THE PEOPLE'S FORUM
THE PEOPLE FORUM change in the attitude of the majority of whites in the Union of South Africa develops, it is probable that considerable violence will ultimately shatter this unhappy country from...
...They may only turn off that part of the brain where something has gone wrong...
...Quinn makes for protecting the public interest, then his plan should be adopted...
...R. Guillain, a French reporter, gives his impressions during a short stay in China...
...Astonished by Bowles Dear Sirs: You rendered a great service to your readers by your November issue on the Middle East...
...Unless someone has a better proposal than the one Mr...
...Albany, Calif...
...Noah W. Okulo Nairobi, Kenya, British East Africa Djilas Not Socialist Dear Sirs: Up to now I have not been able to read the book: The New Class, by M. Djilas, reviewed in the November Progressive by Professor Michael Petrovich, but if the quotations used and the conclusions drawn from them are a reasonably accurate picture one must surely be amazed at the looseness of thought exhibited either by the author or the reviewer...
...I recall his proposal in a magazine article several years ago that taxes on corporations be graded upward to discourage big mergers and giant corporations that now endanger our freedoms from within more than they are endangered from without the country...
...After the article had gone to press, word was received that Governor John E. Davis of North Dakota had proclaimed this past December 15 as Bill of Rights Day in his state...
...These alone would have provided the answer to Dr...
...If your reviewer is correct, Djilas is not and never has been a Socialist...
...Advance orders total nearly 100,000...
...Kohn in his letter, "Israel an Injustice," in the January Progressive, was going to send back, thus restoring a situation of justice...
...Postscript Dear Sirs: Perhaps those who read my article, "Some Governors Shun Bill of Rights Day," in the January issue, would be interested in this postscript: I made the statement that the governors of South Dakota had proclaimed Bill of Rights Day in 1950, 1952, 1956, and 1957, while the governors of North Dakota failed to issue such a proclamation in any of these years...
...This is the fertilizer for growth of the human spirit...
...In that direction lies our unique contribution to world progress in this decisive hour of human history...
...That's exactly the policy Washington has followed, to run in both races...
...Report on the World Social Situation (1957) to compare Sweden with the U.S...
...If, instead of condemning all health insurance plans, Dr...
...If we intend, as we must, to press ahead with integration in the deep South, seven devils may arise from this witches' cauldron...
...This was the first time in these four years that Bill of Rights Day was officially proclaimed in North Dakota, and I am anxious that this new information be noted for the record...
...Let's not let it happen again— please...
...A discussion period will follow Mr...
...Quinn's Proposals Dear Sirs: The article by T. K. Quinn in the December issue, "A Shield Against Business and Labor Giants," strikes me as one of the most important I have read in recent months...
...Catholics may have certain occupational hazards but surely hypocrisy is not one of them...
...We are losing almost 18,000,000 Yugoslavians who, unaided and practically with their bare fists, drove the Soviets from their country, only to find themselves eyed, not as lovers of freedom, but rather as cutthroats on parole...
...That this fact should at all be doubted in the United States is a tribute to the effectiveness of American Medical Association propaganda which for years has been conducting a lying campaign against socialized medicine on behalf of the dollar-conscious doctors of America...
...I further deplore the implication that Senator Kennedy is in any sense, even emotionally, a "Catholic candidate...
...For contrast compare this with 875 for Mexico...
...Vour plaudits and gratitude were in good taste and your selections admirable...
...Bennett Larson Sister Bay, Wis...
...Examples are Through the Chinese Revolution by Ralph and Nancy Lapwood, British missionaries and teachers...
...Most Socialists have, for years, been fighting the counterfeit "Communist" theories...
...Mrs...
...Evelyn Crandall Palo Alto, Calif...
...The appeal is made in the name of humanity and labels the tests as both "biologically destructive and morally indefensible...
...It seems to me that, as a progressive, Dr...
...THE PEOPLE FORUM change in the attitude of the majority of whites in the Union of South Africa develops, it is probable that considerable violence will ultimately shatter this unhappy country from one end to the other...
...The back of the petition, printed in two colors, is designed as a conversation piece to challenge attention and stimulate discussion in face-to-face interviews...
...Dear Sirs: Dr...
...He could paint any picture he wanted and document every line...
