Evening Star Newspaper, January 25, 1942, Page 26

Editorial Page Features TEN PAGES. The Sunday Star WASHINGTON, D. C, JANUARY 25, 1942, Educational Strasser’s Activities in Canada Questioned by H. G. Wells ‘Free German’ Movement Declared Recruiting Aid of Refugees to Save Reich From Russia, Now British Ally 2 By H. G. Wells, North American Newspaper Alliance LONDON.—I want to know every- thing I can about Otto Strasser. Ever since this war began I have wanted to know clearly what we are supposed to be fighting for and what we are fighting against. By chance, in the house of the Foreign Minister of Bermuda, I encountered Otto Strasser, and the manner of our meeting and one or two things about it aroused my curiosity so violently that I have gone on accumulating material about him ever since. I am going to summarize here for the convenience of Mr. Anthony Eden (for whom my respect grows by leaps and bounds) and of any member of Parliament who may want to make use of it. I want to know why Otto Strasser is not in a concentration camp and why he has been petted and en- couraged by a number of people in re- sponsible positions in Britain and Canada. He and his brother Gregor were blood- stained Nazis. He makes considerable claim to copyright in the Nazi idea, and he was the close associate of Goering, Hess, Hitler and the rest of them for eome years. Gregor Strasser, Hitler, Hess, were all together after the abortive Munich putsch in the free and easy prison of Landsberg, where “Mein Kampf” was concocted. (Goering had bolted abroad.) Strasser tells the story with obvious resentment and a sort of scandal-making malice in his “Hitler et Moi,” and particularly how his brother discovered those charming people, Himm- ler and Goebbels, and how basely these valuable finds betrayed him and pre- ferred to follow Hitler's star. Remarkable Propaganda. There is a considerable Otto Strasser propaganda going on; you can get a ‘whole row of it in uniform bindings, and one of its leading books, “Nemesis,” by Douglas Reed, gives the story of this “man that Hitler fears” in a color far more flattering and acceptable to the English turn of mind than Strasser’s own self-revelation. He has translated “Hit- ler and I” into spirited English and there you can read a lot of stuff that I, for one, am disinclined to believe, about Hitler's unspeakable vices. This sort of thing: *‘And to think’ Paul murmured one evening, ‘that Gregor once stopped Hitler from committing suicide.’ “‘When was that?’ I asked, not very attentively. “Paul hesitated, then continued in a low voice: “‘After Hitler murdered his niece Gely.! “At this I started. “‘Did Gregor tell you that?" “Paul nodded. «‘1 swore to keep it secret. Gregor spent three days and three nights with Adolf, who was like a madman. He shot her during a quarrel. Perhaps he did not realize what he was doing. As soon as he had done it, he wanted to commit suicide, but Gregor prevented him.” And so forth. He explains how he ecame to know such remarkable particu- lars. He knew Gely. “I used to pay her attentions. She was no prude.” And by a singular coincidence he knew all about it from a certain photographer’s daughter. She, too, was no prude. There are also long conversations between Strasser and Hitler, told with a mar- velous fullness—Strasser's memory must be wonderful—in which Adolf gets told off amazingly. Met Strasser in Bermuda. Strasser and, for that matter, his | warmed up. I realized he was quite in- sanely anti-Bolshevik and soaked to the marrow with the idea of the German people being first and foremost in Europe and the world. Most of his declarations -of opinion conclude with “Heil Ger- many!” It seemed to me that our worthy but, as it was then, rather alien-spirited foreign office at home, must be more or less aware of the activities of its little brother in Bermuda, and, as I had _already been denouncing Lord Halifax end Lord Lothian as misreprgsenting e general ideas of the British common an to the American common man, I pursued my inquiries into this new piece of diplomatic idiocy with alarm. Raising Armed Force. And here are the essential facts. I will not comment on them; they speak for themselves. We British are allies of the Russians and we are bound in honor for this war and after the war to stand by them as stoutly as they are now standing by us. This adventurer is now in Canada, raising an armed force to save Germany from Bolshevism, and the government is' allowing that to happen. He is getting arms, while many of our airfields are still very short of defense armament. : His latest book, “L’Aigle Prussien Sur L’Allemagne” (The Prussian Eagle Over Germany), is an impudent attempt on the soundest Nazi lines to exploit the re- ligious feelings and prejudices of the friend Douglas Reed write better when | they refrain from autobiograpRy. Strasser is a well-read man and he can run a “philosophical basis” for his views as convincingly as most of us; he can generalize about secular movements of power as ‘wildly as that industrious propagandist of pro-German inevitabil- ity, Rudolf Steiner, and he has even a *“law of triune polarity” of his very own. 1t is the old question of