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Show FSl WHO'S h-J NEWS this Lj J WEEK By LEMUEL F. PARTON (Consolidated Features WNU Service.) NEW YORK. Dr. Frank Kingdon resigned as president of the University of Newark to serve the cause of American unity against ic j c.vi various open 'Freedom Still and hidden Embodies Oar disruptive Hope and Faith forces Cer-tain Cer-tain industrialists industri-alists have become dollar-a-year men for military rearmament Dr. Kingdon is perhaps the first man to give up his job to work for intellectual intellec-tual rearmament. With others, he built the Citizenship Educational Service to advance tolerance, cooperation co-operation and all-around American solidarity. Theodore Roosevelt is its chairman and Dr. Kingdon is educational director. "American Unity" was the subject of Dr. Kingdon' s address before the Institute of Public Affairs at Charlottesville, Char-lottesville, Va., recently. A few days ago. this writer happened to be pres- ent when Dr. Kingdon was conversing convers-ing with a New York citizen of distinction dis-tinction and influence who maintained main-tained that democracy was both decadent de-cadent and impotent. In his Charlottesville Char-lottesville address, Dr. Kingdon said: "The other day, I was arguing with a self-confessed Fascist. 1 happened to use the word freedom. free-dom. He immediately scoffed, saying, 'Freedom for what? Freedom to be unemployed? Freedom to starve?' He knew that the word was one of the signal words of human history. He could not meet it squarely. So he tried to tie it up with all kinds of other words having unpleasant un-pleasant definitions in order to destroy its own appeal by transferring trans-ferring to it their dismay. His was a deliberate effort to empty of meaning a word that is packed with hope and faith. His performance was typical of the , planned and concerted attempt I to destroy the foundations of our thought so that we shall crumble before a vigorous onslaught from the cause with which he has allied himself." In the above address Dr. Kingdon King-don assays such words as Christianity, Christi-anity, freedom, religion, propaganda, propagan-da, isolation, in the interest of tolerance tol-erance and unity. Such is one of the unique endeavors of the Citizenship Citizen-ship Educational Service. Dr.. Kingdon, tall, urbane schoolman school-man and cleric, was born in London and came to this country in 1912, at the age of 17. He was educated at University College school, London, Lon-don, and Boston university. IN BRAZIL, there is a saying that President Getulio Vargas is so clever that he can take off his socks without removing his shoes. Cer- tainly some President Vargas such det pro. Of Brazil Senses cedurewasin- Direction of Wind ieated Jw,hen he eased Brazil Bra-zil noiselessly into a dictatorship in isof. currently ms swing on sterile democracy," and his indorsement of European dictatorships as "vigorous peoples fit for life" is big news in the western world, heeling quickly, as it does, the Italian aggression. There are 400,000 Germans in Brazil who have indicated similar views about "sterile democracy." President Vargas has seemed much more able and plausible than most dictators. He isn't given to casual shooting or hanging hang-ing and he says very little and this in a low voice, never in a sports palast or on a balcony. He built his 1930 campaign on a bare-knuckle fight against the "plutocratic coffee barons" of the Sao Paulo. He was badly defeated. He didn't yell, "I've been robbed," but instead gathered gath-ered a few of his old gaucho friends and quietly took over the country. For four years, he ruled by decree de-cree and then set up a liberal constitution, con-stitution, written by the national assembly. as-sembly. He proclaimed his allegiance alle-giance to liberal government and the democratic ideal. He governed effectively and is credited with having hav-ing cut down debt and upped production. pro-duction. Reared in a prairie town, he enrolled en-rolled in a military college, but was diverted to the law and, like many of our own politicians, reached the national congress, with a start as district attorney. At about two o'clock on the morning of November 10, 1937, President Vargas telephoned all the members of his cabinet and the leaders of his legislature to come to the palace immediately. They seized weapons as they dashed for their cars. The president presi-dent received them urbanely, broke out cigars and wine, chatted chat-ted a few moments and then handed them a document in which he had scrapped and fired congress, nullified existing laws and substituted his own code. There was no dissent. |