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Old Slogans Fade Away SO THEY TELL ME hypocrisy, the historical vulgarity of much of the attack on the conduct of the President in Korea was revealed with stark obedience to the facts by Senator...

After the Tumult and the Shouting (August 1952)

SO THEY TELL ME After the Tumult and the Shouting I FIND it hard to make much sense of the Republican Convention—to confer meaning on what my eyes have seen and my ears heard. So many of the...

Education by Reflex Action (May 1952)

SO THEY TELL ME Education By Reflex Action I AM never so conscious of infamy as when I teach students who have been seduced into political dogma. In all aspects of life the seducer has the same...

The Captive Mind at Work (April 1952)

SO THEY TELL ME The Captive Mind At Work E IS a short red-faced man, and the is well H dressed with that casualness of men who have always known their clothes were good. He holds his glasses in...

The Meaning of Victory in Joseph Conrad (March 1952)

SO THEY TELL ME The Meaning of Victory in Joseph Conrad L IKE Eu.did making 'his .famous announcement about .parallel lines, Gradaam Greene observed tthat "two of the great novels of the last...

Man Is the Measure of History (February 1952)

SO THI/Y TELL ME Man Is the Measure of History T O THE BOOK ~bout which I write, I shall br,iag very ~trle, and in tvhat I th~ve the srn~ll and %,~il~ive c0mfor.t that :few men w31 bring very...

Picking Your Founding Father (February 1952)

purpose before diplomatic overtures have been tried. The tragic and largely meanJngless t~ll of terrorist aots and of tou~hen.ing British coun, ter-measures is slowly frittering away the last...

The Mystery of Matriarchy (February 1952)

SO THEY TELL ME to shed ,its ink. 'Over ,file ,hidden dvamber of their ~atern,al ~go~ies I d,rvw floe wiL The Mystery of Matriarchy A MERICANS, given more ~han most peoples to pu~ic...

Murder on Christmas (January 1952)

SO THEY TF_LI. ME Murder on Christmas A MAN is murdered on Christmas night_9 I do not know what in me expects that this will not happen. For there is no reason why men who will violate the law...

The Art of Fiction (December 1951)

Today, sustained in, the prol, a~da of the Arab League, a certain ,good ~vi, ll on ,the Irart of the AngloSaxon ~orld and the support of the Moroccan imeUiger~tsia, the Suttan/ms an atfi.tude...

The Irgun Revolt (November 1951)

SO THEY TELL ME The Irg u n Revolt W HAT f~r a long .time had been a faltering hope and a debated aspir~tian became, between 1944 and x947, "a military uprising against British rule." It was a...

The Elections in England (November 1951)

SO THEY TELL ME The Elections in England I T MIGHT be well to poin, t out that one of the results of the British elections is the demonstration of the fact that Socialism can submit itself to...

'Patriots' and 'Controversial Figures' (November 1951)

istic and utilitarian point of view, vehleh considers sex instruction only as a means of helping the young man or the young girl to avoid having children before they are married or as a meam o f...

The Tribal Approach (October 1951)

SO THEY TELL ME The Tribal Approach I T CAN hardly be argued that when one joins the tribe or, having been away, comes back to it, that it is exceptional if the tribe rejoices. To this...

The Young: A Lost Generation? (October 1951)

SO THEY TELL ME The Young: A Lost Generation? NOW is tihe season when you look out at the young in your classroom with wonder and with admiration. They are better than you were at their...

The Death of Michael Collins (September 1951)

The Death of Michael Collins DEATH, and the act and the fact of dying, have never troubled me. Only when I am in an airplane do I think that I might die. Even then I am less concerned with the...

Drunk on Dogma (September 1951)

SO THEY TELL ME Drunk on Dogma IF YOU WILL be patient, I will try to thread some incidents into a pattern. I spoke, sometime ago, to a meeting of Socialists. They were engaged in trying to relate...