the one and the many, beaten up with Hobbes and that ersatz history which Germans affect. Like prohibition whisky, it looks all right until you come to tackle it. I met this remarkable man at the end of 1940 on my way back from America, where I had been lecturing and talking upon the absolute necessity of co-opera- tion between the English-speaking world and Russia. I was held up by the weather in Bermuda and, as I had heard in America of a notion for dealing with U-boats that seemed to be good, I went to the Foreign Minister of Bermuda, for Bermuda has a foreign minister of its own, to get him, inter alia, to send a cipher message to the Admiralty about this notion. I need not have bothered. At White- hall I was handed over to a sort of pro- fessional snubber of no scientific stand- ing whatever that I could discover, who conveyed to me that the navy did not want to be bothered with this notion, and when I protested to the first lord he told me that the notion had been considered but that all experimenting with it had been stopped at the outbreak of the war. (Oh England! My Eng- land!) The only things for me to do seemed to be to break windows or shrug my shoulders. I did the latter. Insanely Anti-Bolshevik. The navy is learning, as it prefers to do, in the expensive school of experience, and we have got to build a lot more baitieships. But that is by the way. If nothing came of that anti-submarine notion (unless it got to the Germans or Japanese) it did at least lead to my dis- covery of Otto Strasser in Bermuda. I was told of the great and wonderful secret ahd in an atmosphere of hush, hush, we met. We shook hands—I knew very little of him then except as a dis- tinguished German refugée from Hitler— and he knew still less about me and the Jectures I had been giving in America sbout Russia, Pinland and all that—but as we talked this discord in our attitudes U?m apparent and our eonvernnr French Canadians for his projected re- vival of Germany. “In spite of my short stay in this country I cannot doubt that Quebec will play a great role in the re- construction of Europe wherein the French spirit will have a large share.” ... And he has a great scheme for a pseudo-fragmentation of Germany, leav- ing it in fragments to come together again with a thunderclap whenever they have sufficiently recovered from their coming defeat to be disposed for further mischief. He goes on—forgive my vul- garity—to lubricate the suckers. “It is my duty as European, as German, as Catholic, to demonstrate without relaxa- tion that it will not suffice to conquer Hitler and Nazi-ism” — “Prussianism also is execrable., Authorities Acquiescent. And this is going on now, and it must be going on with the acquiescence of our authorities:: Strasser movement iy to be called the “Free German” move- ment. And when at last the break comes, then, 50 as not to hurt the fine feelings of the German people, already deeply wounded by the writings of Lord Vansittart, this Strasser army, enlarged by that time by an ever-increasing ac- cession of “Free Germans,” pseudo- refugees and tourists, is to bé conveyed across to Berlin to protect it from the unforgettabie indignity of being occu- pied, as it might be otherwise, by Poles, Palestinians, Greeks, Serbs and even (Pah!) godless Russians. The “Free Germans” will understand their unfortunate fellow Germans, and, except for a little cleaning-up of the early feuds of Strasser & Co. against Goering & Co. and Goebbels & Co. and the like, and an expropriation of Protestant Prussia by a swarm of care- fully selected Catholic peasants, nothing will occur to arouse that deep resent- ment for defeat that, we are assured, is one of the noblest of German character- istics. But it may be that it is not the At- lantic powers who will get first to Ber- lin, and it may be that peoples who have learned at first hand what the German considers suitable treatment for an in- vaded people will anticipate them. Strasser’'s propaganda is incessant. He writes articles in our advanced journals upon the decay of morale in Germany and the necessity of Otto Strasser. This copy of “L’Aigle Prussien Sur L’Alle- magne” before me is addressed to one of them and it is autographed with a fidurish, “Hommage de Otto Strasser.” Manifestly he must have supporters in high places, or he would be disarmed and put into a concentration camp forthwith. No comment from me is necessary. Merely I call attention to the fact that this is going on while we are in alliance with Russla, and that Russia is behaving with the utmost punctilo toward us. (Copyright, 1942. by H. G. Wells. Translation Rights Reserved.) Visa Denied Strasser: For Entry Into U. S. Otto Strasser has applied for a visa to enter the United States, and his application has been refused, it is learned from authoritative sources. Strasser’s haven now is Canada. Representatives of Central European governments in exile have been instru- mental in preventing Strasser’s admis- sion to this country, where his brother, Paul, a Benedictine monk,* has found sanctuary. They are said to consider him only an unsuccessful Nazi, deserving of no special consideration, who might endanger their hopes for