"We" Trouble

New York's World-Telegram & Sun was boiling mad. What made it mad was the sidetracking by the United Nations of the U.S. resolution to brand the Chinese Communists as aggressors. The World-Telly blamed this "humiliating defeat" on the State Department's "political ineptitude" in failing to keep on its side nations "presumed to be our friends," i.e., Britain, France, et al.

The World-Telly's editorial was read, among others, by Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, one of its own columnists. She didn't like it. Said she, in her column three days later: "I am sure it will not create greater unity." Besides, Mrs. Roosevelt explained with patient suavity, people (and editorial writers) just do not understand. "The British have accepted certain facts," she said, "and gone along with them...Whereas we have known that our people were not mature enough, either in Congress or throughout the country, to understand if we took similar action as the British."

The World-Telly did not wait three days to reply; it came back in the same edition. Who, it wanted to know, did Mrs. Roosevelt mean by "we"? "Mrs. Roosevelt and who else?"

"This is Mrs. Roosevelt's gracious way of saying," said the World-Telly, "that while 'certain things' may be readily understood by the British and U.N. circles, Congress and the American people are unfortunately a little too dumb to grasp them...

"If by 'greater unity' she means passive acceptance of an obvious ganging up on the U.S....she is right. At least we hope we aren't contributing to that kind of unity...Chinese Communists are killing Americans in an open war...In our plodding search for a solution to this problem, we cannot accept Britain's let's-do-nothing line...If this represents immature thinking on our part, let us pray that we remain young."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.