Where the News Ends
HARRISON, CHARLES YALE
Where the News Ends By Charles Yale Harrison THE conqueror- doesn't have to alibi. Victory is self-explanatory. But in the camp of the vanquished, men berate each other and the...
...The New Leaderw comes this move...
...written by Mike Quin, and "John Bull Declared this War —Now God Save the King...
...BEYOND our province perhaps *¦* is literary criticism—but that field doesn't quite encompass the much over-publicized addition to New York City's family of daily newspaper—PM...
...PM is anti-defense, anti-rearmament, anti-Roosevelt, and • tsA-AUy...
...If only Paris and London hadn't financed Jthe Nazis in the early days after their rise to power...
...If only Italy had been stopped in Ethiopia...
...We are in a long war against'Fascism in the world sad against Fascism in America...
...But this tremendous German push springs as much from a coordinated social life as from army equipment amy discipline, army leadership...
...Its latest front is the "Consolidated- Tribes of North American Indians of Milwaukee County — who want no Nazi scalps and so are isolationists...
...JjL free peoples of the world have just begun to fight Tsay .need and will receive in ever increasing measure the aid of the American people...
...Instead of mentioning the Nazi-Soviet pact in his indictment he adopts the Communist line by writing that "with the non aggression pact of last August, Russia turned the tables in the Western leaders who hoped to shunt Hitler to the Ukraine...
...let us first grant the vote to trie millions of disfranchised poor white and Negroes in the South...
...That is the fate that threatens Stalin...
...The "Yanks Are Not Coming"tldgan will be coupied* with a new one which you will hear shortly: "Ashcan the M-Plan...
...OEFORE another month is out America may be the last of the effective democracies...
...We have our share-croppers, our Okies, our unemployed...
...A few day ago Gerhard Wiihelm Kunze, who" inherited the'fuehrership of the German^Anierican Bund when Fritz ;Kuhn3vent to Sing Sing, decided *to':eieplbit German victories by : ruSKfcng'td' lleading for some per/sohjtfrsupervision of the organizatiqu^riyes...
...Washingreporters who know the devastation a blue pencil can wreak on imaginative copy swear to the truth of a report that John Lewis and Senator Burton K. Wheeler have made a deal on some sort of third party effort...
...Our greatest weakness is not the absence of tanks and bombers, but the presence of ten million unemployed...
...The dynamic...
...They asst develop a sense of responsibility...
...But the arrival of huge Soviet military contingents in the Baltic states and, the feverish strengthening of the Russian front vis-a-vis Germany indicate only too pointedly that Stalin now fears a German blow against Soviet Russia...
...And then what) Then we shall hear once more the cry from Moscow that fascism is the enemy of mankind...
...This program will be readv for "submission to degress within three or four weeks...
...America is wealthy enough to engage in the greatest defense program the world has ever seen and at the same time continue its program of social reform...
...And now Stalin discovers that Hitler's calculation appears to have been sounder than his...
...at war against the Rome-Berlin-Moscoiu Axis...
...Aid let us not delude ourselves with talk about regimentation and goose-stepping;' all armies are regimented and most of fhem have the equivalent of the goose-step, The startling fact about the battle of Flanders and France was that the •Nazi troops stormed the French positions with •all the insane fanaticism and blind courage of a crusading army...
...When that day comes we shall fail, I predict, unless we have drawn all the conclusions from the Allied defeats...
...More dangerous than an enemy fleet are the hundreds of thousands of homeless Arkies,-Okies and Texies...
...For Italy, too, it must be remembered, has ambitions where Russia is concerned...
...AN army of German refugee intellectuals, who used to sit about in the cafes of Berlin and who now sit about in the- cafea of New York, told us that Hitler's collapse was only a matter of months...
...Hence, the panic in Moscow, the panic of gangsters and traitors who have failed in their figuring...
...COMPULSORY SERVICEA MERICA is marshalling her forces for the fight...
...XUHICH reminds this comnxen. tator that the Comintern's apparatus is ready to deluge the United States with another Mike Qui* pamphlet aimed at the administration's defense program...
...The constant refrain will be: "If only , . ." If only there had been enough tanka and planes...
...Naturally, in the face of a crusading army which imagines it is fighting for a revolutionary Utopia, abstractions are powerless...
...It will be advertised as a "sizzling 24-page booklet which takes the lid off the blue print for American fascism...
...The AUantic sal Pacific Oceans are one safeguard—as if there were not mom ocean between New York and Buenos Aires than there » between either of these cities and the European coasts, sas as if Alaska and Hawaii were not within good striking da> tance from Japan and were not handy stepping stones to S** Francisco and Puget Sound...
