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Roundup of
world news

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Critical of Chiang

SHANGHAI—Lieut. Gen. Albert
C. Wedemeyer, the American most
actively involved in the early
stages of the $4 billion U.S. effort
to help Chiang Kai-shek win the
civil war in China, has corrobor-
ated most of the criticism made
by enemies of, the Chiang regime.

In a statement issued at the
close of a presidential fact-find-
ing mission here, he accused
Chiang’s government of apathy,
lethargy, defeatism, jncompetence
and corruption—in those words.

While even those who have
done most for him row call on
Chiang to reform his regime, the
Chinese government keeps right
on repressing alf opposition and
alienating more and more groups
of the population, it is pointed
out. :

Having destroyed the legal la-
bor movement in China and
cracked ‘down on the students, the
government is now getting after
college professors. Of these known
to support democratization of the
country, not one has been reap-
pointed to teach in the fall term.
The names of these professors,
numbering several hundred, have
been put on a blacklist. No school
is allowed to employ them.

Defer 40-hour week |

LONDON—The general council
of the British Trades Union Con-
gress says it is prepared to shelve
its demand for a 40-hour week for
as long as Britain’s economic
crisis continues. This statement
was contained in a report the
council will present to the annual
TUC conference which opens at
Southport, September 5.

Conference delegates are not
expected to accept this recom-
mendation uncritically. They are
more likely to demand sterner
government measures against em-
ployers before workers are asked
te make further sacrifices. Much
criticism is also expected to center
on the government’s refusal to set
up a steel industry advisory com-
mittee with union representation,
as approved by the TUC last year.

Hemisphere ‘security’

RIO DE JANEIRO—While Sec.
of State George C. Marshall and
Latin American delegates sat at
the Inter-American Defense Con-
ference here, Rio police shot up
a peaceful meeting of 50,000 per-
sons commemorating the fifth an-
niversary of Brazil’s entry into the
war against the Axis.

Thirty-three men, women and
children were injured in the un-
provoked attack, which took place
August 21.

Brazilian unions and the labor
and liberal press immediately de-
nounced the shooting as a new
step toward fascism by the gov-
ernment of President Enrico Du-
tra, which last May outlawed the
Brazilian Confederation of Labor
and the country’s Communist
Party. :

De Gaulle soeks allies

PARIS—For many months Gen.
Charles de Gaulle has waited to
test his strength against the de-
mocratic forces. In the coming
October elections, it is reported,
he will make his bid.

Encouraged by the disunity and
indecision at the recent Socialist
party conference, de Gaulle seeks
to capitalize on the split and ride
to power with U.S. support.

Instead of running candidates as
a member of a particular political
party, he has organized the Rally
of the French People. It stands
ready to support anyone, regard-
less of party, who pledges ap-
proval of its right-wing principles.
Already a number of deputies of
the Chamber from the MRP (Pop-
ular Republican Party) and right-
ist Socialists have joined the
Rally.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1947

Beating the deadline

To save their closed shop status,

which would have been

outlawed when the full provisions of the Taft-Hartley law went
into operation on August 22, the United Auto Workers (CIO) got
the Ford Motor Co., to sign a new contract just a few seconds

before the deadline.

Seated left to right are’ Ford Industrial Relations Director
John Bugas and UAW vice-president Richard T. Leonard. The
negotiating of this agreement illustrates the widespread opposition
to the Taft-Hartley brand of anti-labor legislation. ‘

azi murder brigade
ree in British zone -

BERLIN—While some members of a German “exect-
tion battalidn” responsible for the murder of 100,000 slave
laborers have been tried by Soviet military courts here, many
others in the British zone are reported to have been set free:

The battalion, the 9th Reserve
Police, was captured intact in
Norway and sent to the British
zone. After repeated requests from
the Russians, half of the group
was handed over for punishment
but the rest, including all the
officers, are still in British hands.

Of 240 tried by the Russians,
all were found guilty except a
camp cook who had taken no part
in the murders. Sentences of from
10 to 25 years were imposed, Since
the death penalty has been abol-
ished in the Soviet Union, 25 years
was the maximum possible pen-
alty.

After the trial, a man person-
ally responsible for the shoot-
ing of more than 200 men, wo-
men and children was asked:
“Do you regard your 25 year

sentence as just?” “No,” he re-
plied, “seeing that some of our
chiefs at Nuremberg got off
free and others only got 10 and
15 year terms, I think my sen
tence is too high.”

Regarded ‘as one of the main
contributory obstacles to recon-
struction in both the U.S. and
British. zones of occupation, is the
fact that in both areas top nazis,
instead of being tried and pun-
ished as war criminals, are being
elevated to high executive posi-
tions by the allied military gov-

American Legion meeting rattles
sabre for ‘anti-communist’ war

.

By PETER MORTON

NEW YORK—The drums of war beat louder and with more concentration than
at any time since war’s end here when the veterans’ voice of U.S. big business—the Ameri-
can Legion—held its annual convention in New York.

From speaker after speaker came calls for increased military strength to defeat the

“ever-growing menace of commun-
ism.” One denunciation of Soviet
policy followed another as the
professional patriots used the
meeting as a sounding board for
mobilizing public opinion against
any nation that rejects U.S. eco-
nomic and political control.

Composed of 3% million veterans
of both world wars, the legion has
always operated as an arm of
industry. In the past legionnaires
have broken strikes and in the
future many fear that they will
act as the “shock troops” for those
U.S. leaders who dream of a fas-
cist America.

The convention’s keynote was
sounded when its national com-
mander urged a universal military
training law, the first in US.
peacetime history. He indicated
his reasons when he declared that

the U.S. should send troops to
Greece, if necessary, to halt “the
spread of Communist domination.”

