NOVEMBER 19, 1951 25 ('ENTS

SPAIN, INDISPENSABLE ALLY Hoffman Nickersoin

CONTROLS WON'T STOP INFLATION Towner Phelan

NEHRU'S THREE VOICES Hubert Martin

NEW MASKS FOR OLD George S. Schuyler

BUT IS IT CHURCHILL? An Editorial

Editors: Jo,hn Chamberlai,n • Henry Hazlitt • Suzanne La Follette

PUBLISHED FORTNIGHTLY FIVE DOLLARS A YEAR theFREEMAN A WORD ABOUT with which is combined the magazine, PLAIN TALK OUR

Editors, JO'HN CHAMB·E'RLAIN HENRY HAZLITT CONT'RIBUTORS Managing Editor, SUZANNE LA FOLLETTE Business Manager, KURT LASSEN

M'

NOVEMBER 19, 1951 HOFFMAN NICKERSON served with the General Staff of the AEF in 1918 and was a Major in World War II. His books CONTENTS VOL. l-NO. 4 include "The Armed Horde" and "Arms and Policy." Freeman readers will re­ Editorials member his article on universal military training (February 26) and "The Two The Fortnight...... 99 Strategies" (July 2). But Is It Churchill? ...... 101 HUBERT MARTIN is the pseudonym of The Tense Middle East...... 102 a writer who has 'been connected with The Escalator Idea...... 103 international organizations for many In Defense of Virtue...... 104 years. His article on the disastrous rec­ Spain, the Indispensable Ally..... HOFFMAN NICKERSON 105 ord of UNRRA appeared in the Freeman Worth Hearing Again...... 107 of September 10. Controls Won't Stop Inflation TOWNER PHELAN 108 GEORGE S. SCHUYLER, associate editor This Is What They Said f. •••••••••• 111 of the Pittsburgh Courier, has written Did Marshall Prolong the Pacific War? (II) two novels, "Slaves Today!" and "Black FORREST DAVIS 112 No More," as well as numerous magazine Nehru's Three Voices HUBERT MARTIN 115 articles. His "The Phantom American New Masks For Old 'GEORGE S. SCHUY~ER 117 Negro" (the Freeman, April 23) was Young Man in Revolt THADDEUS ASHBY 119 reprinted by the Reader's Digest. He is From Our Readers...... 120 a member of the International Commit­ tee of the Congress for Cultural Free­ dom and a vice president of the Amer­ Books ican Writers Association. A Reviewer's Notebook JOHN CHAMBERLAIN 121 THADDEUS ASHBY has written for the Self-Destroyed Saint JAMES RORTY 123 Chicago Tribune and the Reader's Di­ The Joyous Stevenson HARRY ROSKOLENKO 124 gest. A book review and "Shakespeare Imperial Soviets WILLIAM HENRY CHAMBERLIN 125 and the Psychiatrists" were his previous The Boys Learned FLETCHER PRATT 126 contributions to the Freeman. Levi Stopped at Rome THOMAS G. BERGIN 127 Twain in Hartford EDWIN CLARK 127 Forthcoming Poem The Freeman's special issue on educa­ tion, our next number, will include ar­ And Orchard Fruits EDWARD DAHLBERG 122 ticles on various aspects of the subject. Not only parents and teachers but the average citizen and taxpayer·will find in it new and useful material on current trends in American schools and univer­ The Freeman is published flWtKightly. Publication Office, Orange, Conn. Editorial and General Offices, 240 Madison Avenue, New York 16, N. Y. Copyrighted in sities. the United States, 1951, by the Freeman Magazine, Inc. John Chamberlain, President; Henry Hazlitt, Vice President; Suzanne La Follette, Secretary; Alfred Kohlberg, Treasurer. Index to Volume Entered as second class matter at the Pod Office at Orange, Conn. Rates: Twenty­ five cents the copy; five. dollars a year in the United States, nine dollars for two years; six dollars a year elsewhere. A comprehensive index to Volume I of the Freeman (October 2, 1950 - Sep­ The editlWs can not be resPonsible flW manuscripts submitted but if return postage is enclosed they will endeQIVor to see that manuscripts rejected are promptly returned. tember 24, 1951) may be had for one dollar. As a public service, the index It is not to be understood that articles signed with G name, pseudonym, or initials necessarily· represent the opinion of the editors, either as to substance or style. will be supplied without charge to public They are printed because, .'ft the editors' lu4gmen~, they are intrinsically worth reading. and school libraries on request.

~u The WDsOD H. Lee Co•• Oranp. Connecticut t e

NEW YORK, MO:NDAY, N,OIVEMBER 19, 1951

How will the Administration be able to justify then THE FORTNIGHT the four months that have been spent in wrangling, Suppose that tomorrow, or even before these the more than. thirty fruitless meetings, each of words appear in print, it were triumphantly an­ which has been used by the Communists, not to nounced that a cease-fire had been agreed upon in arrive at a quick cease-fire (which could have been Korea. Just how much would we have gained by it? arranged, if they were sincere, in a single day at a There would be, of course, a temporary silence on ,single meeting), but for a propaganda barrage, and the battlefront and a temporary halt in casualties. ever-new trumped-up charges ag,ainst us? How did But how much nearer would we be to a real and we get into this, anyway? All that was necessary permanent settlement? President Truman is him­ for our commanders to do was to broadcast an self authority for the statement that an agreement announcement that the Chinese Communists could with the Communists is not worth the paper it is have a cease-fire at any time they wanted on the written on, yet ,at his orders our negotiators have following terms: 1. The Korean dividing line would been trying desperately to get such an agreement. in no case be south of defensible lines of battle at the time of the truce. 2. Guarantees for observance Mr. Truman's judgment regarding the worthless­ would have to be given ... and so on. With such ness of such agreements is amply supported by our a statement, we would have been at least as far experience with previous agreements with Russia, ahead as we are at the moment this is written, from Lend-Lease to Potsdam, as well as by Lenin's without the danger of let-down in the morale of our advice "to make compromises, to 'tack', to make troops, the alternate raising and dashing of hopes, agreements, zigzags." Certainly our troops would and the opportunities we have created for Com­ have to remain in Korea, in a constant state of munist propaganda. Why didn't we make such a alert, for months and perhaps years. The Chinese simple public declaration of our minimum truce and North Korean Communists would continue terms at the very beginning? Did the State Depart­ their build-up for a new attack, with increased ment fear to let the American public know what our Russian equipment. Meanwhile they would be able minimum terms were? Or didn't it even know itself? to divert more forces to cleaning up anti-Communist guerillas on the Chinese mainland, to aiding the The Conservative victory in Britain,which was Communists in Indo-China, or perhaps to an attack achieved by a narrow margin and a minority vote, on Formosa. The cease-fire would doubtles's be should neither be overestimated nor underesti­ followed by political negotiation; and most of us mated. Following in the wake of anti-Socialist would wait uneasily again to see whether the State victories in Australia and New Zealand, it proves Department was going to recognize the Chinese that the British Empire will not go over to total Communists or give away Formosa. Meanwhile, collectivism without a fierce struggle. Unfortu­ Korea would still be divided into two countries, nately the new Churchill government comes in north and south. The only real difference, as com­ with no.particular mandate to cut back the amount pared with the situation prior to June 25, 1950, is of Statism which Britain already has. Steel will that South Korea would have been laid waste, and be denationalized, yes. But the doctrine of cen­ that UN forces, consisting overwhelmingly of Amer­ tralized planning will hardly be dented unless the icans, would have suffered 100,000 casualties. whole mania for Hcontrol" is abated.

But suppose there is no truce? Suppose it turns The really sobering thing about the election is out that the Communists have merely used the that it underscores a point frequently made, that previous time gained by the truce negotiations to Britain is split almost exactly down the middle on build up their forces for a new gigantic assault? questions of ultimate social philosophy. The Brit-

NOVEMBER 19, 1951 99 ish have a technique of forebearance, an ingrained Joseph Alsop and William Henry Chamberlin have habit of practicing good will. Nevertheless, a long­ been carrying on a running debate about Yalta in continuing fifty-fifty division on strict class lines the pages of the socialist New Leader. Over and is bound to produce some fairly ugly politics. If over again Mr. Alsop has chanted his refrain: Churchill can win some glittering victories in the "Yalta would have been a pretty good deal if it realm of foreign affairs, it might serve to mitigate had only been kept." Over and over again William domestic bitterness. But the ghost of socialism in Henry Chamberlin has answered: "Why should Britain has certainly not been laid. anyone have expected a revolutionary murderer and bank robber to keep a deal?" Just where does How has a Republican newspaper to conduct it­ this sort of debate leave us? Well, it used to be self before the Party's Presidential candidate is said in Mr. Alsop's Yankee home state of Con­ officially nominated? This proble~ of political and necticut that the proof of the pudding is in the journalistic etiquette, by no means new but always eating. The revolutionary murderer and bank rob­ fascinating, has just been made acute by the New ber didn't keep the deal. That is the answer of York Herald Tribune which-as was its perfect history, and we have to go on from there. right and, in fact, its duty-has declared its pref­ erence for General Eisenhower. But suppose (and But why must we go on with the same cast of this wouldn't happen for the first time) the Repub­ characters that guessed wrong about the bank lican Party resisted the editorial charm of Mrs. robber's word? In ordinary life the man who gives Ogden Reid and nominated such a tangential Re­ you a bum steer is distrusted until he has admit­ publican as Bob Taft? In that case, this wanton ted his mistake and gone back to school to learn and frighteningly irresponsible editorial indictment som~thing. Mr. Alsop naturally has a vested inter­ recently advanced by the allegedly Republican est in his pipelines, for they provide him with Herald Tribune, will be thrown into Mr. Taft's good newsy columns. But why should Mr. Alsop teeth throughout his entire campaign: "The spirit care about losing a pipeline or two? He's an ag­ that creates in men the love of freedom, and im­ gressive reporter and could ,always get another. parts to institutions a vital being, eludes him Dean Acheson isn't the only answer to a journal­ [Taft] completely." Consequently, if Mr. Taft is ist's prayer. the'Republican' candidate, the Herald Tribune will of cou:rse have to campaign for Truman. Granted We regret that William Brownrigg, of Penrith, that this would give Mr. Taft a considerable tac­ Scotland, was defeated in the recent British parlia­ tical advantage. On the other hand, some old-fash­ mentary election. His platform was the lowering of ioned folks, when they discover that her lifelong the school departure age from ·fifteen to twelve. Republicanism was not enough to teach Mrs. Reid Had Britain given Mr. Brownrigg's idea a fair try, elementary political manners, might in despair vote there would have been, not necessarily more lamb for Father Divine. chops, but certainly fewer Oxford graduates to think up those regimenting orders. We learn from Variety of September 19 that "In a bit of surprise casting, the National Association Our contributor Forrest Davis concludes his two­ of Manufacturers employed comic Henry Morgan part article on General Marshall (p. 112) with a on Sunday, [September] 16" to be master of cere­ suggestion which we heartily endorse. He pro­ monies at a Constitution Day Americanism rally poses that the McCarran subcommittee on inter­ in Elmira, New York. Morgan's listing in "Red nal security invite the General "to relate his part Channels," according to Variety, "has kept him off in the events of May 29 [1945] et seq. bearing on the air in recent months, with sponsors and net­ the peace with Japan." We think that the post­ works fearing to touch anyone tinged by the ponement of peace, with its disastrous conse­ book." But the choice of Henry Morgan was not quences, is. a legitimate subject for the subcom­ the only surprise: mittee's attention. We also think, after reading Marshall's testimony at the hearings on MacAr­ Evidence of the new thinking [in the NAM] was thur's recall, that unless the members of the sub­ a nix on the idea of having Ginger Rogers 'attend the Elmira celebration. [Leonard] Smith was committee could forget the prevailing senatorial seeking glamor for the show and knew Miss estimate of the General as "someone close to Rogers was in the east for a play, but turned God," little would come of the inquiry beyond a down the idea of inviting her because of her as­ mountainous record of evasive verbiage. Unless sociation with ultra-right-wing groups on the the subcommittee really got tough, trying to elicit Coast. NAM's aim is to play it down the middle. a clear account of his part in those fateful nego­ So, we gather, if anyone has been so unfortunate tiations would be like setting forth in wet rubber as to fight Communist infiltration in Hollywood gloves to catch an eel. she is too right-wing for the NAM, which wants to keep itself respectable by hiring people who Missing on October 24 at the celebration in New have been associated with left-wing groups. Does York of United Nations Day, was the architect of Variety have the facts right? Let's hear a little the UN and Secretary General of its San Francisco more about this. Conference on Organization, Alger Hiss.

100 the FREEMAN But Is It Churchill?

F BRITAIN'S new Prime Minister is the real economic unity of the world, but also the flow of Churchil1~ and not merely a faded facsimile American political stimuli. And no national social­ I used for a cover, the President of the United ism has been more pernicious than the respectable States would have a superb chance to evolve an British brand. effective American policy if the United States had Given the suffocating mortgage~ of Teheran, a President. The area between these two awkward Yalta and Potsdam (given,· in other words, the un­ ifs is sown with booby traps. necessary emergence of a gigantic Soviet Empire), Offhand, it would be rather difficult to think of the one relevant objective for an American foreign a man less likely to serve as a front than Winston policy was to instigate strength, economic and mili­ Churchill. And yet the flabby campaign he fought, tary, in all anti-Soviet nations, and to rally them even more than his advanced age, makes it quite in a firm coalition. True, this objective has been conceivable that the Young Turks of his party partly ignored and partly betrayed by a partly could have succeeded in domesticating the magnifi­ ignorant and partly infiltrated Truman Administra­ cent lion for a silly act of "Me-Tooism." The old tion. Yet even if nothing but patriotic wisdom had master's strangely inept response to Labor's ras­ ruled in Washington since 1945, Britain's national cally "peace offensive"-his promise of an imme­ socialism would have stymied America. diate conference with Stalin-is an ominous case Specifically, the American stimulus, to be effec­ in point. tive at all, required a genuine unification of western To meet one's ruthless antagonist in conference, Europe. Unless it grows into a free area of com­ without having first ,arrived at a plan for decisive plementary trade, western Europe can grow neither action, plus superior tools for executing it, is of economically strong nor militarily defensible. But it course suicidal; and no one knows this better than remains one of the profound paradoxes of life that the Successor to Neville Chamberlain and author of nothing, prevents economic unification so surely as "The Second World War." Nor is this un-Churchil­ to plan it from the top: Rather than facilitate a lian catering to popular stupidity the only symptom subsequent cooperation of "organized" national of flabbiness. Mr. Churchill, like many a landed communities, every "planned" national economy aristocrat, harbors an impatient contempt for eco­ erects one more barrier. And of the blocks on the nomics. And some of the Young Turks who have road to the coalescence of Europe, none was more formed dizzy notions of a housebroken "conserva­ forbidding than the national socialism of the Brit­ tive socialism," seem to be cleverly playing on his ish Labor government. constitutional indifference to economic policies. The result is what could be called the "economic neu­ One merely had to see the arrogant Mr. Hugh tralism" of certain non-Socialists-a disturbing Dalton swing his weight at a Strasbourg meeting tendency to consider socialization an inexorable law of the European Assembly to be cured, once and for of history. all, of the hope that the internationalist jargon of Winston Churchill, however, is quite a law unto traditional socialism might somewhat mitigate its himself, and the clever young men in his entourage national egotism. Year after year the British dele­ may yet feel the inexorable momentum of that law. gation to the European Assembly grew more cyn­ At any rate, it is at least possible that Churchill ical, more recklessly determined to obstruct a Con­ has returned to power not only figuratively, and tinental integration which, quite inescapably, would that his extraordinary instinct for right judgments by its own success negate the viability of an iso­ is unimpaired. What a break this could be for the lated British national socialism. No government in entire free world can be measured by the prospect recent European history has been a more obstrep­ which a.truly Churchillian government in Britain erous saboteur of Continental economic cooperation would open for the implementation of a truly than Mr. Attlee's. American foreign policy. True, what is euphemistically called Mr. Mar­ shall's Plan was from the beginning a mixture of What is it, indeed, that has partly aborted and fatuous "generosity" and an amateur's characteris­ partly maimed America's potentially immense con­ tic blindness to facts. Had it been confined to gov­ tribution to the emergence of a free and prosper­ ernmentswhich genuinely favored free economic ous world? Fundamentally, it is national socialism cooperation (Le., to non-socialist governments), -sometimes defiantly capitalized as "National So­ ECA could have advanced the organic integration cialism," sometimes cleverly mislabeled as "human­ of Europe in spite of Labor's obstructionism. But itarian' reform," sometimes virulent abroad, some­ only tendentially. Continental integration just can times creeping throughout our own government; not be decisively achieved without both eastern but always eating away the world's substance of Europe and Britain. health and wealth. The modern heresy of national And British national socialism sabotaged the al­ socialism has disrupted not only the indispensable lianceof free peoples not only in Europe. Wholly

