Manila Is Not Philadelphia

Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home,

Thy house is on fire, thy children all gone. . . .

Last week in Pravda Comrade David Iosifovich Zaslavsky, Soviet Russia's leading foreign news editorialist, snorted at the U.S. for declaring Manila an open city:

"When in danger, the ladybug lies on its back at the enemy's mercy. It cannot be blamed because nature gave it no horns or sting or a brave heart. What can be said about an armed man who lies on his back as soon as an enemy appears? Such people are called cowards. . . . Manila could have resisted the enemy like Leningrad, Sevastopol, Moscow and Tula. It could have withstood a siege like Tobruk. The hardships and miseries would have been compensated abundantly by the glory to the people and the exhaustion of the enemy's forces. . . ."

No nation has a better right than Russia to such tart criticism. But not waiting for Moscow's alibi that the views of David Zaslavsky are strictly individual, tall, garrulous Ralph McAllister Ingersoll, Russian-wise editor of New York's crusading PM snorted:

"The Russians are a brave people with very bad table manners. . . . General MacArthur's Army didn't quit, isn't quitting, won't quit--and no son-of-a-bitch is going to label him a coward and go uncalled for it. ... We have been in awe of the Russians' fortitude in ordering the earth scorched as they fell back, and we frankly said so. But . . . Manila is not Philadelphia. . . ."

Snorting editorialists aside, declaring Manila an open city was: 1) obviously a sign of U.S. weakness; 2) not by any means a sign of U.S. cowardice. General MacArthur had some perfectly good military reasons for doing so (see p. 19), but the best reason was nonmilitary:

Manila is mainly inhabited, not by Americans, but by Filipinos. Loyal as the Filipinos have been, their loyalty could not be expected to improve if they were bombed to a cinder while under grossly inadequate U.S. protection. But if the Japs bombed the city after the Americans retired, the Filipinos would well know who was their enemy.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.