Election Postponed

The U.S. and Britain had recognized Poland's Warsaw Government. But of the Yalta agreement (to broaden that Government by the inclusion of democratic Poles, pending democratic national elections) little was left. The "broadened" Warsaw Government was still dominated by Russia through Polish Communists and fellow travelers. Last week the election promise was deferred. Premier Edward Osubka-Morawski announced that he, personally, would like to see an election soon, but "until harvesting, repatriation and resettlement are finished, we must not divert attention from these basic tasks." Since repatriation and resettlement involve several million people, the Polish election was in effect indefinitely postponed.

In the U.S. a group of notable American friends* of Poland and international justice sent President Harry S. Truman an appeal on Poland to be delivered to him before the Big Three conference. They charged that the so-called "broadening" of the Warsaw Government can "by no stretch of the imagination . . . be called an honest fulfillment even of the Yalta agreement . . . described by President Roosevelt as in some respects a disappointing compromise on the Polish question." They urged (among other things) that the Big Three conference agree to: 1) the release of the twelve members of the Polish underground convicted in Warsaw of sabotage against Russia; 2) an election law that would guarantee a fair election in Poland; 3) the withdrawal of the Red Army from Poland before the election; 4) the right of correspondents and the Red Cross to circulate freely in Poland.

Alfred M. Landon, William Agar (former Vice President of Freedom House), George Creel, John Dewey, Varian Fry (editor of Common Sense), Publisher Martin J. Quigley, A. Phillip Randolph (President of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters), Oswald Garrison Villard, Justice Francis E. Rivers, ex-Justice Jeremiah T. Mahoney, Elliott V. Bell (New York State Superintendent of Banks), Publisher Frederick S. Crofts, Raymond Leslie Buell (former chairman of the Foreign Policy Association).

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