‘I saw it happen
- inside Germany’

, Miss Dodd, author of
‘Through Embassy Eyes® and
‘Sowing the Wind, is the daugh-
ter of the late William E. Dodd,

Ambassador to Germany appoint-

€d by Franklin D. Roosevelt.)

by MARTHA DODD
a
—New York

T IS by no means an acci-

dent that the Schwellen-
bach proposal to outlaw the
Communist Party preceded
by a day President Truman’s
€nunciation of a foreign policy
totally at odds with Roosevelt’s
Plan and with the democratic
‘ideals of this country. Though I
4m not a communist, I fully be-
lieve that to illegalize the Com-
Munist Party would be a flag-
rant violation of the Constitu-
tion, the Bill of Rights and the
traditions of this country.

_ Let us not deceive ourselves

that if this law were put
through, reaction would stop
here, Already it is atempting to
destroy the trade union move-
Ment; it is also stepping up the
Wholesale /persecution of liberals
ang progressives, next would
likely come the suppression of re-
ligious and racial minorities. We
&re thus laying the groundwork
for a police-state in America po-
tentially as horrible as anything

We have seen in fascist coun-
tries,

Let us look for a moment at
the pattern of recent history
which I lived through personally
in Germany. Germany before
1983 was in the throes of a seri-
°us economic crisis. The monop-

Olists, the agrarian aristocrats
4nd th
with € militarists were faced

| an indignant people deter-
mined to achieve a fuller life. If
the German people's movement
not been split with such phe-
Romenal success by the economic,
political and military ‘royalists’
(; Might have béen able to curb
i © Power and greed of this rul-
8 clique, and thus might have

averted World War II. This clique.

found in Adolf Hitler the perfect
Puppet whom they could finance

8nd manipulate to serve their
Purposes, :

IAT were the methods Hitler
- used to seize power in Ger-
pany and nearly conquer the
orld? The most important task
Was to divide, cripple and then
‘Mnihilate the labor movement.
a imprisoned, exiled, maimed
i Murdered all opponents; he

ved or destroyed the trade
eiatern the Communists, Social-

ake Social Democrats and all
ac. © opposing parties and liqui-
‘Gated the Jews,

aang Americans, the French, the.
oe Sh and other nations who

™Mained neutral too long real-
plan: to our horror that Hitler
tine not only to destroy com-
an Sm but also democracy or
chy other form of government
_ ~PPosed to fascism.

Ho:

Ow
ghas Can it be that such a

f Stly pattern can be so soon
°rgotten? :

wrens American people—make no
tha -Ke-will be no less guilty
the, the German people before
; Unite +t of history if they do not
cfte to make their democracy
€ctive No
a what our disagreements
erals the Communists are, we lib-
tena eae progressives must de-

force heir right to exist. We must
give Our national leadership to

a up its drive toward fascism
ei domination.. It is im-
Mente that we must learn to.
: With 4 Peace in the same world
Dteony he Soviet Union. It is the

al €s responsibility to see that

&:
filles Ty's historic role is ful-

and productive.

FRIDAY, APRIL 4, 1947

ona

_ Truman, paymaster
~ for fascist reaction

By JAMES S. ALLEN

RUMAN’S doctrine is doomed to defeat, for it will in

the end prove bankrupt.

It is unworkable in Greece

and Turkey, as it is in other places where it may be tried.
To understand this means to wage the bitter fight against

fascism and war with greater
confidence of success and on
a broader scale. |

Consider first the position in
Greece. The President proposes
to apply the very same policy
already revealed as bankrupt
when applied by the British. It
is bankrupt: because the Greek
problem, cannot be solved by sus-
taining the present Royalist-
fascist regime, which is attempt-
ing to drown the democratic
movement in blood.

America is more powerful than
Britain, which means that the
old policy may be continued
somewhat longer and with great-
er force. But Greece cannot be
‘pacified’ in this way. Every ad-
ditional ounce of foreign inter-
vention produces a new guer-
rilla; every million dollars sunk
in Greek reaction evokes a new
brigade of patriots.

