Now, Edward R. Murrow and the voices of Thomas E. Dewey, Arthur Vandenberg, Herbert Hoover,
Dwight D. Eisenhower, John Foster Dulles, Sam Rayburn, Joseph Martin, Walter Winchell,
Charles Wilson, Warren Austin, Wayne Morse, the cab drivers of New York, the new Congress
of the United States, and more than 40 other men and women in the news in the fourth performance
of Hear It Now, a full hour report on the week's news presented tonight and every week
at this time.
Capitol, Congressman Vinson of Georgia, the lines are busy.
Will you wait a moment, please?
Capitol, Senator Tidings, I'm sorry.
We don't have an office for Senator Tidings.
It gives me great pleasure to present to you your speaker and my speaker, the honorable
Sammy Rayburn of Texas.
You haven't got to worry about being hit by the animal, killed by some bullet or some
little person about four feet, five inches, come running around in a bayonet through you
while you're asleep.
Hear It Now, the Columbia Broadcasting System and 173 affiliated radio stations present
a document for ear based on the week's news and the men and women who made it.
All the voices and sounds you will hear are real.
They are presented as they were spoken in the heat and confusion of a world in crisis.
It is broadcast in the hope that the collection of these scraps of sound into a weekly recorded
history may add another dimension to our understanding in the difficult days ahead.
Here is the editor of Hear It Now, the distinguished reporter and news analyst, Edward R. Murrow.
It was the first week of the second half of the 20th century and things might never be
the same.
But the new year came in with the same sounds and excitement as every other year since the
advent of radio.
Hear It, those are the last fading moments of 1950.
The clock is steadily counting them out.
Ten seconds.
Five seconds.
Happy New Year everybody!
The new year came in with a kind of brash bravado for a year of such gloomy prospect.
But America gave it the full processing from the horns to the $50 cover charge to the weird
paper hats.
At midnight, most people yelled, a few people prayed.
And the bulletin that the Red Offensive in Korea had started had a tough time competing
with all Lang Zine and the Samba.
In Washington, the hotels and nightclubs buzzed with the excitement of the new year and the
new Congress.
Many of the new senators and representatives were already there.
On New Year's Day, still more arrived.
And on Tuesday, the big hotels, the Wardman Park, the Statler, the Willard, and all the
rest were jammed.
As every hour on the hour, the long trains and double section of planes unloaded their
cargo of congressmen, their secretaries, their wives, and their lobbyists.
The Vice President's office.
Thank you.
Speaker Rayburn.
The line is busy.
Will you hold, please?
Senator Wherry.
Thank you.
Immediately, they started using Washington's most overworked utility, the telephone.
Capitol.
Congressman Vinson of Georgia.
The lines are busy.
Will you wait a moment, please?
Capitol.
Senator McMahon.
That's busy.
Will you wait?
The line is busy.
Capitol.
Senator Tidings.
Senator Tidings is not in this Congress.
Would you want the member to, that succeeds him?
Capitol.
Senator Pepper's office.
I'm sorry.
We do not have an office for him now.
Tuesday was the last day of the 81st Congress.
The last hours on Capitol Hill for Millard Tidings, Claude Pepper, Albert Thomas, Forrest
Donald, and Scott Lucas.
They quietly packed their desk sets, gently loaded into packing boxes, signed photographs
of Harry Truman, FDR, Alvin Barkley, and John Nance Garner.
And they said their goodbyes to the telephone operators and the elevator operators and were
gone.
Senate Majority Leader Scott Lucas, whose defeat in Illinois was one of Harry Truman's
most crippling reverses, went to the Senate floor on Tuesday and made this brief farewell.
Mr. President, the most interesting and fruitful period of my life will be concluded on tomorrow.
For 12 years, I've had the high honor of representing the state of Illinois in the foremost legislative
hall in all the world.
Tomorrow, I relinquish that trust.
I return it to the people.
They are the government.
They give, they take away.
May such a cherished and fundamental right remain inviolate forever.
If so, this republic will approach immortality.
I plead in this hour, in this desperate hour of our existence, that politics stop at the
water's edge, both in the executive and the legislative branches of our government.
Give us clear thinking, cool heads, high purpose, firm resolve, unselfish cooperation in the
uncertain days ahead.
The representatives-elect of the 82nd Congress, this is the day fixed by the Constitution
of the United States for the meeting of the 82nd Congress.
Residents of election covering 434 seats in the 82nd Congress have been received and are
now on file with the clerk of the House of Representatives.
Members will please answer to their names to determine the presence of a quorum.
On Wednesday, the 82nd Congress convened in its newly decorated chamber.
The Senate, under the seasoned gavel of Alvin Barclay, selecting Ernest McFarland of Arizona
as the new majority leader.
The Republicans re-elected Kenneth Warrie of Nebraska to run their show under the watchful
eye of Ohio's Bob Taft.
