The Daily Alaska empire., 1949-09-28
THESE DAYS
GEORGE E. SOKOLSKY
R Y

GOVERNMENT BY HYSTERIA
 It used to be that when poli- tician wanted to remain in public office, he tried to produce rec ord of his singular perfections. He listed his achievements; he propos- ed grandiose program for their continuance; and he damned his opponents.
 Now it is different. The politic- ian creates an emergency and de- velops an hysteria His object is to convince the people that he alone can meet the evils that are yet to come. These instruments in any other hands, opined MT. Roose- welt, would be shackles upon the American people. Why only in other hands he did not say. When one looks back upon the emergen- cies that MT Roosevelt fathered, they seem indeed to be puny little tales, hardly believable by an adult and mature people. But they were believed and Congress voted ac- cordingly
 I MT. Truman is not so good at emergencies because he obviously does net believe most of them him. self He is not so good at the whopper and somehow lets himself be found out. The result is that people do not get as excited as they did over MT. Roosevelt's sim ulated hysteria. They take Tru- man with a grain of salt. And Congress votes accordingly.
 Now, Roosevelt would have hand led the atomic hysteria much bet ter than Truman did. He would have prepared the scene. There would have been an announcement a day or so ahead that the Presi- dent would make an important statement to Congress at one o'clock on Friday. The four net works would throw their soap box operas into the suds and would give their time to the President. Television would plant itself squarely in the Capitol. Impor- tant leaks would go around to fav- ored columnists. Steve Early would look like the cat that swallowed the canary By that time, the peo- pie would have been ready for anything.
 Then would come the speech, a masterpiece written by Sam Rosen- man and Robert Sherwood. The speech would tell of the wonders of Roosevelt's knowledge of what was going on in the world, as only Roosevelt. could tell it. He would approve of science as only the Lord himself could sanction virtue He would glorify the Geiger counter, the seismograph and the clouds that carry dust. Then he would let the cat out of the bag. And tele- vision would produce Hail to the Chief" with staccato announcements by trained baritones. The country would be agog with hysteria.
 Harry Truman; bless his heart, is made of less scenario stuff. He let his story out just in time to get his military aid program through Congress and to give the newspaper pages of guesses and photographs over the weekend. Why he chose this particular week. end is his secret, but there is no hysteria. Somehow, everyone ac- cepted the assumption that soon- CT or later the Russians would get the bomb by scientific experi- mentation or expert thievery. For months now the people have been. fed on the details of such thievery in the Alger Hiss and Judith Coplon trials and also in the persistent details of the House Committee on Un-American Activ- ities. It is really remarkable that the Russians were not able to get from the State Department fully manufactured bomb, transporter to the Kremlin in the Sacred Cow. We gave them about everything else, and the FBI as forbidden to