Only U S. War on German Axis Can Stop World Totalitarianism
MUMFORD, LEWIS
Only Ui S. War on German Axis Can Stop World Totalitarianism Lewis Mumford Says (Written specially for the New Leader) TT*HE fate of the American people will not be decided * at the next...
...Norway, the local branch of the Comintern in its official publication, new knewn as the Three Old Ladies' official organ, protested ir its usual homespun vituperation that New Leader editor* were no good seller-outers...
...His order to Congress to ***the Burke-Wadsworth abomination struck the thoughtful ob-**pHrs as exhibiting an indecorous haste...
...These men were instrumental in bringing Colonel Lindbergh to Chicago, and then ir filling the stadium with thousands of anti-Semites...
...Privilege against the people...
...Even when the Impressario brought out his much advertised stars, the Big Berthas, the results were disheartening...
...For Czechoslovakia, the destruction of the Republic and substitution, of the iron heel and the strappado...
...the Fascist desvotism...
...and Senator Walsh, who has been an open advocate of a more subtle kind of Catholic fascist appeasement...
...Two Ways of Life In a Death Struggle IN VIEW of this plain record, it is either idiocy or colossal * impudence that says this war is "power politics," "a real estate squabble" or a "conflict of imperialisms...
...It had put the power of the state into the hands of a lot of low fellows, farmers and carpenters and blacksmiths, just riff-raff, you, under-tttnd, and of course no gentleman, real, would-be or near, could it expected to rest easily in such a state of disgrace...
...And what was the use of trying to wangle out a big fortune if it got you nowhere...
...Heard on the left By victor riesel DM, whose editor Ralph Ingersoll likes * to think of it as one of the Metropolitan dailies, used the axe on the assassination stories as effectively as Jackson used the alpenstock on Trotsky...
...liil/iiVF competent political observers are perturbed over Stalinite infiltration into government ports vital to tf-fensc...
...It represents a cross section cf American society: but its most active representatives so far are in the agricultural regions, in the Mississippi basin, in the South, and in the Northeast: and it is drawing in an increasing group :r-the cities whe no longer comfort themselves with middle (lass illusions of irresponsible pacifism and the coward!} shifting of action and sacrifice to our brothers over the sea...
...So far this issue and these influences have achieved these triumphs: In Italy, the destruction of Italian democracy, the rise of Mus-tn?in...
...The use of armed force- is a last step in this war...
...HHIer Can't Even Get Standing Room "THE Destruction of England," Kerr Hitler's surpassing spec* tacle, has now entered upon the third week of its run, and by all accounts, is making but a bad box office...
...With customary courage Lewis Mumford, sociolog;st, crlfic, literateur, and pUlIgen' surveyor, of contemporary foibles and mores, call...
...Suppose one of these should slip into the Navy without detection...
...It has built up a new sense, among, millions of Americans, of bow dear our democratic institutions are and hew much promise they hold for humanity, provided we have the courage to remold them as drastically, as decisively, as the fascists have transformed their feudal institutions in the direction of barbarism and systematic human corruption...
...how dark the complexion must be,to be thus debarred from the national service but the information would seem to be necessary...
...The United States cannot maintain its democratic institutions against a hostile fascist world without fighting for them...
...AT the present moment there are three major parties ** in America...
...The New Leader presents Mr...
...They are more venomous about the mistakes committed at Versailles than they are over the far more massive brutalities and injustices committed during the last two years by Germany and Russia...
...And then on August 26, with delicate solicitation for tender G. P. U. feelings, Ingersoll permitted the editing out of the U.P...
...Stalinite Unions, and...
...Other prominent writers in New York will soon take the same stand...
...The taxes by an American of dark complexion go equally with taxes WW by the blondes to supply the salaries of the snobs that "lit the United States Navy...
...Identical cause, identical result...
...Here at last was hope, and when the Germans broke in, our best element received the invaders, not merely with open arms, but with guerdon of practical help for the gallant emancipators...
...Mumford's Clrti~'e ill tlte IIope tltClt it will more rapidly c:rystallizeAmeri~a's need of stopping all aid to Germany Clnd .ts agenfs...
...Necessarily the final effect would be to destroy every principle and every ideal that Americans proudly call their own...
...In Austria, erasure of the Austrian Republic and the advent of absolutism...
...ran Frank Jellinek's Mexico City story, which led off as follows: "No evidence whatever given out here connects Leon Trotzky's murder with USSR's secret police, the local Communist Party or with the previous attempt on Trotsky's life . . . Physicians here believe Trotsky could not have made the death bed political remarks exploited at his bier...