Asked. if this might mean a
formal declaration of war
against the Soviet Union, he an-
swered: “I don’t know what you
mean by @ formal declaration.
I would say this: If we send
troops I bélieve it would start
the shooting.” ‘ ;

President Truman, a legionnaire
himself, sent a message to the
convention endorsing military
training. “Against the possibility
of total war,” he said, “we must
have the certainty of total de-
fense.”

New York’s Governor Thomas
E. Dewey, a leading Republican
contender for the 1948 Presidential
nomination, was more direct than
Truman when he pointed to the

German big business

sparked war,

US charges

NUREMBERG—Major responsibility for World War II
was pinned on I. G. Farbenindustrie, German big business
machine with U.S. connections, by Brig. Gen. Telford Taylor,
chief U.S. prosecutor, as the war crimes trial against 24

Farben officials got underway.

They are the’men who made
the war possible and they did it
deliberately, Taylor charged, war-
ning that they would repeat their
actions “if the opportunity should
occur.”

International cartels and syn-
dicate arrangements were used as
a tool of German foreign policy,
Taylor added, pointing out that an
agreement between Farben and
Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey
had delayed the development of
synthetic rubber and fuels for
years.

“The Standard Oil Co. observed
the agreement meticulously,” he

\

said, but Farben held out on tech-
nical information. Withholding of
such information tended to weak-
en the military potential of coun-
tries covered by the cartel agree-
ments.

DuPont was another firm which
Taylor said had been fooled by
Farben. In July 1933, the prosecu-
tion statement disclosed, duPont
representatives mét with Farben
officials. At the meeting it was
decided to support Hitler as a
bulwark against bolshevism. The
fascist dictator was described as
showing a tendency toward taking
advice of industrial leaders.

“menace of communism” and add-
ed that to win the peace we must
remain strong and become
stronger. Then he congratulated
the legion for having waged a
long and vigorous campaign
against communism.

The legion’s foreign relations
committee added its voice to the
anti-Soviet tirade by stating
flatly that the greatest danger
to America. is the spread of
communism, “fostered and pro-
moted by a powerful totalitar-
ion state.” One national com-
mittee member openly urged
that the German people be re-
habilitated to fight the Soviet
Union.

This war-mongering came as no
surprise to Americans who have
found the policies of the legion,
since its inception, almost identical
with those of Wall Street.

Most recent example of the big
business-legion identity is fur-
nished by the legion’s stand on
the current housing crisis. Op-
posing government aid for hous-
ing, the organization lined up with
the National Association of Real
Estate Boards, spokesmen for big
landlords, which boasted that the
legion followed its ideas to the
letter.

On the question of racial dis-
crimination, the legion also sees
eye to eye with the most reaction-
ary sections of U.S. society. A lo-
eal body in Illinois which pro-
tested against the exclusion from
the city of Paul Robeson, cele-
brated Negro singer and fighter
for equality, was suspended by the
Illinois state committee.

Local chapters that have re-
fused to line up with conservative
legion leadership have been sus-
pended and individual members
have been ousted for alleged mem-
bership in the Communist Party.
A large body of unionists within
the organization are attempting
to combat the legion’s extreme
right-wing policies but as yet with
little effect.

Commenting on the legionnaire

ernments of Britain and the U.S.
In the Soviet zone executive
leadership is being drawn from
the anti-fascist workers and small
farmers.

Press raps Bevin
on Jewish policy

LONDON—Foreign Minis-
ter Ernest Bevin’s decision tO ©
move 4,500 Palestine- boun
Jews to Germany was at

tacked as ‘lunatic’ by the liberal
newspaper News Chronicle.

The Manchster Guardian, 2
other leading liberal paper, wrote
that the selection of Germany 4
a dumping ground is “contempt
ible and will horrify millions.”

The conservative London Times
alone said the Jewish agency }*
to blame for the situation.

Some British officials 2°
angry at the French for not
allowing the forced debarkatio? —
of the Jews in their ports, neat
which the refugees were be
“fried into submission” 2
stationary British ships in the
summer heat. The French said
they could not compel the Jews.
to come ashore if they did not
wish to.

There is much disgust heré
with Bevin’s stubbornness. It
felt that the foreign minister UW
derrates the toughness of Be
Jews, who are clearly ready to
accept martyrdom for their prin:
ciples. Bevin is also held resPOh
sible for adverse reactions 1
America to the course on which
Britain has embarked. :

[TU convention
hits red bogey |

CLEVELAND—The 89th nei
vention of the Internatio “
Typographical Union (AFL) hi
adjourned its week-long ;
sions here after voting to
traditional closed shop
tracts, approving
political action and defeatin’
@ proposal to bar Como
from union office. t
Strategy adopted by the print

ers against the Taft-Harer
ban on the closed shop

for posting “conditions

insects tie which unloy
printers will work “so long —
willing and able.” This Te™ +
closed shop conditions without
putting them in contract one

The proposal to bar from |
fice any Communist party rnd
ber or anyone “affiliated was
rectly with such 2 dent
defeated after ITU Presidtg
Woodruff Randolph denow al
it as a “dastardly PO
move” which would “lead fe
dictatorship.” Incum! pos
ficers could beat down Ora
tion by merely claiming nist:
opponents were Comm ;
he pointed out.

The delegates also called oo
joint labor action to elect
gressive candidates ent jet
ended the general 1aW8 jes
members “absent thems"
from the shop during V" |
hours on pr and - pein’
election days without ™~
subject to discipline”

pees
uniform, a New York report ony
flected the sentiment © :
when he wrote: : sim
“YT recalled having 5°? ppe
lar shirts and ties ‘f
color was different and put thé
signia was not the
position of the marks yy,
to be. Then I rememberel "ger
reel shots of a military
which once dominated 4 he

now defunct.”

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—F* 4