...would work for some reasonable compromise plan, all Americans would benefit...
...E. R. Saul Washington, D.C...
...Cecil R. Smith, Jr...
...Man's greatest need is not to invent "the ultimate weapon" or fly to the moon...
...Meers asks [The People's Forum, December] whether the health of England is better as a result of her National Health Insurance (NHI) program...
...Though most of Israel is Moslem owned, they are forced to watch almost a million Arabs plowed under to make space for aliens of another faith from many lands...
...Meers brought up the familiar argument that the medical needs of the indigent are, or could be, met under our present system...
...Now let us add: 658,000,000 gone into the Red...
...Let us use the U.N...
...Meers familiar with British Health Statistics since 1913 (and especially since 1945...
...Soma and sanity are not just different names for the same thing...
...Meers' questions...
...Prisoners of Liberation by Allyn and Adele Rickett, U.S...
...Less than what, Meers did not say...
...You, however, omitted one very meritorious as well as important—though little publicized—individual and his work, namely Robert C. Cook and his Population Reference Bureau, 1507 M Street, N.W., Washington 5, D.C...
...The gentleman from Lancaster continued that the patients in Britain "have had to be more patient and wait longer...
...Uruguay, the most democratic country of South America, also illustrates the value of national health insurance...
...Social Security in Sweden, published by the Swedish Institute and available from the Swedish embassy, "National Health Insurance . . . went into effect on Jan...
...The question must arise: Is Soviet propaganda as smart as we think it is—or is ours more stupid...
...In the Amrinian vein I expected, he did cogently explain the implications of Sputnik for the development of the intercontinental ballistic missile, and made the telling point that supremacy in science is no guarantee of national security because there is no adequate defense against the total destructive potential of the H-bomb and the ICBM...
...The United States must reject Amrine's invitation to the two-race dance of death...
...There is unquestionably a relation between mental disturbance and the various chemical unbalances he mentions...
...M. T. Mehdi Department of Political Science University of California Berkeley, Calif...
...In our present social climate, for anyone to penalize in any way a divorced person is hypocritical...
...1, 1955," not "many years" ago as stated by Dr...
...Charles Bunn Madison, Wis...
...However, he is prepared to suspect the worst in most matters...
...Furthermore, any British doctor who prefers to conduct a private practice with patients making direct payments may do so—and a few do...
...Within a year afterward several bills were introduced in the Congress to graduate these taxes...
...Dear Sirs: Thanks for giving us so fine a gallery of greats in your Holiday Greetings, especially the nine little children of Little Rock...
...Norman J. Whitney Secretary for Peace Education American Friends Service Committee Philadelphia, Pa...
...Greenberg describes is unquestionably important...
...But in year 1960 I don't believe you will find anywhere an American Catholic who will see the slightest relationship between a respectable man's divorce and his qualifications for the Presidency...
...I am confident that both you and Mr...
...Petersburg, Fla...
...The former bases his work entirely on "official documents" out of China —laws, speeches, newspaper articles, etc...
...Here is an activity the value of which transcends all others, scientific, social or political, in the world today, and Cook's splendid accomplishments, under extremely adverse conditions, are deserving of highest praise...
...No such thing is proved...
...We would agree to send no more arms to Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Saudi-Arabia or Pakistan...
...Meers also spoke with disfavor of a program which would "distribute free goods and services to all...
...I want to compliment Senator Kennedy on his initiative in developing enthusiasm for a program pigeon-holed for many months by the Administration...
...This may well be true, but dodges the point—which is that a national health insurance would be of the greatest benefit to, and is most needed by, the great bulk of the people in the gulf between wealth and indigence...
...In the weak and uncoordinated Administration approach lies the danger of situations in which federal troops will not prove to be such immediately pacifying agents...
...Mayer will be with us for a long time to come...
...moratorium on arms shipments into the region of the Middle East whereby "the Soviet Union would agree not to send any more arms to Egypt, Syria, Yemen or Afghanistan...
...system of education which, next to that of the U.S.S.R., is surely the most "socialized" in the world...
...The average general practitioner in Britain is probably better off under the national health service, and the majority, as Sen...
...According to the book...
