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About La Grande evening observer. (La Grande, Or.) 1904-1959 | View Entire Issue (May 17, 1945)
Side Glances Washington Merry-Go-Round By DREW PEARSON EDITORIAL PAGE La Grande Evening Observer Frank Schiro, Publisher THURSDAY KVKNINU, MAY 17, 1915 Page Four "Shake Hands Mit Mine Lat est Agvaintance, II err Nips" ' EVENING OBSERVER'S PROGRESS PROGRAM IRRIGATION Complete the Gramle Runde Valley irrigation project. LAGUANDE A city of 10.000 Extend the city limits. TODAY'S TEXT Yea, and why even of yourselves judtii! ye not what is rijrlit? Luke 12:57. THOUGHT FOR TODAY How prone to doubt, how cautions are the wise! Homer. The New Wilson Story Mrs. Eleanor Wilson iMeAdoo chose an appropriate setting to divulge a story that the Wilson family had kept secret for 21 years. The time was the close of the second world war in Europe. The place was San Francisco, where a world congress is attempting to forge an in strument for lasting peace, ami where Mis. McAdoo told to I'eler Kdsou of NEA service a hitherto unknown story of her father, the first world war presi dent. The day ho fore Wnodrow Wilson died, Mrs. McAdoo said, he told his daughters that it was right (hat the United States had not joined I lie league of nations in 11120. He was reconciled to (lie fact that, though inn- entrance into the lea gue which he had conceived would have heen a great victory for him, it would not have worked liecause "deep down i their hearts the American people didn't really holicvo in it." Some day, he prophesied, this coun try would join a league of nations lie cause it really wanted to - and then and then only would it work. That story makes comforting read ing, and also rather startling news. It. if comforting for the admirers of Wil son to know that he did not go to his grave the embittered, heartbroken man that history has pictured him, and that he came to credit popular feeling rather than a senate conspiracy for our aloof ness. Knowing this, we can be sure that he met deatli with more happiness and peace of mind than has been believed. Hut why, one wonders, did the story remain so long untold? Why was the country allowed to believe that a villain ous "little group of willful men" in the senate had denied the wishes of the peo ple, sabotaged us into isolationism, and helped to precipitate the second world conflict'.' President Wilson's stature would not have been decreased by revealing what Edson has called "an important new footnote to history." Hut the record of Lodge and the rest in the league debate, though none too shining at best, would not appear as black as it has now be come. After all, if is not a light thing to ac cuse even dead men of having hastened such a conflict as this which, though half finished, we are still fighting. For it is not too certain that even with America in the league, war could have been averted. There is too much evidence that there were men of other countries who "deep down in their hearts" did not really believe in the lea gue. In any event, Mrs. McAdoo's belated revelation is a good story, and a wel come one. And her father's prophecy which she disclosed is penetratingly correct. Today the American people, having endured another and more frightful lesson, really want a league for peace. So do the peoples of the world. So, we believe, do the peoples' representatives at Sau Francisco, even though some are not yet wholly purged of narrow self interest. And this time, we devoutly hope, Wilson's dream will be realized. Funny business J. :-1 -1 X m in "All I know it that ho says ho won il in poker gaitio with the majorl" SO THEY SAY We will utilie all liiml musses nrar Jiipiin ;is f;tst as wo can l.iki1 t!u"ii, but tin islands we iv;.dy W.wc r;m ;lsnrl much tnmv tf I hi aiu forces. Lark of riiiiu'cnnn ti nips to ih vlnp h;i' i: , critical item. - I.t. -t.cn. Harrow M. Giles, com-tn.in.l-'!' .it my air forces in Vt cilte. Kml of hostilities in Kuropc will nl solve the national coal shoit.iKc, ami it may be nece .v.iiy to u tsuo the "lu own-out" vn)er sonic time during the fall ol this year. - .!. A. Kiuu, chairman war pro duction hoaiM. If there was just ific.il ion prev iously for not spwikuvc our mimls lively to our Kessian wllies. that jdiriftication is now- past. 1 nm ptoloundly convinced that the futuie peace hinges upon a firm pndcrstanduiH tvtwecn the l-nit-($5) States ami the. Soviet Union. - Senator Homer Ferguson H , Michigan. WASHINGTON. Watching our diplomat ic relations close-up, both in S;in Francisco