A Page of Features on the Cultural Front
A Page of Features on the Cultural Front Professional front Boas "Committee" lists Expose It As Stalinite Intellectual Prop i**0NSIDERABLE mystery has sunwrnd^iar ^ nearly a year the identity of...
...L. C. Dunn, of Columbia University...
...2,720, Dicken's "Great Expectations...
...We shudder at the weight of women behind that bill...
...What Lyons ha* to eay<»wBI Russian act of this drama ?MH ages is well worth readiag:> * ST AUN, CZAR OF Aiif*j| RUSSIAS...
...And asked him how he ever came to buy such a piece of attenuated tripe...
...d?yde R. Miller, of Columbia University, and Prof...
...The CCF had included Soviet totalitarianism and intellectual repression as among the current enemies of freedom of thought...
...This exclusive domestic concern, it is needless to say, was .horn out of the Hitler-Stalm treaty, prior to which the American Committee had no reluctance about issuing pronouncements concerning politico-ealtural conditions in anti-Soviet countries abroad...
...But as now warded, the bill makes two crippling checks upon the producers...
...But stop...
...John P. Peters, of Yale University...
...Boas as a scientist to blind them to the obviour fact that Prof...
...Harlow Shapley, of Harvard University...
...Margaret Schlanch, of New York University, and one of the editors of the quarterly "Science and Society," which habitually apologizes for Stalin, Soviet Russia and the Communist Party...
...University...
...In using real issues for their purposes the Communists have almost invariably 'dose harm to the cause they were ostensibly sponsoring, and there is danger that their intercession in the Russell case through the American Committee will do similar harm to an important case...
...Bat because the American Committee had to reveal the names of some of its members and sponsors in connection with a public meeting held at Carnegie Hall April 13 on the Bertrand Russell case, the actual nature of the group is now evident...
...and Dr...
...these simply called for a book on Stalin as a sequel to "ApsignnaJt to Utopia...
...It is trae the exhibitor must buy his pictures in a single contact for the season, not know--ing what they'll be like...
...It virtually farces the sale of one picture at a time...
...I * * » 'THE first fact our exhibitor has neglected to tell the well'irieanihg ladies is that he has various cancellation privileges, from mutual agreement to an arbis>-:trary rejection of twenty per cent because he doesn't want them...
...Other party-line sponsors whose names are indiscriminately mingled with those of prominent scientists are Morris Watson, vice president of the American Newspaper Guild and recent leader of the Stalinist faction in the American Labor Party...
...The "big names," of course, are inactive on the Committee...
...Walter Rauten-strauch, of Columbia University...
...The Boas Committee claims to have a membership of more than 1,000 persons, and this sounds impressive...
...Eric T. Bell, of the California Institute of Technology...
...Gradually, this voice of the people (the voice of the exhibitor's god) becomes calculable...
...But a peculiar light' is thrown about the concern of the American Committee for intellectual integrity- in the matter of Bertrand Russell when we -find that its call and membership list are loaded with the names of acores of persons who publicly defended the Moscow Trial frame-ups...
...Lyons's analysis of StalhftJK eign policies throughout the J0 before the Stalin-Nazi gadjg: masterly...
...The old czars were not only the autocrats of all Russias...
...Virtue will be rewarded: in all thesUnited States, there were less than 20 cancellations for these innocent uplifters of the human spirit: "Last Gangster," "Desire," "Bad Man of Brimstone," "Alcatraz," "Jungle Love," "Little Tough Gays...
...so well-impressed ladies, to sign their collective names for the Neely Bill thafwould prohibit block-booking...
...That the issue is real in the Russell case there can be no doubt...
...Formed early last year, the American Committee, -whose chairman is the distinguished anthror pologist, Dr...
...Those members of the American Committee who signed the statement of the "Committee of 400," which stigmatized the renowned Dn^John Dewey and members of the Committee for Cultural Freedom as "fascists," are the following: Henry Pratt Fairchild, of New York University, George Marshall, writer...
...Because of the necessity on the part of the American Committee for Democracy and Intellectual Freedom to disclose some part of its membership in connection with the Carnegie Hall day .for March 1337,, went on public record in defense of the*Uoscow Trials aid who have since given no indication of a changed attitude: , Mary Dublin, of Sarah Lawrence College...
...BL tradirtions of a revolution- M| great upheaval, a movcmort^Bsi liberation, ends in a gwMXWJ^j anny, in a Robespierre, Na#*«l*R and Stalin...
...So that they can vehemently protest in advance against any film the summary of which disturbs them...
