Take Your Pick

Presidential Candidate Henry Wallace, who thinks (or says he thinks) that Greece has nothing to fear from Russian aggression, got a dose of Greek history last week. At a Washington banquet of the Greek fraternal order of Ahepa, Manhattan Lawyer Dean Alfange dusted off the story of Aeschines (389-314 B.C.), an apologist for Philip of Macedon. Said Alfange : "Today .. . Philip is Joe Stalin and I don't need to tell you who Aeschines is."

Attending the same banquet, Harry Truman was more direct. "The Greeks also had a Henry Wallace," said the President, but he thought the man was Alcibiades (450-404 B.C.), who deserted Athens for its enemy Sparta, deserted Sparta to return to Athens. He was "the greatest demagogue of all time," said the President. "We are now facing the same danger to this country. ... If imitators of that ancient Greek conqueror want to see its liberties subverted, he ought to go to the country he loves so well and help them against his own country."

Henry Wallace pretended not to hear. He strode into Washington, denounced universal military training,* said that Russian aggression was a myth, and then bustled back to Manhattan. He also found time to order half a ton of cow manure worked into the 5 ft. by 15 ft. plot adjoining his Park Avenue headquarters, in preparation for corn planting.

*Wallace offered his own estimate of the proper size of the Army: "Perhaps a million men." Reminded that Defense Secretary James Forrestal had asked for only 782,000, Wallace ate crow-without choking on any feathers. "That was a figure I pulled out of the air," he said.

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