Senator George W. Norris Pleads for 'Peace Without Revenge'
NORRIS, U. S. Senator GEORGE W.
Senator George W. Norris Pleads for 'Peace Without Revenge' Noted Liberal Leader Says Disarmament of Germany, Italy, Japan Is First Step Towards End of Dictatorship By U. S. Senator GEORGE W....
...If you have never, or seldom, told one, you may be more tolerant than those that do...
...Rather, it seems, it is some "what" that is the real enemy...
...that is what most of us accept as the fact...
...We hate what they do...
...are you one that should speak...
...Essentially respectable and law-respecting as all juries should be, but lacking the training of the critic or the psychologist, it will heed the voice of religion as the voice of authority—and there are few plays indeed, from the current musical comedy to Shaw and Shakespeare, which some minister and priest and rabbi and pietistic society could not be found to denounce...
...The treaty must provide that this disarmament shall be permanent...
...They are that to the extent that they have succumbed "to and' obeyed the orders of their masters...
...Perhaps our representatives, stationed at different places in the conquered territory, vested with the power that the treaty will give them to examine industrial Developments in oroer to see tnax tnere is no military preparation under any guise, will he sufficient, fnassd, it will net be long until such a treaty will be hailed with joy by our conquered enemies...
...Who is to draw it...
...The leg-show lifted and the can-can kicked, while Ibsen was being banned on countless stages...
...And more than a whisper tells us that Hemingway's "For Whom the Bell Tolls" is being harried in Hollywood by fascist forces from Spain...
...For censorship, however, practically advisable at the pornographic extreme, and however necessary at the extreme of wartime secret...
...In the second place, the attack on sex is often a cloak for other purposes...
...Keep eiiad aad spiri...
...Every soldier must be disarmed...
...uppermost in the minds of everyone is that we are fighting together with Russia and the rest of the United Nations to win this war, and we ought to let "sleepinf dogs" lie...
...It will not be many years until these conquered nations will be governed by men who have never breathed the spirit of militarism...
...it spurts in whims, it sputters with churchly proddings: one loud indignation may bite off a vivid film...
...Aside from that, we want to help Russia...
...And the irrational sometimes have simple ideas...
...But, usually he is •ihe creature of the conditions thatf he finds...
...This pussyfooting cry against criticism at home would have us yield here what we are fighting for abroad: the right to a mind, and to speak it...
...That, is the real enemy that must be defeated, liquidated, and supplanted by rational, liberal, progressive ideas...
...The question as to what must be the terms of the peace following such a surrender is as great in importance as the war itself...
...You'd be more likely to stay away, or on a rare visit be somewhat amused, somewhat disgusted...
...Elder Statesman IN the U. S. Congress where politicians came and went one statesman remained...
...This feeling of hatred in our hearts and revenge in our souls is perhaps natural...
...As the years pass by, it will be but a short time until even these small standing armies can be decreased and it will not be many years until the armies can be entirely withdrawn...
...Nazism and Fascism, the idealogic expression of contemporary dictators has done all that...
...Again, Russia is our ally and we wish the Russian people well...
...The issue is whether the principles of human freedom and honor among men and nations shall rule the world, or whether our civiliza...
...This makes it senseless to speak of the war as being carried on to exterminate Nazism...
...The civilized world refuses to be destroyed by any such doctrine...
...They support an attempt to throw ' back the human race to a state of serfdom, of slavery...
...Finally, and basically, the question is one not of fact but of taste...
...We were moved" whes Poland was invaded, when Holland Was raped...
...The theatre should, and inevitably does, portray life: the ugly and the evil as well as the beautiful and the good...
...Would you be harmed by, say, a burlesque show...
...Sometimes it may be said man-directs historic forces...
...Motion picture censorship—a so-called voluntary arrangement of the producers, through the Hays office—is less systematic...
...Each has taught his people to believe that eventually they will be the conquerors of the whole world...
...But clinging to the not always clean skirts of this kind of censorship is an uglier brood, which ever waits to slide itching fingers around the necks of our liberties...
...is ts» mill I a 1 wedge by which the dictator drives through to full control...
...For one year we have been fighting and suffering, and our soldiers have been dying on the battle fronts of the world...
...But when the adult public, in a democracy, freely chooses to pay to attend a production, the hand of an outside censor more hardily, more questionably, bars them away...
...For forty years George W. ' Norris held his seat in Congress, s model of a democratic legislator, a great spokesman for the liberal and progressive aspirations of the American people...
...Now legal action, or the fear or threat of it, is clamping down more widely...
...There is no love between Germany, Japan, and Italy...
...that is what most of us believe...