...WETERANS of the Lincoln and y Garibaldi brigades which formed parts of the International divisions in the Spanish loyalist army are forming a new international battalion, under the command of Major Umberto Galleani, to fight Nazi and Italian aggression...
...But it will be too late—for Stalin...
...The "Daily Worker" used to quote its stories and say "accordingly to the noted liberal ¦.vctkly, The Week...
...German National Socialism plans to give the German people all the benefits of collectivism—at the expense ' of the conquered peoples...
...The Maginot Line fell not because of what stood before it, but because of what lay behind it...
...But above all, we had better stop indulging ourselves in glandular workouts of useless hate and settle down to a bout of serious thinking...
...For the dictators have placed an automatic against the rrbs of American democracy and have said: "Come on, big boy, talk fast...
...I still want to see that war fought But in the light of what has happened in Europe, I now say we must enter the war not bound by the shackles of poverty and social injustice...
...What we must search for in this dark hour for Western democracy are not so much the causes' of the Allied defeat, but the reasons for...
...Aid to the Allies becomes "steps leading toward war" in PM's headlines...
...They helped make their country...
...The GI.O...
...And sooner or later it is inevitable that we shall fifirf ourselves in conflict With the totalitarian powers...
...Like what...
...And it may not even be an alternative...
...PM is privileged to any policy it can sell...
...But in the camp of the vanquished, men berate each other and the bitter recrimination continues long after: the event, running on to the tapering edge of time...
...Their headquarters is at 2 West 15 Street...
...The German people were starving...
...But Hitler may not find need of him any longer...
...of the present tremendous push toward national unity, national efficiency, national armament...
...The European democracies are going down in ruins today, not because they have erred tactically, but because their entire strategy, political and economic, was conditioned by a desire to maintain the existing social order...
...FO WARDS the end of the last war,, particu*,larly in the summer and fall of 1918, German troops were frequently driven in battle at the .point of the revolver...
...that it is, after all, not a "matter of taste...
...Having helped Hitler to victory the Moscow condotieri now discover that they may be hoisted by their own petard...
...The "peace" propaganda spread throughout the country under the slogan: "The Tanks Aren't Coming...
...Lindbergh's method is to pooh-pooh every fact that doat not lead up to his preconceived conclusion and accept wioV out verification every statement that does...
...They attacked with the intauuigeant spirit of revolutionists who are prepared bo die for a cause...
...He unifies the myriad impulses from individuals, groups, sections...
...This being so it might be well to inquire into the reasons for this astonishing unity which has in a few short years, generated the greatest reserve of military energy the world has ever seen...
...No system of forts is strong enough to defend a social system rotten with poverty, prostitution and economic degradation...
...Stalin may, therefore, find himself confronted with the necessity of fighting Hider single-handed, without being able to count not only upon the support of the bleeding Allied peoples but upon the sympathy of his own...
...Stalin is now approaching a situation in which, should England, too, be brought to her knees, he will find himself, alone, face to face with a victorious Nazi Germany...
...Efficient Germans marching over inefficient Frenchmen gave us a thrill of horror...
...In the contingency of a Nazi victory, Stalin was quite ready to continue doing business with Hitler in exchange for permission to remain in power...
...IF Herbert Hoover or Tom * Dewey are nominated at Republican Convention they can have the services, in their campaign for the presidency of John Spargo, leading pre-war Socialist, who is using his influence in "Philadelphia for a ticket on which Hoover will have first place, Dewey second...
...But all'these are effects, hot causes...
...He put the nation to work...
...He instituted many effective reforms...
...Moreover, there is no guarantee that Hitler may wait to crush England before turning upon Russia...
...This,-then, is no driven, automaton army...
...In the Nazi version the Kremlin slogan becomes: "Socialism for one country...
...Even after capture, when most troops.are inclined to docility, the German prisoners sprang to attention before their captors and heiled Hitler...
...The CCC boys are better Americans because they hew conserved forests, built roads...
...This was only a sitzkrieg...
...We cannot make democracy their faith by means of cones* tration camps and propaganda...
...As long ago as last September I urged the United States to join the Allies in the w"ar against Hitlerjsm...
...As efficient America must embody them into our creative lift— and not just for a year of compulsory service...
...Some hours after Italy declared war the Italian consuls here publicly told the 7,000,000 Italians * that their duty to the home country was to fight American aid to the Allies and whoop it up for isolation, the Communist Party> over the signature of Peter V. Cacchione issued a leaflet addressed to the Italian people in their own language urging them to follow exactly the line asked for by n Duce's agents here...
