THE NOME NUGGET
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Entered as second class matter October 14, 1943, at the postoffic**
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Monday, September 22, 1947
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Trading Freedom For Slavery
(The Wyoming Eagle)
ONE OF THE MOST disconcerting developments of
this decade has been the increasing willingness of
American freemen to swap their birthright of liberty for
the regimented life—to exchange free enterprise for
government enterprise.
Public ownership of railroads, local public service
companies, and telegraph and telephone lines may
sound attractive, but the fact is the employee of a gov-;
ernment corporation has less influence than has the em
ployee of a private corporation.
Delegated power, centralized power, can be and usu
ally is tyrannical in local government as well as in na-i
tional government. The people can give but having j
given they find it difficult to take away.
George V. Ormsby, American correspondent assigned
to London, recently, wrote that nationalization of indus
try is not “proving the utopia the workers imagined it
would be, but merely changing from a private boss to a,
state boss.” He cites an instance where an ex-director of
a nationalized coal mine met one of his former workers
and asked him how he liked the new regime. “Not so!
good,” said the miner. “I thought I was going to be|
where you were, but I’ve only got a new boss.”
A good many million people must feel a similar disil
lusionment with the super-state. It is one thing to work
for a private boss, and a very different thing to work for
a state boss. The private boss can be controlled by law;
and public opinion. He can be forced to arbitrate with
his employees and give them higher wages and better |
working conditions and other benefits to which theyj
may be entitled. The government and the unions are al
ways ready to pounce on him if he steps out of line.
The state boss, on the other hand, is a bird of another
feather. When government becomes a mass-employer,
it determines its own employment policies. The right
to strike must be directly or indirectly abrogated. The
decisions of the government must be final, and the
worker who feels he is unjustly treated has no redress.
The heads of government invariably become more and
more sensitive to criticism, and move in one way or an
other to silence it. Every phase of the national life is en
tangled in red-tape, and the freedom of the individual
is inevitably limited. It is a notable fact that even Eng-;
land is now seriously considering what amounts, in prin
ciple, to a labor draft to force reluctant workers to ac
cept employment in the coal mines.
The super-states can have only one end—and that is
total dictatorship. Most of Europe is a miserable exam
ple of that truth today. To trade the private boss for the
state boss is to risk trading freedom for slavery.
* * *
Ain’t we funny? We ship millions of tons of grain,
meat, clothing, coal and steel to needy Europe and pat
ourselves on the back for being good fellows. But when
British Foreign Secretary Bevin suggested that we dig
a few billions in gold out of the pit at Fort Knox and
share it with needy friends, most of us almost went into
convulsions. The question is, do we and Mr. Bevin have
a correct sense of values? ,
Greece Needs New Regime
(The Denver Post)
THE RISE of popular sentiment in Greece against
the extreme rightist government brings more hope for
a peaceful solution to the Communist problem than we
believed possible at the beginning of the Truman doc
trine.
When the present government took power, it repre
47-ER
sented the will of the people, who voted—not for the
rightists—but against Communism. This government
no longer represents the people and is beginning to real
ize that fact. Its leaders may attempt to enlist Themis
tocles Sophoulis, leader of the Liberal party and the op
position, but Sophoulis wants no part of it. While at one
time he might have been willing to enter, now he does
not want to collaborate, for he feels that the prestige of
the government has sunk so low that collaboration
would be political suicide.
Sophoulis wants immediate change, for the govern
ment has tried only violence in solution of the Com
munist problem, violence that is driving the Greek peo
ple into the arms of the Communists.
American influence in Greece can force formation of
another government—which could give a real amnesty
to the guerrillas, to those in jail and those exiled for po
litical reasons. That would virtually eliminate the Com
munist threat, but it cannot be done under the present
regime, which no one trusts.
It is significant that Sophoulis does not want the ad
vice of United States Ambassador Lincoln MacVeigh in
formation of a new government. Up to now the United
States has fully supported the present regime, and the
Greeks know that. But by inference Sophoulis declared
he would be willing to seek the aid of Dwight Griswold,
chief of the American aid mission, in formation of a new
unified Greek government.
Perhaps the present government will realize that its
influence is waning and be willing to step down, but if
it is not, the United States should make its displeasure
known, for continued support of an unpopular regime
can lead only to the animosity of the Greek people.