NOVEMBE:R 19, 1951 101 dedicated to squaring its socialist circle, Mr. Att­ lee's government approached every world problem The Tense Middle East with the peculiar provincialism and. crude·egotism of national socialists. Anything that, for the mo­ HE NINETEENTH century had its no doubt some­ ment, seemed to cover a hole in the cracking "plan" T what high-handed way of solving the problems was considered permissible-trade with the Soviet that came up in "colonial" areas. The de haut en bas bloc, recognition of Mao's gang rule over China, method was caned "imperialism." "Imperialism" exploitation of the growing American need for meant that when the citizens of a big sovereign Malayan rubber-anything at all to postpone the power had investments within the borders of a admission of bankruptcy. In fact, one can sympa­ weaker power, the big power undertook to protect thize with Mr. Acheson who, it will be recalled, re­ the contractual rights of its own nationals. This re­ fuses to turn his back on friends: British national sulted in proceedings that frequently violated the socialism would be the only presentable apology in amour propre of local politicos, who mayor may not his monolithic record of failure-and he can not have spoken for their peoples. But the system, for present it! an its crudeness, had one great benefit: production In short, Britain-America's most important 'was seldom halted. And because of the prospect of partner in the great anti-Soviet alliance-was for continuous and profitable production, more and six crucial years ruled by a group of men who, in 'more people were willing to risk their hard-earned their heart of hearts, thought of communism not money overseas. The world, even including the as the implacable enemy but as the prodigal son "backward" areas, benefited and prospered. of the free world, and suffered from a paralyzing Today only the most intransigent Colonel Blimp nostalgia for the golden years of "Popular Front" is willing to do "imperialism" any public honor. follies. "Imperialism" is considered totally unethical. That is why the British have not dared to protect their Winston Churchill's return to power-if it is contractual rights in Iran 'by sending a cruiser or indeed Churchill's return, and not the ascendancy two and a couple of divisions to guard the Anglo­ of Young Turks to whom the language of freedom Iranian Oil Company properties and to keep them is Greek-could be a chance to get that mired policy producing. But the world still needs systematic pro­ cart of ours out of the rut. His commitment to duction, and this includes the most violently na­ European integration and an honest alliance with tionalist Iranians as well as British investors in loil. America is more than political; it is the man him­ If the old system of guaranteeing contractual rights self. Though he might sometimes have to play his is no longer viable, then a new system must be hand cagily, to neutralize the still tremendous pow­ devised. er of British labor, he might be counted upon to Many people thought such a system had been keep his word-if it were not for the two remain­ created when such things as the UN and a World ing nests of clandestine but nonetheless potent Court were brought into being. But if the crises obstructionists. now rending the Middle East from Iran to Egypt One is the confused cabal in Churchill's own prove anything, it is that the UN system of holding party-a group vaguely corresponding to our "lib­ the world together is impotent. Nobody dares to eral Republicans" (here as there, a hidden life in­ put the UN to any significant test, and nobody surance for hidden socialism). The other nest, of seems to honor ,any system of law transcending the course, is right in the American Department of various separate national systems. State. Disconsolate as Mr. Acheson et al. may be over the recession of their Wave of the Future, Meanwhile the world waits to see whether it is British crest, they will recover in no time. Our going to be cut in two at Suez. Egypt claims sover­ State Department is the one Fabian constituency no eign rights in this area, and insists that these conglomeration of Churchills could ever reach. This rights have been violated. The British claim con­ remains a job for either an American President or tractual rights under a treaty. Both Egypt and the American electorate. Britain have a case. But who is to balance the cases against each other? But to expect Mr. Truman to act like a President British troops, as both the British Information of the United States, rather than the single-track Services and our State Department have made dispensator of brazen patronage he is, would be clear, are in the Suez by right of treaty. The Egyp­ unpardonably naive. And so, we are afraid, the tians argue that the 1936 treaty agreeing to the Fabian ghosts Churchill has just laid in Downing stationing of troops in the Canal Zone was made Street will continue to haunt the State Department; under duress. Egypt claims further that Britain, and the perilous lag between American and British in return for occupying the Canal Zone, was to have policies will continue, though now in reverse. The trained and equipped an Egyptian Army. This momentous potentials of the fact that Britain may agreement, so the Egyptians say, has been only have acquired an authentic Prime Minister will be partially fulfilled. Britain's forces in the Suez were nullified by the even more momentous fact that the to be limited to 10,400 men. The. Egyptians insist United States, at least until 1953, is without a that the total British garrisons in the Suez and in President. the Sudan are closer to 100,000 than to 10,400. If there were no passions involved, it would be in the short period of deflation which followed that an easy matter for Englishmen and Egyptians to war. balance claim against counter-claim and settle·the The contemporary use of such devices is much 'business. But with nationalist spirit running high different. For one thing escalation· has been elevated .in the Middle East, the Egyptians, goaded by the to the position of a principle. It has become the apparent success of the Iranians, are determined means of making inflation viable. In these terms that Britain's troops must go. The whole Moslem the escalator method is to be applied not alone to world of 300,000,000 people is tensely watching wages but to all prices and incomes, and performs, developments. accordingly, the function of making it possible for Since there is little chance of a compromise being everyone to live happily and forever under a full­ worked out between Britishers and Egyptians, the fledged and progressive inflation. 'This is what Pro­ situation calls for an honest broker. In default of fess{>r Sumner ,BUchter has in mind when he pro­ action by the UN, the United States of America poses that the face value of a government savings could offer its services here. Unfortunately our bond should rise with the increase in prices. The State Department has endorsed Britain's stand, anonymous author of the fantastic series of three which causes us to inherit all the antipathies which articles published recently by the Economist of Lon­ nationalistic Moslems hold against Britain. don goes Mr. Slichter one better, dives off the deep Is it too late for the United States to serve as a end and advises the escalation of everything ex­ mediating influence in the Middle East? Since pressed in terms of money, thus launching an ex­ Egypt is eager for Western arms, which would have periment in money-printing certain to appeal to the to come from American production lines, we have departed spirit of John Law. some latent power to affect the situation in the Suez. With a new party in office in Britain, there Another difference ,is that some of the benefi­ is a chance to begin all over again in an attempt ciaries of the escalator begin after a while to be to settle the Middle Eastern crisis. Egypt has as­ dissatisfied with it. They think they ought to do serted its eagerness to join the West in a defensive better by invoking some other principle, or a num­ alliance against Communist expansion, provided ber of them. This is today the state of mind of Mr. that it gets status as an equal. Since the concept of Philip Murray, president of the CIa United Steel equal status does not necessarily mean that treaty Workers,a union with more than a million mem­ rights and obligations as between Britain and bers and a creation of the late Wagner Act. Mr. Egypt should be unihiterally denounced, there is Murray has for several months been paving the real opportunity at the moment for statecraft. The way for wage demands on the steel industry. He prerequisite is that Washington should know what has let it be known that, cost of living or no cost it wants and take the lead. of living, his members need, want and expect to get a substantial wage increase. In response to a state­ ment by Mr. Eugene G. Grace, chairman of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation, that there was no justification for a steel wage increase, Mr. Murray The Escalator Idea said that he would be "remiss in the performance of [his] duties" if he failed to refer to the fact HE ESCALATOR method, which is nothing more that "the ,steel industry is not a progre,ssive-minded T than an ,automatic plan for making everything industry. It is an industry that believes more in in an inflation go up with everything else, is much the big ingot than it does in the big pay envelope." older than the now famous General Motors formula. Whatever these words mean, they forecast a de­ That formula, it will be remembered, ties wages to termined effort by.a powerful labor organization to the cost of living so that when living costs rise establish, for the time being at least, a new prin­ wages also rise in some specified proportion. The ciple of wage determination calculated to do more only novelty in the GM formula is the so-called for the steel workers than the cost of living prin­ improvement factor by which employees automat­ ciple. That is certainly what the figures sugge~t. ically receive an annual raise of four cents an hour According to the U. S.Bureau of Labor Statistics, to enable them to share in the gains from techno­ .steel workers earned $66.63 a week in June 1950 logical progress, if there are any or if there are not. and $80.14 in June 1951. By the hour they earned There is nothing new in this way of adjusting $1.67 in the first and $1.93 in the last of these two wages to prices. Far back in both American and months. Obviously it will require a good deal of English economic history wages in a number of ingenuity to argue with and around these figures. industries moved up and down, not with the cost of The issue is further complicated by the existence living, but with the prices of the commodities those of Federal wage regulation and wage ceilings, industries produced; and the procedure was aptly above which wages are not supposed to go. These described as the "sliding scale." In time and for a controls and ceilings would not matter much were variety of reasons this means of wage-fixing was it not for the fact that labor unions are such in­ discarded, to be revived in periods of rapidly rising veterate advocates of regulation. They are always and, to a lesser degree, rapidly falling prices. This demanding more and stiffer control. At the same is what happened during World War I and again time they are constantly engaged in devising the

NOVeM8ER 19, 1951 103 means of evading the regulations and piercing the over with a subpoena. What would people think? ceilings. What, in particular, would Frank McHale think? To support their position the unions have in­ Frank McHale, longtime Democratic National vented a battery of reasons and rationalizations. Committeeman from Indiana and McKinney's poli­ They set out to prove that wage increases can be tical foster-father, is tremendously touchy when it paid out of excessive margins of profits. They claim comes to even the faintest suspicion of mixing po­ that they.are not sharing in the increasing produc­ litical influence with private profits. Well does he tivity of industry. They complain that the official know that no creature under the sun is more easily measure of living costs understates the real rise in misunderstood than a Democratic National Com­ prices. For ,some time they have contended that tax mitteeman trying to be kind to a private business rates should be ip.cluded in the cost~of-living index firm, fora small consideration. Some years ago on the theory, or in the hope, that their inclusion he had fixed a few sensitive matters for the Empire . will push the index up faster and further. Ordnance Company (for 5 per cent of the com­ pany's common stock)-and how should an innocent These are the politics of the escalator principle. Hoosier have known that there was a war on and A strongly organize~ group, like the labor move­ that Empire Ordnance was clipping the Army? ment, intends to profit from inflation but knows it But everybody's nerves then' were on edge, even. can not do so if everybody else attempts to profit F.D.R.'s, and the boy from the sticks was advised at the same time and in'the same· degree. Hence it to leave turbulent Wa,shington for the quiet of demands freedom of action in the setting of wages, Indiana. ,or the price of labor, and severe control over all And now McKinney-his pal, his pride, his pro­ other prices. It knows that when a vast program tege! Could fate be really so mean as to strike one of munitions production creates a shortage of civ­ little clan twice in seven years? Should McKinney's ilian goods and ,a plethora of,income, the only way United States Pipeline Company now be rudely to deal with the situation is to keep incomes from suspected of laying one straight into the United rising too fast and to keep a tight rein on the use States Government? No, McKinney must not be of existing income. It also knows that the root of shanghaied into Washington bondage! This was the the trouble is a fabulous government budget. But time for all good men to come to the aid of Hoosier it is unwilling to use its political influence to re­ virtue. strain the extravagances of Washington. As long as this is so, no principle of wage determination will Although, in spite of Mr. McHale's delic~te work for any great length of time and wages and scruples Mr. McKinney was shanghaied, we have prices will chase each other as they always do when some modest suggestions to offer in case-well, ,a central government deliberately violates all of the just in case. tested principles of correct fiscal policy. A way must be found, we submit, to. abolish the cruel system of destroying innocent country boys by drafting them for the Democratic National Com­ mittee. The nation can no longer afford the constant debasement of virtue. And so we would like to pro­ In Defense of Virtue- pose three possi;ble remedies. One, the Democratic Party might pick its next HERE comes a moment in every jo~rnalist's life chairman from among certified ward,s of bankruptcy T when an irresistible inner voice calls him to courts who are leg,ally incapable, and therefore be­ the rescue of innocence beleaguered. We heard the yond the suspicion, of handling checks, cash, or call in the case of Frank McKinney-but alas ! steel priorities. events outran us. Two, the Democratic Party might pick Senator With the labor market getting tighter every day, Wayne Morse to head its National Committee. He the Democrats seemed unable to hire a chairman for considers his Republican Party affiliation irrelevant their National Committee. The job pays all right, and immaterial anyway, and votes pretty much the but security, social and otherwise, is inadequate. straight Truman ticket in the Senate. Surely Demo­ So the retiring paragon, Mr. Boyle, got pan'icky. crats could no longer be blamed for their National The' excellent name he had made for himself in the Committee's peddling political favors if a Repub­ job naturally qualified him to select his successor, lican were at its helm. but for weeks he found no takers. In his disgust, Three, the chairmanship of the Democratic Na­ it seems, he .simply·grabbed the Telephone Direc­ tional Committee could be auctioned off to the high­ tory of Indianapolis and just happened to pin-prick est bidder, or even better, made the second prize one Frank McKinney who, until proved guilty, must in a national lottery-the first prize, of course, be­ be considered' innocent. ing the St. Louis receivership of internal revenue. McKinney was just minding his own business­ So far as we and all other upright defenders of which was to secure a government priority for more virtue are concerned, it does not really matter than 100,000 tons of scarce steel for his United which suggestion the Democrats may follow when States Pipeline Company-when Mr. Boyle's call the time comes. What alone matters is that an end came through. You could have blown McKinney be put to the debasement of bucolic innocence.

104 the F'REEMAN Spain, the Indispensable Ally

By HOFFMAN NICKERSON

Many people who welcomed alliance. with Commu­ High Command-"the Pentagon," if you prefer­ nist Russia on purely military grounds now oppose has long been pressing for a military understanding an alliance with Fascist Spain on political or reli­ with Spain. If the present heads of our Defense gious grounds. Major Nickerson maintains that a Department thought that we had even a moderate Spanish alliance is as vital to the free nations today chance of success in western Europe without Spain, as was alliance with Soviet Russia in 1941. then they certainly would not oppose the strong anti...Spanish feeling of the present British and French governments and of our own State Depart­ N ALLYIN,G itself with Spain the United States ment. After all, the Chiefs of our Armed Services I would exchange a militarily hopeles's position on have not recently been conspicuous for resisting the continent of Europe for a very strong one. political pressure. That they have stood up in the At the bottom that is all there is to it. With the Spanish case is good evidence that the strategic help of. comparatively few American troops the weakness of our European position without a Span­ chances of a successful Soviet invasion of the Pen­ ish alliance is' too alarming to be overlooked. Prob­ insula would be. extremely small. Moreover, the ably it would be hard to find a group of educated, country is large enough to serve asa base from professional fighting men anywhere who, if speak­ which counter-attacks could be launched when cir­ ing frankly and in private, would not agree. cumstanc'es permitted. Finally, a strong Spain Indeed it is an open secret that some of our most would give us a secure entrance into the Mediter­ intelligent high-ranking officers privately agree ranean, the great inland sea which bounds all with ex-President Hoover that we should plan only southern Europe and nearly all northern Africa, for hemispheric defense and wait for the Red Em­ and is an ideal theater for sea and air power. pire to blow up from internal strains which would If our present policy of stationing American increase if that Empire attempted further terri­ troops. in Continental Europe can make sense at all torial expansion. This, however, is by the way. -and that is a big "if"-it can do so only if cen­ tered on Spain. As it stands it is only a sham, an Our Weaknes8 in Europe invitation to military disaster and an attempt to justify government spending in order to keep Tru­ Space permits only very brief analy,sis of the man and Acheson in power. military weakness in our present European posi­ It is a sham because we and our Allies under the tion. An obvious point is that of numbers. Britain's North Atlantic Treaty do not now have and are not former Defense Minister Shinwell said at Ottawa even planning to raise armies and air forces power­ recently ithat the USSR has 215 divisions of which ful enough to hold any appreciable parts of west­ at least 70 are "deployed against the West, and the ern Europe north of the Pyrenees against a deter­ Russian forces are growing in power and numbers." mined Soviet attack. Only a delaying action could The Red Army is particularly strong in armored be fought behind the Rhine which is the only seri­ divisions. There are also about 60 satellite divisions. ous military obstacle now available to us. As soon By contrast the much publicized Eisenhower Army as the Rhine was forced we could hold only pen­ exists chiefly on paper. Hanson Baldwin, the insulas like Denmark and Brittany and perhaps.a distinguished military editor of the New York redoubt in the French Alps. Since these areas are Times, recently wrote that if all the present too small to be militarily important, the real prob~ North Atlantic Treaty powers except Greece and lem would then Ibe to hold the Pyrenees and behind Turkey fulfil their entire military programs by them to organize Spain and Portugal as our Con­ the end of 1951, there may be six American and tinental European base. Ohviously this could be the equivalent of seventeen West European divi­ done more easily before rather than after the sions available for the vital sector between the Alps shooting has started. and the North Sea. Since that sector is a;bout 400 These elementary facts of military life have been miles wide, if we assume a full divisional strength somewhat blurred in the public mind by the or­ of 15,000 each and if we calculate defensive density ganized lying known as propaganda. The trick has in an old-fashioned way, there would be less than been to talk about how nice it would be if we could one man for every two yards of front, including hold the Rhine and even the Ruhr-although for a reserves. Including non-divisional combat trooP5, considera:ble time we shall not have a dog's chance there would certainly· be not much more than one of doing so. man for every two yards. In 1914 such a front Nevertheless, anyone who habitually reads the would have been as thin as tissue paper, and every­ headlines in a first-class newspaper knows that our one knows that the multiplication of planes. tanks

