a

_ By THOMAS
SPENCER

———

. LONDON
A Smact, neat man of 63 with
ee cttul, friendly smile and
“white hair has returned
ay cc visit to his native

wing howd be

_2 its borders.
i . is the greatest artist the
Bening 1 yet produced. His
- Ording as made him beloved by
low .” People and by his fel-
“Worlg artists throughout the

proud to have

ame igs Charles Spencer
a But to two generations
“ren and their parents he
arlie, the little man who
them laugh and suggests,
preaching, the uncon-
courage,
P of ordinary people
here,

: He Sp
London:
Sot hij

€nt his early years in
8 Kennington Road and
an ®arly training as a com-
war 0 the salty music-halls of
Tdian London,
tstanet! he was already an
Nearly a film comic. Today,
0 years later, his films
Stil
Those ume year.
Se who have seen his new

5, vimelight, say it is among
atest ; ;

Roe. saat
Yong, Would think this great
2 the figure would be honored
U.S., where he has lived
y

Nd among the ordinary
that country so he is.
2n or many years now the
_ /0 has done more than
else to- bring credit to

SOple.
Vs of

4 48 been reviled by Am-

Politicians, hounded by
N press, abused, smear-
Slandered by the witch-

Fi is 2
Vigheg 20-year-old film City
Britany, a tremendous success
igx, % When it was revived
~~ Was banned by a U.S.

‘sop

Only last 2°

Unde st year on the
london thet Chaplin was “a
When ersnipe.

Lablin, he banned another
tong, th Dicture, Monsieur Ver-
Chan; ® same censor declared:
he Chm Chaplin is a traitor to
te, “ Stian American way of
tug, hol enemy of decency, vir-
88 in Matrimony and godli-
Tw, al]

tq

its forms.”
om cats \ earlier a senator
More ‘nded that: Chaplin be
ag
Binge Susly close to treason”’
hothar® United States,
ang 3 Senator renewed the
lation 1950 and initiated
able in the U.S. Congress
to po , deportation proceed-
© taken,
meh °us representatives of the
lim n Way of life have call-
® Cockney cad” and a

| Jam US. Attorney-Gen-
“Reeg ‘6 McGranery, has an-
“at Chaplin’s return to

Rang red for the past 40°

ton 8 @ man any civilised

decency and

! among the great events _

» @ccusing him of comr

. been completed
time of seven weeks instead of.

the U.S. will be banned until an
immigration inquiry has been
held. ‘ :

This is a typically mean and

cheap political trick. Before he’

left the U.S., Chaplin was grant-
ed a re-entry permit and told
that there would| be no 4diffi-
culty about his getting back to
his home and his studio.

It now appears that a re-entry
permit does not permit the hold-
er to re-enter the country. Like
every other U.S. government ob-
ligation or signature, it is quite
worthless.

e ‘

Every British movie goer and

film worker hopes that Chaplin

Eyes of

By JOSEPH STAROBIN

EKING has a holiday air as
two big events coincide: The
first peace congress of the Asian
and Pacific peoples and the. Oc-
tober 1 national day celebra-
tions marking the third anni-
versary of the People’s Republic
of China. ‘
The ancient imperial gates are
spruced up with a new coat of
gilt and red paint and proud
banners and photos of Mao Tse-
tung can be seen everywhere, To
‘house the peace conference an
8-storey, 200-room hotel and
spacious conference halls have
in the record

the normal 11 months. A
Despite the passport curtain
which was especialy severe in
Japan and Australia, the con-
gress is practically certain of at
least 400 delegates. These are
coming from 16 Asian countries,
the two Australian lands, 11
Central and South American
countries as well as Canada and
the United States. A dozen Am-
erican delegates are known to
be en route and more are eX-

pected.

The fight for the right to
travel and work for peace be-
came a major issue in Tokyo on
the eve of the October 1 Japan-
ese elections: (Preparations for
the conference had captured the
Japanese imagination to such

_ Charlie and the

4 witch-hunters

‘

our day” and writes:

“Remembering the days of Titus Oates and the
terror in England, I would like to. think that the
Catholics of the United States, a powerful body,
would give you their sympathy and support.

“Have Catholics in the United States not suf-
fered enough to stand firmly against this campaign

of uncharity.”

A comment by the philosopher C. E. M. Joad,
in the same journal, describes America as “a land
which can no longer tolerate genius without grave
discomfort,” and expresses the hope that Charlie
will choose to stay in Britain. ©

RAHAM Greene. the British novelist, who

found an anti‘CCommunist “reign of terror” in

Hollywood last February, has written an open
letter of welcome to Charlie Chaplin.

Because hé was a probationary member of the
Communist party for four weeks in 1923 Graham —
Greene had to wait three weeks in Saigon for a
30-day visa to visit the U.S. this year.

In his open letter. which appears in last week’s

New Statesman: and Nation, Greene, author of
The Third Man. describes Chaplin as “the screen’s
finest artist” and “one of the greatest liberals of

will stay and make films in Brit-
ain. But this latest act of spite-
ful persecution, by which the
U.S. government has made a
childish exhibition of itself, and
the long history of Chaplin-bait-
jing) which has preceded it prompt
this question: :

Why do American reaction-

aries so hate a man whom all

the world loves?

One reason is that he is on
the side of humanity against
their oppressors. Both in his
films and in person he has
spoken out firmly against the
power-drunk and the money-
mad.

