Where the News Ends

HARRISON, CHARLES YALE

Where the News Ends By Charles Yale Harrison The following fragment from the chapter "Prelude to Destiny" is from Dr. Jan Paasikivi's monumental historical work entitled "A History of the United...

...These clerical hate-mongers are playing a risky game...
...So at least he has told reporters during the recent months during which he was being tried on charges of attempts to overthrow the government...
...only be described as pampered parasitism...
...Although survivors of the disastrous French retreat from the Meuse reported, that French soldiers who sympathized with the Soviet regime deliberately aided in creating panic in the ranks of General Corap's army, the American government not only continued to countenance American communist activity but actually allowed partisans of the Stalin-Hitler rapprochement to function as a legal political party, a fact which served admirably to conceal its subversive, treasonable operations...
...Ceremonies occurred at a rally held under the auspices of the Christian Front...
...It is not for us to voice suspicions—or even strong convictions not based on factual evidence...
...Although Mr...
...The French in 1939 had not less than 4,500,000 trained reservists (outside the colonies), which makes 300 divisions...
...The prerequisite, however, is a mind keeping close contact With facts and values which sound logic and a warm heart have approved, news that the C.I.O...
...I wrote, of course, "not only by treason, stupidity and greed...
...The result does not augur well for die painters' organization...
...In the light of the disclosures that followed the opening of the Russian archives after the democratic revolution in the middle of the last century, it seems unbelievable that adults in ttfeir right senses could have been deluded by the crudities and forgeries of the Bolshevik propaganda machine...
...Only a few weeks ago Mr...
...work only 40 hours a week...
...So, for example, whèn he polemicizes against an alleged statement of mme "that "hot by treason, stu-pj3&y j and greed" was France sm&shed...
...Simply because pacifist, leftist France preferred to use that money for the noble project of fine social improvements...
...Thus,, with the country split by conflicting economic interests, with sections rotten with the lust for ease and further decayed by cynicism, and with sociological naivete the rule rather than the exception, the first response to the military and economic danger of the dictatorships was ill-considered, haphazard, if not hysterical...
...See Chapters -and XV on Slavery and Sharecropping...
...He warned against attempts at "controlling their destinies in any other manner...
...Still we were shocked to learn that sections of the Catholic Church had participated officially in the demonstratio...
...unions in the industry...
...The Communist party is known to have spent large sums of money to win the election...
...Semi-literate congressmen and antiquated generals and admirals passed upon measures, the seriousness of which they but dimly comprehend...
...Control of the painters' organization by the Communists and their Nazi associates constitutes a threat to the wage and work standards m the building industry...
...Omission of the word "permanent" in the first sentence completely changes its meaning...
...Harrison reproaches roe for not having given sufficient figures in my analyses—although I promised them—I must humbly adnjit that he, at least, would really have needed them, as he proves by his writing...
...To leave no doubt as to what he meant, he added: "This difference proceeds from that which exists in their respective governments"—-the difference, that, is, between autocracies and republics...
...A few days "before the assault upon England and a few months before the international* 'Crisis deepened for America, it...
...Cassidy will merely tell you that he "intends to wipe out all Judaism in these United States...
...the meantime, however, millions of dollars and much-needed nervous, energy was wasted in this useless campaign...
...As the German armies moved from victory to victory and as the war gave promise of developing into oge between continents, the American people were diverted from the menace of approaching fascism by the pyrotechnics of political oratory...
...No, it is not {he third-term tradition that we are thinking of just now, but the isolationist tradition, which is commonly supposed to stem from Washington's Farewell Address, modified by the Monroe Doctrine...
...But they are useful only, on condition that they are not regarded as sacred precepts, to be literally obeyed, regardless of consequenes...
...In explaining the French defeat with the bald fact that against Hitler's 200 divisions France merely had GO at her disposition, Mr...
...9 has brought back the Communists under Louis Weinatock into power...
...It has been no parochial secret that Father Curran, head of the Catholic Truth Society and Brooklyn diocese leader, has approved the anti-semitism of Father Coughlin's magazine and of the Brooklyn Tablet, official Catholic newspaper...
...A Communist victory was also essential to John L Lewis in his efforts to raid the A.F.ofL...
...This is the only building trades union under Communist domination...
...the inherent devilry of what Der Fuehrer falsely calls "aatnill socialism...
...There was at least onè sentence in Mr...
...But it seems that a good many of our publicists and politicians are not aware that President Monroe went further...
...and that in Germany, contrary to the rotten French democracy, nobody was allowed "to disport himself at the luxurious hotels at Biarritz and on the Riviera...
...1*HE DELIBERATE PROVOCATION on a limited scale) and with the services of qualified mechanics, who in France's most critical years (while Germany introduced a working week of 60 to 70 hours) had the inclination—at all times a truly legitimate desire— to...
