Where the News Ends
Chambelin, William Henry
By William Henry Chambelin Where the News Ends One Year of War F4ECEMBER 7 marks the first anniversary of America's involvement in the Second World War. It was a year that began badly, with the...
...But there has been an eastward shift of Russian industry and population during the last decade...
...There is a very strong probability that rhu war, unlike the last one, will be a war in two instalments for the United States...
...after three years of war in 1917...
...Through September and October the British and American administrations were distinctly on the defensive...
...Eastman's ifMompered reply to my critique of his article in The New Leader...
...A quarter of a century ago Japan was on the Allied side and we had nothing to worry about in the Pacific...
...report of Sir William Beveridge now * takes its place in that long and distinguished list of documents which serve as the milestones-of our progress...
...The fall of Hitler's Germany will by no means automatically entail the simultaneous collapse of Japan...
...When the Italians rise, when our forces march in, will these men and the like-minded groups behind them have the opportunity as rapidly as possible to remake the land according to their ideals and aspirations...
...Eastman assails me on three grounds...
...If such is the case, kindly so advise me...
...The fact that the active opposition is actually led by socialists means that the people -jthemselves are on the move, that we .shall net have to depend on dubious elements which have supported Mussolini and...
...was by no means cheerful and few observers would have expected on that date that the war would end before the end of the year Germany had completed one smashing offensive on the Western Front and was preparing for another...
...First came the loss of the Dutch Indies...
...THERE is...
...There was real fear—not precisely that we were losing the war —but that our position would grow so tough that victory would not be worth the winning...
...How shall the country be administered...
...Tbe struggle to beat the Nazi troops will be long and tough...
...A CHALLENGE TO GOVERNOR DEWEY /"TPY^RNOR LEHMAN'S valedictory to the Tl^peopie of New York State is a modest but put impressive document...
...EDITORIAL COMMENT One Year After — Armies and War Aims . . . THE past twelve months have carried the 'American people through an extraordinary gamut of experience and emotion...
...consequently have no standing with the oppressed people...
...Sir William is indisputably right in maintaining that if we are to escape disaster after the,,wj»r, our thinking must be done now...
...There can be no better beginning than the resolve to avoid the spirit of Versailles...
...For the social-political war the prospects are far less bright than for the military one...
...Churchill, "we should at once bring all our forces to the other side of the world to the aid of the United "States, to the aid of China...
...For the second we have not even formulated a strategy...
...In a wide sense we have here tbe outline of a democratic attempt to meet the challenge of fascism...
...Despite the severe losses inflicted on the Japanese Navy, despite the push of the American and Australia* troops across the jungles of New Guinea, there would seem to be little prospect of aiming t crushing decisive blow at Japan so long as our main forces are directed against Germany...
...Benefits to the unemployed are coupled with prbvisions for training and retraining to fit the unemployed for new jobs...
...There, along1 with Clement R. Attlee and Ernest Bevin, he will sit as a part of the minority Labor group...
...It means that we have now reason -to,hope that Italy can be rehabilitated from within...
...Eastman has to oppose him...
...It is possible that the Prime Minister and the men about him will win the war on five continents and seven seas and then lose it in England...
...Unless you have facts not given to the public, the policy of our Government with reference to this well-known writer appears stupid and unjust...
...Will the democratic groups have the way left clear for the formation of a democratic government...
...On Monday, by happy chance, came a reply.tfrom the Italian ^-Socialist Party...
...Then came November—the sudden turn of the British on Rommel, the brilliant thrust of the Americans into North Africa, the powerful resurgence of Russian forces about Stalingrad and before Moscow, the dashing naval victory of the Solomons...
...He will not fail at this one...
...Eastman chooses to cast aspersions on my character...
...The German armies were nowhere near the Caucasus, they had not even entered Ukraina...
...the speed and efficiency with which we can reopen land communication with China sad train and arm vast Chinese armies...
...It remains to be seen whether the ministry of Winston Churchill and the majority of the House will take their cue from such a source...
