SCARECROW

Republican Rome had its Slave Revolt, sixteen century Europe its Peasant Uprisings, the turn of the nineteenth century its Red Terror, and contemporary Western civilization its Third inter-national. The first three were perpetual nightmares to the conservative mind in their respective periods. The last is rapidly becoming so.

It is significant that each of these earlier eras was a period of crisis in the history of mankind and of its progress. The Empire succeeded the Republic, Nationalism succeeded Feudalism: Democracy succeeded Absolutism. Out of a broom and an old hat the forces of reaction created a scarecrow for the target of their energy while the sweep of-history caught them from behind unawares.

So Secretary Wilbur cries, "We find peace and prosperity at home, but abroad we find new peril, declaring spiritual warfare and ready to declare material warfare on the people of this nation. Where our children are willing to listen, they are taught the ways of the Third International. We find its hand clutching at the heart of our sister republic in the South. We find it stirring up trouble in Asia, in China, in Nicaragua. . . . In the face of this insidious propaganda within our own territory and in other nations it be hooves us to be vigilant."

Has Secretary Wilbur never heard, for instance, of a corrupt church blocking the road which leads up form slavery in "our sister republic on the South", or of extra-territoriality acquired by the "right" of superior force in "Asia, in China, in Nicaragua." Mr. Wilbur may fool himself into thinking he can stop the wind by tilting at windmills. He will not fool history.