. BROWN, an engineer who lives in Philadelphia, was Assistant Di­ Edito,rials rector of the Chemical Bureau of the Tlhe Fortnight............................... 387 War Production Board during the war. Protecting the Schools. ..................... .. 389 In the Freeman of September 24, 1951, The Acheson Magic ·.................. 390 Mr. Brown discussed General Eisen­ The Phantom Army.......................... 391 hower's chances of election, and in this Siound and Fury............................. 392 issue he weighs the General's candi­ dacy against Senator Taft's in relation Eisenhower vs. Taft-The Vital Issue .. to the issue of foreign policy. LAWRENCE R. BROWN 393 JOSEPH H. BALLEW is Secretary and It Was Mortifying BURTON RASCOE 396 Associate Counsel of the Southern Assault on American Sovereignty JOSEPH H. BALLEW 397 States Industrial Council with head­ The Menace of the Ruble Bloc ...•........FRANZ PICK 400 quarters in Nashville. Formerly he Thoughts for Our Time HARRY C. NORTH 401 served as Speaker of the Senate in the The Secret Strength of Communism.. TOWNER PHELAN 402 Tennessee Legislature, and Adjutant From' Our Readers ~ ... 405 General of his state. This Is What They Said. ........................ .. 406 FRANZ PICK has won world recogni­ Books tion as an authority on the black mar­ ket trade in currencies, metals and A Reviewer's Notebook .....JOHN CHAMBERLAIN 409 gold. Born in Czechoslovakia, he settled "Untimely Papers": ARe-Review in 1922 in Paris, where he became a EDWARD DAHLBERG 410 consulting economist and currency ex­ Eye-Popping Texas City LEWIS NORDYKE 412 pert. During the war he played an im­ Humorist in Commons EDWIN CLARK 412 portant role in currency intelligence. Toward Mutual Aid ALEXANDRA KROPOTKIN 413 Dr. Pick was consultant to the first pro­ The Passive King THADDEUS ASHBY 413 visional government of Czechoslovakia. Charlemagne's Cleric THOMAS G. BERGIN 414 In 1945 he founded Pick's World Cur­ Fabulous But Real ·HARRY SERWER 415 rencyReport in New York City. Manners, Arts and Morals WILLIAM S. SCHLAMM 407 TOWNER PHELAN is Vice President of the St. Louis Union Trust Company. Poems EDWARD MURRAY CASE, ,vho studied The Greater Evil ANN OMINOUS 404 social and political theory at New York Great Workings Have No Sound University's Graduate School, is Secre­ EDWARD MURRAY CASE 408 tary-Treasurer of a New York manu­ facturing company. "I am in industry," he writes "because I believe the spec­ The Freeman is published fortnightly. Publication GRice, Orange, Conn. Editorial tacle of a modern political theorist who and General Offices, 240 Madison Avenue, New York 16, N. Y. Copyrighted in has never personally participated in the Uinited States, 1952, by the Freeman Magazine, Inc. John Chamberlain, President; Henry Hazlitt, Vice' President; Suzanne La Follette, Secretary; AleX' L. the business and industrial world is Hillman, Treasurer. ludicrous. I am also in industry because Entered as second class matter at the Post GRice at Orange, Conn. Rates: Twenty­ five cents the copy; five dollars a year in the United States, nine dollars for two I like the amenities of life." In his years; siX' dollars a year elsewhere. spare time Mr. Case is working on a The editors can not be responsible for manuscripts submitted but if return postage verse play with a political theme. is enclosed they will endeavor to see that manuscripts rejected are promptly returned. LEWIS NORDYKE, a Texas newspaper­ It is not. to be underst.ood that articles signed with a name, pseudonym, or initials necessarllyrepresent the opinion of the editors, either as to substance or style. man, wrote "Baloney in Beef Controls" They are printed because, in the editors' judgment, they are intrinsically worth reading. for the Freeman of February 25. ~II Printed in U.S.A., by Wilson H. Lee Co., OraIlie. Oonnecticut t e NEW Y!OIRK, MONDAY, MARCH 24, 1952 THiE FORT,NIGHT decision was reversed by Secretary Acheson, on the recommendation of Nathaniel P. Davis, former Mr. Truman's message to Congress, and radio and Minister to Hungary, whom Acheson had ap­ television appeal for a $7.9 billion additional for­ pointed to review the Boards' findings. eign aid appropriation, were dominantly emo­ tional, sophistical, and partisan. The nation is When this news at last came out, much was made entitled to be offered better reasons than a few of Mr. Davis's qualifications, the principal argu­ more rhetorical slogans for giving away nearly ment being that he had been instrumental in se­ $8 billion more. Mr. Truman made no serious curing the release of