...This is the continued active fighting of the Russian armies, which had collapsed in 1917 under the double impact of three years of unsuccessful war and revolution...
...It witnessed such developments as the rout of Rommel, the successful American landing in North Africa, the hard Russian stabs at the extended German lines in the neighborhood of Stalingrad and in the Northwest...
...Editor Protests 'Deportation Of Jan Valtin From JOHN C. GRANBERY (Editor of The Emancipator) To the Editor: Following is a copy of a letter sent to Attorney-General Biddle: Dear Mr...
...The United Nations are not yet united...
...With the speed of a moving-picture the world dissolved and changed before our...
...The French and British sdli-tary leaders were sending desperate appeals for American troops and gloomily considering ?» possibility that it might be necessary to rathe behind the Loire, abandoning Paris...
...Actuarial com-i ? ? putations show that the cost would not be excessive...
...But the fact that leadership is in such hands means much more than a military advantage...
...Numerous groups in this country are determined to turn back the New Deal in the midst of the war...
...He says, first, that I have not read his books, second, that I despise him for not holding US' academic title, and third, for being a representative of American culture...
...But despite all offkieJi warnings we began to dream of victory in 1943...
...Christianity, which I follow, believes that this hypothesis is fallacious and that the world cannot be organized without resorting to spiritual principles, which are not implied in interests, however interpreted^ I oppose pragmatism in this country, as I opposed Continental materialism twenty-five years back...
...I deem both, and their mutual enmity to Christianity, responsible for much of our present calamity...
...The facts in his case that are published in connection with his apprehension have been well known for years...
...It would, in fact, be small in comparison with the war appropriations which are being made as matter of course...
...Instead of discussing them — or for that matter discussing my economic reasoning against his article—Mr...
...There is the grave danger that after we have won a military victory we shall suffer a social defeat...
...The struggle to beat Nazi ideas will be longer and more difficult...
...While the report ft*ioVitself to the use of the terminology of a social-security program, the ideal at the heart of the entire scheme is that of a healthy nation .continuously producing...
...The war in Europe may end before that in the Pacific...
...Fortunately our preparation had begun after the fall of France and had been under way for more than two years...
...but the bastion of the European continent which Hitler holds, barring some happy surprise in the form of internal collapse, is still formidably strong, despite the encouraging news of the last few weeks...
...With this picture in mind, Mr...
...Her army is , sadly out of date...
...It is a source of satisfaction, too, that in this state we have been peculiarly free of industrial strife----People will not be satisfied to go back to the old order of things...
...Went," says Sir William, "was a needless scandal due to no one taking the trouble to prevent it...
...It was only necessary to build up this existing front with an unending flow of men and supplies to tip the scales against the worn German forces...
...There are great Italian leaders, some here and in England, many carrying on the underground movement at home...
...The entire population—from the ci*adle to the grave—is included...
...It will need substantial help, but the socialists and other responsible groups will be in a position to set up an orderly and responsible administration of their own...
...Contrary to his habit, the Prime Minister was speaking of the future...
...of course, one favorable factor, by * comparison with 1917-18...
...It is a world struggle—not merely to defeat one Hitler —but to attain some sort of insurance against the rise of other Hitlers in Germany or anywhere in tiie world...
...From there on there was a descending curve .till we were deep in a year of defeat and dismay...
...Here and there occurs an expression which must be read as a direct reply to tha dictators: "The object of a government in peace or war is not the glory of the rulers or Tacej, but the happiness of the common man...
...But toward the end of this realistic summary occurs a passage which, though it is uncolored by the least tinge of wishful thinking, may serve as the basis of a distinct hope...
...The fact that the Socialist Party is still in being, with other similar democratic groups, givgs assurance that we have a basis for orderly rehabilitation and reconstruction...
...I am sorry to have to learn that th< humorist Eastman lacks good humor and the humanist Eastman lacks generosity...
...THAT SENSE OF COMRADESHIP WINSTON CHURCHILL'S Sunday address was, in the main, a frank and unvarnished appraisal of the various aspects of our world sitution...