The Tragedy at West Point (August 1951)

SO THEY TELL ME The Tragedy at West Point I DO NOT understand the young. I have taught them in their classrooms—on and off—for a good many years, and that disqualifies me. I taught in Catholic...

The Mind Is Its Own Place (August 1951)

The Mind Is Its Own Place WERE I asked to state the 9uprome achievement of the human mind, I should reply that it was the concept of justice. That men deserve to be treated fairly is the...

Substitute for Debate (July 1951)

SO THEY TELL ME Substitute for Debate BEGINNING, I suppose, in the garden of Eden, life established itself in patterns of conflict. Protagonists 'beget antagonists; and sensible men regard...

The Communist Arrests (July 1951)

The Communist Arrests THE self-appointed disciples of Justice Holmes have become exercised over t!he latest opinion of Chief Justice Vinson, and they find liberty truly defended only in the...

A Shaky Case for the AMA (June 1951)

283 SO THEY TELL ME A Shaky Case for the AMA WHEN I was a very young roan I spent most of a year reading Irish plays and Irish and French books about the nownfaded gleam olf the...

Liberal Education and Religion (June 1951)

SO THEY TELL ME Liberal Education and Religion I ATTENDED, recently, at one of our public colleges, a discussion seminar on the subject: Liberal Education and Religious Values. I was...

Koestler's Dialogue With Death (June 1951)

Koestler's Dialogue With Death MORE, perhaps, than any other living man, Arthur Koestler carries Communism around with him as an unrelievable burden. It is in his blood, like the seeds of...

Labor: the Counterrevolution (May 1951)

Labor: the Counterrevolution THE artist is always more perceptive than the historian, for he knows that there are facts of life which rebuke evidence. The artist knows that the life of man is...

The Republicans' Impeachment Threat (May 1951)

SO THEY TELL ME The Republicans9 Impeachment Threat IF THE Republican Party had any valid claim to respect in our country, it has just surrendered it. I find this less a matter for rejoicing...

Portraits of the Artist (April 1951)

Portraits of the Artist I HAVE NEVER been convinced that Sinclair Lewis had any artistic importance. This might be a criticism of me, rather than of him; but it struck me that he was a sloppy...

What's In a Name? (April 1951)

SO THEY TELL ME What's In a Name? "GOD spare us from our friends" is a remark which must have been uttered by the first man who acknowledged friendship. For it is clear that our friends are...

Labor and the Boys in Korea (March 1951)

SO THEY TELL ME Labor and the Boys in Korea THE position of the labor unions is once more beginning to be treated with the acid of false patriotism. The question of what labor wants and why it...

The Irish and the Yankees (March 1951)

SO THEY TELL ME The Irish and the Yankees THE question, Where am I going to be when I am 65 ? is a concession to time I have refused to make. Pension systems and annuities, playfully predicting my...

Koestler Revisited (February 1951)

SO THEY TELL ME Koestler Revisited "BUT, you can't," she said to me,, "take a character in a book and make him a symbol, a type." We had been talking about Gletkin, and I had been maintaining with a...

Mr. Pegler's Ignorant Bliss (January 1951)

SO THEY TELL ME Mr. Pegler's Ignorant Bliss PSYCHOLOGICALLY American history is difficult to explain. Most of us think of our country as a democracy, and patriotic orators speak on proper occasions...

The Ordeal of Dean Acheson (December 1950)

SO THEY TELL ME The Ordeal of Dean Acheson IT MAY be a fact that Dean Acheson has, in the words of the Republicans, "lost the confidence of the country," and it may be that the removal of Mr....

An Eloquent Man (December 1950)

SO THEY TELL ME An Eloquent Man ESCOTT FITZGERALD used to rate Heming-way as our greatest living novelist and Faulkner next to him. I am not going to enter that debate if only on the ground that...

