Pittsburgh Post-Gazette from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania • Page 10

The Church-Goers Sharpshooter By Hungerford flittsburgh osl-(BmtUe Urtt Ntwtpaptr Wnt ct ti Alleghtnien Cuettt Eitablished 1786: Post Established 1842; Combined 1927 'ACL BLOCK, PUBLISHER, 1927-1941 Today and Tomorrow Could FDR Have Followed Any Other Course at Yalta? By Walter Lippmann WASHINGTON. April 7 In the preceding article April 5J I said that the key to Yalta was tn 1 WILLIAM BLOCK and PALL BLOCK. Fabliiheri Andrew Bernhard, Editor Nlcoll. Associate Publisher; Leslie C. Macphereon, Managing Editor; Joseph Shuman.

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TfctfcPHONE NUMBERS For Want Ads Only, Express 1-1475 Ail other departments, ATlantlc 1-6100. FRIDAY, APRIL 8, 1955 tne position j' his opposition to Democratic tax cut efforts; that recent Republican partisan moves, presumably, such as the release of the Yalta papers, automatically lessen Democratic co-operation. But beyond these considerations, there is the obvious fact that whenever the shoe of freer trade pinches, the anguished protests are out of all proportion to the actual pain inflicted. Those who have a vested interest in keeping tariff barriers up are well organized and highly vocal. The general citizenry, hearing of industries damaged and jobs lost, frequently does not grasp the picture entire nor understand that tariff "protection," unless wisely and moderately used, can do America more harm than good in terms of: Increased consumer costs; Loss of export markets, as foreign nations erect similar barriers against United States products; Damage to the economies of allied nations, which United States taxpayers have been at such expense to strengthen; Injury to national security by turning foreign trade into undesirable channels; And, finally, loss of American prestige through failure to practice the competitive doctrine which we loudly preach to others.

he believed in them. Churchill certainly did not believe they would be honored. Yet what, I wonder, could have been done differently? They could not compel Stalin to go home, taking his army with him. Quite the contrary. At the time of Yalta we etill wanted the Red Army to keep on advancing to the West, not that it should halt or pull back.

So what we were faced with at Yalta was how to make good our principles in territory that Stalin held. Stalin had the power to act we had only the power to argue. If Roosevelt was wronc in thinkini? hp rouirf reached the Red Army at the time of the confer ence in Februan-, 1045. And" I pointed out that while we know what we wish LA 'j Gen. Elsenhower had happened differ 1 1 y.

even with the advantage of hindsight it is hard to say what could and should have been done to bring about that at least in some measure per- different result- The Red Transit Apathy THE BILL to give Allegheny County a streamlined transit system is dying. It is dying of neglect. Few bills before the State Assembly in recent years have been more essential to improving our district than this one. It is the result of years of costly study by civic groups. And yet, apathy is killing it.

Simply, the bill would create public authority in Allegheny County to buy up and operate what is now a tangle of independent trolley and bus lines. This would mean better transit planning and should result in better transit service. But first of all, the bill would have voters in the county decide in a referendum whether they want the authority. Mass transit here is sick and getting sicker. The trolley company is reeling under one economic punch after another.

Being hard-pressed, it can't afford bold planning; moreover, it is having to cut back its service. Our bus firms, some of which barely survive, must often compete wastefully with trolleys or with one another. The net result of all this is both a constricting and a hardening of the area's transit arteries. For this sickness a countywide transit authority promises the surest cure. Nevertheless, the cure is now being ignored.

The County government has done little to help the transit bill, of which it is at least the foster father. The City, perhaps out of deference to the County, has been quiet. Many business and retail groups have not yet spoken up, though they stand to gain a great deal from the bill. So far, in fact, only the bill's opponents have been heard from. The most important thing now is that the bill get a full and open debate in public and on the floor of the Assembly.

If there are bugs in it, they can be taken out. In any case, there is certainly no bug In the immediate aim of the bill: to let the people of Allegheny County decide the issue of a transit authority at the polls next fall. If that aim. is to be realized, the people and their leaders here had better speak up soon and loud. The People Speal A Department of Letters in Which Readers Express Their Views.

