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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 4, 1958)
5 Communists, People Without Country, Are Mostly Cruel, Freed Priest Believes Editor's not: This lummer Father Joseph Patrick McCor mack, a Maryknoll Missioner. was released from five years in a Red Chinese prison and sent home. Father McCormack now recuperating from his or deal, has spent almost half his 65 years serving God in the Far East. Today, in the first of two dispatches, he begins his story of what hap pened to him. and is happen ing to the Chinese people, un der Communist rule. By JOSEPH P. McCORMACK. M.M. (Written for United Press International) Since my release after five years in a Red prison, people are continually asking me ?bout the Chinese Commun ists. My reply is that there are no Chinese Communists for all Communists are men without countries. Regardless of their nationality whether.) they're Russian or Chinese, or even American once they've been indoctrinated with the Communist idea, they're the same all over the world shrewd, fanatical, capable of doing anything to get what they want. But mostly they're cruel. The Communists that I mixed with during my trial and while in prison had lost not only their personal identi ties, but their national charac teristics as well. They were too cruel to be called Chinese. People Frightened The ordinary people of Chi na are frightened to death be cause of Red brutality. They are terrorized by a highly efficient secret police organi zation which has a finger on everyone. A jailed Communist told me that between October 1953 and October 1954 the Reds arrested 35 million Chi nese from all walks of life, and on the slightest pretext. It's unbelievable how the face of China has changed. What was once a 'land of warmth and laughter is now a desert of frightened, unsmil ing faces. In Shanghai alone, over one million people have been put in prison. The jails are jammed with men and women whose only crime is that they're too poor to pay taxes. I saw part of the picture during a propaganda cam paign which the Communists launched last February, using nine of us from the prison. Father McCormack Came From Ireland Father Joseph Patrick McCormack, M a r y k noil Missioner, was born in Ros common, Ireland, Aug. 6, 1893. After attending schools in his native land," he came to the U.S., entered Maryknoll and was ordain ed for the priesthood. In 1925 he left for the missions of Fushun, Manchuria. During World War II, he was interned by the Japan ese but was repatriated to the U.S. in 1942. Early in 1943, he took up new work in the missions of Chile. After the war. Father McCormack returned to Manchuria but Communist Army advances forced him to withdraw into South China. He was arrested at Shanghai with seven other missioners in 1953 and placed in a Red prison. After assigning 14 secret po lice to guard us, they took us on a 30-day conducted junket of new redevelopment proj ects. Official Clearance The tour was a big thing, let me tell you, with high powered publicity and all kinds of official clearance. Even though we knew we were being used with pho tos taken of us in clean white shirts, eating good food and smoking cigarettes I must say it was a nice switch from prison life. So we went along with the game. I wasn't much impressed IT'S COOL INSIDE MONDAY NIGHT DOOR BUSTERS ON SALE 5 TO 9 ONLY GIRLS' SUMMER DRESSES ALL SIZES: 1-3, 3-6X, 7-14 SUB-TEENS WERE 2.98 to 5.98 97 ONLY 208 - SO HURRY-IN! WOMEN'S ' SUMMER CASUALS SIZES 6 to 9, A, B, C WIDTHS WERE 2.98 to 4.98, ONLY 380 PAIR - SO HURRY TO WARDS FOLDING CHAISE LOUNGE LIGHT, STRONG ALUMINUM FRAME WEATHER RESISTANT, VELON WEBBING REG. 16.95 LIMITED QUANTITIES - SO HURRY TO WARDS DELSEY TOILET TISSUE SUPER SOFT . . . EASY TEARING REG. 13e per roll ' STOCK UP NOW AND SAVE! with their building program. Most of it was a sham, like a set for a Hollywood movie. The one exception was the big bridge at Hankow, which they've been working on for several years. It's quite an engineering feat in any man's book especially for China. But the tragedy is that all this is being accomplished by slave labor. I saw thousands of workers at the bridge site prisoners from the labor camps their bodies thin and worn, carrying heavy loads that you wouldn't put on the backs of animals, much . less human beings. System Terrifying .The whole judicial system, from what I saw of it, is ter rifying. As soon as the po lice pick you up, you know you don't have a chance. Ar- r e s t is synonymous with guilt, and you never try to obtain leniency by defending yourself. When they grabbed me in 1953 they said that I could have a lawyer, but that I shouldn't fight the charges. Because the more you fight, they told me, the more severe me penalty, iney Kept re minding me that what I said to the court really wouldn't matter I would be judged on my "mental attitude." I never did find out what they meant by "mental atti tude, but I suppose they marked me fairly high on it, because I only got a five-year sentence It all started for me when the Reds came storming through Manchuria