In the House, 434 representatives took the oath of office and went through the motions
of officially deciding whether Sam Rayburn Democrat or Joe Martin Republican would be
the speaker.
In keeping with the Democratic majority in the House, registered last November, Mr. Rayburn
won by the predicted majority.
And the defeated candidate, Representative Joseph Martin of Massachusetts, made the customary
gesture.
Ladies and gentlemen and my colleagues of the House, it's a privilege for me to hold
this exalted position even if it is only for a few moments.
That is one of the compensations of being a defeated candidate.
They always let him come up and introduce the successor.
I will admit that several months ago I had ideas that perhaps I might occupy this position
a little longer than I'm going to today.
The people of the country and you have ordained otherwise.
So it is a very happy privilege that I have this morning.
Ten years ago, members of this House elected a speaker.
He has served with one interruption which I am very happy to narrate at this time too.
However, since then has been re-elected for a sixth term.
On January 30th of this year, he will have served as Speaker of the House longer than
any other man in American history.
So ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, it gives me great pleasure to present to you
your speaker and my speaker, the honorable Samuel Rayburn of Texas.
Only Henry Clay had sat in that Speaker's chair longer than Sam Rayburn.
And in three weeks, even Mr. Clay's record will have been broken.
Sam Rayburn had held the gavel at rapt foreorder the day after Pearl Harbor when more was declared.
He had presided over much of the history of the last ten years and he asked his colleagues
for unity in the new crisis.
As Mr. Martin suggested, we live in troubled days.
In my deliberate opinion, looking around the earth, everyone now living in any democracy
where freedom and liberty still exist, live in the most dangerous time that they ever
lived in or that anyone ever lived in since the foundation of this Republic.
So it behooves us to lay aside little differences, lay aside as much criticism, all criticism,
that is not constructive, that is not helpful.
And all of us join and pledge ourselves that this, the greatest, the freest, and the finest
government that ever existed upon the face of the earth shall be strong enough to maintain
its liberty and its security.
Less than four hours after the House installed its new speaker, it dealt Mr. Rayburn's friend
and chief, Harry Truman, his first defeat of the new season.
A coalition of Southern Democrats and Republicans combined to give back to the powerful rules
committee its power to prevent any fair deal legislation from coming to the floor for debate.
The vote was 244 to 179.
Senator Taft severely criticized the President for not making his State of the Union speech
at the opening of the new Congress.
Mr. Truman would speak Monday.
But even before his speech, it was a foregone conclusion that the major debates and the
constant controversy that would rage for the next two years in Washington would be on foreign
policy.
Senator Everett McKinley Dirksen, who had beaten Scott Lucas in Illinois on the issue
of the administration handling of foreign policy, was one of the first to begin the
attack.
Senator Dirksen.
Now, we in Illinois, I think, can be called the original re-examinists, as Mr. Atchison
calls it.
We call for a realistic examination of all the foreign aid programs.
How much of a load can we carry if we want to put it on the form of a question?
How much aid is required?
What do we get in return?
Have the folks abroad developed some self-reliance and some self-dependence?
Are we just feeding socialism over there?
And are they willing to stand up in our corner and be counted?
Official optimism, you know, sounds a bit stale and fancy diplomatic language.
It sounds just a little flat in the presence of young death on the hard earth of a foreign
land.
And too many households in America know what that means right now.
Frankly, we're in trouble.
This brave new world that we've talked about doesn't seem so brave just at the moment.
And so it's time for hard thinking and for some plain talk, because it's the only way
I know that will dispel the fog and demolly some of these bankrupt illusions of ours.
Senator Dirksen asks rhetorical questions in order to make his point.
His fellow senator from Illinois, Paul Douglas, a Democrat, former college professor and Marine
combat veteran, says what he thinks we ought to do.
I think we should serve notice to Russia and its satellites that the next move by a Russian
satellite will be regarded as a move by Russia itself, and that we will then unleash upon
Russia all the force which we possess.
We have been too tolerant and too forgiving with the Russians.
We have treated the invasion by the North Koreans as an isolated act, although it was
Russian-directed and Russian-controlled.
We have treated the invasion by the Chinese communists as an independent act, although
we know it has been directed and aided by Russia.
We should go on the principle of three strikes and you're out.
Everywhere, the cry was for national unity, but there was no unity.
One of the big decisions to be made in Washington would be the Republican choice for the highly
coveted vacant seat on the Foreign Affairs Committee.
One of the candidates for this post was Wayne Morse of Oregon.
Obviously, Dirksen did not speak for Senator Morse, who this week said,
The great issue that faces the 82nd Congress will be the historic debate on foreign policy.
I'm sure it will proceed with the very beginning of the Congress.
It is an issue which I think will determine the destiny of America.
I think it is an issue that will determine the survival of the Republican Party, an issue
as to whether or not we're going to follow the sound foreign policy philosophy of that
great giant statesman from Michigan, Arthur Vandenberg, or whether the Republican Party
is going to revert to the isolationism of Herbert Hoover.
