...In Iran, old Mossadegh is taking over and the shah of Iran appears to be on the way out. If you want to know why, go to Iran and TAKE A LOOK AT THE PEOPLE.

That tells the story. Ridiculous as Weeping Willie Mossadegh appears at this distance to be, he is giving to the poverty-stricken common people of Iran a vision of something they never have had, but know they WANT.

Personally, I hope this booting out of kings CONTINUES in the Middle East countries. It is something that is long overdue.

And I hope also that our state department gets smart enough and wise enough and HUMANITARIAN enough to tell the British and the French, under whose COLONIAL IMPERIALISM these good for nothing, play-boy, nasty-rich kings have flourished, that the jig is up and the days of colonial imperialism are over so far as we are concerned — that from here on out we’re going to be on the side of the poor, pitiful people of the Middle East.

Why shouldn't we take that position?

After all, we were the first people in the world to throw off the yoke of colonial imperialism. We fought the Revolutionary War because that's what the Britian of George the Third was trying to do to us and we wouldn’t stand for it. We said we’d DIE FIRST.

It’s getting high time for us to BE OURSELVES in the world — instead of backing up the colonial exploiters who happen at the moment to be our cocktail party friends.

The shah of Iran returns from exile to resume his royal job now that Weeping Willie Mossadegh is finally in jail under heavy guard. The dispatches describe the young ruler as happier than a kitten to be sitting in the driver’s seat again.

I suppose this habit of rulership grows on one. Anyway, no king ever seems to be happy anywhere save on his throne and in his palace.

Here in (relatively) happy America, we think ANY king is a pimple on the fair face of nature. What we frequently forget is that democracy is a good habit that must be acquired slowly and painstakingly, with due regard for the disciplines it imposes, if it is to work.

I sometimes fear that a lot of the trouble we have run into in our well-meant efforts to run the world better than it has been run before arises out of our firm conviction that the first thing we must do is to mould everybody else’s form of government into the pattern of OUR form of government.

Here’s hoping Iran’s shah gets the situation under control and restores some semblance of sanity in his country’s foreign relations. Also, here’s hoping Russia decide this isn’t the to go after Iran’s oil.

Tehran’s airport was jammed this morning with crowds of people and cheered as their young shah stepped from his private plane that had brought him back to his country after a brief exile resulting from his difficulties with Old Man Mossadegh. As he came down the steps from the plane’s door, Iranian officials in top hats and striped trousers threw themselves on the ground to kiss his feet. Whereupon the people cheered more loudly and wept more happily. Tears filled the young ruler’s eyes as he took in the spectacle.

Something new in the world? No. It is very, very old indeed. For countless centuries, when an old regime ends and a new one begins, the people have wept with joy, hoping that the new one would be better than the old one. Hence the cry that has resounded down through history: “The king is dead, LONG LIVE THE KING.” Off with the old and on with the new.

The future just HAS to be brighter because the past has been so bad that the future just MUST be better. Modern as we Americans are, sophisticated as we profess to be, we felt that ancient emotional upsurge on the morning after the fourth day of last November. When will the people (including us Americans) learn that good government comes to the people ONLY through the enlightened efforts of the people themselves? Good government never has come to any people BY ACCIDENT. Good government never will come to any people by accident.

Here’s another story: A special train is carrying Morocco’s new sultan this morning to Rabat. There is no joy in Morocco because of the change. Instead, the Arab population is glum and grim and quiet. Why the difference? The French are sending in the new sultan to replace a sultan who was getting too nationalistic (Morocco for Moroccans) in his ideas. The French are backing their new PUPPET sultan with strong army and police forces and have Rabat under tight military control. It’s the old story of the master cracking the whip. The children of Israel left, the land of Egypt and fared forth into the land of Canaan, facing the perils of the Red Sea en route, because they wanted to RUN THEIR OWN SHEBANG. Always people have wanted to run their own shebang.

Let’s turn for a moment to France, whose general strike against the government refuses to die even though the government has offered a partial settlement in the way of a promise of higher wages. France’s troubles arise out of an inflation that keeps prices going up faster than wages. The people want more money to enable them to keep even with the game. The new government of France is trying to hold down government costs so as to check the inflation that is causing the trouble. As long as wages could be raised every time prices went up. It wasn’t too bad and nobody worried. But French prices have become so high that French goods can’t be sold outside France and France isn’t self-sufficient. It has to sell its goods abroad in order to live. Therein lies the rub. Eventually we all have to learn that only out of MORE PRODUCTION can we have more things that we can’t divide what isn’t produced. Usually we have to learn it the hard way. The French are learning it the hard way.

It’s so hard for ALL OF US to realize that a law to make everybody rich overnight won’t work. It seems like it OUGHT to work. But it won’t.