DANT & WHOLESALERS NC. wooDs R OF USSE WEST LL, I COAST

DOUGLAS TIB PORT ONFORD CEDAB SITKA SPRUCE NOII.E FIR

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I askcd him what he thought of Russia? Would she be a dangcrous, or a depcndable postwar ally. That guestion, as you know, is what they call a "moot" one in the world today. Hc spokc quickly, decisively on that subiect. He likes thc Russians, thinks they are swinging rapidly to the right in their politics (which is what Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker said on returning from there recently), and thinks they will make splendid allies after the war, and will work with Britain and the United States to help protect the future of the world. And he thinks Germany is on the rapid road to utter destruction.

What about this stutr lve*re"l or " great movement in Ruseia to make peacc with the Germans once they get rid of their Nazi masters? Nothing, he declared, could be more ridiculous. Can anyone who has watched Stalin through the years and studied the psychology of the man, suppose for an instant that he will set aside his day of vengeance for all the horror Germany has heaped upon Russia? Will the man who killed and purged his own followers and friends by the thousands, who let millions of his own people die of hunger only a few years back, hold back his vengeance from Germany? Or have any gualms about killing Germans? No, said this ofEcer. When Germany falls, Stalin will say to Britain and the United States: "Look the other way for a while, gentlemen; I have some business to attend to in Germany." And it will be the kind of business that Germany has attended to when she swept into other countries. I don't know how you feel, gentle reader, but most of the men I talk to think such action would be pure-if brutal-justice. And "Uncle Joe" is the boy who would

SHINGI.ES

do a thorough job of iL * * * r8{3*

And how about Japan when she is crushed? What will be her future?, I asked. My personal opinion is, Japan will be a slave state, said this gentleman. Japan has uttcrly failcd, he said, to measure up to even the lowest level of a civilized nation. She is not fit for self-gotlernment, and she is not fit for a place in the brotherhood of nations. So she shall lose her status as an independent nation, and her people will become a slave people; at least until th€ time when they can prove that the beast-like ferocity that has marked their conduct of the war thus far, has been cleansed by the wash of time.

That opinion also seems to me most wise. Shall that nation made up of savages who tear and torture and rape and ravage decent men and women, be given a place in the sun with civilized people when this war ends? Shall those who murder the wounded and torture the defenseless be made free people again; free to connive again against the safety and salvation of the world? Not if this officer who talked to me, knows anything about it. Let them become carriers of burdens and cutters of wood, as the Bible says, for the decent people of the earth, until such time as they have demonstrated their fitness for better things.

Yes, my foreign friend l"nl* i have just told about, left with me impressions that were tremendously thought-provoking. Of all the postwar predictions that I have either heard or read-and they are legion-his are the only ones I have encountered on those trnrticular subjects that seem wise, just, and sensible. What do you think?