L.T. P.& G. Tues. March 16, 1948 GOOD EVENING, Efl:RYBODY! The White House is keeping the purport ot toaorro•'s Presidential message a closely-guarded secret, and tonight Washington is buzzing with speculation. I\ i i generally understood that President Truman will give to tbe joint session of the Senate and ibe Rouse a report oa the Com■ uniat crisis in . Europe - an alar■ ing picture. There are rumors that th~ So~iets have demanded ■ ilitar7 alliances with the ScandinaTian countries, S•~den, and Den■ ari, along the line of Stalin's ■essage to the President of Finland, proposing a treaty. Soviet alliance meaning the status of a satellite. Any such Moscow success with the Scandinavian countries, . that surely would put Soviet power on the Atlantic. We bear that President Truaan may cite these reports and facts to back him up, alarming indeed; In addition to which there is that election coming in Italy, with openly expressed fear that the Communists aay stage a coup d'etat and seize Italy, as they did Czechoslovakia. Today in ashington, Congressman Joe Martin, Republican Speaker of the House, declared that if the Co ■■ unists won out in the Italian election, it Fala ■ ean a Red sweep in Europe. A Co m munist victory, said the Republican leader, would ■ean that Coa■unta ■ would rule in the Mediterranean and unauestionably do ■ inate all Europe. It is belie¥ed that the President will cite all the ominous facts as an argument tor hastenin& the larahall Plan, which has been passed by the Senate but is being delayied in the lower Bouse. Be is likely to urge Selective Service, too, and perhaps aoae fora of draft to build up the ar■ed forces at once. · A move by. the army today ties in with this, our top militari leaders today laking for a legal ruling in the matter of calling back to active duty a lot of officers and Gia who served in World War II. The army believes that over 1,300,000 officers and former soldiers with reserve connections can be inducted without any special authorization of Congress. And t h ere are rumors that tQe -J- ~ President may ask for wartime powers in dealing with the Red menace. In Congress late this afternoon, Repubiioan leaders aoTed to provide funds for a huge military expanaioa, put up enough ■one, to provi4• the araa4 fore•• with what the Republican leaders call •ab1olutelr •••r.7thin& neadea for national aecuritJ.• Thia, on the ••• of the Presidential special aeasage. -4- In Mexico Cit7, today a leading newspaper published a front-page headline sto~y on a question that bas often been asked: If Italy should go Communist, what would the Pope do? The Yexico City newspaper feature• a report that if the Reds should get control, either thru the election or by a coup d'etat, the Pontiff of Ro•• would take refuge in the United State1. It is known, declares the ne•spaper, that various Borth American organizations have offered to proYide aaylu• in th• United States for the Pope. Thia Mexican supposition, bo••••r, is not in accord with printed report• in the United States. These adYancing Tarious tbeorie1; one if the Communists should take power in Italy, legal or otherwise, then the Boman Pontiff would stay in Rome, Pius XII assuming the role of martyr, if necessary; another is that he would take refuge not in the United States but in Latin Jaerica - Brazil being mentioned. All of which provides Tarieties of material for discussia tonight. -5- (:_ommunist Bulgaria is going to issue a Franklin Delan Roosevelt memorial stamp on the third anniversary of his death, April 12th) This was announced by the Bulgarian Government today, which would see ■ to be an indication that ~he Reds behind the Iron Curtain hav, ideas of using the me ■ ory of the American wartime President for their own Communist propaganda purpoae•~ 112m -6- In asbington this afternoon was i sued a report that a strike at the Oak Ridge, Tennessee lto■ io Energy Plant would be, in the words of that r,port, a grav.e danger to the national safety. An atoaic strike at Oak Ridge has been threatened, and President Tru■ an appointed a fact-finding board to look into the labor dispute. So the fact-finding board now reports that there are no signs of any settleaent between the Oai Ridge plant and ao■e 800 e ■ployeea unionized by th~ ArL. The threat of a walk-out reaaina, an atoaic atrik• that would be a grave danger to our national safety. -7- In the soft coal strike, the companies today gave a deadline