Where the News Ends
Sehlamm, Willi
Where the News Ends By Willi Sehlamm ALL those gentle blueprints for post-war reconstruction of Europe and the world—I agree with them, contradictory as they often are. In fact, I feel about...
...4—Rigid supervision and control of armaments, without which no real disarmament can ever be achieved...
...Is jt IP true that the first days of fossa** existence as an independent *hjj| were heralded by blood-baths ¦» a wave of pogroms against «•** and Ukrainians unequaled **** in the worst days of Tsarist n> action...
...The mayor, as usual, said plenty...
...It is treason to undermine the morale of the army...
...We are talking, it seems to me, about Europe and the Europeans after tAts war...
...A fro traitors (if there then was such-a thing, in the sense of Fifth Column) had been dealt with hi the usual court martialing matter-of-fact way...
...It is sad to adad*,** true, that officially at least Jews were killed during revolts while the actual of murdered Jews will noSST W known...
...Gross claims that eo*wjl "the great peaaant revolts a» • Rupczycs about eight fasts Sf* . . . not one anti-Semitic est**** occurred although there at* loos* numbers of Jews in these Stsw Where is Dennen's 'old P*S hatred...
...It was never enabled to operate as its chief spokesman had intended, as an elastic and impartial instrument in bringing about peaceful and equitable adjustments between nations aa time and circumstances proved necessary...
...I But even this proves Utt**1 _ also know of numerous * *" where Polish and partJSSsP Ukrainian peasants their lives in defense of *wW during pogroms...
...Whether it be security from bombing from the air, or from mass destruction...
...The wisest plans for a European post-war te>« construction are just so much double-talk if thai do not provide blunt and frank recommendation) for the ghastly years we could politely call tat "transition" period...
...Witness his ban on Lana Turner's sweaters...
...Welles echoed the hope and aspiration of bleeding humanity when he asked: "Does the end of the present carnage mean only a return to ruined homes...
...World War I left in Europe victorious nations and vanquished nations—all of them weakened, but all of them still national entities, wita some kind of common purposes, common way sf life, common likes and common dislikes...
...Welles summarized in the following truly significant paragraphs the reasons for the failure of that great vision for which President Wilson gave his life: "The League of Nations, as he conceived it, failed in part because of the blind selfishness of men here in the United States, as well as in other parts of the world...
...KEEP Tift ARMY...
...PEACE—IT'S NOT SO WONDERFUL'' f^ AUGHT with its peace plans down by^ the invasion of Russia, the Communist Party has been clucking around its many fronts like a barnyard fowl around its chicks After nearly two years of high-pressure revamping and salesmanship, the "Party" was forced once more to reverse itself over night.^That was easy for its own members, but a little embarrassing for the multitude of peace fronts which had won a following by agitating against the British and the American government - Imagine the amazement of a recent Washington Communist gathering which, at the meeting's opening, saw Bob Minor step to the front of the platform and announce that the singing of the Star-Spangled Banner would open the demonstration...
...For this is, as we emphasized so often, an international civil war...
...It is here that I venture a serious objection: After this war, it seems to me, the whole of Europe will be in a state of decay...
...There can be no machine'politics in our City Hall when there is danger that the techniques of modern war may soon force New York, like London, into- the front line trenches...
...goatanteering bodily safety to the grateful inhabitants of all Europe, they would merely perform the task of a merciful health police...
...P. used to stand for peace, but now it stands for People's The APM fraction went into a huddle, changed the front's name and just as energetically set about selling aid to the Soviets...
...He is committed to opening the city's patronage to the parched political machines which began to see lean days shortly after the Seabury probe...
...Those readers of the New Leader who are cursed with a good memory will recall it anyway...
...It concerns, too, the vast number of small nations in Europe which were plagued by "national-minority" problems before the war and which hope to become independent once more with the defeat of Hitler...
...It would be nothing short of national suicide to disrupt the training of our army now when Nazi propaganda is finally getting results in Peru, Ecuador, Chile, Argentina and Bolivia...
...How anybody can expect this Europe, once the war is over, to busy itself with any kind of sane re-construction, is beyond me—unless the Anglo-American victors are able to guarantee within the nations at least as muck physical safety, and normalcy, the victors of 1911 guaranteed for a while between Europe's nations...
...Some wander out of the progressive movement forever, as they did when the party folded up the League of Peace and Democracy...
...Propaganda is no entertainment, says Mr...