No Matter for Lawyers HPHE HEALTH of Alfred J. Ackerman, former Whitaker burgess and squire, has now become the subject of a court dispute. Mr. Ackerman is serving a two-year sentence in the county jail for illegal collection of fees. His attorney has requested Judge J.

Frank Graff to authorize a transfer of the prisoner to Mercy Hospital because he is too ill to be cared for in the jail hospital. But Assistant District Attorney Strauss opposes the transfer, pointing out that St. Francis Hospital physicians pronounced Mr. Ackerman "all right" at the time he was committed to jail, March 4. This issue, it seems to us, is not one for legal dialectics.

Since both the jail physician and the warden have joined Mr. Ackerman's attorney in asking for the transfer, obviously the prisoner should be given a prompt medical examination. If competent and impartial medical observers say he cannot be cared for properly in the jail hospital, he should be transferred. Justice should not be blind to suffering. suade Stalin, and surely that was wrong, what would Senator Knowland have done to make Stalin change his mind? Let no one bemuse himself with the notion that Stalin could have been threatened with the atomic bomb.

At the time of Yalta we had only a bomb or two, and no one was sure that it would go off. Stalin could not have been coerced with Eisenhower still behind the Rhine and Mac-Arthur still in the Philippines. Stalin could be persuaded only to pretend that he would act like a Western liberal democrat WHAT ELSE was there to do? Should we have refused to make any agreement which did not guarantee the application of our principles? It is arguable that in the Far East, gambling on the chance of a quick collapse of Japan, we might have refused to concede anything to Stalin at the expense of China and Japan. But would it have been safe to have no agreement" at all. leaving the Red Army with a free hand wherever we were not able to occupy first the territory that Japan evaluated? In Europe it was certainly not possible to let the war end with no armistice agreement.

For this would have left mighty armies facing one another without fixed demarcation lines. That would have been an invitation to chaos, and no man can say what would have happened to the discipline and the morale of the armies. If persuasion was impossible, if coercion was impossible, if a refusal to recognize the political consequences of the accomplished military facts was also impossible, was there anj other course? Army was already in possession of Eastern Europe. There was no army on the mainland of Eastern Asia which could have prevented the Red Army from taking what Stalin asked Roosevelt and Churchill to concede. The crucial question, which Senator Knowland ought some day to discuss, is how in February.

1945. we could have persuaded, induced, or compelled the Soviet Union to do what we believed was right in territory occupied, or about to be occupied, by the Red Army. TWO AND a half years elapsed between Pearl Harbor and the landing in Normandy. In those years the chance was lost to impose, or even to bargain on equal terms about, a settlement in Eastern Europe. Had Eisenhower been able to invade France when the German and the Russian armies were locked in a deadly struggle far inside of Russia, we would be living today in a different world.

Roosevelt and Churchill might then have had the deciding voice in Eastern Europe. They might have talked with Stalin while Eisenhower rather than Zhu-kov was in Warsaw. There would have been no partition of Europe and of Germany. But with Eisenhower still on the wrong side of the Rhine as the war was ending, all they could get from the master of the Red Army was a scrap of paper containing vague and ambiguous promises. No one, I believe, knows how much Roosevelt, who was often cynical, believed in the promises he got from Stalin at Yalta.

All we know is that he chose to act as if Letters to the editor viust carry the complete name and address of the tor iter. If possible, they should be typewritten, preferauly on one side of the paper. Pen names will be permitted at the editor's discretion. Letters of less than 250 words will be given preference, and all letters are subject to con' densation and editing. Let' ters containing obvious misstatements or lacking in good taste and fair play will be rejected.

No letters can be returned. Questions Andrews Letter on Pensions Editor, the Post-Gazette: In today's April 4 Post-Gazette, I read with interest, the letter of Mr. H. G. Andrews, Speaker of the House of Representatives, taking you to task for use of the word shameless in connection with your criticism of the Pennsylvania Retirement Fund.

