davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
Evening star., 1946-03-04
On the Record
By Dorothy Thompson

with his eternal longing for life, liberty,
and happiness, their victim-even when
they speak in his name, as they usually
do.
What Spaniards want is what all men
everywhere want, the chance to be men,
not instruments of plundering, raping,
destroying political cliques. They want
the protection of specific written laws,
administered by courts that are not the
slaves Of arrogant bureaucrats. They
are sick to the bone of race wars, class
wars, international wars, Fascist wars.
They want peace.
The Spanish Republican government
IN exile, on advice Of majority of the
anti-Franco movement within Spain,
has rejected Communist participation
In any future government. Must it be
forced on them, and if so, why? Must
the Popular Front policy which has al
ready been proved disastrous to social
peace be revived?
The American Government has an in
terest to see that totalitarianism does
not spread, and that governments guar
anteeing the civil liberties of the people
under constitutional law be created or
preserved. We have been defeated in
Poland, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Ro-
mania because, instead of demanding
constitutional projections of human
rights, We merely demanded Popular
Front governments-andd did not even
get them. But though these countries
are also not. in the modern world, "far
way" Spain is our backyard.
What we should therefore support Is
the restoration of strictly constitutional
government in Spain. We should in
sist that democracy is not mobocracy,
nor the dictatorship Of any glass or
party, nor any form Of police state, and
is total fraud unless it embodies in
the basic law a bill of human rights.
We should make 1t clear that we will
regard with extreme distrust any gov
ernment which refuses to extend to its
people the rights embodied in the pre-
amble to the San Francisco Charter
We should hold no prejudices against
economic systems provided the human
person is guaranteed the right of op-
position, the right peaceably to advo-
cate change, without thereby endan-
gering his life and liberty.
We should stand four-square for this.
For our own freedoms will not sur
vive If we are pushed to the periphery
of the worlds system; we must stand
for it because this is our character as a
civilization, and every nation that once
betrays its own character is doomed.
That is the inexorable law Of history,
for which there is not q single con-
trary example.
released BY the Bell Syndicate, Inc.)
Evening star., 1946-03-04
New Fire Chief

Retiring after long and active
career, former Fire Chief Stephen
T. Porter can look back with salts
faction on period of service that
saw Washington's Fire Department
emerge from horSe-drawn era into
a mechanical age of fast and power
fud flre-flghting equipment and we'll
trained, efficient men. On October
16, 1911. the day that the youthful
Private Porter reported for duty
With the department, The Star made
a prediction which he soon was to
see fulfilled. The Star said in an
editorial: "The motor fire engine
and the other fire motors appear to
be coming rapidly into favor with
fire departments, and the prophecy
Is justif1able that horse-drawn fire
apparatus will soon be abandoned.
80 Washington's Fire Department
must soon be put on motor basis. I"
1t was not long after that that
Washington's picturesque fire horses
began to give way rapidly to motor
lied engines. And during the thirty
four years which Chief Porter spent
on the force the department con-
tinued to develop and expand with
the growing city.
Now, as the new chief, engineer,
Clement Murphy, takes up where
Chief Porter left off. he assumes
command of smoothly functioning,
efficient organization that is reputed
to.be the equal of any fire-fighting
organization in the country of COM
parable size and responsibilities. It
Is no exaggeration to say that both
the retiring chief and his successor
have contributed materially to the
record Of progress OF the local de-
partment. Chief Murphy has had
much to do, especially, with the
molding Of the men under him into
a skilled body of firemen, for it long
was his job of directing the training
OF recruits. During the war he
rendered additional service to the
city as chief afraid warden and
thereby earned the special commen-
dation of the Commissioners. The
Fire Department is fortunate In
having man of Chief Murphy's
qualifications to step into the va
cancy caused by the retirement of
Mr.. Porter.
Evening star., 1946-03-04
The Polish Elections