...fM Conscription Drive I'JII-Haste 'Resident Roosevelt would^do well to study the writings of the moralists on the virtue of patience...
...Need to know any more about it, O ye of the Short Circuit and others...
...THE third group is the group that knows that we * must immediately fight twe wars, one a war to pro tect our existing»institutions from the poison of fascism, and the other is a war tc transform our persona., our economic, and cur social a:rr.s, sc as tc make America worthy cf being saved—and st-ong enough internally to save itself...
...ll/IORE than 70O daily and weekly news-papers in 600 communities will shortly begin carrying advertising copy prepared by N. W. Ayer and Son and the War Department's publicity staff...
...Tr.e people ir...
...Henry Ford, and a group of industrialists...
...What was ?ke -use of being descended from a long line of greasy old Vikings unlets one could swell around and give orders and run things...
...our going will not be the result of capitalist pressure...
...The only way to overcome the fascist technique is for our democracy to declare war upon Nazi Germany before fascism has had its chance to undermine our democracy...
...They have no illusions about our failures and weaknesses in America: but they at least knew t.-.at these failures are "in no sense final—unless we resign ourselves to inaction and totalitarian death...
...Not a move was made by the English and the native army that was not immediately telephoned or telegraphed or otherwise communicated to the German commanders...
...The second party is the party of the appeasers...
...they arc so afraid of losing certain civil liberties in war time, that they are prepared to lose them forever under fascism rather than to go to war...
...Great sport it was to roll the tanks over the necks of the unequipped masses...
...The latter, armed with contracts for industrial equipment and agricultural supplies, have already sought to awaken the cupidity of our business men, industrialists, and farmers...
...For we will either have to seize the present opportunity boldly, and make war upon Hitler at once—or, by putting off this decision, we will slide down the well-worn path that begins with appeasement and ends with slavery...
...it includes probably a majority of our labor leaders...
...tClnt pollt;~ ClI ~ 1...
...It may be said *°* he felt he needed practice, but this seems inadmissable to any that has considered his official career...
...In the accompanying article Mumford states the celse for war-- now...
...As for the labor unions, they are new collaborators with Big Business and their partners in wishful thinking...
...Just such a choice presents itself to the Aaierican people today...
...WHETHER tlte United In 'be fil'St stag.' of war with Ge,.many is G CI""- , t ion already bei n 9 Itar a " glled in 'myvr...
...submission would be a "peaceful" alternative to civil war or armed intervention by Hitler...
...But though it is still small in numbers, it makes up for that by concentration cf purpose and by the aid and guidance given by the official G-erm.an Nazis, and by certain members of the Roman Catholic hierarchy...
...Cook County commander cf the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and Captain William J. Grace, former Illinois Commander, they smear the anti-Stalir.ite forces in the public's eye...
...now or later...
...Everywhere, one cause, onf result...
...Little difficulty is expected by the publicity men in raising regular army ranks to the full authorized strength of "70.000 men...
...Incidentally, there is no color line about taxes...
...They know that the British peoples are fighting our fight, and ir all decency and honor they want tc stand shoulder tr shoulder with the English-speaking brothers, while there is still time for us to a: t. to re-arm and t( achieve victory...
...These Americans still believe in democracy and human brotherhood: the} still believe that men art created free and equal, and that the object of political society must be to maintain that freedom and restore that equality...
...If their voice is r.eeaed curing the coming weeks, and if wc actively enter the war at the side of the remaining free pcories of the world, the deyf o? fascism will be numbered...
...but vrill pac the West Side rf America," is rathe-sloppy and unconscious anti-Semitism, which isn't quite since-e isolationism...
...I am told, indicated that an overwhelming number of business men are in favor of doing business with Hitier when the war is over: and one high-placed industrialist has ever, privately advocated putting the screws on England in order to bring about "peace...
...WUIORRIE RYSKIND, Hollywood sccna-* rio writer and musical comedy satirist, is supporting WendellWillkie...
...This campaign, which has some $250,000 to spend, will not be in the> flag-waving tradition of George < Creel's World War drives...
...This action was taken when it became apparent that Roosevelt may np-poivt Professor Harry A. Mi'Jis cf Chicago University to the job just vacated by Madden, whose term expired August 27...
...MURRAY PLAVNER and Gene Tunney "* who have gone to Chicago to debunk the Communist "peace" demonstration need some debunking themselves...
...Is not...
...By working with men like Homer O. McGuf-fey...