the restitution of their countries. The State Department, it is reported by persons close to that agency, fears that Strasser would lay the groundwork here for undemocratic plans calculated to give him a high degree of authority in the reconstituted post-war Germany. State Department conversations with respected German refugees have con- vinced the department that Strasser has no support from them. Strasser is anti-Hitler, but not anti- Fascist, the State Department suspects. He has a program for the reconstruction of Central Europe, and the United States Government is eager that he be kept from promoting his program here and thus complicating the activities of other groups, favored, by the State Depart- ment, for blueprinting the new Central (North Ameriesn Newspaper Allianee) Wars Shaped Roosevelt’s Destiny Birthd'ay Finds Him Fit for Exacting Tasks of World War II . ; By Marguis W. Childs SIx’!’Y years ago this coming Friday Franklin Delano Roosevelt was born into the comfortable squirarchy of the Hudson River Valley. No one, unless it was his mother, a woman of extraordi- nary character ard prescience, felt the shado® of the wing of destiny over that birth. The man who will be 60 years old this week is known as few Americans have ever been known. He is known to the meanest coolie on the Burma Road. His is a name that issues familiarly from the rare loudspeaker in the Moroccan desert. On ships at sea and under the ses, in the far strange places of the earth you hear those Dutch-sounding syllables ... Roosevelt. For millions of men and women in the prison that is Europe it has the quick connotation of hope. For other millions it is a name of fear and hate. On the world stage this man is now front and center. It is his destiny, a terrifying and wonderful destiny, to stand there almost alone, unsmiling, grim, resolute. The curious thing is that he should have gone s0 long before the mark of his future was obvious on him. In more ways than one his illness of 20 years ago was & turning point. He was close to death. He was threatened with an invalid’s existence. And something hap- pened within the man, something that was to alter his life entirely. Has Stuck to Pledge. 1t is what gives his bjrthday a special significance. The day is dedicated to the crusade that he started against the scourge of infantile paralysis. Having suffered from this scourge, he resolved to do everything in his power to help other sufferers and he has never, even in all the press of world affairs, forgotten that pledge. On Priday night in every city and village in,the land Americans will dance in order that other Americans may be helped to walk. Not long after Pearl Harbor the Presi- dent, as he.shaved, was talking with his press secretary, Stephen Early, about the reaction of the press to that national tragedy. Early pointed out that edi- torial writers, columnists and correspon- dents almost without exception had com- mented on the calm way in which the President had come through that ordeal. He doesn’t seem to have any nerves was a frequent commert in the aftermath of the trying week that began on De- cember 7. ‘Well, why not, the President said, re- minding his friend and adviser that war was not exactly a new experience to him. Actually he saw probably a greater part of the general war area in 1918 than any other Americah. 80 much has happened to Mr. Roosevelt in the intervening years that the public has more or less for- But not 1913 to 1920 was one of the great ad- ventures of his life and particularly during the war years. Moreover, he reminded Mr. Early that his speeches in recent years have con- tained repeated warnings of the peril America was in. Others preferred not to believe this, but the President was firmly convinced that the Nazis meant soon or late to sirike directly at this country. ‘Therefore when it came he was less sur- prised than perhaps any one else. Renewal of Career. To the President it meant taking up again a career that had been broken off in 1920. Today he is Commander in Chief and his word is final in all departments of the Government. During the World ‘War he had to make decisions only for the Navy Department where, incidentally, his chief, Josephus Daniels, entrusted him with the lion’s share of responsibility, In 1913 when he became Assistant Secretary of the Navy Mr. Roosevelt was 31. He was only 38 when he finished his tour of duty in that office. An active, energetic young man, he managed during those seven years to see for himself virtually all of the American defense bases. He visited the Canal Zone and the West Indies. In charge of procure- ment, supplies and transportation, he in- spected plants and Navy yards through- out the country. But the real adventure came when he boarded a destroyer in the spring of 1918 for Europe. It was a rough crossing with the ship blacked out and the menace of submarines always present. His was a roving commission of inspection and the first port of call was the Azores. From there the destroyer took the young As- sistant Secretary to destroyer bases in Ireland and then to destroyer, subchaser and air bases in England. It was more war, in terms of geography and even