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Press’ plight
shown in end

of N.Y. star

NEW YORK.

America’s “most famous liberal
newspaper, the New York Star
(formerly PM), ended its existence
last week. Beset by financial diffi-
culties since its birth in 1940, when
it announced it would take no ad-
vertising to avoid commercial pres-
sure on policy, it did not do much
better after it began to solicit ad-
vertising last June. Marshall Field,
millionaire owner of PM, withdrew
his regular deficit-covering subsid-
ies from the paper at that time,
when the paper changed its name
to the New York Star.

Despite circulation increases dur-
ing 1948, the Star found it impos-
sible to continue without interest-
ing more millionaires. It was the
failure of negotiations to get such
backing from a big western oil
magnate that led to its end—at 10
minutes’ notice.

The collapse of the Star leaves
more than 100 editorial workers
and 300 technical workers without
employment. Liberal newsmen who
wrote for it, and who may find
difficulty in obtaining outlets in
any other daily paper, include such
internationally-known commientat-
ors as I. F. Stone, Jennings Perry
and Albert Deutsch. \

No better illustration of the
plight of the press under capital-
ism could be found—and the les-
son will probably be taken to
heart by many who have persist-
ed. in believing that constitution-
al provisions alone add up to
drreedom of publication.” The
Star itself, incidentally, was one
of the chief contenders that this
freedom really exists.

Politically, the Star was what
would be known in Europe as 4
“third force’ paper. It supported
Truman in the last presidential
elections. In fact, it was the only
New York daily (apart from the
Daily Worker) which did not cam-
paign for Dewey for president. And
since the election it has tried hard
to shout down its own misgivings
about Truman’s cold war course.

It is*improbable that the Star
will have any successor, even in
the mildly liberal field. The history
of American journalism since the
rise of industrial and banking mon-
opolies in the 1890’s has been one
of mergers and reduction, not’ in-
creases, in the number of news-
papers.” Many American towns
have only one paper. with all others
kept out of the field by: prohibitive
financial costs.

* *

It is significant that, just as the
“third force’ Star caved in, the
Communist Daily Worker has been
celebrating its 25th anniversary.
This paper has not tried to evade
the constant and virulent attacks
that have been directed at it from
the start, attacks which of course
included a total boycott by big ad-
vertisers. It has sought no million-
aire backers but has lived on sub-.
seriptions and contributions from
its readers. Its continued existence
proves that, if there is to be @
democratic press in America, the
people must support it directly..
There is no other way: ;

One of the remaining possible
channels for expression independ-
ent of ‘the monopolies is the US.
labor press, consisting of hundreds
of union papers with a total cir-
culation of perhaps 15 million cop-
ies. This press, however, 15 affected
by the plight of U.S. labor at this

time. p

Most of the unions, and conse
quently their papers, have oe
maintained that the function ©

labor is to work only within the |:

présent system and to support that
system, The mobilization of USS.
union leadership on pehalf of the
Truman doctrine and Marshall
plan has turned most CIO and AFL
papers into subsidiary mouthpieces
of the government on foreign pol-
which involves both the work-
ers’ hope of peace and their hope
of economie improvement. Until
the rank and file changes union
policies, the labor press will” re-
main in this condition.

Socialists’ anti-labor role repudiated

TOKYO.

Japanese Communists increased
their parliamentary representation
nine times in the national elections
held here January 23, winning'35
seats as against only four in the
last parliament. The popular vote
for the Communists, contributed
chiefly by labor, rose to 3,274,000
as against 1,400,000 last year.

The Socialist party, which had
147 seats in the previous parlia-
ment, dropped to 49. Ex-Premier
Tetsu Katayama, leader of the
Socialists, failed to win election

in his own district, where he was
defeated by Communist candid-
ate Inosuke Nakanishi. :

Socialist workers began to turn
away from the Socialist party, for
which most of them had previous-
ly voted, after it participated in
the notoriously anti-labor govern-
ment of Premier Shigeru Yoshida.

