The Deadly Threat of the Atombomb

The Deadly Threat of the Atombomb From LEWIS MUMFORD To the Editor: A GROUP of us in Hanover havo started a movement to redress the serious mistakes our country has made in the exploitation of...

...We hope thereby to remove the fear and suspicion that now poison international relations and to make it possible for strong rival states, especially Russia, to accept promptly and faithfully th* drastic controls necessary for world security...
...Surely, th* Church *nd the Pope wer* not th*n lined up on Dr...
...From our standpoint, from the standpoint of democracy, both hierarchies, the Vatican and the Kremlin, although of a different kind, are on the same level, and both are equally dangerous to democratic life and social progress...
...The Church hoped to have the Fascist slate for it* secular arm as the Holy Roman Empire-was In th* Middle Ages—but no such hope can be entertained by the Pope In regard to the Soviet stste...
...From the Russian standpoint, our ever-increasing stock-pile of atomic bomb* is a direct threat to their security...
...The Pope uttered not a word ef protest against Hitler's imperialism when the Nasi armies engulfed almost all Europe, nor did be say anything about the "dignity of man" when the Nazi and Fascist beasts butchered million* of human being...
...Yes, the Vatican is on "our side" whenever we struggle with the Communist totalitarianism, but for entirely different reasons...
...the Spanish democratic republic, and iat*r when th* Franco Fascists wer* murdering th* Spanish republican* by hundreds of thousands (and they h*ve not stopped their bloody carnage yet...
...Mis* Strong authoritatively inform* th* readers of the Atlantic that the Warsaw uprising was all a mistake and that 200,000 lovers of liberty, men, Women and children, who fought th* deadly enemy, have died like fools and not heroes...
...When Mussolini went on a rampage and grabbed Abyesinia, and later Albania and a part of Yugoslavia, did the Pope condemn Mussolini's imperialism...
...At the Senate hearings the Army's spokesman admitted that forty million Americans might be wiped out before we could even identify our enemy...
...Bohn, a sturdy Protestant...
...Every Nasi and Fascist puppet dictator from Vichy to Slovakia got hi* blessing from th* Vatican...
...In 1044, Vito Marcantonlo, representing the Communist-controlled American Labor Party, had charge of the bill for abolition of the Poll Tax in federal elec-tion...
...According to her, every farmer who owns over 125 acres of land in Poland Is a "lord" and the farms of that size are "Estates" of "feudal status which are worked by many families of hereditary farm hands...
...Have th* Popes and their spokesmen ever said anything decent and respectful in favor of tru* democracy, a government of the people...
...Jt* chaste pages which one* were adorned by the writings of Emerson, Lowell snd many others of the best thinkers in America, are now opened to a cheap, shallow, Russian . propagandist, who went to Poland for a short sojourn, talked to a few renegade Polish Red Quisling* and slandered the Polish people in their history, old, recent and present...
...American military and scientific authorities agree that our present superiority in atomic weapons is only temporary...
...Hitler imitated the Church in plan-""" ning his totalitarian state, and he st*t*d so in hi* Mein Knmpf, where he praised the governmental structure of th* Catholic hierarchy as the best ever conceived...
...Then his religion, and every other religion but Catholic, as well aa no religion, will be heresy which, In the canons of the Romsn Church, I* th* gravest crime-pun lihabls by death...
...The enslaved suffering Pol** In Poland cannot defend themselves now from such slanders for they are muzzled by Russia, but w* In this free land still can and should, Democracy and the r%e From IVAN MOLE* P* the faster: During th* past f*w week* r*« Af«*» Leader has published two or three critical "Open Letters" concerning those simple American liberals who fall for Stalin's double-talk and the Soviet "higher democracy...
...Nothing is further from the truth...
...Did the Pope defend the "dignity of man as a free creature" when the Catholic midget-dictator Dollfuas waa hanging the Socialist workers in Vienna...
...It will b* a sorry day for Dr...
...Communist Sponsorship Harmful Fr*« FRANK R. CROSSW4ITH Chairman, Negro Labor Commit fee...
