Lincoln Journal Star from Lincoln, Nebraska • Page 6

fe lu.at.iitt), January 1, Liening Journal and State Journal Editorial Comment and Opinion The Rosenbergs as Attempting the Imponible The Communist party is in bad shape in the United States. Its leadership is in jail. Its spies are being run out of the federal government and world organizations, and the future for such penetration is pretty bleak at this point. It his lost membership and is having great difficulty in recruiting new comrades. These blights have fallen on fifth column in this country just at the time when its masters in Moscow are calling for special subversive effort.

Analysis of the current situation, to which Time Magazine devotes more than a page in its current issue, is good reading for loyal Americans. But they afford to be lulled into false security. For even while being harassed, the Communists have managed to create scores of new front organizations, among them its National Committee to Secure Justice for the Rosenbergs. That committee is hard at work on a propaganda campaign, and its is important that the people of this country understand this for what it is, and realize its purposes and implications. Historic experience with such agitations makes it certain that the Communist party has no interest whatever in the Rosenbergs as persons.

They are to be exploited as martyrs, and nothing would be more disconcerting to world Communism than to see them spared. Behind the iron cuttain, to curry favor with the Moslem peoples, Communism is anti-Semitic. But in the United States it poses as a friend to all minority groups, the Jews included. A campaign to save the Rosenbergs fits its duplicity to a and for that reason will be exploited to the utmost. It provides a rallying activity for the comrades in which they can engage in without running afoul of American law, and like any other organization that party thrives on activity.

It trurns up a lot of prospective recruits for the party and gives it a chance to strike a humanitarian pose and put its opponents in a bad light. The pose is phony, but will hive its appeal. Does anyone relish executing the Rosenbergs? Communism will try to exploit the belief of free people that there is special virtue in open discussion, by claiming there are two sides to this case. Let Americans remember that these two persons were convicted in American courts, the fairest anywhere, of stealing atomic secrets and giving them to the enemy, and their appeals to higher courts failed to overturn the sentence of death. Let them identify such campaigns as attempts to addle a free brains so the country can be enslaved.

A MOMENT'S THOUGHT I Kings 3: 9 Gire therefore thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and had: for who it aide judge this thy stt great a pettple? by Rev. Cecil B. cen, Bryan Methodist Church. It Could Be a Bluff-But Much water has flowed under the bridge since Bret Harte tendered the proposition that ways that are dark and tricks that are vain, the heathen Chinee is We speak of them in those terms any more, even that deplorable term have disappeared, happily. And we are slowly beginning to notice that on occasion anybody can be peculiar, and often is.

What dragged up this demoded reference was the announcement by the Chinese Reds that they plan to, open a on Sunday next. Their commander send a note to the U.N. commanders; the announcement went out over radio, in a voice. Allied officers immediately said they took it for a bluff, based on the theory that South Koreans might be susceptible to such propaganda. Eighth Army spokesmen found it doubtful that the Reds would telegraph their punches if an offensive was actually on the agenda.

They could be so wrong. South Koreans are susceptible to propaganda. So are North Koreans. So are Chinese. It was the last-named who more than once have rushed into battle screaming and blowing horns, exactly as Genghis tribesmen did, centuries ago.

Who was the most terrified is an open question. The sheer illogic of the maneuver is calculated to make Aryan blood run cold. And even if Allied commanders wish to seem impressed by the heralding of trouble, they going to brush it off, be assured. And Now in Nebraska The governor of Illinois made headlines a week ago when he appointed a Negro to be safety director for that Now comes Governor-elect Crosby of Nebraska with a comparable appointment, that of Arthur B. McCaw of Omaha as budget director.

Negro legislators are frequently elected in this state, but no one remembers a of that race holding a state job comparable to the one offered McCaw. It will pay him 6,000 a year, and he qualified for it by long service with the as- sesor and the tax appraisal board of Douglas county. This makes another news story for Communist propagandists to keep their people from hearing about, lest they get ideas in their heads about life in the U.S.A. Joseph and Steuart Aisop Danger Point for Ike J. AI sop NEW Eisenhower administration is going to be predominantly a administration, and this can be one of the healthiest and most hopeful aspects of the new era.