I want to say that it is an issue that is going to determine the survival of America
because if we walk out on the moral obligations of the North Atlantic Pact, if we follow the
recommendations of Herbert Hoover and accept his false assumption that America can remain
secure and hide behind the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, I think in the next few years we will
find ourselves engaged in a death struggle with Russia with serious doubts as to whether
or not we can win that war alone.
Aside from Korea, the biggest question mark in Washington this week was the Republican
Party and the foreign policy it will adopt.
This will go a long way in determining the future of the GOP, of this nation, and the
world.
For that reason, later in this program, we shall attempt a brief study of the conflict
within the Republican Party in the voices of Hoover, Dewey, Dulles, and others.
This week, the office holders were not the only ones who came to Washington.
There were also those constituents seeking jobs.
The offices of the new congressmen were lined with old friends and slightly familiar faces
who make the endless pilgrimage to Washington in search of jobs, contracts, and the usual
variety of special favors.
The senator or congressman who forgets today may be reminded in November.
This ancient American custom is not limited to the nation's capital.
It goes all the way down to the county where even the sheriff is plagued with as many old
friends and favor-seekers as the Speaker of the House.
Raise your right hand if you will here.
I do solemnly swear...
Sam Rayburn, for example, was not the only Texan who took an oath of office this week,
nor was he the only one with problems.
We put our microphone in the office of a newly elected Texas sheriff.
...the Constitution of the law of the United States and of this state, and I furthermore
solemnly swear that I have not directly or indirectly paid, offered, or promised to pay,
contributed nor promised to contribute any money or valuable thing, or promised any public
office or employment as a reward for the giving or withholding a vote at the election at which
I was elected.
So help you God.
I do.
We have agreed to forget the sheriff's name and county, but we listened to a few of the
people who elected him.
January 2nd, 1951, Inauguration Day, deep in the heart of Texas.
Glad to see you get in office.
Well, I am glad to be in the office.
The reason I came in here to see you, besides congratulating you, you know where I live
out here ten miles east of town.
There's been a little cattle thieving going on out there, and I thought it was possible
to get a special evidence commission.
Maybe I might run up on some of them out there sometimes.
You know, you can run up on them out there.
I want to congratulate you on being restored as sheriff.
Also here the other night, I went out here and got drunk again.
Lost my license.
I want to ask one favor of you.
I want to see if I can get you to help me get my license back.
I got a job coming up.
Need to drive a truck.
Can't get a job if I can't get my license back, and I believe you can help.
Sheriff, you know me.
I live here in the county seat, me and all my folks.
We've been living here a good while, and we want to congratulate you as being our sheriff.
We believe you're going to make the best sheriff they ever had.
Now we don't like to ask no special favors, sheriff, but my brother's up there in jail,
and he's charged with being drunk and driving a car while intoxicated.
Now sheriff, the facts is that he didn't have but two bottles of beer, and the charges read
that he was only driving 70 miles an hour.
Now sheriff, you know our family is good for about 25 votes, and we really did work hard
for you, and if you can possibly, sheriff, we're going to ask that you turn this boy
out because he's got a good job waiting for him, and he hasn't been charged with this
but once before, and if you can't turn him out, sheriff, just charge him with a misdemeanor
fine, a drunk charge.
Say about four or five dollars and we certainly will appreciate it, sheriff, but I'll do my
best.
I'll talk to the county attorney and see what I can do for you.
The sheriff in Texas and the speaker from Texas would have some difficult days in the
weeks ahead.
Your ear is tuned to Korea and the fall of a city, to the dissonant sounds of an MP's
whistle and sobbing infants.
As heavy trucks and tanks thunder across a bridge going south out of Seoul.
In a four-hour period on Wednesday, 30,000 refugees crossed that bridge and started the
long trek south over the frozen roads.
Just one week ago, General Matt Ridgway had established his new line across the Korean
Peninsula, had told Syngman Rhee he was in Korea to stay, told his troops they were not
fighting to save a small muddy village but to determine whether ultimate war would be
fought in the United States or elsewhere.
On New Year's Eve, the Red Army's attacked.
An American major reports.
On the night of December 31st, we were occupying positions just a little way south of the 38th
parallel.
A penetration was made near our low flank, causing the enemy to get into the valley behind
the company which was out on the outpost position.
The United Nations line held for a time and then gave on the eastern sector.
Our troops killed a lot of Chinese who were willing to swap men in a war of attrition
at the rate of 10 of their men to one of ours, moved their mass of men across heavily mined
fields using the fallen as virtual stepping stones to cross over.
On Tuesday, the enemy was 11 miles from Seoul.
On Wednesday, they were preparing to enter the city as President Rhee departed and most
of the city was burned.
Flames lashed out in the abandoned city and their crackle could be heard along with the
guns of both the advancing troops and the retreating.
