Only a Progressive

Besides George Marshall, three unofficial U.S. tourists--Communist Boss William Z. Foster, Republican Harold Stassen and Henry Agard Wallace--came home from Europe. Foster and Stassen, quiet men both, were almost lost sight of in the general commotion which hatless Henry Wallace streamed behind him like a kind of untidy halo.

As his last stop abroad, Wallace had gone to Paris. His daily diatribes against the Truman Doctrine had already made him the nearest thing to a hero that Communists can make of a nonCommunist. Even his old friend Eleanor

Roosevelt was moved to write: "I cannot help feeling just a little sorry for Henry Wallace. . . . The subtle French 'esprit,' with the addition of the Communist tinge, is something entirely unpredictable which I doubt our friend Mr. Wallace has ever had to handle before. . . . In France, I fear for you, Don Quixote--you are indeed tilting at windmills!"

But Don Quixote kept tilting harder than ever. He called on the U.S. to lend Russia $15 billion as a "practical step toward world reconstruction and peace." He took a sideswipe at De Gaulle. French Communists thought he was wonderful. In fact, they liked him so much--and there 'were so many of them among his hosts and sponsors--that Henry Wallace felt definitely uncomfortable. Finally he stood up and declared: "I am not a Communist--I am only a progressive."

Back in the U.S., his first concern was for sleep. After a catnap in Manhattan, he buzzed off to Washington, got a full seven hours in his Wardman Park suite. Next day at a press conference, he told newsmen that criticism of his trip did not bother him. "My hide is very thick," he said.

Then he got ready to swing off on a four-week, coast-to-coast speaking tour. For this, the advance noise was already terrific. Hollywood Bowl officials started most of it by canceling a Wallace speech on the shaky excuse that they did not want the 20,000-seat amphitheater used as "a springboard for ideologies foreign to the majority." This was too much even for the arch-conservative Los Angeles Times. While Wallace backers, delighted at the publicity, signed up the 18,000-seat Gilmore Stadium, the Times editorialized: "We should not gag a bray."

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