...The Navy Draws The Caler Line CPEAKING of national defense in this crisis, Colonel Knox, Secretary of the Navy, is good enough to assure us that Do American of dark complexion will be allowed to serve his country in its Navy in any other capacity than that of spittoon tleaner or bottle washer...
...It is being designed to reveal the educational advantages offered by the army, especially in the training of technicians and mechanics...
...This from Frank Jellinek, who suddenly crops up as PM's Mexican correspondent...
...Such a method, if it went smoothly, would not even require armed" invasion...
...He recently purchased a full page in the Hollywood Reporter to reply to charges that Willkie had accepted anti-semitic support...
...M1I10ns of Americans wCltch billions being sp.nt for defense-which in.1nllotes armed conflict...
...There is an outright pro-fascist group, which numbers among its members, Lindbergh, the man with the mechanical heart...
...Emit Loevizien...
...In all probability, it will be settled within the next few weeks...
...Behind this group stand foreign organizations like the German-American Bund...
...hoping to keep out of it...
...Only Ui S. War on German Axis Can Stop World Totalitarianism Lewis Mumford Says (Written specially for the New Leader) TT*HE fate of the American people will not be decided * at the next election...
...Ntjro Discrimination A'farm at Nazism yJlTH feeling and with justice we denounce the Nazi's stupid, primitive, savageries against Jews...
...They promise high profits—provided we supply the money that will buy goods that the Nazis will consume at our expense...
...Norway Recapitulates fie Tragedy of Europe THAT is to say, the story of Norway is an exact replica of the story of the rest of Europe...
...The only limit to these transactions would be the gullibility of our business men and their capacity for submitting to extortion...
...David Lloyd, formerly of the LaFoIlette Committee Staff, been appointed by the Federal Communication Commission to watch fifth column use of the radio...
...It may be called the American Peace Party and will have the support of scores of C.I.O...
...They do the anti-Communist...
...And who is this columnist to impugn Marsh's isolationism which man.}' People's Lobby sponsors do not share ? But Marsh's recent '¦acuse charpine that the President wat attempting "to pay his political debts to the clothing workers cf the East Side of New York, by conscripting million*, se that the Government will buy them needed clothing, which Roosevelt's policies have kept them too poc- tc buy, may go all right on the East Side of New I"o'-fc...
...There appears now reason to think the great director of the tkow is slipping...
...The alternative is paralysis, disintegration, and suicide...
...eles...
...Lawrence Dennis, an able propagandist...
...story on Sylvia...
...Despite Ingersoll's mimeographed apology to his stockholders, PM's coverage of the Coyoacan story could have snuggled comfortably in Daily Worker columns—as it did a day later...
...In his condition he could scarcely have muttered more than a few broken words...
...They have no love for American institutions...
...Now, no decent person believes in war any more than he believes in amputation...
...The surrender of Belgium and Holland, the ineffable shame of France...
...Didn't the party-line combination now controlling the National Labor Relations Board, promote Aaron Warner, who has long been one of the beys, to the important spot cf Special Examiner in the new administrative division—which has complete power orer complaints, supervision of regional directors and officers, etc...
...Under such circumstances it is very easy to see that Hitler's boast—that by 1944 the United States would be ripe for plucking—might well come true...
...is frequently pro-Nazi...
...straddling fhe fence, by mClintain, n, Iriend'y re'ations with German totalifari",,;sm, aids the forces assaulting Iritis" democrClcy...
...state and local councils, scores of C.I.O...
...This offer of "economic cooperation" would repeat the pattern of international high finance during the reparations period...
...A vast system of volunteer espionage kept the Nazi chiefs perfectly informed and helped greatly to insure victory for the Tenth Century...
...Can't you just picture pour favorite Norwegian idltng up to the Soviet Travel Bureau and asking the local committor for his best family tourist rates for a rummer trip through the Ural* . . Holy shades of Rubens-Robinson...
...To be prepared to fight fascism, one must fight it before one is fully prepared...
...There is no prestige but only disillusion in a blitzkrieg that doc 8 n't .blitz but crumples up when put to the test...
...Fascism would replace democracy by "orderly" methods of pressure, blackmail, and terrorism...
...Nothing could be more fatally stupid than to imagine that American capitalists today believe as a class in war...
...either because they have all they want, or because they believe the improvements made during the last ten years in the condition of the organized workers would be nullified by war...
...At such a moment a sane person prefers amputation to suicide...
...It was, in fact, over their heads...
...secretary of the party, and Henry W. Kristiansen...
