On the editorial page, "On Getting Tougher with Russia" tells of the Gallup polls showing that the American people desired peace but wanted the Government to get tougher with Russia, 62 percent saying that they believed the country was too soft on the Soviets. But they did not suggest any means by which to get tougher, short of use of military force.

Former Secretary of State James Byrnes had recently advocated ordering the Russians out of Germany and then to undertake "measures of last resort" if they did not comply. Such a stance was considered realism, but the Russians were also realists in the same vein, underestimating U.S. strength and overestimating their own, just as Americans did in reverse. The U.S. had the power to reach the U.S.S.R. but not to defeat it in a head-on confrontation. Russia could overtake Europe but could not strike the U.S. directly.

It wonders who would win if "getting tough" did not open the eyes of the Russians to the "beauties of peace".

"ABC's First Lesson on Drinking" tells of observers finding that occasional drinkers were behaving better under the ABC system than when bootlegging prevailed as the means of obtaining liquor, but the regular sots were acting no differently.

The Russians, it thinks, had a good solution to habitual drunks. They gave them a warning when they missed work, sent them to a labor camp on the second absence, which meant sure death to an alcoholic. It had worked to eradicate alcoholism in Russia.

The McDougle Act in North Carolina gave the six-time drunk offender up to two years on the roads. It, too, was too barbaric for civilized tastes. It hopes that the ABC system would concentrate its energies on education and treatment, an enlightened approach in a democracy.

"Britain's Shift to the Right" tells of the heavy losses by Labor in the Saturday municipal elections in Britain to have been hailed by the Conservatives as a rejection of Socialist doctrine. Labor described it only as a temporary setback.

The elections served notice that the public support of state planning and revolutionary change was coming to an end after two years of Labor reforms.

Labor had won a string of bye-elections, albeit by diminishing margins, pronounced in the middle class, which had given Labor its 1945 victory.

But it was unlikely that the change would be as sweeping as trumpeted by Winston Churchill and other Conservative leaders. Nationalization of the coal mines and the Bank of England had been accepted by Conservatives and so permanent changes had already taken place in that regard, even if a balance now might be struck between state control and free enterprise. It was unlikely that the British people would, even if they were to reject the Labor Government soon, consent to rolling back the changes already made. But the Saturday elections were predictive of at least the end of changes.

A piece from the Richmond Times-Dispatch, titled "Poison-Pen Pelley Stays in Prison", tells of the Supreme Court refusing to hear the petition for writ of habeas corpus filed by William Dudley Pelley anent his sentence of fifteen years for sedition during the war. Mr. Pelley had served five years. He claimed to have been convicted in 1942 by wartime hysteria associated with the attack on Pearl Harbor. His supporters claimed that he was merely an eccentric who directed his criticism at Communism.

Drew Pearson describes a meeting between the Congressional delegation visiting Europe and Pope Pius XII in which Congressman Runt Bishop of Illinois had rudely insisted on an answer to his question as to how America could be assured that the aid going to Europe would reach the people as intended. The Pontiff did not quite understand the question because of his limited grasp of English, but Mr. Bishop pointedly insisted on response, until others in the entourage redirected the conversation.

Mr. Pearson notes that in Italy, there was an efficient American relief organization present to oversee the distribution of aid.

Democrats had made a political mistake in not protesting the serving of meat on a meatless Tuesday at a dinner given for them by the Mayor of Philadelphia, Bernard Samuel. The Mayor, a Republican, was throwing the dinner to attract Democrats to the city for the 1948 convention. At least one of the Democrats refused to eat the meat.

Former Governor Bob Kerr of Oklahoma reminded the President that while the country gained two million in population each year, it was losing 500,000 arable acres of land. In consequence, it would be unable to feed its population in 20 years. He wanted a radical soil conservation and irrigation program. The President was sympathetic but non-committal.

Indiana's state Democratic chairman believed that Democrats were staging a resurgence in the state and would win the bulk of the mayoral elections on the following day.

Marquis Childs, in London, discusses the rationing system in the country. It appeared to be working well, with the poor feeling that they were better off than before the war, getting free orange juice and cod liver oil for their children. But the Government was having to meet the realities of the country's dwindling dollars by imposing stricter rations. The current economy was about three-fourths controlled and one-fourth free. Sir Stafford Cripps, the new economic czar, and others in the Cabinet, believed that the experiment in social democracy could not work in such a hybrid economy.

Presently, if a person was out of work, he went to the government exchange seeking a job and was given four or five choices in an essential industry. But he could not be compelled to take a particular job as had been the case in wartime. The gap thus created in the system was often filled by the black or gray job market, where the employee could obtain a much higher wage. To try to close this gap would be political suicide for Labor. Thus, the hybrid system would continue, with controls gradually slipping away.

Liberal economists argued that the Government should reposit more confidence in the price system and the law of supply and demand. The choice, said one leading economist of the University of London, was not between a plan or lack thereof but rather either planning through the price system or against it. He denounced the type of system which caused conflicting incentives. Frustration and poverty came from the resulting breakdown in respect for law and government.

Victor Riesel, in Hollywood, tells of the Washington hearings into "red sales on Sunset Boulevard" having kept teachers from some schools, such as the Peoples’ Educational Center, its teachers including Herbert Biberman, Edward Dmytryk, and Adrian Scott, each of whom had been found the previous week in contempt of Congress for refusing to answer whether they had been a member of the Communist Party.

He suggests that a handful of Hollywood personalities were hiding behind the glamour of such stars as Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, and Danny Kaye while working closely with the Communist Party. They were helping to build the Progressive Party of California, which he finds to be pro-Communist. They were seeking a half million names to insure that the requisite 276,000 names would be valid for entry on the ballot. Schools like the aforementioned were campaigning to establish the party.

A CIO leader had informed him that the new party would give the Communists tremendous bargaining power as it would poll between 10 and 20 percent from the California protest movement of years past. It would give the balance of power to the Progressives to obtain a voice in determining candidates for the Democratic Party, or they would nominate their own candidate and split the Democratic vote.

He concludes that while the Progressives could not win, they could use their Hollywood friends to glamorize the campaign and have an indirect impact on the outcome.

His equation assumes the validity of the premise, as told to him by certain California anti-Communist CIO leaders, that the Progressive Party was flirting with Communism, an erroneous supposition when viewed historically with any objectivity. By implication, it would suggest that the eventual Progressive Party candidates, former Vice-President Henry Wallace and his running mate, Senator Glen Taylor, were either Communists or unwitting dupes for Communists, a preposterous notion. It also implies that the chief organizer of the Progressives in California, and counsel for the Hollywood 10, former State Attorney General Robert Kenny, was also a Communist, equally absurd. Maybe Ronald Reagan and Ricky Nixon were Communists.