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