St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 58

2E ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 14, 194S ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH Feuniti by JOSEPH PUUTZIK TJie Puhtr-rr O. MAm ii ii ii i sr. ri; European trade for Germany to get its tobacco from Greece and Turkey.

SUU, the organized American tobacco growers wanted that market, even if it made the American taxpayer pay twice. Paul Hoffman, administrator of European aid, has responded with a "No" so clear and firm that it ought to stick even in an election year. It will pay the public to watch, though, because Kentucky and North Carolina hang in the balance politically. THE POST-DISPATCH PLATFORM I know thst my retirement will make no difference in its tsrdinal principles; that it fisM for propres and rrfomv never tolerate injustice or cerrnption, ilwiu fight 3-miPf iw all parties, never belong to any- party, eppose privileged claw and public plunderer, never lack sympathy ith the poor, remain devoted the puMic oelfare; never be Mtified wilh merely printing: ne; be drs'i-l independent; never be afraid attark wrong, whether by predatory plutocracy or prrdatorr povertv. JOSEPH PULITZER.

April If, Our Stand for Dewev if Congratulation on Dewey To the Editor el tr. Fott-IMspstcJi: I wish to congratulate ycu cn your decision to support Gov. Dewey for tie presidency, fcur editorial -For President Thomas E. Dewty" well clone and I like the way you weighed each candidate's work (Truman and Dewey) end la the fisal analysis found Mr. Truman below the party platform.

This act cf yours proves beyond a doubt that your paper is above partisan politics-Mere success to voa C. A. CLAKK. ho Was? A Matter of Justice A most important hearing by a committee cf the Missouri Legislature will held in St. Louis Civil Court building beginning at 10 o'clock tomorrow morning.

This hearing will be the first meeting of the Equal Rights Committee which was authorired by resolution cf tSe State House of Representatives. The purpose of this committee, under the chairmanship cf Representative Howard Elliott cf Ladue, is to assemble recommendations for the Legislature to carry out Article Section 2. of the new Missouri Constitution. This section declares in part, that all persons are created equal and are entitled to equal rights and eppertunity under the law. The list cf citizens and group leaders who have been invited to appear before the committee shows that Chairman Elliott and his associates Representatives Thomas and Sendlein of St.

Louis. Fearson cf Kirksviiie and Snyder cf Independence are fully aware cf their mission. Among those they sskod to appear are such people as Mrs. Stella B. Price, executive secretary of the St.

Louis branch. National Association for the Advancement of Colored Feople; Archbishop Joseph E. Ritter cf the Roman Catholic Diocese. Chester Stovall. industrial relations director for the Urban League, Myron Schwartz, secretary cf the Jewish Community Relations Council, and Mrs.

Carl V. Moore, civil rights chairman. League of Women Voters. The No. 1 issue in this field is equal opportunity for all citirens cf Missouri in professional and university training, as provided by the state.

Here there is a clear mandate from the State Constitution, and it is not being fulfilled. While such Southern states as Arkansas and Oklahoma move ahead us, Missouri still clings to the notion that its Negro university students should not be admitted to the State University at Columbia. Segregation continues at the University cf because the Board cf Curators and President Middlebush hsve not had the courage to call for the admission of Negroes. They are less forthright than the regents and President Cross of the University of Oklahoma. Dr.

Cross says that the admission of a Negro at Norman "would create no social problem." Cutting to the heart of the issue, he says that when the United States Circuit Court acts on the application cf a Negro school teacher, G. W. McLsurin. he will call for his "immediate enrollment," This is a matter of simple justice. It is a matter cf equal educational opportunity.

It is a matter of economical use of the state's funds, for it costs four times as much to give a Negro law student a year of training in St. Louis as it does to carry a white student through a year at Columbia. In short, rn both principle and practice Missouri should bestir itself to shake off its old prejudice. There are other issues which doubtless will come up in the hearings. We do not bemean other worthwhile considerations when we say that this one stands at the top.

