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Show BypAULMALLON Released by Western Newspaper Union, POLITICAL UNREST GROWS IN EUROPE WASHINGTON. Those senators back from Europe had far more to say than they offered in interviews. Their private reports on their quick-study quick-study of the western end of the continent con-tinent would make your ears curl. Here are some of the things they did not make public. De Gaulle is staving off an election elec-tion in France because he fears the communists will sweep him and all democrats into the discard. The impending im-pending election in the British Isles may do much to determine how she will stand against the sweeping surge, as defeat of Churchill would mean appeasement of communist expansion. He, himself, is afraid of it. Yet Churchill and De Gaulle are fighting, each other. De Gaulle ordered the Syrian shooting by his French forces because he saw Britain going back into the Middle Eafl in the old way and thought he could do the same thing. Churchill Chur-chill dislikes him and is suspicious suspi-cious of him, although the French general is probably the only remaining road-block to communism in France. De Gaulle Is existing in control only by adroit double-handed juggling of French political factions. fac-tions. The French people are not as fully filled with admiration of us as the cheering movie newsreels sometimes some-times suggest. They see American soldiers not always as their liberators libera-tors but as highly paid strangers (etrangers) who travel in jeeps while others walk, and are well-fed, while they are not. The French powers likewise resent re-sent the presence of American forces in North Africa because we tend to give the Arabs ideas of liberty which the French do not consider con-sider healthful for their colonists. Their ruined industries, shortages short-ages of materials and unbelievably extreme decay in morals are combining com-bining to break the stamina of the nation and make it an easy prey for any opposition to existing rule and the sole, present, powerful opposition op-position is the political absurdity known as communism. Their heritage runs back Into a great love of liberty as deep as our own, but they are to a considerable extent a peasant people, and therefore there-fore easily subject to harsh, disci- plined leadership of dictators. So far they have not come to that yet, but there is resignation apparent among millions of them who do not have enough to eat and not enough work. They are in the mood for subjection by any overrunning political power. In Italy, communism is much stronger than dispatches have led us to suspect. The revolutionary movement is kept down mainly by the American military force of occupation. oc-cupation. It seems to have all the political spending money there is in hand-to-hand circulation there. All the symptoms of dejected resignation resigna-tion apparent in France are also present in Italy, including the decline de-cline in morals. The Belgians and Dutch seem to have much more character, more stamina, are more insistent upon liberty and christian principles. They are trying harder to revive. Their people show less moral decay. Whether the people in Anglo-French-American Germany can be made democratic is yet unclear. They are" not only dejected but sullen and all believe they face years of dire existence as their penalty pen-alty for making war. The anti-fraternization anti-fraternization policy of General Eisenhower is likely to be changed to permit our soldiers to mingle more with them. But these areas, all of them, are in our sphere of democratic influence, influ-ence, and therefore the most favorable fa-vorable sections of the continent. The Russians have everything else in their lap (except possibly Greece, which is held on one knee, so-to-speak) and everything the Russians have is completely blacked out from the rest of the wide world. Nothing valid or penetrating is known by us of Yugoslavia, Romania, Ro-mania, Bulgaria, Austria, or Czechoslovakia, Czech-oslovakia, except that Stalin is there setting up the kind of governments he wants, and one other confirmed fact all anti-communist opposition opposi-tion is being liquidated. The Polish issue, which we discuss dis-cuss so extensively, is a minor matter mat-ter as compared with this whole of middle and southeastern Europe operating on a Russian axis. If conditions are as bad as they are known to be in our end of Europe, Eu-rope, it would be unreasonable not to suppose that they are twice as bad in the unknown poorer end. Many courses of probable action are being discussed. Anglo - French relations certainly need to be fixed at once. Rapprochement between De Gaulle and Churchill is called for. More intelligent and earnest American leadership lo back the people in Europe who like our way j of life (which was their historic war) is needed. |