IN a televised fireside chat last week, Adlai Stevenson reviewed some of the major issues of the presidential campaign. One of the problems he discussed was that of Communists in Government.
"These mortal enemies," said Stevenson, "cannot be permitted to get close to the bloodstream of America, particularly its Government. I don't believe oaths and affidavits are much good, for a real Communist never hesitates to lie. Nor is catching and punishing Communists after their treachery enough to end the hazard.
"I think generally the post-screening of Government employees and the quiet, effective, professional work of the FBI is the best way to turn over every stone in this country and see what lies beneath it ...
"Beyond this I say to you that the battle against Communism in America is an infinitely tough one, a harder battle than most of the Republican leaders have ever admitted, or evidently even understand ..."
Forces of Evil. Stevenson turned to Korea and the paramount issue of "peace and war." Said he: "We all know that when the Communists attacked across the 38th parallel, that was the testing point for freedom throughout the world . . . Sooner or later we would have had to fight, and the later we made our stand the bigger and harder the war would have been.
"Stopping the enemy in Korea . . . was received with enthusiastic shouts of approval by the overwhelming majority of the American people, and even by the Republican leadership.
"Now, however, they attempt to make you believe that it was almost an act of treason. But what do you think they would be saying now if we had not stopped the enemy in Korea. . . ? Would they not be saying now that Harry Truman and Joseph Stalin were boyhood friends in Outer Mongolia. . . ?
"A campaign addressed not to men's minds and to their best instincts but to their passions, emotions and prejudices is unworthy at best. Now, with the fate of the nation at stake, it is unbearable . . .
"The world has been at war almost continuously now for 40 years. The intervals between the wars grow shorter. The wars increase in dimensions and destructiveness. The last war was man's first true world war . . .
"Much of mankind is changing its entire outlook upon the world. Whatever was is cast out—whatever is is questioned.
Mankind in its hundreds of millions, is on the march toward what goal and with what destruction on the way no man can foretell. Whole nations have sunk out of sight behind the Iron Curtain; whole peoples have disappeared from view.
"Today there is less communication between the great groups of man than there was in the roadless world of a thousand years ago . . .
"All this is done by an enemy of a kind we have never faced before. He is primitive, but he is also advanced. He goes with a piece of black bread in his hand, but in his mind he carries the awful knowledge of atomic energy . . .
"Long ago we asserted a great principle upon this continent, that men are, and of right ought to be, free. Now we are called upon to defend that right against the mightiest forces of evil ever assembled under the sun."