...Miss Strong may be without love for her country (I have heard her publicly say in Wilkes Bane, Pa., Sunday, Feb...
...plan, with all power emanating from the point at the top...
...For instance, she calls Poland a feudalistic country when every child of an 8th grade grammar school knows that the last trace of feudalism in Poland has disappeared in the year 1863, which by historical coincidence is the same year in which the slaves were freed in this country...
...Bohn ever read some of the previous talks of the same Pope, or the talks and pronouncements of his predecessors and other Church spokesmen, in which the Catholic Church was lined up on the other side—on the side of Fascism...
...We should protect the unsuspecting public from her partisan biaa and venom rather than help her to spread it...
...We hope this movement will spresd...
...Sine* American initiative in creating atomic weapons has brought on th* danger, we have th* duty to lead the way toward wOrld security...
...The Vatican is not in deadly grip with the Kremlin because it loves democracy as we do, but because it fears that its own authoritarianism, the oldest on earth, is in deadly danger from its Soviet rival...
...There is just as much sincerity and consistency in the pronouncements of the Vatican as there is in those of the Kremlin...
...and many of whom, like myself, read the Atlantic...
...She depicts the more prosperous Poles as men "who have German souls" and who should be kicked out of Poland...
...Only • very bold and generous move on the part of the United States can achieve this result...
...but it cannot in all probability be quickened to the point that it will serve as an immediate safeguard against a final war of extermination...
...What we think and say about those simple liberals obviously cannot be expressed in gentle words...
...Congress should therefore take the following measures: I—Declare our readiness to aubmit to a complete system of United Nations' inspection and control of atomic weapons and atomic energy, provided that at the aame time these measures are accepted aa equally binding on themselves by the other members of the United Nationa...
...The cause of this regrettable loss to the readers of the Atlantic is Anna Louise Strong, an avowed and ardent Communist, whose nt^nd in Russia today, approximates the stand of "Lord Haw Haw" in Germany and Ezra Pound in Italy...
...She is enthusiastic and happy that Poland is still overrun by the highly decorated Russian military geniuses...
...Thousands of Spanish republicans fled to France...
...At what period of tb* whole history of the Roman Church has human free dom, ths personal dignity of man, counted for anything whenever and wherever the Church was able to enforce it* iron rule...
...Our government should withdraw from its present effort to be pacemaker in an atomic armament race...
...I wonder if Dr...
...Paradoxically enough, the Soviet system follows th* same pattern, hicrschicsl —but the world has no room for two hierachies...
...More About the Atlantic Monthly From PAUL C. SUNNSK...
...We start from the premise thst the only effective means of controlling atomic weapons and atomic energy, ultimately, is through a world government cspsbl* ef preventing war...
...Democratic governments do not fit into the scheme of temporal rule wanted by the Church, as such scheme must follow th* Church'* own hierarchical or pyramids...
...Our sense of self-preservation demands that we take the lead in suppressing this weapon before we bring on, by our own actions, a period of unlimited terror followed by wholesale extermination...
...In th* name of "Liberalism" the Americans are treated to a startling spectacle of an intellectual summersault by the Alantic...
...The three measures w* propose sre intended to convince our rivals, before they art capable of rt-taliation, that we have no intentions of settling our differences by a surprise atomic attack...
...The Moscow dictator is grooming his own church (Russian Orthodox), and he will not hesitat* to impose it on th* countries of Eastern and Central Europe if it serves hi* purpose...
...lie did notl On what side wer* the C*tholic Church and the Pope lined up when General Franco struck at...
...and that means a conflict to the death with the Vatican...
...Bohn muit surely have heard or read about th* whole array of the Church official paper* (encyclicals) is sued by Popes during the last hundred years in which democracy has been time and again condemned as a "rule by mob" or anarchy...
...Th* sponsors of thia bill were uon Communists exclusively and Included such progressive organizations as th* Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the National Association for th* Advancement of Colored People, the Negro Labor Com-mittee, The Worker* Defence' League and the International Ladle* Garment Worker*' Union...
...Accordingly, we have sought to devise a short term policy...