Nonetheless, after having a good look at the way the new administration is taking shape, it seems prudent to point out a serious danger that may lie ahead. The best way to suggest the nature of the danger is to point out what has happened in Britain. Business influence in British politics was a more gradual and later growth than in America. The government of Neville Chamberlain was the first, and last, British government truly dominated by businessmen. From every standpoint, there are real rtjks as well as great resons for hope, in decision to form a administration.

The fact needs to be noted now, even before the administration has had a chance to try its hand, because one can already see a pretty sharp division of opinion about policy priorities. With one group of Eisenhower's new men, the domestic economy comes first; with another, the perils of the world situation are given first consideration. The division declared itself on board the Helena, when Eisenhower was returning from Korea. Naturally enough, the incoming Secretary of the Treasury, George Humphrey, stood forward as the champion of the domestic economy; while the future Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, argued that it was no use safeguarding the domestic economy while allowing the world situation to go to pot. This is, of course, the psychological point on which President-elect Eisenhower has got to assert his authority to Congress.

If he vigorously insists that all real foreign and defense requirements must be met in full, he will carry the day and establish his authority for a long time to come. If he seeks to appease the Republican isolationist faction of Congress, they will run away with the budget, and with American foreign and domestic policy too. These facts of political life are not apparent to ail of new advisors. Many of them exaggerate the sums that can be saved by economical administration, and underrate the time it takes to sweat off fat without losing muscle. Meanwhile, John Foster Dulles is reported to be arguing that it can be disastrous if this country merely seems to shrink back from its world responsibilities.

Dulles is right that the slightest hint of American retreat can cause the Western alliance to The worst aspect of the whole situation is the time factor. Given time, such able men as future Secretary of the Treasury Humphrey would learn soon enough, by hard and even bruising contacts with world fact, about the necessary priorities between national survival and a lower national tax bill. But there is no time. In these circumstances, one can only place faith in the proven wisdom of the man who must make the ultimate D. Eisenhower.

Walter Lippmann Language of Diplomacy In his response to remarks Mr. Dulles followed the advice of the young lieutenant leading a patrol who, in one of Jim stories, told his men play it Mr. Dulles said all that he had to say briefly and promptly, and he said it sensibly and suitably as a seasoned statesman can who is known to be so little naive that he has no compulsion to beat his breast, and to declare bygad that he is not going to be taken in by old trick. Stalin, who is so Inaccessible that few Ambassadors Lippmana in Moscow are ever able to talk with him at all. likes at rare interval's to speak over the heads of governments.

In form and style these utterances are unlike anything to which mankind has listened attentively since the priestess on her tripod at Delphi delivered the oracles. The Greeks then, as we today, found the prophecies also because they could mean so many different things. The rule at Delphi was the same as the rule now at the Kremlin for American journalists: the suppliants at the shrine were answered when they asked a question that the oracle wished to answer. is, therefore, literally impossible to tell from answers what he has in hri mind. He has made similar utterances before.

Once, but I think only once, something concrete and Important followed: the negoUgUoDS that lad t(Mhe lifting of the Christian Science Monitor Berlin blockade. From the others nothing memorable has come. There is, therefore, no telling which of these occasional interviews is intended to bring about a negotiation and which is for propaganda. It is as impossible to tell as it is to say whether the next flip of the coin will be heads or tails. Since it can be either, there is no point in guessing which it is going to be.

Tne right way to play this strange game is to wait politely, as Mr. Dulles is doing, to see what the coin shows, when it is flipped. Though it was to be expected of Eisenhower and Dulles, it is a good thing that this first official action in foreign in the polite language of diplomacy. at There are the most excellent reasons why a government, no matter how much it is maligned and provoked, should never descend below a certain level of formality and politeness when it is addressing another government. The polite and formal language of diplomacy can, and across the centuries it has, expressed any view or sentiment that one government needed to express to another.

