 The Columbia Broadcasting System presents Norman Corwin's One World Flight. You are listening to So Shen, one of China's most popular actresses singing a folk song called Su Ji Shang Su, or Love in Four Seasons. This is one among several voices and sounds recorded inside China. To be heard tonight on this ninth of a series of 13 broadcasts, based upon Norman Corwin's recent global tour as first winner of the Wendell Wilkie One World Flight Award. This is Norman Corwin. On a sweltering night last August in the middle of the monsoon season, a group of passengers gathered in the office of the China National Airlines in the center of Calcutta, India. We got there right after dinner, although our plane, bound for Burma and China, was not scheduled to leave from the airdrome 15 miles away until four the next morning. The idea was that curfew was on after dark. The only vehicles abroad at night were tanks and armored cars for a week. Hindus and Muslims had been fighting a religious war within the city, and already more than 3,000 had been killed. At midnight, our convoy left for the dum-dum airdrome. We rode slowly through deserted streets, passing an occasional burned-out house with embers still glowing. Every now and then our headlamps picked up a corpse or a group of them lying on the highway. They had been there for days, decomposing under the hot sun and the steaming rains. The plane was late starting and the passengers, Chinese, French and two Americans, Lee Bland and myself, sat around drinking a warm chemical solution named Lemon Pop. There were no stars, no moon, no breeze, no traffic, no conversation. Far off on the horizon was a red glow which might have been burning houses. I heard a dog bark somewhere, distantly, and I thought about the dead lying on the dum-dum road. Whatever it was they started out to prove it was still unproven. India was asleep. 400 million Indians in their age-old poverty and misery were sleeping another night through. Eastward, beyond the Bay of Bengal and the mountains and jungles of Burma which lay across our route, 400 million Chinese were sleeping under the same blanket of darkness and privation. With the coming of the new day, they would resume their huge struggle for existence. They too were fighting and killing each other. At five that morning, when we boarded the plane, tired and sweaty and hungry, I felt at all of us, the whole she-bang, you and me and the hundreds of millions of war-weary Europeans and Africans and Asiatics must be closer to Mars than we are to one world. After 48 sleepless hours, 18 of them in the air, we landed outside the brawling, overcrowded and fantastic city that is Shanghai. It was midnight. Nobody asked to see passports. With a dozen fellow passengers, we got on a bus, the only transport available, and rode into town. The driver stopped several times on the way to let people off and incidentally to help them find the right street and address and to chat leisurely with bystanders. Each of these excursions took from ten minutes to half an hour while the rest of us waited in the bus. It was now two in the morning. Bland and I were miffed but the Chinese passengers every bit as tired as we were uncomplaining. It was a detail, infinitesimally small and unimportant, of the quality of patience in a people who for centuries have endured a great deal from those sitting in the driver's seats of China. A city to be noisier than Shanghai would have to be in a state of constant explosion. Here is a recording made on the Bund, the broad embankment along the Wangpu River near Suchar Road on a normal morning. One of the sounds you'll hear is from an American cruiser anchored in the Wangpu. The disorder of hundreds of coolies, rickshaw boys, the noise of buses, trucks and prams, of ships and shipping was topped at one point by the striking of noon on the famous Customs House clock high above the Bund. In the midst of this hubbub, Bill Costello, CBS Far Eastern correspondent and I stood trying unsuccessfully to get shy Chinese people to talk. The inflation, which in recent weeks has brought Gomentang China to the verge of economic collapse, was spiraling upward last August and in the following recording you get a glimpse of it on the surface. I noticed a man carrying a great wad of money in his fist and I asked Costello who that was. I see one man here with a fistful of money. What do you suppose that is, Bill? Let's fell right behind you. He's probably a messenger for some commercial house who's been sent out to change money. He certainly must trust the pedestrian to carry such a bootle of money openly in this myth. Well, actually I've seen about ten times that much. This wad, I would say, was about three inches thick. I've seen messengers going down the street with a double handful of Chinese money. It would probably stack up 16 inches high. I'd say that a man could comfortably carry in his two hands about a thousand US dollars, which would be the equivalent of three and a third million Chinese dollars. A young boy about seven years old came along carrying tea in a copper kettle. He was selling it per cup at a round figure. What are you selling? What is it? Tea. Tea? Yeah. How much? Hundred dollars. Hundred dollars? Yeah. Prices were on that scale generally. They're much higher now. You could see a movie for fifteen hundred Chinese dollars, go to a concert at Cheung Shan Park for four thousand dollars, and buy American shoes for fifty thousand dollars. Shanghai's inflation was exceeded only by its congestion. To carry our equipment by jeep at distance of three short blocks in the center of Shanghai one day took us an hour and ten minutes. We were on our way to see the mayor, K. C. Wu, to ask him about that very subject. We found him in his office in City Hall, a short, young, jovial, round-faced man with