West Side News

Homulo Speech--
(Continued from page D)

Aid and material began to flow into Greece. I am sure many of you, in 1947, must have shaken your heads when you read of this in your newspapers; you must have mumbled to yourselves, 'Now, why, for heaven's sake, do we have to send all this economic aid to Greece; let the Greeks fight their own fight. We are happy and contented here. What do we have to do with Greece?'

'How fortunate for the world that you then had the courage and the vision to send economic aid to Greece, to send General James Van Fleet, because when the Greeks saw you were interested in them, their drooping spirits took on new life and they fought Communism with all they had! They fought Communism as their old ancestors fought, with courage and heroism. With your help they succeeded in defeating Soviet Russia's attempt to make of Greece another puppet state. Greece succeeded in forestalling Soviet Russia's attempt to win an outlet in the Mediterranean - the first great victory of the free world in the cold war.

'But by way of digression, and to show you the enemy you are pitted against: Soviet Russia failed to win the outlet into the Mediterranean in 1947; but she succeeded in achieving the same end in 1956 through the sale of arms by Czechoslovakia to Egypt. In 1956 Soviet Russia emerged as a middle eastern power, which she never was before; which she tried to do in 1947, but failed to do. Today Soviet Russia is a middle eastern power, and much of what is happening there springs from that fact.

'Now, resuming my main line of thought: after the defeat of Soviet Russia in Greece, she went into France and Belgium, into the Netherlands, into Italy, into all the western European countries where there was misery, and poverty, and suffering, because misery, poverty and suffering are the greatest allies of Communism. Communism was advancing. My wife and I, in 1948, were eye witnesses to the electrifying and the galvanizing effect that American economic aid had on the European masses. With your aid you helped oppose Communism in Europe then one sad day you heard your radio commentators say and you read across the front pages of your newspapers that on the other side of the world a catastrophe had befallen democracy. China was conquered by Communism - 650 million Chinese were lost to democracy, lost to you. We saw how Soviet Russia fought the Korean war to the last Chinese soldier - not a single Russian soldier was engaged in Korea, not any Russian blood was shed in Korea, all Chinese. Now Soviet Russia has 650 million Chinese that she can make use of for her wars by proxy. It is because, my friends, we have chosen to ignore a truth that we all knew, the true aim of Communism as laid down by Lenin: 'The road to London and Paris is through Peking and Calcutta,' meaning, for Soviet Russia to conquer the world, Soviet Russia must first conquer Asia. In terms of 1957, in terms of present ideological warfare, what Lenin meant was this: For Soviet Russia to defeat the United States, for her to conquer the world, she must first conquer Asia. In strict conformance with that basic strategy as laid down by Lenin, while all your statesmanship and all your national attention and all your leadership was concentrated on Europe, Soviet Russia took the first big grab in Asia by conquering China. That is the first truth that I have come to tell you today.

'The second truth is that your national security, the safety of your lives and of your dear ones, the survival of your American way of life is anchored in Asia. Why do I say this? I don't really say it. It's your Congress, your White House, your Pentagon, your State Department, that say it; that have established the American perimeter of defense.

'What is the American perimeter of defense? Visualize your geography, if you may. The American perimeter of defense extends from the Aleutians way up north through Japan, Okinawa, Korea, Formosa, Guam, and the Philippines. Your newspapers call it your Pacific chain of defense; but your military men call it your American Perimeter of Defense, and that chain can only be as strong as its weakest link. If any of the links in that chain falls under Communism, the whole chain can snap; and if that chain snaps Asia is lost to Soviet Russia; and if Asia is lost, curtains for democracy. That is why President Eisenhower announced to the whole world that the United States will defend Formosa to the last ditch. Why? Because Formosa is an important link in that chain and you cannot allow Formosa to fall under Communism. That is why you fought in Korea.