in terms of peril, than most professional sailors or soldiers get out of two or three wars. And it is small wonder that after such an excursion the young Assistant Secretary should have contracted double pneumonia on the homeward voyage on the Leviathan. He was carried off the ship at New York on a stretcher and when he had recovered after a long convalescence he began a new phase of his life. Was Stricken in 1921. The new phase began with the attack of poliomyelitis which came in 1921, for no one had taken too seriously the trial flight into politics in 1920 when he had been the Democratic vice presidential candidate. That was the turning point, that ordeal by suffering and invalidism. He came out of it in many ways a dif- ferent person, more disciplined, more mature, a man with depth of character that had not been visible before. No one has ever heard him whine: His old teacher, the Rev. Dr. Endicott Pea- body, venerable headmaster of Groton Preparatory School until a year ago, tells of his first meeting with Mr. Roose- velt after his illness in the library at Hyde Park. Dr. Peabody started to ex- press his sympathy to the young man in the wheel chair. But Mr, Roosevelt would not have it. “What a chance it's given me,” he said. “Look at ‘all the books I've never had time to read. And now—something I've always wanted—I have the time.” In 1024, three years after he had been paralyzed, Mr. Roosevelt first heard of ‘Warm Springs, Gl.:‘ln unknown health T resort 75 miles south of Atlanta. He was persuaded to try a cure there. The pos- sibilities of the place captured his ready imagination. He felt that physical exer- cise in the warm spring water and re- peated massage definitely helped him and he wanted to help others. Two years later through his efforts experimental work under expert super- vision was begun when 23 patients were placed under observation for periods of from 5 to 17 weeks. The following year the Warm Springs Foundation, a non- profit organization, was formed to pro- mote what was fast becoming a center for the treatment of sufferers from in- fantile paralysis. Yielded to Smith's Plea. Believing he would be able to walk again if he persisted in his cure, Mr. . RBosevelt resisted all efforts for many months to draft him as a candidate for the race for Governor of New York. But when his old friend, Al Smith, put it on the basis of party loyalty and helping along the national ticket he yielded. ‘Thereafter he was to see Warm Springs only on vacation and at more and more infrequent intervals. Each time he went there he was restored in body and spirit. The President had a remarkable capacity for putting aside one set of preoccupa- tions and taking up another. Coming from Washington, he left behind the burdens of state and threw himself en- thusiastically into the development of the health center. He took a personal interest in each new buijing that went up, in each new patient and doctor. Out of this project he drew a warm sense of contributing toward helping others who had suffered from the same disease. During the crowded years in Wash- ington—it's nearly nine years now—one imperative demand has been an oc- casional interval of escape. To get away on a boat was almost as curative as Warm Springs. The important thing has been the respite. And when the presidential conscience held him to his desk, the President’s personal physician, Admiral Ross Mclntire, was stern. His old sinus trouble, the only chronic ail- ment he has, flared up when he got too tired. Then he was told to cut down on cigarettes. The President has always been a source of amazement to the men around him. Working tirelessly, he saw other perfectly normal, healthy individuals fall away with fatigue or with that change of purpose and direction which is a kind of fatigue. Through the in- tensive campaigning of 1936 he rode with a light-hearted gaiety, not really extending himself in a contest which he knew to be one sided. Seldom Showed Worry. As the shadow of the coming Eu- ropean war grew longer across the world, the President now and then let his close advisers see the worry that gnawed at him. But for the most part the public at large, in spite of the increasing gravity of his references to foreign affairs, saw no change in the blithe campaigner who could laugh at his stufty critics and make millions of peo- ple laugh with him. Outwardly the change has been slight. For those who have seen him week in and week out it has been almost imper- ceptible. To realize the difference you have to turn back to the pictures of that still young looking man who was inaugurated for the first time on March 4, 1933. He had then quality of youth which has been supplanted by a look of settled maturity. Above all it is perceptible in his head which in a curious way seems to have grown more massive. It was always an outside head. Now it seems to have taken on heroic proportions; the jutting brow with the now almost white hair that has grown sparser; the often caricatured Jjaw; the broad expanse of cheek and cheekbone. Outwardly, too, his environment has changed but little. The number of gadgets on his desk--donkeys, dolls, souvenirs—has increased so that