...It doesn't explain how France, third most powerful empire in the world, was brought to its knees in thirty days by a nation which but yesterday was said to be ready for collapse...
...And why...
...But we might as well face the fact that National Socialism did a job for most of Germany...
...It would merely emphasize the enormity of Communist treachery, treachery to Europe, to democracy, to the working class the world over and, last but not least, to the" Russian people...
...in him and through him reaches all of the organs of government This is nothing new, nothing fascist, nothing onAmerican...
...An error in judgment can explain a tactical defeat, a momentary setback...
...And before we emblazon the word democracy on our batCl'e standards...
...be quite impossible for an Old World completely dominsted by the totalitarian and controlling the resources of Asia sad Africa to invade the Americas, but there would be nothsaj very difficult for us in forcing the twenty republics, from Mexico and Cuba to Argentina, to do what we tell the** whether they like it or not...
...Roosevelt's plan for compulsory training of youth becomes a drive for "regimentation...
...It is no secret that Mussolini has long coveted the Crimea and parts of the Black Sea coast as components of bis new empire...
...He coordinated its energies...
...To Stalin the outbreak of the war had offered two -possibilities: a Europe dominated by Hitler or a Europe dominated by Stalin, a Europe dominated by the Nazi brand of totalitarianism, or a Europe overwhelmed by the Soviet brand...
...To be sure, he continues to play the jackal role and has grabbed Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia under the so-called "non-aggression pacts" Moscow had forced upon these countries at the beginning of hostilities...
...The Nazis have long sought to set up strong cells in that sector but have failed...
...We are matohi&t ourselves against a power which has given new meaning to the word efficiency...
...The President obvissdy threw it out to the nation in its unfinished form for thoJaV of discussion, criticism, agreement...
...For verification of the incident check with the state police records and the...
...They're offering their services to the Allies and will soon launch a wide drive for the lifting of the ban on American volunteers...
...A GOOEhA«wMA^ri^f JF young Charles A. Lindbergh had not captured the imagination of the American people by that bold, skJllfuL and lucky flight to Paris thirteen years ago and by the modesty of his behavior before and after it, no one would now be listening with bated breath when he talks about problems of statesmanship and world politics...
...The Nazi economy is a vampire economy...
...No doubt he is an exceptionally good aviator, just as Arturo Totcanm is a marvelous orchestral conductor and Albert Einstein • wizard in mathematical physics, but no one regards Einstem as an authority on internal medicine, no one would attach special weight to Toscanini's opinions on geology, and there is no reason why Lindbergh's utterances on the preparedaes) and the war-danger should command more attention thss those of the average man in the street « We need not question Lindbergh's sincerity, but we «** defend it only on the assumption that he never takes tb* trouble to think twice before he speaks...
...In less than a year they have knocked off nearly half of Europe...
...We'd better do it right the first time...
...The greater proportion of them are ardently democratic, many being veteran socialists...
...Stalin baa discovered that his shrewd calculation when he concluded his pact with Hitler last August and thereby started the world conflagration has "been upset by events, it seems now that Stalin may not gain immunity after all, despite the invaluable service he has performed for Hitler, not only in the pact, which freed Hitler's hands for the war in the West, but in other moves, diplomatic and military, made by Moscow since the war, in perfect synchronization with Berlin...
...There are thousands of Americans of German descent living but in Reading and Berks county...
...He may want a gendarme appointed from Berlin, since he no more trusts Stalin than Stalin trusts him...
...that Nazi imperialism must be destroyed...
...Washington Post...
...The downfall of France within a few weeks, with England fighting with her back to the wall, has placed Stalin in a dangerous position...
...Hitler has blitzkrieged many a fallacious notion into oblivion...
...The Montanan plans to pull out of the Democratic convention in a huff, the moment the resolutions committee brings in an appeal for further aid to the allies...
...Of sheer insult to New Yorkers is page 7 of the first day's publication where Tom O'Connor— they knew him well in Los Angeles— gioath over the fact that appeasement of dictator nations is responsible for the fate of France > today...
...And to an Englishman on the .dole, or a Frenchman who, before he was called to the colors, slept under the bridges of Paris, liberty and democracy are things which suddenly burst into print when the status quo is threatened...
...In the back of Kunze's car were not only stacks of the Deutscher Weckruf und Beobachter but literature and stickera publshed by the Communist Party and its front organizations...
...As for the Russian people, they too, we hope, will par...
...After the showing made by the Finns against the Soviet army, after the ease with which Hitler has been able' to break France, can there be any doubt of what he could do to Stalin...