...a coy bemoaning that the United States satellite project wasn't placed in the hands of the advertising clan, which was supposed to point out (I think) that the Russians have demonstrated to the semi- and un-committed countries that the United States doesn't have a monopoly on extravaganza staging know-how...
...The research Mr...
...In America we believe that we face rough weather ahead but that on the whole we will find our way through the present storm to calmer seas...
...Brain Chemistry Dear Sirs: Mr...
...Peoria, 111...
...I am old enough to remember 1928—in the pit of my stomach...
...Meers and the A.M.A...
...At the same time, he does not object to the U.S...
...Jacqueline Blackford Mill Valley, Calif...
...Bowles, referring to the Arabs as "these desert peoples," proposes a U.S.-U.S.S.R...
...Although initiated by the American Friends Service Committee, the petition is being distributed both by concerned groups and individuals...
...but by injecting lies into his ears you can do exactly the same thing...
...How can there be justice within injustice...
...The very fact that Djilas admits that there is class rule in Russia and in Yugoslavia denies that there is Communism, for Communism is classless in the sense of power...
...It is grossly unjust to him and to his fellow religionists to force such a role upon him...
...The meeting will be held in the auditorium of the McGregor Library, 12244 Woodward, in Highland Park...
...Immediate aid to India would be the kind of deed which is so urgently needed to put meaning into the fine words in the President's State of the Union message...
...Mayer irritating too, but also stimulating, humorous, and occasionally we even agree heartily...
...but it ought not to take our minds off a problem, well-stated by Erich Fromm as well as others: are we making a society that tends to drive people crazy...
...Age cannot wither nor custom stale the resentment harbored by Catholics these 400 years over the divorce and remarriage of Henry VIII...
...THE PEOPLE'S FORUM Urgently Dear Sirs: After reading Senator Kennedy's article, "If India Falls," in the January issue of The Progressive, I want to say that I agree there is as much peril in being timid in the field of economic assistance as there is in failing to rebuild our military strength...
...Carroll Webber, Jr...
...One of the results can be seen in the small number of inhabitants per hospital bed (175...
...Stop Nuclear Tests Dear Sirs: On Chirstmas Eve, the American Friends Service Committee began circulating a National Petition asking President Eisenhower "to cancel the nuclear weapons tests" scheduled for next April in the Pacific, "as a first realistic step toward disarmament and peace...
...The Editor's discernment, thoughtfulness, and sensitivity are incomparable...
...It is highly unlikely that the three million families with incomes of less than $1,000 could afford $60 for cigarettes and $50 for entertainment which they are supposed to save for illness...
...By injecting a chemical into a man, you may make him see what is not there...
...it is to save himself from annihilation by war...
...Mayer for a Long Time Dear Sirs: I have been following the great controversy about Milton Mayer with enormous interest...
...The infant mortality rate per 1,000 births is 18.2 for Sweden to 26.9 for the U.S., expectation of life 70.3 to 68.6, and inhabitants per hospital bed 70 to 101...
...Extensive as these are, however, they do not compare with the scale of lavishness of Veterans Administration benefits covering the health and hospital care of 30 million privileged Americans...
...After all, you can quiet a violently disturbed person by hitting him smartly over the head with an iron pipe...
...Any reading of the history of the Russian Revolution will convince anyone not blinded by prejudice or ignorance that it was not a Communist revolution at all...
...Meers' argument that the more important the problem, the less desirable is federal intervention...
...And in the long run Africans will gain the upper hand...
...The gravest danger for America is that we will not recognize the extent to which this inner corruption of a spiritual apartheid inevitably destroys the appeal of the American dream for two-thirds of the world...
...an older one, Five Stars Over China by James and Mary Endicott, Canadian missionaries who now go back to China from time to time to see how their former parish is faring religiously now that it has no foreign support...
...The only thing I can't understand is how people who are the sort that would read and support The Progressive can seriously suggest that you drop a writer simply because they disagree with him...
...Here's an idea on the subject from my armchair...
...Let them demand justice in the form of help on their projects...
...The United States must choose which race she will enter wholeheartedly...
...Stalin and the regime he established have made the word Communism a dirty word...
...Yet in the light of the repercussions from Little Rock and all the intense emotional resistance in the South, are we not being rather naive in assuming that we will escape widespread disorder...
...Instead of accelerating the arms race, we should be cultivating the skills for waging peace...
