Evening star., 1949-02-03
Letters to The Star

Letters tC
Stalin's Good Faith Doubted
| To the Editor of The Star:
Kingsbury Smiths questions to Joseph Stain
were sent at most inopportune moment and
are bound to do us and our allies harm
Mr. Smiths approach without question Is
being viewed by the Kremlin bosses as sign
of weakness on our part, as our coming hat
in hand to beg for settlement. am sure this
is the way it will be presented to the Soviet
and satellite peoples. The Soviet government
knows that it needs peace more than we do.
Having just swallowed China, with unrest brew
ing in the satellite states, with the Soviet
forests on the western borders tean1ing with
thousands of partisans seeking to END the
Soviet nightmare, Stain needs long respite
to digest his victims
Hence it is Stain who should take the initi-
| ative. If he is sincere about wanting con-
ference, he should come to our shores as did
Presidents Roosevelt and Truman when in
order to accommodate Stain, they Travelled
to Teherap Yalta and Potsdam.
Enough of bowling our heads to a totalitarian
government which knows no friendship de-
cency, ethics or reciprocity and will give none.
Upon analyzing Stalin's answers one finds
that all he actually did say in reply to Mr..
Smiths questions was that there is no OBJ
lection to meeting" This is neither new nor
does it indicate any serious desire to meet
with clean hands.
Ano yet some of us are ignorant or gullible
enough to hail this as "a moye in the right
directon"-a wishful thought expressed by
our U. N. delegate Warren r. Austin.
If a meeting should ever result from this
or similar approaches, it will prove COM
plete flasco, unless We are prepared to sur
render our liberties to the man who has proven
throughout the period of his autocratic rule
to be uncompromising in his determination
to force Red fascism upon the rest of the
world. j. ANTHONY MARCUS.
Revitalizing the Republican Party
To the Editor of The Star:
The Republican Party decided at its stormy
meeting at Omaha to 60 ahead with the pro-
posed Republican policy conference. The pur-
pose OF this conference, as announced by its
progenitor, Philip Willkie, would be to 'revital-
ize" the party so that it could become a winner
again after five successive presidential defeats.
Such goal never will be achieved unless the
delegates to the conclave are chosen wisely.
The Republican Party, unfortunately, in the
people. If last November proved anything it
demonstrated the conviction of the American
public that the COP had lost the common
touch. In Harry Truman, the voters saw their
John Doe.
To regain public confidence, the party must
take definite steps, in the words Of the newly
elected Senator from Maine, Margaret Chase
Smith, to follow program of moderation
with each group having fair share instead
OF unfair privileges for special groups" If this
convention is dominated by the representatives
of these special groups the Republican Party
most certainly can count on five more success
sive defeats.
After the shattering defeat in the 1896 elec-
tion at the hands of Franklin D. Roosevelt,
the Republican Party appointed Policy Com
mittee of 200 to draft platform, likewise de-
signed to "revitalize" the party. Then as now,
there was much talk of infusion of new blood"
'liberalizing,' etc, but these turned out to be
mere words. And the public was not fooled
bit
At that time a group of IL first voters tof
which this writer was one) from seven Eastern
States and Ohio all OF whom had been active
in the previous campaign, in an open letter
OF December 13, 1887, said and this applies
today more than 1t did II years ago: "The
party's leadership apparently has lost the con-
fldence of the American public completely
Vagaries, generalities, and negations have
failed to do other than convince the public that
the party has no alternative to the New Deal
dt would be the Fair Deal today and is hope
lessly reactionary. This. of course, is not true
but nothing is being done to dispel the impress
sion. The party must cease to be a closed
corporation led by the mighty if politically
impotent few and merely tolerating the masses.
ha i,,F,,~ d.,
it ."
great opportunity presents itself again but
this time failure probably means "finis" In
the selection of delegates, it might be profitable
to follow the example Of the Peoples Con-
stituent Assembly movement in England. VOL
untary, unofficial elections will be held in the
summer of 1850 by the proponents Of world
government. Every registered voter in Eng
land will be presented with a single ballot
sheet containing names of candidates who
have volunteered to stand for election and have
been screened by Parliamentary Committee
This effort hopes to persuade no less than
100000 voters (one-quarter of the popula-
tom to participate in this unofficial selection
of representatives to attend the Geneva AS
sembly.
Those who are selected by this type of
method will indeed be the voice of the people
and not the voice of the dead past The
Republican Party, if it really seeks revitaliza-
lion, must choose some similarly popular method
of infusing new, liberal and common blood into
its veins verify it will die of political harden
ing of the arteries.
ALFRED M. LILIENTHAL
Cafeterias to Quartermaster Corps?
To the Editor OF The Star:
Now that the question of the Government
taking over the cafeterias in Government
buildings has come up, why not turn them over
to the Quartermaster Corps, which already has
the "know-how' in mass feeding, the buying
facilities and. the experience to do the job? A
comparison of the costs of meals in Army