1t appears now that the predomi-
nantly Communist government at
Warsaw may ask Britain and the
United States to approve postpone
ment of the elections scheduled to
be held In Poland in June. The reason
advanced for this is that political
conditions are generally unsettled"
because Vice Premier Mikolajczyk
has rejected a joint Communist
Socialist demand for a Single list"
vote in which all candidates would
run for Office under one and the
same label. This explanation, how
ever, merely scratches the surface,
the truth seeming to be that if there
is no "single-list" arrangement the
balloting may go heavily in favor of
Mikolajczyk and his Peasant party,
prospect which the Communist
obviously cannot view with pleasure.
Mr.. Mikolajczyk's position is al
together understandable. In view
Of the general belief that a majority
OF the Polish people support his
party, he has every reason to want
himself and other candidates of that
party to retain their political iden-
tif1cation rather than submerge it
in single list. BY running on their
own they might stand good chance
OF emerging from the elections we'll
ahead of the Communists and So
cialists and thus win a dominant
place in governing Poland. At pres
ent, despite their popular following,
they hold only four out of the some
twenty posts in the Warsaw regime,
so that II they seek votes on their
own Peasant ticket the results may
give them much fairer representa-
ton.
A further point in support of Mr..
Mikolajczyk is that the Yalta agree
ment specifically pledges Warsaw to
hold free and unfettered elections"
In which "all democratic and anti
Nazi parties shall have the right to
take part and to put forward candi-
dates" The same provision is set
forth In the Potsdam agreement,
and 1t Is one of the conditions on
which we have based our diplomatic
recognition OF the present regime.
In the circumstances, since a party
can best put forward its candidates
under Its own label. Mr.. Mikolajczyk
Is on wholly sound ground in re-
jecting the single-list idea, even
though he may yet agree to it under
pressure.
Evening star., 1946-03-04
Fulton, Missouri

What winston Churchill will see at
Fulton tomorrow will not be vastly
different from what he might see in
his own Yorkshire or Devon. Nature
has done for Missouri very much the
same sort of service as that which
she has done for Britain. The hills
may differ in geologist'S book, but
they look alike to an, ordinary per-
son. Domestic architecture, of
course, reflects varying tastes. There
are relatively few stone houses in
Galloway County and none at all
with thatched roofs. Yet the former
Prime Minister will not object to the
frame dwellings with tin tops that
he will pass as he speeds over the
tracks of the Missouri Pacific Rail-
road and along the neat two-lane
pavement of U. S. 81. The Ameri-
can equivalent of English agrarian
and mining residences bears a dis
cernible resemblance to its original
model.
And the people Mr.. Churchill will
meet are descended more or less
directly from the same people from
whom modern Britishers are sprung.
They are farmers and miners and
workers in clay with traditions like
those of their opposite numbers in
Kent and Cornwall and Stafford
shire. Perhaps wheat and coal and
potteries have an affinity, and those
who produce them kinship of the
spirit which shows in their faces.
Be that as it may, Fulton is not so
strange place that it's guest from
over the sea will feel himself
stranger. The town dates back only
to 1921 and was not incorporated
until 1859, but it is indubitably
city in it's own proper and demon
strated right as well as the metrop-
oils OF the county in which it stands.
How it happens to be one of sixteen
American communities commem-
Grating the engineer and artist to
whom the steamboat generally is
attributed available books of refer
ence do not tell. Conceivably, it is
named for another, less famous
worthy. The record is indefinite.
But there is nothing uncertain
about Westminster College, where
Mr.. Churchill is to receive a compli-
mentary degree. 1t was founded by
the Missouri Synod of the Presby-
terian Church in 1853 and still counts
the study of the Bible an important
cultural activity. The undergrad
yates are boys and men who are
proud to pay their academic ex-
penses in large part by the labor
of their own hands. A wooded slope
bordering on Stinson Creek is their
campus, roughly forty acres in area.
The gymnasium in which the cere-
monies are to be held seats only
Evening star., 1946-03-04
This Changing World
By Consfanfine BrO,cn