Washington and St. Louis universities have admitted Negroes. It is high time the University of Missouri accommodated itself to the growing belief that the Bill cf Right has meaning only as it is applied. Since the Missouri curators have withheld their views on this subject, it would be altogether in order for the Equal Rights Committee to ask Messrs. Allen McReynolds.

Roscoe Anderson. Guy A. Thompson and the others to come in and say what they believe is right, Whoe Ether Is It. Anyway? A New York lawyer, fumbling in a new field, says that telecasters can make a legal case for preventing their programs from being received in taverns and restaurants except on payment of a fee. Maybe so, but who owns the ether, anyway? It is in the public domain, and it would seem to follow that when radio or television impulses go out.

they are fair game for whoever can pick them up. We don't want to see anything interfere with television reception in saloons and restaurants. It has a fine social mission to perform to wit. the elimination of the jukebox. ef Purt-Wspatei AN A.P.

DISPATCH IN THE SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER QUOTES THE ST. LOUS POST-DISPATCH AS FOLLOWS: "MR. DEWEY IS NOT THE IDEAL, CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT." WIRE COLLECT 10 WORDS OR LESS WHO YOU CONSIDER WAS THE IDEAL CANDIDATE FROM 1554 to ms inclusive. C. A- GUNNER.

San Francisco. -7. I Xew Hope for the West Indies Conferences this week throughout the British West Indies, to plan their federation into a new dominion, are not only a forward-looking step for the peoples of these islands. They are also in the decided self-interest of the Caribbean powers, particularly the United States. Our nations! defenses are being strengthened by the efforts which Britain and this country, and France and the Netherlands as well, are making to raise the economic level of the Caribbean region.

Possessions which are economically weak are also militarily weak, and the United States has air. naval and military bases on many of these islands. One of the military wetnesses is discontent among the people, such as erupted in the labor riots in the West Indies in 1935-38. Another weakness was exemplified in the last war by Antigua, which would have starved if help had not been forthcoming from Puerto Rico. To correct such weaknesses plans are being made for a customs union and for the development of agriculture and industry.

What the British are trying to do in their discussions this week is part of a larger plan that was initiated in 1942 by President Roosevelt, with the co-operation of England, with the two other countries joining in three years ago. It springs from a recognition that what cannot be accomplished by divided efforts among the four powers, and even by divided efforts among the possessions of a single power, can be accomplished by a single united effort. It is application on aft international scale of the regionalism in which the United States has pioneered, in its own borders, with the Tennessee Valley Authority. For these backward islands it may be the augury cf a new day. Sales Tax Cae to Court The reckoning for irregularities in the handling of Missouri sales tax collections draws closer.

Out of the complaints came the investigation and discharges to which Gov. Donnelly gave careful personal attention. Out of the grand jury's consideration of the facts have come indictments. Now two St. Louis Democratic politicians have surrendered on indictments and other indicted persons are being sought, on bench warrants.

Indictments do not convict anyone. But they do bring accused persons into court to hear charges and defend themselves against these charges before a jury. An accounting under the law is on the way in the sales tax frauds case. A Special Prosecutor Is Needed Judge Dewitt S. Crow has done his duty in Calling for a full-scale investigation, by the new grand jury, of syndicated gambling and widespread reports of bribery In Sangamon county.

It is now up to the grand jury, under the fore-manship of Robert Cain, a high school teacher, to take up the trail of official corruption and follow its sordid marks just as high as they lead. The first thing to decide is whether State's Attorney John W. Curren is disinterested enough to handle the investigation. A tabulation by the Post-Dispatch showed that $10,000 a week was being paid to city, county and state officials by various financial beneficiaries of protected lawlessness. This was at the rate of $500,000 a year.

Since Mr. Curren was State's Attorney while all this was going on. it should be clear that he is not the man to do the investigating. The grand jury may and doubtless will want to inquire into the way in which Mr. Curren has run his office and fulfilled his duties.

It would be unfair to both Mr. Curren and to the citizens who want a thorough investigation for the State's Attorney to be put in the position of investigating himself. Thanks to Judge Crow's order, the grand jury has only to ask for a special prosecutor. The court wisely told the jurors that if they "feel the need of a special prosecutor, they may apply to the court for a special prosecutor to produce evidence and to advise them." Sangamon county needs a Verle W. Safford.