and Washington, leads to the unmistakable conclusion that the most important problem this country faces more important than any domestic or war problem is our relations with Russia. Russia is now on the road to becoming the most powerful nation in Europe and Asia, and there is nothing wc can do to prevent it. Half a billion Chinese, plus one-third bil lion Indians restless under British rule, are certain to gravitate to Russia; also the middle-European countries of Czechoslovakia, Austria, Poland and the Balkans. The United States, meHnwhile, is bound to become the rallying nation for western civil ization Great Britain, Latin America, France, Holland, the Scandinavian countries. There will be two powerful blocks. The question is: will they drift into war 10 or 20 years from now? If the toboggan once starts, no power on earth can prevent war. The time to stop it is now. And already our relations with Russia have reached the low level of diplomatic nose-thumbing and caus tic note-writing which augurs ill for the fu ture. With this alarming situation in mind, this columnist proposes to diagnose the entire Tangled skein of our Russian relations. Some of what follows will be considered very crit ical of Russia. Some may be considered critical of the United States. It is suggested that no conclusions bo drawn until both sides arc presented. Keep Out of Berlin Relations with Russia began their nose dive just a few days before President Roose velt died, when Stalin sent his note accus ing us of a deal with the Germans in order that wc might Ret to Berlin ahead of the Red army. Of course there was no deal. But there had been a conference of American and Ger man officers in Switzerland to arrange for an armistice in Italy, and the manner in which the Germans were surrendering wholesale to the Americans in the west, while fighting to the last ditch against the Russians in the cast, made the Russian gen erals suspiciou. The Russians are a suspicious people any way, and long years of isolation have not made them less so. Also, in view of the fact that 700,000 Germans have already been shipped off to Russia by the Red army, it is easy to sec why the German army hastened to surrender on one front, while fighting fiercely on the other. To allay Rusian suspicions, the American army stopped its advance on the river Elbe, carefully kept out of Berlin. Keep Out of Prague Almost simultaneously, however, another unfortunate incident occurred. The Ameri can ambassador to Czechoslovakia, Laurence Steinhardt, was all set to go back to Czecho slovakia with the invading Russian armies. So also was a British diplomatic mission. Presdent Benes was returnng and was anx ious to have American and British diplomats go with him. But the Russians said no. Their excuse was that no housing facilities were available in Czechoslovakia. And up until this writ ing, Ambassador Steinhardt is still cooling his heels, unable to enter the country to which he is accredited. Shortly thereafter occurred another un fortunate incident. At Yalta it was agreed that both the British and American armies would send troops into Vienna, and would also occupy certain Austrian provinces. But suddenly the Russians set up a government in Vienna under the old socialistic leader, Dr. Karl Renncr. Also they seized the Vien nese airfields. So now, British and American token forces, which expected to fly into Vienna, cannot land. Also no American or British ambassadors can enter the city until we rec ognize the Renncr government. Trouble in Bulgaria Little has been published on the Bulgar ian situation, but more Bulgarian leaders have been executed by the Russians than in any other allied-occupied country. Prob ably they are all Nazis of the type who would eventually have faced trial for war crimes. Therefore, IT. S. officials do not ob ject to this so much as to the fact that Amer icans arc not permuted to be free agents in Bulgaria. '. On top of all this came the arrest of the 1G Polish leaders who were to negotiate with Moscow for the broadening of the Lublin government. With this climax, Churchill and Truman wrote similar notes to Marshal Sta lin, setting forth all the broken Yalta prom ises Austria, Poland, failure to consult re garding a new government in Roumania, failure to carry out certain political pledges in Yugoslavia. They asked Stalin for an ex planation. Stalin's reply, which will be outlined in an early column, left a great deal to be de sired. It was one day after its receipt that President Truman stopped lend-lease ship