The American government has no
territorial interest in the Middle East
and Is In q position to defend Trans
right to full sovereignty and territorial
integrity without being accused Of act
ing selfishly.
Secretary Byrnes and his adviser also
were fully informed that in the event
they made an issue out of the Ifanian
question-on the basis OF treaty obliga-
tions-they would be fully backed by
the British government.
In fact, Britain's Foreign Secretary
Bevin let Mr.. Byrnes know that he
would support any action of the Ameri-
can Government and would be glad to
see America take the lead In this matter.
The Iranian government appealed to
the United States to assert its moral
leadership in the world.
The Secretary Of State was impressed
by the arguments and facts presented
to him and Is reported to have promised
to place the question on top of the Big
Three agenda at Moscow. But 1t ap-
pears that the Moscow atmosphere was
not particularly conducive to moral is
sues. The Russians had no agenda and
decided to discuss first things first.
Foremost among these they placed
the Far Eastern question and Russian
participation in the affairs of Japan.
This took so much time that there was
only little time left for other matters.
Additional agreements were reached re-
garding the status Of the Romanian and
Bulgarian governments and the estab-
ishment' Of United Nations Com
mission for the control of atomic energy.
But nowhere is there any indication
that the foreign secretaries at any time
discussed the question of Iran, which
Mr.. Byrnes considered, before his de-
parture for Moscow, as top" matter.
The Iranian situation is not likely
to be changed materially by the fact
that our own diplomacy has begun to
stiffen.
Our protests regarding the mainte-
nance of Soviet force in Northern
Iran probably will be duly noted by the
Soviet authorities and an adequate
diplomatic reply is likely to be made.
But that will not interfere with Russia's
plans to increase her oil resources from
the rich Azerbaijanese area and keep
her own trusted men at the head OF
the Teheran government.
Evening star., 1946-03-04
Austria as Test Case

senator Vandenberg'S trenchant
Senate address on the vital need for
a firm and positive foreign policy,
especially as regards Soviet Russia,
is strikingly exemplified by the case
OF Austria. It has been common
knowledge that things were not 60
ing we'll in that unhappy country,
but the true situation and the re-
sponsibility therefor is explicitly set
forth in a current dispatch from
John MacCormac, the Vienna cor
respondent of the New York Times.
The picture painted by MIR. Mac
Cormac is one which calls not
merely for strong words but for posi-
tive action by this country, in CO.
operation with Britain and if pos
sible with France, since we share
with them the obligation to imple-
ment solemn international obliga-
tions explicitly assumed regarding
Austria. Those obligations, to which
Soviet Russia is, of course, also q
party, rest upon a whole series
OF joint inter-Allied conventions
pledging the establishment of Aus
tria as a sovereign, independent
state. 1t was to facilitate this ma
tional reconstruction that the mill
tary occupation of Austria was pro-
vided for, as temporary measure.
Mainly owing to Russian insistence,
this occupation was by zones, on the
German pattern, with a joint Allied
Control Council sitting in Vienna,
which lay within the Russian zone.
However, after seven months of
occupation, nothing has been ac-
complished owing to Russian tactics
that have produced a complete
stalemate. And, as Mr.. MacCormac
forthrightly puts it: western OBJ
servers here have concluded that,
on the present basis, it cannot be
done. Russia-they are forced to be-
lieve-does not want it done. This
has become so obvious that they are
now faced with the choice of either
sacrificing Eastern Austria to Rus
sian expanSionism and endeavoring
to make something of the remainder
or continuing to be checkmated by
the dogged Russian resistance to the
restoration Of Austria's political and
economic independence"
Mr.. MacCormac's bill OF particu-
lars is as detailed as it is devastat-
ing. Here, If ever, would seem to be
a case where the western powers
must stand firm. To begin with,
Moscow should be held to the strict
fulfillment of its pledges by Wash
ington and London. Then, if Mos
COW is still recalcitrant, the case
ought to be brought before UNO and
thoroughly aired to the world. Veto
action by Moscow might precipitate
new diplomatic crisis; but, in face
of similar action by Moscow all the
way from the Baltic to the Pacific,
there must be showdown on the
entire issue if good faith in inter-
national obligations and the whole,
moral structure underlying UNO IS
not to be destroyed. Austria would
seem to be an open -and-shut case.
There could be no better test of
what the postwar world is to be like.
Evening star., 1946-03-04

