The Waterbury Democrat., 1944-02-01
LIFTS NOT BE BEASTLY TO
 THE LAPS"


 THE JAPS"
 The Japs enjoy treachery so much that they can't help turning rat on their buddies Look what they did last week to Peace Now. That outfit, soliciting membership from Bundists, Christian Frontiers and others, who have been hiding under rocks since Pearl Harbor, had just got rolling on let-uS-love- the enemy routine At that point the civilized world was shocked and outraged by the report of the wan ton murder of the American sol- diers taken prisoner at Bataan and Corregidor. A day earlier spokes- men for Peace Now were accoSting chumps with the claim that the Nazis and the Japs are as good as anybody .. Just as the JapS' sneak punch on Pearl Harbor temporarily closed the traps of the America Firsters, the new outrage has ex- posed the phonineSs of the Peace Now claims It's almost as if the Japs were kind of particular as to who peddled their wares over here. The JapS are SavageS, but that doesn't mean they aren't smart. They know 1t won't help them to be tied up with some of the discredited lunatic riff-raff that Peace Now is rallying to its banner. Even Jap has to draw the line SOMEWHERE.
 But the tale of the atrocities was more than Japan's order to Peace Now to "get off our side. It was the answer of the soldiers of Ba- taan and Corregidor to the unity diSrupting leaders of Peace Now. Here is the substance of the mes- sage from those dead to Peace Now: You people, many of you agents of all the forces we are fighting on the battle front. presume to say what the peace shall be. You dare to say, in the light of what we dead soldiers know, that Japan has a right to a peace now, so it can strengthen itself for new murders of the helpless. You leaders of Peace Now are joined with the same forces that gave Japan its present power. The men whose help you seek are the same men who fought against conscription, against the for itfication of our Pacific bases, against the unity of the people at home. You are being stupid and vain and power-greedy at the cost of soldiers lives. Stop helping this enemy against Us soldiers How many generations of Americans do you want them to murder?'
 You can answer every sleasy item of the Peace Now program with one word. Bataan.
 The revelations of the Peace Now recruiting drive have confirmed one of this columns reported claims. That there are no ex-isolationists. After Pearl Harbor, the most blatant of the isolationist spokes- men begged to be taken into the fold. We're all In this together now, they whined, and immediately hur- ried off to their back alley cronies to kick up new disunitieS This reporter has seen letters from one Senator, one of the slipperiest, which belied all the pious mouthingS he was getting off in the Senate. That Senator never for a second quit being an America Firster and an op- ponent of the war effort. Every thing he had championed before Pearl Harbor, including the hates, stayed right with him Peace Now knew where 1t had to go for its membership - to the groups that sickened the world with their hood lumisn before Pearl Harbor made them wary.
 The newspaper accounts of the Peace Now huStlings report that some of the members of Congress are a little skittish about getting their feet wet until they see how things go One Congressman is reported tired of sticking his neck out .. There's a set of statesmen for youl It isn't a question of whether Peace Now is right and honorable, but whether it's easy candy. How do you like that for statesmanship in war time? |. It's a fine commentary on the men they look to for leadership. They say, in effect, show us what it'll get us and we're your stooges. These are the dummies to whom they would intrust the making of peace.
 Since a riff-raff demagogue out- fit has no special plan for making sense, let's kick few holes in their claims that Germany and Japan are biamelesS in this war Fortune : points out that in the years lead ing up to the war Nazi Germany spent from four to six billion dol- lars annually arming itself |. Japan, thanks to our generosity, stocked up enough scrap and oil to carry it through the campaign that put 1t in possession of all the oil in the South Pacific :. If, as Peace Now has the audacity to claim. the American Government pushed those nations into war, why did 1t give them all that warning? And why didn't the Congressmen, to whom Peace Now looks for leadership, those alleged aims if the Japs and Germans, way across the oceans, sUuldp It speaks pretty badly 6R their gray matter That
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