NOVEMBER 19, 1951 105 and other present-day military instruments has even small parties of athletic and lightly burdened greatly strengthened offense as compared with de­ rnen on foot can cross only at comparatively few fense.Moreover, some \Vestern units might well be additional points. Also the few roads across a big cut off and militarily destroyed before they could range run for miles through thinly inhabited coun­ cross the Rhine. try where shelter and appreciable reserves of food The French hope to have five more divisions by do not exist, whereas in civilized countries great the end of '52. In 1940 they had more than a hun­ river valleys have dense populations, developed dred. In the matter of tactical aviation, all military road systems and abundant food and shelter. authorities seem to agree that in tactical planes The Pyrenees are almost ideally suitable for a we would be heavily outnumbered. modern defense in that the coastal strips at either That so-called "strategic," Le. long-range, bomb­ end of the range are extremely narrow, and four ing could prevent a westward advance by the Red out of the five roads which cross the mountains Army· has rarely been maintained since Korea. themselves do so close enough either to the Bay of Moreover the German generals who fought on the Biscay or the Mediterranean to permit not only Eastern Front during World War II all say that at­ land planes but also carrier planes easily to join tacks against the communications of Russian forces in defending them. Flying eastward from the Bay, were not as effective as they would have been the pass of Roncevalles is only 35 air miles from against Western armies because Russian soldiers tidewater, the Somport 74 and the Pourtalet sev­ are accustomed to hard conditions and habitually enty-nine. For 54 air miles westward from the lived off the country. Mediterranean coastal shelf there is no road until By destroying the bridges over the Rhine and you are over the Cerdagne, the one pass over the destroying or seizing as many of the local river chain with any breadth to it. Over the 133 miles craft as we could, we might gain a breathing spell. between the Pourtalet and the Cerdagne, the only It is worth remembering, however, that throughout road follows the difficult Bonaigua pass. military history river lines have almost never been Even if the Red invaders could force the Pyren­ long and successfully held against determined op­ ees, more than a thousand air miles from the Rus­ ponents who approached on a broad front. This was sian border, they would find their geographical true over and over again in World War II. The difficulties only beginning, for the peninsula is Volga at Stalingrad is no exception, for the Ger­ crossed from sea to sea by a succession of trans­ mans reached it only at the tip of a deep and nar­ verse ranges. row salient. Also, we saw at the beginning of this article that The critical stage is seldom the original crossing; Spain commands the western entrance to the Med­ advanced elements almost always get across. Then iterranean which with its islands is an ideal theater follows a "race of reinforcement," with the de­ for sea and air power. Along that inland sea we fender trying to wipe out the attacker's footholds have access to Greece, Turkey and the oil deposits and the attacker trying first to hold them and of the Near East. From its eastern end our planes then to break out into the open. Air power and can threaten the Soviets' vulnerable southern flank, large airborne forces like those of the Soviets in­ Le. the Caucasus and the Caspian oil region up the crease the chances of the offensive. During World Volga. The Mediterranean is also a barrier against War II even without airborne operations the Red land invasion of North Africa. Army scored a series of striking successes in cross­ Without a strong Spain astride the Straits of ing rivers. Lieut.-General Sir G. Le Q. Martel, who Gibraltar our organized bases in the western and was the chief of the British military mission to the southeastern Mediterranean area must be confined USSR in 1943, says in his book "Our Armored to Africa where we would suffer various disadvan­ Forces" that the Soviet military engineers were tages. East and west ground communications there extremely skilful in organizing river crossings, are difficult north of the Sahara and non-existent building a number of bridges across the Dnieper at elsewhere. The North African Moslems, like their points where that river is 1500 feet wide in an co-religionists in other regions, have been deeply average of only four days per bridge. Some of their offended by our policy toward Israel. Also, as Gen­ bridges carried tanks. eral Fellers recently noted in the Freeman, we would be politically whipsawed by the necessity for Spain Is Defensible taking sides between their nationalist movement and the imperialism of France and Britain. All told, therefore, Eisenhower's staff can hardly Turning now to the human factors of Spain, the be planning for more than a brief stand behind the average Spaniard is conspicuously tough and brave. Rhine. There is no other continuous natural ob­ Although the Spanish armed forces lack much of stacle between the Rhine and the Pyrenees. the expensive military equipment which only the On the other hand, the Pyrenees are exceptionally richest nations can afford on any scale, their senior formidable. Considerable mountain ranges are seri­ officers are veterans of the long and ferocious Civil ous military obstacles because the wheeled vehicles War which ended only a few months before World essential to large-scale military transport can cross War II began. As a result of that Civil War the them only on prepared roads, caterpillar-tracked Spanish government is probably more anti-Commu­ vehicles are often almost as much restricted, and nist than any other in the world. The local Commu-

106 the FREEMAN nist Party is outlawed and exists only underground of 1588-neither of which is a really live political in hunted fragments. We may contrast France and issue. During the Spanish War English Socialists Italy where Communists area large and powerful of the Labor Party strongly sympathized with the minority, so that extensive sabotage is to be feared. anti-Nationalist side, and an appreciable number Even if geography and lack of military numbers fought on that side. Attlee himself went to Spain did not make a ground defense of European France and is said to have been photographed giving the against a serious attack impossible, it would still clenched-fist Communist salute which was cus.. be absurd to base our European policy on a coun~ tomary throughout the anti-Nationalist arrny_ try where both expert and general public opinion For centuries France and Spain were unsyrn,· does not believe in the urgency of preparedness. pathetic rivals, and throughout the unhappy Third Even those who, like the present writer, have al­ French Republic their traditional antagonism was ways believed in the future resurrection of France exasperated because most French politicians were must face the fact that not only the average so anti-clerical that they made it their chief bus­ Frenchman but also the French Military Intelli­ iness to abuse the traditional religion of both coun­ gence Service firmly· believes that the Soviets will tries. Since the same French politicians naturally not attack westward. If the French are correct, sympathized with Spanish Reds and Pinks, during then our whole policy needs revision. the Civil War while nationalism was winning in In Spain the political atnlosphere is wholly dif­ Spain and while the Popular Front was busily pre­ ferent. General Franco and his government, having paring the catastrophe of 1940, feeling on both seen communism in action on their own soil, full;)' sides of the Pyrenees ran higher than ever. appreciate its menace. During W'orld War II Count Readers may judge for themselves whether re.. Jordana, then Spanish Foreign lVlinister, repeatedly ligious memories or sectarian political prejudices warned the Western governments of what are more important than military necessities. might expect from Moscow, and time has proved To say that our leaders should try·hard to make him all too true a prophet. a firm alliance with Spain does not mean that they ought to throw themselves into Franco's arms and The Arguments of Prejudice do whatever he might suggest. Not being a fool, he might well prove a shrewd bargainer. In this article To refute the usual arguments against a Spanish­ we need not consider what concessions our nego­ American alliance it is hardly necessary to do more tiators might reasonably ask in return for substan­ than state them. When it is said that Franco's of­ tial American assistance. ficials are corrupt, we should remember that our Meanwhile Truman and Acheson have already State Department Pinks said the same thing about delayed so long before beginning to make friends our friend Chiang Kai-shek-for the benefit of the with the Spanish government that we may wonder Chinese Reds now killing our men in Korea. If the whether their $65 billion military budget is in­ charge against Spanish officialdom be true-and on tended to support any real defense of western this sinful earth a certain amount of corruption Europe. If that defense is not based upon Spain it exists everywhere-then that is only an argument will be worthless. for adequate American supervision of what is done with whatever dollars and materials we may send. Since most of those who complain that Franco is a dictator approve of our supporting Tito, who Worth Hearing Again is not only a dictator but a Communist dictator, it is enough to quote, as W. H. Chamberlin recently John Adams to I-lis Wife~ Ahigail did in Human Events, Our Lord's own words: Baltimore, 7 February, 1777 "Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites who strain at ... The prices of things here are much more intol­ a gnat and swallow a camel." erable than at Boston. The attempt of New Eng­ The real reasons why from 1945 until recently land to regulate prices is extremely popular in Con­ the Spanish government was practically boycotted gress, who will recommend an imitation of it to the throughout the West have one thing in common: other States. For my own p1art I expect only a par­ none of them has anything to do with either mili­ tial and a temporary relief from it, and I fear that tary or anti-Communist considerations. At bottom after a time the evils will break out with greater all are due to political or religious prejudices. Spain violence. The water will flow with greater rapidity has been and is politically Roman Catholic, and in for having been dammed up for a time. The only accordance with the inflexible Spanish pride and radical cure will be to stop the emission of more with the absolute charact@r of Spanish thought her paper, and to draw in some that is already out and governments have been Roman Catholic in a rigid devise means effectually to support the credit of the and uncompromising way. To many English-speak­ rest. To this end we must begin to tax the people ing Protestants the legal disabilities still imposed ,as largely as the distressed circumstances of the upon the negligible handful of Spanish Protestants country will bear. We must raise the interest from are provocative. These disabilities strengthen the four to six per cent. We must, if possible, borrow inherited Anglo-American habit of thinking about silver and gold from abroad. Spain in terms of the Inquisition and the Armada "Familiar Letters," Charles F. Adams, ed.

N'OVEMBE'R 19, 1951 107 Controls Won't Stop Inflation

By TOWNER PHELAN

HE DEBATE over price controls may be can not get the beef under the existing price , characterized as a sham battle from the point ceilings. T of view of economics. It has little relevance When price controls cut production in particular to the inflation problem. It is essentially political. industries, they frequently ,create supply bottle­ Inflation is an excess of monetary demand in rela­ necks in other industries. Often the indirect loss of tion to the volume of goods available for purchase. ,production is far greater than directly affected by It is too many dollars trying to buy too small a sup­ ill-designed price limitations. A flagrant example ply of goods. The only way to stop inflation is to is found in the machine toot industry. Our whole restore the balance between monetary demand and defense effort depends upon machine tools.. The the goods available for purchase. Stopping inflation London Economist points out in its "American requires either an increase in the supply of goods Survey" : without a corresponding increase in purchasing Some of" them [machine tools] are so complex they power until the balance is restored or a curtailment take from three months to a year to build and in monetary demand until it corresponds to the without them a defense program is nothing more amount of goods available. than an oratorical blueprint. The machine tool in­ Price controls do not restrain inflation but, on dustry is delivering goods at only one-quarter the the contrary, actually promote inflation. When rate attained in the last war and some manufac­ prices are held down artificially, the result is to turers will promise no deliveries before late 1953. increase the demand. With monetary incomes the Our entire defense effort has been effectively same, there will be a greater demand for sirloin sabotaged by ill-conceived price controls on machine steaks at 75 cents a pound than if they cost $1.50 tools. This the government admits. I quote a UP a pound. dispatch from Washington of August 21, 1951: Changes in prices in the free market affect not The Government said today that price increases only the demand for goods but also the supply. High granted the machine tool industry apparently had prices encourage increased production because they broken a bottleneck that had' been hamstringing make it more· profitable for producers to supply the the defense program for more than a year. demand. When prices are held down artificially by As Barron's weekly points out: price controls, they tend tOI squeeze the profit mar­ Five million dollars worth of small tungsten car­ gin of produc,ers-often make production unprof­ bide cutting tools supports an output of $10 billion itable-and therefore tend to decrease the supply. worth of automobiles. And their relation to mili­ If price controls are not to disrupt the proper func­ tary items is probably about the same. Why should tioning of our economy, it is essential that prices there be any price regulation at all on items such be ,permitted to reflect increases in costs. As the as these? Obviously they have not the slightest bearing on the cost of living or anything in which London Economist points out: the Office of Price Stabilization is supposed to be If price controls have any useful purpose at all interested. Just as obviously regulation can and there is certainly no justification for prohibiting does impede production. an automatic increase in prices with an increase Just why did it take the OPS "more than a year" in costs. ... No price control would be better than inflexible price control. to discover that price controls in the machine tool industry were sabotaging the entire defense pro­ gram? Was it just bureaucratic incompetence and The ";rerrible Capehart Amendment" stupidity? Whoever is responsible (however well­ meaning and patriotic he may be) has given "aid What Mr. Truman calls "the terrible Capehart and comfort" to' the Soviet Union. Amendment" provides that price ceilings shall re­ Price controls also contribute to inflation by re­ flect increases in costs. If prices do not cover costs, quiring for their enforcement a small army of job they will result either in curtailment of production holders' and snoopers who otherwise might be en­ and shortages of goods,or in diverting goods to black gaged in the production of useful goods and ser­ markets. The announcement that only two out of vices. Barron's weekly reports that there were 212 meat packing companies invited to bid on gov­ "6700 employees now working for OPS" and that ernment orders for beef for the Army submitted "their number is slated to quintuple." bids and could supply only 190,000 pounds of beef Price controls increase demand and !decrease sup­ instead of the 13,000,000 pounds the government ply. This increases inflation-it does not restrain it. wants, is a dramatic illustration of how unrealistic Dr. Emerson P. Schmidt, Economic Research Direc­ price ceilings disrupt the economy and create arti­ tor of the United States Chamber of Commerce, ficial shortages. The packers didn't bid because they says:

108 the F'REEMAN A fr~e price per.forms an enormously important er to obtain at the official prices a certain amount functIon. When It rises, that helps to conserve of bread or sugar or soap or wood or coal to cover scar<:e supplies; it stimulates greater effort at pro­ immediate necessities.... Shopkeepers therefore ductIon. !t encourages the use of, or the production could not sell such goods without ruin. The result of, SUbs~Itutes. Price control, if effective, stops this was that very many went out of business and the autonlatlC adju~tment. Price control is an attempt remainder forced buyers to pay enormous charges to make. the prIce tag say something which is not under the very natural excuse that the seller risked tr~e. PrIce expresses the equilibrium between sup­ his life in trading at all. That this excuse was p~Ies and demands. Sitting on the price with the valid is easily seen by the daily lists of those con­ aId ?f law! directives, and the policeman, does demned to the guillotine, in which not infrequently nothl~g to Improve the supply, and indeed discour­ figure the names of men charged with violating the ages Increased supply. And equally bad, price con­ Maximum laws. Manufactures were very generally trol "enorm?us~r in~reases people's efforts to get crippled and frequently destroyed, and agriculture the bargaIns, WhICh control appears to promise. was fearfully depressed. Price controls are us'eless in checking inflation In the light of history, which shows that price ex?ept in the case of monopoly prices. Monopol; controls promote inflation rather than restrain it, prIces are controlled prices which are higher than that they disrupt the normal workings of the econo­ the prices which would be set by a free market and, my and bring mis·ery rather than relief, then why is therefore, can be reduced without destroying the it that politicians always attempt to meet inflation incentive to produce. But the best way to attack with price controls? There are two basic reasons. monopoly prices is by means of anti-trust legisla­ First, most people, including many politicians, not tion-not price controls. Our anti-trust laws are only want inflation to continue because it increases a protection against monopoly prices by business. their money incomes but also want to avoid the B~t th:re is no similar protection against monopoly higher prices which are a consequence of inflation. prIces In the field of agriculture, where the govern­ They have the naive belief that if incomes increase ment support programs often peg prices above the and the supply of goods does not, price controls will market. There is no such protection against mon­ enable them to buy all they want at no increase in opoly prices for labor. If wages were the result of price. That is why, as the London Economist puts the free play of market forces, there would be no it, "belief in this panacea [price controls] prevents excuse for wage controls. But because wages are governments from getting at the cause behind the set by the coercive force of powerful labor mon­ symptoms." opolies, there is ample economic justification for The second reason that politicians always at­ rigid wage controls. There is a similar economic tempt to meet inflation with price controls is that justification for doing away with farm price sup­ inflation always is the result of governmental pol­ ports. licies and the politicians want desperately to avoid With these exc'eptions, holding prices down by blame for the higher prices which are the conse­ price controls promotes inflation by widening the quence of their inflationary policies. To point out gap between too many dollars and too few goods. that inflation is a result of government policies is This truth has been demonstrated time and time not to condemn every governmental action which again throughout history. There is nothing new promotes inflation.' For example, our present de­ about price controls. They were used by Hammurabi fense program to rebuild our military power and in Mesopotamia 2000 years before the birth of that of our Allies is highly inflationary, but it cer­ Christ. In 301 A.D. in ancient Rome, the Emperor tainly is necessary to our survival. But whether Diocletian issued' his famous Edictum de Pretiis the governmental policies which promote inflation imposing maximum legal prices and wages. Accord­ are necessary, or merely represent political dema­ ing to Will Durant:' goguery or incredibly stupid blunders, as theyfre- iquently do, the causes of inflation are always found The Edict was until our time the most famous ex­ in governmental policies. ample of an attempt to replace economic laws by Throughout history whenever governmental pol­ governmental decrees. Its failure was rapid and complete. icies result in unpleasant consequences, the chief aim of politicians is to find a scapegoat for their own blunders. Emperors, kings" dictators and pres­ Price Controls Enforced by Guillotine idents tilt at windmills in an effort to divert the Price controls were tried in France 150 years ago attention of the people from the evils of govern­ during the French Revolution and, as they invari­ ment. Hitler's slaughter of the Jews and Roosevelt's ably do, failed to work. I quote from "Fiat Money slanders of businessmen were slick, professional, Inflation in France" by the late Andrew Dickson twentieth-century applications of the political tac­ White: tics which the Roman emperors used to persecute the Christians. I am not, of course, making a moral The first result of the Maximum [price control comparison between Hitler's slaughter of the Jews laws enacted September 29, 1793] was that every and Roosevelt's use of the businessman as a scape­ means was taken to evade the fixed price imposed goat. Yet from the standpoint of political strategy and the farmers· brought in as little produce a~ they possibly could. This increased the scarcity, there was no difference at all between the tech­ and the people of the large cities were put on al­ niques of Hitler and Roosevelt. lowance. Tickets were issued authorizing the bear- Not only is the demand for rigid price controls

