Where the News Ends
CHAMBERLIN, WILLIAM HENRY
Where the News Ends By WILLIAM HENRY CHAMBERLIN Stalin, Russia, and Europe JOSEPH STALIN, the Soviet dictator, is not ** lacking in capacity for humor of the grim and sardonic type. He has...
...Even skeptics had a feeling that the cost of living would mount so slowly that no one would be hurt...
...If we toll lies about things over there, they will rise up to confound us...
...The Little Steel formula provided for a raise of 15 per cent to cover the increase in the cost of living since January, 1941...
...It never pretended to hand us-'anyv FRANKNESS ABOUT FRANCO WE cannot argue against military expediency...
...Modern warfare lacks all spon-taniety...
...Trade unionists are supremely interested in winning the war...
...Under the influence of these policies and agencies the national income rose, farmers received more for their crops, trade union membership doubled and redoubled...
...Then, in 1939, came the war...
...No reasonable person has a doubt but that he would much have preferred a Hitle'r victor.V No good American can possibly like Mm or his form of government...
...we had wallowed in depression...
...Since then we have had two New Deals and a war...
...It frankly recognized the possibility of an expanding economy and began to use the power of the federal government to start the great productive engines...
...It must be defeated internationally and internationally replaced with something better...
...He has not established a liberal or decent or modem government in Spain...
...If he is veering our way, we know perfectly well 'that it is because the Russians are licking...
...These two fell before the Supreme Court...
...Sees Javiscas As Overlooked, Imp't Book From HARRY KELLY To the Editor: The book reviewer^ hereabouts have overlooked one of the best war books that has appeared since the blood-letting started...
...It would be difficult to give a negative answer with positive assurance...
...The people's government dared to act jn the .common interest...
...But many groups are taking a,deep cut...
...Tables and graphs circulated by the Department of Agriculture show that since January, 1941, average food prices have increased more than 30 per cent...
...It would be very pleasant if we could sit back, tune in on the radio and hear ex-Ambassador Davies, hero of the latest Hollywood fictional production, assure us that Stalin -is a man of his word and that all will be well if we just trust him implicitly...
...That problem can be summed up very briefly...
...But every such expression of political judgement is carefully scrutinized by the thought controllers in Russia...
...George Goebel will celebrate his 77th birthday during this campaign...
...Thirty to fifty years ago, there was a strong anti-militarist movement in practically every country in western Europe except Germany, a country one-third Socialist, with the result that she almost won the first World War...
...But if author Biddle brings back the image, Attorney-General Biddle is now-doing all in his power to extirpate ' the principal "liberty-loving" doctrine associated with "the name of Justice Holmes—the clear and present danger" doctrine...
...It did not allow people to starve—as the Hoover administration calmly did...
...We can save ourselves from ideological sideswiping if we do the necessary thing with our eyes operfP^rhe American people cannot be expected'to know all about Franco and his tie-up with Hitler and Mussolini...
...Another disturbing sign for Russia's role ia the postwar world is that Stalin has made no move toward liquidating that central agency · his fifth columns in other countries, the Communist International...
...The jump in taxes we all have in mind...
...Nor does he attempt to prove intent to discourage enlistments...
...An executive dared to take responsibility...
...Far i'rom being thanked, author Biddle should be confronted with the anti-labor and ajiti-free speech acts of Attorney-General Biddle...
...It will be far more useful than wasting time and money on a $5 birthday dinner...
...And this old way is international...
...among us even took for granted that in this well-stabilized world no wage increases are necessary- So demands like those of the Boeing^ workers and the employees of the Southern \ California aircraft companies were frowned on...
...Everything is going up—but artificial barriers keep wages down...
...But the important fact is that we face the world today witli^no problems solved...
...The attempt to impost the Soviet Quisling, Kuusinen, on the people of Finland also ended in a pitiful failure...
...As for the other apprehension, that a complfts Soviet victory would mean the forcible imposition of communism on Europe, no one can tar with confidence that this might not occur...
...The simple fact is that the whole picture put over to the American people is false...
...Lenin said at that that: "We shall break the crust of Polish bourgeeil resistance with the bayonets of the Red Army...
...He has probably been deriving some amusement from the contrasted apprenen-eions that have been expressed in connection with the turn of the military tide on the Eastern Front...