...in Chicago shortly...
...It devotes a quarter of page 9 of Wednesday's paper to poking fun at the drive on the fifth column...
...All bet "¦" forces^"Tor* the greatest fight in her history...
...chief and the Senator—who has been turned down for even second place spot on the New Deal national ticket—will launch a national peace campaign, backed by isolationists on the extreme- right and the pro-Soviet left...
...As Ferdinand Lassalle put it, to quote him in American slang, "Many a wise guy has lost his head by trying to be just a bit too smart in matters of great importance...
...In countless articles we were informed that he was only bluffing...
...And if his military successes continue, he may well live up to his promises...
...National power center...
...Mec*d an tfte ?ett By V/CTOR RiESEL r? was the turn of the Pennsylvania State Police, last week to provide the link of Nazi-Communist cooperation here— a tte-up which reporters on a dozen large cities have been seeking since last September...
...Hitler made his pact with him so that Germany might not have to fight the war on two fronts at the same time...
...Describing his project PH writes that it "equally violates the American tradition in other directions etc...
...LAUDE Cockburn's magazine ^ "The Week," which has been virtually the mouth piece of the Soviet Foreign office in London, has been ordered not to rer.d copies out of England because of the fifth columning in which it is engaged...
...The Wheeler-Lewis drive will get-the support of the coming "national peace conference" which will be set up by the C;P...
...Land, employment, plenty—here and now...
...lie and his assistant JesJspp*' FHrner of Hoboken were •reeefved- ,by the Pennsylvania Stajt-Police, who picked them up as suspicious characters...
...This German coordination has been attained through force, through outward pressure, If we are to match it at must attain a better result through voluntary and inner cohesion...
...They climbed over their dead, irresistable, singing the Horst WesseJ song...
...Stalin would unquestionably sell his country to Hitler, as he sold the democracies to Nazi Germany, in exchange for being permitted to act as her gendarme in Russia...
...Tolischus to the New York Times from the Swedish capital,-report that die Kremlin is in panic...
...Leon "Goodelman of the Labor Department uses an inch ofi precious space to advertise a party line "peace" rally...
...But that would be poor consolation for the democracies...
...that France, England, Germany and Italy would all bleed to death, and that with the consequent exhaustion and devastation of Europe Soviet Russia would, at the end, have the deciding,voice...
...To achieve the Soviet objective, Stalin, who hates the democracies no less than do Hitler and Mussolini, made his pact with Berlin and his peace with the Duce in order that they might be entirely free to make war upon the rest of the continent...
...If he went about mechanical problems that way he could neither design s plane nor fly one...
...The reasons for the Allied catastrophe run deeper, much deeper, and cannot be charged to this general or that statesman...
...The dictator in the Kremlin deliberately helped Hitler start the war with the idea in mind that it would be a long war...
...You haven't much time...
...The alternative he now faces is slightly different from the one on which he calculated when he made his pact with Hitler...
...Yesterday's shibboleths will avail us nothing...
...It is this that President Roosevelt had in nunc on Tuesday when he suggested a year of universal military, industrial and agricultural training for our young men ssd women...
...We shall hear again appeals for a Popular Front, and the entire char, latanry of the Soviet play with the democracies wifl 1„ repeated...
...the fascist victories...
...It would, he saw...
...ticipate in the victory, after they shall have settled accsasn with those who have betrayed them...
...But above all, he promises real and tangible rewards to those who follow him...
...If only America had sent sufficient arms and ammunition...
...Every boy, every girl, every old man or woman has a part in the production of the supplies and in maintaining the mighty transportation chain whict follows the rapidly moving German fronts...
...There was to be time enough to grab Russia after the rest of Europe shall have been subjected under the Nazi heel...
...Their faith must be bessl on facta They must love America and her system becasw life here is good...
...that Franco-British imperialism and American imperialism are, after all, "enlightened" imperialisms, to be preferred to the barbarian imperialism of Germany and Italy...
...I speak only for myself...
...MOSCOW KATZENJAMMER TRAVELERS arriving in Stockholm from Moscow, cables Mr...
...However, it must be admitted that for a starving people the Germans have done very well ^jor themselves...
...On the same page he blames the United States' for selling . oil to Italy during the invasion of Ethiopia, but casually neglects to mention the...
...Whether they' Bk_e...
...functionaries have devised a chain letter plan for its distribution...
...If only the Allies had united against Franco...
...huge trade and oil agreements signed between the Soviets and Italy, not only during the Ethiopian incident bat daring the Spanish civil war as well...