That's a five-year-old boy beside a bridge screaming for his parents.
During the week, we lost Seoul, Incheon, Kimpo Airfield.
Wanju was under attack from three sides.
Winstership blankets present positions.
During the week, there was the tragedy of defeat and depression and once again exhausted
GIs.
First, they played taps nice, sweet and clear on a bugle.
Then they started on their drums and whistles.
I moved up and looked over the edge and it looked like they were coming in company formation.
So I hollered for the squad.
Couldn't contact any of them.
I heard the Chinese going through the other foxholes.
It sounded like they were getting a big kick out of going through the equipment.
Later, some more come by.
They were searching the bodies and they felt I was warm.
I played dead but they felt I was warm.
Took me out of the sleeping bag and they searched me and threw me down the road and planted
a boot in the back of my head and ground my face in the road.
Then they threw me on the stack of wounded and took a carbine and tried to knock the
back of my head in but I played dead again.
He thought I was dead.
They went on.
I said, God if it's your will, just leave me get out of here and have anything else.
And the casualty list continued to grow.
Here one of the 40,000 casualties talks to those of us sitting comfortably at home.
Let's take an example of our poor boys over there in Korea on those tall mountains.
Some are thousand and thousand feet in the air cold.
They work 24 hours a day and yet we have citizens in the United States work only maybe eight
hours a day and they complain about eight hours a day.
That's only one way we can lick our enemies pulling together because it takes work to
fight a war.
These boys will kindly appreciate you and America will quit grumbling about your working
hours and take it with a smile to help them out and bear in content with those.
You sleep in a nice warm bed.
Well those boys, oh they can't do that.
Or maybe they have sometimes two or three blankets to throw on the ground.
Time they lay down and go to sleep they're hit.
And some they get to sleep and they'll wake up.
But to take you with you, you haven't got to worry about waking up in the morning from
not being hit by the enemy, killed by some bullet or some little person about four feet
five inch come running around a bayonet to you while you sleep.
The 419th meeting of the first committee will come to order.
At our last meeting.
At lake success the delegates watched the battle maps and saw the UN forces losing their
battle and in the arena of diplomacy there was defeat and frustration.
Sir Benegal Rao of India who fought the battle for the ceasefire resolution reported that
the Chinese government in Beiping had refused to consider the resolution.
...and wishes to present its report to the committee.
Therefore I call upon the representative of India.
Mr. Chairman, in spite of its best efforts the group regrets that it has been unable
to pursue discussion of a satisfactory ceasefire arrangement.
It therefore feels that no recommendation in regard to a ceasefire can usefully be made
by it at this time.
Mr. Chairman, this completes what the group has to say for the moment.
Most of my listeners will probably feel that the report is little more than a record of
failure.
Still failure does not mean that the attempt was not worthwhile or that we should not try
again if that is humanly possible.
At the UN Warren Austin watched from afar as his old senate colleagues convened in Washington.
His role at the UN was neither a pleasant one nor an easy one.
He listened to Soviet delegate Malik's tirade against US imperialism in Korea and then answered
him.
It is in the face of this new aggression and the atmosphere polluted here this morning
by the speech of Mr. Malik that we need to consult together on what the free world must
do next.
In the view of my government, aggression must be resisted.
There can be no appeasement.
If hostilities continue, our troops will fight on in Korea.
My government believes, of course, that the position of the United Nations should continue
to be one of seeking to achieve its objective in Korea by peaceful means.
Accordingly, my government remains ready to engage in discussions with the Chinese communist
regime at an appropriate time and in an appropriate forum.
Lord Musk and his own soldiers arts and surgery to.
Being an blurry second reaction to the long-called
back in communist hands and we are mindful of a poem titled Fall of the City
by the noted American Archibald McLeish. The sun is yellow with smoke, the towns
burning, the wars at the broken bridge. There is nothing in this world worse
empty belly or purse or the pitiful hunger of children than doing the strong
man's will. The city has fallen.
You are listening to Hear It Now, CBS's weekly document for ear. The program
continues immediately after this pause for station identification. This is CBS,
the Columbia Broadcasting System.
This is week number one, 1951 on Hear It Now, a 60-minute review of the week's
news told in the actual recorded voices of the men and women who made the news.
Once again here is the editor of Hear It Now, Edward R. Murrow. First a personal
note before we continue with the second half of Hear It Now. A few seconds to
say our gratitude to those of you who have written and wired us your
encouragement and your criticism. This weekly hour of oral journalism was
undertaken in the hope and belief that we might make some contribution toward
the understanding of the confusing and complex issues that confront the nation.
We're merely trying to record and relate the sounds of the week, important and
otherwise. We're still experimenting. In Detroit on Wednesday, former champion
Joe Lewis took on Freddie Bishore. Less than halfway through the fight, there was
a flash of the brown bomber of younger days.