...The conservatives defeated practically everywhere...
...in the East and we are licking him in Africa...
...On the contrary, it requires long and careful preparation...
...But there are several factors that would weigh in the scales against a separate peace...
...You will get more than your money's worth out of the reports of doings down here when George sits at the commission table and opens up with what he knows a'xiut the utilities situation...
...Biddle thanks for bringing from his place in these times the image of the great liberty-loving Justice...
...Would Stalin react to a proposal of peace on the basis of the status quo in the spirit of Tarle's book...
...A little simple...
...And this thesis fitted in admirably with the narrow "Russia First" policy which motivated Stalin's diplomacy in the period before the signing of the pact with Hitler...
...It was never more than tentative, and was based openly on the supposition that basic conditions would remain stable...
...The book deals with a number of subjects practically untouched before, but the part that seems to me particularly important to readers of The New Leader and Socialists in general is "war's fourth dimension," the assembly ¦belt...
...Some months ago I discussed in detail in The Sew Leader a book, published in the Soviet Union before the beginning of World War II and made available in an English translation last year, entitled S'apoleon't Invasion of Rusria 1812, by the Soviet professor Eugene Tarle...
...After years of futile fumbling and mumbling, here was clear action...
...There is the fear that Stalin's armies may not go far enough, that he may call off the war as soon as the Germans have been expelled from Russia...
...Javsicas poses the problem and does it so well that I would make his book preferred reading...
...And prices are not being kept down...
...It* is quite probable that Stalin at this moment would* be satisfied with the restoration of his 1941 frontier (an arrangement which declares a moratorium on the Four Freedoms, so far as Latvia, Esthonia and Lithuania are concerned) and with the creation of a ring of satellite states outtide his borders...
...Ceilings were just going into effect, and everyone had hopes...
...But it is war wealth, wealth for destruction...
...When this formula was tacitly accepted, it was with the understanding that the price structure was to be measurably stabilized...
...Socialists of all schools have sidestepped this phase of Socialism for years...
...The New Leader has published abundant figures to show how profits are snowballing...
...LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Cites Biddle Action as Contrary to Holmes Dicta From GEORGE NOVACK Secretary-Treasurer, Civil Rights Defence Committee To the Editor: Permit us to add a necessary footnote to Horace M. Kallen's review of "Justice Holmes" by Attorney-General Biddle in The New Leader of February 13...
...Repressive laws will not help...
...The war did not come from outside and end the improvement which the New Deal had started...
...The power of the nation Was at last pitted against it...
...I know that a man who has raised money for a hundred campaigns, could easily raise that much if he could reach his friends...
...If he had three or four hundred dollars for radio 'time he could win...
...For ten years...
...It is true that the Roosevelt legislation did much to prepare us for the strains of the war...
...Since then armament manufacture and military organization have replaced the New Deal as a source of social dynamic...
...Some of our publicists who are quick to assent that all the blame for failure to reach an understanding with Stalin on war aims is on oar side might consider the possibility that Stalin hai?* in his power to make a most significant contribution to future international confidence goodwill by dissociating the ruling party of the Soviet Union from the Communist Inteinatioeal If decisions of such questions were in the an*** of the plain people of Russia who have display* such heroism in the defense of their native ?? and cities we should have no reason to fear «¦ the future...
...The President's abortive effort to reform the court marked the middle period of readjustment...
...New Rochelle...
...in Russia which we may hope for but caaam yet assume as an established fact we shall ? wise to examine the development of Stalin'« 9? icies with a coolheaded...
...Depression, Fascism, Nazism, war are all different facets of the same old way of living...
...But the simple fact ia that up to the oat-break of the war the New Deal had not solved our problem of production and distribution...
...Franco is a dictator...
...recently asserted that Russian parachutists are being dropped...
...If tankers full of American oil will keep Hitler from marching through Spain, that is a great gain...
...And every now and then he would break something wide open in a letter to the local paper...
...PvTOW, should the forward sweep of the Russian 4 ~ armies carry them to the Dnieper and beyond, Stalin may find himself, sooner than would have seemed possible a few months ago...
...Herbert Hoover may criticize the administration now, but all thoughtful citizens will be thankful that we were not attacked by an outside power during his administration...
