Headlines and editorial from Zanesville Signal 12/04/1950

Headlines Zanesville paper

China Reds push toward Pyongyang
Yanks seek to ward off new assault
MacArthur says 500,000 Chinese troops in Korea

Tokyo (AP)-- Chinese reds swarmed froth tonight for an attack on Pyongyang. Allied rear echelon units and refugees streamed south out of the former Korean Communist capital ahead of the new Red wave.

A spokesman said the Eighth army, trying desperately to hold a defense line 30 miles to the north, "will not withdraw from any position or from anywhere until forced to do so by enemy action."

If forced to do so, he added, "the army will" destroy things of military value to the enemy.

"This military policy will apply if it becomes necessary to evacuate Pyongyang."[snip]

Korean allied sympathizers warned that a fifth column had infiltrated Pyongyan. Rigid controls were set up at the city gates.

Draft Law Change Held Unnecessary

Washington (AP)--Chairman Vinson (D-Ga) of the house armed services committee said today he saw no reason for any change in the draft law this year to speed up expansion of the armed forces.

President Truman has set a goal of 2,771,000 defense force by June 30.

Vinson said there are enough men left in the 19 through 25 bracket to meet the army's draft need without changing the law this year.

Neither the air force nor navy has utilized the draft so far.

Draft calls for 40,000 men in December and the same number in January have been issued. The defense department asked yesterday for 50,000 more in February.

Page 4, The Zanesville Signal -- a Democratic Newspaper. December 2, 2006

United We stand

This is a time for the free nations of the world to stand up and be counted. It is a new and greater test of their moral fiber than the one they met so well at the outbreak of the Korean war.

Red China's intervention in Korea is tending to divide the wester powers. France and Britain, pre-occupied with their own vulnerablility to attack by Russia are not anxious to see the United States and its helpers tied up in a long war with the Communist Chinese.

Leo Dehnen, foreign correspondent for NEA, reported in a recent dispatch that a split in the North Atlantic front is exactly what the Kremlin is striving for. Once the unity of the West should go, Russia would feel free to move more boldly in its course of conquest.

If, as seems likely, this is indeed the Soviet aim, the free nations must guard desperately against a break in ranks. This is no moment for division, for timidity, for concentration upon individual national weakness.

The Communists respect only strength and force. Where they do not meet it, they push in. The free world has the might to resist their further encroachment; but only when all its members combine in a solid front.

it is not too late to avert disaster for freedom, despite the counsels of despair heard in many quarters. The liberty-loving peoples of the earth can save their heritage if they will jointly resolve to do so, and proceed with utmost speed to carry out programs which must stem automatically from the resolve.

If any are really too weak or fearful to engage in this great enterprise, it is better that we know it now rather than count upon help we won't get.

At root this crisis is a moral one. Do people who have known real freedom prize it enough to fight for it if necessary? Or are they so beaten down by repeated wars and endless economic distress that they are content merely to live, however ignobly?

Each country must answer these questions with a clear "yes" or "no." A "maybe" isn't good enough. We need to know who is lined up on our side in this struggle.

And once the choice is made we must all face promptly and realistically the task of defending the free portions of the earth. Some crucial, fateful decisions lie ahead. The biggest is how to balance our strength between Europe and Asia. But they cannot be made with sureness until we have learned the names in the roster of freedom.