The Pittsburgh Press (March 18, 1946)
Stokes: G.I.’s came home
By Thomas L. Stokes
WASHINGTON – Perhaps it’s a bit late to talk about all this now, except that it may be some help in the future in showing the sequence of cause and effect.
You recall the cry that went up soon after VJ-Day – “Bring the boys, back home.” The politicians – not all of them, but plenty – echoed it in Congress yelling frantically from foxholes in stacks of plaintive mail. From where they stood they could see the ring around election day on their calendars.
Quite a few people pointed out at that time that this would become the symbol of the new isolationism, the new nationalism. They warned that, if yielded to, we would pull ourselves back within our own borders, would be unequipped to meet the new responsibility of leadership we had assumed in the world.
First Congress hauled up Gen. George C. Marshall to give him a going-over. Then, when demobilization was slowed down for good reasons, they hauled up Gen. Dwight Eisenhower who had become chief of staff.
Nobody wanted to keep men overseas who had been long in service. But there was the necessity of developing some system of replacements that would meet our requirements and hold up our hands all over the world. Nothing was done about that, at least nothing really sufficient and conclusive.
They got their wish
Now Russia is acting up, swinging her weight around.
Ironically, those who are complaining loudest about Russia, who want to do something quick about Russia, and without finding out all the facts, are in so many cases those same fellows who were howling to high heaven to “bring the boys back home.” They got their wish. But now they lead from weakness, not from strength, to borrow a bridge term.
A strong foreign policy must be buttressed in strength. Where is it?
Topside leadership must share the blame, too, as well as lower down in congressional echelons.
It seems hard for us to realize that we are a grown-up nation.
There’s another ironical twist to all that’s going on today, too.
Why Communism spreads
Some of those who clamored loudest about bringing the boys home, and who are most wrought up now over Russia, also are making the most noise about Communists in this country. Significantly, among them are those in Congress who are blocking legislation that would provide living conditions for our own people that provide the best bulwark against the spread of Communism.
It is well known that Communism makes its converts among people who are in such a low state economically that they have nothing to lose. We have many in our country who do not make enough to live decently.
An issue at point is before the Senate now in the bill to raise the minimum wage under the Fair Labor Standards Act from 40 to 65 cents an hour, with a graduation to 75 cents in four years. Southerners and some Republicans are fighting it.
They are trying to beat it with confusing amendments on extraneous issues, farm benefits, labor-regulatory legislation, price control and what not.
They also are trying to eliminate some two million white-collar workers in retail businesses and about three million others not previously included, the forgotten people in our economy.
Democracy will survive only if it serves the people.