...Examples of failure were the campaign against Poland in 1920 and against Finland in 193*-40...
...Leon Henderson was in there batting for ???, and he was getting tough...
...Goebbels...
...This war, instead of rescuing the New Deal, reveals its limitations...
...First came the National Industrial Recovery Act and the Agricultural Adjustment Act...
...They are still mounting at a regular rate...
...To keep our mighty productive machinery going at anything like the present pace, we must have new solutions...
...The lines are forming for the greatest political struggle in our history- For this struggle we must not depend on devices of 1933...
...Actual living conditions become intolerable...
...sort of heaven...
...vorable peace terms...
...Kalleff writes: "Liberals owe Mr...
...They must be international solutions...
...They (the parachutists) are not so much guerrilla leaders as leaders of internal political warfare...
...Tlut political strategy, too, has its expediency...
...They must go so far beyond the outlines of the Roosevelt New Deal as to constitute a new-program...
...The depression was no longer an irresponsible visitation of fate which must be endured to the bitter end...
...Now in a democratic country this might be regarded as merely .the Professor's personal judgment...
...Unfortunately no one who is reasonably well ac-qfcainted with the facts of recent Soviet history can dismiss either of these apprehensions as nothing but a canard put out by Dr...
...Luckier than many other Russian intellectuals, he was reinstated in official .favor...
...The war was the old deal misery overflowing from other parts of the world...
...The Boeing employees asked for an increase a year ago, and are now awarded a rise which lags far behind the boost in the cost of living...
...Tarle charges that a liberal distribution of British gold helped to influence the decision to send the Russian armies into Europe...
...Shortage of Victory, by Gabriel Javsicas...
...Confidence had replaced defeatism...
...He has said ojirer ami over again that he likes Hitler and his -ways...
...The coal miners have been held by a union agreement...
...But the nationalist spirit of Poland was aroused by the spectacle of a Russian invasion and the striking power of the Red Army fell short ef achieving its objective...
...During a six-year struggle we had actually failed to emerge under New Deal leadership...
...IT is rather disquieting to see Soviet-sponsored * Communist activity extending to Yugoslavia and also, apparently to Poland, where General Sikorski, Premier of the Polish Government-tn-exile...
...In line with Biddle's letter, the postal hearing on his proposal, held January 21, heard the Solicitor argue that "It does not make any difference if everything The Militant said is true...
...Then followed the series of acts and administrative bodies which have constituted the New Deal in its second form...
...He was thinking 6f~sa>lva-tion only within the limits of our national boundaries...
...AH workers are the first and greatest sufferers from inflation...
...2. In his letter of December 28, 1942, to Postmaster-General Walker, proposing that the Trots-kyist paper, The Militant, be deprived of its mailing rights, Biddle limits his argument entirely to a statement of the alleged ideas of The Militant...
...Tarle, along with the more famous historian, Platonov (who died as a result of his experience) had once experienced imprisonment an9 exile at the hands of the GPU...
...confronted writh the same choice that faced Alexander I after the remnants of the shattered Grande Armee had recrossed the Russian frontier...
...Propaganda is not enough...
...Goebel has entered the figfffi The one daily paper and all of the politicians are against him...
...He opened up as a tribune of the people at public hearings...
...They have been organizing Communist-cells, but so far without any result...
...It was when we were in this mood that the War Labor Board's formula was accepted...
...The new governmental agencies were prepared to function energetically in the fields of credit, industrial production, agriculture, and labor relations...
...So much blood has been shed, so much devastation has been wrought in Russia that Stalin could scarcely get back to the spirit of the 1939 pact with Hitler...
...If it is not handled with intelligence, there may be an explosion which will hinder production beyond all the dreams of labor's enemies...
...Unless prices are kept down, wages must go up...
...It has now reached the stage where an army and industry must be ready to the last assembly belt, and no nation can afford to talk peace until it is completely prepared for war...
...change takes place soon, there will be an explosion...
...Pearl Harbor banged wider ideas into all receptive American minds...
...He simply must get his message across...
...We can never permanently have a new deal anywhere unless the old deal is If gifts of oil and wheat make it possible to keep things going in Spain till the present crisis is over, all right...
...This sharp dividing line in American history was passed precisely ten years ago...
...Germany's way out was Nazism, the same Nazism which plunged the world into war...