NOVEMBER 19, 1951 109 motivated by political rather than economic con­ taxation, credit controls, and savings programs hold siderations, .but the methods used to promote the inflationary pressure down to manageable pro­ portions. price controls are largely patterned after Com­ munist techniques. "Liberal" advocates of rigid The Joint Committee of Congress on the Econo­ price controls use a smoke screen of emotion to mic Report said: conceal the dishonesty of their arguments. This Efforts to control prices and wages, no matter how is the technique that was used ,vhen the Com­ zealously and efficiently enforced, will be futile munist press falsely branded the Taft-Hartley precisely to the extent that this nation fails to Act as a "slave-labor" act despite the fact that it remove the inflationary steam under the boiler now. protects the rank and file of labor against coer­ On January 12, 1951, 405 economists represent­ cion and exploitation by union officials. There­ ing 43 colleges and universities submitted a state­ after, Hliberals," labor leaders, and their press ment about inflation to the Joint Congressional propagandists adopted this false Communist Committee on the Economic Report in which they "slave-labor" slogan as their o,vn. rrhe same tech­ said: nique is now being used to smear those opposed to price controls. For example, Drew Pearson uses The basic cause of inflation, an excess of money the emotional falsehood that they are Hagainst demand relative to available goods, must be at­ the housewife": tacked. Only adequate fiscal and monetary meas­ ures can remove this basic cause. No housewives were present when the Senators The London Economist points out that "holding debated price controls, but this colurnn is able to all prices down merely guarantees that it [infla­ report who was for and who was against the housewife. tion] and its harmful distortions shall go on forever." Pearson reiterated this false theme in several of Whether inflation will he controlled, or whether

his columns. This is not economic discussion­ we shall have further inflation, I will depend pri­ it is unashamed demagoguery. marily upon the aggregate· money demand and Democracy can not long endure if government its relation to the supply of goods. The govern­ by slogan is substituted for a rational discussion ment policies that will have the greatest effect of issues, and public opinion is manipulated by upon the volume of monetary demand and the the propaganda techniques originated by Lenin supply of goods will be those concerned with the and perfected by Michelson, Stalin, Goebbels and government budget, taxes, interest rates on gov­ Hitler. There is no question as to the Communist ernment bonds, subsidized credit for housing, origin of this technique. Joseph· Stalin, in his and the Controlled Materials Plan. If the gov­ book "Leninism," devotes several chapters to the ernment wants to prevent further inflation, then discussion of the tactical use of emotional slogans. a cut of eight to ten billion dollars in non~defense He even credits the success of the Bolshevik expenditures is urgently necessary. A tax pro­ Revolution to the selection of effective slogans. gram to be anti-inflationary should bear with great weight upon the lower and middle income Smear Propaganda for Price Controls groups which in the aggregate do the bulk of the spending. Taxing millionaires out of existence This type of smear propaganda to discredit the will have little or no effect upon the demand for opponents of price controls is put out by the goods. Taxing the person of small or moderate in­ propagandists for price controls, notwithstanding come who does the bulk of the spending will have the fact that the overwhelming majority of econo­ a great effect upon the demand for goods. The mists is in substantial agreement that the only excess-profits tax is an invitation to corporate effective way to fight inflation i~ through indirect extravagance, is highly inflationary, and should controls-that is, budgetary, fiscal, credit and be repealed. The actions of Congress in easing tax controls-which can exert a decisive influence installment credit restrictions and passing the upon monetary demand. Even Defense Mobilizer Defense Housing Act to ease housing credit and Wilson and the President's Council of Economic add $1,500,000,000 to the lending power of the Advisers admit that the direct controls which FHA are distinctly inflationary. The government they advocate are of minor importance as com­ should permit the interest rate to rise in order to pared with indirect controls. Mr. Wilson says: restrain credit and to give some inducement to the public to save. Every dollar that is saved It has been correctly said that direct price and that otherwise might be spent is a dollar that wage controls treat only the symptoms of inflation rather than its basic cause. doesn't go to market as monetary demand to bid prices up. The President's Council of Economic Advisers The Controlled Materials Plan announced in says: the latter part of July is more likely· to promote inflation than to restrain it. Under this plan our There is no more important single measure for government, instead of merely setting aside a combating inflation under present circumstances than the maintenance of a balanced budget.... certain portion of steel, aluminum and copper Price and wage controls would be doomed unless production for military purposes, as it should do,

110 the FREEMAN is undertaking to allocate materials for non­ military production as well. The assumption that This Is What They··Said the men in Washington can perform this vast plan of allocation better than the free market OVIET Central Asia ... will certainly trade with is belied by experience. The eMP is an invita­ S countries where Americans and American goods tion to bureaucratic blunders like that which im­ have become more widely known ... than ever be­ posed unrealistic price controls on machine tools fore. This trade, land an extension of the cultural and sabotaged our defense program. As Barron's intercourse that has already begun, can not but weekly points out: cause deep thought among the peoples of the Near East as to the methods whereby the kindred nations The basic danger of the Controlled Materials Plan of Central Asia have risen to a position not only is that it puts into the hands of government life of political and social, but of economic equality and death powers over what every firm in the country and every industry mayor may not with the Russians for whom they were formerly a produce. colony. WILLIAM MANDEL, "The Soviet Far East and Congress fortunately rejected President Tru­ Central Asia," published 1944 under the aus­ man's demand that he be given authority to build pices of the Institute of Pacific Relations. and operate new plants, expand existing plants~ and install new processes in private plants. It [The Chinese Eastern Railway] has brought only likewise rejected authority to license corporations trouble to its Soviet owners. They have long wished in order to enforce price regulations. If to the there were some one in eastern Asia to whom they powers given the government under the Con­ could give it with good grace. Failing this, they trolled Materials Plan were added Presidential wish that they, and the world, could forget about it. authority to build government steel plants and JOSEPH BARNES, Asia, November 1934 other plants to compete with private industry and authority to control business by licensing, The Fourth of July, when we celebrate our free­ the businessman would be completely at the dom, made me want to urge my readers to become mercy of government. It would give the bureau­ familiar with Howard Fast's "The American." Mr. crats life and death power over the American Fast's book is ... the story of the organization of economy and the economic activities of every the little man, the man who works with his hands farmer and businessman in the country. for small returns.... Many of us forget the long The present malodorous RFC scandals shovv fights and the leadership that individuals have what happens when bureaucrats are given con­ given in order to advance every forward step; and trol of a small section of our economy-the section it is good when a book of this kind is written.... composed of businessmen who can't compete in ELEANOR ROOSEVELT, "My Day," July 5, 1946 the open market but depend upon government favors for undeserved profits. If such bureau­ One may accept or reject the ideology of Hitlerism cratic control were extended to cover all business, as well as any other ideological system. But every­ it takes very little imagination to see what might body should understand that ideology can not be happen. destroyed by force, that it can not be eliminated by war. It is therefore not only senseless but crimi­ Power-Hungry Bureaucrats nal to wage such a war as a war for "the destruc­ tion of Hitlerism" camouflaged as a fight for democ­ The power-hungry bureaucrats in Washington racy. are so well entrenched that they have become MOLOTOV, speaking from Moscow, reported largely self-perpetuating. Administrations come in People's Daily World, November 1, 1939 and go, but bure·aus go on forever. The President and Congress can create new bureaus and Operation Treadmill agencies, expand existing ones and add to their powers. But neither the President nor Congress Now if anything is important, if anything is true can do much to cut down the permanent bureau­ about the situation in Korea, it is the overwhelm­ cracy. Government agencies and bureaus are rela­ ing importance of not forcing a showdown on our tively independent of the Administration and able side in Korea and not permitting our opponents to to exert political pressure on Congress to get what force a showdown. they want. The principal objective of the DEAN ACHESON, Department of permanent Washington bureaucracy is the ag­ State Bulletin, July 23, 1951 grandizement of their own power. They are skilled in lobbying and propaganda and are using The Freeman invites contributions to this column, and will pay $2 for each quotation published. If an item is sent in by the defense emergency to promote further social­ more than one person, the one from whom it is first received will be paid. To facilitate verification, the sender should give ism, to get a stranglehold on the American econ­ the title of the Periodical or book from which the item is omy, and to increase and perpetuate their own taken, with the exact date if the source is a periodical and the publication year and page number if it is a book. power. They constitute a totalitarian threat more Quotations should be brief. They can not be returned or dangerous than communism. acknowledged. THE EDITORS

N'OV8MBER 19, 1951 111 By FORREST DAVIS

This is the second of two articles on General reposing in a White House safe? Marshall did~ Marshall's role in postponing the Japanese sur­ as we know. Whether the others were aware of render. The ultimatum referred to in the begin­ that deal, such knowledge did not deter them ning was a peace proposal approved by President from their manifested desire for peace. Truman in May subject to endorsement by the At all events, none had Marshall's stake in military. Marshall rejected it. seeing to it that the Red Army fought in Man­ churia and that the Yalta Agreement was fully implemented. This had been peculiarly Marshall's HY WA.S th.e ultimatum of July 27 "pre­ baby since the Marshall memorandum at Quebec mature" on May 29? Upon what did Mar­ in August 1943 (an astonishing document com­ W shall base his decision? placently foreseeing postwar Soviet ascendancy The most telling clue may well be found in over Europe) made it American doctrine that we the cabled report by Harry L. Hopkins of a Krem­ must seek Russia's aid in subduing Japan.s The lin conference with Josef Stalin at 6 P.M., Mos­ memoirs of the late Secretary Stettinius and Maj. cow time, on the day before the Pentagon con­ Gen. John R. Deane make it explicit that Mar­ ference. Hopkins's biographer, Robert E. Sher­ shall alone and operating through Roosevelt sent wood, explicitly reports! that Hopkins, varying Averell Harriman and Deane to Moscow in the his usual custom, sent off a detailed message im­ fall of 1943 to bribe Stalin into the Asiatic war;, mediately after this interview because of what a venture to which he already stood committed he deemed the importance of Stalin's assurances on the undeniable ground of Russian national regarding the war in Asia. Hopkins had been sent interest. A study of the sources leaves little doubt to Moscow by Mr. Truman to iron out difficulties that Marshall, even more than Roosevelt, fathered that had arisen at San Francisco, where Secre­ the shabby, reactionary Yalta Agreement; a sell­ tary of State Edward R. Stettinius, Alger Hiss out wholly unnecessary as we see it now and, and others were endeavoring to form a United as should have been apparent at the time, restor­ Nations organization. What did Hopkins so ing to the Kremlin the pre-1905 imperialistic urgently cable the night of May 28? position of the Tsars in eastern Asia. General Marshall had pursued this objective By August 8 the Soviet army will be properly de­ ployed on the Manchurian positions. The Marshal so zealously, so steadfastly, could he now· stand repeated his statement made at .Yalta that the by and see it frustrated by a "premature" peace? Russian people must have a good reason for going We can not know that the time scale operating to war and that depended on China's willingness after July 26 would have prevailed after May 29. to agree to the proposals made at Yalta...For the The lost opportunities of history do not admit first time he stated that he was willing to take these proposals up directly with Soong (T.V.) ... of categorical assumptions. Had the Japanese re­ He wants to see Soong not later than July 1 and sponded as promptly in June as in August, we expects us to take the matter up at the same time should have had peace by mid-June. We do know with Chiang Kai-shek...Stalin left no doubt in that a June peace would vastly have altered the our mind that.he intends to attack during August.2 shape of the future. In view of its urgency, this message in all like­ The Americans and Chinese in that event, not lihood was in the hands of the President on the the Red Army, would have taken the surrender twenty-ninth. Did Marshall have a copy? Could of the Kwantung army. That army's huge stores, this first-hand report that the Red Army would the Mukden arsenal, the industrial and communi­ not be ready to march until August 8, that the cations complex of Manchuria, would not then Yalta pledges could not be extorted from China have been put at the disposal of the Yenan Reds. for some weeks yet, have influenced Marshall's Without those.munitions, or their equivalent froIl} decisive 'pronouncement? Which of the Pentagon conferees had seen the Hopkins cable? We gather from Forrestal's diary that he had not. He speaks An eight-page reprint, including Forrest Da­ of McCloy advising him of its contents at a later vis's two articles on General Marshall, is· time. Did the conferees know of the· Yalta Agree­ available at ten cents per copy or twelve copies for one dollar. Orders may be placed ment on the Far East, the text of which was still with the Freeman, Dept. R3, 240 Madison Avenue, New York 16, N. Y. 1, I, a "Roosevelt and Hopkins," by Robert E. Sherwood. Harper, pp. 902, 903, 748. -