...A house that grosses $80,000 one week may creep up as high as $5,000 with the next film...
...One name is that of Borough President of Manhattan Stanley M. Isaacs, who achieved national notoriety by his insistence upon retaining on his office staff the well-known Communist, Si Gerson...
...But the Communists have always seized upon real issues—the Mooneyj Scotts-boro, and Sacco-Vanzetti cases—by means of which to carry on' organizational work to Stalinist ends...
...But he is being used, and here is the story of how the machinery works...
...JOSEPH T. SHIPLEY Author of ''Qwest for Literature," "Rodin," etc...
...And have you ever dropped in on the owner, of the house, to tell him what you thought of-the picture...
...HIP 9 Man in Use A CURIOUS phenomenon has been puzzling many basest liberals who have watched with wonderment many of their ranks become sadden fronts for the Communist party...
...Such "fascists," according to the irresponsible and inflammatory utterances of the foregoing, are: Dr...
...Malisoff, plus Dean Ned Dearborn of New York University, who is 100 per cent non-political...
...Franz Boas, was in its early phase active in condemning the totalitarian .regimes of Germany and Italy...
...This -will make itself felt wherever anti-Nazi films are shown...
...It is drawn by two young antifascist, anti-war liberals-Italian Fascist propaganda in the United States emanates from the Dante, Alighieri Society, which operates purportedly to promote the study of the Italian language and diffuse Italian Culture...
...Incidentally^ that public knows...
...Had these latter known with whom they were to be brought into association on the American Committee they might not have permitted their names to be used...
...Dean Leon Green, of Northwestern University...
...The producers haven't been fazed by signs of this new local war, and are preparing a score of anti-Stalin, anti-Hitler films...
...The exhibitor's censorship (cash-box cancellations) . is entirely different from theirs...
...Lyon's formulations and theories on Russian history, on #1 history of the revolution, on Bolshevism and Stalin himself,-^a»H||> teiiesting and shrewd—whether one agrees or disagrees urtth At author...
...by El?deme M J. B. Lipyi*e*tt Co...
...and Eda Lou Walton, of New York University...
...Henry E. Sigerist, of Johns Hopkins University...
...It will be ailUHTw teresting book, the «q*»l fl "Assignment to Utopia'" <P "Stalin...
...Robert A. MHlikan, of the California Institute of "Technology...
...Ha intimate journalistic and personal knowledge of the ^left," iron Sverdlovsk to Los Angeles, his long stay in Russia, his ironic independence of thought, and—last but not least—the qualities'of social and descriptive vision as displayed in "Assignment to Utopii,"-H...
...Charles * J. Hendley, of the New York Teachers Union...
...A Page of Features on the Cultural Front Professional front Boas "Committee" lists Expose It As Stalinite Intellectual Prop i**0NSIDERABLE mystery has sunwrnd^iar ^ nearly a year the identity of the actual membership of the American Committee '?©ir Democracy and Intellectual- Freedom because of tEis organization's refugal to disclose its membership lifts...
...TPHE extent of this deception should be ap-* parent in reviewing the composition of Che Committee's editorial board of three, which consists of two well known Stalinists, M. I? Finkel-stein, of City College, and Prof...
...And why flbotUwF si a—under the flag of Mat*.^ all things—revert back Russia of the lftth and I7th«* turiee...
...The bulk of its membership, however, is composed of high school teachers who are also members of the Stalinist New York Teachers Union...
...with his Asiatic qualities of cunning, tenacity «nd savage ? dictiveness, was fated to become . the Red Sultan,—all through the ' classical oriental expedient of "removing-" all other brother princes, pretenders to the crown...
...W?liam Malisoff, of Brooklyn Polytechnic institute...
...What is Russia, then,— Europe or Asia...
...This has the State Department's imprimatur, it is understood...
...And the re-issues of "Dracula" and "Frankenstein" were properly rebuffed with only 4,400 contracts apiece...
...The absurdity of these complications, in the face of out 18,000 picture houses, need not be elaborated...
...Neely Bill Movie Fans Face More Censors, Poorer Films By PROF...
...Ten to one, he would answer: "Block-booking...
...George Marshall, writer...
...Arnold Shukatoff, of City College...
...Did not one of the Turkish sultans begin his reign by ordering the killing of all of his 40 brothers, just to be "on the safe side...
...He must be polite to the many organizations that list approved films, while he gires his public what he thinks it wants...
...And for all the ladies' clubs and parents' associations to look at too...
...Maxwell Anderson's "Winterset" was hailed with 3,259 refusals...
