OCR Text |
Show General ! HUGH S. JOHNSON Washington, D. C. WAR PROPAGANDA ' Never in our history has there been such open propaganda for of- tensive action that would makeunavoid-able makeunavoid-able our prompt involvement in-volvement in war on the other side of the world war indeed over a range at least as wide as the vast 1 stretch from th Straits of Malacca to the straits of Dover, j It might be wider. ' If we enter this war Gen. Johnson on the side of England, Eng-land, whatever we call ourselves we shall be her ally. We must fight wherever defeat threatens, or victory vic-tory beckons. It now seems quite probable that the direction of the war has turned from westward to southeastward. New Theaters threaten in the Mediterranean, Medi-terranean, the Balkans, perhaps Persia, the Persian gulf and even unto India. That is the British domain on which "the sun never sets." Propagandists Propa-gandists now openly say that to preserve pre-serve democracy on earth we must preserve the British empire. Perhaps Per-haps the millions of conquered and exploited black people in Africa and brown people in Asia and Malaysia are their idea of democracy; but to try to push this great, powerful and peaceful nation into wars to protect such foreign possessions is hysteria that has broken all bonds of reason. These war-minded men advance measures which could take us into such remote and sterile fields as "defense of America." lhey say that the Atlantic and Pacific oceans are no longer barriers of defense, but avenues of attack. Since Hitler can't cross twenty-odd miles of the British channel to get at Britain with a land army, it is a safe bet that he doesn't turn up his nose at the Atlantic At-lantic ocean, even if these potential architects of their country's disaster do so every day in their war dancing danc-ing madness. If we push our belated defense preparations on land and seas as rapidly as possible, the chance of our involvement in bloody war, no matter what may come, is too remote re-mote to consider. The catastrophe of our involvement involve-ment in war would not be merely the bloody loss and danger to life and limb. It would immediately adjourn ad-journ our free democracy for a war dictatorship. It would permanently adjourn our free economic system of private ownership and liberty of en-1 en-1 terprise by so burdening it with additional ad-ditional debt and taxes that the gov- ernment would control all private property and absorb all private income in-come in the United States. ST. LAWRENCE WATERWAY The senate has twice refused to ratify the St. Lawrence waterway. It never was and never will be a waterway project. It is a power project It was called a shipway to fool the Middle West Actually a 10,000 cubic foot diversion into the Mississippi from Lake Michigan which was bargained for with Canada Can-ada in the boundary waters treaty for the Chicago Drainage canal has already al-ready been largely surrendered. That greatly helped low water navigation navi-gation in the Mississippi. Its surrender sur-render hurt every Mississippi valley state far more than the St. Lawrence Law-rence can ever help them. The plea was "Great Lakes navigation." navi-gation." The facts were that inexpensive inex-pensive works in the lake outlets could have raised their levels 10 times the amount that diversion lowered low-ered them. The motive was not navigation but power and, in that particular case, private power at Niagara Falls. SHADES OF TEXAS GUINAN "Hello, suckers!" So Texas Guinan used to greet her guests in her high-class honky-tonk, where she sold them champagne which they knew to be faked from apple cider, at prices which they knew to be multiplied. She fleeced them out- rageously in many other obvious ways from the moment they gave their wraps to the hat girl to the instant in-stant of their departure. She was rolling them, but made no effort to conceal that process of her methods of doing it Texas Guinan was tops in invent- ing and putting over attractive fakes. She glorrM in being able to do that even while laughing openly at the weakness of their deception and the incredible gullibility of the suckers who swallowed them, paid through the nose for them, and clamored for more. GOVERNMENT SPENDING Some time before the effort to protect pro-tect ourselves at a cost of billions. Assistant Secretary of Slate Adolf Berle boldly told the Senate O'Ma-honey O'Ma-honey business-baiting committee that increase in federal debt and taxes would inevitably result in final federal ownership and operation of I all private property. The job was one-third complete before the "national "na-tional defense" spenciir.g bigan. When the new "national defense" taxes and restrictions are fully applied ap-plied it will be Bt least two thirds |