112 the F·REEMAN Russian sources, the Reds could scarcely have have been satisfied had the Russians determined conquered China. True, the Yalta promises of not to enter the war ... I feared what would happen when the Red Army entered Manchuria. Roosevelt still stood, but with the Republic of Before it left Manchuria, my fears were realized.6 China firmly planted in Manchuria it is possible that Soong would not have felt obligated in July How shall we read Hopkins's second message of to put China's head under the chopper at Mos­ May 28? Beneath the sympathetic phrases of cow. Stalin might have been required to send· Stalin's American friend can there not be dis­ negotiators to China. Nor, with peace in June, cerned a warning that the United States must would there have been excuse for the War De­ not move for peace without the Kremlin's assent? partment to partition Korea along the 38th The autocrat of all the Russlas was appealing parallel, the historic frontier between Russian to an as yet non-existent alliance (although one and Japanese imperialist ambitions. that had been surreptitiously agreed upon at A June peace, to summarize, might well have Yalta) for solidarity. Is not this the key to the obviated the Communist rape of China. It would whole question of the delay of peace in the certainly have spared us many lives in the Pacific? And was not Stalin reminding Hopkins summer of 1945; in all human probability it that, in the light of Yalta, the active tendency would likewise have spared us the war in Korea, toward immediate peace in the Administration at the loss of which either by diplomacy or mili­ Washington (concerning which he must have tary defeat will go far toward assuring the been amply informed) was premature? Stalin hammer and sickle hegemony over all Asia. With further suggested to Hopkins that the Allies out­ China still in friendly hands, with Russia con­ wit the Japanese, saying, in Hopkins's phrase­ fined to her pre-Yalta holdings in eastern Asia, ology, that "perhaps we 'can get a surrender with­ with our.vital Pacific flank therefore secure, who out using the words 'unconditional surrender' can seriously believe that western Europe would but give them 'the works' once we get to Japan." today stand in military danger? The Forrestal editors report that "Mr. Forrestal clearly was not satisfied that this was the right No Peace Without Stalin answer." In any case, Mr. Forrestal, Mr. Stimson and Hopkins sent a supplemental cable immediately Mr. Grew did not abandon their efforts to bring after his first on May 28. Dealing with the prob­ about an early peace. As June wore away, a note lems of peace with Japan, it read in part: of urgency entered their deliberations. General Marshall, carrying all before him, seemed bent Japan is doomed and the Japanese know it. Peace upon launching a frontal attack upon the Jap­ feelers are being put out by certain elements in Japan and we should therefore consider together anese homeland without first trying to secure our joint attitude and act in concert about the peace. The Forrestal diaries suggest that none surrender of Japan. Stalin expressed the fear that of the Cabinet members looked with equanimity the Japanese will try to split the Allies.' upon the loss .of life entailed in what they be­ At Potsdam, Stalin was to inform Mr. Truman lieved to be an unnecessary operation. On June that Japan repeatedly had asked Moscow's good 19 Forrestal noted Stimson's "vigorous" agree­ offices as mediator in settling the war, an indica­ ment with Grew's contention at a State, War tion that the Japanese Government was not and Navy conference that terms safeguarding aware that the ways had been greased for the the Emperor's status should be worked out as a Soviet Union to be in at the kill. The Japanese, means of averting the invasion. Forrestal wrote: said Stalin, had gone so far as to suggest send­ Both Stimson and Grew most emphatically assert­ ing Prince Konoye to Moscow to propose terms. ed that this move ought to be made, and that if Stalin noted that he had rebuffed these overtures it were effective at all it must be done before any and "President Truman expressed his approval attack was made upon the homeland of Japan ... of Stalin's action."5 Does this quotation mean that by Potsdam the Marshall Insists on InvasiOlll President had accepted the thesis that peace The issue of i;nvasion V8. peace came to a head should await Stalin's political and military neces­ at a conference of the President with his· military sities? In the absence of completer evidence we leaders at the White House on the eve of his de­ can not answer that question with assurance. parture for Potsdam. The military, paced by We do know that when Mr. Byrnes came to write Marshall, unanimously assured .the President that his recollections he set forth that at Potsdam he the invasion was necessary to obtain Japan's sub­ had had the gravest misgivings about Russia's mission. Two years afterward Forrestal obtained participation. He 'wrote: from McCloy his version of the session, which As for myself, I must frankly· admit that in view the Secretary of the Navy had not attended. Con­ of what we knew of Soviet actions in eastern cerning this the Forrestal editors wrote: Germany and the violations of the Yalta agree­ ments in Poland, Rumania and Bulgaria, I would Mr. McCloy, though his views had not been asked, spoke up for a political offensive first, including 4, "Roosevelt and Hopkins," p. 903. 5, 6 '~Speaking Frankly" by James F~ Byrnes. Harper, pp. 205. 208. a hint of the atomic bomb and a promise to pre-

NOVEMBER 19, 1951 113 serve the Emperor; "the military leaders," l\1r. Mc­ rnost skill since 1941: the political. Because of the Cloy remembered, "were somewhat annoyed at his delayed "peace offensive" the Red Army was able interference," but the President "welcomed the idea." to s'weep virtually unopposed through Manchuria vvith all the hazard to which that event has put For military leaders rea,d Marshall, it being our security, our lives and treasure in Asia. evident to any student that during vVorld vVar II it was Marshall's 'will that ruled the Joint "Someone Close to God" Chiefs of Staff. McCloy's experience with Inili­ tary assertiveness is reminiscent of that of Stet­ Is it not clear from the Dooman testimony, the tinius, present at a White House conference 'Forrestal notations and the other sources cited before San Francisco where the President hin1­ that in the closing weeks of the late war there self and the military did exist within the Administration two camps discussed the failure of the Soviet Union to abide viTith widely contrasted objectives? The first, en­ by the Yalta agreement on the Balkans ... the listing the- President and his principal Cabinet Unite'tl States military representatives for advisers, sought the earliest possible peace, with patience with the Soviet Union because fea:ted or without reference to Soviet Russia's interest, that a crackdown would endanger Russia:n entry and seriously questioned the necessity of invasion. 7 into the Far Eastern war. rrhe second and victorious faction, indefatigably This was at the end of April. Stettinius further led by the Army Chief of Staff, with collateral observed that "even as late as the Potsdara con­ and as yet little disclosed assistance from Dean ference, after the first ator.aic bomb had nv--y-.,.~·.nr,,,, .Acheson and leftist-liberal subordinates, favored at Los Alamos on July 16, the n1ilitary insisted prolonging the hostilities at whatever cost, in­ that the Soviet Union had to be brought into cluding that of the invasion so persistently the Far Eastern war." pressed by Marshall. The declared desire of the Joint Chiefs to in­ The question naturally arises, how could a vade Japan was repugnant to others alTIOng the simple Chief of Staff override the President and high brass as well as to the civilian chiefs of the his able and experienced Cabinet chiefs in state armed services. As early ,as July 1944 President affairs of such portent? What manner of man Roosevelt had been assured by General Douglas is lVlarshall? Because of his proclaimed unwill­ MacArthur and Admiral Chester W. J:'Hnlitz that ingness, almost alone alTIOng his eminent con­ Japan could be defeated short of an invasion. temporaries, to submit a published accounting of This assurance was given at the President's con­ his career, we have little or no internal evidence ference with the Pacific High Command at Hono­ concerning his impulses and motives. The prevail­ lulu, being duly reported by Admiral WilliarD. D. ing public view, typified by the laudation heaped Leahy.8 Leahy, who remained as Chief of Staff upon him in the United States Senate when he to Truman, exhibits in his recollections a steady recently retired as Secretary of Defense, is flat, aversion to Marshall's project of recruiting the superficial, vvithout light or shadow. Red Army for the war in Asia and for the in­ As it happened, Mr. Dooman testified just two vasion as well. Perhaps because of Leahy's stand days after these senatorial discourses and, while and the opposition of the civilian chiefs of the the encomia heaped upon the retiring Secretary arnled services, bespoken by McCloy, IVlr. Tru­ ,,vere perhaps exorbitant and certainly mortuary man assented only grudgingly to the invasion in tone, they did supply one answer to our ques­ proposal, insisting that the plans be confined tion. As one perused the pious reflection of for the present to an assault upon southernmost Senator Olin D. Johnston (D., S. C.) that '''every Kyushu. time he [Marshall] opened his mouth to speak, At the State, War and Navy meeting of June he gave me the impression that I was listening 26, as noted by Forrestal, Secretary Stimson read to someone who was close to God"; as one ob­ the paper he was to hand the President on July served the worshipful utterances of Senators Mc­ 2, a reworking of the Dooman draft. The sense Farland, Lehman, Ives and Morse, among others, of urgency expressed the week before still held one realized that the prestige of General Mar­ and, as Forrestal reported, "it was agreed by all shall in partisan and "liberal" circles is scarcely present that such a statement should be made rnortal. In the light of that towering senatorial before the actual invasion of the homeland of estimate, it ,vas easier to understand why the Japan was begun." Dooman testimony, raising questions which may The Potsdam Ultimatun1 fortunately forestalled "'lell be engaging the interest of historians a the invasion, a project which Marshall once esti­ century hence, received such scanty notice where mated would engage two million men and cost a noticed at all in the great "liberal" and Demo­ half million casualties. Yet if l\rlarshall's desires cratic press of the Atlantic seaboard, a press ever failed to carry in the military field he prevailed solicitous of Marshall's repute. It is to this all but in an arena where he has operated with the ut- idolatrous prestige, the overwhelming moral authority which has increasingly subdued Mr.

7 "Roosevelt and the Russians" by Edward R. Stettinius. Doubleday, Trun1an's judgment, that we must look in part pp. 97; 98. i "I Was There" by William D. Leahy. Whittlesey House, p. 251. for the reasons why General lVlarshall was able

114 the F'REEMAN on May 29 and in the succeeding weeks to counter of situations from the secondo-front controversy the will of his superiors for peace. of 1942 to the abortive and humiliating cease­ The jpurnalistic partisans of General Marshall fire maneuvers respecting I{orea. (Jo~eph Alsop being the most adept) depict hinl I do not think it wide of the mark to say that as a senescent, benign Cincinnatus, always ready General Marshall's has been the most consistently to quit his suburban acres at Leesburg to serve influential role of any American's during this his country's weal. That picture will not wash. last, bleak decade..That fact, which, it is clear, The most casual study of the high politics of the is by no means the fashionable view, deserves a last decade discloses Marshall as the most politi­ far more exhaustive study than it has been ac­ cal of the generals. corded. In whose interest was Marshall's in­ Such·a study reveals a Marshall of powerful will, fluence exerted? That question lingers sugges­ supple intelligence and commanding presence tively after even the most casual study of his decisively playing a part, as Chief of Staff, as public record. As one step in the delineation of Secretary of State and of Defense and as idolized General Marshall's directions, his objective Presidential adviser and elder statesman, at every vvorth to his country, Senator McCarran's corn~ juncture where our destiny was being evolved. mittee assuredly should invite him to relate his One finds an equivocal IVrarshall ruling, or striv­ part in the events of 29, 1945, et seq. bearing ing to rule, our international affairs in a .score on the peace with Japan.

Nehru's Three Voices

By HUBERT MARTIN

Mr. Martin's v'ie~v of the much admired Nehru as these he speaks, and on each with a dif­ just another dictator who is destroying his coun­ ferent voice. Which is that of the real Nehru? Or try's new-won freedom, has recently been confirmed does none of them belong to the real Nehru? Are by Nehru hirnself in his proposal to subject the they only disguises which hide the real man from Indian people to forced labor. the curious ears of the Western World? The voice of the Nehru who lectures the world on Korea is the voice of the anglicized Nehru who 'C'AWAHARLAL NEHRU, Prime Minister of In­ went to Harrow and Cambridge, and who, like dia, has cast himself for the role of spokesman many another timid civil servant, was trained to J of Asia in the Korean tragedy. Many people carry out loyally, regardless of personal beliefs, in­ who know no better are accepting him in that role, structions received from those in authority. This partly because he is so vocal and partly because habit has made him capable of advocating with those who do know better are silent. genuine enthusiasm and in the teeth of all experi­ Of course, it is nonsense for anyone to claim ence the appeasement of all those who show deter­ that he speaks for a 'whole continent and for a bil­ mination-as Chamberlain appeased Franco, Mus­ lion people. But just because such a claim is so solini and Hitler. outrageously extravagant, few people are ready to To the more forthright American he is a bewil­ question it in public. Moreover, we have come to dering figure. vVhat makes him tick? Can he genu­ regard Sri Nehru as the spiritual successor to the inely believe that pigs have wings and that the Mahatma Gandhi who managed to get himself ac­ lion will be content with less than the lion's share? cepted by the Western WorId as the spokesman of Doesn't he know that the lion-or in this instance India-a claim only slightly less fantastic than that the Russian bear-does not share, and that it is of Nehru. That Gandhi was opposed by most of only a matter of time until he devours the whole India's Moslems and by many other Indians, that prey? Or can it be that Nehru's sympathies are the policy which he initiated led to the worst mas­ with the predatory beast? Or does he delude himself sacre of Indians by Indians which the continent into thinking that in the end he may be able to had seen in centuries, and that he himself was at outwit the Russian bear? last assassinated by some of the Hindus for whom More important still, how would he behave if he he professed to speak, does not seem to have caused had to choose between two groups that spoke and many of us to revise our opinions. acted with equal determination? If he stood not Yet Gandhi was at least consistent. He spoke with between Acheson and Vishinsky but between Vi­ a single unvarying voice. Not soNehru. His name shinsky and a resolute American? The experiment flits through the news frequently, usually in con­ might be worth making. It might reveal a vastly nection with one of three topics: the demands of different Nehru, though the contrast could hardly the Chinese Communists; the impending famine in be as great as that with Nehru in his second role India; and the dispute over Kashmir. On each of of spokesman of Indian imperialism.

,NOVEMBER 19, 1951 115 For India under Nehru is pursuing a course of harajah's Hindu soldiers had been killing off his imperialistic aggression even more shameless Moslem subjects-237,000 according to the London than that of the Soviet Union. Indian troops occu­ Times-until the Moslems revolted and called upon pied the State of Jammu and Kashmir over three their fellow Moslems over the border for help. On years ago and continue to occupy it against the will October 23, 1947, Moslem tribesmen marched into of the majority of inhabitants, and the Indian Gov­ Kashmir. That would have been the end of the ernment is continuing to defy the' United Nations Maharajah had not Nehru's Indian troops arrived in practice while paying lip service to the lofty by air on the morning of October 27. principles on which the United Nations structure is supposed to rest. For over three years Nehru has HETHER a ruler about to be deposed for the frustrated every attempt of the UN to find a peace­ W worst kind of misgovernment is entitled to ful and just solution of a conflict which he could dispose of his country against the will of its inhab­ easily have prevented. By now he looks like just itants is, to say the least, debatable. It may, of another of the dictatorial type of statesman who course, be part of the divine right of kings. Amer­ under different names-as William II, as Musso­ icans don't happen to believe in the divine right of lini, as Hitler, as Stalin-has plunged the world kings. Nor does Nehru-at least not if it is invoked into a succession of wars. against the territorial claims which he puts for­ Such a comparison can shock only people unfa­ ward on behalf of India. This he showed in. a par­ miliar with the events in Kashmir. Kashmir is a allel case six weeks earlier. The Maharajah of Juna­ good-sized country-82,258 square miles, about as gadh, a state much smaller than Kashmir with a large as the New England states and New York population of only about 670,000, declared the ac­ together-but with a small population of just over cession of Junagadh to Pakistan. But because 80 four million, mainly Moslems. It has the best cli­ per cent of the people of J unagadh are Hindus, mate and the best scenery of all India, and in this Nehru on September 12, 1947, protested by tele­ respect has been to India what Switzerland has gram to the Maharajah and soon after sent his sol­ been to Europe. From its mountains flow two of diers to occupy the country. They are still there. the five rivers on which the life of eastern Pakistan The Maharajah's complaint is before the Security depends, the Jhelum and the Chenab. Apart from Council, which is paying no attention to it. these material facts, Kashmi.r has two human claims The case of Hyderabad, a state about as large to distinction. Its present Maharajah, under the as Kashmir but with a population more than four pseudonym of "Mr. A.," has figured prominently in times as large, is in some respects similar to that one· of the juiciest scandals that ever came before of J unagadh. The M:ah.arajah of Hyderabad is a an English court of law, a scandal that recalls the Moslem; most of his subjects are Hindus. The famous "Necklace Affair," the prelude to the Maharajah knew better than to invite Indian inter­ French Revolution. The tactful intervention of the vention by trying to join Pakistan. He declared British Government in the 1920s saved Kashmir that he wanted to preserve the independence of his from a similar fate and secured the succession to country and, in order to buy India's good will, he the Maharajah. agreed to hand over to India the conduct of Hyder­ More important still, Kashmir is the home of the abad's external relations. It availed him nothing. Nehru family. Just as Adolf Hitler was not content India declared that the Hyderabad Hindus were be­ to rule over big Germany but had to have little ing oppressed by the Hyderabad Moslems, sent in Austria as well, so Nehru must hav,e little Kashmir troops, and took over the government. When the as/well as big India. Like Hitler he is willing to Maharajah's complaint was considered by the Se­ have this matter confirmed by a plebiscite, provided curity Council, he had already been forced to make that the plebiscite is held in the presence of his his submission to India. The Indian representative troops. With one Indian soldier to forty Kashmiris, at Lake Success declared that the representative of children included, he feels certain of a favorable Hyderabad had been disavowed by his ruler and outcome. Without them, he seems equally certain therefore had no right to plead. In this India fol­ that the vote will go against him, and for more lowed the example set by Soviet Russia two years than three year,s he has resisted the efforts of all earlier when the Soviet representative denied the who have taken a hand in it-our own Admiral right of the Iranian Ambassador to speak for his Nimitz, the Canadian General MacNaughten, the country. But at that time Communists carried less Australian Judge Sir Owen Dixon-to make it pos­ weight in the UN and Iran won its case, whereas sible for the inhabitants of Kashmir to express that of Hyderabad is still pending and unlikely their opinions without intimidation. ever to be discussed by the Council. To safeguard himself against a possible adverse Is it surprising that Nehru, who has already vote, Nehru has been insisting throughout the dis­ managed to get away with two flagrant violations pute that India has a valid legal claim to Kashmir of the international order and is expecting to get because the Maharajah declared its accession to away with a third one, should feel.a certain sym­ India on October 26, 1947. The Maharajah made pathy with Mao Tse-tung and his supporters who this declaration to save his throne, when his troops have embarked on a similar course? It would be had been defeated and he was being driven from contrary to human nature if it were otherwise, and the country. For weeks before that event the Ma- we may excuse him personally on that account. But