...Such an Industrial Council would be to all interits and purposes a Communist G.H.Q., a center of disruptive activity, wholly in line with the Stalinist program of undermining the labor movement of the United States as part of the larger objectives of the Fifth Column in this country...
...President Monroe then gave notice to all the world that "the American continents are henceforth nof' to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers"—in plain words, that this country would resist with armed force any attempt by those powers to acquire new territory in the Americas or to take back what they had lóst In this he had the backing oi Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, his predecessors in the presidency, and of John Quincy Adams, then his secretary of state, who Succeeded him in the White House...
...With authority held in contempt by precisely those who should have respected it, and with the crassest materialism dominant in the upper and middle classes, such expressions as freedom, democracy and the dignity of man were looked upon by increasing numbers- with disbelief or skeptical scorn...
...and, a little further on: "Taking care always to keep ourselves on a respectable defensive posture, we may safely trust to temporary allianceis for extraordinary emergencies...
...For nearly two decades prior to catastrophe, American intellectuals, though having little in common culturally or economically with Russia, were strangely influenced by what was then known as "the Soviet experiment...
...Harrison's unfairness is somewhat eased by a disarming lack of competency...
...At the s~was written, there were million^ living pie "perilous edge of actual starvation, ten workers were unemployed and vast sec-pW ,the population, particularly in the South the Southwest, were kept in a state that y-be termed as degrading...
...feud...
...On Independence Day—when the nation worshipped at an altar inscribed with the words "All men are creatod equal"—a section of the Brooklyn diocese of the Roqiyft Catholic Church was host to Mr...
...organization in the city, hais flatly refused to be associated with the scheme, on the very good gTound that it is unnecessary and can serve only to accentuate the bitterness of the A.F.ofL.-C.I.O...
...So intense is hk hatred, he has devised a rather unpleasant future for them when Der Tag comes and he assumes the fuehrerdlip of this nation...
...It is a fact that already the Ku-Klux Klan, from the Impend Wizard down to the lowliest Kleagle, from New Eriglsnd to Florida and Colorado, is translating this just resantmeat against Coughlin and the Front into active anti-CatboHcum, These are threatening symptoms in a nation preparing to place itself as the last bulwark between European military totalitarianism and freedom, culture, and civilization...
...Jan Paasikivi's monumental historical work entitled "A History of the United States: 1900-2055...
...Referring to the members of the Holy Alliance he said: "The political system of the allied powers is essentially different from that of America...
...One thing seems morally certain, however...
...It wat published in the year 2073 at Helsinki,' the original manuscript of which is now in the University of Stockholm...
...I do nob think that the absence of knowledge sufficiently .justifies the absence of logic...
...But—Mr...
...An artificial business boom, fed by war contracts, soon got under way and further complicated the political situation by creating the illusion of prosperity...
...Faced with the most fearful evidence of the necessity for centralized control as a result of the German victories,, the Republican candidate, a spokesman for the banking fraternity, called for less government control and a greater measure of economic anarchy, one of the factors that led to the downfall -of the older systems in Europe...
...He did not speak only of attempted conquest of our young sister republics...
...ers -To the Editor Schlamm Chides Harrison, Supplies Him With Some Figures From WILLI SCHLAMM J was somewhat startled last weet when I turned to page 8 fof "Where the News Ends"—and the discussion, too...
...Ridding a union of Communazi conspirators who fasten themselves upon an organization by methods threatening the very existence of organised labor should be as important a responsibility for the American Federation of Labor as driving racketeers from the movement The building trades unions in this city are directly and vitally concerned...
...When, for instance,- Mr...
...Like France, which but a few vweeks before had been forced to its knees by the might of the heavily armed and closely coordinated German nation, the United States was reclining comfortably against the cushions of its social shibboleths of yesterday...
...The thunder of fascist artillery and the drone of Nazi planes were drowned out for the time being by the stentorian voices of thousands of political office-seekers...
...Important sections of the upper classes were openly callous and contemptuous of the fate which threatened the country...
...said: ^Thfi jêar it has suddenly become imperative {&:J$^t&in..fhe outward forms of civilized living...
...They make for continuity of progress instead of drifting or -haphazard adventure...
...And hè gave what would now be called an "ideological" reason for this stand...
...sponsored by the anti-semitic Front...
...Americans are broadly tolerant, especially in matters of religious belief...
...as long as that lasted, nothing else mattered...
...Harrison speaks about the "criminal lack"' of modern war machines in France, he should have noticed that he merely repeats the statement he •wished: to criticize: that France, during- the past years, spent her budgets for other, certainly far more agreeable types of goods, instead of spending it for dirty war machines...
...Cassidy...
...Whaé he did say was much more statesmanlike...
...CQurse, Mi% Harrison, who is especially good at predicting the past, hut spojls that great quality by 'quoting incorrectly...