'Why did you fight in Korea? Because the unfolding strategy of Soviet Russia in 1949 and 1950 was to conquer China first. After China the next step was to conquer Korea. Korea divided the American perimeter of defense. Had the Soviets succeeded in Korea they would have gone southward to blast the American perimeter of defense into a thousand smithereens.

'How well do we know that in the Philippines, we in the path of Communist aggression. As far back as 1947 while Soviet Russia was infiltrating into Greece, she was doing exactly the same thing in the Philippines, infiltrating the so-called Huks, Moscow-indoctrinated Communists, with specific instructions to overthrow the Philippine government. They were to subvert the Philippine government, preparing for the day when, in 1950, had they succeeded in Korea they would have gone southward. They would have found the Huks, the advance guards, ready to welcome them into the Philippines; and my country would have been theirs for the taking.

'That is why you fought in Korea. That is why the American boy who fought and died in Greece really fought and died for his sweetheart in Ogden, Utah; the American boy who fought and died in Korea really fought and died for the safety of his relatives in Boston, Mass.; the American boy who fought and died in Korea really fought and died for his dear ones in Tallahassee, Fla., because, my friends, while the American perimeter of defense appeared to be 12,000 miles away from Cedar Rapids, Ia., in terms of your national security, in terms of modern technology, in terms of guided missiles, supersonic planes, submarines, the atom bomb, that American perimeter of defense is your next door neighbor, like Georgetown, Delaware is to Atlantic City. You must not forget the Pacific Ocean no longer affords you the protection that it gave you ten years ago. The Pacific Ocean has been annihilated by modern technology, and so that state of mind which ten years ago seemed to be logical and safe and sound, in the light of modern technology is not; because it is important in this day and age that men keep pace with modern technology. That is the second truth that I have come to tell you.

'And the third truth is this! Before the second World War there was an ingrained belief in the Asian mind that the west was invincible, invulnerable in the use of arms. Because of that belief Asia was quiescent for centuries - weak, meek, perhaps cowed. But after the second World War, after Japan had you practically on the run for almost two years, after Japan defeated the combined armies and navys of the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Netherlands, and Belgium for almost three years, after the massacre in Hongkong, after the fall of Bataan, after Corregidor fell down like a pack of cards before the Japanese onslaught, after Americans, Britishers, Frenchmen, Belgians and Dutchmen were captured, imprisoned, and tortured, insulted, after the stalemate in Korea which is continually dinned into the ears of the Asians, after the victory of the Chinese native troops over what they call the pick of the armies of seventeen nations, after the fall of Dien Bien Phu, which Moscow daily dins into the ears of the peoples of Asia, after the victory of Viet Nam troops over the flower of the French Army, that once ingrained belief in the Asian mind of the invincibility of the west was gone, finished, forgotten. That is the reason for much of what is happening in Asia today.

'That, too, is a truth that you must know, because it gives us food for thought. How important it is, friends, therefore to realize that America must make friends and allies. President Eisenhower after his inauguration had to go to Panama to attend a Latin American Presidents Conference; and when he arrived, he not only presided at the meetings, he saw to it that he conferred individually with each and every one of the 20 Latin-American presidents. Because President Eisenhower knows that his country needs friends and allies and that international friendship cannot be taken for granted; it must be nourished, and cultivated in order to...

'Your Vice-President, who will be here Thursday, after a grueling political contest, had to go to Africa, because he, too, realizes how important it is for his country and his people to make friends.

'Your Secretary of State travels fast and far. Why? Because he knows that the Secretary of State of the United States of 1957 is no longer the same Secretary of State of this country in 1935: that it is not enough for him to sit on his swivel chair and receive reports. He must know his counterparts all over the world. He must be able to shake hands with them and greet them and put his arms around them and make friends with them.