...Meers...
...Just repatriate all the Americans of European extraction...
...As a man recently emerged from college, I find that right thinking and sincerity of purpose are the only saviors of mankind in a world so confused about values...
...He added that the British "doctors have had to work longer for less pay...
...Meers is looking through the wrong end of the telescope...
...for publication in China and using documents as above...
...Instead, we are competing for the role of the world's most powerful warmaker...
...If there is one thing certain about Russian Communism it is that it is not Communism...
...but none of what has been discovered seems to me to establish which is cause and which is effect...
...An immediate moratorium on future arms development and production would be a constructive first step and an assurance of good faith on both sides necessary for implementing full-scale disarmament...
...Meers have us believe that some people's medical needs should simply go untended if the doctors are too busy...
...Books on China Dear Sirs: Robert North reviewed books on China by Y. Gluckstein and R. Guillain in the December Progressive...
...Patricia Richmond Moshava Kinneret Jordan Valley Israel Man's Greatest Need Dear Sirs: If the shock administered to our national pride by Sputnik prompts us chiefly to strengthen our military machine, we shall miss its most important lesson for us...
...Guillain seems to think that there is something to be said for the apparent health and happiness of the Chinese children, for sanitary conditions, and for the railway service...
...The typesetter dropped the "only" and the proofreaders missed it...
...We should stop putting our best thought and effort into preparation for war and channel it into creating a cooperative world community...
...One of them nearly passed and the subject will come up again next year...
...Health Insurance Defended Dear Sirs: Dr...
...It is no accident that the two democracies having the highest standards of living in their respective continents also have national health insurance...
...Oops—it was the Israelis whom Mr...
...This leaves me saying that the wisdom of legislation has nothing to do with its effectiveness—a proposition I take to be nonsense...
...Mrs...
...Marx has, therefore, not been proved wrong here . . . yet...
...In the year 1540 the marital status of this English monarch was a life-and-death matter to his Roman Catholic subjects...
...Ours could be the high honor of ridding mankind of the scourge of war...
...The State is nothing but the executive committee of a ruling class...
...Sometimes it seems so simple...
...I had written (second paragraph, second sentence), "Their [the Acts of Congress, etc.] effectiveness depended not only on their wisdom, but on whether they could stand up against Constitutional attack...
...Admission is 90 cents per person with a special rate of 50 cents for students...
...F. M. Reed St...
...Policymakers of both nations fear more co-existence safeguarded by disarmament...
...Those Holiday Greetings Dear Sirs: What a magnificent assembly of Holiday Greetings in the January issue...
...Or does Ambassador Bowles, writing in 1957, have his eyes on the 1960 Presidential election with the hope of receiving the Zionists' votes...
...A man who knows enough that isn't so, or who can't tell what is so and what isn't, is or soon will be mentally ill...
...For some odd reason, Ambassador Bowles conveniently forgets to include Israel in his list of countries which should not receive arms...
...A much greater disaster than falling behind the Russians in missile development would be to fail to develop full equality before the law for all citizens here at home...
...We are losing 40,000,000 nationalists from the Middle East who violently resent the contempt for their rights displayed by placing the militant state of Israel in the center of the Moslem world...
...teachers, students, and spies in China...
...Dorothy Rice Sims New York, N. Y. Divorce and Politics Dear Sirs: I can't think of a happier thesis than that developed in "The Eminently Acceptable Joseph S. Clark" by William V. Shannon in your December issue, but I do take umbrage with Mr...
...We have grasped instead the questionable distinction of global policeman, and have turned ourselves into a military arsenal for any and all who will side with us in a power struggle that may yet destroy the human race...
...Plan for The Progressive Dear Sirs: Herewith another small contribution—$1...
...Copies may be obtained free in any quantities from 20 South Twelfth Street, Philadelphia 7, Pennsylvania...
...They would also explain why successive governments, Liberal, Tory, and Labor alike, have consistently amplified and extended NHI benefits to include all sections of the community...
...The word freedom is beginning to mean much less to us when it does not include freedom from business and labor usurpations of authority...
...Donald McGregor London, England Which Race...
...Greenberg says [The Progressive, December 1957] that since drugs can quiet disordered emotions, disordered emotions must be a chemical matter...