Robert A. Vogeler by the effort to supply these reasons. Instead he invented Hungarian Government. The fact is that the De­ two extreme alternatives to his program and fa­ partment-and Mr. Davis-permitted Mr. Vogeler cilely knocked them down. Man of Straw No. 1 to go through a framed-up trial and thereafter to was immediate "premeditated war" on Russia. No spend seventeen months in a Budapest jail. More­ influential group in this country is asking for over, his release was obtained only after great this. It is irresponsible of the President to talk pressure had been brought to bear on the Depart­ as if there were one; such a pretense furnishes ment, and then only at the price of humiliating just the ammunition that Communist propaganda concessions to the Communist Government of is looking for. Man of Straw No.2 was "retreating Hungary. This is not exactly a record of commend­ to the Western Hemisphere." Mr. Truman made able firmness towards Communism. We think Con­ no attempt to refute, or even to state, any of the gress should insist upon knowing a great deal real alternatives to his proposed course-as, for more about Mr. Davis's, and Secretary Acheson's, example, retaining the Atlantic Treaty, and our action in the case of Mr. Clubb. heavy commitments under it, but at least having our allies (as in nearly every other peacetime To match the refined tastes Mr. Acheson must alliance in history) pay for their own armament. have acquired on his recent trip to Lisbon and Paris, the Administration's James P. Richards, The whole case for an additional $7 billion for chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Commit­ defense aid is that the nations of Europe can not tee, threw this truly elegant bouquet: Acheson, afford to pay for their own defense. No attempt said Mr. Richards, "took time by the forelock ... has ever been made to prove this proposition, and and brought home the bacon." Lady Time, always no candid examination of the facts sustains it. fashionable, now wears the poodle cut, no doubt; The real danger is not that Congress will slash but the last we heard, that bacon got French-fried this budget too much, but that it will make merely in Paris. a token cut of a billion or so and blithely appro­ priate the rest. Surely the time has come when As if to irritate American sensibilities beyond the whole principle involved, as well as the basic repair, recent events have added insult to doubt. facts, must be re-examined. A few weeks ago, the Lisbon conference of the NATO powers created a civilian top job, The State Department's Loyalty and Security equivalent in authority to that of Eisenhower as Board has been notably lenient with Department military commander-the office of NATO's Secre­ employees under inquiry; so lenient, indeed, that tary General. It was offered first to Sir Oliver it six times cle,ared John Stewart Service before Franks, the incumbent British Ambassador to the his removal was finally ordered by the Loyalty U. S., and then to Mr. Lester Pearson, Canada's Review Board. Now it develops, mirabile dictu, Minister of Foreign Affairs. Both turned it down. that the Department Board reported adversely in Mr. Pearson thought he could serve his country the case of Oliver Edmund Clubb, and that its and the world much better by working in the MARCH 24, 1952 387 Canadian Foreign Office. And Sir Oliver Franks regular forces would not be strengthened but thought a professorship at Oxford more important weakened, because of additional turnover and the for the future of mankind than the top job in necessity of providing training cadres...." NATO. Being very reasonable men, Sir Oliver and Mr. Pearson may be entirely right. But if two Another reason for close scrutiny of any newly such outstanding representatives of the British proposed UMT bill is that such legislation could Commonwealth are selfish and wrong, no Amer­ give the Administration an opportunity to fasten ican can be expected to harbor greater apprehen­ a propagandistic grip on the minds of the young. sions and love for the Old World than its in­ Administration forces have already tried to put digenous patriots. over a version of the bill that would provide for "the administration and discipline of the National We have been keeping score in these pages, from Security Training Corps, and for other purposes." time to time, on Mr. Truman's progress in arming Other purposes? Such as proselytizing youth to America. It is the strangest kind of progress since accept the concept of the Fair Deal State? The that confused building job in Babel.