...Some kind of United States of Europe...
...ALMOST everything the planners ask for is *¦ perfectly sound...
...With that objective accomplished—as it surely will be—the Government of the United States will strive, in' cooperation with the fighting British Commonwealth of Nations and other peoples—now enslaved—to establish a new world founded upon the following' principles: 1—A new .League of Nations to enforce peace under an international military police system...
...Fuerstenberg, yon should know, was not only a leading Berlin banker, way back in the wonderful nineties, but also an unshakable misanthrope...
...One of the most important fronts set up since September 1939 is the American P. Mobilization...
...Hollywood has made mistakes...
...If strictly implemented, this order deprives the United States government of the voluntary cooperation of the moat effective propaganda weapon in the world...
...As the APM sells war, instead of peace, the hoodwinked turn away, disillusioned...
...This does not mean that (here are no Poles who are not anti-Semites...
...A New World for the Old The peace aims of the United States, sa stated officially by Sumner Welles, acting Secretary of State, in his address in Washington last Teesday, constitute a momentnous contribution in the struggle of the democracies for the establishment of a genuinely new international order...
...Hays occasionally is strangely motivated...
...This time there will be vie tori and vanquished in all nations...
...Both of these men did yeoman service in helping to organize and whip up sentiment and get agreement among the anti-Communist candidates, so that the partyliners could be defeated...
...How thoroughly different is the scobs staged for an everlasting revenge when victors and vanquished are part of the miw nation, living in the same country and—which is far more devilish—in the same house...
...with deep appreciation: "Whoever it is—it is all right with me...
...Did they not already pkdp —when Poland was grants...
...Letters To the Editor Dennen Again Charges Antisemitic Tendencies Amondj Polish Leaders From Leon Dennen To the Editor: Felix Gross, in a letter published in the New Leader of July 5, 1941, criticize...
...2—Abolition of offensive armaments and limitation and reduction of defense armaments and of war industries...
...As the New Leader's contribution to the discussion of the peace objectives which are to form the foundation of a new world, as called for by Mr...
...The men who prepared this program speak from a profound knowledge of world affairs and from a wide experience in government and in the international Socialist and labor movement...
...As head of the motion picture producers organization he is final word on ethics, morals, glamor girls' sweaters, and footage on screen kissing...
...If this precedent goes unheeded, what is there to prevent a recurrence when American troops are ordered to important South American front, to Alaska, to Caribbean bases It is obvious that Wheeler's hatred for the President—now definitely established as a result of a patronage snub—is taking the Montana Munichman into deeper liaison with forces in thsi country who are more interested in a German victory than American isolation...
...Only a Mark 'Twain could do justice to this reflection of what purports to be a section of the American progressive scene...
...shJ I know wherein lies the dofsison* Are not the gentlemen oasssfhing the Polish Governs*!**** Exile already guilty of braam • trust...
...As usual, the only casualties are the innocents who lent their names to this front...
...YftfHAT Europe is in for, even if Hitler lose*, " is not just a short free-for-all...
...Each day, however...
...He ignores the entire article and quotes only the sentence that "racial hatred in Poland unfortunately is as old as the Polish nation...
...Imagine what will go on everywhere else on the continent...
...Actually, they must Metis t on the whole continent for a couple of yeast, Not for the sake of humiliating any Euros***nation, and not for the sake of revenge bat w restore certain basic elements of hygiene aal physical security on a continent which, if left alone, will poison itself and the rest of too world...
...Welles voiced the yearning of all thinking people...
...QPPOSITION to the retention of draftees has produced the usual coalition of purist pacifism, outright fascism and what might well be termed treason...
...Only last year Mr...
...In fact, I feel about these plans not unlike Herr Fnerstenberg felt on one sad occasion...
...The Czechs at last able to draw their balance sheet with the Henleint' The Dutch hunting their Muaaerta, Root van Tonningeaa sad fellow-traitors...
...victors...
...t As the authorized spokesman of American foreign policy, Mr...
...Since this is a military situation, the time has come to speak plainly...
...Some...
...It would be necessary, God knows, and they shall have it by all means...
...But whom are we"talking about, gentlemen ? Let's make that clear, first...
...Of course, SI already stated, not all rwfcJ) anti-Semites...
...It is true, however, that a majority of Americans who live in the Southern "States are anti-Negro...