Lewis won by a technical knockout in the fourth round. And in Portland, Oregon on
Tuesday, an obscure boxer named Billy Smith took on an equally obscure light
heavyweight named Moore. The unusual outcome of this bout contains a moral
for all of us. A little more than halfway through the fight, things started going
badly for Smith, and in his own words, he's the first to admit it.
I'd get back to my corner and one said do this, one says do that. Well you can't
fight like that. You have to have a plan to fight. I didn't have a plan. One
fellow in my corner told me to go out and knock him out. One other fellow says no,
you can't do that to him. You have to be careful because you have to watch him.
But we got mixed up somewhere and we didn't, instead of working together, we
were fighting each other. And I got mixed up confused and after I knocked him down
in that sixth round, I missed the knockout. I come back to the corner and
everybody was excited in the corner and I was getting smelling salts and
everything else, too much of everything, and water was getting poured all over me
and I felt just like a, well I felt, I felt real silly. Well I went out in the
seventh and eighth round, I didn't do any good so I just, I couldn't, my corner was
hollering and screaming this and screaming that. My corner'd say one-two
Billy and Archie said yes, come on one-two, bang bang, and he hit me with a one-two.
And I said well I'm not getting any place like this and if I don't, if I, if I keep
going like this I'll just ruin everything. So I said rather do it, I'll just turn
around and walk out and quit. And that's what he did. He walked out of the ring
confused and disgusted. Any resemblance between Smith and we as a nation is not
unintentional. Both have been shouted at, both have had their battle plans argued
over, both at times have been confused and disgusted. Like Smith, if we lower our
guard we shall certainly be hit. But unlike Smith, we cannot get out of the ring.
For if we ever try to leave, we'll never be able to come back.
Perhaps the best week's suggestion came from the National Arts Foundation, a blank
record in jukeboxes for those looking for a nickel's worth of quiet.
Slot machine manufacturers announced they were closing up shop, some hopefully
counted on switching over to war production. The New Year's Eve show in
Trinidad's prison was a great success, that is until one of the prisoners
playing the role of a policeman failed to show up for the second act. He'd made
a fast getaway. The sports writers were unanimous. Notre Dame's football team, the
team of the year in 49, was the flop of the year in 1950. New York Yankee Stadium
played second best to New York's Museum of Natural History. More people visited
the museum in 1950 than went to the ballpark. The second oldest gorilla in
captivity, the famous Bushman, died in Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo, a heart
attack. He was 22. In Bristol, England, the garbage collectors won a long hard
fight. From now on, they can wear soft felt hats. The traditional old black
derby is out to old-fashioned. In Sheffield, England, a man was arrested for
the second time in six months on the same charge, breaking the same plate glass
window of the local grocery store. He said, that window to me is like a red
flag to a bull. The people of Birmingham were panicked out of their wits. Someone
told someone else the water supply had been poisoned and the rumor got out of
hand. In Spokane, Washington, the dynamite breakfast food company lived up to its
name. Its plant exploded. In many cities, the nickel phone call will be a thing of
the past. It will take a dime beginning tomorrow to get a number on the coin
machines. Wages of non-farm workers went up $5.70 a week this year over last,
but the increase actually meant only 51 cents a week more in spendable income.
George Bernard Shaw's self-written obituary will be released in two weeks.
And in Washington, 85 year old Adolf Sabbath of Illinois, the Dean of the
House, a veteran of the days of Champ Clark, Brian, and Teddy Roosevelt, began
his 45th year in the Congress of the United States. Mrs. Sabbath feels that I
should quit. She felt so six years ago, eight years ago, and it required the
President Roosevelt then to tell her that I must run again. I want to please
her and I want also to do my duty towards my country that I love before
above anything else in the world. Anybody can start an argument in Washington. This
week, the problem as to whether or not Russia definitely has the A-bomb came up.