If it gets a special prosecutor who will do a job like the one Mr. Safford did in Peoria county, the Springfield investigation will really get somewhere. But any time spent with Assistant Attorney General Bovick, whose political assignment in effect is to stall until after the election, will be just so much time wasted. TOWARD FREEDOM TIIE HARD WAY Disagreement With Dewey Te the cf tr.e Pcst-rr: Of course, a yoa say. you do not agree with Dewey cn public housing, cr the protection cf our last national oil reserve from private exploitation, cr price controls designed to check inflation, cr the rifling cf our public range by private interests, cr the necessity cf en MVA for flood control and power development in the Missouri River valley and ether devastating streams, cr cn matters cf public health and medical service and federal aid to education among the poor, or for the development and conservation of our national resources, or the Hull reciprocal trade treaties as modified by the Eightieth Congress, cr on the proposal to turn over to private monopoly tise development end control of nuclear energy, but don't feel bad about such matters, for he will agree with vou half of the time.

WALTER BURCH. Should We Make Up With Franco? Between Book Ends A military analyst and a national newspaper question wisdom of alliance with the dictator; the former says that defense of Europe must be at the Rhine rather than the Pyrenees; the latter says it would bnng major political defeat ar.d be morally "sickening." The Fuhlic Ofiiio" Hope for Dewey Te tfce ef tie Fct-IMrrte5: Regardless cf your motives. I think Dewey can still be elected in spite of his indorsement bv the Post-Dispatch. WILLIAM K. SCHNEIDER.

Hanson W. Baldwin in the IVew York Times Senator Chan Gurney. Republican, of South Dakota, returned from Madrid bearing the torch for a change in the Spanish policy of the United States. Mr. Gurney bviously and openly represents the Pentagon point of view, which holds that the United States frontier is in the Pyrenees, or in any case, that the security of Western Europe never can be guaranteed without the utilization of Spanish, and German, manpower.

Remember 1936? To tie Editor cf Use Fei-Diptca: So the treat political oracle hss spoken again, damning Dewey with faint praise and comdemning Truman to defeat. Remember what happened w-hen you pulled your supports from under Frankin Delano Roosevelt? Remember what happened again and again and again? If you don't remember, lots cf vour readers do lots of us. R. LEWIS. The Path of the Damned WALK IN DARKNESS, by Han HaV.

(G. r. Putnm'i Sons, Ntw York. 314 $3 00 Washington Roach's walk in darkness takes only a year in this pungent novel, but it epitomizes the painful pilgrimage of a whole race) a race whose fate so far has been to toil, suffer and die among an advanced majority who have orally defended democracy and its freedoms while actually denying more than token education, representation and participation to their outnumbered brethren. Washington's "home" has been a crowded room (shared with two brothers and a 98-year-old grandfather) behind the Harlem "funeral parlor" of his father.

Someone has always taken from him anything he wanted. His education has largely been that of learning obsequiousness, "keeping his place," avoiding the "incidents" so quick to erupt when manhood overleaps tradition. All but one incident, that is. After three war years in the Army, and only four months' demobilization, he resists a pub-crawling bully and gets 30 days for forgetting he's a "nigger." Released, he finds things pretty grim. He joins up again and is sent, among replacement troops, to occupied Germany.

Here, his life moves through a brief and tragic crescendo, its first note his newfound freedom and self-respect (his color apparently means nothing to the Germans); its last, his death-sentence. Between these extremes. Washington has a love affair, marries illicitly, deserts (in desperation; the Army will not recognize his marriage, and is certain to send him home), becomes a father, joins and soon commands a band of underground racketeers (he had earlier nibbled at easy money via petty food thefts), and, in one of the, book's vivid climaxes, kills an M.P. Flight, brief asylum in France, capture and court-martial follow; then, shipment home, unavailing appeals, and the firing squad. "Walk in Darkness" is a novel, not a tract; its characterization is taut, unsenti-mentalized, searingly revelatory.

