CROCS GIRST'I,ATION KIITS

him. Neither did they break his spirit. He mostly felt sorry for the persecutors. A smart man remarked at the close of the Mitchell trial in Washington that we had simply followed through with our traditional policy whenever the dignity of the brass hats is at stake; always make a liar out of the accused. Who's lying now? ***

According to the newspapers of recent date, the.longthreatened "cradle-to-grave social security program," is soon to be launched. We have that on the authority of that German-born gent from New York State, Senator Wagner. He says President Truman is all for it. I'll believe it when Truman says so. Truman must know that launching any such program would shock the country at a time when it has been shocked long and hard enough. That Wagner program, with socialized medicine and all its kindred evils, is just a severe case of confluent Communism masquerading as measles. How many times in the last few years you have heard the cautious 1ss1a1ft-"Don't be so hurried about calling things communism." The caution we really need in this country today is rather against toc much complacency when communism, wearing some other label, comes marching in. That insidious germ is a darkening cloud over Europe and Asia right now. In the name of every man who wears our national uniform today, let us swear to keep it out of here.

Most of the social ,."LrrJ, J"to *. hear so much, is phoney. Real security means a situation where every good man willing and able to work, has a good job in a real business; and can get another one somewhere else if he wants it. For God's sake, when this war ends, let us see to it that Government backs out of private affairs just as quickly as possible, and stays out. Wagner and his like would have Government take charge of everything. American means, as a red-headed guy named Jefferson once said, a government whose sole mission is to "maintain order and security, compel respect for person and property, and repress fraud and violence." A Frenchman named Bastiat, one of the. earliest fighters against Communism and one much quoted these days by economists, was asked what Communism meant, and he said that dangerous Communism begins when the government takes from one man without his consent that which he has earned, and gives it to another who. has done nothing to earn it.

A man who had tri.d iJ""lr, io *., some boards to build shelves in a closet at home and had been told how scarce and precious lumber had become, walked into a bank where some remodeling was starting, and saw a pile of lumber heaped in a corner ready for the carpenters. He stared at it a moment, and then said to a teller: "Good heavens ! Who is making that big deposit?"