ments to European Russia, continuing, how ever, Seattle shipments of equipment for the .trans-Siberian railroad. Some U. S. gen Sec WASHINGTON . . . Page 6 WE, THE WOMEN By RUTH MILLETT If you live in Danville, III., and want your lawn mowed, your garden spaded, or your basement cleaned, you just call Youth Em ployment Center at the local YMCA and there is a school boy for the job. The boys, from 14 to 18, work after school and on Saturdays while school is in ses sion, and all day during the summer months. It would certainly make any commun ity a better place to live if boys that age were encouraged to help with odd jobs and were organized so as to be easily located. If there are more jobs than boys, then there ought to be a priority list. Women living alone and households in which the man of the family isn't able to work should have highest priority. And at the bottom of the list should be placed the calls from homes where there is a strong, healthy man member of the family, who could do the work around the place if he would. That way the high school kids would get the idea that their work is really important. For even a 14-year-old would certainly get more satisfaction out of mowing a lawn for a war wife than in pushing a lawn mower all afternoon so that the man of the family could go out to the golf club to get fun out nl exercise. Behind Scenes in Washington By PETER EDSON. La Grande Evening Observer Washington Correspondent SAN FRANCISCO With Foreign Com missar V. M. Moliitnv gone from the San Francisco conference, the Soviet amba::salnr to Washington, Alexander A. Gromyko pronounced Gro-mee-ko. with the accent on the Mee becomes Mr. Big for the Russian delegation at the United Nations charier writing and spelling bee. Gromyko smiles a little more readily than the others in this stolid, impassive anil al most impassable group. Hut, aside from the smile, he is prclty much the presonifieation of mystery wrapped in enigma tall, dark and taciturn. He is younger than nearly all the otlvr heads of missions here, being only H7. That would make him only nine years old at the time of the Bolshevik revolution in I !M 7. so he has grown up under communism. Hi is a career diplomat and apparently a good one in Russian eyes, for he has been award ed the Order of Lenin highest civilian ilic oration given by the Moscow government for the job he has done in Washington m the past six years. Gromyko's public uttv.anccs since he be came ambassador, succeeding Maxim Lit vinov, have been noteworthy only for lb -ir extreme caution, couehi d in the customary polite but dull diplomatic phrasing. About as far as he oes in rnmmitting himself is lo say that the people of the Soviet Union fee I friendship and deep ivspoct for the I'. S, people, and are grateful for receiving from us not only moral but also substantial mate ria! support. As far as Washington society is concerned, his greatest material display of fnend.4iip romcs nt the annual Octotior revolution an niversary rodnptions in the big limestone embassy formerly occupied by carist diplo mats, fnur-aml-a-half blocks uullHh street from the White House. On these iKC.i.-ions, Gromyko dons gold braid and shakes hands with from 1500 to 2U00 members of official Washmi;on, who put on a somewhat die? graceful grab' for the vodka and caviar. It's enough to nuil, a recline of even the most gregarious of nosLs. Gromyko was born" in Minsk, White Rus sia, some 400 miles west of Moscow and ncai what used to be the pre-war, pre-Curzon-l.ine Polish border. Minsk was of course ' ovi rrun by the Gel mans early in the war. Hut at San Francisco Gromyko has the satisfaction of seeing White Russia admit ted as a sovereign slate in the United Na tinns. He was educated as an economist and for a time ieelured at the Institute of Economics and the Academy of Science. Entering the government, at 31) he was in charge of the Amciic.m section of the forefgn office. After a year in that position he was ordered to Washington in l!).tn as counselor to Ambas sador Conslantin Oumansky. In the three months between Ounuinsky's recall and the arrival of Ambassador Litvinov in Decern Nr I'.Hl, Gromyko was in charge of the embassy and conducted early nogtiations for Soviet purchases and lend-lease supplies fiom the U. S. He knew practically no English when he arrived but has studied the language dili gently, along with all the reports on manu facturing, economics, history and politics . the usual things expected of any career dip lomat. Today Gromyko has a goinl working knowledge of