...Such outrages are not the work of opponents of the totalitarian powers^ THE AMERICAN TRADITION DIGHTLY used, national traditions have real values...
...world who did expect it—except, of...
...I am sowy that I didn't reveal these figures to Mr...
...In his müder moments Mr...
...And while the farmer*, those eternal individualist«, declared themselves ready tp i^Iie in...
...Yet the fact remained that thousands of intellectuals and workers, particularly after the signing of the Hitler-Stalin pact, found themselves-opposed to the democracy as practiced by England, France and thé United States in favor of the tyrannical system .which obtained in Russia...
...the killing of French and Diitch- Catholics...
...Weinstock was elected by a combination of Communiste and Nazis...
...Cassidy shared star billing with die RevereaÉ Father Edward Brophy and Leo Healy...
...Harrison's longing for figures, I might tell him that Leon Blum's government, while it increased public expenditures ,in 1936 from 40 billion francs to 48 billion francs in 1937, it decreased the expenditure for air armament from 2,400,000,000 franc* in 1936 to 1,200,000 francs in 1937, and the amounts for the army «from 7 billion in 1936 to 5.9 billion in 1937...
...Harrison is going too far in his self-torturing admiration for Nazi Germany when he states in so many words that Hitler (what a man...
...I think you have a grand paper...
...Thomas Aquinas Roman Catholic Church...
...Harrison would be right in a really convincing fashion if hè only were not so terribly wrong...
...Bat Americans—including millions of American Catholics, «« believe—dread and abhor clerical influence on the politica...
...It was a real bomb this time, not a relatively harmless fake like the two which were simultaneously set off outside Communist and Nazi offices a couple of weeks ago...
...Harrison's intellectual difficulties...
...Once they infiltrate an organization in large numbers it becomes extremely difficult to eject them and the bona fide members of the union become subject to Storm Troop con-trot In the instance of the Painters' Union, the Communist party was determined to win the election at all costs because it meant retaining its springboard in the building trades...
...The responsible leaders and members of the C.I.O...
...Harrison omitted merely a single word of four letters, and what does one word count with a writer who has so many of them...
...Considering the circumstances, it will now be a hard task to rid the union of the Communazi termites without energetic intervention by the International Brotherhood of Painters and the American Federation of Labor...
...for dinner is one of them...
...I do not want to spoil love affairs, but Hitler is really not arf good as all that, and during the last years these luxurious hotels at Biarritz and on the Riviera were by far more crowded with Nazi big shots and German industrialists than by French bourgeoige...
...is determined to go through 1 with its plan of forming a city-wide Industrial Council in New York reads like a deliberate provocation...
...Harrison, but I simply had to file his piece,< because I shall never find better material to show some future arrival to this country an example of what Americans have in mind when Ukes the Stimulating Columns of the Paper From CHARLES G. KRANZ To the Editor: I can't help appending these remarks to my renewal subscription blank...
...These are his words: "It is our true policy to steer clear of .permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world...
...To blame me for not having expected a German offensive in {heiWest is a bit unfair even for a colleague: literally, there was not a single military expert in the...
...That the Communists, who constitute the controlling factor in most of the unions which would join the .new Industrial Council, should be active in engineering its formation is, of course, not surprising...
...Strange as it may Sound...
...In 182 I Tsar Alexander I laid claim to every foot of the west coast of this continent down to Vancouver's Island...
...the defense of their small holdings, their inherent provincialism made it impossible for' them to realize the enormity of the danger in Europe...
...Why...
...Judging by the utterances of some of our public men as well as of sundry youth groups who gleefully chant "The Yanks Aren't Coming," our high-school teachers of history must have been woefully remiss for the last generation or two, for we hear men of sixty as well as lads of sixteen misquoting the first president's words and quoting those of the fifth president very incompletely...
...Who these last-minute "voters" were may be gleaned from the old Communist practice of colonizing an organization with outside "party liners" and voting cattle who have not- the remotest relation to the trade and the unidn...
...In the second sentence, which our isolationists always suppress, even advocates of active participation in the present war find George Washington On their side—unless, indeed, the' isolationists are impudent enough to deny that there is now an extraordinary emergency...
...I'm v?ly- sorry for Mr...
...And because I wholly appreciate Mr...
...The Amalgamated Clothing Workers' union, largest and most important C.I.O...
...Every schoolboy knows this...
...Such intervention would be well justified...
...In this good-natured country Protestant» and Catholics can be the best of neighbors and friends...
...I ; *-Ifthe upper classes were unfit to rule, the *äriri»g . class was equally impotent in the face Iif the impending crisis...
...Any move which sharpens the rivalry between these two organizations and thus makes more difficult the efforts for labor unity is definitely not a service to the workers of this city and nation...
...PAINTERS' UNION ELECTION 'HE election in the Painters' District Council No...
