Communications An Exchange on the ADA Convention
Howe, Irving & Williams, David C.
We read with interest Mr. Irving Howe's article, "ADA: Vision and Myopia" in your spring issue. We believe that the standard for judgment of ADA which he sets forth, in refraining from "berating...
...Howe suggests...
...We do, however, ask the hospitality of your columns to present corrections or clarifications on some matters of fact: 1) When the ADA Convention on March 19 amended the sentence in its platform, "We oppose limiting the right to advocate unpopular proposals, including Communist ideas," by striking out the last three words, it did not retract ADA's opposition to limiting the right to advocate Communist ideas, although the action was widely so interpreted by the press...
...I took this action to be an equivocation on the part of the ADA...
...1) When the ADA convention voted to omit the last three words from the statement, "We oppose limiting the right to advocate unpopular ideas, including Communist ideas," it was at the very least watering down or making ambiguous the first part of the sentence...
...policy of supporting Chiang Kai-shek...
...Irving Howe replies: I am grateful to Mr...
...4) ADA states in its platform that "the aggressive, imperialist policies of the Soviet bloc, led by the Soviet Union and Red China, are the over-riding threat to world peace today," and in this basic assumption it agrees with both the Truman and the Eisenhower Administrations...
...Williams has failed, I think, to grasp my point about Telford Taylor's defense of wire-tapping...
...Taylor's right to say what he did...
...But the point I made was that the ADA failed to "relate the present debacle to the whole U.S...
...It might have been more fruitful if he had taken up some of the general characterizations I made of the ADA...
...Irving Howe's article, "ADA: Vision and Myopia" in your spring issue...
...Taylor, differ with it...
...Liberals will never be in full agreement on all questions, and we have not, nor would we wish to have, any system of "democratic centralism" to enforce conformity...
...As for "democratic centralism," that, in the present context, is somewhat of a red herring, and not from my barrel either...
...2) Mr...
...It was precisely to dispel this confusion that, in his acceptance speech as our newly elected Chairman, Mr...
...2) The convention delegates listened with respect to Mr...
...This is the majority view, but there are many members of ADA who, like Mr...
...Taylor invoked as his authority in behalf of wiretapping, a fraction of the critical wrath it pours on the Republican leaders...
...And also, for that matter, its failure to bring to bear on such of its heroes as Francis Biddle, whom Mr...
...Some other matters which Mr...
...Joseph L. Rauh, Jr., the next day specifically stated that Communist ideas—as well as fascist, Trotskyist, and other such ideas—are included in the category "unpopular political proposals," and that ADA in the future, as in the past, will oppose all efforts to limit their advocacy...
...Our new chairman, Mr...
...Rauh, has as an attorney fought civil liberties cases under both Administrations, and he has publicly and explicitly stated on many occasions that Government violations of civil liberties long antedate January 20, 1953...
...We believe that the standard for judgment of ADA which he sets forth, in refraining from "berating liberals for not being socialists," is a just one...
...Surely nothing I wrote could be construed as questioning in any way Mr...
...With some of his opinions on issues and personalities we do not agree, but he is as entitled to his opinions as we are to ours...
...I am sorry that Mr...
...Howe discusses are dealt with implicitly in the platform: for example, advocating a UN trusteeship and plebiscite for Formosa is very different from "the whole US policy of supporting Chiang Kai-shek...
...I close by agreeing that political realism must always be a factor which ADA has to recognize, but that, in my experience, it plays a considerably smaller role in the formulation of policy than Mr...
...3 and 4) I know that the ADA has made critical remarks about both the domestic and foreign policies of the Truman administration...
...policy of supporting Chiang Kai-shek, even if such an inquiry did involve the embarrassment of having to question the foreign policies of both the Roosevelt and Truman administrations...
...but what are we to make of the ADA conventon action—what do they make of it—in eliminating the phrase "including Communist ideas" which had alone given point and edge to the statement...
...Rauh's statement, and Mr...
...Others have been discussed at previous ADA conventions, and an examination of our whole record would reduce considerably the number of the omissions of which Mr Howe complains...
...My point was that it has failed to engage in an analysis of the continuity, and the reasons for that continuity, from the Democratic to the Republican administrations...
...3) ADA's concern for civil liberties did not begin with the Eisenhower Administration...
...I don't mind very much Mr...
...To engage in such an analysis, I submit, might force the ADA to qualify in the most serious fashion its devotion to the memories of the New and Fair Deal...
...My point was rather to illustrate what I called the "collective amnesia" of the ADA: that is, its failure squarely to trace most of what it finds objectionable in the Eisenhower handling of the "security" problem to its real source, the Truman administration...
...I wish, too, that he had permitted himself to say something about what I described as the failure of the ADA people to go beyond "political items" in order "to ask themselves any fundamental questions rgarding their political identity...
...Thus, it is true that the ADA proposal for a plebsicite for Formosa (which I praised, incidentally) is different from the U.S...
...To forestall misunderstanding, let me say that continuity doesn't mean equivalence...
...Telford Tay lor's arguments in support of wire-tapping, although they had earlier the same day declared: "We oppose as an intolerable violation of civil liberties the use of wire-tapping, whether practiced by the Federal Government, by the states, or by individuals...
...Williams for submitting his corrections, though in all good faith I do not really see that they correct very much...
...Which other unpopular ideas (except those that are, sometimes mistakenly, assumed to be close to Communist ideas) are today significantly at stake in the U.S...
...Williams has confined himself to raising these specific but not finally crucial points...
...But it has on occasion criticized vigorously the measures both Administrations have taken to meet this threat...
...Williams' failure to say anything about my friend Reb Zusya, but I do wish he had said a word about his friend Senator Humphrey...
...Williams' citation of it, are very welcome...
...on the contrary, this field received as much attention in ADA conventions during the Truman Administration as now...
Vol. 2 • July 1955 • No. 3