...Dear Sirs: Permit me to compliment you upon your Holiday Greetings...
...While the various positions have their own merits and demerits, I was particularly astonished at the article by former Ambassador Chester Bowles who is considered an enlightened authority on Asia and Africa...
...A revolution inspired by fear, hunger, and hopelessness can never be good material for ushering in Socialism...
...Thus, for all he apparently cares, millions of Americans could be left to starve...
...Imagine a Chinese reporter writing a book on the U.S.A...
...a clique they had expelled for nepotism and corruption...
...He says it is just as dangerous to lose in the race for disarmament as it is in the race for armament (i.e...
...Or is he in favor of Israel receiving arms from the United States, Canada, France and other sources...
...Neal Ring Salem, Ore...
...Ira D. Cardiff Yakima, Wash...
...but there is no assurance they can do this if ruthless suppression continues...
...High Standards Dear Sirs: I am greatly impressed by the high standards of the articles and the spirit of The Progressive...
...In this country the head of the state is expected to share the moral goals of our common Judaic-Christian culture, but he is not a religious leader yet (one swallow does not make a summer) and even if he were, in the eyes of Catholics the theological disciplines of the Catholic Church would only have validity for its own members...
...But the Inquisition did that to Christianity, too, and both "isms" survive, in spite of misrepresentation from adherents and opponents alike...
...There are many ways of knowing what isn't so...
...Friday, January 24...
...John C. Holt II Boston, Mass...
...I find Mr...
...The terms Socialist and Communist were synonymous to Marx...
...I think we are, and don't believe that any amount of chemical discoveries will greatly change our situation so long as we are...
...David Pomeroy White Plains, N. Y. Dear Sirs: I should like to answer Dr...
...Among the left-handed compliments, should you not also have suggested a red hat for our Mr...
...To do so will only send us more speedily down the trail taken by the nations that populate civilization's graveyard...
...Socialism means freedom of thought and expression...
...Expecting a more thoughtful and penetrating analysis than the usual hysteria and spoofing the spatial Soviet satellites have provoked, I found: the chief concern, as usual, was with the challenge to America's lead in science...
...To that end let the President summon the best minds in the social sciences, religion, and philosophy and set them to the task of discovering how to release the power of good will for peacemaking as the atomic scientists discovered how to release the power of the atom for mass destruction...
...Assignment China by Julian Shuman, U.S...
...It is not said whether he speaks Chinese...
...According to this plan everyone may choose his own doctor and is reimbursed for up to three-fourths of the fees...
...If "a third of our people are improperly . . . fed," it is even more important at least to try to give them adequate medical care...
...A national health insurance program would be no more free than any other insurance—but it would afford the individual protection against ruinously heavy medical expenses...
...There will never be a Utopia in which some people (including, I daresay, some members of the medical profession) do not squander money on tobacco, alcohol, and like indulgences...
...Harold C. Hopping Cleves, Ohio Suggestion for the Arabs Dear Sirs: What is justice...
...The meat of the article concerns the ICBM and the appalling need to eradicate the possibility of its use...
...a glossing over of the schools' inability to produce a sufficient supply of scientists, a many-faceted problem which Amrine shuns to make way for a few well-chosen but irrelevant words and ambiguous conclusion about the necessity for an Oppen-heimer-Teller style combination to make America strong in the future...
...Shannon's specious aside, "Although Clark is divorced and remarried, he is in no political difficulty on this score since the divorce took place nearly a quarter century ago, and Catholics have no objection to him (except that his name is not Jack Kennedy...
...I hope that The Progressive will review some books on China written by men and women, fluent in the Chinese language who have lived, loved, worked, played, and been accepted by Chinese of both the old and the new regime...
...She must halt the fatuous and short-sighted mushrooming of mass destructive weapons and cease her insincerity and maneuvering for advantage in disarmament talks...
...In its first few months of existence, National Health Insurance has operated to general satisfaction...
...Action on Principle—Not Guesswork...
...Arthur J. Bertholf Philadelphia, Pa...
...J. Stuart Innerst, Minister First Friends Church Pasadena, Calif...
...While the South Africans are guilty of a complacent head-in-the-sand attitude, we, too, have a great deal of this ostrich vulnerability...
