The people's voice. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1939-1969, 1942-02-06
BY JOHN STAHLBERG

When an already powerful publ
people have right to wonder ant
doubt, whatever the emergency. Blu
when, during a crisis which SEEM
made to order for successful abuse o
authority, the same man refra1ns IRON
using powers with which he Is al
ready invested, or uses them witt
scrupulous regard to the public inter
est, people have their answer.
There is reinsurance in the way II
which Franklin D. Roosevelt has used
his vast powers as wartime president
greater reinsurance in the fact that
he has declined entirely to use many
potentially dangerous ones. To per
sons who feared that he was gather
ing into his own hands more control
than it is well for one man to hold, 1t
now begins to appear that he is In
fact their greatest single defense
against the M-Day excuses which
they had learned to expect.
We have had localized instances of
despotism: for example, the arrest OF
man for suggesting the impeach-
ment of certain public officials. We
have had deliberate appeals to hys-
terra: for example, the eruptions Of
Walter Winchell who, alone among
commentators on the first day Of war,
had the CHASTITY taste to rant and
threaten-aiming chiefly, of course, at
his own resented critics-about mic
roscopic investigation and possibly
prison" for American citizens who
"act queerly." ANY disagreement
with Winchell would of course come
under the head of queerness) We
have had signs of the same plague of
mass Stiffness that disgraced us in
1918: for example, the suggestion
that German measles be renamed
Victory measles" apparently the
only name we can think up that &C.
tually surpasses liberty measles" in
imbecility. We have had daily ex-
hibitions of well-meaning but harmful
bad taste: for example, Knox Man
ning's constant references to the jap
anese as little yellow men" AS
Pearl Buck recently pointed out, our
Chinese allies are also yellow men
and share with all Oriental peoples
peculiar sensitiveness to western pref
udices regarding race and color-prej-
udices which Japanese propagandists
in Asia are assuredly using to mobil-
lie resentment against u.s.
IL II.
government and our people have kept |
their heads rather we'll so far The |
American Civil Liberties Union was
able to report at the end of 1941 |
that our liberties are not in immedi-
ate danger. Don't think that we owe
this to the forbearance of the FBI or
other subordinate instruments of our
sovereignty; most of the credit must
go to the man at the top and to the
influence exerted upon him by the
people themselves. If numerous lesser
great men" had had their way, you,
perhaps, would today be denied asso-
citation with any but officially ap-
proved friends; | should probably
have had my home invaded, the books
have accumulated by % years of
stubborn effort paved over, thumb
marked, and possibly destroyed by
some uniformed first cousin of Pithe-
erectus.
The question uppermost in official
minds of certain types still is not:
How can we contribute most to the
lefeat Of totalitarianism? 1t is rather:
low can we best use the war for
democracy as an occasion for slapping
They care precious little 1
or the rights of the struggling COM t
non man; they are deeply concerned s
bout the privileges of the tired dol 6