horn-rimmed glasses and an American education. The mayor explained the acute housing shortage of the city and incidentally gave an estimate of population which would place Shanghai as the third city of the world. I estimate the Shanghai population will be just a little bit below five minutes. And then many houses haven't been destroyed during the war, so on the one hand we'll get less houses, and on the other hand we'll get much more population. That's why we have this housing shortage. We discussed a whole series of problems common to Shanghai and the rest of China. Then I asked Mayor Wu what he thought about the future of peace. His answer made no reference to the fighting between Gomentang and communist armies a few hundred miles to the north. Mutual distrust, he said, was the root of all evil. I asked what he thought the best remedy for this. His answer was general and in this respect also typical of the statements of many leaders whom we were to meet in China. I believe that everybody should show his cards on the table. Everybody should have played fair. That's what I'm trying to do here in Shanghai. Shanghai is the sort of international city where get all population. But I think that as the mayor of the city we should do it this way. We should be fair to everybody. We should lay our cards on the table. We try to give everybody, no matter of whatever nationality, the same kind of protection and the same kind of rights. We left the mayor's office and headed back to the tall apartment hotel where we were staying, a building with the highly unchinese name of Broadway mansions. In a few short blocks was cross sectioned the cosmopolitan character of the city. Movie houses named Uptown, Rialto and Paris. A Russian restaurant named Jeep. A sign in French fabrication des caisses en bois and music streaming out over a loudspeaker in a record shop boldly mixing Chinese and Brazilian. Shanghai most assuredly is not China any more than New York is America. But in some ways it is fairly representative. There were 46 newspapers in the city when we were there but none had much of a circulation. The common man doesn't read because he can't read and he can't read because there are no schools for him. In this country we take for granted all kinds of things which are beyond the wildest imaginings of hundreds of millions in a country like China. A child here is vaccinated for smallpox, diphtheria, scarlet fever. He goes to a public school. He has a park to play in and so forth. None of that in China worth mentioning. In American cities we drink water from a tap. In Shanghai you'd no more think of doing that than you would of swimming in Typhoidal Suchao Creek. If a poor man in Shanghai is seized let's say with appendicitis he either gets over it or he dies. In these respects Shanghai is China. All of the attributes of medievalism, poverty, disease, ignorance, squalor are to be found side by side with wealth, education, art and social refinements all within small compass. This at least we observed in the three big cities we visited in Gomantang China that is Gomantang as opposed to Communist China for there are two Chinas and we did not get to the second. But within the limits of what we did see there seemed to us a marked difference between the depressed classes of the Middle East and India and those of China. The Chinese seem to be relatively cheerful and purposeful not happy about their luck but not brooding either not squatting on their haunches. Unless they are perniciously poor or actually starving they indicate a sense of humor. They'll smile at you, they like a song they express the basically sweet nature that comes through such popular folk tunes as this beggar's song which we heard in Nanking. Among these people as you'd suppose there was little awareness of international issues unlike the Egyptians whom some of you heard on this program last week the city Chinese at least knew that the big war was over but they were too absorbed with day-to-day problems to worry about veto power, Greek elections or trouble in Palestine not even at the cultural level of writers, artists and actors with their much concern. Mr. Hu Yiquan of the Guomintang's Central Cultural Commission in Nanking told me In these days the life or the living conditions in China are so difficult that many cultural workers cannot think anything else but their own living problems they have very little time to spare to think of international issues which is not very close to their own life. I found as I went about meeting people in the cultural field that I could get no more than general answers to specific questions at a film studio one day I talked for hours with actors and directors and somehow the conversation kept returning as low by gravitational force to movies Miss Ching, a very pretty actress, spoke of her favorite Americans I just like this Humphrey Bogart, Charles Boyer and Gary Cooper Humphrey Bogart, Charles Boyer and Gary Cooper Shelly Lowe, a director, spoke of the Chinese film industry which he said was in a bad way Film production in China is difficult because we don't have enough raw materials and equipment and actors have to work at a salary set by the government About the boldest statement was that of a young musician whom I asked why so little contemporary music of other countries had been introduced to China Well, I think you must put this question to our Minister of Education Outspoken comment, either pro or con, the Gomentang government was difficult to get within the little of China that we saw It was explained to me that liberals who were against both communists and Gomentang were having a hard time of it A scandal during the time of our visit was the recent assassination of two leading liberal professors in Kunming Both were graduates of American universities, non-communists and