Republican Senator Brewster of Maine had stated that Carl Compton, the
distinguished scientist, had indicated the Russians did not actually have an
atomic bomb. Dr. Compton didn't remember having made such a statement, but
reporters put the question to Atomic Energy Commissioner Gordon Dean. I
haven't seen Dr. Compton's statement. I did see a statement attributed to him. I
don't know what he said. Russia does have the bomb. When newsmen asked Mr. Dean
how the United States was certain of this, Dean replied, well if I told you I
knew precisely, then it would mean that we had a spy who was sitting next to
Mr. Stalin's each morning and breakfast and talking the subject over with him. I
don't think I should reveal the existence of that man. General Ike Eisenhower was
in Washington this week for a final round of high-level conferences before
taking off for his West European command tomorrow. Here is part of what he had to
say. I agree that unless every sacrifice made by America is not matched by equal
sacrifices, equal sincerity of purpose in the Western European nations, this thing
cannot win. I believe that this movement among the Western democracies of which I
now have been assigned a post is one for the preservation of peace. If it has a
belligerent purpose or attitude, no one has expressed that to me and I would
think it would be defeated from the start. Charles Wilson, who gave up a
$275,000 a year job as head of General Electric to mobilize the nation's
industries at a lean $22,500 a year, said this. Now, admittedly, we may go through
a period of scarcity, but I want to make it clear that it's not our intention. I
hope it won't be necessary to maintain an economy of scarcity. You know, it's been
said so often that I presume it will be regarded as trite to repeat that
increasing production is one of our most potent weapons with which to fight
inflation. And I want to make it crystal clear that we propose to use that weapon
to the fullest possible extent. If there was little news in Korea for Doefoots to
rejoice about, there was certainly good news for them from Cincinnati. This is
Mrs. J.F. Brammer speaking as president of the Cincinnati and Hamilton County
chapter of the Moon's Christian Temperance Union. Ohio is the first state
to send the juices over. Ohio is the crusade state of the WCDU. We'll continue
to send the fruit juices. The boys of the 8th Army heard about the shipments of
grapefruit and pineapple juice that were coming their way. They thanked the ladies
for them, and he made only one slight suggestion. Mrs. Brammer of the WCTU
reads the message she received from Korea. The other day a letter was received
from Korea reading, Dear ladies of the WCTU, it said, We the men of the 76th ECB
Engineers Combat Battalion really do appreciate the fruit juices you are
sending over here in place of beer. It doesn't quite take the place of beer, but
you can get a better buzz on with it. We just add a little yeast and sugar to it,
heat it on the stove, and get some of the finest wine ever brewed. As yeast and
sugar are scarce over here, we would appreciate it very much if you would
send some with the next shipment. Thank you very much and keep the juices coming
our way. You're about to hear the voices of Walter Winchell and Joseph Alsop. Both
are newspaper men, both widely read, and Mr. Winchell is perhaps the most
listened-to news broadcaster on the air. They are both quoted here now because
columns of theirs this week reached millions of their own readers and
listeners and very few of each others. They represent two different shades of
United States thinking. First, Walter Winchell as broadcast over the ABC
network and printed by the New York Mirror the next day. Mr. and Mrs. United
States, the truth is ladies and gentlemen that in the secret history of the world,
our final power was never greater and our national honor was never brighter. The
fact is that our secret weapons are so powerful that out of common humanity we
will not use them except in extreme necessity. Our nation can defeat any
other nation or combination of nations in the world if it comes to a matter of
survival. We not only can defeat the communists as a nation, we can obliterate
the Russians as a people. In our secret arsenals we have enough deadly weapons
to remove every Russian city of over 100,000 population from the map. In easy
striking distance of our firing bases we can vaporize 50 million Russians in one
mass bombing. We could incinerate the Kremlin faster than we could free Korea
but of the 50 million Russians we could kill at will. 25 million would be
children and it is not in the tradition of American arms to attack babies. Mr.
Joseph Alsop together with his brother Stuart writes a syndicated column that
appears in the New York Herald Tribune and many other papers throughout the
country. He began one column by paying his respect to his dateline, Washington
DC. This squalid city currently resembles nothing so much as a drunken beach
picnic continuing in full course. Its members reveling, quarreling,
gormandizing, and making fools of themselves long after the hurricane
warning has been given. And then Mr. Alsop proceeded to discuss the gravity
of the world situation as he sees it. If it were not for the threat of Chinese
invasion of Indochina the whole Southeast Asiatic picture would now be
hopeful and improving. Even in Indochina itself there has been an important
response since the French have at last made the concessions to native
nationalism that should have been made three years ago. But all this hopeful
process will be halted and reversed by the new step in the Kremlin's planned
program of world aggression and after Asia will come Europe and then perhaps
following a pause while the storm gathers new force the tidal wave will
engulf this hemisphere. You can't make a livelihood on three days one week
or four days the next. Four days? As a union official I'm just telling you that.
Not all the great national debates are conducted in the forum of the US
Congress or on the editorial pages of the country's newspapers. Some of the
most heated words, best logic, and often as not grotesque misstatements of fact
can be heard on your own street corner. And the 20th century versions of the
Clays, Lincolns, and Douglas's are those pundits without portfolio or a place to
park their taxi cabs. Traffic control in our large American cities has become a
major problem for the private car owner as well as the taxi cab driver. Three of
the worst trouble spots are New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. We have
recorded some rather divergent opinions of a few license holders in these cities
and as on the highway the cab drivers seem to dominate the conversation. I think
the greatest problem in the city of Chicago is jaywalking which in my
opinion is about the worst thing anybody can do. Double parking for one thing you
can squeeze through and you're coming east about west the cause of park the
park caddy corner they're not in close to the curb and I really think that's a
contributing factor to the bottlenecks in the city of New York.
Having a cab in Los Angeles is really rough. It's really rough believe me.
Well the worst spots in the city is the Garmin District. Well if a truck ever pulls in
it's got to drop off any packages or make a delivery there. You got time to
crochet a sweater. Traffic moves much faster than LA does in Chicago. Waited
about half a minute or so and still didn't move. It was a woman driver so I
blew the horn she still didn't move. I blew the horn again she didn't move.