...Ami it is almost as pleasant to disagree with him as to nod your head in approving agreement...
...Wyllistine Goodsell, of Columbia University (retired...
...This is .-•-«?lind selling" and "block-book-: ing," if you wish, i •'*' Sounds as though the big pro-i ducers were taking advantage of . -the poor little local exhibitor, -doesn't it...
...1,503 Tolled up their silver screens against the horrid invasion of "Green Pastures...
...THE literature of the American Committee also * shows the names of many well-known party-liners and "friends" of the Communist Party...
...Two thousand, eight hundred and thirty-seven of them canceled Barrie's "Quality Street...
...meeting, it is now possible far The New Leader to prove that the American Committee is nothing but an "innocent front" for the Communist Party —and a particularly pernicious one owing to the regrettable ease with which the name of Dr...
...L F. Stone, writer...
...The pictures these "better movies" organizations desire are precisely the ones the theatre dreads—and the Neely Bill will permit him to kill...
...If it does why is it so reticent about the crimes of Stalin against the free intellect...
...Robert K. Speer, of New York University...
...Ralph Roeder...
...The Asiatic inheritance of servility, dwp?lpi and cruelty,—these are the abiding realties: Ivan the TerrtP...
...Still, there was Russia in* 19th century rapidly be<»inl?g European country, with -.'» JJMr literature and art, so ?dmiraffl...
...and machine guns...
...a reservoir of supporters for future actions in support of the Communist Party "line" m this country...
...Eugene Lyons will ha^ek^jS a new book to answer thif^S questions...
...Surely the government should step in and protect :the little man - ' Only, in this particular, it hap--pens to be a little man who is not there...
...These signers to the call of the American Committee for Democracy and Intellectual Freedom obviously allowed their names to be used in all good faith because of the importance of the Russell case...
...Are these the sex-films, the cheap and lurid pictures, the producers are forcing on the virtuous' exhibitors ? T And 2,971 also canceled Shakespeare's "Midsummer Night's Dream...
...Tt is this, and not the cry of -the club-women, that dictates his films...
...Well, perhaps not, and perhaps...
...In other words, persons who openly dafead the crimes of St?lin against intellectual and cultural freedom are in another connection ostensibly active in defending a victim of such a crime committed by others...
...A. J. Carlson, of the University of Chicago...
...Lyons was one -«f A* few observers and writers during the "United Froat"**^ moon, repeatedly warned theKjJJ ocratic world that the MJJ bride would leave the dtaialjf^ bridegroom in church m?^?H* with the "virile" Nasi t"t^fk...
...and Robert K. Speer of New York Univer-sity.All of the intensely politicalized elements that appear in the literature of the American Committee are Communists...
...Herman Shumlin, Broadway producer who was active in sabotaging theatrical benefits for the relief of Finland during the Russian invasion...
...DEFEAT THE NEELY BILL...
...It had nothing, however, to say about Russia, which prior to the Nazi-Soviet treaty, was considered "democratic" by many non-political anti-fascists...
...a general way he knows what it wants...
...j3 The Georgian Pries* *T*HERE is much in Lyons "Stalin" which this reviewer ?ndala * mirable...
...Last week it devoted pages of the Schwarze Corpa to a mouth-frothing diatribe against a cartoon called "Superman", now appearing in The New York Post...
...What can account for the fact that Franz Boas, world famous anthropologist, has become the nationally famous apologist for the U. S. Communist Party...
...Boas has enabled, persons behind the scenes to secure the adherence to its call for the meeting of some of the most distinguished names in American science: Prof...
...Boas in the matter of the American Committee is being grossly deceived...
...The Boas Committee is literally loaded with the names of people who for years have been the backbone of every big Stalinist front organization: The League of American Writers, etc., etc...
...Arthur KaHett, director of .Consumers Union, which is closely connected with the Commnnist Party...
...Arthur H. Cotmpton, of the University of Chicago...
...You hear in academic and intellectual circles well familiar with Boas' work: "Surely you don't mean that Professor Boas is a Communist...
...The anthor knows how to wear his writing rliilhuL fii prose is civilized, easy flowing, courteous, neither haranpninr m browbeating his reader...
...Ralph Boeder, writer and member of the Stalinist League of American Writers...
...1"0 ALL these evils, the Neely * Bill adds chaos...
...Robert S. Lynd, of Columbia University...
...however, views the European elements in Russian life as a kind of imported fashion, a Western veneer...
...Tbe Dante Alighieri Society maintains schools in the largest Italian communities...