116 the F'REEMAN we can hardly accept him as an authority on what equality by permitting legislative discrimination in befits the UN, or deny that by his actions he has favor of socially and educationally backward classes seriously weakened its spirit and damaged its of citizens. The attack on freedom has begun. prestige. Taken in conjunction with certain features of He has done more than that. He has harmed the the recently released Five Year Plan, such as the UN materially as well. Pakistan was and still is advocacy of "cooperative cultivation," these three eager to send soldiers to fight at our side in Korea amendments should give pause not only'to Indians -as they, have gallantly fought in two world wars but to all friends of India as well. The countless -but Pakistan has no soldiers to spare; they are Americans who have warmly supported the cause needed to stand guard on its own borde,rs. of Indian freedom can not view without concern this attack on India's new-won liberties. Is there HE HARM which Nehru has done to others is nothing we can do to help the cause of Indian free­ T perhaps more than outweighed by the damage dom now? Weare once more collecting donations which he is inflicting upon his own country. The of food and money for India. We are supplying aid needless military expenditure imposes a heavy fi­ under the Point Four program. Should we not also nancial burden on India and has dissipated her remind Nehru's government that neither men nor capital. India's capital resources are small as it is; nations can live and thrive by bread alone? to waste them is to perpetuate the poverty 'of the Indian m'asses. Nat only that; in the best of times India has difficulty in growing enough food for her rapidly increasing population. Yet land has been diverted from food crops in order to grow jute, New Masks for Old which up till now Pakistan has grown for India. But Nehru's government has set out to ·harm and By GEORGE S. SCHUYLER weaken Pakistan by cutting off her export markets. And Pakistan today finds herself forced to take HE ANTI-COMMUNIST bandwagon has become sweeping measures against the Communist plots T so overcrowded of late that there is already which have been hatching in this atmosphere of need for trailer,s. By comparison the rush-hour disorde.r. subway seems deserted. If the stampede from Mos­ India herself has been hit even harder. This year, cow continues, the only Reds left among us will.be the country has been brought to the verge of our aborigines. famine. During the last famine, seven years ago, There have been no such wholesale somersaults it was possible to place the blame on Great Britain. since the Stalin-Hitler "non-aggression" pact nor Today that can no longer be done, and the govern­ such mass. renunciation of idols since the Christians ment is trying to stifl,e criticism by imposing curbs captured Rome. This sudden conversion rivals any­ on the press. i thing in Holy Writ. Not that Nehru's gove,rnment has shown much What a motley crew of former Stalin-lovers now tolerance to dissenters in the past. It has deposed packs the bus! How loudly these ideological hitch­ recalcitrant rajahs like the ruler of Baroda and hikers now trumpet their undying affection for the has imprisoned disappointed opposition leaders like American way of life! Only yesterday, it seems, Master Tara Singh, the spokesman for some six they were tossing about their most withering million Sikhs, with much less hesitation than its smear, "100 per cent American"! British predecessors. Nevertheless, opposition has Once these now penitent fellow-travelers re­ been growing until a split occurred even in Nehru's turned from Intourist trips gurgling their praises own party. In June Mr. Kripalani succeeded in or­ of the Workers' Paradise where all was just and ganizing an opposition party with a program which fair. Once this swarm of poets, publicists and pro­ calls for a return to the principles of Gandhi and fessors wrote ecstatically about the Miracle of specifically condemns the trend toward nationaliza­ Planning which they wanted adopted here instantly, tion of industry asa move toward state capitalism if not sooner. How odd to find them currently pack­ and injurious to democracy. ing committees to rescue the enslaved moujiks By way of precaution Nehru forced several con­ whom they tardily discover to have nothing to lose stitutional amendments through the Indian Parlia­ but their chains. ment a few months before it was to be dissolved Huddled under the pink banner of the ADA are and replaced by a popularly elected one. The lim­ all of the erstwhile architects of the Roosevelt Dis­ itation on free speech is only one of these, though aster who joyfully engineered our "recognition" of it is the most striking. It has aroused violent oppo­ the Soviet abbatoir.Sardined behind them are the sition among the public, and the editors of the daily Democrats (Social and Pendergast), the mob of press resolved to suspend publication for one day repentant Wallace Progressives, the platoons of by way of protest. In the long run, however, two Fair Dealers from the Deep Freeze Circuit, the other amendments may produce even graver con­ One Worlders, the Anglophiles, the Swimming Pool sequences. One removes legislation relating to Proletarians from the Hollywood gold mines, the landed property and land tenure from review by "artists" who once chanted songs of social signifi­ the courts. The other abolishes the principle of cance, the left-wing Methodists and Baptists, and the pixilated disciples of Father Divine and other tinction. They still decry political opposition as self-appointed Messiahs. "disunity" while secretly wooing the monolithic This overcrowded Juggernaut offers convincing state run according to plan. rrhey still favor regu­ proof that anti-communism has become more popu­ lating the national finances by the printing press lar than canasta or "the nun1bers." Woe betide the instead of the market. Most of them would elimi­ hapless yokel who now praises, even faintly, the nate all landlords except the government.· They "statesmanship" of Comrade Stalin or calls him would'surrender national sovereignty to the United "good old Joe." Shame on any false Etruscan of the Nations, thus ending war-as the Greeks, Indo­ Supreme Court who would now take the witness Chinese and Koreans have discovered. chair to alibi a Soviet agent, or any Cabinet officer They pant for Federal control and direction of who would dare intone, "I will not turn my back public education with curricula directed by omnis­ on Alger· Hiss." cient pundits from Missouri. Most of them would Already towns named Moscow are on the defen­ socialize medicine and morticians, along with music, sive. All ears stiffen to mule-like rigidity at the drama and recreation. They still adhere religiously word Red. It may shortly be proposed that the aw­ to the notion that the state should decide which ful word be screened from our literature. Geogra­ work is "socially necessary," meaning slavery phers are already pausing thoughtfully over the through regulation. They would consolidate small Red River, the Red Sea and even Redding Ridge, "wasteful" farms into agricultural factories sus­ Connecticut. Suddenly pro-American I-Iollywood piciously like the old-tinle plantations. They are ponders the banning of rouge and lipstick. rrhe sold on relieving women from the "drudgery" of State Department reportedly frowns upon red ties, the home for joyful labor as equals in nlines and sartorial and political. Even Russian dressing is mJ.lls. suspect! Honest men would call this communism, but.they camouflage it as democracy. They once called it So­ YE, times have changed, and yet the Ne¥l Eman­ viet democracy until that designation became un­ A cipation is but an infant from Yalta via Frisco healthy, or at least embarrassing. Many are even and Seoul. Anti-communism, at long last, has ac­ fearful of dubbing it socialisln, "Welfare State" quired glamour. Ten years ago its adherents were being much more respectable; but totalitarianism reviled as psychiatric cases. Six years ago they by any other name is just as oppressive and repug­ were loathed by all liberals, progressives a:p.d do­ nant. They froth at mention of Hitler and National gooders. Three years ago, even, they were con­ Socialism, and yet they are brothers under the skin. sidered logs across the broad highway to the New World a'Comin, their piping protests drowned ACH day the anti-Communist bandwagon be­ White House roars of "red herring." Trarnpled E comes more overcrowded as those who didn't­ the herd of J ohnny~come-Iatelies, the veteran anti­ know-it-was-loaded clamber aboard. They protest COlnmunist rises painfully from the dust to ask, that they "became sympathetic to communism" "How anti-Communist are these anti-Communists ?" during the Depression, "when millions were starv­ The query is not without justification, for clearly ing" (although nobody saw any such catastrophe). most of these Safety Firsters are questionable con­ "Disturbed," they say, they stampeded blindly into verts. Too often they are fellow-travelers vvho have the numerous Communist fronts and never knew Illade the long journey from Moscow without chang­ the difference until reminded by the House Com­ ing boots or baggage. Like Peter they have denied mittee on Un-American Activities. Clutching dog­ their "Christ," but are too loud about it to be con­ eared copies of "The Communist Manifesto" or the vincing. Wrapping the old totalitarianisn1 in the "bibles" of John Maynard Keynes, Harold Laski, Stars and Stripes and appropriately rebranding it Sidney Webb, John Strachey and G. D. H. Cole, deceives only the incurably gullible. Like reformed they yammered for Utopia, sneered at Congress, alcoholics, these new anti-Communists have to be cheered for Roosevelt and panted for welfare and watched. Most of them are ready to jump off the security which, of course, they hoped to control. w'agon as soon as the first bottle of new hooch is Then, suddenly horror-stricken by Soviet "realism," opened. they precipitately abandoned the Moscow Trojan Undoubtedly they would all hotly deny that they horse for one of the native-born variety. areCoillrnunists masquerading in libertarian cloth­ Pregnant vvith plans for "making democracy ing, glibly piping platitudes about democracy and \vork" by abandoning it for bureaucratic "rationali­ freedom. Test them, however, and the zation," they strained for an accouchement with ance of Red corpuscles is immediately apparent. In­ Dr. Stalin presiding. Then, suddenly doubting his deed, the only thing white about many of them are credentials and fearful of a Caesarian operation, their livers. They are riding the bandwagon now they dismissed the Red physician and are now en­ through opportunism rather than conviction. While gaging Drs. Truman, Brannan, Ewing-or even ,vocally outdoing everybody in praising the Arn8r­ Tito-to bring their babies into the world. ican way of life, most of them still want There is an old saying that "You can take a man ton to run everything and save everybody, here and out of the country but you can't take the country abroad, and damn the taxpayers. out of the man," and this applies with greater logic They still favor taxing "the Interests" into ex- to our new "anti-Communists." not doubt the politicians' sincerity, for they put it Young Man in Revolt into practice. They practiced Brotherhood, Turn The Other Cheek, and Footie-Footie. For Russia, favorite was "our gallant ally." Tr1.unan's pet name for Stalin? "Good old Joe." HE OTHER afternoon Radio Station the I~ot content vvith preaching Love Thine Enemy, T voice of New brought us a discussion our youth leaders have championed ruinous friend­ program an assortrnent of ·with our bosom buddies. The first loan to seniors. It was called "Puberty ,~ or pos­ was out some very sincere sibly "Youth Speaks." I've forgotten, but you un­ young people at Harvard during my stay there; de.rstand the kind of program I mean. vVhat I heard assured me that England would not need any caused me to turn at once to another station. Now more than one little billion. England needed five I understand why the older generation, business­ lTIOre. She repaid our friendship by refusing to re­ men particularly, regard my generation with hos­ arrn and begging us to appease her friend, Red tility and terror. China. On the theory that friends can be bought I am a youth, aged 26. I wish to protest that I offered gifts to Tito and Franco, and a hand- have been smeared. Most youths my age complain sorne to Nehru, who has nothing but blame that the businessmen to whom for ern­ us and usually votes against us. Whatever the ployment convict them vvithout a hearing. I wish to reason \ve find ourselves in military and diplomatic say that it isn't businessmen who \ convict it's not lack of friendship on our part. The number of prog,rams on which youth can sound Will you scream. if I suggest it's too much? off, ranging from the puerile little on "Ju­ I have three friends; I know has more venile J'ury" to the platitudinous seniors on '''Youth than five. JVlaybe a world in which we choose our Speaks," is rising. The businesSlnen ariC~ outslan­ friends with discrirnination instead of having them dered and outnumbered. Who smears vvhom r I say chosen for us would never be terribly chummy. The it's the self-styled leaders who have included me glad-banders who know hundreds of people by their among the led, who have claimed to for me. first names usually have no friends at all. The same The leaders of the veterans' the is true of nations. On a long trip through South conscience-stricken fraternity the chair- A.lnerica I learned that the people there regard us men of Assemblies of Youth for This, for the as suckers for shelling out Good Neigh-

artistic chain-gangs which each esthetic ""-'V.u...... IJ, and for not shelling out more. lunacy, these sages in their nonage who are happy to take our Inoney, but it doesn't each interview 'with "Youth needs.. !' or "Youth decrease their suspicions. I was brought up to be- demands..." have smeared the rest of the young. that can't be bought. Has our State There are a few of us who do not seek in any evidence that it can? herds, who can't sound off on who "vvish mainly to be let alone, but v"ho srneared in the young used to be regarded as a beyond recognition by those clairning to sign. It them to stand up for us. I don't know how many their proper rights; when matured they had the minority group by virtue of the fact to see that old age is not infallible; long to any minority group, but I had the guts to express seditious sentiments

few echoes, if only to help me go on in ..."f.,""...... u the government and to criticize their wives' that slogan: "The free. spirit of ~win father relatives. They chose their friends and enemies our nation's future." If those seniors on "Youth \Jvith gusto. But no more. No'v they transfer Speaks" are fathering our future, as as the governrnent their desire to hide behind their concerned it will be illegitimate. nlOthers' skirts. I could not stand up and give "Youth is united in its determination to build a but free of Judith Coplon or more friendly world, a world of son18 youth through education, peace vVodd Govern­ group me as a fascist race-hater. ment, and security through freedoln from fear and A world of freedom is a 'world of fight. Competi­ want," thus over the ether spake one of the candi- tion and the la'w of survival mean conflict. SOlne dates for the degree of B.S. What is talk= prosper-to clairn that none should fail would mean ing about? What made him think united? governrnent of parasite I'm not. Maybe I want an ~HOVI ---as of the RFC. does he know? Maybe I am of the ·!···,~c:,,'::J,rl,"'1tYl is disunited. Disunity ion that ever since the friendship of is the essence of freedom. If unity were the es- Adolf, Franklin to Joe, Dean to there what we need two parties for? If too much friendship in the world. Since more than one party is a thing within na- II our politicians have been in then 1110re one govern'ment is a good of friendship; they are open-armed with our for the world. Show me a of absolute tions and open-handed with our money; their of and I'll show you knouts has certainly been Love Thine Enemy. :Never and truncheons. so much brotherly love been proclaimed; one can Where did that beardless boy get the gall to think

NOVBMBER 19, 1951 119 I wanted to be united with him? These friendship While I generally concur with your policies, I am boys are desperately afraid of trying to survive in total disagreement on this matter. Taft's air­ alone-they say it's impossible. Demanding shel­ seapower defense of the continent seems the right tered environments, advocating indiscriminate alli­ answer. ances, quailing before quarreling, they degenerate Newark, New Jersey THOMAS L. JARMICK into pleading for peace at any price. Those who make friendship, unity and peace the first virtues, Letters From the Front make honor the last. It's time somebody said it; and before the men whom I respect, the members of the ....The picture of the little Korean boy from the last generation who helped build this nation, decide cover of Newsweek is all too familiar. That little that modern youth consists unanimously of soft­ lad is lucky, however. Tie is wearing socks; a coat center custard, I will say it and be damned: Any and long pants. I say ..tll too many last winter run­ kind of war is better than any kind of peace, when ning on the ice ane :>now barefooted and wearing that peace consists of appeasement. only shorts and a t.n, ragged shirt. And there will be many more th" winter. The article 0; ,'eplacing those of us who were here last winte ~lakes me laugh.. I could kick th? newspaper pub:, .• dhers from there t01ere for print"" From Our Readers ing that kind 0 " "bull." Rotation is rnerely for ,~,U)· A Fundamental Issue licity--for the gullible citiz·ens of t 1 United Stat. of America. Few but the dead are going homE:,. .~ '11 I would like, to take this opportunity of thanking bet that not 10 per cent of us who were here last you for publishing Mr. Stanley High's article, "Gov­ winter will have a chance to go home before at ernment by Lawlessness," in your magazine [Au­ least next spring. Weare not getting any replace­ gust 27]. The public has not been aware of the ments; there are none in sight. I wish the public important issue .involved in our litigation. It is not was not so easily fooled. just an individual seeking the return of his proper­ Inje, Korea G. 1. ty which has been wrongfully withheld, it is a ques­ tion of whether the Executive Branch of our Gov­ All of us here feel a hellish f.rustration over the ernment can defy the orders of our courts. The paradox of Washington acting the umpire to a war more people who can be made to realize this, the -a particularly vicious war-in which it is a very quicker we will return to a government of laws interested participant. It was all very well to make and not of men. Your publication of this article, clear to Mao,' and Kim at .the initial stages of together with its appearance in the Reader's Digest, Kaesong that the war would continue. Instead of will certainly help a great deal in informing the implementing that very practical stand we sat back, American public. allowed the enemy to build up his potential and R. STANLEY DOLLAR, President watched him dig in. San Francisco The Robert Dollar Company Just what that two-and-one-half month lull meant is showing in our Autumn Phase of operations. Against Rearmimg, Germany It's costing us more in blood than any action that's Your editorial "Neither ,Guns Nor Butter" (Sep­ taken place since I came almost a year ago. That's tember 24) advocates forcing a reluctant (?) Ger­ particularly true in relation to our achievements. many to ~ rearm even though an unreasoning France MacArthur has long since been vindicated,in 'the and Britain are opposed. This one-sided presenta­ minds of most of us. And we can't but feel that tion misses the whole point of their opposition: it some of his proposals will be put into practice in is not because rearmament means German wealth the relatively near future. They've got to be, else but because a defeated-and still unreconciled­ this incessant 'ruthless version of the bear goes enemy will be resurrected. Even on the grounds of over the mountain to see yet another mountain will expediency this is not something to be done lightly continue, and with it a terrible toll in lives. so soon after a second devastation. Somewhere in Korea S. C. It, is quite easy to visualize a situation where a resurgent Germany occupying the strategic center 'rhe Dange~s We Face of Europe plays Russia against us for unification. And, while we might be the highest bidder for her May I thank the Freeman for its unique courage,in favors, this would definitely throw eastern Europe telling the truth about current controversies? My to wholehearted cooperation with the Reds. France son is now in the 'service of his country, ready to would turn Communist. give part or, maybe, all his young life for the safe­ You have noted that Germany does not seem too ty of the rest of us. I am glad the,re is one publica­ enthusiastic. May I refer yoU to Taft's speech of tion awake to the dangers within and outside of last January when he disapproved the arming of this' country. Keep arousing the people to what is hestitant peoples for our use? Some thought might happening to liberty. I will spread the knowledge be given to the whole question whether Europe is of the Freeman as widely as I can. actually defensible north of Spain. Brooklyn, New York MARY KIMM

