Wild Scenes Mark End Of New York Peace Rally

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 22907, 29 March 1949, Page 5

Wild Scenes Mark End Of New York Peace Rally

(N.Z.P. A. —Reuter—Copyright.) (11 a.m.) NEW YORK, Mar. 27. A capacity crowd of 18,000 ran the gauntlet of shouting and booing pickets outside Madison Square Garden tonight in an uproarious finale to the cultural and scientific world peace conference. Hundreds of police guarded the arena as 2000 representatives of Catholic and Jewish war veterans’ groups demonstrated in the street.

Tiie pickets and the audience yelled at each other and waved fists, but there was no violence.

The rally opened dramatically with tile voice of the radio operator trying vainly to reach London, Rome, Mexico City and other capitals from which would-be delegates were barred by the State Detriment. Cheers and Hooting The audience applauded, cheered and hooted in appropriate places as speaker after speaker laid down the principle that world-wide co-operation was the only key to universal peace. Mention of Mr. Churchill, President Truman, the North Atlantic Pact and the State Department brought hisses and boos. Mr. Alexander Fadeyev won the loudest applause with the assertion that Russia did not want to fight and held out the hand of peace to the United States. Mr. Dmitri Shostakovich, the Russian composer, said “new aspirants to world domination” were feverishly arming themselves for mass destruction of peoples. “With special ardour they are perfecting new kinds of weapons,” he told the fine arts panel of the conference.

Russian Musician’s Attack

“They build military bases thousands »f mill's from their frontiers,” he declared. “They trample upon international obligations and treaties designed to bring peace. They reject proposals for concluding pacts of peace and they systematically, and with premeditation, wage campaigns of lies and slander in order to prepare public opinion for transition from the so-called cold war to outright aggression."

Mr. Shostakovich did not identify the “new aspirants to world domination.” A speech by Dr. Frederick Schuman, professor of political science at Williams College, suggesting that Russia was as much to blame as the United States for any drift toward war brought a hot denial from Mr. Alexander Fadeyev, head of the Russian delegation. “No Desire For War” Mr. Fadeyev said: “There are no elements in our country which desire war against the United States or any other country.” Mr. Fadeyev’s remarks received a wildly enthusiastic response from the 2500 at the conference. The session passed two resolutions. The first called for strengthening the United Nations as the best hope for peace and for co-operation by the United Nations with other peace movements throughout the world. The second, which denounced race discrimination, anti-semitism and the trial of political groups, called for cultural freedom.