The situation in Spain is Of the
gravest interest to the United States.
Spain Is one of our nearest transoceanic
neighbors. An unfriendly Spain, with
her North African empire, her position
on the Atlantic and Mediterranean, and
her great influence on Latin America,
could constitute serious menace to
pan-American security.
We shall never be able to count on
comfortably stabilized situation as
long as Spain is ruled by the Franco
dictatorship. But neither would we be
safer were 1t ruled by any other aggres-
sive, expanding totalitarianism. To put
it bluntly, Spain which would MAXI
Soviet influence as dominant in that
geographical position as in Bulgaria
would be a means of bringing powerful
Soviet pressures on Latin America, and
would be intolerable. The sooner the
better.
The Spanish civil war was the result
Of actions and reactions.
Left extremist pressures on the Re-
publican government made orderly ad-
ministration all but impossible and in
famed the reactionaries who made the
Franco coup d'etat and precipitated q
terrible civil war with ghastly excesses
on both sides. with Intervention by Hit
Ter and Mussolini on one side and the
Soviet Union on the other. The Spanish
people. as result of the horrors of that
struggle, retained little affection for
either white or red extremists.
y
In the manner of Goth century revolu-
tions, whether of the extreme left or
extreme right. the victory of Franco
had to be maintained by the brutal sup
pressions of the civil war itself. These
revolutions, being divorced from all con-
cepts of humanism and law, are doomed
to maintain themselves by the means
through which they come to power. Not
one of them, including the Russian,
has ever established constitutional guar
antees for the liberties and securities of
the people. All rule by force alone, how
ever they may camoufage it by police
plebiscites.
All are police states Of the crassest
the police state-never make an end of
universal espionage, or peoples tribunals
resembling medieval inquisitions. And
all, without exception, seem driven, as
though by the law of their nature, to
totalitarian conquest, whether by Quis-
ling methods or open force.
The people of Spain have already been
bled white, and reduced to the utmost
material wretchedness and spiritual
despair, by the bitter struggles between
fanatics Of the Left and Right which
have always made the common man
Evening star., 1946-03-04

L. refusing to remove the Red Army
from Azerbaijan the Soviet government
Is committing fragrant breach of faith,
according to American and British dip
lomats. Although the dispute between
Russia and Iran was settled" at London
when the United Nations Security Coun-
Gil allowed the two powers to deal
directly with each other, Washington
and London are fully aware that the
present negotiations in Moscow are
merely dust in the other powers eyes.
The Iranian premier, Ahmet Qavam,
one OF the richest men in his country
who owns extensive property in Azer-
baijan, Is as helpless as were the rep
resentatives Of the Baltic States who
were summoned to Moscow in 1889 and
will be compelled to sign whatever
agreement Foreign Commissar Molotov
desires.
The fundamental agreement regarding
the Iranian Kingdom is the one signed
at Teheran in January, 1914, by which
President Roosevelt and Prime Minister
Churchill and Premier Stain guaranteed
the territorial integrity of Iran.
1t Is feared in responsible Washington
quarters that there Is little we can do
to help that country. Of1lcial protests
are interesting and serve to establish
record" but are not likely to change
the situation.
4
According to reliable reports, Secre-
tary Of State, Byrnes missed the boat
IN Moscow, where he had the opportun-
ity to give a strong expression of
Americas point Of view.
The Iranian government drew the
State Departments attention to the
critical situation in Iran some time
before Mr.. Byrnes left for Moscow. Both
he and his principal adviser, Counsellor
Benjamin Cohen, were told that the
Russians intended to make the country
into a .puppet state and that while
Britain could not undertake a diplomatic
offensive in Moscow to save Iran, the
United States could.
Our principal policy-framers were in
formed that Britain, because of her
important oil interests in Southern Per-
sia, could not take the lead and speak
sternly about the Teheran pledges for
fear the Russians would reply that "oil''
and the road to India" made the
British sanctimonious.
Evening star., 1946-03-04
Hitler or HitIerism
From the Christian Science Monitor.