Finally she got off the seat said what are you blowing your horn for? I look lady
you want me send you a telegram? A telegraph right now? She blew her top and I
blew my horn. I believe that when a woman puts her hand outside of the open window
the only thing you'll be sure of is that the window is open. Well most of all the
police department they're having a conversation on a street with somebody
else and said a directing traffic. If they were taking care of their business
the way they should traffic wouldn't be so bad. There's enough crazy drivers in the
city of New York aggravate anybody. Refuse to be aggravated. With newspapers
and magazines you can turn the pages of yesterday's editions and even last years
or the last decades and bring yesterday's issues and today's sharply
into focus. We think that radio can do the same thing with sounds. Before we
listen to the Republicans of the last 30 days we should like to turn back in
sound to Governor Dewey just after Harry Truman upset him in the 1948 elections.
The Republican Party is split wide open. It's been split wide open for years but
we've been busy trying to gloss it over. We've tried to deny it to ourselves and
to conceal it. That doesn't work. I am living evidence that it doesn't work. The
Republican Party has not won a presidential election since Mr. Hoover
defeated Al Smith in 1928. Since that time Hoover, Landon, Wilkie and Dewey have
gone down to defeat at the hands of the Democrats. Although they did not win the
1950 elections the Republicans made great gains and right now stand an even
chance of winning in 1952. Just the other day a reporter asked Republican
Senator Wherry if he wanted to impeach Mr. Truman. Let me ask you this and do
you think Mr. Truman should resign? Well we'll take care of that in 1952.
In the 18 months from this date until the Republicans go to Philadelphia or
wherever they choose for their convention in those 18 months the main
issue in American statesmanship and politics is going to be foreign policy.
If the Republicans are going to win in 1952 they will need the support and
belief of the American voters on foreign policy. The Republican leaders claim that
there is no unity in the administration's affairs of state but the biggest lack of
unity is within the GOP itself where since the Korean disaster of last month
a rift has developed which may eventually split the party wide open. To
date the major Republican debate has been in the voices of ex-president Hoover,
Senator Taft, and Senator Wherry on one side and Governor Dewey, John Foster
Dulles, and Wayne Morse on the other. Let's listen to what they said. First, Mr.
Hoover on December 20th. First, the foundation of our national policies must
be to preserve for the world this Western Hemisphere Gibraltar of Western
civilization. Second, we can without any measure of a doubt with our own air and
naval forces hold the Atlantic and Pacific oceans with one frontier on
Britain if she wishes to cooperate and the other on Japan foremost and the
Philippines. John Foster Dulles in a speech which he stated was not made in
answer to Mr. Hoover said this about the Gibraltar concept. You can plan on paper
what it seems ought to be an impregnable defense, a China wall, a Maginot line, a
rock of Gibraltar, an Atlantic and Pacific moat, but the mood, the mood that
plans such a defense carries within itself the seeds of its own collapse. A
defense that accepts encirclement quickly decomposes. That has been proved a
thousand times. The United States that could be an inactive spectator while the
barbarians overran and desecrated the cradle of our Christian civilization
would not be the kind of a United States which could defend itself.
Mr. Herbert Hoover on Europe. Therefore to warrant our further aid they should
show that they have spiritual strength and unity to avail themselves of their
own resources, but it must be far more than packs and conferences and paper
promises and decorations. Today it must express itself in organized and equipped
combat divisions of such huge numbers as would erect a shore dam against this red
flood. And that before we land another man or another dollar on their shores.