...it will be the result cf a popular demand for an overwhelming d&r.ger that has overcome capitalist pressure...
...In the meanwhile the destruction of Europe has emphasized the fragility and brittleness of our whole civ...
...The notion that there is any course open to us, other than war or submission to fascism is a product of wishful thinking and moral cowardice...
...Now the real danger in the present situation is that a large part of our people is still resolutely living in the world of 1917 or the world of 1937, without realizing the changes that have taken place...
...Today they are cutting the old "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" from the standards and public buildings of France and erasing the last traces of the French Revolution...
...The fatal surrender at Munich, the temporary supremacy of Cliveden...
...It begins with a long period of deliberate internal disruption...
...No, Colonel, you can see for yourself that some test of tint is absolutely indispensable...
...It includes a CIO leader like Lewis at one end and Senator Taft at the other...
...A forced journey back across the Rhine might lack all sportive or other pleasant significance ~ for the management...
...But that is a pertinent fact the snob mind is unable to grasp...
...Such people do not realize that war, under fascism, begins at a much earlier stage than it ever began before...
...KTOT so icr.g age Ben Marsh, head of the Feopie's Lobby, came ir for much censure for dropping inte the mail, franked Wheeler envelopes containing praise of Soviet Russia...
...that Egede Nissen, chairman...
...These people are not morally offended by fascist barbarism...
...The longer these conditions went the more intolerable they be-eamt to our better elements...
...It is the old fight in its most tremendous form between Privilege and the People, between ; the Barons and the Masses...
...There was no good reason should exercise the power before it was his...
...Be draws my attention, first, to the Norwegian constitution, wy to all the mystery...
...Their concern for "American isolation" is an attempt to isolate American democracy from cooperation with the remaining democracies—those of Great Britain and her dominions...
...Its campaign for peace will be designed at cutting votes from the Roosevelt ticket...
...for wClr on GermClny...
...One thing is sure: if we go inte the war...
...The political and economic complexion of this appeasement group is a motley one...
...this third group a"c t!u very spirit and backbone cf traditional America: and the} are the nucleus cut of which a greater democracy shall yet grow...
...Isn't the chap in charge cf a government publicity bureau well known for his fellow-traveling, which can easily be proven...
...Our present weakness makes us a prey to immediate blackmail, and to a quick invasion, not by a uniformed army, but by a multitude of fascist agents, disguised as tourists and commercial envoys...
...Day by day this vigilant democratic group is growing...
...r\OES anyone think that we will have either the time *^ or the armaments to defend ourselves if Hitler should soon be victorious in Europe...
...S:x months age this group w-as a minority: for even those who realized the menace of fascism were for the most part convinced that England and France would eventually overcome fascism, and that in the course cf this fight fascism itself would be bled and exhausted...
...The failure can be explained only by the unimpressible character of the people it was itaged for...
...When Norway split from Swedgn,, the popular element was gtrong and militant and insisted upon framing an organic law that, to a great extent, precluded exploitation and the accumulation, o? great fortunes while it curtailed or limited the power and prestige of the nobility and upper classes...
...I have here a nice little present for any one that will explain the difference in spirit between Naziism's attitude toward the Jews and the American navy's attitude toward dark complexioned fellow citizens...
...Joe Curran and Mike QuiH are the commissars in charge...
...COME sort of peace party may be set by the Communists at the Chicago mobilization, our Deuxieme Bureau reports...
...The bill will give him t**power of government by decree...
...Some cf the money for piavner's Nstionai Foundation for American Youth comes from men like Victor Ridder, whose New York German language daily thr Staatszeitung...
...editor-in-chief of the Arbedderen, had had free range of the, country until that date, and that the Soviet Travel Bureau, no less, was open all the time...
...Neither group has the fair-test grasp of what a victory cf fascism would mean in a world where we would be the sole relic cf democracy, and where the slogan of "business as usual" would make America an active partner in fascist slavery...
...A little probing revealed that the gentle man is closely affiliated with the British Communist Party, that he was in Spain during the civil war, that he wrote for World News and Views, press bulletin of the Communist International, successor to In-precorr, that he contributed to the London Daily Worker, that his books were published by the British Left Book Club, which, until the war, was a fellow-traveling house headed by Victor Gollancz...
...Tltere i SilO...
...But there may come a moment in the life of an individual when he must choose between submitting to having a limb amputated, and permitting gaqgrene poisoning to kill him...
...The long line that he holds from the North-Cape of Norway to Gibraltar needs prestige and plenty of it—unbroken prestige—if it is to be sustained through so many hundreds of miles of hostile country...