...when he declared that "the free governments of peace-loving nations everywhere should even now be considering and discussing the way in which they can best prepare for the better day which must come, when the present contest is ended in the victory of the forces of liberty and of human freedom, and in the crushing defeat of those who are sacrificing mankind to their own lost for power and for loot" Recalling the splendid vision—"the vision of ah ordered world governed by law—held up to suffering humanity at the end of the last war, Mr...
...The Austrians going after their SeytsInquarts...
...And in this case, some will go over to the America First Committee and other pro-German organizations But the American People's Mobilization goes on, same address, same personnel, same high-pressure piousness, but a new brand of merchandise...
...tions, sure enough, were always anxious for |S| venge, but they had no means to get it day eh day...
...Stressing the responsibility of all who are fortunate to live in the Western Hemisphere, Mr...
...O'Dwyer has accepted the nomination of the tin-box, sewer and printing scandal, court corrupting Tammany machine...
...First said Mr...
...Obviously, Senator Wheeler believes we can...
...Moreover, it concerns not only the dews but also the Ukrainians whosuffered horribly under Polish rule...
...Far be it from me to ridicule these magnificent efforts...
...But, it could be argued, Germany, after all, is only a small part of the continent, and while it might l>e true that in German realms the constructive re-organization must wait a few years, the rest of Europe, once liberated from enemy occupation, will be just too anxious and too eager to accept all the blessings of constructive sanity...
...He will have difficulty proving this to the public which has seen Night Train, Confessions of a Nazi Spy, I Wanted Wings, and a score of others...
...Vanquished ssj...
...to poverty and want...
...to social upheaval and economic chaos...
...I still remember the courageous action of a number cf Poliah scholars and professors who, together with their Jewish students, stood in the class rooms for a period of months in protest against the "Ghetto Benches" law instituted by the former Polish Government...
...Directly involved in this effort to dissipate an army of half-trained selectees are such men as Frederick J. Libby, director of the National Council for the Prevention of War...
...a member of the Polish Govrenment-inExile (I believe it eras the Minister of Interior said to be a socialist) recently intimated in a speech he delivered in London, Praises Gaff, Jaffee for Work in Painters' Election from ALFRED BAKER LEWIS To the Editor: Your article pointing out the fact that the Communists have been defeated in a number of recent union elections in New York, particularly >fj the Painter's District Council, should here men. tioned...
...Moreover, this writer must plead guilty on the charge of having tried more than once...
...One of these issues was voiced in a recent speech by Acting ALP State Director George Marlin when he said that "There can be no politics as usual...
...Whatever they have in mind for Europe, once Hitler is hung—it's all right with me...
...M Before I can admit any chance for any sis' of sane post-war reconstruetior., I want was nice, sober, well-balanced cops ail over Etna* —the type of cops you can meet m New TeA and London...
...Hitler grows older and we with him, I surfer more and more from an ever-increasing suspicion that we, the plan-makers (if this, writer is allowed to include himself in such an illustrous company), draw blueprints for a continent somewhere three years beyond the Blue Moon—not for Europe...
...And after this war, I am afraid, Europe and the Europeans will offer about as much an opportunity to organize the continent along lines of intelligent, sober and sensible reasoning as the packing houses of Armour and Co...
...Welles, there can be no peace "until the Hitlerite government of Germany has been finally and utterly destroyed...
...Hays...
...but it failed chiefly because of the fact that it was forced to operate, by those who dominated its councils, as a means of maintaining the status quo...
...World War II is not being fought between bat within nations...
...With 80,000,000 persons going to the movies every week, cutting off of such films from production schedules would be inconsistent with the federal administration's efforts to awaken the nation to the full dangers of encroaching Nazism, to the full implications of possible loss of liberty...
...The administration which will be in office during the next four years may face the gigantic task of governing the most densely populated city in the world during a war crisis.'' Another untouched issue is the prospective Democratic Party candidate, William O'Dwyer...
...Since the usual political unmentionables do not hold for the New Leader, it must be pointed out that Mr...
...This is a real world...
...i:~ "Not in vain .the distance beacons...
...Said Fuerstenberg...
...Once, while he was studying the tickers at the Berlin stock exchange, a fellow-millionaire' ran up to him, excited and terrified: "My God Herr Fuers ten berg, hare you heard who died...
...I cannot believe that peoples sf good will, will ami once more strive to realize the great ideal of aa association of nations through which the freedom, the happiness and the security of all peoples stay be achieved...
...We feel his new edict is even less reasonable—and we did not think anything could be...
