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Show 1 News rjx IBehini By PaulMallon Jg?' Released by Western Newspaper Union. ALL PEOPLE OF EVERY NATION A FREE CHOICE WASHINGTON. - Mr. Stettinius' first pronouncements as state secretary secre-tary were interpreted as a poke at British policy in Italy and Greece indeed he encouraged that single-pointed single-pointed interpretation. I would not comment on that for this reason: The ultimate proof of whether the policy is just or wise cannot come until it is applied i with equal force upon Russia. If I the people of Europe Eu-rope are to have free determina-; tion, as Mr. Stet-tinius Stet-tinius says in the British case, he must always say it again, again, and again in the j Russian cases. I "6 i" -i.o Stettinius Russian cases. j Freedom from I outside interference can hardly be ' limited to Italy and Greece but must 1 be championed also for Poland, Romania, Ro-mania, Yugoslavia, even Spain. If we do not apply this policy with equal righteousness against Russian interference, the policy will simply open the way for the Communists to get control of all Europe. Through it, we would then be backing Russia by stopping stop-ping Britain. So far, frankly, we have not applied ap-plied it outspokenly or equally. We have been hesitant about Poland, wholly unconcerned about Romania, cooperative with Russia's exclusively exclusive-ly dominating -Tito in Yugoslavia, although we have kept on' oar fence in Spain. It is commentatively necessary to avoid overinterpretation of current events. For another instance of this same point, the coming of the new troupe into the state department has been interpreted by senate liberals (if you can call the always New Dealing Senator Guffey a liberal) as the advent of the rich to control of foreign affairs. Without looking below the surface, it is plain enough to see that State Secretary Stettinius has money, although al-though probably not as much as Interior In-terior Secretary Ickes has; that Will I Clayton is the world's largest cotton ! broker, that young Rockefeller, the ! grandson of the fabulous fortune, can match millions with anyone, even labor unions. Mr. Grew has the reputation of be ing America's best diplomat, a rep utation not thoroughly proved by hi! record as ambassador to Tokyo. Although he can today point back to some places in his dispatches dis-patches where he warned authorities here of a sneak Jap attack, he cannot be said to have warned them successfully, successful-ly, and the policy toward Japan we pursued during his ambassadorship ambassa-dorship can today hardly be called successful. However, Grew was not much opposed op-posed in the senate. The opposition there did not base its criticism on the ground of talent, or lack of it, but largely on the riches of Mr. ; Stettinius' choice of Clayton and Rockefeller, and the poetic aura surrounding sur-rounding one Archibald MacLeish, who is to be in charge dT publicity and cultural relations (the justification justifica-tion for this appointment apparently being that he did not get the books in the Library of Congress mixed up as he did the war propaganda and home defense at the outset of the war). ' TO ABSORB SHOCK I suspect Mr. MacLeish is just going go-ing in poetically to take the curse of riches off the department and to handle culturally the restless liberal press, until it gets over the shock. But the very first act of this new regime of riches in the state department depart-ment was to pokeBritain and issue a proclamation which favored the Russian position. If this is not enough to convince you that most of the interpretations you are hearing these days are un-thoughtful, un-thoughtful, I can furnish others. Stettinius, Clayton and Rockefeller are internationalists, a point which the liberals offered as the only true measure of liberalism in the last election. Furthermore, eastern riches and cotton brokers are always al-ways international. What in the world do the liberals think they want, or do they think? I would just as soon believe the conservatives' conserva-tives' suspicion that Mr. R. let Stettinius Stet-tinius take these men into the department de-partment with him. expecting they ! would fail, as the one Guffey is circulating. cir-culating. j The problem of a just division of power between Democratic capitalists capital-ists of varying hues and Communist-radicals Communist-radicals of varying hues m world governments, probably cannot be solved permanently. There will be more "revolutions." . I But there is a ground of self-de-'termination of peoples upon which we can safely stand, and it will be just if we apply its restrictions ; upon Russia as well as Britain, and defend that position to get free franchises no matter what the result. re-sult. The politics of this war are not clear cut. I |