The reactionaries didn’t like

the wor

an extent that a virtual national
pallot took place nominating
hundreds of delegates. Police
attacked ‘active Peace Congress
workers in Tokyo demanding
their passports, but despite the
barriers it is expected that some
prominent Japanese peace lead-

ers will attend. . e

Several Australian delegates
have managed to get through on
British passports after the Can-
berra government’s attempt to

- sabotage travel.

India is contributing the larg-
est group with at least 60 dele-
gates, led by the India National
Congress leader, Dr. Saiffudin
Kitchlew and three Indian mem-
bers of parliament, representing
diverse political views are al-
ready here, A veritable nation-
al movement had swept India in
preparation for this week’s
event. Despite difficulties it is
also expected that a score of
delegates will reach here from
Pakistan. :

Many observers will be pre-
sent from the Near East, rang-
ing from Israel to the Arab na-
tions and Algeria.

This congress will hear of the .

struggles of the Korean, Viet-
namese and Malayan peoples
from delegates who have come
from the fighting fronts to tell

.
’

it when he satirised the mech-
anisation of working people’s
lives in Modern Times. They
liked it even less when he at-
tacked Hitler’s dictatorship in
The Great Dictator.

The abuse grew. shriller when
he spoke in favor-of a Second
Front in 1942, It reached
screaming pitch in 1949 when
he supported the great Paris
Peace Congress and cabled Pic-

.asso on behalf of Hans Hisler,

an anti-Nazi German musician
the .U.S. government drove out
of the country.
‘Of: these attackers,
told an. interviewer:
“They are mad. Mad with

Chaplin

the lust for blood. When they
talk about Communists I don’t
mind, but I wish they would
be honest. ‘They don’t hate
Communists. They simply hate
the men who may take their
money away from them.”

There is another reason why
American politicians and the
yellow press hate Chaplin.
Though he has earned his liv-
ing in Hollywood for more than
40 years he has remained an
Englishman.

He is as English in voice and
tastes today as he was in 1910
when he first set foot in the
U.S. He has never applied for
American. citizenship.

Chaplin calls himself an in-
ternationalist, a ‘citizen of the
world.”” Few people living io-
day have a better right to the
title. But he is not a citizen
‘of the U.S,

This is something the witch-
hunters, rabble-rousers and pro-
fessional way-of-lifers in Amer-
ica cannot bear. They would
not dream of expecting the Am-
erican heads of American film
companies in Britain to apply
for British citizenship. They
would regard that as treason.

But they regard it as an in-
tolerable affront that a univer-
sally acclaimed creative genius
should decline to acknowledge

‘the superiority of the American

way of life’ by becoming a U.S.
citizen.

So down the years, in his un-
lucky marriages and the div
orces which followed, the Am-
erican press has hounded him
with filth and abuse as only the
American press can. The U.S.
government has hounded him
with framed-up criminal charges
as only the U.S. government can.

Through it all Chaplin has
gone on making films for the
delight of the world. Films
that have made people laugh
and have made them feel that
the little people of the world
are the important ones and that
their day will come.

The wealthy and the witch-
hunters hate him.

‘But for the people of Britain
he is one of the most. welcome
passengers who has stepped off
a ship from America for a long
time.

d are on Peking

how the ‘dirty wars” threaten

\ the peace of Asia and the world.

In the case of Indonesia, a

noted Catholic leader is a mem-
ber of the delegation, and prom-*

inent Buddhists are in the rep-
resentative groups from Ceylon
and Burma,

One of the significant features
of the congress is the presence
of Latin American peace spokes-
men who for the first time have
turned their eyes across the Pa-
cific which links them with Asia.

A delegation of six personali-
ties from the Soviet Union are

here headed by the director of.

the Soviet Institute of World
Literature, Prof. Ivan Anisimov
and it includes a poet from So-
viet Tadjikistan. a trade union
leader of the Uzbek Republic of

Soviet Central Asia,

Thirty outstanding figures. of
Chinese life make up the ex-
ceptionally representative Chin-
esé group headed by world-

famous Madame Sun Yat-sen.

Sitting side by side with Liu
Ning I. of the All-China Federa-
tion of Labor will be Li Teh-
chuen, wife of the late “‘Chris-
tian general’; Chinese Buddhist.
Moslem, Catholic. and. Protest-
ant leaders are in the group,

among them Wu Yao-tsung, well
known in the United States. The
delegation includes Kuo Mo-jo. a.
leading figure on the World
Peace Council. and Wu Yun-chu.
an industrialist recently return-
ed from the United States.

The emphasis here is quite
the opposite of the attempt in
capitalist press circles to give
the congress a political or dip-
lomatic character, The theme
is the very broad one of uniting
all Asian and Pacific peoples on
the central issues of restoring
peace and keeping Asia at
peace, ‘Fhe details remain to be
worked out by the congress it-
self, but there is no question
what the main items on the
agenda will be: the future of
Japan, the war in Korea, as well
as economic relations and cul-
tural interchange among the Pa-
cific peoples. A great new im-
petus will undoubtedly be’ given,
here to the peace movements of
all Asia.

Meanwhile China’s millions
are planning their parades in
honor of the giganic reconstruc-
tion work accomplished here. All
Asia has its eyes fixed on Pe.
king.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — OCTOBER 3, 1952 — PAGE 9