SMALL, dapper man
mounted the mostrum

A> the House of Rep-

resentatives.

The Speaker of the House in-
toned the solemn words:
“The President of the United

States.”

Harry S. Truman looked down

on the open pages of a black

notebook, facing a joint session
_ of Congress ,the press of the
world, the diplomats of all
countries.

It was April 16, 1945, and a
world, still bleak with mourning,
waited on the words of the new
president.

Would Truman translate into
the clear language of deeds
Roosevelt’s Economic Bill of
Rights, the Roosevelt promise of
security and jobs and homes?

Would Roosevelt’s program of

wiping fascism off the face of

the world, of building lasting

peace, of cementing still closer

_ America’s ties with the Soviet

Union and Britain become Tru-
“man's program?

The new president spoke. The
words were not inspired. But
they seemed sincere, and a grief-

_ stricken world breathed a sigh
of relief.

“Nothing is more essential to
the future peace of the world
than the continued cooperation
‘of the nations which had to
muster the force necessary to
defeat the conspiracy of the
Axis powers to dominate the
world,” he said.

“Let me assure the forward-
looking people of America that
there will be no relaxation in

our efforts to improve the lot of
“he common people.”

Truman had spken.

He had
_ pledged himself to carry forward
: the Roosevelt program which
the people had ‘endorsed in a
Rational election.
e

‘WO years have passed since

that April morning, And now
Roosevelt’s name is no longer
spoken in the White House. Now
‘Truman’s words have turned to
‘wormwood and gall.

In two short years, there has
_ been effected by stealth and de-
eeption a revolutionary. change
in government policy.

To the annals of great betray-
als, there has been added the
record of the Truman Adminis-
tration.

Step by step the change was
made, slowly at first, and then
with mounting and _ relentless
speed.

It was only weeks after the
new president had taken his
_ oath of office that the United
_ States became the champion of
fascist Argentina at the United
_ Nations conference. Here was
_ the first major conflict betweeh
_ the new administration and the
; Soviet Union, and it was on a
symptomatic and significant
issue.
_ Soon Truman was telling re-
porters who had accompanied
him to a vacation hideout that
the United States would main-
tain an air-tight monopoly on
the atomic bomb. He was in-
forming a press conference that
he no longer deemed close col-
laboration among the Big Three
essential, that he no donger be-
lieved it was necessary for him
_ to confer with the leaders of
Britain and the Soviet Union.

It became clear that the
Roosevelt policies of Big Three
cooperation, of international co-

operation, of diplomatic give and
take were being abandoned.
There was blustering talk in
Washington about getting tough
with Russia,

But it seemed to many as if
the change ‘was confined only to
_ foreign policy. In his message to
Congress shortly after V-J Day,
Truman had reiterated his alleg-
iance to Roosevelt's Econmic

_ FRIDAY, APRIL 25, 1947

great
bett ay

Bill of Rights. He had asked
for action on housing, a perman-
ent Fair Employment Practices
Committee, minimum wage leg-
islation and extension of social
security and unemployment

compensation.

All the familiar proposals
which had stirred the nation
during the 1944 election cam-
paign were in. the message.
There was lacking only the will
to carry them out.

e

ONGRESS did not enact a

single major bill relating to
the human side of reconversion.
Roosevelt would have protested
and taken his case to the people.
Truman compromised, and ac-
quiesced. The labor movement
became uneasy. The press, which
had hated Roosevelt, embraced
Truman.

The headlong retreat from
Roosevelt’s”. policies »became a
reut, and it was now impossible
to draw a line of demarcation
between internal and world af-
fairs and say that Truman still
adhered to the cause of progress
at home.

Roosevelt had been dead only
a year when .,Truman made two
ef his most spectacular breaks
with his predecessor’s ‘program.

On March 6, 1946, he spon-
sored Winston Churchill's sensa-
tional speech in Fulton, Mo.,
urging an Anglo-American. alli-
ance against the Soviet Union.
The Byrnes- Vandenberg  get-
tough-with-Russia policy was al-
ready fully formed. Now Church-
ill pointed to its eventual goal.

On May 25, President Truman
broke the natipnal railroad
strike with the threat of armed
force, with a message advocating
strikebreaking legislation which
went far beyond the fondest
hopes of the most hard-bitten
Republicans in Congress.

One by one, the old Roosevelt
stalwarts were forced out of the
Truman cabinet, Henry Morgen-

thau, Frances Perkins, Harold
Ickes, Finally,. Henry Wallace
dared in his Madison Square

Garden speech of September 12
te: advocate friendship with the
Soviet Union, and he too was

. dumped.

New men came to the fore,
mediocre, reactionary, money-
hungry men like the Missouri

al

SS eee

banker, John W. Snyder; like
George Allen, the Mississippi
jester and director of 16 great
corporations; like Tom Clark of
Texas, protege of polltax Sena-
tor Tom Connally.