@

F we want to know what the
new American policy can ach-
ieve in Turkey we need only
ask, what has British policy ach-
ieved? British aid was instru-
mental in stifling the Turkish
democratic revolution that fol-
lowed the first world war. Us-
ing the same ruling elements
nourished by Britain, Germany
kept Turkey a benevolent neu-
tral during World War II.

Now. the United States, ac-
cording to the president, is to
supplant Britain and Germany
as paymaster. But with each
succeeding transfer, the ruling
clique becomes more depraved
and its internal power more un-
certain. As the elements that
sold out the Turkish democratic
revolution | flit from one pay-
master to the next, each time
sacrificing another chunk of
Turkish sovereignty, the demo-

cratic-nationalist movement is
revived.

e@
F the broader implications

mentioned by the president are
to be pursued seriously, this
means applying the same treat-
ment as planneq for Greece and
Turkey to a vast portion of the
globe.

As some ultra-Trumanites like
Senator Bridges have already-
said, it would mean all-out sup-
port to Chiang Kai-shek, which
is also in Vandenberg’s§ an-
nounced program. And accord-
ing to Truman’s broad defini-
tion of totalitarianism, the Uni-
ted States would not stomach
further anti-fascist advances in
Italy and France; or a truly in-
dependent India, Indochina and
Indonesia; or a democratic turn
in Brazil.

@
IS approach is not new, of
course. It was tried after

World War I, with partial suc-
cess but with dreadful results,
as this agression demonstrated.
But at that time the major im-
perialist powers were able to re-
vive from the war in relatively
short order. Britain and France
in Europe, Japan in the Far
East, and the United States
pumping new blood into Ger-
many and Italy presented a
formidable array.

Alas and alack, Britain is no
longer the roaring lion. France
and Italy are in the midst of a
strained transition from imper-
ialism. Only a part of Germany,
and at that quite destitute, .is
at hand for possible imperialist
revival under American aegis.
Japan is an uncertain quantity
as an expansionist outpost in
the Far East.

Socialism is a world power, and
not struggling for its very
existence as in 1917-1923. The
Européan network of anti-Soviet
buffers, resting upon reaction-
ary forces now powerless or
eliminated, has been replaced by
new democracies. The colonial
structure is rotted to the point
of collapse, and the struggle
for colonial independence is pur-
sued on a vaster scale and at
a much higher level than after
World War I.

All the King’s horses and all
the King’s men cannot put the
old order together again. Nor
can all the mules of Missouri
and the dollars of Wall Street.

Gara Good .

REGENT

824 West Hastings Street .

Suit or Overcoat

TAILORS

EVERY GARMENT STRICTLY UNION MADE .

Short Jabs bo Bill

Hees is no longer capable of carrying on his war for the ex-
termination of Bolshevism. Even if, as some believe, he is still

alive, he would be a sorry figure to lead a great Christian crusade
: 5 against the spread of “the per-
Woods full of little Hitlers

nicious doctrine of Russia” as
: : he once claimed to be doing.
But there are lots of “little Hitlers.” The woods are full of them, as
we say in the West. With the world saveq for democracy—mostly
by the herculean efforts of the Red Army—these rats are coming
out of their holes, brave as rats are who have just escaped from a
corner that looked like their finish at one time. -

They belong in every group in social life, ranging from ex-
Governor Earle of Pennsylvania, one time secretary of the United
Mine Workers of America, to William Bullitt, ex-ambassader from
the U.S. to the Soviet Union. While the list of Hitler’s victims is not
yet compiled; while the death toll is not yet complete for hundreds
of these victims are still dying daily, the would-be feuhrers are al-
ready busy in their eager lust to take up where Hitler was stopped
by the best, the most progressive, the most humanitarian elements
of the democratic and socialist countries of the world, while these
same Hitlerite ghouls were placing every obstacle in their way.