...most persons recognize that public -pornography would hardly be a public good...
...In the initial stages of this peace, it will be necessary for small standing armies to remain in the conquered territory to see that the treaty is carried out in good faith...
...Although prohibition has been suggested again, the main attack in this war has been upon the theatre...
...The burlesque flourished while Brieux felt the iron hand, for his searing treatment of syphilis in "Damaged Goods...
...The sacrifice which - Russia has made stands out in the '-'world's1 history as one of the greatest tributes to the cause '•'in which we believe...
...Our disarmament will take care of itself...
...When we approach that sacred peace table, we must east oat of our hearts all thoughts of revenge and hatred...
...The theatre, however, faces a practical situation...
...Between good and evil most persons find it hard to set a certain mark, though there are many who simply take the word of their priest (the religions measure with a varied rule...
...Even a police force necessary to maintain the peace must be supervised in order that it may not become a part of a military preparation of rearmament...
...ItJOTE three aspects of the problem...
...To accomplish that, they have resorted to bestial murder of the innocent, the non-combatant as well as' the combatant...
...The Theatre's Dilemma— And a Proposed Solution By JOSEPH T. SHIPLEY •"THE censorship that supervises release of * news, so as to withhold whatever may help the enemy, is an expected and natural aspect of the war...
...We wifl have on our shoulders the responsibility of the peace of the world and the preventing of another world conflagration...
...It is too much honor for these three human renegades 'and their satellites to be singled out by the rest of the world as the enemy which must be defeated...
...And this includes art...
...We must maintain, for a time at least, a supremacy over our conquered enemies until the disarmament feature of the peace has grown into the hearts of men...
...Hitler, Mussolini, Hirohito...
...There is nothing undemocratic in such a proposal: the principle of a literacy qualification for suffrage is recognized, as vales sad as democratic as the selection of properly sViUajl men for skilled labor...
...These people may be enthusiasts for victory, but in a subtle and deeper sense they are compromisers with Fascism...
...How can such a peace be obtained...
...but questions of the influence that a work might have, its "tendency to incite to vice"—which of us has the right to decide for another...
...It was accomplished by ruthless suppression, by the vicious implanting ef fear, and it was inculcated into the young people by propaganda which reduced Germans to brutes, who gloried in killing...
...His.address on the anniversary of Pearl Harbor, therefore, has an added significance...
...The electric spark of art is more unpredictable, but equally beyond deciding by the ballot...
...Thus, perhaps, the ideal...
...China has been suffering from the onslaughts of a murderous foe for a much longer time and, through it all, while millions of her people have- been killed, and other millions have undergone untold and unspeakable outrages ' at the hands of a pagan foe, she has been, and still is, upholding the banner of human liberty and battling bravely -in defense7 of the principles which we believe to be the foundation of every righteous government...
...For one year, with our allies, we have been defending the civilization of the world...
...Some of these fellow-travelers even picketed the White House...
...But what do we understand victory to mean...
...Of course, we cannot be expected to disarm at once...
...A military victory which is, and must of necessity be our .immediate objective, is only a prelude to the path upon which we will go forward to reach the real and greater objective...
...It is the ideology which has been imposed upon great masses of people in Germany, Italy, and unfortunately, even in democracies...
...Senator George W. Norris Pleads for 'Peace Without Revenge' Noted Liberal Leader Says Disarmament of Germany, Italy, Japan Is First Step Towards End of Dictatorship By U. S. Senator GEORGE W. NORRIS ONE YEAR ago at Pearl Harbor a murderous, unmerci-" ful, and unrelenting enemy stabbed our nation in the back...
...President Roosevelt expressed the wish of the treat liberal electorate when he asked George Norris not to retire from public fife but to continue to work with the progressive forces of ¦ wartime America...
...And that is embraced by the Atlantic Charter and the four freedoms...
...In the lighter aspects of theatre, which aim chiefly or only to entertain, the lines of demarcation are even harder to draw...
...The strong man, strong in fanaticism, might, and daring will use for his own ends the means fashioned by historic, social, and economic forces...
...When I say us, I include our noble and valiant allies...
...Fanaticism, to appeal, must have a kernel of an idea, a simple idea...
...The clean exposure of Stripsy Gypsy, or the suggestive leer of the "bumps" and hinting lines ? The law leaves it to a jury of one's peers...
...Then he goes on to say, "Nazism is [only] a theory or set of principles concerning political and social affairs...
...Having completely disarmed our enemies, and having provided that disarmament shall be permanent, we must then, with this qualification, treat our conquered enemies in a spirit of friendliness and equality...