...The report insists repeatedly on "freedom from want" as the objective...
...The effect upon our mood was out of all proportion to actual events...
...There were alarming hold-ups in production both of raw materials and of finished products...
...Everything has been done to present the scheme as a practical and easily workable plan, something that can be implemented quickly and without undue social strain...
...On the industrial front the cycle of the year has been somewhat different...
...The Japanese Navy is good, but inferior in strength to that of the United States, and hopelessly handicapped by lack of air support...
...Finally—in mid-sumrnir-—the Russians were beaten out of Sevastopol and Rommel drove the British Eighth Army back on Alexandria...
...It would inevitably lead to a great intrease in total income...
...As for Japanese air power it is almost nonexistent...
...This consideration may give us some encouragement For the outlook in April...
...despite prodigious losses in men, territory and natural resources, the Russian armies possessed sufficient strength and cohesion to hit back hard when Hitler's attention was distracted by the un-favorable developments in Africa...
...In doing this I follow the lead of Americans and Europeans, living and dead, indiscriminately...
...Attempts at prediction have usually turned out to be no more than bad guesses, as the following excerpts from a speech delivered by that pontifical military "expert," Major George Fielding Eliot, almost on the eve of Pearl Harbor would indicate: "Japan is in no case to fight a war with a group of major opponents...
...In this case, said Mr...
...He ?3, no' doubt, eager to make such a record in Albany as will serve as a springboard to Washington...
...There are said to be in the House of Commons 55 Tories who are directors of life insurance companies...
...Thomas E. Dsasp 'still has a month in which to perfect his organization and outline his policies...
...It has been one of the most intelligently directed parts of our political warfare...
...Certainly every day by which the end of the struggle can be hastened will save innumerable human lives and impre*» the prospect that tortured and shattered ?????» will retain enough strength and resources to rebuild the edifice of civilized life...
...Both here and in Britain it is evident that tbe forces of reaction are determined to play down the meanings and objectives of this historic struggle...
...Italy, like France, need not be taken and occupied by our forces as an enemy land...
...As engineering rightly' presupposes that the elements of the world will fit into one another under a system of laws of physics, representative of the oneness of the world which no one can prove, so pragmatism in the social sciences takes it for granted that experiment can find out how to organize the conflicting interests harmoniously...
...Our Allied governments have carried on an effective campaign of word and action to bring the Italian people over to our side...
...We have Come a long way since then...
...Now, even though Hitler is recognized as our main enemy, there must be a steady stream of shipping, manpower and material to the Orient, while valuable raw materials which we formerly obtained from part of the world, tin, rubber, quinine, hemp, are cut off...
...The liberation of our country cannot be the work of anyone but ourselves...
...Churchill continued: "Should the war end thus, in two successive stages, there will be a higher sense of comradeship around the council table than existed among the victors at Versailles...
...But despite all awkwardness and hesitation there has been a steady increase in volume and quality of our machines and munitions...
...Texas...
...Two of these comparisons are conspicuously to our disadvantage and seem to point to a longer, harder and more costly war than we were obliged to fight in 1917-1918...
...and labor legislation," reports this man' as be departs for activities oh the international stage, "has, I believe, no superior anywhere in this country...
...All that has been proved is that we have the men, the equipment and the generalship with which we can beat our way to military triumph after undergoing vastly longer, costlier and tougher struggles than any which we picture now...
...But there is British Labor...
...It is an honorable purpose...
...T4.r...
...in their valiant struggle against the aggressions of Japan...
...It was a year that began badly, with the crushing blow at Pearl Harbor and Japan's subsequent rapid sweep over the vast and rieb area included in the Philippines, the Netherlands Indies, Malaya and Burma...
...The pace of final victory in the Far East will depend on such factors as the deveioB-ment of long-range air power, the willingness of Stalin to enter this conflict after Germany is disposed of...
...We know him as a man of dynamic energy and superb organizing talent...
...No matter what happens on battlefields, if we run into depression, unemployment and frustration, the real war—the war for a safe and decent world—will be lost...
...Getting rid of' Mussolini is not enough...