It was the business of the diplomat to defend and promote the interests of his country at the least possible cost. It was the business cf the diplomat to make it easier to stop the lighting when he was unable to prevent it. For this the formal and polite language of diplomacy is highly serviceable. It carries with it always the implication and the reminder, even in the full violence of war, that the forms of peaceable intercourse are being preserved and that they wUI outlast the struggle. MORE OR LESS PERSONAL A Chat with the EDITOR ilh the "time for a change in Washing- ttm only 19 auay, there is one consideration of which, I feet the incoming tiisen- Imwer administration needs to be reminded.

A This is its opportunity, which the election merely opened up and did not clinch, to capture the imagination and the loyalties of the millions of younger people whose concept of citizenship has been two decades of the and Fair Deals. The other afternoon I was visiting with a bright young citizen who was all on fire with the chance which now presents itself for young people in Nebraska to try to rebuild the two-party system in Nebraska by injecting new life in the The Challenge Democratic Party. So long as the Democrats Of I out II were in power nationally, this young man felt that the party organization in the state was reasonably content, although its leaders would never say so, for the Republicans to continue to fill state offices and the seats in Congress, That way the party did not have to share their influence in Washington, not to mention patronage, with Nebraska Democratic officeholders. Now the situation has changed, and this young man to some extent I the grip of the had been broken. While we were visiting it struck me that this young enthusiasm was the kind which the new Hepublican administration would need to enlist if it were to confirm for a reasonable length of time its victory at the polls last fall.

Twenty years ago an incoming administration caught the imagination of the youth by succeeding in convincing them that it was receptive to new ideas. That many of these ideas were tragically wrong to begin with, and that others proved wrong in the trying, is now a documented chapter in American history. Nevertheless, it took twenty years to check and reverse the direction of national life, because a party and administration succeeded in capturing the spirit of youth, which is forever restless, forever eager to be on the move, forever idealistic, and forever unwilling to consider ideals unattainable. iji To capture this same spirit in behalf of an enlightened conservatism will be required of the Eisenhower administration if it is to be more than a four year interlude and breathing spell in a leftward drift. So far the President-elect has moved in many things with an electrifying promptness and sureness which already has inspired a confidence in his leadership that the American people have not felt regarding their national leadership for years.

And it is expecting too much to Suggest that in the scant, busy weeks before taking office he could do more than merely set up the bare framework of the machinery by which he will exercise responsibility after Jan. 20. But this reminder needs ever to be kept before the Republican Party as It moves into its role of responsibility: That to restore honesty in government will not be enough, if a sense of direction is lacking. To check a trend will not be enough, if that means mere negativism in government. To clean up the mess, to trim expenses, to reduce waste, to restore and exalt the old-time virtues, will not any of these be enough, if a generation of younger people who registered their disillusion last November cannot also come to feel that new 1 ideas and constructive pioneering for the betterment of social and political institutions are welcome.

That new ideas must be subject to more exacting tests and more truly fit the principles of heritage of freedom than many of the so-called new ideas which characterized the New and Fair Deals, is of course the basic promise of the Republican victory, which must be fulfilled. Rut, thus tested, they must he welcomed if conservatism is to be a way of life commanding the allegiance and enthusiasm of the millions of young people who cast their tentative votes for it last fall. 4. JR. Phoenix Flame Daffynitions Journalist: A newspaperman who takes his hat off while typing.

Infant Prodigy: kid with highly imaginative parents. Knight: One-man tank during the middle ages. Public Mind are not printed. will published a pea name nr ta- only If accompanied br the name and for tbe information bat ate of pen name not permitted nr pertaining to or to Imlividnal The short letter the mod likely to Ire printed, the editor the rinht to edit ail tetters as to length. Crosby Appointments LINCOLN I have been sadly disappointed in some of the appointments made by our new Gov.

Robert Crosby. It seems unfortunate that the must prevail in our state, giving appointments to your political friends. The prize of all is the recent appointment of James Kopetka to be the secretary. People in both parties will undoubtedly recognize Kopetka as the man who was in the front ranks leading the campaign for Democrat Albin Anderson for the Senate in 1948, and they will also remember that he was at that time chairman, and treasurer of the Lancaster County Young Democrats organization. What of the promises made during the campaign by Gov.