outspokenly critical of the regime of Shankai Shek, leader of the Gomentang Party Liberals complained that they were caught in the middle that without armies to back them up as the communists had they were at the mercy of Gomentang extremists On the other hand, leading communists enjoyed diplomatic immunity At a reception for us in Nanjing, arranged by the Gomentang Ministry of Information communist representatives were invited Yet, within this turbulent situation there was considerable homage on all sides to the ideal of one world as set forth by Huendal Wilkie five years ago in his book Scores of people to whom he talked had either met Wilkie when he visited China or had known about him I was told at least 50 times by proud Chinese that the idea of one world had ancient beginnings on their soil had had the services of no less distinguished and exponent than Confucius At the reception, for example, Dr. Fung Shi Pei, Gomentang Minister of Information opened a program of speeches with an allusion to this fact Mr. Kogin, ladies and gentlemen I'm very happy that you arrived at our capital on the birthday of Confucius Who is the forerunner of the one world idea? Dr. H. H. Kung himself, a descendant of Confucius explained that the Chinese equivalent of the phrase one world had been in circulation for centuries that it was a popular motto to be found among the most honored inscriptions on public buildings The title of one world, the title of the book one world has been translated into Chinese and the Chinese are with literally one family under the heaven The Chinese respect the motto one family under heaven but unfortunately, as the world well knows China is itself by no means one family Of the two Chinas, the bigger, representing roughly two-thirds of the country is under the regime of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek a regime which his enemies call a tyrannical dictatorship The other, centering in Shanxi province is in the hands of Chinese communists whose regime the Gomentang calls equally bad names The two factions have been fighting for years and until recently the United States through General Marshall tried to mediate that mission failed General Marshall explained the failure and placed the blame on both sides Correspondents who had been in China for years and to whom we talked could not agree on who was responsible I certainly was in no position to make a decent estimate as I did not get to communist hell territory and with the exception of two interviews with high communist spokesmen I had little opportunity to meet Chiang's enemies nor did I meet the Generalissimo himself At that time the machinery of mediation was still intact and the principle of seeking peace was given voice Dr. Sun Fou, son of China's first president Dr. Sun Yat-sen and himself president of China's legislative yuan said I believe naturally that the Chinese government and the Gomentang are really sincere about I also believe that the Chinese Communist Party is also sincere there is no man in his senses who would want war and bloodshed The chief spokesman for the Communist and Nanking was General John Lee a soldier and a statesman famous in Chinese revolutionary history we interviewed him at his small crowded house on the edge of Nanking through an interpreter he told us that the Chinese communists had welcomed the coming of General Marshall to China as mediator he said that the early mediation was successful but that Chiang Kai-shek had violated agreements and by doing so frustrated Marshall's work he pinned the blame on the Gomentang and was equally critical of American aid to Chiang Kai-shek I feel sure that the American people would never come to understand why on the one hand the American government is mediating in the dispute in the China's internal dispute on the other hand it is rendering all kinds of war supplies and materials to aid one after two opposing parties which are fighting against each other we are willing to cooperate with the American people but we have to criticize the Iran's part of the American policy we welcome any action taken by the United States government that is in the interest of the Chinese people such as the mediation in the dispute over the dispute between the two Chinese parties and to establish peace in China we merely criticize the wrong part of that policy that is to assist only one party the Gomentang party to enlarge the civil war ever since arriving in China we had heard a great deal about the so-called executive headquarters in Peking, 500 miles north of Nanking the organization set up by General Marshall was a bold experiment in peacemaking and we flew up there one day to take a look at it little did I think that our visit would cause a minor incident executive headquarters consisted of entire staffs in triplicate Gomentang, communist and American personnel for each post operating under three commissioners it served as a sort of fire brigade to put out smolderings wherever they occurred on the long incendiary front between Gomentang and communist forces 30 field teams, each consisting of three members again American, Gomentang and communist were dispersed over a large area whenever trouble arose a field team was sent at once to the area and remained on the spot until the situation was cleared up though the work of headquarters was naturally difficult there was still hope for ultimate success at the time we were there we recorded the three commissioners Walter Robertson for the United States General Shangkai Ming for the Gomentang and General Ye Chenying for the communists Mr. Robertson, a handsome, graying man who has since returned to his private occupation of bank president in Richmond, Virginia explained the American participation the United States members of executive headquarters are participating as a third party and the