Otherwise we shall be inviting another Korea and that will be a calamity to
Europe as well as to us. Our policy in this quarter of the world should be
confined to a period of watchful waiting without ground military action. Governor
Dewey in what many have called the best speech of his career. By the swift
acceleration of the draft the United States Army should be brought to a
strength of not less than 100 divisions in being. At the earliest possible
moment the Air Force should be brought to at least 80 groups. The United States
Navy should be taken out of mothballs and recommissioned without delay. We can
beat Russia five to one in production, but we can't save our freedom with
automobiles or washing machines. The latest contribution to this fierce
debate came this afternoon when Senator Taft made a 10,000 word speech to the
Senate on his foreign policy views. For one hour and ten minutes he offered his
views. Without authority the President involved us in the Korean War. Without
authority he apparently is now adopting a similar policy in Europe. We may have
been sucked into the Korean War by the Russians. The United Nations Charter was
violated when the United States forced action on the majority. The Senator from
Ohio said he doesn't want to abandon Europe, but the Atlantic Pact was a
tremendous mistake. The greatest possible incitement to war. We have no
business prodding the Europeans into a great military program. We have no
business sending a big army over there. What we should do, says Taft of Ohio, is
build a very strong air and sea force, make an alliance with a selected half
dozen countries, protect friendly island countries like Japan, the Philippines,
Australia, Britain, and the others. If Russia realizes we have the power, their
purpose for military aggression may well wither. The Senator sees no conclusive
evidence that Russia wants war. He feels the Truman administration has brought us
to danger and disaster, pushed us nearer to a general war, threatened us with
economic collapse because of big defense expenditures. As usual, there is
disagreement between the Senator from Ohio and the Governor of New York. Unless
we're going to shrink within our own borders and wait to be conquered by a
communist world, we must boldly make decisions that will keep friends for our
cause both in Europe and in Asia. Again, former President Hoover. We Americans
alone, with our sea and air power, can so control the Atlantic and Pacific oceans
that there can be no possible invasion of the Western Hemisphere by communist
armies. They can no more reach Washington in force than we can reach
Moscow. Aside from the Hoover-Wary-Taft faction and the Dewey-Dulles wing, there
is also a group of Republicans trying to remain out of the ranks of the
conservatives and non-interventionists. Among them, Henry Cabot Lodge of
Massachusetts, Margaret Chase Smith of Maine, and Wayne Morse of Oregon, who
speaks now. I have yet to discuss this matter with the first American military
expert who tells me that we would be safe to adopt the isolationist philosophy
that is coming to sweep the Republican Party. As far as my party is concerned in
the 82nd Congress, we better have it out now before 1952. Because if my party goes
isolationist in the 82nd Congress, I have no doubt as to what the verdict of the
American people will be in 1952. It will be anti-Republican. And I'm frank to say
that if my party adopts an isolationist foreign policy and fails to recognize
that our front line of defense now is Europe, fails to recognize that with the
loss of Europe we will jeopardize the security of our own country, if my
party follows that course of action, it should be defeated as I'm sure it will
be defeated in 1952. We have tried to bring you a brief version of the debate
within the Republican Party to reflect it rather than to participate in it.
There are dangers in editing a man's voice, but we have tried to give you
honest echoes of the principal spokesman in this controversy. One powerful
persuasive voice is missing, that of Senator Arthur Vandenberg, the senior
senator from Michigan, who is ill in Grand Rapids and who may not be able to
resume his seat in the Senate. During a period from 1946 to 48, it is probably
true that the administration could not have carried forward any foreign policy
without the active aid and participation of Senator Vandenberg. He was disposed to
consider national rather than political destiny. Men of goodwill of both parties
may well join in the hope that the counsel and courage of Arthur Vandenberg
will again be available to his fellow countrymen. We do not know precisely the
position he would take in this current controversy, but he is a steadfast man,
slow to anger, calm in crises. We thought it appropriate to conclude this
examination of Republican foreign policy with a brief excerpt from one of
Senator Vandenberg's last speeches delivered at Ann Arbor, Michigan, just
about a year ago. When liberty under law becomes a universal concept, when it
totally substitutes for the ugly mandates of jungle force, there will be
at long last dependable peace for free men in a free world. When peace responds
to international justice instead of international politics and
international force, durable peace will bless the earth. That is our common
overriding aim in the United Nations, which despite all obstacles is still the
world's best final hope for the evolution of peace, justice, and security.
You have been listening to Hear It Now, first week 1951, presented by the
Columbia Network tonight and every week at this time in the interest of a better
informed America. All the sounds and voices were real and were recorded on
the scene of history in the making.
Hear It Now is edited and produced by Edward R. Murrow and Fred W. Friendly
and the CBS staff which includes Jesse Zausner, John Aaron, and Joe Werschberg.
The Korean reports were gathered by CBS correspondents George Herman and John
Jefferson in the field. Other portions of Hear It Now originated in New York City
and the WTOP Washington, WKRC Cincinnati, WBBM Chicago, KNX Los Angeles, KCBS San
Francisco, WKZO Kalamazoo, KOIN Portland, Oregon, WJR Detroit, KMBC Kansas City,
WEEI Boston, and a radio station somewhere in Texas. Special
acknowledgement is made to the British Broadcasting Corporation and United
Nations Radio. Edward R. Murrow can be heard each weekday evening at 745
Eastern Standard Time over most of these same CBS stations. This is Olin Tye
speaking.
It's amazing the things habit can do for one. We get dressed every morning
without thinking about it at all. We can walk down the street, get on a bus, and
find ourselves at work without having paid much conscious attention to the
process at all. Habit does it. Habit helps us accomplish things with half the
effort and often in half the time. That's why it's important to get that
business of saving over into the habit category. And the easiest way to do that
is to start saving by the system that makes it a habit automatically. Sign up
to buy United States savings bonds by either the payroll savings plan or the
bond a month plan. And there's your habit all set and ready to go. Regularly each
week or each month you'll be setting aside money for a bond or buying one
without any thought, without any effort. It's a good habit and remember a dollar
free for every three. Double inducement to buy bonds now. This is CBS the stars
address the Columbia Broadcasting System.