Crosby that he would have a and that he would appoint for his staff members? DAVID CALLAND Books Readers Like Best Texas Longhorn Steer Each week a survey is made among readers of the Saturday Review of lAterature to find out what hoffks they are readinja, and which they like best. The following column a weekly feature of The lAncoln Journal's editorial page is based on the results of that poll. Lincoln Evening Journal and Nebraska State Journal Founded in 1867 Entered at the Postoffice In Lincoln Nebraika aa aeeond claRs mall, for transmission through tbe malls. Published each week day Dy the Journal-Star Prtntina Co. 900-926 Street, Lincoln, Nebraska.

Awarded Pulitzer Prize the most disinterested and meritorious public service by any American newspaper during 1948.u C. H. Gere, Publisher 1867-1904 C. Seacrest 1904-1942 Fred S. Seacrest Joe W.

Seacrest Both 110.00 6.26 2.78 MEMBER OF THE ASSOCIATED PRESS The Associated Preea la entitled exclusively to the use for re publication of all I oca I news printed la this newspaper, as wall as all AP newa dispatches. PRICE B7 MAIL In Nebraska and Northern Kansas Dally Per 00 $6.00 Six 2 75 Three Months 1.56 175 9 vtk 1.00 wR 1 00 9M, wk. 2.00 To othei states i.V a week 30c a week, both 45c a week price bv carrier in incoln or to vacation aooiess Dally week, Sunday week Huudaya 55c) to tbs people of Nebraska and to davelopmei of the resources of the atate," Sept. JMV' Is No Like Highway Clearing think something should be said about the wonderful job of cleaning Highway 6 between Exeter and Hastings. Nebraska sure did a good cut it clean to the pavement.

Somebody was on the job. But it seem strange in the same state on this end the highway was in a shameful, rotten condition? In plain words, from Emerald to Exeter, it was full of snowholes and car grooves. I drove over it Dec. 24 and I was ashamed of my state. There is no excuse for that.

There could have been if it had drifted, but a level snow fell. The kind of equipment the state has sure could clean a few inches of snow. I understand there was the same condition between Lincoln and Ashland. We drove 300 miles and see one patrol car. I think they knew how the roads were and want to get on them.

Some cars were in ditches and needed help. Not even a danger sign at night was on such roads. I hope our next governor of Nebraska will check that State House from top to bottom and see who is on the job and who The taxpayers have a right to know where all the money is going with so little results as they foot the bill. It is time each, citizen speaks up. When people travel through our state they should know if they are on a State highway or a cornfield.

We had a good road program a couple of years ago, which was out because people know whether they were voting for or against it. The ballot worded right. Some people understand. I think the people will pay for good roads and their upkeep. But they just like to be pushed around without results.

ARTHUR LARSON Holiday Mockery many places I have seen the sign that last one for the road a cup of How can this be when they have it in saloons as well? It makes a mockery out of Christmas and New Years when they are allowed to stay open on yearly holidays as this. It is to be a day of rest for the nation. Sundays, saloons and liquor stores are closed but a yearly Respected holiday as Christmas they stay open. Why? Christmas means a day of rest nationally, for you, yours and those missing in torn countries. Respect our freedom of speech and religion.

Think of this and Christmas will have more meaning for you. MRS. RAY ZERNECHEL National Debts KIRKWOOD, have been watching the papers for some months, trying to learn the amount of interest-bearing debts in our nation. On Sept. 22 last the St.

Louis Post-Dispatch published a report of the Department of Commerce that gave some startling facts. This report showed the total debts at the end of 1951 to be $519 billion and stated the debts increased to the amount of $33 billion through the year 1951. The net debt of the government was given as $218,700,000,000, which was explained to be all the government owed except the debts of government agencies and corporations, so the total was $49 Ve billion greater than shown, and if the increase has been as great during! this year as during 1951, then the total indebtedness is now more than $600 billions, just about $16,000 for every family in the There is no method by which these 1 debts can be paid. If the interest averages 314 per cent, it requires $20 billion to pay one interest. When privately owned banks were authorized to issue their notes as money, this condition was inevitable.