of necessity the overflow has been accom- modated on a side table. Steve Early is there. Old Charlie Michelson. Many of the familiar faces. But the President himself is aware of the changes that have occurred. . His devoted disciple, the gnomic Louis McHenry Howe, died in the first year in the White House. During the past year there have been two blows. r' President’s mother, Mrs. President Roosevelt is pictured here in the historic America’s declaration of war agajnst the Axis. act of signing —Harris-Ewing Photo, Sara Delano Roosevelt, died in Septem- ber. She was probably the dominant influence on her only child. A woman of remarkable force of character, she was at the President’s side during the high moments of his career. Through- out her life she presided over the estate at Hyde Park, where her son’s affections are deeply rooted. Her death came as he struggled with the world crisis. Miss Le Hand Seriously IIl What the other blow has meant the public has hardly realized. Miss Mar- guerite Le Hand, the President’s confi- dential secretary for many years, was taken seriously ill a year ago. She is still stricken, a patient now at Warm Springs. Only the President can know the full extent of the loss of Miss Le Hand—"Missy”"—who had her own suite, living room, bedroom and bath, in the White House. Efficient and self-effacing, she smoothed many paths for the over- burdened Chief Executive. Still at his side is another m of character, Eleanor Roosevelt. 'It' was she who fought for his cure against those who might have preserved him for a life of invalidism. In countless ways, which agaim only the President can know, his wife has served his career. Those who have watched at close range the Roosevelt drama recall only one period when his manner seemed to undergo a definite change. That was in September of 1939. Rumor had him jittery. Grim was a better word, per- haps, to describe the mood that came over him. Two months passed before he was his normal, casual self again. In the spring of 1940 he underwent his longest White House illness. An attack of intestinal influenza sent him to bed for 10 days, and there followed an eight- day convalescence at Warm Springs. Up to that time two weeks would have covered the entire period of “In bed under doctor's orders” during his two terms. ‘The President is in good health today, but he is a little tired. The visit of Prime Minister Churchill was a strain in more ways than one. First, of course, vital decisions were being reached on the whole conduct of the war—decisions which will affect the future of virtually every human being in the entire world. Then, like any other house guest, Mr. Churchill made demands on the time of his host. Schedule Often Upset. The two men lead dissimilar lives. Mr. Roosevelt has a fairly regular daily schedule, waking between-8 and 8:30, going to bed around 11, working at his stamp collection or reading for an hour or so and then dropping off to sleep about midnight. Of course, this schedule has been upset many times in recent months, but when he can the President adheres to it. Mr. Churchill has no regard for the clock whatsoever. He works in long, hard spurts and sleeps when he happens to feel like it. In London his cabinet min- isters are called out of bed at any hour of the night. Naturally Mr. Roosevelt tried to accommodate himself to his guest and friend. One result was that he lost considerable sleep. He had a brief interval of rest away from the White House while the Prime Minister was in Florida, but this was not sufficient to pick him up again. While no one has discussed it, the possibility is that the President will try to get away again in the early spring, perhaps before. His destination will probably not be announced, but a good guess might be Warm Springs. He needs the tonic for mind and body that that spot provides. The place has changed magically since Mr. Roosevelt first began going there. ‘The old frame Meriwether Inn was torn down eight years ago. In its place was built Georgia Hall which provides a community dining room, kitchen, gather- ing place for games and music, recep- tion and information desk and adminis- tration offices. Basil O’Connor, the Presi- dent’s former law partner and executive chairman of the Warm Springs Founda- tion Committee, has been most successful in getting donations from wealthy men for other new buildings which are skill- fully piaced on the wooded, rolling site. Warng Springs was supported from 1927 to 1934 through the contributions of individuals and chariiable organiza- tions, Many well-known people con- tributed to the work. Mr. and Mrs. (Continued on page B-3) a Japan’s Victories Are Setback To White Prestige in Far East Injury to Ruling Class Held More Serious Than Military Losses; Situation Helps Standing of Chinese. By Felix Morley. Every one who has ever lived or traveled extensively in the Far East knows that prestige is the foundation of the empires which the white man has established there. And it is this fact which makes the series of Japanese successes & much more significant matter than the loss of territory involved. Territory that is conquered can be re- conquered. But when prestige