120 the FREEMAN 11A REVIEWER'S NOTEBOOK

By JOHN CHAMBERLAIN

The destiny of man in our barren epoch seems to be that one finds in Shakespeare. His memoir of Miss almost inextricably bound up with politics. Yet pol­ Millay, "The Indigo Bunting" (Harper,$2.50), is itics is the le·ast satisfying, the least rewarding, of an odd little book, for it betrays a naivete that human preoccupations. The more we intensify our seems strange in a person as well-traveled as Mr. political activities, the less time we have to spend Sheean. Edna Millay loved birds; she fed them, and on personal development, or the arts, or creativity observed them as they were feeding, at her bosky in general. It is some such realization, I think, that home at Steepletop, near Austerlitz, New York; she is at the bottom of all the recent refurbishing and even had gulls flying around her head at her sum­ revaluation of the decade of the nineteen twenties. mer refuge on Ragged Island in Maine's Penobscot Few of our "intellectuals" loved the American Bay. Now there is nothing occult about such human twenties when they were living through them: that relationships with the animal world; beasts and was the decade when the superior children of the birds respond to friendliness even as human beings. arts were saying "Good-bye, Wisconsin" (or Kan­ I get along with three black cats6 a Dalmatian sas, or wherever), when Main Street was consid­ hound, a horse, a dozen bantam chickens and a ered a hopelessly benighted place, when our "bus­ turtle, the accumulated menagerie of my children, iness civilization" was being damned from hell to and no one would ever mistake me for a person of breakfast by renegade businessmen turned writers. occult powers. Yet Mr. Sheean thinks Edna Millay But in the twenties no one had to enlist for self­ had some secret. and extraordinary relationship protection, or for the protection of a way of life, with gulls, with sparrows, with finches, with rose­ in murderously serious political wars. Life had (or breasted grosbeaks and with the indigo bunting. at least it seemed to have) a margin, an area of Edna Millay hooted at this particular display of velvet; the human being had time to love, to create, Sheean mysticism; she met his persistent attempts to play. to pursue the mystery to its bottom with a down.. right statement, "They come here because I feed He also had time to make a damned fool of himself, them." This Maine Yankee earthiness should have which is. what lots of people did. During the nine.. satisfied Mr. Sheean, who should be humble enough teen thirties all that could be seen in retrospect to realize that all things, whether "material" or not, was the foolishness and the wantonness of the are part of the great encompassing mystery of period. In their rush to hail the new bottomside creation. Even the very cobbles in the street are nobility of the proletarian cult, our critics tended touched with a wonder that no scientist can finally to dismiss all the salient figures of the twenties. fathom; origins always dissolve into origins further Two particularly representative luminaries, F. back. But Mr. Sheean can not be· content with the Scott Fitzgerald and Edna St. Vincent Millay, sold common-sensical order that exists within the grain off in the literary market just about as disastrously of the universe; he persists in his feeling that Edna as Radio Corporation sold off on the Big Board. Millay was a witch (a very nice witch) who had Fitzgerald was remembered, if at all, as the man somehow chosen the indigo bunting in preference who tried to make Princeton University into a to a black cat and a self-propelling broom. country club; Edna Millay was typed as the girl who 'had lost her spontaneity when she turned from It's all very touching and a little foolish, of course. flapper defiance of the conventions to more sober But it is lucky for his readers that Vincent Sheean and classic themes. What the new critics of the can go overboard. For his preoccupation with Miss thirties failed to perceive was that both Fitzgerald Millay's adventures with the birds has led him hack and Millay loved the more solid and lasting boons to the lyrics of "Second April," to the pantheistic of life as well as the f.roth. Hanging grimly to a feeling of "Renascence," to the poems in which the pendulum that was gathering momentum in its sea and the sky and the equinoxes and the solstices swing toward Moscow, our critics, who are always are the pervading influences. Miss Millay was born more fashiona'ble than free, forgot that the first a woman and distressed by all the needs and notions duty of an intellectual is to grasp and analyze a of her kind, but she was also born with the faculty phenomenon in its entirety. of feeling the earth-forces that moved the Eliza­ bethans three centuries before her time. Her lyrics Now the penitents are coming back. Vincent Sheean, and sonnets are, as Vincent Sheean indicates, quite for example, has discovered that Edna Millay had Shakespearean in their feeling. But they are not the same rapport with the world of glowing nature derivative, they are not the old clipped coin of' the Romanti'c tradition in English poetry. Edna Babe Ruth, Bobby Jones, Red Grange, Bill Tilden Millay's vocabulary, her turn of phrase, and her and Jack Dempsey, to name only a few of the ath­ informing spirit, all derive from the Maine Penob­ letes. Today, what with the basketball scandals, scot country, where New England takes on ampli­ the West Point cheating and the lurid tie-ups be­ tude as it faces toward the tides of Fundy and the tween bookies and police departments, sport is open Atlantic. getting a bad name. Soon, in another wild swing of the pendulum, our colleges may be discontinuing Vincent Sheean saw Edna Millay only a few times. football, basketball, or whatever. But this would He is such a sensitive observer of human moods, be to heave out the baby with the bath. When the however, that his spasmodic contact with his sub­ Greeks insisted that athletics and music belong in ject has resulted in a subtly revealing book. "The any good school curriculum, they had something: Indigo Bunting" makes it clear that Mr. Sheean's one can not throw a discus, or make a double play, true love is not politics (a subject on which he has or turn an accomplished figure on a skate, without wasted half his life) but the whole human range of a very'real knowledge of technique, of the relation creativity from which the State should be banished of cause to effect. For our money, if· it came to a utterly. Now that Mr. Sheean has found his vein choice between football and the average modern I hope that he goes on exploiting it. economics department in a college, we would throw

\ out the economics department. A freshman can I hope, too, that Malcolm Cowley and Alfred Kazin, hardly play football without learning that a missed two critics who spent a good .deal of their time in signal can lead to disaster. But freshmen can and the nineteen thirties cultivating the illusion that do take Economics 10 without ever being told the the way to free man was to put his energies under truth about energy relationships in the field of pro­ the control of Socialist politicians, have turned for duction and dIstribution. good to other themes. Malcolm Cowley has just fin­ ished rearranging F. Scott Fitzgerald's "Tender is Since sport is getting a bad name because of the the Night" (Scribner's, $3.50) in accordance with activities of a few bad sportsmen, someone ought an outline left by Fitzgerald himself in his note­ to step in and save it from the wretches who are book. The reshuffling of the components of "Tender clouding its future. The fact that baseball, for ex­ is the Night" into more strictly chronological order ample, can build character in a good man as well does improve the novel. Edward Dahlberg, who as destroy it in a weak one is apparent in two good thinks Fitzgerald an overrated man, sent me to books of recent vintage, Arthur Mann's "Baseball reading the new Cowley-Fitzgerald version of "Ten­ Confidential: Secret History of the War Among der is the Night" with trepidation; I was afraid Chandler, Durocher, MacPhail and Rickey" (David that I would discover Fitzgerald had become a di­ McKay, $2.50), and Duane Decker's "Fast Man on minished figure. But I found that the writing in a Pivot" (Morrow, $2.50). I thoroughly enjoyed "Tender is the Night" is just as good as I thought both these books, the one an informed chronicle of it was in 1934, when I first read it. There is a how the major leagues survived the somewhat inane shoddy strain in some of Fitzgerald's work, and High Commissionership of ex-Senator Happy Mr. Dahlberg is quite right to feel angry at the Chandler, the other a novel about a second baseman general American habit of periodically over­ who has some (but not all) of the characteristics praising what has been neglected and underpraised of the New York Giants' br,ainy Eddie Stanky. before. But Fitzgerald had purified both his style and his attitude for the writing of "Tender is the Night." AND ORCHARD FRUITS Mr. Kazin's "F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Man and His Work" (World, $3) is a collection of criticisms and Lucretius mentions the marjoram appreciations of Fitzgerald that span a full thirty Young suitors smeared on the doors years of time. The collection makes for some inter­ Of the damsels. esting reading. One of the things which it proves, Solomon sang of the myrrh and aloes inadvertently, is that our off-the-cuff reviewing has On the locks been considerably better than our more pretentious Of the bridal door. criticism. When a single critic feels he has to drag Jesus ached for the alabaster in the names of Racine, Andre Gide, Goethe, John The pharisee denied. Milton, Proust, Yeats, Shakespeare, Dickens, Vol­ taire, Balzac, Henry James, George Moore, JE, "Would to God Stendhal, St. John of the Cross, Wordsworth, Keats, That all the Lord's People Shelley, Dostoevski, Byron, Shaw and Samuel But­ Were Prophets," ler to explain Fitzgerald, the traffic becomes a trifle Moses said, overburdened, to say the least. And sighed for men Whose souls smelled of frankincense The nineteen twenties made much of the cult of And orchard fruits. sport: the period's great names inevitably include EDWARD DAHLBERG

122 the f'REEMAN SELF-DESTROYED SAINT and spirit, intense, original, exquisitely feminine despite her deliberate effacement of all the attri­ Waiting For God, by Simone Weil. Translated by butes of personal charm, and not in the least "neu­ Emma Craufurd. New York: Putnam's. $3.50. rotic." She was in fact contemptuous of the spuri­ ous mysticism that derives from frustrated sexual Certainly our age has not outgrown the need for desire, and her own experiences were clearly not of saints and martyrs; whether it·can make redemp­ that character. Here is her description of one of her tive use of them is another matter. During the war own experiences, achieved by the recitation, at a the Free French government in London-to its supernormal level of concentrated attention, of the great credit-tried to use the genius of Simone Lord's Prayer: Wei!. Out of this attempt grew her "L'enracine­ ment"-a memorandum on the rights and duties At times the very first words tear nlY thoughts from my body and transport it to a place outside of the state and the individual to be published next space where there is neither perspective nor point year in this country as "The Need for Roots." of view. The infinity of the ordinary expanses of A student of comparative religions, Simone Weil perception is replaced by an infinity to the second did not find her own roots in any organized faith, or sometimes the third degree. At the same time, although for years she "waited for God" on the filling every part of this infinity of infinity, there is silence, a silence which is not the absence of threshold· of the Catholic Church which her friend sound, but which is the object of a positive sensa­ Father Perrin vainly begged her to enter. The pres­ tion, more positive than that of sound. Noises, if ent volume consists of selected letters and essays there are any, only reach me after crossing this that give us the record of this waiting, which was silence. Sometimes, also, during this recitation or rewarded toward the 'end of her life by mystical at other moments, Christ is present with me in person ... experiences the authenticity of which it is impos­ sible to doubt. The book is, in fact, a major contri­ More comprehensible, and not less impressive bution to the literature of mysticism, of especial than this testimony, is the extraordinary essay en­ interest to the intellectuals of the between-wars titled "Forms of the Implicit Love of God." This generation some of whom (Budenz, Douglas Hyde) implicit, or indirect love, she writes, may be di­ shared Simone Weil's pilgrimage from Communist rected at religious ceremonies, at the beauty of the picket lines to the sources of religious revelation. world, at our neighbor and at friendship-all as Simone Weil was born in 1909, the precocious preparation for the "personal visit of the Master." daughter of an agnostic J·ewish physician. At the She regards love of our neighbor as a means by age of five she refused to eat sugar as long as the which we participate in the divinity, transcending soldiers at the front of World War I were not able the mechanical necessity that grinds out blind in­ to get it. Seventeen years later she was threatened justice much as the force of gravity makes water with the loss of her teaching license for marching flow downhill. in the picket lines of unemployed workers, with Concerning the order and beauty of the world, whom· she insisted on sharing her food. Still tread­ Simone Weil writes: ing the pathway of sainthood, she endangered her It is because beauty has no end in vie"w that it frail health by hard labor in the Renault auto plant, constitutes the only finality here below. For here and again by service in the Spanish Civil War, below there are no ends. All things that we take where she suffered severe accidental burns. This ex­ for ends are means. Money is the means of buying, perience ended her political activity. She had power is the means of commanding.... The soul's natural inclination to love beauty is the trap God learned, as Leslie Fiedler remarks in his excellent most frequently uses in order to win it and open introduction, that "Not even defeat could purify it to the breath from on high. the revolution I" Thereafter, Simone Weil turned from her "so­ Concerning the "inspiration" of the poet-artist­ cial" preoccupations to the practice of the religious thinker, we have this: disciplines she had studied at the Ecole Normale Every time that a man rises to a.degree of excel­ where she was the protegee of Alain. Steps on the lence, which by participation makes of him a di­ ladder that led to her ultimate encounter with God vine being, we are aware of something "impersonal included her discovery of the Gregorian chants and and anonymous about him. His voice is enveloped of English seventeenth-century metaphysical poet­ in silence. This is evident in all the great works of art or thoughts, in the great deeds of saints ry; her reading of the Bhagava-Gita in Sanskrit and in their words. and of Plato, the Pythagoreans and the Stoics in Greek. Prayer, as Simone Wei! practiced it, consisted of Her life continued to be filled with absurd and attention. She devotes an entire essay to discussing nompletely sincere gestures. At one time she wished the usefulness of school studies, considered as a to be parachuted into wartime France so that she discipline requiring a lower kind of attention, but could bring spiritual solace to the underground effectively increasing the power of attention that fighters; at another, although she had been de­ will be available at the time of prayer. nounced earlier as a Trotskyist, she wished to go The last essay in the volume consists of a phrase­ to the Soviet Union I by-phrase exegesis of the Lord's prayer. In ten The letters to Father Perrin reveal a lonely mind pages she provides enough spiritual insight to equip