Its hero is a real person. Attempts to achieve strategic security for Western Europe are driving us to attempts to reconcile the irreconcilable, to align Franco Spain with the Western democracies. The military importance of Spain is a matter of statistics and terrain. The Spanish Army is large. It might, pos i Mm Ha-scn W.

Ealc'wln Republican Hopvash Te the Edncr tie Post-Dipatci The Post-Dispatch has been great source cf amusement, enlightenment and knowledge to my family and me for many years, for which I wish to express my thanks. But your present deviation from the platform cf your founder, Joseph Pulit-ter. laid down in 18KJ7 "never belong to any party" leaves me firmly convinced that your paper in its present form is nothing more than a propaganda organ for the hogwash of Thomas E- Dewey and the Republican party. Why not stick to facts end figures with fair and equal hearing from all parties? The editorial page Tuesday was devoted to the virtues of Thomas Dewey and condemnation cf Mr. Truman.

Why don't you let your readers hear the whole story, and not pieces that suit your personal convictions only? After all. this newspaper did not gain its world-wide fame through the closed mind and selfish opinions, but rather through the platform laid down by its founder. B. W. ADAMS.

Veterans and Slums World War veterans and persons of moderate and low Income, two classes that overlap deeply, are the worst sufferers from the housing shortage. Naturally, therefore, the St. Louis Council of the Veterans of Foreign Wars has unanimously approved the slum clearance bond issue and called on its 55 member posts in the city to provide volunteer workers to promote a favorable verdict on Nov. 2. Many veterans need better housing, but all veterans, and all others, have a financial stake in slum clearance.

The VFW indorsement resolution recognizes this stake by pointing out that St. Louis slums contribute S4.000.000 a year less taxes than they consume. The bond issue involves a public outlay of $16,000,000 over a period of years, but that amount will bring several times $16,000,000 worth of new housing to the community. This new building will cut into the Lousing shortage. It will increase the tax yield of the areas where it is located and, at the same time, it will eliminate miserable living conditions.

Hence the bond issue has won the approval of the TW and a long list of other organisations, a list that is still rapidly growing. Nearly everyone who studies the proposal favors it. But with a two-thirds majority required at the polls, the work of getting people to study it cannot be allowed to flag. Columbia University ought to feel pretty proud of itself, having just done what both major political parties couldn't get a chance tb do. It has installed Gen.

Eisenhower as President. From the Christian Science 3Ionitor Spain has suddenly become a center of interest in the plans of the Western democracies for checking Russia in Europe. Gen. Franco seems to be selling a very attractive mousetrap. American politicians, business men, and military leaders have been beating a path to the Prado Palace, and emerging to urge that Spain be readmitted to polite society and given money and munitions.

This is the Franco Spain wfuch Hitler and Mussoiini used as a training ground for tfce legions they later threw at the Western democracies. This is the dictatorship whose record in persecuting political prisoners and denying genuine freedom of speech and worship parallels Russia's. This is the Fascist regime which the United Nations voted unworthy of diplomatic recognition by member nations. Why this strange reversal? The most obvious answer is Russia. As tension tightens in Europe, the diplomatic struggle with Moscow takes on more and more of a military tone.

And many military men look upon Spain as a good base for American power in Europe. Taking the same line are some business men looking for new markets, and strong clerical forces which have from the first favored Franco. A Sell-Out of France? These influences seem to be making much more headway in the United States than in the Western democracies. In Britain, Foreign Minister Bevin has been a most ardent advocate of ostracizing Franco. In France, such proposals are doubly distaste-fuL France more than any nation gave practical sympathy to the Spanish Republicans.

And France sees in the plan for American bases in Spain a sure sign that the United States would not help to defend France against invasion. We should like to know what lies behind the strange report from Paris that even Secretary Marshall has now joined the "whitewash-Franco chorus. For this whole project appears highly reckless when closely examined. Not only does it outrage and discourage America's best friends in Europe. It plays right into the hands of Russia.

