Along with 18 other U.S. newspaper and magazine editors and publishers,* I returned recently from a 22,000-mile flight inaugurating Pan American Airways' new direct route to Johannesburg, South Africa. During six days there, we were guests of the Union of South Africa and our host was Minister of Justice and Interior Harry Lawrence. I am sure I speak for my colleagues when I express my gratitude for a singularly exciting and enlightening trip and a too brief but very interesting look at South Africa's principal cities.

Few, if any of us had ever had a chance to visit the Union before and, although you can't become an authority on a country in a week, we left with the feeling that we had been among our own kind of people--a people whose hopes, desires and way of living pretty well checked with ours. Like the U.S., South Africa is a country of great horizons, plains and mountains, of vigorous individualism, immense potentialities, and many unsolved problems.

All of us, of course, were professionally interested in the South African press and in the newspaper men who conduct it. They turned out to be an alert and very enterprising group of journalists, and their newspapers reflect those attributes. I was impressed by the knowingness of their questions about the forthcoming Presidential election in the U.S. and by their knowledge of the U.S.'s role in world affairs.

While we were there, we visited and talked with South Africa's and the democratic world's elder statesman, Field Marshal and Prime Minister Jan Christian Smuts. We took tea with him at Groote Schurr, an official residence built by Cecil Rhodes, and afterwards, the subject of Czechoslovakia's black Wednesday, which had just occurred, inevitably arose. Asked for his opinion, the Field Marshal spoke informally for about 15 minutes, and it gradually became clear to us that we were listening to an eloquent and illuminating account of the world situation today. Here are some excerpts from his remarks:

"Something is happening in the world today which is going to shake our civilization to its very foundations.

What is called the new democracy is making its appearance today -- it has come to Czechoslovakia -- but it is a state of things which in ancient days we used to call slavery. If a halt is not called, then the end of civilization as we know it and cherish it is inevitable.

"We are passing through the greatest crisis in human history.

Fifty years from now the world may be an entirely different place. Are we going to play our part in it? Are we going to submit and bow down to it, or are we going to stand up to it and meet its challenge on behalf of human dignity?"

For the U.S. press specifically, Field Marshal Smuts added these words: "You gentlemen of the press of the United States have a greater responsibility than any human beings have ever carried. You are the guides of the people and your responsibility is to lead them aright. See that they keep the flame burning, that they will be ready to meet any emergency that may arise."

If one reason for our trip was to persuade the planeload of journalists that Americans ought to be better informed about South Africa, it definitely achieved its purpose.

*U.P. President Hugh Baillie: President Thomas Beck, Crowell-Collier Publishing Co.; Editor Erwin D. Canham, Christian Science Monitor; Publisher Norman Chandler, Los Angeles Times; President John D. Ewing, Times Publishing Co., Ltd., Shreveport, La.; Managing Editor Lee Hills, Miami Herald; President Roy W. Howard, Scripps-Howard Newspapers; Publisher Edwin Palmer Hoyt, Denver Post; President Philip L. Jackson, Portland Journal Publishing Co.; Publisher H. G. Kern, Boston Record; Publisher Charles B. McCabe, New York Mirror; Publisher Malcolm Muir, Newsweek; Publisher Francis S. Murphy, Hartford Times; President Ralph Nicholson, New Orleans Item Co.; Publisher Paul Patterson, Baltimore Sun;, Associate Editor Robert Reed, Kansas City Star; Publisher James G. Stahlman, Nashville Banner; President John Wheeler, North American Newspaper Alliance.

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