...Confined to Germany alone, en AngloAmerican police force might breed a new Ten* tonic frustration complex and a new Hitler...
...Welles* made clear what this country means when it speaks of making the world safe for democracy in this year 1941...
...And don't fool yourself with the shallow rsasuU tion that World War I, after all, had no sad sinister consequences and that the European nations, after 1918, soon returned to a sane way of life...
...Guarantee of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all of Europe's individuals and national groups...
...it took the Germans twenty adventurom years to prepare their sinister type of revenge-, twenty years during which they were forced ,M play some kind of peaceful cooperation with tin...
...adequate instrumentality must unquestionably be found to achieve sack adjustments when the nations of the earth again undertake the task of restoring law and order to a disastrously shaken world...
...and told the 7,500.000 New Yorkers that the coining mayoralty campaign would pit two diametrically opposed philosophies of government against each other...
...A Norway, praying for a chance to ghe a to the Quislings—and getting that chancel Tat Serbs free to reckon with Psvelitch assi an Croats...
...The efao...
...The choice is therefore between the tried and experi- enced two-term Mayor LaGuardia and the job-hfingry Tammany-Kelly-Flynn machines...
...Any suggestions would la unpopular on all sides...
...tints...
...It is well known that this group has official representation in Mr...
...O'Dwyer has made the Horatio Alger rise from cop to mayoralty ""candidate by combining a certain display of liberalness with adroit cooperation with the Brooklyn Kelly machine and the hierarchy of the Brooklyn Catholic Diocese...
...The entire problem must be discussed candidly by all concerned with the future of civilized mankind...
...to the graves of, slaughtered wives and children...
...that after the war a conaiew** number of Jews will bs«si»4ei grate from Poland...
...The liberal and labor movement must re-elect Fiorello LaGuardia...
...I am not intimating that all Poles are anti-Semites just as I would not intimate that a great Amercian like Herbert Agar or other civilized and pro-democratic Southerners are anti-Negro...
...3—Full and adequate economic rights for all peoples, with equal access to raw materials...
...MOVIES AND DER KAMPF ILL HAYS is the czar of all the studios...
...anti-Semitic magazine Jsttsmrr liakem (which, incidentally,on* a short suspension has Jeessd publication in London) spsottd "expulsion" and SikoraU'l ¦* ister speaks of "emigT»tioe...
...the terror of reckoning in Germany proper, once Himmler's wrists are broken and the brothers and sons of the Dachau victims have the day they live for during these years of yearning for revenge...
...Welles added: <j "We all of us now see dearly, if we did net before, that no matter how great our American capacity for defense may be, no nutter how perfect oar hemispheric system may become, onr future welfare must inevitably be contingent upon the existence in the rest of the world of equally peace-minded and equally secure peoples who not only will not, bat cannot become a source of potential danger to us in the New World...
...O'Dwyer cooperated closely with Edward Lodge Curran, propaganda leader of the dominant Fascist bloc in the Brooklyn Diocese...
...It is aa eruption of unimaginably ghastly bitterness—eosssthing in the way of an elementary cataclysm...
...Friendly, humorous, unhystMscsl officers (a bred, only the Anglo-Saxon SSsJSl have so far succeeded in producing) to Shea anyone can turn with full confidence that 0» well-built chap will reliably wrest the gun 1MB the hands of the madman who is waiting for jot around the corner...
...Europe is a real continent...
...And that* what Europe will need above all...
...All those whose-minds and consciences are astir over the fate of mankind will hail the address as a great, historic milestone on the road of blood and tears now being traversed by the nations...
...O'Dwyer's Brooklyn District Attorney's office...
...1 Imagine a France which affords an opportunity tor a light between the Viehysters and their vie...
...at the moment of Hitler's collapse, will be caught in Warshaw, Rotterdam, Oslo, Belgrade, Athens...
...whether it be security from want, disease, and starvation, whether it be security in enjoying that inalienable right which every human being should possess of living out his life in peace and happiness, people throughout the length and breadth of the world are demanding security, and fredom from fear...
...Forget for a moment the convulsions of internal strife, revenge and killing within a defeated Germany...
...Sure...
...But Mr...
...In the past we've been fairly well satisfied by Holl ywood, and when we weren't, double features, free dishes and bingo kept us happy...
...May I remind Felix Gross that according to Sasza Try buna, a weekly Polish newspaper published in the United States by Jewish-Polish emigrees...
