Word: reformer
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Desperation," said the new governor of Formosa last week, "is the mother of reform . . . We've got to try new men and new ideas." Shrewd, capable K. C. Wu, onetime mayor of Shanghai and longtime friend of Generalissimo Chiang Kaishek, was talking about plans for the administration and defense of his new domain, the rich, 250-mile-long island of Formosa, which had become the last refuge of China's Nationalist government...
...Formosa's military defenses into shape, Governor Wu is busy trying to win the loyalty of Formosa's 6,500,000 people, most of whom dislike the Chinese, Nationalist or Communist. To win friends among Formosa's hard-working peasants, Wu is pressing for further land reform. Wu's predecessor, General Chen Cheng, started a good reform program; tenant farmers who used to pay as much as 70% of their crops in rent now pay a maximum of 37-5%-Even the landlords who at first bitterly opposed the reforms now seem to be pleased because...
Discrimination is not susceptible of a black-and-white solution. For those who practice it, it is logical and--in the mind of the practitioner--perfectly justified. Fighting it effectively is basically a matter of persuasion rather than publicity alone; and it is certainly not a matter for charter reform...
...consider their claims. The committees have been working at a snail's pace; with his usual policy of trying to please everyone-the landowners as well as the peasants-De Gasperi had pleased no one. Last week the government was readying a new and better land-reform bill. It provides that unused or poorly used land of 8,000 estate owners will be expropriated, bought up by the government and sold to peasants on easy payment terms...
Recently, De Gasperi himself went to Calabria to talk to the peasants. He told them that, until the situation was cleared up by law, they might keep the land they had seized. He promised reform. Said he: "... I am no revolutionary, but I cry woe betide landowners who don't heed the call of the present hour...