role of media this unique organization an unprecedented operation is being carried out by trial and error and is continuing through the sound judgment and willing cooperation of all the participating members the recordings were made in Mr. Robertson's office and the opposing Gomentang and communist commissioners chose not to be present while each other spoke my questions by prior agreement were limited to the scope of positive accomplishments principally whether the unity achieved at headquarters could be broadened ultimately to take in the whole of China whether from their experience as commissioners they had any higher hopes for the realization of one world whether they had a message for Americans the Gomentang general speaking through his own interpreter said each time a program is resolved we are established, added, president which will one day be the basis for the arbitration of disputes rather than resorting to armed conflicts I do not believe that executive headquarters have yet had the time to be accepted completely as a model because our principal problems have been primarily a miniature in nature however, I state plainly and sincerely that both our accomplishments and our mistakes will stand as a model in the world to come General Yeh, once chief of staff of the Chinese Red Army began by saying that in the first months headquarters had been comparatively successful this he said was mainly shown by the fact that civil war ceased in a large part of China but at this point General Yeh in his message to Americans departed from the agreed area of discussion the criticism of American policy it was this which touched off the incident I spoke of General Yeh told his interpreter the American mediation feels for two reasons first, they are still filled diehards in China for not waiting to see peace and democracy come to this country instead, they are always thinking of eliminating Chinese Communist Party and other democratic forces and maintaining government of one party dictatorship secondly, the American government kept and still gives the government a land lease military supply to enable government down to wage civil war as well as using American navy and marines to support aggraging government troops in one way or another such one side of the help to the government down caused the failure of General Marshall's mission we hope that the American government will attend its present double edged policy so that the Chinese people will have a chance to accept their own pressure to bring about peace Mr. Robertson shook his head in protest while Yeh was speaking but he made no comment until the general finished then deeply disturbed he said I for one am unwilling to sit here in executive headquarters and listen to an attack on my government in its role as mediator while this was going on the Gomentang commissioner had been summoned and he protested both he and Mr. Robertson had the right to do this since the law of executive headquarters was that any one of the three commissioners could veto anything the Gomentang general demanded that the recording of the last part of General Yeh's speech to which you've just listened be destroyed then it was agreed not to destroy it but to strike it from the record against the work of executive headquarters subsequent to this agreement of course the spread of the civil war the open declaration of similar communist charges and the abandonment of executive headquarters has placed Baping's brave experiment in mediation beyond the pale of embarrassment and given to the material you've just heard an ironic place in the history of the single most effective attempt to bring a halt to China's internal conflict in the meantime, China struggles on not only in a war involving millions of troops on both sides but with inflation and famine crushing the people of Gomentang China which is the only part of China that we saw a friend of mine who was working for UNREL Mrs. Mary Munford wrote me from Changsha in Hunan province no one who has not seen a famine can imagine the suffering of mass starvation hundreds of people wandering, dazed and lost in the streets many of them lying in the middle of the street dying of dysentery hobbling along with the most terrible leg ulcers covered with flies the children were the most haunting little animated skeletons looking old as the hills the skin drawn back from their teeth the Chinese themselves not to see them I suppose they've grown accustomed to the sight of human suffering 2,500 years ago China's great sage Confucius laid down some principles for one world Minister Pung and Nan King summarized them for us one day the whole world will be managed for the interests of the people men of virtue and talent will be chosen to govern sincerity will be adhered to and good neighborhood will be cultivated employment for the everybody everyone will labor with one strength but not only with a view who wants all advantage from the starving children of Hunan and the tombstones of the professors assassinated in Kunming from the fresh graves of soldiers killed in this week's fighting from all this to the bare beginning of the world envisioned by Confucius 2,500 years ago is the vast distance China has yet to travel and with it of course the world for what happens in China as what happens in any country happens to all of us you have been listening to CBS playwright producer Norman Corwin first winner of the Wendell Wilkie One World Flight Award in the ninth of a series of broadcasts based on his recent 37,000 mile global tour all recorded voices heard on this broadcast were transcribed in China next week at the same time One World Flight visits the Philippine Republic tonight's musical score was composed and directed by Alexander Semmler, Guy Dela Chopper was associate director this is CBS the Columbia Broadcasting System