...With all due regard for a novelist's very complicated soul, I "really think Mr...
...But I shall not repeat last week's remarkable front page editorial dealing so thoroughly with Mr...
...Cassidy had admitted .fondness for principles inimical not only to the Jews, but to the democratic system si government The Christian Front rally was a spirited affair—nuaie supplied by the band of St...
...field, especially when it fosters race, prejudice and sectarian strife or caters to foreign powers...
...Taking the chance that my friendly colleague will label limje once more "a reactionary," I want him to understand that jwar machines are built of raw materials (which for a country France are available only £dito%ia£& THE WAR COMËS HERE *J*HE war has come to America, as one New York reporter put it in writing about the bomb at the World« Fair...
...The 2400 members who voted against Weinstock on the straight issue of trade union versus Communist control were overwhelmed by some 1500 voters registered by the Communazi machine on the day of election...
...Harrison's piercing maneuver against this writer which has elements of truth: "Analysis is an operation performed with the mind, not with the heart...
...Bankers, industrialists and other great beneficiaries of the social order took little pains to conceal their preference for fascism over Rooseveltian revolution, by- which têrm was meant—quaint as it may sound today— a more equitable distribution of wealth by means tit taxation...
...As is customary with all ruling classes, their primary concern was with special privilege...
...Budgets for increased military preparedness were voted hastily without any careful survey of the exact needs for the future...
...And anyhow, if we are going to take ahy tradition seriously, we ought to know what it is...
...owe a duty to their own organization and to the country to put a stop to this new maneuver of the Communist conspirators before it is too late...
...Soon afterwards the Holy Alliance, which comprised the monarchies of Russia, Austria, Prussia, France, and Spain, and which had been organized in 1915 for the purpose of wiping out popular liberties and stabilizing despotism all over the European 'continent, looked further afield and planned naval and military action to conquer all the young republics from Mexico to Argentina and Chile, which had thrown off the Spanish yoke and whose independence had just been recognized by the United States...
...In the summer of 1940, a fateful one for the American people, it seemed as if nothing would waken the young republic-from the lethargy of cynicism and indifference into which |t had fallen...
...Torn by distension, preyed upon by crass opportunists who termed themselves leaders of labor, schooled in a- philosophy that called for the abstention from all political activity as a class, the American labor movement, gigantic but blind, stood waiting for tttófhtów to fall...
...A tradition which started with wisely considered action under conditions then prevailing may become a nuisance if adhered'to when conditions have changed...
...Not because of treason, stupidity or greed...
...This cooperation with the Front is certainly not favored by the vast majority of America's 22,000,000 ^Cathofe, not looked upon pleasantly by the liberty-loving elenxsti among Brooklyn's 2.000,000 adherents to Catholicism, fei "fresh in their minds are the Hondl report Of Nazi atrodtia in Poland, the jailing and torture of priests and nuati the destruction of Belgium's once powerful Catholic untosiud parties...
...Important functionaries of the government, the wives of a cabinet officer and a justice of the Supreme Court, and even the wife of the President himself were suspected of being in sympathy with organizations known to be in league with agents of the Kremlin...
...As though all this were not sufficiently dangerous, the country was plunged that summer into the bizarre stupidity of an American presidential elections äs practiced at that time...
...On Brooklyn street corners he is more emphatic and exact, much to the delight of his rowdy audiences...
...The Monroe Doctrine came a quarter of a century later...
...They had nine months to - bring them up into the right positions...
...Harrison: there are slight" relics of social injustice even in Hitler's Germany...
...When an American community sees this sort of thing it is likely to "see red...
...Which does not exclude the possibility that Thursday's abominable crime Was committed by the same group who staged the earlier performance as a blind...
...Harrison in time, hut he could have corrected my failure by asking me for facts before he took the trouble to turn out a lengthy piece—as wrong as itiwasjjunfair...
...Where Mr...
...In 1 796, when President Washington announced his retirement from public life, the condition of this country and the situation abroad might have led him, had he been a less thoughtful man, to utter some such sweepingly isolationist declaration as is now often attributed to him...
...ARISKY GAME JOHN F. CASSIDY dislikes the Jews...
...illustrative of this attitude we quote a magazine, that catered to the tastes of the* upper and middle classes...
...On the battlefields of Europe the hardened and frenzied armies of Hitler were driving toward the west with relentless fury, but in -the large cities of America the youth of the so-called upper classes were living in a state which car...
...The many-sidedness of your columns constantly stimulates me: the crotchety humor of Charles Edward Russell, the vitriol of Charles Harrison, the nimble spanking administered to the Communists by Victor Riesel, and the analyses by Willi Schlamm.' they use the squib "no hits, no runs, and many errors...
...produced miraculous monuments of social progress and social justice simultaneously with arms...

Vol. 23 • July 1940 • No. 27


 
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