The greatest mystery to me is why voters will go to the polls and vote for men and political parties who enact and maintain the legislation that makes this condition inevitable. If there was a political party that would sponsor a legislative program of decentralizing the wealth of our nation and authorizing the government to take over the Federal Reserve Banks in the interest of the public, I believe we could yet save our nation from the disastrous fate that overtook Rome. This government has printed $26 billion of money for the Federal Reserve Banks at a cost of 55 cents per of cent per bill, no bills less than $5. Formerly the cost was of one cent per bill. The stock of these banks is owned by the member banks, is exempt from all taxation, national, state and local, and draws 6 per cent annual The banks that own the stock 1 have drawn this dividend (or it is due them) amounting to times the total amount they paid for their stock when the Federal Reserve Banks opened in 1914.

This payment will continue as long as 1 these banks remain privately owned. It takes $15,000,000 to pay a dividends. JOHN lu TALBOTT Edited by WILLIAM D. PATTERSON The Lincoln Journal Saturday Review of Literature Book Service resembles a Texas longhorn steer in size and subtlety, but it also has much of the power, pace and fascination of those legendary creatures. Appropriately enough, Edna newest novel is about a modern legend, Texas, which itself is issued almost in an enlarged and revised version.

So it could do no less than stand out like a yscraper on a flat Texas plain last week in The Satur- a list of books being most widely read and enjoyed throughout the country. Other titles included in the list were: Old Man and the by Ernest A superb, completely absorbing story of a battle between an old man and a big fish. Big by Frederick Lewis Allen (Harper). The formidable changes in American life since 1900 are discussed perceptively, informatively and provocatively. Wonderful by Tom Lea (Little, Brown).

A fine novel of life along the Mexican-Texan border by the author of Brave by Pierre La Mure (Random House). The gay, sorid, pathetic life of a genius, painter Toulouse-Lautrec, is the subject of this readable novel. of by John Steinbeck (Viking). EDNA FERBER A moving, massive story of America that is probably the finest. by Tallulah Bankhead (Harper).

An autobiography that lives up to the iridescent reputation of the glamorous actress who is both subject and author. SOMEONE RECENTLY SAID about the fantastic growth of television that is impossible to lie about TV fast enough to keep up with the That might just as aptly be said about Texas, the reception that Texans have given Miss book, with their outcries of exaggeration, mythology and to the contrary. Perhaps the novel is not a true history, but it is a roaring good story with many elements of folk truth in it if we are to believe any of those tall tales Texans have been telling the world with such understandable pride all these years. The heart of the book finds its life on a huge, even a king-size, ranch owned by Bick Benedict, whose bride moves there from her gentle, aristocratic home in Virginia with a mixed sense of adventure and trepidation. Her struggle to find her place among the tough-bred Benedicts with their millions of dusty acres, and her influence on their lives and attitudes provide much of the drama and meaning of the novel.

SF.E LIVES AMONG giant-size stereotypes familiar to all fans of Texas, including, besides her husband with a ranch the size of an empire, the ruthless, reckless oil king and hotel proprietor, Jett Rink, who went from ragged poverty to fantastic wealth in a few years of wildcatting for oil. While Miss Ferber concerns herself chiefly with multimillionaires, she also touches seriously upon the problem of discrimination against Mexicans and the struggle of men and cattle to cope with the harsh terrain and climate. This book is the work of a skilled storyteller, and although it does not rise to any great heights of historical insight or fresh interpretation of the impact of the huge space and wealth of Texas upon its inhabitants, it rewards one well. Even Texans are reading it avidly, if angrily. So why the citizens of the lesser 47 states? Readers are invited to submit their inquiries on books.

These will be answered for Journal readers by the editors of the Saturdaw Review of Literature. Address Books, Lincoln Journal. Margaret Chase Smith Some New Resolutions New Year to you! May 1953 be the best year yet in your life and in the life of our country. May it be the greatest year of peace in the history of the world. May our lives return to at least relatively normal and peaceful existence.