is lost it s at least fundamentally impaired. This is particularly true when prestige has come to be associated primarily with mil- itary, government and commercial su- periority. These characteristics, ruther than his attempts in moral and ethical leadership, have unfortunately tended to characterize the dominance of the white man around the fringe of Asia. So implications of the rapid Japanese conquest of Hong Kong, most of the Philippines, the Malay Peninsula and several outposts of the Netherlands In- dies cannot be assessed merely in strate- gic and economic terms. These are im- portant. But more important is the present evaporation of that legend of white supremacy which for two centuries has enabled a relative handful of alien officials, traders and soldiers to rule the teeming millions of the East. It is a legend which will not be easily restored. Nor is the problem made easier by evi- dence that the Chinese armies, alone of those resisting Japanese aggression, have 50 far been able to throw the in- vaders back. It does not help white prestige to have it whispered throughout Asia that it takes one yellow race to check the conquest of another. Power in Japan’s Slogan. Japan may not definitely hold Hong Kong. But it is doubtful that any re- sponsible Chinese could today be found to predict the eventual return of this former Crown Colony to British rule, There is revolutionary power in the Jap- anese slogan of Asia for the Asiatics, not less 50 because it does not specify which Asiatics. Inconscipuously tucked away amid news of more dramatic events there have lately been numerous items tending to confirm the opinion that movements of & most far-reaching character are be- coming operative in the Far East. And since some of these trends were pro- nounced even before the war, it is not surprising that they should be accent- uated by the present upheaval. An incident #hil BRéks front page this week was the arrest of flleuiflme Minister of Burma, who re- cen! deave to status to this important outpost of British India. The place of Premier U Saw's arrest has not been made public. But the reason, as announced from Lon- don, is that “he has been in contact with Japanese authorities since the outbreak of war with Japan.” This particular Burmese leader may be, as alleged, a bad egg. The British refusal to let him return home may be wholly justified as a defensive measure. But if this is accepted, the incident stili remains disquieting. And it is dim- cult for one imperialism to write off as & Quisling the spokesman of a subject people who shows himself willing to listen to the blandishments of & rival imperial power. Statement Is Not Alone. Equally disconcerting was the almost simultaneous statement from Chungking of Dr. Sun Fo, chairman of the Legisla- tive Assembly of Nationalist China and son of the revered Sun Yat-sen. If the United States and Great Britain are content with waging defensive war in the Far East, said Dr. Sun, there will be “grave doubt in Chungking as to the wisdom of China continuing to fight.” Dr. Sun is not the head of the Chinese government., He owes his position in part to his father’s reputation. What he says is subject to discount. But this remark from Dr. Sun is not the only one of its kind. There have been other recent indi- cations that a not inconsiderable element in Chins would be willing to consider a reasonable peace with Japan, if that were offered. Such an attitude cannot be called surprising, considering that this is now the 55th month in which Natlonalist China hss maintained con- tinuous, heroic and for the most part wholly unsupported resistance to Jap- anese attack. There are many evidences of an en- during solidarity between the white rulers and the subject races in the Far East. The stand of Filipino troops in the Batan Peninsula is one notable illustration. The loyalty of large native forces in the Netherlands East Indies is another. Many more could be cited. But as against these must be counted the growing evidence that there are many people in the Far East who are simply not interested in the perpetuation of white empire. Thai Co-operation. The Siamese, for instance, are known as a peaceful and unaggressive race. So there was little surprise when Thailand, like Indo-China, submitted without even & show of resistance to Japanese occu- pation. The pacific nature of the Thai« landers, however, makes their present co-operation with Japan in an attack on Burma the more disturbing. Prob- ably, like the Koreans, they are being forced to fight for the Mikado. However that may be, they are fighting for him. The same, according to the report of an unnamed official of the conquered territory of ySarawak, is true of the Manchurians. “There was good reason,” said a dispatch from Batavia on January 18, “to belleve that Manchukuo soldiers under Japanese officers were among the attackers” when that part of the great island of Borneo was invaded. Similarly, there are indicatiors that some Malay tribesmen have been easily won over to serve as guides and spies for the Japanese in their rapid advance down that long peninsula. And, finally, there are reports that certain units of British