Reflections on Elections (November 1950)

SO THEY TELL ME Reflections on Elections PART of vanity's sustenance is got by being a Sunday morning quarterback. In politics the practice takes the form of post-mortem, pontificating. The first is...

The Disenchantment of Scott Fitzgerald (November 1950)

SO THEY TELL ME The Disenchantment of Scott Fitzgerald I AM going to write here in my own new column about a book I have not read. This is a practice I dare say more often engaged in than admitted;...

The Lost Perspective (October 1950)

THE LABOR MOVEMENT The Lost Perspective IT IS hardly to be expected that men can write about the labor movement, or about anything else, without having ideas about it. It makes a great deal of...

Politics by Contempt (October 1950)

THE LABOR MOVEMENT Politics by Contempt THE politician in power lives in a world whose ethics is tailored by convenience. But it is the normal protest of those who are in the market for power that...

Black and White and Red All Over (September 1950)

THE LABOR MOVEMENT Black and White and Red All Over T'M NOT very certain about what went on back here in the east; but in Detroit during the last war the auto companies had huge signs which...

Bankrupt's Oath (September 1950)

tarnished over all the years is the image of a man carefully, conventionally, expensively, beautifully dressed. If "blue-suit socialism" was not invented by Lee Pressman, he was, at least, its...

Harry, Won't You Blow Your Horn? (September 1950)

THE LABOR MOVEMENT Harry, Won't You Blow Your Horn? SOMETIMES leaders of labor unions display what seems to amount to a talent for stupidity. W. P. Kennedy and H. O. Hughes, presidents of the...

Morality and the Corporations (September 1950)

THE LABOR MOVEMENT Morality and the Corporations THE other night I did a foolish thing. Foolish things, and the doing of them, are not so few and widely separated in my own life that this one...

Patriotic Anarchy (August 1950)

THE LABOR MOVEMENT Patriotic Anarchy BETWEEN the right to work, and the right to hold office in a labor union there is as wide a separation as that between peace and war. They have their...

Stockholm and Detroit (August 1950)

THE LABOR MOVEMENT Stockholm and Detroit THE GREAT crime of the Communists is their annihilation of truth. Those wha have read the book The God That Failed remember that it was the...

Farmer-'Labor Coalition (August 1950)

And at the Socialist congress in London, the German delegation asserted, as did the common resolution, that the Ruhr statute should be changed by the Schuman Plan. Though in the Schuman Plan...

Who Invented Statism? (July 1950)

three percent of the population, it is inconceivable that there would continue to be bi-lingual currency, bi-lingual stamps, bi-lingual forms, and the free use of French in the chambers of...

Dictatorship-and John L. Lewis (July 1950)

versity—a "managerial revolution." "But no statistics of graduate-production could make Redbrick even remotely like a university." "Anon" makes the pretty point that the Redbrick universities,...

This Contagious Peace (July 1950)

THE LABOR MOVEMENT This Contagious Peace SO much news is available for comment that I keep asking myself what John Cort, whose property this column is, would do with it. News from...

The Strike Complex (June 1950)

THE LABOR MOVEMENT The Strike Complex THE labor world is as unpredictable as marriage. Peace there, as elsewhere, is difficultly won and precariously held. This is explained by many things,...

A Long Engagement (June 1950)

THE LABOR MOVEMENT A Long Engagement IT WOULD be shameful to resist the temptation to point out that the full meaning of the Chrysler strike is to be found in the new General Motors contract....

Labor and the Isms (June 1950)

Labor and the Isms Unions still accept "the American Way" but may be driven to change. By FRANCIS DOWNING IT WAS the belief of Lord Acton that history is not economically determined, but is...

The Chrysler Settlement (May 1950)

of an alliance, the appearance of an important book— makes no palpable impression on the thinking of threefourths of the population. Domestic cares, anxieties about work and community problems...

The Labor Movement (May 1950)

THE LABOR MOVEMENT Quill's Underground THE central problem of all government is how to reconcile liberty and order. The problem is made more difficult when the government is the employer. For...

