HOPEFUL PORTENTS SEEN

Chronicle (Levin), 20 July 1949, Page 5

HOPEFUL PORTENTS SEEN

(N.Z.P.A.-

-Reuter.

Truman Believes Comnttmisrn ffiust Destroy Itseif

Cojivrijjht)

Received Wednesday, 10.45 a.m. NEW YORK, JU.y 1,9. Tension and confiict appeafed ta be increasing in the areas controlled by the dommunists, Rresident 'Tiumah said today. Comihunism might have teiiiporary triumphs, but in the long rgn it miist "wither and destroy itseif, or abdndon its attempts to force other nations into its pattern." ; President Truman declared that he was optimistic that the world ■ would yet be organised for peace i without a war. I The President was speakhig at a convention of the High Degree Branch of Freemasonry, of which he is a member. The President pledged the United States to continue its "great crusade for peace" by maintaining a strong and stable American

economy as "the primary source of strength of a free world" and by taking steps to "ensure that the hard-won economic recovery of other free nations does not revert to stagnation and despair." Must Not Out Aid. President Truman said: "One of the most foolish things we could do right now would be to slash our appfopriations for European recovery. If we did that we would he deliberately throwing away the gains for peace and freeddm that we have pamfully made. Only the Communists would profit if we took such a short-sighted course." ! He was optimistic about the futu'Ae, '""declared the President, because he beiieved in the superior attraction of democratic principles, which had been tried and tested in the fre.e nations, and which were now winning the allegiance-'Of men thxoughout the world.