U.S. At War: OUR ALLY CHINA

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shifted to another method. They adopted a great propaganda program to sell to the world the belief that they are merely downtrodden patriots, seeking to escape the tyranny and oppressions of Chiang Kai-shek in order to get freedom and establish democracy—just like our forefathers were in 1776. By talking about freedom and democracy and unity and so forth, and by calling all who disagree with them fascists and dictators, they have succeeded in selling to millions of Americans one of the greatest hoaxes any unsuspecting people ever bought in all history. I spent more time and effort in China on this than on any other subject, including a morning discussing it with Mr. Lin Tsu-han, the chairman of their soviet government, the so-called border region government, and I can assure you that their propaganda is a gigantic fraud. They know, like Hitler, that if a big claim is made often enough, a lot of people will come to believe it is the truth.

Disloyal Opposition. The Communists have said, first of all, that Chiang Kai-shek and his Government will not unite with them in the fight against Japan. Now is it not to our country's interest to have China united? Therefore, must we not insist that Chiang Kai-shek and the established Government of China cooperate with the Communists?

But is it not strange that no one ever insists that the Communists cooperate with the Government?

Their argument is given credence by some Americans on the naive assumption that the Communists are just a political faction, a minority or an opposition and in war we need cooperation, even a coalition, of all parties. We ask: why will not Chiang take in the Communists as Roosevelt takes a few Republicans into his Cabinet? But there is a very considerable difference. We Republicans do not maintain a private army exercising arbitrary armed control over whole sections of the country because we do not like some New Deal policies. But the Communists do have a private army and a separate government. They are not just a political party. They are an armed rebellion.

Perhaps you recall seeing this three-quarter-page advertisement by the Communists last summer in papers all over the country, in which Earl Browder says: "The time is more than ripe for the United States to insist that the Chungking Government shall put its house in order with a real, not a .formal, unification of all Chinese fighting forces."

The word "unity" means one, not two; one government, not two; and one army, not two. Chiang has said from the beginning and during all these seven years, and reiterated the offer last month, that he will accept them in a coalition government immediately if they will become just a political party—that is, will give up their separate army and their separate government. For us to insist that Chiang Kai-shek reconcile himself to a splitting of his own country and send military supplies to an armed rebellion is to ask him to be a traitor. Of course, he has not been willing to do it, and will not, unless the Communists will, first of all, give up their separate government and army. There is no law or logic whereby the head of a legitimate government can be asked to recognize, let alone assist, a wholly independent sovereignty within his own country.

The Communists are selling us a gold brick when they try to make us think that they must maintain their army or