The Labor Movement (April 1950)

April 7, 1950 THE COMMONWEAL 675 CLEARLY it is wrong to accuse such liberals awareness of the Communist...

LOYALTY AFFIDAVITS (August 1949)

August ~6, t949 THE COMMONWEAL 483 a spirit exiled in an evil body~ and yet, after payln~ due lip-service to the d~rble nature of man, aonorably mentioning resurrection, and reciting by rote...

THE LABOR MOVEMENT (August 1949)

412 THE COMMONWEAL August 5, 1949 I T MUST be obvious to all that Rome, perceiving that materialism is attacking the very roots of the Christian spirit and that it is not even restrained from...

THE LABOR MOVEMENT (July 1949)

388 THE COMMONWEAL July 29, i949 The Labor Movement the collective bargaining agreements now in effect for a period of sixty days from July I6, I949." Politics in Collective Bargaining T...

THE LABOR MOVEMENT (July 1949)

364 THE COMMONWEAL July 22, I949 therefore, that I failed to check my sources on the date of his resignation from the Board of the Psychological Corporation. I am also glad to know--and indeed...

THE LABOR MOVEMENT (July 1949)

Jely 8, I949 THE COMMONWEAL 1,nvesdgator Matflaews fired his big gun. "In that event," Matthews said, "t will ret~est permission o f the chairman to introduce e Communist records of the d...

THE LABOR MOVEMENT (June 1949)

268 THE COMMONWEAL June 24, I949 The Labor Movement John L. W HEN, a younger man, I used to read in history books that no legislation came out of a given session of Congress, I found it...

The Labor Movement (June 1949)

June Io, I949 THE COMMONWEAL 219 love), cursed and therefore destined to suffer. Io. To avoid speaking of the Jews as if Jews were not the very earliest members of the Church. The commission...

THE GENERALS AT THE CIO (November 1947)

The Generals at the CIO Francis Downing I HAVE seen and heard the two great generals of our time. Both of them have so deeplyengaged our quick emotions that we have thought of them easily...

WATT IN WONDERLAND (May 1946)

t64 THE COMMONWEAL May 3 I, 1946 under your bunk before inspection, he brought your soiled laundry over to the supply room, he told you what was on the bulletin board, and he led you by the hand...

DISCRIMINATION BY EVASION (February 1946)

454 THE COMMONWEAL February 15, 1946 Discrimination By Evasion FRANCIS DOWNING A CCORDING to the New York Tribune of **• January 28, Mr. Mahoney and Mr. Steingut, sponsors of a Bill in...

A STORY OF GROWTH (August 1945)

480 THE COMMONWEAL August 31, 1945 A Story of Growth FRANCIS DOWNING THERE IS something painfully embarrassing in reading about conversions.* For the processes involved, even in Newman, are never...

THURBER (March 1945)

518 Thurber FRANCIS DOWNING TO SAY that James Thurber is unique in American letters is to utter a truism. To say that he is America's greatest humorist since Mark Twain is merely...

EDWARD BELLAMY (December 1944)

December 29, 1944 THE COMMONWEAL 275 The Stage & Screen 276 THE COMMONWEAL December 29, 1944 Crazy Over Horses LITTLE did I think...

MORE BOOKS OF THE WEEK (November 1944)

November 10, 1944 THE COMMONWEAL 105 More Books of the Week The Beards' Basic History of the United States. Charles and Mary Beard. New Home Library. 69c. TO WRITE the history of...

Timeless Mexico-Enough and to Spare-The Road to Foreign Policy-Democracy Begins at Home-William Sidney Mount-Slavery and Freedom-The Roots of the Tree (October 1944)

40 THE COMMONWEAL October 27, 1944 More Books of the Week Timeless Mexico. Hudson Strode. Harcourt. $3.50. THIS IS a popular but rather well-written history of Mexico. The author,...