...Victory and After — Allies Must Liquidate Fascist Ideology for Lasting Peace By Judge Jacob Panken ^\UR_objective in this war is victory...
...any basis in fact or reality, ideologies are evolved from ideas...
...In the best of hands, it would remain autocratic...
...We meet be the good Samaritan...
...First, it must bring a peace which shall be permanent and, second, this peace must be just and fair between us and our enemies...
...Comes the revolution, you'll eat strawberries and cream, and like it...
...We are making this peace treaty for millions, and hundreds of millions of innocent people yet unborn...
...That is the understanding...
...Censorship is never advocated to save the one that cries out for it...
...For its own protection against such pernickety interference, the theatre must take steps...
...Venus de MiloT September Morn...
...A jury, chosen as juries are for trials of assault or theft, does not function properly in censorship cases...
...In the names of truth, taste, and morality, it must not make the foul too sweetly-scented, nor give the villainous too much allure...
...The same doctrine has been advocated by Mussolini...
...A democracy moves by the will of the majority where there must be common action —and leaves freedom for other things...
...We must realize that we are not making a, treaty for the men who sit on the other side of the table and who have been guilty of these terrible crimes against mankind...
...Who then is the enemy...
...What of this victory ? It is quite clear to me that, in this victory, there mast be no appeasement—there must be no thought of a negotiated peace...
...Obviously to achieve victory we must defeat the armed forces of the enemy...
...If it be claimed that Russia entered into S "peace" pact with Germany only to gain tuns to prepare, why did Russia, Russian ConnBS-nists, and their satellites in the United Stats...
...Certainly the unanimity with which the public stays away from certain plays is efficient censorship of such endeavors...
...These censors, then, are trained psychologists, psychiatrist*, doctors of the mind and the emotions, so at to recognize which works will harm the young ones and the weaklings...
...free...
...Jury trial was granted there...
...This responsibility will be ours—we cannot shift it— we cannot avoid it...
...Writh the nations we have conquered hailing the peace that was forced upon them, with the hearts of all men purified in fire and flame, and all united in building a world where happiness, human joy, human liberty and the right of every man and woman to think and speak his thoughts prevail, a new civilization will emerge and the build of a new world will have begun...
...Every submarine and armored ship must be sunk to the bottom of the sea...
...All this is a matter of honesty of intention and skill of execution...
...A line must be drawn between "indecent and obscene exhibitions" and permitted performances...
...In the "Wine, Woman, and Song'* trial, indeed, she jury were not allowed to see the performance that was on trial, but had to listen to descriptions of what had been done— although the difference between art and pornography may reside'not in what is done but precisely in the manner of its doing...
...I know this will be difficult to do because it will be said that these enemies who have been so ruthless, so de...
...We will lessen our preparation and thus lighten the burden of taxation upon our people...
...But, consider for a moment the late and un-lamented campaign for a "2nd Front Now...
...To be concluded next week) Censorship—By Whom...
...The motion pictures are seen by millions of children...
...What good will come to humanity if we win the war and lose the peace...
...They have been unjustly criti-' cizing our efforts in this great struggle...
...Hitler, the outstanding dictator of the ages, has made his people believe they are destined to rule the world and are justified in using all means at their command to bring about this result...
...England, and elsewhere oppose by every moans, unfair and vicious, preparedness by the Unftei States and other nations, to meet the onsloagbt which was sure to come from Germsny...
...But are you censoring for yourself...
...But Russia did not expect Germany to inteos her territory, and the fellow-travelers wort ready to sacrifice anything at all if Russia only were permitted to live in peace...
...would fortify the power* i of reaction for a long time...
...Belgium decimated, and Norway laid low, ens we were equally moved when Russia, which had a "peace pact" with Germany (which we dki not approve), had been invaded in violation ef the Pact...
...Gradually we will find it unnecessary to continue the great military preparations we have been compelled to go through during the past few years...
...But no amount of peering will induce judgment, or conquer prejudice...
...The people of Great Britan have been suffering much longer than we...
...We are determined to give Russia all the aid and help that is humanly possible, yet it is not fair to ourselves, and certainly not to those who will come after us, to fail to evaluate Russian ideology, or perhap*, Russian opportunism...
...A treaty which takes into consideration only those who actually sign the treaty would not bring a permanent peace...
...Would you wish any jury to decide what you may buy to read...
...But the theatre is for adults, who presumably are able to decide what they wish to see...
...A victorious conclusion of the war, if it is • to serve mankind now and in the future, must be a great deal more than a victory over , the armed forces of the enemy...
...With the close of the 77th Congress this whiter, Senator Norris leaves Washington politics for the first time since his initial election by Nebraska voters in 1901...