NOVEMBER 19, 1951 123 an average generation of theological students' for By the time Louis was admitted to the bar (for their entire careers. his father insisted on law as a profession), the Simone Weil died in England in 1943. Her death thousand pounds his father gave him taught him was probably hastened by her unwillingness to eat all the niceties of Bohemia, literature, the publish­ more than the hunger rations then prevailing in ing business and love. As for law, he never prac­ occupied France. Her parents are still living and ticed. His "love" was mostly through correspon­ their reticence still withholds many of the facts of dence' with the virtuous Mrs. Sitwell (Clair) and her life. Much of her work still awaits publication stormy reactions via the mails. With only sixteen in French, and this book, except for the pamphlet years of life left (and sickness robbed him of much entitled "The Iliad: or, the Poem of Force," trans­ of that brief period of creation), Stevenson em­ lated by Mary McCarthy, is th~ only volume now barked on his literary career, earning about four available in English. Enough is in print, however, hundred pounds during the first four years. When to leave no doubt as to the quality and importance he set out for America he left, like many an im­ of Simone Weil's genius. migrant, with just passage money and emotional Thus far this century, which has witnessed the excitement for currency. He was going to marry redUlJtio ad horrendum of Marxist materialism at Mrs. Fanny Vandegrift, eleven years his senior, the hands of Lenin and his totalitarian successors who resembled the beautiful Mrs. Sitwell. and emulators, has produced no nobler or more tragic figure. Against the monstrous dogma that He was the perpetual wanderer. It is too easy to would banish God from heaven and earth, make compare him to D.H. Lawrence-both looking after ,men into things, and enthrone a common murderer, their lungs but finding that it was more than health Simone Weil oppos~s her terrible earnestness, her and good air that made them travel to distant lands. untempered assumption of the world's affliction, her Stevenson never had roots that dug in too deeply, unintended and self-destroying sainthood. only his literary friendships with men like Gosse, JAMES RORTY William Ernest Henley (who became embittered later), George Saintsbury, Henry James-the elite of the "new literature," and with them he ca~ried on a huge correspondence..In far-off Samoa the THE JOYO'US STEVENSOIN stiff-necked and pretentious Henry Adams pays him a courtesy call. Stevenson could very well have ar­ Voyage to Windward: The Life of Robert Louis ranged to have been out and not missed a thing. Stevenson, by J. C. Furnas. New York: Sloane. He was a gracious host, a generous and warm man. $5.00 But·Adams, a specious recorder, is mostly snide, Of many hues, virtues and robust attitudes despite puffed up, vain and stupid when he recounts the the air of the sickroom, this study of Robert Louis incident. Stevenson does the right thing at all times. It is It was at Davos that Stevenson became the full­ a devoted book by a worshipful man, full of infinite fledged writer, doing hackwork for what cash it details; a portrait more engrained with telling dots would bring. There he began "Treasure Island," than with huge splashes of conventional color. Yet which isold for thirty-four pounds under a pseudo­ it is a full portrait-down to the minutest personal nym. Admired by all, including Mr. Gladstone, Ste­ dissection and cross-graining, an expert rendering venson was eventually reconciled to the book when by a man who has traveled the track and distances William Butler Yeats put the final stamp ofap­ Stevenson journeyed. proval on it. He was now acclaimed, for on his sec­ But it is the Samoan chapter that is of special ond visit to New York eight years later he arrived interest to me, for it completes the portrait of as a celebrity, much in demand by publishers and Stevenson as a great writer and extraordinary hu­ magazine editors for anything he cared to write. man being. Here Mr. Furnas is very much at home, In 1886 he chartered the beautiful yacht Casco, having recently written "Anatomy of Paradise," a having recalled his boyish delight when he heard study' of life in the Pacific Islands. Samoa in the stories about the South Seas, and he set out, clan 1890s, before the West cooked up exotic tours for and·all, for the distant "Isles of Voices." jaded writers, was already down at the heels. Ste­ He had, literally, selected his burial ground­ venson, who had traveled to many places for his and what a place to live and die. His death came health eventually settled there with his clan. And it eight years later, after many pauses en route, visits was a clan, in family and friends, on the last pas­ to Tahiti, Hawaii, Australia, and the adjacent toral frontier in the blue' sea. ". When Stevenson ar­ islands. Though Samoa provided the only real ease rived, it was very much an unsettled place, with for him, Stevenson was soon engulfed, as was his German, British and American colonials just about habit, in politics. It was a politics woven of the ready for the twentieth century and its ways. brittle colonial strands of German, British and This is a full, fleshy, witty book. Stevenson was American interests in the Pacific. The spadework not merely a romancer in a velvet jacket, but a man that Stevenson did eventually dug the German out who knew women, had a sense of joy, a lively air­ and dug the others in. and Edinburgh had provided this in his youth Having arranged to write Travel Letters for despite the all-pervading Calvinistic gloom. McClure's magazine, Stevenson found his material

124 the f'REEMAN lying fallow in the islands, and his voyages paid of what is, in theory, a rigidly collectivist economy. off financially and spiritually as he roved the Pacific Tsarism was once described as despotism tem­ before settling down at Vailima under the shadow of pered by assassination. The Soviet economy might, scraggy Mt. Vaea, where he lies :buried beneath a according to DaHin's account, be defined as social­ huge block of marble. I have been there and climbed ism tempered by humanizing and moderating cor­ the steep, harsh mountain, stood in awe beside the ruption. tomb, on which is enscrihed "Home is the sailor, Oommunist propaganda represents the Soviet home from the sea." The little Samoan boy and the Union as the champion of the oppressed and ex­ American wrestler, Cliff Theide, my companions, ploited of the world against "imperialist" powers, were likewise affected by the memory of something like the United States. This propaganda has given -that man Stevenson, dead at 44, the consumptive a guilt complex to some good-hearted Americans consumed with an 'art containing so many endless who have not thought the subject through. delights and memories. And there we stood and Dallin's work should be an effective cure for this cried for Stevenson, enshrined in so many mem­ guilt complex. He estimates the total value of "po­ ories in our once boyish hearts. litical" imports (a polite term for what has been Mr. Furnas's biography is a proud piece of extorted and stolen in one way or another) into the writing, research and discovery. Many a ghost is Soviet Union from conquered and satellite areas laid in this book, ,replete with informal criticism. since the end of the war at between twenty and The errors of past biographers, too dainty for the thirty billion dollars. Meanwhile, "imperialist" real life of Stevenson, are corrected. Henley and America has given away, through the Marshall others emerge the worse for their picayune natures. Plan, through UNRRA, through grants of various The scholar in Furnas merged with the man who kinds and loans that will most probably never be loved his materials and this book is a fine piece repaid, at least an equivalent amount to foreign of coordinated research and writing, to keep Steven­ countries. ' son within his natural environment and stature. The author Usts, with many concrete illustra­ HARRY ROSKOLENKO tions, eight methods by which the wealth of the vast new Soviet empire is siphoned off into Russia. These include reparation payments, wholesale loot­ IMPERIAL S,OVIETS ing of everything from consumption goods to heavy industrial equipment, commercial treaties in which The New Soviet Empire, by David J. Dallin. New Soviet goods are priced high and satellite goods are Haven: Yale. $3.75 priced low, "mixed companies" to which the Soviet Union contributes management and the satellites A scholarly social-democratic exile from the Soviet contribute real assets, and various forms of trade Union, David Dallin during the last decade has pub­ manipulation. For instance, the Soviet Union buys lished a most valuable series of books on Soviet Polish coal at an artificially low price and resells politics and economics, foreign policy and social this coal to Sweden at a high price. conditions. His work, "Forced Labor in Soviet Rus­ The Soviet-controlled portion of East German sia" (written in collaboration with Boris Nikolaev­ industry, according to Dallin, embraces 34 per cent sky), is the standard classic on the subject. of the coal output, 40 per cent of the electric power, Mr. Dallin's latest work is broader in theme than 82 per cent of the oil, 34 per cent of the metal­ the title would suggest. It starts with a most inter­ lurgy and machine-building, 52 per cent of the estingclose-knit analysis of how the Soviet Union chemical production, 25 per cent of the optical in­ exploits economically the areas which have f.allen dustry, etc. Stalin has been given many undeserved under its political domination in eastern Europe. titles, but "greatest imperialist exploiter of all The author then'discusses certain aspects of Soviet time" would seem to be one which he might claim political philosophy. In later chapters he presents without reasonable fear of contradiction. a good deal of material obtained from conversations The author stresses the point that. Stalin has with "non-returning" Russian refugees. reversed the emphasis of Marx by giving politics Very illuminating is the chapter on "blat," a priority over economics. While the United States slang word for the corruption that lubricates the has been acting on the theory that social and eco­ wheels of the unwieldy state bureaucratic economy nomic conditions must be improved in order to fore­ of. the Soviet Union. Workers in a soap factory eke stall. Communist victories, Stalin has proceeded on out their meager wages by stealing some of the the assumption that anything can be done with a soap and splitting the proceeds with the guard who sufficiently powerful machine of propaganda and is supposed to watch them. A great many transac­ terrorism. tions in state industry and trade are on a basis of Thetbook contains some vivid material on the evading fixed pric,es and selling part of the product treme dous inequalities in Soviet living conditions, (which is never enough to satisfy the dem'and) out- much f it derived from Soviet fugitives who had side the legal channels.. If extensive research in this formerly been able, as architects and engineers, to field were possible, it would probably be found that observe the habits of the Soviet ruling class. As many of the laws of "human action," as defined by Mr. Dallin points out, the war has brought no im­ von Mises, continue' to operate in the straitjacket portant change in the Soviet political and economic

NOVEMBER 19, 1951 125 sys,tem, which has been restored without modifica­ tion. Workers are still chained to their jobs; the THE BOYS LEARNED collective farm system is more rigid than ever; the Breaking the Bismarcks Barrier, by Samuel Eliot main burden of the high military expenditures falls Morison. Boston: Little, Brown-Atlantic. $6.00 on the consumer through a sales tax far heavier than any dreamed of by the most conservative From the earlier volumes of Captain Morison's economist in this country. history of the Navy in the war, few things emerged The author is extremely pessimistic about the with greater clarity than the singular failure of the attitude of the Soviet rulers toward peace, but no Japanese to follow up an advantage once gained. more pessimistic than their philosophy and the They continued to operate along predetermined Soviet political record during and since the war lines. In this, the sixth volume, and the fourth to would warrant. As he writes: deal with the war in the Pacific, the repeating pat­ tern is that of an equally remarkable Japanese per­ It is perfectly safe to say that not a single high­ sistence in sticking to a plan that obviously had ranking Communist in the Soviet Union believes in the possibility of a lasting peaceful settlement a hole in it, in throwing good money after bad. of the present worldwide contest for power. The The confused and desperate fighting in the Cen­ only question. in the minds of. the Soviet leaders tral Solomons was.marked by many American fail­ is when and where the conflict will break out.... ures. Our torpedoes were nowhere near as good as The chain of Stalin's wars remains unbroken­ the Japanese, the PTs were too light for the task conventions, treaties, armistices and the United Nations notwithstanding. given them, the cruisers were handled as though no one had ever heard of Japanese methods, the Mr. Dallin believes that the Russian people are landings were fumbled. "The strategy and tactics a key force in the struggle of the Western world of the New Georgia campaign were among the against the Soviet rulers and their designs of world le,ast successful of any Allied campaign in the conquest. He believes that the,se people are "too Pacific," says Gaptain Morison. Yet at the close intelligent to be deceived, but too weary to rebel" of the book the great fortress of Rabaul is neutral­ and that it is a grave error to assume that they ized, the Japanese army on Bougainville is em­ are in sympathy with the Soviet system. He thinks ploying most of its men to raise food, and Mac­ the Western world needs Russia, within her prewar Arthur's drive to the Philippines can go serenely boundaries, as a potential ally, a deterrent, a bal­ ahead with its fl'anks secure. ance in the great-power scale, and suggests that What happened? Well, for one thing the Ameri­ it would be shortsighted to Balkanize Russia by oan industrial. plant was dismayingly more efficient breaking it up into a number of smaller independ­ than the Japanese. When one of our destroyers ent states. went down, there would be another one along in On this point the author is perhaps inclined to a minute, while the Japanese could not afford losses prejudge a situation which can be clarified, in all except in return for something sensational. For probability, only under the stress of war. Do the another thing, the boys learned. In the later chap­ more advanced non-Russian nationalities of the ters of this book, the Navy is fighting the battles Soviet Union, notably the Ukrainians, feel nation­ of Empress Augusta Bay land St. George's Chan­ alist grievances which would impel them to demand nel, and beating the enemy all around the town at separation? Perhaps it would be wiser to leave their own specialty of high-speed night action this question to the decision of future events. Every fought out mainly with the torpedo. war brings political, as well as military surprises. But the ruling factor seems to have been the This is all the more true of a conflict which in many immense flexibility of American planning, and the countries would probably assume the character of skill with which all units and services were dove­ a civil war. tailed together. In the November strike on Rabaul There are one or two other fl'aws in this gen­ the carriers stripped their decks for the attack; erally excellent book, besides the author's somewhat land planes from the Solomons came out to cover dogmatic approach to the question whether it would them against any counter-stroke. In Bismarck necessarily be desirable to preserve Russian unity Strait unsupported air turned back a naval move­ within the frontier antedating the Stalin-Hitler ment. American destroyers were constantly shoot­ Pact. It is questionable whether the author is cor­ ing up J ap artillery and troop concentrations when rect in his assumption that the British policy has they attacked our perimeters. Hardly anything was been more realistic than the American. In the case tried twice. Beside this use of every weapon in of China the reverse would seem to be the case. And the arsenal, Japanese planning looks hackneyed and the organization of the rich material in the book unimaginative. The enemy learned so little as to might have been improved. On balance, however, tempt the conclusion the Japanese man is not an like all DaHin's works, it achieves a fine synthesis adaptive mechanism. And they paid high for the of factual reporting and intellectual analysis. It is lessons they flailed to learn. The campaigns of this indispensable for anyone who wishes to follow the book kept the Japanese naval air service from re­ pattern and methods of Soviet imperial rule, abroad covering from the losses it had taken in the Guadal­ and at home. canal campaign, reduced their destroyer arm to WILLIAM HENRY CHAMBERLIN impotence and isolated more troops than the Ameri- can High Command was able to put in the field. they are, after all, metropolitan types we have met Nearly all the story is here, told with Captain before. So, viewed as a story, the book has no di­ Morison's usual care for detail, his usual shrewd rection; considered as another sociological study judgments and usual brio. It is rather a pity that he (for lack of a more adequate classification), it suf­ did not bring in the submarine operations of the fers by contrast with "Christ Stopped at Eboli" period, for they had reached. the point where they because the material is by no means so original. strongly influenced the thinking of the Japanese And considered as history, it is lacking in back­ High Command. ground, for the writer takes a good deal for granted FLETCHER PRATT that the foreign reader at least would not be aware of. Atmosphere it has, and added thereto warmth and sharp observation with a touch of gentle mel­ ancholy. All this is good but not nearly as good as "Christ Stopped at Eboli." The Watch, by Carlo Levi. New York: Farrar, The translation is adequate, though a word or Straus and Young. $3.75 phrase occasionally suggests a foreign hand-a Carlo Levi's first book, "Christ Stopped at Eboli," journey by land, for example, in English is not was something unique in the field of modern Ital­ called a "voyage." Still, I can not understand why ian prose. It had sensitiveness, humanity, and fine the translator is not named; I have read many writing. Further, its subject matter was definitely worse translations. unusual, presenting to the average reader, whether THOMAS G. BERGIN American or European, a fairly full if somewhat impressionistic study of a way of life, arresting and exotic even though a part·of our contemporary world. And precisely because it was the study of a TWAIN, IN HARTFORD particular group in a particular set of surround­ Nook Farm: Mark Twain's Hartford Circle, by ings it had universal implications and the character KennethR. Andrews. Cambridge: Harvard. of the culture studied had in it something of the $4.75 eternal. I do not think that one can claim as much for "The Watch." Professor Andrews has familiarized himself with To be sure, there are plenty of good things in enormous amounts of new Mark Twain material, the book. Levi is a painter and has the discerning including new data about the members of Hart­ eye of his profession. Some of the portraits of the ford's Nook Farm Literary Colony, to which Twain individuals who crossed his path in the stirring brought his bride. Those now largely forgotten summer of 1945 are very well drawn. And since he notables-Harriet Beecher Stowe, Charles Dudley is also a man of warm emotions, some of the scenes Warner, Rev. Joe Twichell, John and Isabella depicted will move the reader too, just as his philo­ Beecher Hooker-are not blacked out by the fame sophical-political commentary is interesting because of Twain. They appear here as fractions of his the author is an intellectual whose opinion on re­ life. This collective biography is packed with for­ cent historical events must command our attention. gotten incidents and old controversies, including But the book as a whole fails to come off. I think it the Henry Ward Beecher scandal (Isabella Beecher is because of the nature of the subject. The time Hooker believed her brother to be guilty). It is all was an exciting one to live through, for the aspira­ neatly selected and arranged, a convincing picture tions of the Italian resistance were just making of Twain in domesticity, professionally writing, their first disillusioning contact with the elements mingling in civic affairs, struggling with a pub­ of inertia and compromise traditional in the lishing house and with the promotion of an inven­ country's political mores. But the fact is, for the tion. foreign reader at least, Rome of 1945 is too near Twain needed money. He had married a rich us to have any of the glamorous encrustation of man's daughter and chose to lecture four months of time and too far away-so fast do things move the year to support her. Lecturing cut deeply into nowadays-to appeal to us as a study in contem­ his time, but it paid for the wife he wanted and porary politics. The place, too, lacks the unique permitted him to entertain foreign celebrities. charm of Lucania-as a subject for original liter­ Twain's later pessimism is traced to the loss of the ary treatment, that is. children he adored, his two bi'g business failures This is not to say that Rome and its strange as­ (if he had only bought Aetna stock at low after sortment of types of humanity are not interesting the Chicago Fire, he would have had an increas­ -that would be heresy indeed. But there have been ingly profitable backlog), and the implacable im­ many books written about Rome and this, some­ pact of the industrial revolution, which vanquished how, seems only another one. Perhaps it is unfair the world he knew and loved. Twain was more of a to point out that no character of the whdle gallery, great chronicler of a nostalgic past than he was an however well drawn, seems to have an ihtportance artist. He was good with frontier characters, but in the story, if "The Watch" can be called a story. he never successfully projected the character of But the point may be made that these characters even one adult woman. lack the appeal of the peasants of Lucania because EDWIN CLARK

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