In many neutral countries it supports Moscow's charge that America is the friend of Fascism. Sure Wa to Split Europe Contrary to Mr. Farley's claim that It would unite Europe, it tends to split Europe. If carried to the point of a regional alliance with Spain, it would split the United Nations. The Charter of UN provides for regional defense agreements only among member nations.

Spain could be put into ITX only by putting Russia out and possibly a good many "neutrals." Even from the military side there are serious questions. Military calculations cannot be made in a vacuum; they must include political and moral factors. Report from Madrid say the Spanish people have sharp objections of their own to this scheme. No one knows how unstable Spain might prove politically in time of turmoil-Authoritarian regimes have never been sure bulwarks against the authoritarianism of the Kremlin. Roman Catholic countries have not always been successful in resisting Communism.

Finally, there is something sickening and morally weakening about the expediency which demands that Americans hell suddenly make a partner of a dictator who was so recently aligned with Germany end Japan. The effort to call black white ha already begun. Senator Gurney says Franco he been fighting Stalin since 1938. So has as eld to Hitler end Mussolini. And including the years when Stalin was America's ally.

Americans would not then have freely chosen to become political bedfellows with one form of totaiiterianism in order to curb another. Why ahould they today? nil damned by heredity, tradition, environ-ment and firmly engaging one's sympathies. But there is no overlooking the author's intention to show, as Lombroso pointed out long ago, that "society makes the crime, the individual commits it." The underground in which Washington Roach is momentarily a king In the winter of 1948 is "con- Hei Hebe He Will See Te lie Ei-ir the PcsT-ZSiipalci: Congratuations on your editorial announcing your support of Mr. Dewey. It is fair, logical and complete.

If Mr. Dewey proves himself patriot by ignoring the clamor of tfce the U.S. Chamber of Commerce end the Republican Old Guard, this Democrat will join in the paeans of praise and vote for him in 1552. if he and I both are still on the map at that time: but I have my doubts that any Republican President can do what's right by the nation as a whole. Teddy Roosevelt leaned the right way at times but didn't lean far enouch.

We ahall see. W. W. BEAVERS. Clayton.

sibly, muster 1,000.000 men in time of war. though in this writer's opinion it could not long maintain anything like this number except on a semi-guerrilla basis. The Spanish frontier is rugged. The Pyrenees are one of the best defensive obstacles to a land attack in Europe. These two facts combined loom large in the consciousness of U.S.

military planners. Not An Opportune Time The re are others and the military are inclu4ed in this category who concede as obvious the importance of Spanish and German manpower in any defense of the West These observers hold, however, that attempts to harness that manpower now not only are premature but are embarrassing and injurious at the very time when the Paris negotiations in the United Nations are attempting to find a solution to the difficult Berlin situation. This group feels, too, that although Spanish manpower is potentially of great importance, the Pyrenees can never be accepted as the United States frontier if strategy and policy are to have political realism. Tfce real frontier is on the Rhine, these men believe. To base United States strategy on the Pyrenees would imply the abandonment of France and the Low Countries and opening to invasion the Channel porta and that whole flank of Europe confronting Britain across the Channel.

Such a policy would be one of political suicide, these men believe; it might wreck the Western European union before it grew out of swaddling clothes. Military vs. Political Realism Though political realism is on the aide of those who view the Rhine as tfce United States frontier, military realism, so far. is on the side those who favor the Pyrenees. The plain fact is.

there is not now sufficient strength in Western Europe to defend the Rhine line. The issue i3 complicated by other broad differences in strategic concept, notably between those who believe that war, if it came, could be decided quickly by strategic bombing, and those who hold that the atomic bomb could not stop the Russians. In some sense, however, the arguments are academic For tfce political reality is the Rhine line and tfce United States job Is to make what is politically essential militarily possible. The United States frontier Is on the Rhine, but to keep it there sooner or later it shall probably have to utilize Spanish and German manpower. But it had better be later, rather than sooner and only then after tfce consequences have been weighed with the utmost gravity.

