Books: Changed Men

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Bevin does not use the word proletariat now. "He detests it. He remains true to his cause," says Kraus, "but his terminology, indeed his whole aspect, has considerably matured." As Britain's Minister of Labor, Bevin "has the right to transfer every man and woman in England to whatever job and whatever place he chooses."This power he exercises "with meticulous care." "Since his every word can now decide human destiny," the man who used to be called the Mussolini of British labor "has become argumentative and persuasive." Says Author Kraus: "It is an old English miracle. Ernest Bevin, the product of poverty, is as British as the King."

"Bevin is perhaps the only one among England's responsible statesmen who rarely misses an opportunity to state his war aims. . . . Hitler's defeat is not to him, as to most of his harassed compatriots, an aim in itself. It is simply the inevitable condition for building the kind of world that the man who has built the house of labor wants to live in." And "why shouldn't Ernest Bevin have the opportunity of moving into No. 10 Downing Street?" asks Author Kraus, "England will need a reformer to bring construction out of chaos."

The Author. Just before Hitler called him to Berchtesgaden, Kurt von Schuschnigg called Rene Kraus from New York to Vienna to join the Government's press section. Kraus is believed to have been the only member of the Schuschnigg Government to escape when the Nazis seized Austria. He admits his escape was "dramatic," declines to give the dramatic details, prefers to "forget about my Austrian and European past, as it is water under the bridge, and think and work only for a British victory over Naziism." Kraus gained his intimate knowledge of British leaders by spending considerable time in England. He regards Britain as "my spiritual home," plans to return there from Canada (via U.S. and India) next spring, stay until the end of the war. He hopes that "Germany will get a crushing defeat and a new world order will be established under Anglo-American leadership."

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