'Only the other day, under a scorching noonday sun, President Eisenhower and his whole cabinet and the combined Chiefs of Staff waited for the arrival of whom? The President of the Viet Nam, a country of eight million people; and there was the President of the United States, the President of 160 million Americans, the President of the most powerful and richest country on earth, waiting under a noonday sun for this President of this small country; because President Eisenhower knows that you cannot afford to lose one single country in this life and death global struggle in which you are engaged. Any country lost to you now is that much vigor and vitality sapped from democracy.

'And so on the other side Khrushchev and Bulganin, the two Katzenjammer kids, are doing exactly the same thing. They are going from country to country trying to make friends for their Godless ideology, trying to make friends for Communism.

'All these leaders know, more than you or I, that in this life and death global struggle, where the stakes are very high, that no one single nation, no matter how rich or powerful, can win this global struggle alone. It must have friends and allies.

'And you can do it. You have done it once and you can do it again. You have done it in my country. When you first went to the Philippines we fought you for three long years. 350,000 Filipinos were killed in the unequal struggle. My father was one of those who fought to the last. I was trained as a boy to hate you. My people hated you as only an occupied people can hate an army of occupation. But what happened? Why is it that now we are your truest friends and your staunchest allies in Asia? Because in your dealings with my people you followed the Golden Rule, 'Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.' Because in your dealings with my people you respected our right to freedom. Because in your dealings with my people you respected the dignity of the human soul.

'That relationship between peoples is paramount.

'Then you fulfilled every pledge that you made to us, of course, not without opposition in many quarters here. But you, Congress was unswerving in its determination to keep faith with the Philippine people -- saw that every pledge you made to us was fulfilled. We learned to know in the Philippines that America's word is her bond. And so it came to pass that when you were attacked at Pearl Harbor, when you were caught totally unprepared, when you were going from defeat to defeat in the Pacific, while almost all our fellow Asians turned their backs and joined the Japanese, only one nation then in Asia stood loyally by you, and that nation was the Philippine people. I am proud to say they stood loyally by you in your darkest hour in the Pacific, and so where Old Glory was insulted in the Philippines by the Japanese, it never was insulted by the Philippine people; when Japanese hands flung the flag down and trampled on it, there were Philippine hands that picked up Old Glory and held it high because under the rippling folds of that banner my people saw the birth of a new freedom, the motif of which is respect for the dignity of the human soul.

'And so we fought at Bataan and Corregidor for four long months with a handful of 6,000 American soldiers and 75,000 loyal Philippine troops against 300,000 Japanese: and the Japanese used to send over 200, 300 planes a day and we did not have one single American plane to send up against them. We fought in foxholes, starving, malaria ridden, typhoid-ridden, dysentery-ridden, only a handful of rice once a day, for four months, but we fought, out-manned, out-planed, out-gunned, we fought for four long months because we fought with the spirit of free men. After every operation General MacArthur and I would look up and see those foxholes filled with heroic dead. Here a handsome blond American boy dead, sprawled with seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven handsome black-haired Filipino boys, dead, all killed by the same enemy bomb, their blood freely intermingled in the single cause of freedom. Today their bones now lie in Philippine soil, dust and ashes, sacred ashes, dust and ashes. By those ashes east makes west in the Philippines, as east will make west in Asia if only your allies will follow the path that you set in the future, if only you can convince the peoples of Asia, as you have convinced us in the Philippines, that you are really the spiritual people you are, unlike the material-minded, money-minded Americans as the Communists picture you; that you realize your greatness in Asia lies not so much in material sources, not so much in the military, but in those intangibles, those imponderables of the American spirit in which you as a nation are rich; that you realize that your greatness as a nation is your force not so much from your armies, not from the military camps, but from your temples, your churches, your educational institutions of culture, from organizations such as Kiwanis; that you continue to make your preachments to dovetail with your action, continue to make your deeds to coincide with your ideals, and you need have no fear that America will continue to be invincible and that the American way of life will continue to be supreme.

'That my Kiwanian friends is the message that I have come humbly to convey to you today.'