...Unfortunately, Hitler isn't giving anyone a second chance...
...England may prove aharder nut to crack than France, and the complete domination of Russia, organized and administered by Germany, may become as necessary to Hitler as the domination of Russia appeared necessary to Napoleon in his ambition to conquer the British Isles...
...Hitler in control of the vast resources of Russia might well prove unconquerable...
...And Russian resources cannot be organized as long as Stalin and his corrupt, inefficient, parasitic regime remain in power...
...fn the second edition President Roosevelt is accused of "having designs on the mind of the youth as well as on their lives and bodies...
...That's precisely what Hitler meant when he said: "Lebensraum...
...We have young people wio "believe in "isms...
...We have, especially, our millions of boyi and girls leaving school without the prospect of jobs...
...Nor is it impossible that failing to destroy England and needing additional victories, Hitler may turn his attention to Russia to complete his conquest of the continent...
...For no matter how well we arm we, too, shall face defeat unless our troops are fighting more than slogans coined by glib propagandists...
...At Sedan and Dunkirk, however, the Nazis atta/ked, elbow to elbow, in the face of the most murderous fire imaginable...
...I know that what follows will outrage yesterday's crop of emotional anti-fascists...
...He is our democratic leader...
...It is pointless to deny any longer that Hitler has the vast majority of the German people behind him...
...It is true that thousands of liberals, labor leaders, Jews and Catholics were thrown into concentration camps for opposing the regime, but for the moment all that doesn't matter...
...To play our part we must be ready to match planes with planes, tanks with tanks...
...This new tabloid isn't a daily whose birth we can announce and then suggest you "file and forget...
...it or not Lewis and Wheeler will be backed in such a campaign by the propaganda ministries of the German and Italian government, whose radios are already predicting that "a third party would sweep the United States if it could find a suitable Presidential candidate...
...Exactly the same thing happened in the day* of Washington, of Jefferson, of Jackson, of Lincoln...
...A page plays up isolationist sentiment over the country...
...And so it will be in France—and in England per' haps—for many years to come...
...And I am certain that If the French ruling class had the opportunity again, it, too, would be satistiea with considerably less...
...COME story hardened...
...With creation comes love and a sense of doty...
...This reservation is significant in view of the fact that the United States is all but...
...THHE Communist Party is taking ¦ no chances on being called unAmerican...
...Like housing developments in scores of German cities...
...In- the first two issues it has criticized much but has failed to say anything editorially unkind about the German, Italian or Russian governments...
...All that is required is that our sixty families and their beneficiaries take a smaller cut of the national income...
...r\SCAR AMERINGER, who has been cashing in on his peculiar ability to peddle shibboleths, recently dropped Charles W. Ervin as Eastern editor of the "American Guardian" because the latter attacked Stalin in his last weekly column in that sheet...
...Thus Hitler takes .another leaf put of Stalin's text-book...
...Like hospitalization plans and old-age security...
...But the pictures of Nazi warrior...
...The war...
...If only Stalin hadn't betrayed the democracies...
...ALLIANCES on the peace front move in logical directions...
...He cannot organize the continent without Russian resources...
...After cutting through the fanfare and drivil surrounding the new sheet, examination of its first two issues reveals that without much subtlety the policy of PM parallels that of the Communist Partly...
...he helped to unleash will go on until the extermination of totalitarianism—his brand and Hitler's...
...As I have said before, we are rich enough to build both battleships and lowrent housing...
...Like the marriage loan law under which young couples m$y borrow up to $400 for the purchase of furniture and household articles upon which no interest is paid...
...This must be their country...
...He made his pact with Hitler for the very good reason that he could not fight would not fight and wanted others to do the fighting...
...If only the British had gotten rid of Chamberlain sooner...
...What matters to the German people is that Hitler has gjven them bread and military circuses...
...And from -¦dWrioa, there is going to be lots -of butter in Germany and less in France, Belgium, Holland and Denmark...
...CORROBORATION of this column's prediction that the isolationists in the Socialist Party were really a few lastditch metaphysicians — a minority in control of the party's top spots—came this week when the Socialist Party of Wisconsin at its -state convention asked the national executive committee to review its war policy and come out for aid to the Allies...
...clanking down a Champs Elysees which they could never create roused in us—most of all-a stern determination to defend, to recreate, to extend, and develop the civilization for which Paris stands...
...But New Yorkers should know what they're buying...
...In our social and military preparation President Roosevelt is not oar fuehrer...
...You can't substitute cannon for batter...
Vol. 23 • June 1940 • No. 25