I mean by that that we should return to the past and the old because we do that, and there is no reason why we should want to look back over our shoulders as we march forward. Certainly there are some things of the past that we want to look back to or go back things that we hope will not happen in 1953 or things that we can correct or eliminate. Therefore, New Day is more a day of hope for the future than melancholy for the past. It is true that there are certain factory in life over which we have no that these factors can do much to bring us either sorrow or happiness regardless of what we do. But it is equally true that our lives are what we make them and that if we try hard enough and have the right spirit we can find happiness for ourselves and can give happiness to others.

I think that is one thing that each of us should remember when we say Happy New Year there is real meaning to what Smith we is, if we want to give real meaning to that word in this greeting. New is not just a catch phrase or just the orthodox saying that one automatically goes through every Jan. 1. That is, it these meaningless things unless we make it that. The words New have no real warmth unless they come from deep down they mean, do wish with all my heart a very happy new year for Of course, today is also a traditional day of resolutions.

Some cynics say, are made only to be Some people say that they make resolutions simply because they know they keep them. a sort of moral laziness. It is probable that most of us at some time will break some of the resolutions that we make today. But merely because there is the chance that we may do so is no reason why we make them. Certainly, there is some gain if we make a good resolution and keep to it the greater part of the year.

That is better than not making any resolution There are many resolutions that we all could make, not from a sanctimonious standpoint only but from the standpoint of the observance of such resolutions bringing us happiness and happiness to those with whom we come in contact. We can resolve to be kinder, more considerate, quicker in showing our appreciation, slower to complain, listen more to the other fellow and talk less about ourselves, disagree agreeably and courteously. ROBERTS. ALLEN Report, Navy Studies Blockade for China Coast Navy has prepared for President-elect Eisenhower a detailed study on the dynamite-loaded question of imposing a blockade of the coast of Red China. Author of the highly significant document is Adm.

Arthur Radford, Commander of the Pacific Fleet and chief advocate of the blockade. Radford conferred with Eisenhower several times during his Far Eastern trip. The new President was much impressed with the naval leader and the plans he proposed for exerting on the Communists in order to induce them to come to terms on Korea. Radford stressed that the long Chinese coastline and the lack of a navy are their Achilles heel. His memorandum, which will be transmitted to Eisenhower after he takes office through the Joint Chiefs of Staff, carefully analyzes all the factors that would be involved in a naval blockade.

Publishable highlights of this study, about which a lot will be heard later, are as follows: should be understood that the imposition of a naval blockade is a belligerent right and implies the existence of a state of war. A blockade must be limited to the ports and coast belonging to or occupied by an enemy; but a blockade must not bar access to neutral ports or coast. However, it must be applied equally to the ships of all nations. Allen following commodities, which are essential to war economy, would be seriously interfered with by a naval rubber, petroleum and petroleum products, industrial chemicals, pharmaceuticals, machine tools, machinery, industrial and automative parts, metals and electrical equipment. the economy of China is mainly rural and operates at bare subsistence level, the urban and military segments of the economy are largely dependent on overseas trade and to a lesser extent on coastal trade and are, therefore, particularly vulnerable to a blockade.

The cutting off of trade on which the urban centers depend would create widespread unemployment and luirest and thus hinder industrial production. blockade to be completely successful should cut off all access to vital strategic materials and equipment. It would be impossible to stop the flow of materials overland from Russia. Russia has a capacity of making available to China some materials of war and essentials of industry. But for Russia to supply China completely would involve an extensive dislocation of Russian economy as well as being extremely costly.

would very probably demand unimpeded access to Port Arthur and Dairen, over which it exercises military rights and other privileges under the Sino-Soviet treaties. However, since power is the final arbiter in international law, any blockade is fraught with problems if objected to by neutrals willing to use power. There Oughta Be a Law! just a jerh. SADDLED WITH ALL THE OIRTV WORK! -By Fagaty and Shorten HEM ENTERS POP, WHEN FEELINGS ZERO, WITH A TWO-BIT TOV AND HEV THE HERO!.