to John L. Lewis, hitherto the nation'• ■ oat publicized union leader - he's been tbe one to band out the deadlines and the headlines - but now he is g ~ ven one. The ■ ine operators are allowing Lewi• three days in which to join the ■ in an arlltrat1oa to end the ■ trike. Ezra van Born, apotea ■ an tor ttie oo ■paniea, todaJ aent John L. Lewi ■ a letter propo1 ~ n1 that the F,ederal Di1triot Court in Washington be a■ te4 to appoint an tapar.tial ar.biter to decide on the union de ■ and of an old age pension for miners. If Lewi1 doe1n•t join this ao•e by Friday, the coapaniea will 4o it on their ow.a, will appeal to the Federal court. Meanwhile the walk-out is cuntinuing to spread - 350,000 miners out today. -8- And in the meat packing strike there are intimations that the companies may try to resume operations in some of the plants now closed down, resuae in spite of the strike. A spokesman for Armour declared today: •we expect to be operating in a limited way. before long.• The union says it intends to keep the aeat plants closed, and the contradiction may perhap• be an indication of trouble. Today 100,000 packing pian\ work1r• ••r• out, and the production of ■ eat was reduce4 to one-halt of noraal in this country. Price• increaeea in the wholesale market,. And if the strike goes on, there may be shortages and higher prices in the retail stores, to the discomfiture of ~he long-sufferin1 housewife. -9- T~e news wires tbis · afternoon broqgbt a brief dispatch from Toky,-0 which told an interesting thing and ■ ade one want to know more about it. I might as well read that dispatch just as it came in: Tokyo, March 16th, tbe newapaper fo ■ iuri today v~ged Emperor Hirohito to become a Christian. The newspaper said the 1pread of Chriatianitr into Japanese life is i■portant and probabl7 will narrow down to a question of whether tbe laperor as a eyabol of the nation should bee~•• a Cbriatian. I tool a look at the telephone an4 I wondered, well, who ■ can l call for infor■ ation about tbia. Then I thought ot Br. Dan Polling (1), wtio ■ igbt be expected to know about church affairs in al ■ ost an,- country. During the war be bad a g~al job, a roving chaplain, and he's been roving ever since. Be still is a roving chaplain, also editor. of the Q_!i!~i!~ Herald and bead of various other things. And I called ___ ... __ _ Dr. Polling at his cburch in Philadelphia and told him about the news dispatch, the Tokyo newspaper ur ing Hirohito to become a Cristian and did he have any -10- information on it? Dr. Polling replied: "That's interesting. I just had lunch with Dr. Benry Smith Leaper(?), and we were talkin g about the advance of Christianity in Japan." Well, what about Hiro- hito, I asked. He replied that, according to his inforaation, the Japanese Emperor has been studying the great Christian epic, •The Scriptures as Applied to World Problems•. And then Dr. Polling told me ot an eTangelizing move•ent now sweeping Japan, led by Ca1ua, the moat prominent Japanese Christian, Iagua holding huge meetings all oYer that country. Evangelism in the old Aaerican style of Mod4f and Sankey. Moreover the Christian Endeavor Movement is spreading rapidly in Japan; hundreds of new societies organized; everywtiere there's great religious activity, Protestant and Catholic, too. But as for Hirohito, Dr. Polling told met at I'd better call Dr. Leaper with whom he had just ad lunch, Dr. Leaper knowin more about the personal -11- J!!llnQ - 3 •atter of the Japanese Emperor than almost aarone. I phoned Dr. Leaper. Be immediately gave me som~ significant f cts. He said that Hiro- hito recently procured a five-volume series of books published by the World Council of Churches and bas been st~dying these - volume that present the application of Christian faith and morals to the desperate problems of this world today. What scriptural teachings nave to offer to the nations of the postwar world - Hirohito is studying that. To that he added a hi hly signifi~ant detail, saying that in court circles in Tokyo the question has been disous1ed much: what to do with t . e Shinto shrine in the imperial palace if Hirohito becomes a C . ristian? Right now the Japanese Emperor oes thru the ceremonies of traditional Shintoism as a part of his official duties, tho he has no belief in Shinto doctrines, which until recently taught that Hirohito himself was a god. He never be- lieved he was a od. Now, un d er the regime of MacArthur, -12- be