Mr. Andrews' letter contained much double-talk, misstatements, and half truths. The Retirement Fund should be actuarially sound after 13 million dollars of the taxpayers' money was dumped into the fund last year; 23 million is needed this year, and proba About 30 years from now, a President whose favorite song, as a young man, was "Sh-Boom" will be in the White House and it would be fun to be around to hear it played by the Marine Band. voters, sometime in the future, awaken and kick them out of office, they can retire and live a life of ease. JOHN McCOWIN McKeesport, Pa.

Air trips to Europe are now available for a small down payment and so much a month, and the assumption is that if you miss a payment the airline repossesses your snapshot album. Dreams of Turnpike Without Trucks Editor, the Post-Gazette: Regarding the proposed truck boycott of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, I sincerely hope you follow up your editorial of today April 4 with Trade Bill Troubles EXTENSION of the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act by three years, having passed the House over considerable opposition, is now facing even heavier weather in the Senate. Although there is apparently only an outside chance that On the Record CliurcliilPs Retirement Recalls Meeting in 1940 By Dorothy Thompson perchance ye pamper us and, in pampering, spoil! JACK KERN AN, JR. McKees Rocks, Pa. Army Aptitude Discharges Scored Editor, the Post-Gazette: The more I think of something the madder I get That something appeared in a short article on page 1 of the Post-Gazette for March 23.

The dateline was Heidelberg, Germany, March 22, 1955. It was as follows: "The United States Army announced today it is sending 5,367 soldiers home from Europe for discharge because they scored 'below standard' in mental and aptitude tests. These men have had at least three years of active service and are ineligible for re-enlistment due to current higher standarrds." Think About this for a few minutes. Consider its implications. Here are men who have served their country for at least three years.

Some of them may be career men. All are veterans, entitled to veterans rights, deserving of decent and humane treatment. As soon as they are notified of i discharge and the reasons for it, they will be stigmatized as "dummies" or "morons" or "misfits." Now, are you mad too? Do you see what I mean? I'd like to give the person responsible for this idea an aptitude test on personal relations. I bet he'd score zero. Why in the world should a reason like this for discharge be given to the press? Why not just discharge these few men and give the reason privately or not at all? Since there are so few, why discharge them at all, unless they request it? And why cut off their chance to re-enlist? At least, why tell the whole worfd that beginning May 1, 5,367 men, unfit for service, will be sent home from the European theatre? Even the United States Army can afford to do the humane and decent thing.

Why do they always have to be so tough or blunt or unimaginative? Soldiers, too. are human beings, with feelings and pride, who hate to be pushed around by the results of intelligence and aptitude tests. JOE MOFFATT McKeesport, Pa. Strictly Personal Belief in Belief Labeled Most Dangerous Heresy By Syd Harris PURELY PERSONAL PREJUDICES: The most dangerous heresy of our time is the belief that belief itself is a good thing, regardless of its content; for faith that is attached to an unworthy or an inadequate NEW YORK, April 7 In the early summer of 1940, after the fall of France, I was asked by the Cana- dian Broadcasting Cor-p ation whet her I would come to Montreal and speak some encouraging words to the people of Can object makes people less than they are, not more. The technicians behind the camera whether on a movie lot or a television studio are generally both the most capable and the most honest people in the production.

An "economist" is not the lofty social scientist bly more will be needed next year. What "old line insurance company" would have accepted $21,000 in a lump sum from Governor Fine and agreed to pay him $5,616 per year for the remainder of his life, to be followed with the same amount to his two sons aged 12 and 14 for the rest of their lives? Mr. Andrews should name one of these "old line insurance companies" that will pay back 27 per cent of a lump premium each year for possibly 50 or 60 years? If Mr. Andrews objects to what the Post-Gazette calls a "shameless performance," he should hear what some of the voters call it, which of course cannot be printed. Judging by what Mr.

Andrews and his colleagues have accomplished in the past three months, it would seem that they are under the impression that their duties consist of getting their pals placed in good paying positions and feathering their own nests by voting themselves a 120 per cent increase in pensions so that when the Strength For the Day By EARL L. DOUGLASS Good Friday We live in a strange, strange world, and nothing is more strange than the fact that a cross stands at the center of its life. Communism is trying to put the symbol of the hammer and sickle at the center of the world's life. Centuries ago the Mohammedans swept across the world with their crescent flying to the wind, but Charles Martel and his legions turned them back at Tours. The cross still stands at the center of the world's Mr.