When the Greeks voted this government into power,
they were voting against Communism. Now they have
found, arid not too late, that this way is no better than
the other. If a truly liberal government can be achieved
soon, the basic problem will be solved, and if the United
States will help in this, the Truman doctrine will have
fully served its purpose.
China Needs Reform
l k
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(By Barnet Never)
The blunt statement issued by
Lieut. Gen. Albert C. Wedemeyer
on the even of his departure from
| China will some as a severe shoot
to the Nanking government. But
whether it will achieve its intend
ed purpose of bringing about a
wholesale housecleaning in China
is far from certain. The news that
President Truman was sending a
new mission to China has been
greeted with enthusiasm by min
ions to the Chiang regime.
They were convinced that it
foreshadowed a new flood of
American dollars in China. The
line of reasoning behind this belief
was that since the United States is
: now pursuing an anti-Communist
foreign policy and since the Nan
king government is fighting the
Chinese Communists, this country
had no choice but to help Nanking.
So Chinese stocks went up and
the Chinese dollar, a verv sick
currency, indeed, began to show
signs of improvement.
To say the least, Wedemeyer’s
statement is a grievous disappoint
ment to the Nanking overlords.
Nowhere in it does he hold out
any conditional or unconditional
promise of American aid. On the
contrary, his centention is that de
spite years of war and revolution,
“China still possesses most of the
physical resources needed for her
own rehabilitation.”
China's recovery, he added,
“awaits inspirational leadership
and moral and spirtual resurgence
which can only come from within
China.”
That leadership, the Wedemeyer
statement indicates, is lamentably
lacking in China. The Chinese
Communists appear to be far more
interested in imposing their ideol
ogy by force than in the well-being
of their country. On the other
hand, many of those who occupy
positions of responsibility in the
central government and even more
in the provinces and municipali
ties are only too often greedy, cor
rupt and incompetent individuals.
As a parting shot, Wedemeyer
had this to say:
“To regain and maintain the
confidence of the people, the cen
tral government will have to put
into effect immediately drastic
and far-reaching political and eco
nomic reforms. Promises will no
longer suffice. Performance is ab
solutely necessary. It should be ac
cepted that military force in itself
will not eliminate Communism.”
The very circumstance that
General Wedemever took the trou
ble to speak so bluntly of conditions
he found in China shows the enor
mous interest and the grave con
cern we have in what is happen
ing in that country. •
There is no possible way in
which the United States can safely
wash its hands of China. We can
no more afford to do it there than
we can afford to do it in Greece.
In both cases, however, reform
must ‘come from within before it
can be fostered from without. In
the absence of such internal re
form our aid may merely mean
throwing good money after bad.
Such plain speaking as General
Wedemeyer permitted himself in
discussing his findings in China
our statesmen and representatives
have hitherto avoided in the case
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of Greece.
Yet by a curious coincidence, so
many of the things that Wede
meyer said about the present sit
uation of China and particularly
about the present government of
China apply equally well to the
situation in Greece and the gov
ernments that have ruled Greece
during recent years.
Since the Truman doctrine was
first proclaimed last March, very
little has been done by the Greek
authorities to meet the basic needs
of the situation confronting their
harrassed and war-torn land. The
effort to restore order has failed.
Corrupt, incompetent, greedy and
reactionary individuals have con
tinued to sit in the saddle and
Greece’s economic situation has
gone from bad to worse.
To be sure, by no means all of
Greece’s trouble is internal. A
good deal of it is due to outside
pressures, whose ill-concealed
purpose is to saddle Greece with
a regime similar to the Soviet
stooge governments that rule the
lands to the north. But th£ threat
from without might ease up con
siderably if a broad-gauged and
enlightened government were set
up in Greece. For that reason our
stake in the political evolution of
Greece is as great as out stake in
Greek independence. Our states
men must not be too squeamish
about saying it.
One Man’s Opinion
Things are slowly returning to
normal — Gandhi is fasting again.
. . . That man has been on more
hunger strikes than a doughty
diva on a five-day diet. . . . The
1 only thing he hasn’t complained
[ about is the laundry enlarging the
button holes in his sheets. ... This
| time he’s fasting “until sanhy re
turns to Calcutta” — if he had
said to the world,” he’d be stuck
with an empty stomach.