Red-baiting is not something new to these scoundrels, it is their
way of life. It is an expression of their own selfish outlook on life,
for the satisfaction of their class greed as opposed to the well-being
of the people as a whole. ,

What they stand for, what they want the world to be like, is
pictured in the film to be shown at the Lyric Theater in the coming
week, ‘Open City’. It is a story of the Rome of the Resistance, of
the real Italian people who helped to destroy the brute that had
fastened itself on them; the fascism that the red-baiting crusaders,
here and in the U.S. are trying to revive.

RTISTICALLY, ‘Open City’ has the supreme qualities of simplicity,
forthrightness and directness of all great art. It is not bolstered
by huge masses of stage equipment costing millions of dollars. No
£ Se thousands of players strut the boards to impress
Open City the audience. It is not impressive in the Hollywood
- glamour tradition; nor is it to be described by
Hollywood adjectives. It was not made with two eyes on the box
office, but was inspired solely by the profundity of the emotions that
stir a people in the undying struggle for freedom. ges
Its political content, which may not be separated from its artis-
tic presentation, should be an object lesson to people who do not
belong to, and have nothing to gain from, the continued existence

in control, of the. monopolistic thieves for whom the fascists.are but
-a front. :

The dramatic situations in the play arise from the clash of two
ideologies, two opposing concepts of life—class concepts. The struggle
is that betwéen man who is still a brute and man who has reached
maturity as a human. : gee

The ideas of the fascist degenerates, the flower of Nazism, are
typical of the red-baiting cohorts right here, and display all the
bestiality of sadists, dope.addicts-and sex perverts. They indulge in
the uncontrolled outbursts of torturers and stool pigeons living in
fear of forces whose depth they canot fathom, in fact, they represent
everything that is rotten in society.

Of the artists in the production it is hard to select one better
than another. All are magnificent! But it is easy to understand why
the National Board of Review granted first place among all act-
resses of 1946 to Anna Magnani, who portrays the part of Pina, a
widow who is shot by the Nazis. .

None of the actors or actresses belong in that category in the
Hollywood sense. The conditions under which the film was produced
—with the Nazis still in control of Rome—made it impossible to line
up a cast or stage scenery as is done in Hollywood or Elstree.

The cameras and other apparatus were ‘stolen’ from the Nazis
piecemeal. At times, too, the juice failed them. The players had
very little, or no, experience of the show business. Manfredi, the
Communist underground leader, was a journalist; Pina, was a cafe —
singer; the little son of Pina, as good as anyone in the play, was
a shoe-shine boy; the part of the partisan priest, the most diffi-
cult and tragic role of all was taken by a comedian. The rest were
salesmen, housewives, soldiers and other nondescript workers. With
such a conglomerate caste of amateurs, the production of such a
masterpiece proves that the director must have been great, a genius
in fact.

One of the most dramatic incidents in the picture is the scene
where Don Pietro, the most likeable priest who ever appeared on
the screen, taken into the torture-chamber, looks on the bloody and
battered body of. the underground leader, with a gleam of exultation
in his.eyes and a note of triumph in his voice, says “You never
‘spoke, you never spoke.” :

Another inspiring dramatic moment is provided when Manfredi,
after being subjected to the most hellish tortures, being beaten with
clubs and whips, having his finger nails pulled out with pinchers,
knocked out and revived by the Nazi bullies, offered a bribe to be-
tray his comrades, spits with all the venom of his class hatred of
fascism, full blast in the face of the immaculate Nazi chief. No
‘Pat’ Sullivan, him! d !

This is a picture that all the dupes of the red-baiters should

be compelled to see. It depicts exactly what is ahead for the

world if the antilabor, anti-Communist, anti-Soviet howlers

succeed in their plotting. The whole tenor of the picture ex-

plains why the partisan priest, when leq out to be shot by the

Nazi firing squad, tells his fellow priest, “It is easy to die well;
‘it is not so easy to live well.”

Don’t miss ‘Open City’ when it comes to your town!

1947 .

—

Sip Soma

MCS Ee oe ee

<

The evolution of world ‘saviours’ from communism

“PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 5

‘