...Some of the persons stigmatized as "fascists" by these signers of the "Committee of 400" are listed among those sponsoring the Carnegie Hall meeting of the American Committee...
...It is to be regretted that such a great scientist should be unable to see the devious political uses to which he is being put, but political alertness and intellectual greatness do not necessarily go together...
...It would increase the industry of serf-appointed censors, while leaving the producers to bring ont their best films at greater loss and to turn more and-more to the films hailed by such purp-periodicals as "Screen Nitwits...
...Boas heads it...
...The Russians themselves have felt, and given expression to, the conflict between the Asiatic and European elements in the Russian body and soul...
...I. I6TE© among the members, directors and sponsors of the American Committee are the following, wko in-the Magazine Soviet Russia ToBooks and Writers A Modern Jenghiz Khan ; m ALEXANDER HERTZEN, the great Socialist thinker of Eus»i», said" 80 years ago that he was little impressed by technic progress alone, that he could well imagine a new Asiatic despot and conqueror,—"a modern Jenghiz Khan with telegraphs...
...The Communist Party's turmoil over Dave Selznick's Gone With the Wind is just a gentle summer breexe compared with the coming pressure campaign...
...the theatre manager can guess •the taste of his public...
...Which is probably the next to the last thing the exhibitor wants...
...This is on record...
...Box office" has a strident voice, unrnistahable, tyrannic...
...of the League of American Writers...
...Halford E. Lucoock, j>f Yale University...
...H ence, Stalin, the little lame Tamerlane from Georgal...
...Wesley C. Mitchell, Dean Ned H. Dearborn, of New York University, Prof...
...Dirk J. Struik, of tfce Massachusetts Institute of Technology...
...culture and Marx are mechanical importations...
...In view of the reticence about Stalin is the Committee really interested in Stalin or is it primarily interested in (1) fund-raising, (2) general hell-raising when the opportunity presents itself as in the Russell case and (3) the organization of...
...Using the power the present contracts give him, here is what the theatre managers dici...
...Western on?Mi on an Asiatic body...
...President Frank P. Graham, of the University of North Carolina...
...With so many known and obvious Stalinists ¦ present throughout the Committee and on its governing sub-committees it should be clear that many of the more successfully disguised Stalinists must also be present...
...Lyons himself, with Borufss* civic institutions strikmg'?i roots,—growing, develomiir • the time...
...Alfred K. Stern and his wife, Martha Dodd, of the League of American Writers, both aetive in sending through the mails Stalinist literature from their offices in Rockefeller Center...
...Wyl-listine Goodsell, of Columbia university (retired...
...Gerald L. Wendt, Director of Science and Education at the New York World's Fair...
...You will note, of course, that the high-minded citizens are lined 5ip behind the poor picture-house proprietor...
...A NY prestige the American Committee may have in the minds of the politically initiated has its source in the fact that Dr...
...It is the modem incarnation of a long line of Asiatic conauerors and destroyers, the heir of Attilla and Tamerlane—Joseph Stalk himself, who is the subject of Eugene Lyon's book.* It is a fascinating subject and EageneLyons is one of the mot competent writers on this side of the ocean to deal with it...
...Drama Editor of The New Leader...
...the head of State and Church, rolled into one...
...After the Hitler-Stalin treaty the American Committee was asked by many persons to give an expression of opinion about Russia and Stalin, but this the Committee declined to do—on the strange ground that it was only concerned about American conditions...
...1I7HEN someone has said that a film was "lousy," have you ever • ™ felt he was being too kind...
...T*HE LAST thing the exhibitor wants is to lose money...
...For protective coloration they are surrounded by many non-Stalinists, none of whom are especially politicalized...
...The preservation <J* dictatorship was the goal: A1 rest was mere means and ahjWf' which could be changed This is no mere retroapasWj wisdom...
...Recent investigation reveals that the cultural machinery of this unholy alliance now prepares for a campaign to influence the pro-Allied American motion picture producers by an international, and domestic, boycott drive...
...There is something significant in the fact that Russia lies astride half of Europe and as much of Asia, that for a thousand years Europe and Asia have been fighting for the territory as well as .for the soul of Russia...
...Paul H. Douglas, of the University- of Chicago...
...Of purchasers of RKO pictures in 1938, for- example, only 32.per cent signed for the whole series...
...I "^CLyons's book ought to he ijg by all democrats, by all thbae^i feel the tragic problems «B...
...But the reason our exhibitor doesn't mention this to his civic censorship groups makes a second and even more interesting fact...
