GS —amnin

Pe ee ee sae Pn Te To eee ee
.

HEN an American small boy today
be wrapped in poison when he gets it.

to war and to drag us with them have desce
all—the one of which we used to think only
war propaganda to'\t

tying their anti-Communist

When six-year-old Mamie and
Elmer buy a lollipop apiece in
New York, they will, perhaps,
buy the product of the E. Rosen
Company, of Providence, Rhode
Island. ‘

The Rosen Company sell a line
called “Military Pop.” It differs
from the traditional lollipop of
the more civilized countries in

that it is embellished with a shiny

plastic cut-out model of an Am-
erican soldier advancing with
automatic rifle and bayonet.

Perhaps the children graduate
from lollipops to chewing-gum.
This is where Topps Chewing
Gum Incorporated, of Brooklyn,
New York, competes for their
nickels and dimes.

The Topps confection ef gum,
corn syrup and, characteristically,
artificial coloring, is called “Free-
dom’s War.”

Its star-spangled wrapper is
adorned with a picture of the
Statue of Liberty and its chief
pride is that the Topps organiza-
_ tion gives away with it, free, “the
most complete set of military ”
eards ever published.”

The nine different series which ©
form “a prize collection for the

Par Yr We ee STE Te he ee kd Dt
\

asks for a candy
For the men

sons and daughters of freedom”

include, besides pictures of the
latest U.S. engines of death, a
series of chatty little first-person
anecdotes about the war in Korea.

But in the competition for the
debauching of young children’s
minds, the somewhat old-fash-
ioned Topps company has been
far outbid by Bowman Gum Inc.,
which has taken it upon itself to
start ‘a “Children’s Crusade
against Communism.”

With every packet of bubble-
gum manufactured by the Bow-
man company in Philadelphia,
the “City of Brotherly Love,’
goes a card exhorting children to
“Fight the Red Menace.”

Each card consists of a crude,
luridly colored picture with a

400-word propaganda message on —

the back. One is a distorted pic-
ture of Mao Tse-tung, his face
bright green and @ symbolic:
gorilla wielding a bloodstainet
scimitar in the background.
Others in the same series which
the American child is expected to
digest whils his jaws work
rhythmically on the bubble-gum
are on a similar level. They in-
clude potted versions of the usua*

ee ee ee ee rn ee ee

the chances are that it will

who want to take America

nded to the meanest propaganda trick of
‘Hitler's ‘Nazis were capable.
he children’s candy.

They are

American (and Canadian) lies
about vast hordes of slaves in
Russian uranium -mines and
secret police .terrorising the civi-
lian population.

These exponents of bubble-gum
democracy tell the kids that
‘Cardinal Mindzenty, who confess-
ed to treason in Hungary, did so
because he was drugged or tor-
tured. In their self-appointed
role of crusadé leaders they
preach to unformed minds hatred
of Communism, of the Soviet
Union and of China,

Tf the men in America who
want ‘a world war succeed in
starting, one, the bubble-gum
salesman will have helped to make
the holocaust possible.

e
What these hawkers of tainted

candies are doing to the minds of |

small children, the publishers of
sé-called comics are doing to the
rest of the population.
American comics have
reached a pitch of yammering
war-hysteria far beyond anything
yet published in this country.
Canada and the entire Western
hemisphere is being flooded with
' publications which seem to take

® Frontline Combat, with its
brutalised war pictures (left),
claims to be one of the better
comics on the market. Its pub-
lishers are members of the
Association of Comics Magazine
Publishers, which says it works
with PTA and similar groups
to produce “superior comics.”

we

'
isa Pre Lt Te ee ee

BY
PATRICK
GOLDING

real war against the Russians
and Chinese who are depicted as
the “enemy.”

There are signs, too, that in
the land of bubble-gum democ-
racy the effort of reading the
dialogue in the “balloons” is be-
coming more than brains addled
by a constant diet of “comics”
can accomplish.

The comics are battering them-
selves and their customers into
insensibility. :

In one of the most popular and,
most brutalized of the current
American comics words have
been almost dispensed with.

Whole pages are devoted to pic-
tures of bombs exploding, with
“Wham!” “Bam!” . “Crrrunch!”
and “Whomp!” the only words
used. ‘

It is this comic which boasts
“The Seal of Decency and Good
Taste.” Its producers claim to
belong to an association of comics —
publishers which is “supported by
parents and educators.”

now -

PRP CTL ECE i

it for granted that the war Mac-
Arthur wants has already started.
The anti-Soviet propaganda they
are churning out now is far more
vicious than anything he Nazis
achieved in the late war.

In~a nation increasingly per-
vaded by semi-literacy, comics.
represent the national culture, the
favorite printed matter for chil-)
dren, adolescents and adults alike.

Wings Comics, for instance, a
publication devoted to glorifying
the W.S. Air Force and black-
guarding the Chinese, carries ad-
vertisements offering prizes to
boys and girls who act as spare-
“time salesmen, and for New
Magic figure-adjusting girdles for
women.

Spy Cases tells in lurid color
pages patently absurd Russian
sabotage stories to which it un-
blushingly ‘attaches the labels
“factual” or “from FBI records.”
Its speciality is a carricature of
Communism in America.