Harris himself had heard it and because of that invited me to Chequers, the Prime Minister's country seat When I arrived in England a few months later Britain was still standing alone. We walked up and down in the garden, he in the shelter suit that was his familiar uniform during the war, and I said I thought he was a very great man. "That depends on who writes the history." he answered. "If we win this war my country may think well of me, but if we lose it I will be held accountable for the fall of the British Empire." "How do you expect to win it?" I asked. 'That question has not yet crossed my mind.

I am presently concerned only with how not to lose it And we shall lose it, you know, unless you come in and with all you have." Then, after a pause, "but if we lose it ages from now new states will be founded on Anglo-Saxon principles, because we shall be remembered." ada. Under M- Churchill Churchill's leadership Great Britain and the Commonwealth were standing filone against the formidable German armies who had subdued information as to the exact time when we may expect this windfall. Just to contemplate the beauties of Pennsylvania in the Springtime, vista from my panoramic windshield unbroken by the muddy tailgate, my thoughts uncluttered by scrawled, remarks and names on same. Perchance, to drive through Laurel Mountain Tunnel and inhale, not the nauseous belching diesel smoke, but the odor of laurel! In my vision I see a Howard Johnson restaurant which does not resemble a freight depot, a roadside rest which does not resemble a garagebut, it is too much! I faint I fail! Our store delivery service has been returned to us; now they give us back our Turnpike. Is there no limit to the goodness of these bountiful men? Harken, ye Teamsters, lest As Others See It in less than three months the whole of Western Europe, protected in their rear by a beneficently neutral Soviet Union, whose leader, Stalin, had congratulated Hitler upon his triumphant entrance into Paris.

It was a black hour for the British and the Canadians, and a difficult assignment for an American citizen whose country was still neutral and whose President had promised never to send American troops overseas. it will be killed outright, there is a very real danger that it will be so weakened by amendments over a hundred have been proposed that it will emerge as only a shadow of its former self. This is an unexpected development in a Democratic Congress where, on the basis of past history, the reciprocal trade program should have had smooth sailing. The program is Democratic in Origin, the brain child of Cordell Hull in 1934. For 20 years it has been re-enacted regularly, with support coming largely from Democrats and opposition mostly rorri Republicans.

With the election of Mr. Eisenhower, there came a Republican chief executive who ran counter to traditional Republican sentiment by espousing, in his customarily cautious and moderate manner, the liberal trade policy represented in the reciprocal agreements. True, he compromised with protectionists to the extent of accepting one-year extensions of the program. But he preserved it, with Democratic help. And he has repeatedly stressed its necessity for our own national security and economic well-being and that of the free world.

Why, then, the hostility which now threatens to emasculate the extension bill? Apparently' a wave of protectionist sentiment has risen which is stronger than anyone had anticipated. Blurring party lines, it has found support within the long-time low tariff stronghold of the South. Textile interests now have southern Democratic as well as New England Republican spokesmen. The competition of foreign oil with that produced in the Southwest has added other Democrats to protectionist ranks. Other elements are involved.

Congress continues to be suspicious of American commitments under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), and this despite concessions to its viewpoint made at the recent session of this international clearing house on trade policy in Geneva. There is a feeling that the Administration spokesmen, both in past and present appearances before congressional committees, may have been more concerned to pay homage to the principle of freer trade than with the actual practice. There is the overtly, partisan excuse that President Eisenhower forewent Democratic support on tariff policy by he would like to have us think, but a man who usually cuts his theory along the bias so that the economist who works for a bank predicts what is advantageous for the bank, while the economist for a labor union finds another set of "facts' to confirm his predilections. MOST THINGS that can beput in a nutshell belong in a nut-shell. I have never met a self-conscious person who was sincerely modest; most self -consciousness comes from the vanity of believing that other people are much more interested in evaluating us than they really are.

