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University Daily Kansan Wednesday, March 18, 1953 Letters
Latin American Reds Pose Realistic Threat
Fears that the Red hammer and sickle is becoming more than a shadow over Latin America have been given substance in recent months. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, harking to the rumblings, has promised that the administration will not forget the countries to the south while trying to unite western Europe and end the Korean war.
In Bolivia the Communists supported the government seizure of the strategic tin mines. In Chile the Communist party may again regain legal status under President Carlos Ibanez after being outlawed in 1948. In Panama university students are stirring up hatred against "yanqui imperialism". In Brazil the Reds joined with nationalists to unsuccessfully prevent ratification of a U.S.-Brazil defense pact, and an 18,000-man guerilla army is reported forming in the interior.
Also a stepped-up propaganda program is underway. Soviet "cultural centers" reportedly are distributing vast amounts of material; Spanish-language magazines printed by the Cominform press in Bucharest are offered on newswands. Radio Moscow smothers the area, boosting forth the party line in Spanish and Portuguese.
However, Guatemala is the center of Red hemisphere activity. There the government is virtually Communist-ram.
Communists fill key government positions. Top Reds head the security agency and the government-operated radio system, and the congressional president is Julio Estrada de la Hos ("of the hammer and sickle")
In November, 21 congressional deputies, including Estrada, sent a message congratulating the North Koreans on their "valiant stand" and hoping for an early victory. Guatemala sent three representatives to the Peiping "peace conference" and 11 to another at Vienna
Organized labor is completely Communist-dominated. The Guatemalan Confederation of Workers controls 225,000 workers in 17 unions. Meanwhile, in the rural area the Indians look to communism as a Messiah to deliver them from poverty, ignorance, ill-health, and land-hunger.
American business casts a fearful eye at the small Central American republic, also. The United Fruit company, although the second largest private investor in the country, may face the loss of large land holdings. The government, in its reform program, has moved to expropriate 225,000 acres of the company's holdings.
In February the Red situation in Guatemala made the headlines with an open flare-up. Early in the month the Supreme Court issued an injunction suspending a new agrarian reform law. Acting almost immediately, the Congress dismissed the chief justice and three associates and replaced them with more agreeable men. President Arbenz heartily endorsed the action, and violent riots ensued.
The United States, in meeting this specific challenge, again has the difficult job of determining what is true agrarian reform and what is Communist exploitation of smoldering situations.
The most recent event was announced Friday when the United Press reported that a nine-country conference is being planned for June in which anti-Communist Latin American nations may decide to impose a "quarantine"—presumably an economic blockade—on Guatemala.
Regardless of the outcome of this conference, this much is certain: the United States must actively re-establish mutual trust with the Latin American republics, which has been steadily deteriorating since the Good Neighbor days of Cordell Hull—and hereafter keep a closer tab on the pulse beat of the hemisphere.
Jerry Knudson
POGO
by Dick Bibler
Chuck Morelock's editorial in the March 9 UDK, "Mccarthy 'Voice' Probe Will Strengthen West," does not please me at all. I should like to criticize the point of view expressed in it.
'Voice' Editorial Displeases Writer
I fail to find any justification at all for commending McCarthy's investigation of the Voice. His methods are undemocratic and, to say the least, inefficient. To commend him despite his methods is tantamount to accepting the "end-justifies-the-means" philosophy of all totalitarian governments.
To the Editor of the Daily Kansan:
To anyone who saw or heard McCarthy's quizzing of Mr. Read Harris recently, it should be painfully clear that McCarthy is not accomplishing his expressed purposes, or even trying to. His statement on that broadcast to the effect that all the inefficiency in the Voice must denote Communists in its organization is a conclusion we might question. His data on efficiency comes from questionable sources.
I frankly question the sincerity of his motives. Sensationalism is a fine way to keep one's name before the voters, and the power that he is gaining through his methods is probably quite desirable to him.
The State Department has ways of getting rid of inefficient workers—Eisenhower's new policy of big-business personnel management opens the door for that. And the damage that McCarthy is doing, in terms of weakened morale among Voice employees (witness recent suicides), far outreets any "good" he might do by ferreting out a few individuals whose ideas in some respects happen to coincide with the current Communist line.
Norm Storer graduate student
In other words, it is my opinion that Joe McCarthy is actually hurting the West by his "investigations" instead of strengthening it; Huey Long was quite right: When facism comes to America, it will come under the name of anti-communism instead of anti-facism.
Little Man on Campus
The second argument for clemency is that the Rosenbergs' guilt has not been established beyond a reasonable doubt. Chief Justice James H. Wolfe of the Supreme Court of Utah said in a letter to the President: "I think the conviction rests on too shaky a foundation".
Elliot S. Valenstein graduate student
Death is irreversible. No amends can be made afterwards if there has been an error.
"Ya shoulda seen th' look on th' dean's face when Floyd started playin' his piccalo."
Reasonable Doubt In Rosenberg Case
To the Editor of the Daily Kansan:
To the Editor of the Daily Kansan:
Miss Emnsinger's letter on the Rosenberg case presents no facts,
but assumes their guilt and the justice of the sentence. She doubts
seriously that our allies would object to "our method of dealing with traitors."
These appeals for clemency generally present one or both of the following arguments. First, the severity of the sentence reflects the hysteria of the time rather than justice. At another time the death sentence would not have been considered. The e "espionage" (no t treason) that the Rosenbergs have been convicted of occurred at a time when most people in this country were cooperating with the Soviet Union against a common enemy, Americans like Axis Sally and Tokyo Rose who gave support to the enemy to help bring about the defeat of this country were not given the death sentence.
Actually, people of all walks of life, of all political opinions in the countries allied with us have sent thousands upon thousands of protest letters to Washington. The mail is so heavy that even communiqués from such important personages as Pope Pius XII manage to get "lost"
Short Ones
One campus character thought he was being appropriate wearing a toga in the Union's new-main lounge. He said he was waiting for the chariot races to start in the stadium.
Seems like there is some disagreement as to what sports should be presented in the KU satdium. Dr. Ise is holding out for bullfights. He says actually they would be more economical. Isn't that bully?
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A professor trying to put across the matter of relativity asked a women student what a bad man was? The girl thought a minute, then asked "which kind?"