In these and in many other
widely circulated American comics
the formula is becoming increas-
ingly stereotyped. More and
more popular strips carried by
Canadian as well as American
newspapers have “gone to war”
against public sanity and decency,
so that it is now possible to single
out the few which have not suc-
cumbed to the propaganda that
is preparing the public mind for

~

This barrage of war propogan-
da aimed at the section of the
population of the US.—and other
countries—least able to think for
itself is no accident. Nor can it
be dismissed as the work of irre-
sponsible private citizens who in
the American conception of de-
mocracy are free to peddle what
filth they like if they think it will
make money. :

For among the latest collestion
of comics before me as T write
this is one, as lurid and as crude
as the rest, giving a false account
of the origin of the war in Ko-
rea. It is published by the United
States Information Service, a gov-
ernment agency, :

As for the bubble-gum manu-
facturers, they are certainly @
characteristic example of Ameri-
can private enterprise. But it is
the same manufacturers, busi
ness men big and small, who run
the U.S. government.

And the small fry exist only
when the big fellows thrive. All
are part of one body, one way of
life. \

Behind the Bowman Gum Inc.
stands the mammoth Bethlehem —
Steel Corporation. :

It is because the big men, bent ‘
on war, call the tune, that Am-—
erica is driven constantly to be-
foul all that her millions of de-—
cent citizens hold most dear.

Where the dollar rules, freedom
has become licence to debauch 9 —
people’s mind, democracy has be
come an anti-Communist slogan |
on a bubble-gum wrapper.

And a generation of childrem
suck in poison‘ with their syt-_
thetic fruit-flayvored lollipops.

: pt on

¢

‘United

’ TOKYO

a General Matthew B.

Ridgeway; who recently replac-
ed General Douglas MacArthur as
“the Supreme Commander for Al-
lied Powers in Japan, authorized
the Japanese government to re-
view all postwar reforms ordered
‘by the allied powers, Japanese
ruling circles are busily working
en the open revival of the “old
Japan.” ’

The day Ridgway’s statement
was issued, the Japanese press

” widely reported that on the gov-
ernment’s agenda are: ;

@ removal from the purge list
ef most of 190,000 wartime lead-
ers who were banned from public
activities because of their role in”
Japan’s aggression. :

@ revision of laws prohibiting
economic monopolies.

_ @ revision of labor laws which
legalized trade umions, giving
them the right to strike and col-
lective bargaining and

.

setting —

States revives Jap

minimum standards of working
conditions.

@ revision of the police law
which decentralized and demi”
itarized the wartime police sys-
tem.

1

_ For the task of reviewing all
these reforms, Premier Shigeru
Yoshida appointed ‘a. seven-man
advisory committee. Four of the
seven had themselves been ban-
ned from public life until last fall
because of their wartime activi-
ties: i ie

Sinee Japan’s unconditional
surrender to the allies in August,
1945,.a total of 208,103 wartime
leaders have been purged because
of their active participation in
_Japan’s aggression. Some 2,000
were brought before allied courts
as war criminals. The only names
on the purge list not charged with
aiding Japan’s wartime aggres-
sion are those of 30-odd -Com-
‘munists, banned from public

activity last June by a MacArthur

directive. *

Among this total, 15,000 have.
already been “depurged” with
American consent. Over 7,800 of
.these are former imperial army
and navy officers, gendarmes or
special intelligence agents, many
of whom are now serving again
as officers in >the MacArthur-
created national police reserve.

At the present moment, 193,093
persons are still under the ban,
but the seven-man advisory com-
mittee reportedly intends to de-
purge over 170,000 of them very
shortly.

@ Ys
_ Business circles are reportedly
pressuring the government for
“pevision of the postwar reforms
which were found unsuitable for
Japan,” Their objective, is re-
moval of the curbs on business.
monopolies such as Mitsui and
Mitsubishi and less or no legal
protection for workers’ rights.

The government reportedly in-
tends to strengthen the police

system and put it under direct
eohtrol of the prime minister as
in the pre-occupation days. After
Japan's surrender, her police sys-
tem ‘was decentralized under the
police democratization program.
Premier Yoshida has since an
nounced, however, that the police
reform was also “unsuitable for
Japan.” a
Return to the old centralized

police setup is.only the first step

in Japan’s shift back to a war
basis. According to press reports,
the government is planning to set
up a public security ministry
which would include the police,
the national ‘police reserve and
the maritime safety corps, Which
is patrolling Japan’s coastline
with an expanding fleet of gun-
boats. 3

“force, is supplied. with Am:

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — JUNE 1, 1951 — paGE f

anese militarism |

Revival of “old Japan” ha* :
been quietly under way for some

time. Japanese factories are Pro”.
ducing bombs and other arma
ments. A large segment of Jjan-
anese workers have been deprived :
of the right to strike and colle —
tive bargaining. The ‘national
police reserve, which is organiz—
ed and trained like an ‘infantry
ence
arms, supetvised by American of i
ficers and uses American fiele
manuals as textbooks.

Until now. this has been ae
cealed by glib explanations that
such measures were for economie \
' stabilization, or public peace.

a result; there was some limit x dee
the extent of the revival. Ride”
way’s Order clears” the way fF
revival of Japanese militaris™—
under American direction. bie