bas fewer illusions than ever about Japanese Shintoism. But at the same time there's a great shrine in that palace - and what to do with it if the Emperor becomes a Christian? There does seem to be something immediate about that, if the~e•s discussion about bow to dispose of that sanctuar, of Shintoism. Dr. Leaper went on to say that the real authority to giYe ae some first-hand information about it al[ was Dr. John Decker, just back from Japan; attar having Had talks with Hirohito about Christianity, Dr. Decker could tel 1 me more - right up to the moment. Sounded most promising, but it was growing late thi1 evening; news wires ere hot. And I put that call off to Dr. Decker to ask him about his talks with the Japanese Emperor about Christianity, delayed until a broadcast later on. I, for one, am exceedingly interest ■ in the Emperor of Japan, the ex-god- turning C~ristian. • -13- Tonite ~n a distant, barb8ric city there'• a usurpgr kin chained to the wall of a dungeon cell He's Abdullah El- azier, who seized that throne of the Yemen, south•••tera Arabia, after the murder of the old Priest-ling I■am Yahya) In the story we had some days ago, Abdulla El-Wazier was dascribe4 as a coffee iaporter, the Yemen in souttiwestern Arabia being the great kingdom of coffee. It'• al ■ o called the ancient realm of the Oueen of Sheba. An4 the coffee importer sat himself on the modern version of the Oueen of Sh~ba's throne. But tonigbt in the walled city of Sana, he's in an ancient prison, chained to a wall. The news comes via Cairo, the dispatch telling of a siege at the fortress of Sana. When Imam Yahya was murdered,Gh~ tribesmen of Southern Arabi a rallied to his eldest son, the Crown Prince Ahmed and they marched on Sana, which the7 besieged for eight days, during which t h e cti:f:fu usurper was deserted by his follo ers ) T h ey left him IUD - 2 -14- in droves when the Moslem priests championed the cause of the son of the old Imam. (The citadel of Sana wa1 taken by storm, Abdulla El-Wazier remaining in the Imam's palace until the besiegers were breaking in, whereupon be tried to escape with a few partisans but was captured. He will now be tried for treaaon and 00 ■- plicity in the murder of laam Yabya, who, it ia now revealed, wae shot do•n from ambush while traveling with bis royal retinue tbru those sun-baked mountain• of the Yemen.) If you like news with a surprise angle, he~e it is. In Palestine today another battle was fought between Jews and Arabs, and the dispatch from Jerusalem begins the story as follows: Dozens of Arabs and Jews battled with snowballs in the streets of Jerusalem today. Snowballs in Palestine are distinctly unusual. But l st nite the Holy City had a snow •11 of four inches, an event so nove and DUl-3 -15- exbilerating it transformed the war between tiu Zionists and the Moslems. Princes• Mary Avenue in Jerusalem is a dividing line between Jewish and Arab sections, and it was there that young fellow• of Baganab got into a snow fight with Arab youths. Too bad that the •bole Palestine feud can't be settled with snowballs. -16- The LondQn story ab ~t Princess Elizabeth is founded on a series of signs and portents, for one thing. The heiress to the Crown, ma~ried last autumn, is graduallJ withdra w ing from public appearances, ~ Hitherto she bas kept herself busy with the usual sort of royal chores, appearances at those public cere■ oni•~ the British love so much. But now the so•ial calendar of the Beireas Presu ■ptive shows only five official engagements until the end of the year. Another thing, Elizabeth and her husband, the Duke of Edin,urgb, will not go on tie Royal Family tour of Australia and Be Zealand. The King and Queen and the younger · Princess, Margaret Rose, will visit those two gr~at . dominion ~ below the Equator, but not the young royal newlyweds. Moreover, Elizabeth and Philip had been expected to visit C a nada and maybe the Onited States, but that journey to the New orld has been cancelled. All of which indiwations, together wi~ court goss~p, are signs and portents of what c an be stated in that ELI7.ABF ~ TH - 2 --------- -17- old-f shioned ay, "a visit by the stork" expected in ctober. If t i s s ould h pen, how would you state the r nk of t . e new arrival, boy or a girl? What would you c 11 the eir or heiress oft e Reires Presumptive? Of course, you could just s~y Baby, couldn't you, Nelson? LTP.1948.03.16i.pdf LTP.1948.03.16ii.pdf