...This group includes people of different economic-classes...
...Hasn't a prominent Stalinoid...
...An unpublished Fortune poll has...
...He poses arguments whi~h Ameri~a knows are valid but refuses to face...
...I The Colonel does not tell us...
...and certainly a majority cf our big industrialists...
...These people are living, unconsciously, in a world that has ceased to exist: they are more conscious of tbc wrongs of nineteenth century imperialism than cf the wholesale slavery, domestic and foreign, practiced by fascism...
...Jellinek's PM dispatch was reprinted in Saturday's Daily Worker as the only "impartial" story...
...Why not supply a color card that could be placed upon the face of any man seeking to enlist and so determine whether he is or is not entitled to fight under his flag...
...They have to choose between fighting fascism at a time when there is still a prospect of victory, or taking a position that must lead, within a short while, to becoming a colonial dependency of the fascist states...
...fVowt the beginning, therefore, th« titled gentry and all its apes and valets, with the financiers and industrialists, were intensely disgusted with a social system wherein "a cook was as !ifd as a count," and only a restricted.opportunity could be found ta gouge one's fellow man...
...the wife of a prominent counsel to a prominent Defense Commissioner, the editor of a magazine published by the Soviet Union in this country...
...If Hitler should be triumphant, this group would grow in power and importance...
...who has been an adept student of Goebbels...
...Has not a millionaire who surrounds himself with former Soviet government employees just been ap- * pointed a dollar-a-year man in charge of cultural relations with important neutral nations...
...Any right-minded person can *see Itw, that was...
...Father Coughlin...
...If we follow this second course, with the example of Poland, Holland, Belgium, Norway, and France before us, wc deserve to pay the price of our folly...
...iiization...
...anti-Nazi movement no good by cooperating with those whe are politically unsavory to any progressive...
...It is the irrepressible conflict between two irreconcilable concepts of human society...
...upon the dark horizon rose Hitlerism with healing in its wings...
...This group consists of people who believe more or less in the status quo in America...
...On Friday, August 23, when every newspaper in town reported Mexican police statements concerning Jackson's link to the G.P.U.—not to mention George Mink—PA...
...While our country was thus being looted under the pretext of our helping to restore world trade and rebuilding Europe, the fascists would be able to use their political agents, moving freely in and out of the country, to spread wholesale corruption and build up a domestic fascist movement...
...that the fascists cannot be put off by bribes, appeasements, compromises, timid wishes...
...Tlf HEN The New Leader broke the story ** cf Nazi-Communist cooperation ir Oslo...
...It is difficult to believe the gallant'Colonel *ishes to restrict the public service to pineapple blondes, but how else can we proceed with apy certainty or confidence ? There are in the United States at least 50,000 Americans descended from what is called the African race that at a glance cannot be detected in complexion from Americans descended impeccably from the heroes of Hastings...
...They seek to be the leaders of America by turning our country into a fascist colony, run for the benefit of Rome and Berlin...
...Daily come rumors of unrest and insubordination among the ntbjugated peoples...
...They know that the war with fascism cannot be postponed...
...of course, the granitic John L. Lewis...
...To change the constitution was impossible...
...Now, after all these months comet confirmation—in the Daily Worker no less—that the Norwegian Communist Party had functioned until August 16...
...In Spain, the destruction of the Spanish Republic and the, success of Butcher Franco and his ruthless despotism...
...Ingersoll had better begin mimeographing another long apology to his investors . . . .and this time forget to praise the Communist Party program . . . which is a story for another column...
...Some 1000 men a day are enlisting now...
...indeed, for all of them our American history is, in Henry Ford's classic words, bunk...
...In Germany, suppression of the German Republic and the substitution of Hitler and medieval monarchy...
...Aageloff's confronting Jackson, the phrase "yon dirl?i agent of the G. P. U." Every other paper but PM carried it...
...By Charles Edward Russell The News Reel ' ILLUMINATING, vitally illuminating, is the message I had this lyeek from an intelligent young Norwegian, revealing the little taown, gr?n an<* bleak actualities of conditions in his country...
...Hence the nation that waits for fascism openly to declare war upon it before this nation cuts off all intercourse with fascism and mobilizes its armies is already defeated...
...or are attempting to get us into the war: on the contrary, they have slewed down and sabotaged our war preparation: and they are just as earnest as our labor leaders ir...
...But after years of such sufferings as only the really refined and the wealthy can understand, lo...
Vol. 23 • August 1940 • No. 35