THE MOOD OF THE WORKERS (January 1944)

The Mood of the Workers What lies back of strikes and strike threats Francis Downing AS I WRITE, the strike is over. In a sense the railway workers were psychologically defeated, and did not...

MORE BOOKS OF THE WEEK Against This Rock-One Fair Daughter-This Festive Season (December 1943)

More Books of the Week Against This Rock. Louis Zara. Creative Age. $2.75. GIVEN a dream to guide him, a vision which proved as illusive as all material things, Charles V (1500-1558), King of...

MORE BOOKS OF THE WEEK A Certain Measure-Crusade for Pan-Europe -The Duke-All Year Round-Malta Epic (December 1943)

More Books of the Week A Certain Measure. Ellen Glasgow. Harcourt. $3.50. TWELVE of these thirteen essays first appeared as prefaces in the "Virginia Edition" of the works of Ellen Glasgow. Since...

MORE BOOKS OF THE WEEK My Days of Anger-Out of the Silent Planet-The Darker Brother-Thunderhead-Meet Mr Blank, the Leader of Tomorrows Germans-Saint John Capistran, Reformer-The Little Locksmith-The Case for Mrs Suratt (October 1943)

More Books of the Week My Days of Anger. James T. Farrell. Vanguard. $2.75. WHEN YOU are living in a foreign country and you get a book from home you do not read that book in the way you would...

SECURITY AND INCENTIVE (August 1943)

The COMMONWEAL volume xxxviii August 27, 1943 number 19 THE WEEK 455 INDIANS IN THE BRONX William Fifield ...

Young Man with a Gun (August 1943)

August 13, 1943 THE COMMONWEAL 409 Young Man with a Gun HE IS an American. The tattoo needle has sewed the flag into his arm, and if he...

REPORT FROM DETROIT (July 1943)

July 30, 1943 THE COMMONWEAL 361 Report from Detroit By FRANCIS DOWNING THERE WILL be no grand jury investigation of the race riots in Detroit. The present feeling seems to be one of quiet...

SENATOR TAFT'S CONSTITUTION (October 1942)

go on—cat following mouse—is to bring about, surely, the spiral of inflation. That inflation might lose the war and sterilize even military victory is clear even to a child. Here to argue about...

BOOKS OF THE WEEK Come Wind, Come Weather-England's Hour-They'll Never Quit-The Hero in America-The Catholic Church in Indiana-Poets of Our Time (April 1941)

Books of the Week How England Takes It Come Wind, Come Weather. Daphne Du Maurier. Doubleday. $.25. England's Hour. Vera Brittain. Macmillan. $2.50. They'll Never Quit. Harvey Klemmer. Funk....

ANOTHER VOLUME OF BEARD (June 1939)

June 30, I939 THE COMMONWEAL 259 it is too soon to determine whether Miss Claire is an actress or just a personality. And then in musical comedy there was the inimitable Victor Moore in "Leave It...

PATENTS: MODERN MONOPOLY (January 1939)

Patents: Modern Monopoly By FRANCIS DOWNING AS NOTED in the "Prologue" to the monopoly investigation (Commonweal, January 6, page 288), "the common form of concentration is the control...

MONOPOLY INVESTIGATION: PROLOGUE (January 1939)

Monopoly Investigation: Prologue By FRANCIS DOWNING COMPETITION, unregulated, it would seem, ends in monopoly. Whether contradictions inherent in capitalism and individualism make...

Downing, Franics

DOWNING, FRASCIS

Downing, Frawcis

Downing, Margaret B.

DOWNING, MARTHA

Downing, Michael B.

Downing, Nathan A. Scott, Jr., Phyllis Trible, Robert C. Neville, Susan Annette Muto, David Herlihy,

DOWNS, JEROME F.

Downs, Peter

Dowty, Alan

Doyle, Brian

Doyle, Dennis M