after World War II. I was up there then, as Vicar Capitular of the Maryknoll diocese of Fu shun. The wind was blowing against us, and as the Com- mumsi movement grew stronger, the persecution of the Church became more in tense The crucial point, in my own mind, was the slaying of an elderly Chinese priest in January, 1948. For two win ter months he had been in an unheated prison, covered only by burlap rags, and half starved. Then, on a bitter cold morning that I will never for get, they dragged him out of his cell, shot him three times in the back of the head, 'and kicked his body into a drain age ditch. From then on, it seemed, everything went against us, and in desperation, I decided to abandon the present and prepare for the future. Depends Upon Priests The future of the Church in China, as in any country, depends upon priests so, I made arrangements for our 30 Fushun seminarians to move south, to Peiping, where they could continue their studies for the priesthood. Palo Alto Firm Low for Freeway Sacramento, Calif Mc Cammon - Wunderlich com pany and Wunderlich Con tracting company of Palo Alto, Calif., submitted a low bid of $4,140,553 last week for construction of a new four lane divided freeway on High way 99 around Dunsmuir. The freeway will include three interchanges and three under crossings near the city, Travelling lanes will be con crete pavement, and inter change approaches will be as phalt concrete, California highway department officials said. Included in the project jvill be 300 wells, 24 inches in diameter, and up to 40 feet deep, filled with gravel to collect ground water to re duce unstable foundation con ditions. There also will be 13 miles of horizontal drain pipes to prevent slides from highway cuts. To relieve the present Dunsmuir storm sewer sys tem, all precipitation falling on the freeway will be car ried in a drain along the cen ter line of the freeway. It will empty in Yew Tree creek and the Sacramento river. The freeway will extend from just south of the Sacra mento river bridge north of Dunsmuir to a mile south of the Shasta county line. Con struction of the section is ex pected to take two years: Ellis C. Engle has been named resi dent engineer for the division of highways. ATTENTION. PHD'S Tapeih, Formosa IWD-r A provincial legislator has urg ed that women employees of the provincial government be fired and sent back to the kitchen. Lin Yuan-Tsan told the provincial assembly that most women employees are relatives of officials anyway and "their positions should be filled with unemployed college graduates." Kennan said other locations seeking the museum are Green -Bay, Wis.; Miami, Fla.; and St. Louis, Mo. . . With the help of God and a great deal of courage, my lads walked the 550 miles of road from Fushun to Peiping, most ly by night, to avoid Com munists and bandits; by Easter they were once more behind seminary walls. But north of us the Com munist victories kept piling up and I knew it was only a question of time before all of China would fall. So early in 1949 I hurried down to Shang hai, to arrange for their de parture from the mainland and obtain funds to support them. Eventually, nine of them made it to Hong Kong, where they were later or d a i n e d. The Communists caught the remainder and sent them back to their villages in Manchuria. (Next: Arrest and Imprison Quotes From the News United Press International New York Nathan H. Knorr, president of the Watch Tower and Bible Tract Society (Jehovah's Witnesses), on the state .of the world: "If is evident that government of the earth by man has not been the best form of rulership. ' Washington Rep. Kenneth B. Keating (R-N.Y.) on "bugging," or electronic eavesdropping: "The insidious practice of electronic eavesdropping goes to the very marrow of, our invidivual freedoms." New York Military analyst and aviation pioneer Maj Alexander P. De Seversky, ciriticizing the administration's alleged lack of awareness of the danger presented by the Russian Sputnik: ., "They laughed it off. It was just a little ball. It couldn't dp anybody any harm." Taipeh Formosan legislator Lin Yuan-Tsan on the role of women in government offices: "They should be sent back to the kitchen." , Moscow Former presidential candidate Adlai E Stevenson, assuring a Russian Baptist audience their con gregation would flourish: "I have seen evidence of spiritual vitality that will hearten all mankind." KING TURNS AUTHOR Stockholm, Sweden (UPD King Gustav Adolf is ' Swe den's newest author, with a glossy tourist booklet giving details of Sofiero royal castle in Haelsingborg. The king also took the pictures illus trating the text. MAIL TRIBUNE, Medfora", Oregon, Monday, August 4, 19S8 7 Ottawa (UPD Princess Margaret went through a last day of oficial ceremonies Sat urday, before a two-day rest at a summer cottage in the Gati neau Hills. SELBY GLASS CO. 303 North Bartlett SPECIAL! We Need More Room! NOW IS THE TIME August is our final delivery Month at our Summer Prices. So don't delay Get yours today. DOUGLAS FIR PEELER HEARTS $7400 Unsplit. 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