i If you enjoy old-time jazz played with a modern fillip, the new Columbia LP recording of Louis Armstrong blowing and chanting W. C. Handy's blues is highly recommended, both for the high quality of its sound and for the vitality of the performance. Can somebody tell me the author of this fervent sentiment: "God has seen fit to provide us with relatives let us be grateful that He allows us the privilege of choosing our KNOWING WHAT a man does, and where he goes, on his vacation is often a better clue to his true nature than knowing his occupation or his domestic arrangements. I would never vote for a candidate who makes use of a sound-truck, on the theory that the man who doesn't grant me the right hncressional Quiz msmm Ike's Farm Woes d- Do recent vote trends THIS SEEMED to me the supreme courage to look into the abyss without falling into it Britain did not lose the war, and Churchill wrote its history and received the Nobel prize for literature.

But Britain did not win it either, when the books of gain and loss are totted up; much of the empire gone; the vast overseas and financial reserves expended; and in the West the leadership passed to the United States, which also made no gains. Only Stalin won the war with a vast extension of empire, and the position to push further. And still there is no peace. That is what makes me saddest in contemplating the retirement of the man who assumed the Intolerable burden when he was, even then, no longer young. He wanted to be remembered, not only as a great war minister, but as the man who found the way out of the dilemmas that bar the way to peace.

That last bright star in the many-studded crown of honors eluded him. I could not speak of what America might do, although that was what Canadians wanted to hear, but I felt deeply for the people of our neighboring country, which is dear and familiar to me. SO I spoke of two men: Of one who was the embodiment of misery, destruction, and death, Adolf Hitler, and of one who was the embodiment of sunshine, life, and joy, Churchill I paid my tribute to him then and ended with the prayer that he might live to return to his garden in a world that was forever free of war. I suppose it was an eloquent little talk, though it must have been the timing rather than the content that accounted for the quite fantastic reception it received. There were requests for hundreds of thousands of copies, and it was recorded and rerecorded, and played, afterward, in England, also, over and over again even in shelters during the blitz.

Churchill life. This is Good Friday. What is good about it? It marks the perpetration of the worst murder in history. Yes, but it marks an event the significance of which our minds cannot entirely fathom. This we know and knowing this what else do we need to know? that when Jesus Christ died on the cross, the forgiveness of human sin was made possible.

He did not ask others to do what he was not willing to do himself. He bade men take up their cross every day and follow him. He was not overtaken and dragged to the cross. He steadfastly set himself toward Jerusalem that he might suffer and die. The event is too amazing, too tragic, and at the same time too glorious for the human mind to take in all its implications.

But we can take in enough to give our soul peace. indicate that Democrats are successfully invading traditionally Republican states? A Yes. In New England, Oregon, and the Midwest, Democrats have registered gains at GOP expense. Maine elected a Democratic governor in 1954, while in New Hampshire a six-term GOP Representative, Chester E. Merrow, won re-election by only 400 votes.

And in Vermont for the second time in two years Republicans were forced to fight to keep a Democrat out of the governorship. In Oregon, Democrats elected their first Senator in 40 years, as well as a Representative. Democrats elected a Senator In Michigan, retired one GOP Representative in Minnesota, and narrowed the victory margin of a Republican governor in Wisconsin. Senator Cotton N. In Newsletter The freshmen senators were invited to lunch with the President this week.

It was a fairly good lunch, but I don't think he is living quite as high up on the hog as he did last year when we had breast of pheasant and wild rice. Most of the President's conversation was about his farm. He went into a huddle about forage crops (and) was also anxious to know the cost per acre. I was tempted to tell him that I would send him an agriculture yearbook on "Grasses" which would give him all the dope, and if he would write to his congressman he might get some payments for soil conservation to help him over the hump. However, I decided it was not the time for wisecracks, so I kept my mouth shut.

not to hear him is a potential dictator. We would indignantly reject a candidate who forced us to look at his billboards; and the raucous sound-truck is an even more obnoxious tyranny over the ears. Between the arrogant artistic attitude that the public is always wrong and the contemptible commercial attitude that the public is always right, there is a sensible middle position which holds that the public is always wrong in the short run and always right in the long run. Which is why the serious artist refuses to work only for the public of today, and must keep in mind the verdict of the future..