Tfca time is cot now. temptuous of the boundaries newly drawn on the surface, welding victor and vanquished together in an Indestructible solidarity of crime," in a network embracing the homeless, the disillusioned, the cynical, the self-interested of all Europe. The image of the whole world as an abode of the morally sick, used by Thomas Mann in "The Magic Mountain," might well occur to anyone reading Mr. Habe'a "Walk in Darkness." In juxtaposing end mingling tfce sore problem of an American minority end the spiritual turmoil of a shattered and hate-eroded Europe, Mr. Habe has added a email but significant item to the literature that surely, if with dreadful slowness, presses man toward righteousness.

ALVIN R. ROLFS. Laclede Keep a Promise Laclede Gas Light Co. is to be commended for passing on its savings on lower-cost natural gas to its customers. The company has another laudable object in the Public Service Commission hearing at Jefferson City: to bring rates in St- Louis and St Louis county a long step toward equality.

This is to be achieved by giving the $1, 030,270 rate reduction to small usen in the city and large ones in the county. Since conditions of gas service in the two areas are very similar, the rates should be uniform. A Callanan Lug for Smith? Lawrence Callanan, ex-convict boss of Steam-fitters Local 562, has put another political lug on the members, a day's pay and a day's work. It was explained that the bulk of the assessment will go to support Forrest Smith's candidacy for Governor. This is the second such lug Callanan has imposed.

Together, they total about $74,000 and two days work at the polls by 2100 members. The first lug was assessed last May 27. Subsequently Roy McKittrick, Smith's opponent for the Democratic nomination for Governor, charged Smith with receiving financial aid from Callanan and Charles Binaggio, Capone race-service agent in Kansas City. Evidently Smith did not relish being presented to the voters as a candidate backed by a man who had served a term at Jefferson City for robbery, and a gambling gangster. In a letter to the Post-Dispatch July 6 he denied McKittrick's charge.

He wrote; I have not received, I have not asked for. and no financial support has been offered me by Lawrence Callanan of St Louis cr Charles Binaggio of Kansas City. Can Mr. Smith repeat that assertion now? And can the members of Steam fitters' Local 562. who are all getting the lug alike the Republicans with the Democrats, the anti-Smith men with the Smith men can they say that they are running their own union? Which Party Is Tired? Te tise cf tie Why should the Post-Dispatch say who it favors for President? Some advice is cheap, but to quote you "After 15 years the Democratic party is tired, frustrated, Hew about prior to IS years ago? How about Hooverville.

bank failures, bread lines, relief, etc? Do you recall them? Do you favor going back to that? CAUTIOUS READER. Germany's Tobacco There is, of course, no limit to how brash and selfish an American pressure group can be- Even so, Southern tobacco growers may have set a new high in protesting the use of Marshall Plan funds to purchase Greek and Turkish tobacco for Western Germany. Congress has appropriated hundreds of millions of dollars to bolster the Greek and Turkish economies in order to help them resist Communist encroachment. Obviously, the purchase of their tobacco would reduce by so much the direct monetary aid needed from the United States. Moreover, it is in the fixed pattern of A Compilation of Trivia PROFILE EUROPE, by Urn W.B.i.

(Hrr 1 An associate editor of Time magazine he written a foreign affairs potpourri, with emphasis on Russia, but Including tidbits from Scandinavia, Western Europe and the Mediterranean. In two places in the text end once on the jacket we are informed that he walked 300 miles in Moscow, presumably wearing pedometr. In another place be describes conversation with the Moscow correspondent of the St Louis Poet-Dispatch, which has no Mobccw correspondent Welle ha failed to add up his trivia to aensc. Dewey 1944-1948 Te tie ef the PoR-ZXspa: ci Candidate Dewey's skillful campaigning has convinced the Post-Dispatch that he is the. man for ths Presidency.

However, he has only convinced me that he is doing- clever about-face from his 1344 campaign, leaving his previous (and unsuccessful) tactics to his opponent J. BAKER. Moscow designers have adopted a new hem line. Let us hope, if only for modesty's sake, that it doesn't fluctuate as wildly as the party line..