Harry S. Truman, President of the United States and Generalissimo of the U.S. Korean war effort, mounted a stump in Tullahoma, Tenn., yesterday and tried to alibi his entire conduct of the dubious conflict into which he dragged us without asking Congress for a declaration of war.

The Generalissimo was in Tullahoma to dedicate a big aviation engineering development center named after the late Gen. Henry H. (Hap) Arnold, whose picture we are printing here because we’re tired of printing Harry’s and suspect a lot of readers are tired of looking at same.

According to Harry, not a serious mistake has been made by him and his yes-men from the-beginning of the Korean war on June 25, 1950, to this good day. He even went so far as to squeak that — hold your hat, now — Secretary of State Acheson is “one of the greatest Secretaries of State in our history.” [Dean Acheson]

Little Harry still refuses to turn his back on Acheson, who never turned his back on Alger Hiss. Further, shrilled the Generalissimo, a lot of base creatures in this country are trying to smear, not only Acheson, but also the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Omar N. Bradley, and Defense Secretary George C. Marshall.

The villains’ motive? Politics, screeched Harry, nothing but politics.

This is really a hot one, coming as it does from the head of an Administration which has developed smearing into a fine art as one means of keeping itself in power.

While thus self-righteously denouncing smearers, Harry himself attempted to smear Gen. Douglas MacArthur. He lacked the guts to mention MacArthur by name, but there was no mistaking the man he was talking about.

There was a sort of cow-pasture cleverness, too, in the way Truman sought to tie MacArthur in with all the Republicans who admire and respect the General whom Truman deposed between days for causes still unknown the General who wanted to win this war and thought he knew how to do it.

Which give a clue, we think, to one of the main lines of argument the Fair Dealers will use in next year’s Presidential election campaign.

They Talk Peace And Make Wars

We’ll be told day in and day out, it seems safe to guess, that the Fair Dealers are the party of peace and prosperity, while the Republicans are the party of war and inflation. As Truman did yesterday, the Fair Deal spellbinders will ignore the high probability that Truman’s efforts to save the rest of the so-called free world from its own weaknesses and follies will bankrupt the United States.

Glossed-over, too as yesterday will be the fact that Truman’s demand for ever-tightening Government controls of all kinds is nothing but a demand for more and more Fascism in this country.

The big emphasis of the Fair Dealers, we think, will be on their claim that they are the peace party they and all Democrats who think as they do.

If the majority of American voters can be sold this bale of goods—this Big Lie—they can be sold anything. After all, it was under Democratic Presidents that we got into our latest three wars — World Wars I and II, and the Korean stalemate. Peace party, hah?