The battle over reconversion,
which had hinged largely on
price control, came to a dismal
close. In June 1946 Congress re-
fused to continue OPA. The cost
of living skyrocketed, The sub-
sequent revival of OPA ‘was
short-lived. The meat trust went
on strike. And Truman surren-
dered abjectly. Price controls
were lifted, except on rice, sugar
and rents. —

Big business had won the
final round in its fight to substi-
tute its own reconversion pro-
gram for that advocated by
Roosevelt. ;

: e

HE 1946 election victory of the

Republicans became _ ineyit-
able. The president failed to
challenge the GOP stalwarts in
Congress, to offer an alternative
program.

But if there was concern and
even momentary gloom among
trade unionists and progressives
after. the elections, it was re-
ported from Washington that
Harry Truman had breathed a
sigh of relief. At last he could
be liberated from any last
lingering adherence to the
Roosevelt program.

Now it was no longer either a
rout or a. retreat which was
taking place ‘in Washington.
Truman was no longer merely
scuttling the great heritage of
the past. Now he had his own
program. Now the timid and
wavering politician became a
vigorous and aggressive. spokes-
man for big business reaction.

eo.

March 12, 1947, the Pres-
ident proclaimed what be-
came known as the Truman
Doctrine. The U.S. was prepared
to intervene against ‘commun-
ism’ everywhere in the world. It
would bolster tyranny and fas-
cism in Greece, ip Turkey, in

every nation.

Truman talked about the de-
fense of democratic institutions.
The smart money in Wall Street
talked about the oil of the Mid-
dle East. The administration
hag adpoted the imperialist pro-
gram of the American Century. -

The Truman Doctrine was ac-
companied by a furious drive

against labor, by repeated
crackdowns on the embattled
mine workers, by a frontal as-
sault on .civil liberties in the
form of an outright demand by
Secretary of Labor Schwellen-
bach for suppression. of the
Communist Party.

The little man from Duseouri
became a hero in Hearst news-
papers and in Henry Luce’s
slick paper magazines. He was
no longer criticized from the
right in an effort to prog him.
In fact, there were conserva-
tives in the business world and
in Congress who began to won-
der whether Truman was not
moving far too fast to suit the
temper of the American people.

ABANDONMENT of Roose-

velt’s policies was complete.
And Truman had substituted the
policies of the party that had
been - defeated in 1944, of the
economic royalists whom Roose-
velt had sought to curb.

The last umbilical cord bind-
ing Truman with the illustrious
past had been severed. And
history would have to judge him
on his own merits. :

It would not condemn him
solely because he failed to
measure up to Roosevelt, be-
cause he did not become a great
or even a competent president,

because he was weak and
timorous. ; :
It would try him on the

charge of betrayal, of abandon-
ing the common people of Am-
erica to become the small, nasal
mouthpiece of the most reac-
tionary, aggressive forces of Am-
erican imperialism, bent on
world domination and on de-

struction of the democratic lib- |

erties of the people.

If Roosevelt was truly great,
it was not because he never
wavered. In fact, he frequently
compromised. It was not because

his vision was always clear. In —
‘fact, he found no final answer
_to the problems created by a

corrupt economic system.
Roosevelt became the great
voice of the democratic aspira-
tions of the American people, of
their quest for protection against
the encroachments of monopoly,

of their yearning for some meas- ©

ure of security and

t decent
home and a steady jo

Later he voiced the determina-
tion of democratic peoples of all
the world to destroy fascism and
build a lasting peace on the firm
foundation of Big Three unity.

Roosevelt gave expression to
a great democratic upsurge of
the American people. He was
himself molded by this upsurge.
And he, in turn, helped the labor
movement, the Negro people, the
great masses of the _ people,
‘achieve new heights of organ-
ization and strength.

T WAS here that Truman

failed. Of course, he did not
leag the American people. What
“is more important, he refused to
listen to them.

Truman wrecked the alliance
between the democratic forces
of the people and the admin-
istration which had been the
key to Roosevelt’s repeated elec-
toral victories and the secret to
his. grip on the public imagina-
tion.

But destroying a labor move-
ment, more powerful and ma-
ture than ever before in Ameri-
can history, was not so easy.
Eliminating a people’s move-
ment, which had tasted the
fruits of its strength, was not
so simple.

The people remained on the
Second anniversary of Roose- —
velt’s death, in the beginning of
the third year of the great be-
trayal. And their organizations
remained. Ang their deep-rooted
democratic convictions remained.

There remained the Roosevelt
program as a guide to action.

There remained the raw mater-

ials for a new democratic up-
surge, finding expression in new
organizations and possibly in a
new people’s party. There re-
mained men of courage and
f00d will like former vice-presi-
Gent Henry Wallace, prepared to
fight alongside the people.

Two years after his death
Roosevelt’s name was no longer
spoken in Washington. But it
‘remained on the lips of the
‘people who invoked it in the
continuing battle for peace and

for democracy.

@ Adam Lapin was for many
years a Washington corres-
pondent, is now associate
editor of the People’s Micha
San Francisco. —

-PACIEYC ‘TRIBUNE—PAGE 0