Indian troops have not proved reliable in this fighting. Stories of Indian desertions come from Japanese sources and may be nothing but propaganda. On the other hand, there may well be as yet undisclosed fac- tors behind the ineffectiveness of British resistance in the Malay Peninsula. There have certainly been some unexpected surprises since December 8, when Sir Robert Brooke-Popham, then British commander in chief in the Far East, an- nounced at Singapore: “We are ready. ‘We have had plenty of warning and our preparations are made and tested.” v - Diplomacy Important. When the available evidence is scru- tinized it gives ground for some uneasy surmise. This includes belief that the power 6f the Japanese attack may be in part explained by a relative indifference of mény Eastern peoples to the change of overlordship which Tokio is trying to effect. Such an attitude would be most shortsighted. But human reactions are none the less real because they are oftén foolish from a long-range viewpoint. The indications of very considerable Asiatic apathy towards Japanese con- quests are at least strong enough to Jus- tify more attention to the diplomatic as well as the military aspects of the prob- lems. It would, for instance, do no harm to Chinese morale were the British gov- ernment to announce that if Hong Kong is recaptured its transfer to Chinese sov- ereignty, with due compensation for the huge British investment, would be favor- ably considered. After all, the picture of white imper- {alism in the Far East is not so prett?ein all its aspects as to make unqualified res- toration appealing to the subject peoples of that area. And there is very reason- able doubt that the cause of freedom and democracy would be furthered in South- east Asia by re-establishment of the status quo which was so satisfactory to Rudyard Kipling. Sympathetic consideration of native aspirations in the Far East might also have some constructive influence on the very enigmatic Russian attitude. For the Communists have their own ideas about the future in that area and they are not those of the Malayan planters and treaty port merchants. Indeed it becomes daily more clear that Russian assistance against Japan need not be expected if the underlying purpose is merely to bolster what Moscc ¢ has many times denounced capitalistic imperialism in the Far East. U. S. Aids China’s Schools American aid to China’s Christian colleges and universities, now in exile in the western provinces, has enabled more than 8,000 university students to con- tinue their education despite the heavy handicaps of the war period. Almost daily bombardment has be- come, ironically, a minor cause of suf- fering, the greatest now faced by both students and teachers being the alarm- ing lack of physical resistance due to the high cost of living, and the inability of students to buy sufficient food. Many teachers in Chinese colleges are re- ceiving the equivalent of only $10 per month. Besides carrying on formal academic work of high rank, China's colleges- in-exile are now attempting the solution of pressing mechanical, industrial and scientific problems of a nation strug- gling to re-establish herself in unde- veloped, previously isolated West. The most extensive scientific research that China has ever known is taking place in Chinese colleges in spite of an extreme shortage of laboratory equip- ment and modern instruments. Be- cause of this lack, the students are liv- ing, working and carrying on research in primitive conditions that approxi- mate those in this country 100 years ago. Science is being taught and re- (formerly pampered darlings of rich families) sleep in double- deck wooden beds small mud huts, do their own and cooking, and raise their own vegetables. The Associated Boards for Christian (t:]:l‘lg:s lx}:‘ ié’:hlm, & member agency of China Relief, is educationa] aid clmpun,.mm F The American Bureau for Medical Ald to China has been for four years re- sponsible for a constant stream of relief and medical supplies, shipped to Free China via the now American-supervised Burma road. Health conditions of both Chinese civillans and soldiers have already profited from the American-sent equip- ment of hospitals, and the establish- ment and equipment of nurses’ and doctors’ training schools. Cholera, for instance, has almost completely disap- peared, and scables, which formerly af- flicted 90 per cent of the soldiers return- ing from the front, is very slight. Civilian graduates of the American~ supported Emergency Medical Training Schools have been instructed in the op- eration of delousing stations, in purifying water supply, in the treatment of ma- laria, venereal diseases and relapsing fever. Six first-aid stations to care pri- marily for air-raid victims are now funce tioning in much-bombed Chinese cities. Establishment and equipment of & modern vaccine-producing plant, capable of supplying all the vaccine needs of the Chinese Red Cross, as long as the war lasts, and of the civilian population after the war, is the most recent gift to China by A. B. M. A. C, in accordance with this organization’s policy of sending aid which will enable China to “defend and a2 b 5