...Whether there is any sense in the idea or...
...has been tried in the balance, and how much good has come of it...
...Those people will soon realize that, while they and» their forefathers were compelled to devote all their energies- to the upbuilding and maintenance of military equip, ment, they will be able to devote their energies to temples of peace and to industrial and agricultural developments...
...It is essential as a guarantee to posterity that they will not meet the same holocaust which has overtaken us, nor that they will be required to spend all effort in arming for war and combat, rather than arming for progress and life...
...It must be coupled with a progressive peace...
...If they could succeed in this dastardly attempt to rule the world, there would soon follow a war between these three domineering nations with their conflicting ambitions...
...It is a task of the Istssaal delicacy and skill to determine what work* u> a democracy may not be read or seen...
...OICH and abundant fruit will come from such a course...
...It was Sholem Asch's "The God of Vengeance," not "Getting Gertie's Garter," that was taken to court and condemned...
...We realize that the defeat of Russia weuM strengthen Nazism...
...The power of the Commissioner to revoke a license is arbitrary...
...In the year in which London first permitted the strip-tease, New York closed the burlesque...
...Indeed, the Russians had before the rape of Poland entered into a "peace" pact with Germany, and the fellow-travelers hailed and defended that pact They attacked all of those in our country, is England, in the South American republics, was called for preparedness, ss "warmongers...
...That, and not a mere erHftary victory, is our real objective...
...The terms of this victory must be absolute...
...Profit and pleasure may seem to counsel wicked ways (as with gun-toting gangsters and carefree queens) — and producers' profit from playgoers' pleasure may impel the exhibition of bedecked lascivity...
...other reasons were primary in the desire to kill the Federal Theatre, but great parade was made in the Senate of all the sex-sounding names of Federal plays...
...However, one of the sacrifices we must make-in order to secure a permanent peace is that we must approach the council table with clean hands and pure hearts...
...Each man is the arbiter of his own taste...
...At heart these people hate each other with a relentless hatred but, at the present time, it is to the interest of each one of these would-be dictators to unite their forces in order to obliterate all governments founded upon the doctrine of equal rights and human freedom...
...We must give them every possible assistance—we must feed the hungry and cloche the naked...
...That is the weapon of the Fascists in Italy and the Nazis, now their masters, too...
...We are not making a treaty for their benefit—we are not making a treaty for our benefit We know that those who sit opposite each other at the peace table will soon pass on...
...tion, as it now exists, shall be blotted out and we shall become the slaves of a world dictator moved only by a lust for power and the destruction of everything that is near and dear to those who believe in human progress and inhuman happiness...
...They have kept the fires of human liberty r burning under conditions which are almost unbelievable...
...They will soon realise that they are getting more out of life and that the chief aim of man is not to maintain military supremacy but to upbuild the avenues of all friendly commerce and peaceful intercourse among nations...
...But the moral censorship presents a harder nut...
...in the grasp of a political appointee, subject to many pressures, it would be contrary to all the principles of democracy...
...If Germany, Japan, and Italy are completely disarmed, and are kept disarmed, the world will be safe for peaceful rule if we ourselves keep the faith...
...We are, after all, fighting them, and killing them...
...In the First World War, prohibition opened the speakeasies, and permanently let down the bars for women as well as men...
...There most be an unconditional surrender...
...Not with preliminary censorship, such as the English stage was almost stifled under, such as has helped keep our movies juvenile...
...but the drama imposes a "poetic justice," which mirrors nature in the spiritual return of payment in kind, of character growth or decay, of inmost retribution or reward...
...The followers (really the victims) become as fanatical as the prophet...
...However, on the whole, our people are presenting a front worthy of the great patriots who, through Mood and tears, laid the foundation for a free government...
...Is it some ' "who" that is our enemy...
...Two things are necessary and essential in the peace treaty...
...Political censorship we can protest at once...
...But it, too, is long established, and firm...
...THE indications now are that victory is in sight for us a and our allies...
...but always for a weaker imaginary group, of children, of persons of frail moral stuff, who would be tempted to their undoing by what the strong censor sees unharmed but for their weaker sakes must wipe away...
...Fanaticism gives totalitarian movements .strength and brute daring...
...After speeches by voluntary representatives of several faiths, "Wine, Women, and Song" was closed...
...Museum and public-toilet walls may both show nudes...
...In the *^ history of censorship, it has more often been the serious study of sex that has been censored, than its prinked or garish display...
...But who will set himself up as a judge of works of art...
...Already the domination of Hitler has shed its power and influence over Italy to such an extent that Italy is now withering and decaying under the heel of the German army...