Whether Hitler lives is relatively un-
important. The political-military ma
chine he controlled has been broken
and he could not rebuild it. The i'm
portant question is whether Hitlerism
lives. In Germany there has been much
disillusionment, If not repentance. But
there is altogether too much evidence
that large quantities of poison remain.
Racial hatred and arrogance; faith In
'blood and iron; reliance on a per-
sonal leader; desire for economic secur-
ity at any price, and acceptance of
brutality and lies as means to an end
all these ingredients OF Hitlerism are
showing themselves very much alive
not only in Germany, but in the think
ing Of millions elsewhere. Unless cor
rected more effectively and displaced
by better purposes, they will be used
sooner or later by new crop of gang
sters to threaten civilization. The per
sonal fate of Adolf can be of little mo-
ment compared with the urgency of
identifying that evils he fed on and
continuing the war against them.
Evening star., 1946-03-04

Senator Vandenberg has demanded
and Secretary Byrnes has promised
blunt speaking on British Russian
American matters So far, so good. Now
comes the time for filling in the speci-
fications. What is to be the nature of
plain speaking? And how is the speak
ing to be done?
This is not so easy as 1t seems. Pole
mics by political heads of states or
foreign ministers have language prob
lens which disturb, rather than settle
concrete questions. This is particularly
true in Russian-American relations
Messrs. Truman and Byrnes are Ameri-
lotov are Russian politicians. These
men grew up to their present positions
from the hurly-burly of stump oratory
in local politics in Missouri, South Caro-
lima and Russia. Such speaking has a
common characteristic. That is to per-
suade, not to inform: to keep to gener-
alities and to shout these generalities
in tones and phraseology far more en-
phatic than the substance warrants.
Beyond this common factor are Spe-
cific differences between American and
Communist politics. Ine communist
dialectic follows a pattern evolved in
years and years of semiunderground
MARKHAM propaganda. 1t begins by BLAST
ing the enemies of freedom, democracy
and what-not. Politicians stirred the
proletariat of Europe by broad invec-
tive. It was no appeal to reason. It
was call to action.
When minority becomes a majority
and mounts the seats Of power, it con-
tinues to talk like a minority. Mr..
Ickes, in our own country, is an ex-
cellent example. As prominent figure
in dominant government, he never
lost the violent speaking habits of
minority reformer shouting at the rulers
of Chicago.
And SO in the Soviet government and
in the Soviet press the old bitter phrase
ology of prerevolution days remains.
1t is so much matter of habit that
we cannot take it as true expression
of policy. But it makes it hard to under
stand Soviet politics, nevertheless.
It is most unfortunate now when,
after the promise plain speaking on
Evening star., 1946-03-04
China and Unity

NOG III a long Time mas Jnere Deen
q more hopeful development in
China than the historic agreement
to integrate the armed forces of the
Chinese Communists into the Ma
tional Army of the Chungking gov
ernment. Assuming that it will be
carried out in good faith, it should
play far-reaching part in promot-
ing the kind of unification which
the country must have if it is ever
to prosper and become a stabilizing
power in Asia.
AS worked out and signed by the
representatives of the Communists
and Chungking, the agreement pro-
vides for the creation of a single
army in China within the next
eighteen months. The army is to be
made up of so divisions, so OF which
will come from the government
forces now headed by Generalissimo
Chang Kai-shek and the remainder
from the Communist armies. Taken
as whole. this reorganized and
unified force will number in the
neighborhood Of 100000 men, as
against the present divided force of
about 100000 Communist troops
and 100000 government troops.
On paper at least, wholly apart
from the fact that it promises to
give China a more efficient military
machine, the agreement thus imple-
ments the Communist -Chungking
truce to a point where the Chinese
people can enjoy a substantial hope
that the factional strife which has
torn their land for almost 20 years
may now be permanently ended and
that they will be able to get on
with the task of reconstruction and
modernization. There could be no
such hope while two rival armed
forces existed in the country, but
now that these forces have pledged
themselves to unity, the prospect
has frightened markedly.
1t remains to be seen, of course.
whether the pledge will be faithfully
adhered to and whether Russia's
enigmatic policy in Manchuria might
not In some way upset it. At the
moment, however, taken at face
value, it seems highly encouraging.
In the opinion of General Marshall,
who played the major role in effect
Ing the agreement and who is one
of its signers as special United States
envoy, it represents the hope of
China" and if small groups of ir-
reconcilables" do not wreck it, it can
go far in helping the Chinese people
to satisfy their overwhelming de-
sire for the right to live in peace
and prosperity"
At any rate, given a new measure
OF unity in the military sphere.
China should have a much better
chance to achieve the political unity
which it seeks. There is no guaran-
tee, to be sure, that everything will
work out as hoped. but the agree
nent on TIL armed forces certainly