...They are •till on Franco's side trying desperately to save Csudillo's dictatorship, which enjoys the Vatican blessing a* dee* the dictatorial regime of Argentina...
...Bohn gave high praise to Pius XII in his article "Ths Pop* snd I" in The New Leader of March 2, saying that "we find th* Catholic Church, as officially represented by a solemn pronouncement of the Pope, lined up on our side...
...To the Editort The advantage of having non-Communists as sponsors of a progressive legislation 1* clearly indicated by the vote for cloture to stop the recent filibuster •gainst the bill for a Permanent Federal Fair Employment Practice* Commiision...
...Every one of her references to Polish History reeks with ignorance and malicious distortion...
...And when the Vichy Trench puppets of Hitler (and of the Vatican) were forcing them back to Spain, to certain death, was Pius XII cancer nod •bout their fate...
...To Ihe Editor: The Atlanta Monthly, a magazine that has become a part of American intellectual life, suffers a loss of such well-informed and able collaborators as William Henry Chamberlin and Raymond Leslie Knell...
...We are not so quixotic as to suppose that atomic bombs will not be used if, before world control is established, * war should break out...
...I purchased thia book, read It, and waa astounded...
...3, that "America only profited by thia war while Russia suffered"), but let her stop there...
...Ye*, yes, we heard some mutterings from the Vatican, but those muttering* were later drowned by much stronger pleas of Pius XII for th* Nasi and Fascist murderers...
...2—Stop our further manufacture of »t Atomic Bombs...
...In addition to Miss Strong's mis-information in her article, the Atlantic Monthly (December issue) conveys valu-abld information that its presses will Boon produce her book on Polsnd...
...Once that race begins, there will be no withdrawal this side of catastrophe...
...After all, Poland is an ancient nation of some .'SO million people of whom about 5 million live in the U.S.A...
...She even charges that they were "without love for country but for their feudal rights," p. 198...
...Only madmen now believe that such a weapon is a guarantee of national security...
...The Deadly Threat of the Atombomb From LEWIS MUMFORD To the Editor: A GROUP of us in Hanover havo started a movement to redress the serious mistakes our country has made in the exploitation of the atomic bomb...
...Bohn snd other Protestant*, a* well a* for American democracy, if th* Catholic Church ever obtain* complete control over the United State...
...On the contrary, the high Church dignitaries, archbishops and cardinals among them, glorified the Fascist dictator as a God-send...
...In that speech, Pius XII condemned Stalin's imperialism, extolled the "personal dignity of man as a free creature," snd protested sgainst sending thousand* of displaced persons in Europe back to their homelands againat their Will...
...Plus XII and I' may seem like strange allies...
...Chicago...
...Every line of her book aims to glorify the injustices aud violations of the Reds In Poland, and castigate* those who are still struggling for the right to shape their own destinies as free men...
...The Southern Democrat* started a fllibuaUr againat that bill also and th* vote for cloture to end thst filibuster wss only thirty six for and forty-four againat, not oven a majority, simply because most Senator* would not support a Communist-sponsored measure...
...We seek to remove from th* mind* of both the Russian* and our own military leaders ths belief thst the American people would sanction a "preventive" war of extermination...
...Once Russia has caught up, the United Statea would be far more vulnerable to attack than Russia is now...
...Th* vote was forty-eight for cloture snd thirty-six against it, a major-ity but not the nscsssary two-thirda majority...
...It was the Pope's recent speech that caused this strange outburst of comradeship with the Vatican on the part of Dr...
...The White Pope of Rome, as well as the Red Pope of Moscow, says one thing (and does another...
...The process of transition to a world government can and should be accelerated...
...But what can ws say of other liberals, or even Socialists, such as William E. Bohn, who fell for ths double-talk of Pope Pius XII...
...3—Dismantle the bombs we have made and place our stockpile of fissionable materiala under special United Nations' guard, as a proof of our moral unwillingness to use bomb* in a surprise attack against any nation...
...Bohn a side...
...They are worked by the same number of men and in the same manner in Poland as they are worked in this or any other progressive country...

Vol. 29 • March 1946 • No. 13


 
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