The elections as a whole were a
right-wing victory. Yoshida is to
remain as premier. The reaction-
ary groups behind him, which mas-
queraded as “liberal” or “democra-

tic” in-the early days of U.S. oc-

cupation, came out in their true
colors.

The right-wingers have the back-
ing of General Douglas MacArthur,
who initiated the national public
service law. which deprives three
million government - employed
workers of, strike and collective
bargaining rights. He has algo help-
ed the revival of war guilty Japan-
ese big business by repealing oc-
cupation anti-trust decrees.

The strikebreaking activities of
the U.S. occupation and the Japan-
ese government operating under
its supervision are generally recog-

Communists poll 3,000,000 votes in Japan

nized as the chief cause for the
strengthening of Japan’s Commun-
ists, being more important in this
regard than even the prestige gain-
ed from Communist victories in
neighboring China.

Japanese labor leaders began
to join the Communists immed-
iately after the MacArthur anti-
strike order against government
employees. Nine top officials of
the Congress of Industrial Unions
ran for parliament on the Com-
munist ticket. Many local Social-

ist party groups have gone over
to the Communists in a bloc.

in hypocrisy

Study

Wearing their robes and masks, members of the Klu Klux
Klan in Atlanta, Georgia, file into church for a special ceremony.

Chile scored for holding —
500 in concentration camp

—MEXICO CITY

a oS ad . . . . .
Labor federations in three Latin American countries have de-
nounced the Chilean government for its year-long imprisonment of 500
unionists and pro-labor political figures in the isolated Pisagua con-

centration camp.
of 1947, have never been charged or
tried. Many have died or become.
ill from the privations to which
they have been subjected.

The Ecuadorian Federation of
Labor (CTE) stated:

“We demand in the name of de-
mocracy that the concentration
camps at Pisagua be abolished. We
demand liberty for all those de-
tained, immediate freedom for
Bernardo Araya. president of the
Chilean Federation of Labor.”

The Bolivian Federation of La-
bor (CTB) noted that Pisagua “re-
sembles the sinister concentration
camps of Germany under Hitler.”

The Cuban Federation of Labor
(CTB) informed UN secretary gen-
eral Trygve Lie that the Pisagua
concentration camp “is a shameful

fact clearly in contradiction with

the democratic principles the Chil-

The Pisagua inmates, seized after the coal strikes

Nazi SS men enter

Australia as DP’s
SYDNEY.

When the Netherlands liner
“Volendam” docked here from
‘Europe, several Dutch passengers i
said they had identified 12 immi-
grants to Australia, who were
also aboard, as former Nazi SS
men. The Nazis were going to
Australia in the guise of “dis-
placed persons.” :

The Dutch passengers contact-
ed an Australian immigration
official who said he knew “noth-
ing about the matter’ and ad-

ean government declares that it up-
holds on a world scale,”

mitted the Nazis.

to save itself by cunning. Chiang

troops to defend it.
powerless subordinates play at
peace negotiations with the advan-
cing peoples armies to gain time
only to seek new forces in South
China.

Chiang’s personal guard units
were ordered to withdraw without
battle from their hopeless positions
‘in front of Nanking and Shanghai
for the same purpose — so they
could serve as a nucleus for a new
war base.

While Chiang draws up new

plans and dickers with local war-
lords to keep at least part of China.
he is concentrating his remaining
military supplies on the island of
Formosa, which is far enough
from the mainland to be tempor-
arily safe from the Chinese Com-
munists—who have no navy.

In fact, the only navy cruising
around Formosa is American. U.S.
companies such as Reynolds Metals
are making a good thing out of the
island’s resources. With American
support, which may offset the dis-
gruntlement of Formosans who
have already rebelled against his
government on one’ occasion,
Chiang hopes to be all set for a
new round of blood-letting. Per-
haps his chief difficulty at the mo-
ment is to convince the U.S. that
such support is worthwhile, after
all the failures of the past.

This activity, veiled by the
more: spectacular news of the
moment, is what has decided
the people’s armies to press their
campaign to the end, peace talks
or no peace talks. Determination
to frustrate it is what made the -
Chinese Communists insist that.
Chiang be arrested and handed
to them before negotiations pro-
ceed further. .