...At the end of our first year we have started to win the...
...Unlike the conventional offleiaj document, it now and again utters the aspirations of our time in pithy sentences...
...The confidence of the people in their official agencies and in the industrial set-up has tended to grow rather steadily as the months have come and gone...
...There are only the beginnings of t political offensive...
...eyes...
...These are matters of principle...
...We had merely made a Start, had not yet engaged the main.'forces of bur enemies...
...It is like Herbert H. Lehman to issue this frank challenge to his successor...
...Members of The New Leader staff and all other Americans who know Herbert Morrison will unite in congratulating him upon his promotion to greater power and responsibility...
...On Sunday Winston Churchill said: "It is for the Italian people, forty millions of them, to say whether they want this terrible thing to happen to their country or not One man, and one man alone, has brought them to this pass...
...During bis first weeks in Albany he will be very publicly on trial...
...Mere military aid from within Italy would, no doubt, be welcome to the Allied leaders no matter how dubious its source...
...What these men of divided loyalty will attempt to do to the Beveridge plan can well be imagined...
...The bungling over India indicates that tbe British government is not ready to go the whole way for democracy...
...Expert opinion in Britain is to the effect that this historic document is doomed "to go out of the bomb-blasted windows of Parliament...
...But this is far more than a fight to beat some millions of Germans and Jape...
...In this case, the Allies would be sitting down to a peace conference in Europe while their armies were still united in the battle of the Pacific...
...The American, British and Dutch naval and air forces are fully capable of isolating Japan from the world and bringing to bear the pressure of full blockade—a pressure which Japan could not long endure, out which she lacks the strength to break by force...
...Apparently with perfect frankness he set them forth in his powerful book "Out the most convincing and enlightening books I have, ever read...
...And ideas of human welfare once planted have a way of sticking...
...At Vladivostok Russian long-range bombers hold in chancery the inflammable cities of Japan...
...He has precisely -the sort of initiative which is required in an hour like this...
...The hour has come to start active opposition...
...HERBERT MORRISON AS Minister of Home Defense, Herbert Mor-rison had more responsibility than any other one man for the preparing of England for endurance and defense after the dark days of Dunkirk...
...It is obvious that its ?introduction would bring about"some-tar niore Important -than a redistribution ime...
...Fascism," said these Italians, "promised us an empire...
...That thoughts like these occupy the back of Winston Churchill's head in the midst of his overmastering concern with the day's burdens is a basis for hope of better things...
...Here the majn tide of Japanese conquest stopped...
...One may, however, profitably compare our position and our problems with those which we faced when we entered the First World War twenty-five years ago...
...We will still be faced with.a powerful enemy in the Orient, inferior, certainly, in modern Industrial technique and mass production facilities, but enriched by the taw materials of the conquered territories and animated by a lastditch fighting spirit that may well make the proeesi of reconquering the regions which the Japanese overran in the first months of the war both slow and costly...
...In the meantime the' situation in India brought the threat of a riffroB-our eastern flank, a threat before which tbe British cabinet stood practically speechless...
...Africa is a good steppingstone...
...But now the time has come for further and more conclusive moves...
...After all, Lincoln has something to do with the spirit of America, although Mr...
...1918...
...In my article I have paid,my respects to Mr...
...Then Honkong went, then Burma and Malaya, then the Philippines...
...The non-cooperation of great groups of workers will be the most effective means of bringing about capitulation of the Fascists...
...first of these wars...
...In accordance with this conviction, his plan is set foy Operation in the year 1945...
...No living man possesses enough knowledge and prescience to foresee with any assurance the future course of this global war, in which the imponderable elements of popular morale and physical endurance play such an important part and many facts about industrial capacity and new military inventions are shrouded in secrecy...
...The only explanation of the unenlightened cohrse you are pursuing that I can think of is that you have been unduly' impressed by the bitter opposition of Communists to him, for they resent his revelations of their secret service methods...
...People of every station, every craft, every rank, every group are to make their contributions and receive their economic protection...
