Plain Talk

Dorothy Frank Cowen, wife of U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines Myron Cowen, is a statuesque, energetic woman who won't tell her age. In her youth she studied music and dancing in France, later worked in the children's ward of Bellevue Hospital, served with anti-isolationist groups before Pearl Harbor. In Manila, Mrs. Cowen's relations with socially prominent Filipino women have not always been marked by intense cordiality. Last week she went to a luncheon of 200 Manila clubwomen to talk about the opening of a new charity playground. After congratulating her audience on their good works, she delivered a blistering attack on the irresponsibility of wealthy Filipinos. She said:

"[The playground] is only a tiny drop in the bucket of things that are needed by so many people . . . throughout the Philippines. And it is need . . . that is causing discontent within these islands and proving a fertile breeding ground for Communist agitators. For what does Communism promise a hungry, landless, debt-ridden, discontented person? Why, a full stomach, some hectares of land, cancellation of what he owes--and a better way of life. Is it any wonder that people who are without hope listen to the sound of these Pied Pipers . . .?

"Nations do not die by wealth, but by injustice. Progress stops when a single class appropriates the result of the common labor, strengthens its rights by unfair laws, throttles the masses by suppression, and consumes in luxury what it has taken in greed . . ."

It was a cold shock to hear the wife of the U.S. Ambassador say publicly what many Filipinos were thinking about the critical condition of their country. Lamented the pro-government Philippines Herald: "It should rather be a Filipino leader of discernment and high statesmanship who should be talking to his people with the same pith and accent." Snapped the Manila Chronicle: "Without mincing any words, she told her listeners . . . what was wrong with them . . ."

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