Other anti-Chiang groups in
China—the Kuomintang Revolu-
tionary Committee, the Democratic
League and even the Chinese Free-
masons—have declared full backing
for this demand.

The reason is not far to seek.
‘Most Chinese are now convinced.
as 55 of their prominent non-Com-

: d HONG KONG.
One reason why the crumbling
anti-labor Chinese government
of Chiang Kai-shek is encoun-
tering difficulties in its plan to

ing wave of labor activity along
South China’s railways. | ;
_ Workers of the Hankow-Can-
ton-Hong Kong line, along which
the government hoped to evacu-
ate its remaining troops and
wealth, struck for higher pay
from January 5 to 12, when the
railway administration granted
them increased wages and food

flee to South China is the grow--

~ Chiang hampered by railway strike

allowances, A thousand strikers
lay down on the tracks along
different parts of the road to
prevent attempts to move trains
with outside personnel. Workers
of the other main South China
railway, the Hunan-Kwangsi
line, walked out in sympathy.
South China’s railwaymen,
who have hitherto been kept
down by Kuomintang military
intimidation, have many scores
to settle with the regional rail-
way administration and its dir-
ector, Tu Chen-yuan, Constant
refusals by Tu to raise wages to

strike, Tu made a shopping trip

keep pace with inflation of Kuo-
mintang currency have cut
workers’ purchasing power al-
most 90 percent. While their own
families starved, the railwaymen
say, Tu has wallowed in luxury,
diverting funds to build himself
a new mansion in Canton and to
buy two fine houses which he
has used to entertain prominent
Kuomintang officials. During the

ml

to Hong Kong and spent $1,500
in American dollars to buy 2
billiard table as a gift for his
daughter. :

i

PACIFIC TRIBUNE

Chiang seeks time
to establish new
South China base

_ By ISRAEL EPSTEIN
The old order in China, faced with military defeat, is now trying

Kai-shek, who still holds nominal

authority in almost half the country, no longer has enough combat
He “‘retired”’

from threatened Nanking, where

munist writers, educators, and pub-
lic figures wrote recently, that “the
revolution must be carried on to
the very end.” .

Compromises with reaction
wrecked the initial promise of two
previous gigantic efforts of the
Chinese people to free themselves,
in 1911 and 1927, In each case for-
eign support gave the reactionaries
the strength they lacked in them-
selves, the people were enslaved
anew, and more civil war followed
when they sought to shake off the
yoke all over again.

The effort made by the Chinese
people to throw off the backward
domestic social system of two thou-
sand years, and the colonial status
born of a century of foreign ag-'
gression, has been truly gigantic.
It would have been infinitely less
costly—cheaper at least by the
three million Chinese lives lost
since V-J day—if the Americans
and Canadians had prevented their
governments from pouring billions
of dollars in war supplies to sup-
port Chiang.

Now the people’s armies are vic-
torious, and have demonstrated
that they have majority support, in
every area they touch. They can
smash any further resistance by
reaction, but will not forgive new
American maneuvers that prolong
it at the cost of more Chinese blood.

All China will regard it as an
act of war if the U.S. supports the
comeback efforts of a rejected des-
potism, based on an off-shore island
which U.S. brass hats have virtual-
ly pocketed already.

Right Laborites
try to bar ‘rebels’

—LONDON

Fearing to take direct disciplin-
ary action against recent Labor
“rebels” on peace and foreign pol-
icy issues, the most recent of which
was the revolt ageinst Foreign
Minister Ernest Bevin's policy on
Israel, Transport House has been
tringing indirect pressure to bear
on local organizations.

A campaign is aow afoot to dis-
courage divisional organization of
the Labor party from selecting —
left-wingers as parliaicentary can-
didates for the 1950 election.

This fact adds importance to
the recent unanimous adoption of
Konni Zilliacus, best known of tne
Labor party’s. left-wingers, as

Trosvective parliamentary carndi-
date for East Gateshead. ;

— FEBRUARY 4, 1949 — PAGE 3

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