...To the ladies, he cries "Block-booking...
...Jim Dugan of the New Masses has urged booing and disturbances by the audiences to discourage exhibitors from showing such productions...
...Victor Pasche, also a vice president of the American Newspaper Guild and known in the Guild as a Stalinist...
...Stalin is the Khalif...
...They are no longer going to let him be bullied-into blind-buying...
...Stalin, who had studied for the priesthood, established a new religion with a God and Devil...
...Its propaganda dovetails into that of the Berlin- Moscow end of the Axis...
...The Committee, functioning as the American intellectual prop for the Rome-Berlin-Moscow Axis, is therefore nothing but a-, projection in another form of a Communist-governed teachers' union., Any strength given to the American Committee by the adherence of genuinely weighty names in American science is, consequently, nothing but strength added to the propaganda front of the Rome-Berlin-Moscow Axis which is now engaged in destroying intellectual freedom and democratic rights in Denmark and Norway as it previously destroyed them in Finland, Poland, Czecho-Slovakia and Austria...
...So closely is the German propaganda ministry watching anti-fascist material in this country that it has even attacked comic strips...
...Boo Brigade A S important as the economic offensive is to the Allies, the cultural and propaganda campaigns are to the Rome-Berlin-Moscow Axis...
...The non-Communist adherents to the declarations of the Boas Committee therefore face a serious question: Is their merited esteem for Prof...
...Already its endorsers include the American Association of University Women, the American Baptist Publication Society, the Board of Temperance of the Disciples of Christ, the Catholic Order of For¦ esters, the National Board of the YWCA, the National Education Association, the National Grange, and the WCTU...
...Wesley C. Mitchell, of Columbia University...
...Even with first-run theatres, there is a way of finding out...
...The exhibitor buys blind, but c ¦ 'the public knows what if s - go-¦ing to see...
...The American Committee for Democracy and Intellectual Freedom is the biggest and most plausible, of the new Communist Party "front" organizations...
...And his * public and the lively lady censors disagree...
...And, since it requires that An accurate synopsis be sent the -exhibitor in advance, it presents the sale of the picture until it is completely made...
...Furthermore, the Ameriean Committee includes among its active membership a large bloc of the signers of the hysterical statement of last August put out by the now notorious "Committee of 400" against the formation of ¦the Committee for Cultural Freedom...
...Something for the non-Stalinist supporters of the Carnegie Hall rally to ask themselves, in view of the foregoing, is: Does the Boas Committee have a genuine concern about intellectual freedom...
...One of the signers to the statement was Prof...
...God is Lenin...
...Bat his record and -the manner in which his name is used to induce other prominent liberal scholars 1» attach their names and support to Communist fronts, make irrelevant Boas' status in the Communist apparatus...
...they were also the heads of the State Church, orthodox and apostolic...
...Peter I. tyranny on top, slavery on the bottom,—this is pernaflatt "old" Russia...
...Dorothy Brewster, of Golunfti...
...Without knowing that the organizations, appeals, and causes celebres they Joined were merely the minute cogs in the transmission belt apparatus the Comintern has set up in this country, many anti-totalitarian progressives, much to their chagrin, have learned too late that they had been used by the same GPU puppeteers who pull the strings for the Browders in the United States...
...T'HE Boas Committee presents us with an old * story: a nucleus of highly conscious and very active Stalinists surrounded by a protective bulwark of "big names...
...Marx—an Importation I YONS...
...Mi lifer achieved a certain local fame when he approved the Nazi-Soviet treaty in the pages of the New York Post...
...Ralph Barat?n Perry, of Harvard University...
...It would turn the present check on pictures from the present limited but unified Hays office and the Production Code, into some 12,000 separate censorship groups, each bem-barding the local theatres with its prejudices and limitations...
...The fact remains that this perhaps well-meaning attempt at government regulation of motion picture distribution 'would intensify the very evil it is supposed to correct...
...The argument is mgerdtttp' the illustrations from sian history, from Tolrtoy <?j other sources, are divertinf j| plausible...
...Trotzky is the Devil...
...Ralph Barton Perry of Harvard, Prof...
...A. J. Carlson, of the University of Chicago, et al...
...And back go ajl the earnest, high-minded, intelligent and oh...
...Counts, President Graham, Prof...
...He shall have—so the Neely Bill requires, with penalty of .$5,000 fine and a year in jail for falsification or failure—a fair synopsis of the picture to look at before he purchases...
...George S. Counts, of Columbia University...
Vol. 23 • April 1940 • No. 17