...New Leader LA GUARDIA RUNS JN a terse, characteristic radio talk last Tuesday night Mayor ¦LaGuardia accepted the American Labor Party nomination,"'warned he would make no campaign deals with anv political party, called for the nomination of City Council President Newbold Morris and Gity Comptroller Joe McGoldrick...
...We invite our readers to study the program 'and give us the benefit of their opinions...
...vi Provocative as it sounds, and unpopuar aa It is—not before this sort of police bee the continent under control (and for quite a time) Sol the world have any chance to talk sense who Europe...
...That |s the objective before as all today— to try and find the means of bringing that to pass...
...As I figure it, the difference of opinion between all these high-spirited blueprinters is chiefly that they accuse each other of suggesting a ninety-five per cent paradise for a post-war Europe while the competing Utopians, advocate a truly hundred per cent, and sometimes even a hundred-five per cent, paradise...
...But there were issues, which a man in his position could not touch, even if the Federal Communication Commission restriction on radio talks were ignored...
...Mr, O'Dwyer has done nothing during the past fifteen years to indicate that he is anything but a liberal of sorts There is nothing in his record, except the cooperation with Edward Lodge Curran, which blackens him as having even the slightest tolerance of anti-democratic sentiment...
...These, are a step from the Panama Canal, and the threat not only to hemispheric unity but actually the first signs of an invasion of the Americas...
...it failed because of its utilization by certain powers primarily to advance their own political and commercial ambitions...
...The Europe, we think of in discussing post-war reconstruction, is as much, and probably less, a reality as the Europe of the Greek republics...
...M independence by the Tiast/^* Versailles—to respect the itf** of national minorities...
...Welles, we shall begin publication next week of a peace program prepared jointly by a group of American Socialists in cooperation with distinguished European Socialists now residing in this country...
...the unavoidable orgy of revenge, executed against the unhappy German soldiers who...
...to the same gray and empty fears of confusion and bitterness, so barren in vision and in human accomplishment, which marked the termination of the last war...
...This is precisely what Senator Wheeler did by ordering the printing of 1,000,000 postcards in the Government Printing Office and then dispatching some of them frankfree to army officers and men urging them to protest against General Marshall's latest suggestion...
...But that mysterious city of Kleig lights, hypothryroid publicity men and Marlene Dietrich can tell a wide-flung world, in which it is supreme, of the benefits of democracy and the horrors of Nazism...
...I did say, and repeat, that racial hatred in Poland is as old as the Polish Nation...
...Gerald K. Smith, of the pro-Nazi Committee of 1,000,000) 'and Senator Burton K. Wheeler...
...I speak not of the obx'ious things: the largescale slaughter which, under all circumstances, will have to precede the cracking of the Nazi hold on the continent...
...Are we, socialists, » trust them blindly againT -M Mr...
...We agree with Secretary of War Stimson that this "comes very near the line of subversive activities against the United States, if not treason...
...offer an opportunity to teach the surviving cattle elegant toe-dancing...
...Machine politics has not Come a long way since Boss Croker's days-—it is only less opulent, practically destitute after two record-breaking reform administrations...
...my article on Polish anti- S e m i t i s m on the ground that "it Conveys a wrong impression because it says nothing of the attitude of the Polish people...
...This he brands as one "of those half-truths that are sometimes iis bad as falsehoods...
...But now it appears that MtT Hays moved into the territory of national defense by virtually ordering the movie producers to refrain from injecting propaganda into their films...
...No, to the diligent architects of an European Utopia I have nothing to offer but sympathy and honest respect...
...I believe, the work done by Max Gaft of the Social Democratic Federation and Irwin Jaffe of the Labor Division of the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies, in helping to secure this result...
...There can be no choice for New Yorkers...
...And Europe after this war must necessarily be a real hell...
...The Romanians crying tar the blood of the stupid dogs who were hunting wfta Hitler...
...All this and heaven too...
...It is obvious that Germany herself, and everything German, once the Nazis are thrown from the saddle, will not be in the state and mood of sensible reform...
...The first two diametrically opposed gentlemen went to Washington to protest against President Roosevelt's appeal and General Marshall's apparently well substantiated warning that this country faces immediate peril...
...General Marshall has said: "We can't run the army as a political club...
...That word, security, represents the end upon which the hearts of men and women everywhere today are act...
...Of course, of course...
Vol. 24 • February 1941 • No. 30