...Every factory making war materials must be absolutely and completely demolished...
...Men and women of all attitudes and points of view should be on the list, whose education and occupation provide them with tbe necessary skills...
...Here are the farewell remarks of a great democrat, and they may well mark the beginning of George W. Norris' new career ss America's Elder Statesman...
...The experience through which we have traveled, and the evil which has been brought about by this war, demonstrates that our nation unarmed cannot live in peace while the enemies of democracy are building up military armament to be used eventualy in our destruction and in the destruction of all the other democracies...
...it should not be thus applied...
...It will become evident to them, as it will to the whole world, that it is foolish, illogical, unmerciful, and unrighteous to force unwilling people to devote a lifetime of toil in building up and maintaining a military dictatorship...
...The German people have been reduced to helots, working, slaving, fighting, dying to gratify the whim of fascist leaders...
...No military training or preparation for war, however small, should be permitted...
...As for the juries, ss well seek a vote of twelve men tried and true to determine what hydrogen and oxygen will do when they meet an electric spark...
...There is a law agairist the obscene...
...It is hard enough for a jury to decide what We> call questions of plain fact...
...The President of the United States was called the "chief warmonger," and so was the, focal point of attack...
...the theatre in which it played has had its license revoked...
...They have developed and accepted attitudes which throw them back thousands of years in culture, civilization, decency, and morai responsibility...
...The leaders of Japan have taught this doctrine to their people for generations...
...AAN, no doubt, sometimes influences the pro-* cesses of life...
...Some of our people are shocked at the sacrifices we are called upon to make...
...Russia has never flinched while the dictator was rob-'hing her country and killing her people by the thousands...
...We know that we are fighting an enemy...
...the radio is heard in millions of homes...
...Some people around still believed hi the sanctity of Hitler's word...
...What we are fighting is the ideology which has developed in the last twenty years—the absolutism, dictatorship, authoritarianism...
...What doth it profit a man if he win the whole world and lose his own soul...
...Most people, however, resent any evaluation of Russia and its opportunism at this time...
...But this did not teach the censorious—who picture and pride themselves as in the teaching role...
...is an old piece of humor, but it indicates the dictator's absurdity of regulating tastes...
...To my mmd the most important and essential factor in the peace must oe the complete disarmament of our foes...
...Yet we should make clear to ourselves what it is that we want in victory, and as clearly we should know who is our enemy...
...Freedom of thought and freedom of the sfplrit will be destroyed by poverty, by savage and brutal acts, and mostly by fear...
...We will have a great responsibility on our hands—greater than any we have ever had and greater than has ever been assumed by any nation or any combination of nations...
...NE American has said, "Now since Nazism is simply a set of ideas or principles, all our guns will be of no avail in opposing it as such...
...Think of the^ast time you laughed at, or told, a risque story...
...Noel Coward's motion picture "In Which We Serve," hailed in sedate England, must in prissy America, delete some sailors' oaths...
...but the action licked a tongue of censorship toward "Native Son...
...A proposal, which seems as sound as any, is that when a play is questioned, is brought to court, it be judged by a Jury from a special panel—a panel of names chosen in advance (somewhat as tbe grand jury ist is chosen) but by different criteria...
...They are not...
...It is axiomatic that the free spirit will not survive in a straight-jacket...
...An idea that captures the imagination of great numbers and is integrated into the psychology of a people will be adopted and become a motive force in their life...
...And despite all compulsion, will be...
...Are the German and the Italian people our enemy...
...largely operated by communist propaganda machines, rn 1940, after Dunkerque, when England was in danger of invasion and we is America saw the possible destruction of onr first line of defense, neither the Russians nor their fellow-travelers asked for a second front or for any front against the Nazis on the European continent or elsewhere...
...They were funnier two decades ago than in recent years...
...To achieve that, they have raped nation after nation and visited inhuman punishment upon old and young...
...ceitful, and so murderous, must be punished and that, under the rules of past wars, we would be justified in heaping humiliation and disgrace upon them for many years to come...
...Yet, a f military victory, if that only is what we are striving for, may well result in a social defeat —a defeat which will victimize future genera-•tions...
...Some churches would (as historically some church-bound rulers did) close all the theatres...
...All our thoughts and effort are directed to that one end...
...Radio censorship is organized, hardly now disputable, though often silly...
...Watch all the special interests and private powers that seek to turn the tide of war needs and war emotions into the channels of their own aggrandisement...
...CELF-APPOINTED guardians of the public *^ weal are moral Hitlers...
...Dictatorship has destroyed in the Italian his love of life, his joy in music, his appreciation of art...
Vol. 25 • December 1942 • No. 51