English and he gets about in ihi- diplomatic set a bit more. But the ambassador and Madam Gromyko are not, perhaps, as clubby with the White House and stale depaitment officials as were Max im and Ivy Litvinov. Recall of Litvinov at the time of the first Quebec conference in i 943 was at first gos siped about as a slap at the United States for failure to develop a second front. The slate department was quick to ctrny that, howevi r, and any ideas that Gromyko is a seeondrater have been completely re moved. He was head of the Soviet delegation 'that , hilprd draft Dun-barton Oaks proposals last fall and he has handled his government's tffaus in Washington all through the diffi cult periods when sceo.dNfront. Polish. Fin nish, Ronvjrtjia. Yugoslav and GWrtian occu pation and reparations questions have bvin the big issues. T t I94S 8T WrA StBVlCf. IMC. T. M. II EC. 0. g. PAT. OFF. S-6 "They're having sotne kind of bean clew without meat, Henry, and don't you dare make a face when you taste it, and hurt their feelings!" o McKENNEY ON BRIDGE By WM. E. McKENNEY, America's Card Authority ' BE CAREFUL. DON'T OVERDO CONVENTIONS Most bidding conventions are overdone. Too many players use them as a substitute for thinking. However, there are times when a convention is ideally suited to a nand, and today's hand is an example. While a one-spade bid by 4 A Q 7 0 5 f K3 A Q J 8 KJ98 N 432 V98 W c "JC2 92 478543 10 9 76 4 Dealer J8 10 VAQ 107 5 4 K 10 A532 Duplicate Neither vul. South Weet IV Pass 3 Pass 5 V Pass 6 . Pans North 2 4 N.T. 5 N. T 7N. T. East Pass Pass Pass Pass 18 North would have been forcing, two spades was the correct bid, . indicating not only a game de mand, but a slam invitation also. Now if South wanted to tell his partner that he Was on a bare minimum, and not interested in a slam from his own point of Questions & A miners Q What has caused the delay of the trial of Marshal Petain for crimes against the French state by reason of cellLi.eration with Nazis? A No leati.r.g lawyer is will ing to defend him. view, he would have responded with three hearts. But the bid in another suit, three clubs, accept ed the slam invitation. North employed the Black wood convention in the bid of four no trump, and South's re sponse, five hearts, showed two ' aces. North then bid five no trump, asking for kings, and South, with one king, responded correctly with six diamonds. This of course was all the in formation North needed to bid a reasonably safe grand slam. e IN FORMER YEARS 30 Years Ago J. W. Spencer of Union, W. T. Case of .'reel, and W. B. Hind inan of El?m were elecied direc tors of inn Eastern Oregon Tele phone company. ' Early Purples, grown in the Frecwater-Milton orchards, were the first cherries to appear on the La Grande markets. L. H. Howland, county survey or, returned from a week's visit in Wallowa county on business. Flora and Chrystnl Davis left for Joseph, Mo. Q In what region of Europe was there the greatest diversity of troops? A Italy, where there Americans, British, Indians Zealanders, South Africa1- zilians, Japanese of A;:i ican birth, an all-Jewish bri- ule, an American Negro diva-1 and Free Italians.. .ew Q Has industry foi lary supply of vilamin. production? A A gain in effieien per cent was achieved b heed Aircraft m one year . adopting this procedure. olun . c -1 - to of 4.6 Lock- by 15 Years Ago , Workmen were tearing down the Garity blacksmith building and that formerly occupied by the Mother's lunch, to provide a site .for a new structure to be come a part of the Larison ga rage. About 20 carloads of seniors left on the annual class picnic of the La Grande high school. They went to Radium springs to spend the day swimming.and picnicing. 10 Years Ago One hundred sixteen students wer-.' graduated from La Grande high rrhool. Of that number 52 are beys and 64 girls. Four-tenths of an inch of rain fell in I n Grande, bringing need ed moisture to both city and val ley. It was the first rain of con sequence since late April and soil conditions were getting very c'ry. i Starting with a three-hit spree in the first inning of the base ball game, La Grande defeated North Powtler Tuesday with a score of 11 to 7. This Curious World vA I A k contain about triI'lfB i I 7 ON-FOUKTH Wg ? BISOAAAE fEIllj I WUEkJ A UAu -A.vm . .n . A , T MAm.NS' ccms PILOT, POLL qooo er ISTO THE PACIFIC CCEiN WHEN HIS PARACHUTE .FAILEDiTO OPE... Vj AND Cow. m hu timer me WJIN A MAN TAKIS UP lfe HE LAYS IF COWN,"4(l" AoeuNB HALfc, isu in ii ii yjg fri i (?) NEXT: An early idea o! Ught.iing.