...But the mechanisms proposed go far beyond such a minimum freedom as an ideal...
...Comradeship at the table is precisely what is needed...
...The new shift of ministerial posts brings him }nto the War Cabinet of eight members...
...The strategy of international organization lags far behind the commandos and the rangers...
...This was a -clear invitation to revolt...
...And the naval battles at Midway and around the Solomons, while they haven't yet led to much reconquest of territory, have given a comforting assurance that in the quality and.the strength of their ships and airplanes and other weapons and in the skill and daring required for their effective use our men are more than a match for the Japanese...
...There has been plenty of talk of connections with groups of generals, aristocrats, royalists...
...The upshot of it all is to the effect that "we must brace ourselves to cope with the trials and problems of what must be a stern and terrible year," This is a sober statement by a man who knows the facts of this worldwide struggle as well as one man can take them in and survey them...
...There is no tajnt .of charity...
...I do regard pragmatism as a scientific dogma...
...Lloyd George's initial law of thirty-five years ago covered indigent workers over the age of seventy...
...In 1917 there was a readymade front for us in France which the powerful German drives of 1918 bent but never broke...
...Careful- attention to Governor Lehman's parting words might lead to its accomplishment...
...He is a ifcan of great energy and high ambition...
...It is clear, too, that despite all our blundering we can turn out the goods needed by our forces and those of our Allies, Military victory will take time and sacrifice, but it is in the cards...
...In the Euro-African theatre of war the last month of our first year of war was also far and away the most heartening...
...Biddle: I am astounded at the news that you have approved a deportation · -order for Richard Krebs (Jan Valtin...
...This time, of course, we have no such front...
...But the speed with which the outlook in the last war changed is a hopeful augury...
...LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Heimann Replies to Eastman -Counters Pragmatism With Christianity From EDUARD HEIMANN J4) tie Editor: -,· I have just read Mr...
...Our own naval forces, in cooperation with the British and the French, held undisputed mastery over the sea-lanes...
...When we, with their assistance, take Italy, what have they to expect...
...j . THE BEVERIDGE REPORT...
...All that I write in criticism of the policy of our Government under your direction is with the reservation that you may have facts of which the public is ignorant...
...In terms of the calendar December 7. 1942, 1· the equivalent of April 6. 1918...
...Eastman's writings, including his article, as "brilliant and gallant...
...cry for a second front had risen to a shriek...
...MATTEOTTI STILL LIVES *1*HE news of Socialist activity in Italy is everywhere hailed with joy as the basis of a new hope for that long debauched and desperate land...
...Permit me briefly to answer him...
...This scheme rises clean above and beyond tha ancient poor law concepts...
...How shall we treat them...
...It has reduced as to the status of a German colony...
...It started with the shock of Pearl Harbor, the breathless amazement, the quick anger, the stern resolve to fight...
...While circumstances prevent such action, the very language of "deportation to Germany" arouses a revulsion, after all he has suffered at the hands of the Gestapo...
...We should, of course, be very fortunate, ???» fortunate than there is any Logical reason f*r expecting at the moment, if next June or July should be the time of German surrender...
...It is now up to Roosevelt and Churchill to give to the democratic people of Italy some definite assurance about the future...
...After a year of disappointment and defeat, we have proved that we can, with our present sort of organization and our present leadership, attain a military victory over the Axis forces...
...Our code of...
...Adding him to the War Cabinet makes it definitely stronger...
...The front in Russia, to be sure, is much farther to the East than it was while Russian organised resistance continued in the First World War...
...He has never failed at any task...
...The benefits provided for Children are evidently thought of as furnishing the -means of health and growth and education...
...Despite this preparation, there were overlapping authorities in Washington and much evidence of reluctance on the part of industrial leaders to go all-out for conversion to war purposes...
...He rendered our people and the cause of democracy tremendous service...
...I can assure him that I wrote in full knowledge of his recent...
...If this were merely a war to defeat armed enemy' forces, the people of this country might well prepare to celebrate Christmas with confidence and good cheer...
Vol. 25 • December 1942 • No. 49