...James E. Murray pointed out in his Progressive article, would not favor a return to their former system...
...As the English physician recently pointed out in The Progressive, England's health insurance program has created better conditions than prevailed before its adoption...
...This is a complete irrelevancy...
...More recently, Governor J. Caleb Boggs of Delaware proclaimed December 15 as Bill of Rights Day...
...Rubin will discuss the Soviet Union and American foreign policy...
...This is not the time to rely primarily on military leaders, physical scientists, and politicians in shaping our foreign policy...
...It carries contrasting quotations from the Atomic Energy Commission and the World Council of Churches...
...Does he imply that Israel is not in the Middle East...
...I do not believe this generalization has any basis in fact—but if it did, would Dr...
...Frank K. Meers' criticism of the national health insurance program advocated by Senator James Murray in The Progressive...
...From just three sections of the world we can count over half a billion human beings, who despite our gigantic appropriations, are turning in desperation towards the Communists as their last hope...
...Henry M. Christman New York, N. Y. Costly Foreign Policy Dear Sirs: Our foreign policy is costing us much in hearts and minds: We lost 600,000,000 Chinese on the mainland when we seated in their chair at the U.N...
...the ICBM...
...Illustrated captions include: "We Want: Life—Not Desolation...
...Rubin in Detroit Dear Sirs: Readers o? The Progressive in the Detroit area will have an opportunity to hear and meet the magazine's Editor, Morris H. Rubin, when he speaks at the Detroit Labor Forum at 8 p.m...
...Would it not be possible to get, say, 5,000 subscribers to mark their calendars so as to send a dollar four or five times a year instead of waiting to hear what may be the last breath of The Progressive before taking action...
...But this observation in no way lessens the need for an improved medical insurance setup...
...The tranquilizers do not necessarily correct anything wrong in the brain...
...Dear Sirs: Having read Michael Amrine's fine article on fallout in last February's Progressive, I turned first to his article in the December issue...
...By our geographical position and our political, religious, and social heritage we were cast for the role of world peacemaker...
...But decisions on the means to use for such progress must necessarily be taken by a small group democratically elected for that set of circumstances at any given time...
...but what does that prove about mental illness...
...I have only one addition to suggest: George F. Kennan, who did so much to show us what American foreign policy could be, and who, were there any justice in these matters, should be our Secretary of State today...
...correspondent...
...Today the H-bomb and ICBM pose the gravest threat to the continued existence of civilization...
...It is not strange that out of sheer resentment they are softening towards their former enemy...
...And with what results for an enduring peace...
...Is Dr...
...Why don't the Arabs set their shoulder to the wheel the way the Israelis have...
...Error Dear Sirs: After reading my review of The Supreme Court by Bernard Schwartz in the January issue, I have to give your proofreaders one spank...
...Rubin's talk...
...What I find most remarkable, however, is Dr...
...Granted that Red China has been guilty of great wrongs, yet how infinitesimal have been their crimes compared to the atrocities committed so few years ago by Germany and Japan, both now honored members in our family of nations...
...In glowing terms Amrine calls for the United States to capture the world's imagination by pursuing a positive approach to disarmament, to place Sputnik's "tiny step into space" in perspective, to realize it doesn't threaten us with "negotiating from weakness...
...Even if they could save these amounts how far would this go in meeting today's high cost of medical care...
...Ernest Mazey, Chairman Detroit Labor Forum Detroit, Mich...
...I think you might have added one more to your collection: Representative Charles Porter, Oregon Democrat, who has done a tremendous job in exposing the vicious Trujillo dictatorship...
...Senator Joseph S. Clark Washington, D.C...
...Meers brought up another familiar theme—i.e., if people would cut down on expenditures for cigarettes, alcoholic beverages, and entertainment, they could manage their medical expenses...
...It is not the number of doctors that count, but their distribution and the results achieved...
...So I am hopeful that similar attention will be given to his proposals for public controls over big, private interests...
...If they can keep to peaceful tactics of boycotts, strikes, and demonstrations, they will advance more rapidly...
...Dulles...
...Speaking as an erstwhile pharmacist in that country who is old enough to remember when Lloyd George introduced the NHI scheme 45 years ago, the answer is an unequivocal and emphatic "yes...
Vol. 22 • February 1958 • No. 2