...In failing to see the London Economic Conference through to a successful .conclusion, President Roosevelt showed that he was at that time unconscious of the international tie-ups...
...a. EDITORIAL COMMENT A Decade of the New Deal When President Roosevelt, on March 5, 1933, ordered the bank holiday, it was like a streak of lightning out of a black sky...
...Give George a shower of $1 bills—with here and there a five-spot...
...But much will depend on whose armies are occupying what territories at the clote-of hostilities...
...The Communist International nai long been nothing but a pitiful tail to the kite of Soviet foreign policy...
...The best thing about President Roosevelt's program was that it waX tentative...
...I propose that 300 of his old friends send him a dollar apiece...
...He would scarcely offend a second time...
...But he cannot leave Daytona Beach...
...So time slipped along, and persons unused to scanning graphs and beyond the sound of housewifely complaints took for granted that the formula was continuously satisfactory...
...Prolongation of the war for the purpose of completely overthrowing Napoleon, in Tarle's opinion, served no Russian interest and merely established British economic hegemony over Europe...
...Lies lead to trouble...
...But until there is a democratic c...
...Unless the New Deal ideas can be expanded to the international field, they offer no hope for this country or for any country...
...No matter what, happened in Europe or Asia, our American attempt to make life better would sooner or later have had to face up to the troubles of all the world...
...Similarly he argued that in wartime the government had no right to imprison anti-war speakers and writers on the basis of the "presumed effect" of their activities but that there must'be "clear and present danger" ' that such activities materially interfere with the war effort...
...Unless...
...It is on this account that we object to the statements made the other day in Madrid by * our ambassador, Carlton JJFh, Hayes...
...There have been repeated attempts to impose communism on non-Russian peoples by force of ????, some successful, some unsuccessful...
...And it is at least conceivable that Hitler, having failed in all maneuvers to split England and America from Russia, might try a different approach and endeavor to separate Russia from the Western powers...
...unsentimental ream* tvniftt tri hi...
...There are many signs which indicate that they are now starting on a faster march upward...
...Foreign policy, rather than domestic concerns, has taken the central Dlace in American minds...
...The European war put an end to all that...
...Power is the only thing ahat this sort of man respects...
...Ethonia and Lithu-inia in 1940...
...We had made great gains, but not the one gain which we sought...
...If as a result of modern industry a nation geared for war can overwhelm another nation with twice or three times the manpower, can any state—yes, even a Socialist state—exist without a standing army and all that that implies...
...Even if we on the East Coast shiver in our sweaters, our hearts may be warmed by the fact that our boys in Algeria and Tunisia arc saved from an - enemy in their rear...
...It is no doubt true that the millennial faith of Lenin and his associates in the imminent coming of world revolution has evaporated i> Stalin's Russia...
...But the courage and imagination which the President brought to bear we must now develop and apply on a scale proportionate to the greater dangers...
...The jar to bur national thought processes was an event of first class importance...
...Was it Bismarck or Von Moltke who'boasted that the army was ready to the last button...
...Schweinhaut argued that the government could imprison men who "eventually" might seek to overthrow the government...
...Biddle makes no attempt to prove his contention that these revoluticih-ary ideas, by their very promulgation, discourage enlistments...
...Discussing Russia's alternative after Napoleon had been driven out of the country, to cease fighting or to carry the war beyond Russia's frontiers, Tarle heaps abuse on Tsar Alexander 1 for choosing the second course and holds up General Kutuzov, who favored calling off the war, as the enlightened patriot...
...Example...
...He has not even established a regime which gives promise of maintaining itself on into a time of peace...
...For more years than anyone can remember, the public utility companies have had their own way with the City Commissioners...
...Dr...
...af successful imposition were the overthrow of the Social Democratic Republic of Georgia in 19U and the annexation of Latvia...
...The depression was a world phenomenon...
...His address is 125 North Hollywood Avenue, Daytona Beach, Florida...
...Now we are in the middle of the campaign to elect a new- set of Commissioners, and at the last moment, Mr...
...He shows the hollowness of the claims of the "have-not" nations regarding accessability to raw-materials...
...No working class group or leader wants to start trouble at the present time...
...One can find serious documentary support of both these disconcerting possibilities...
...Health and efficiency are threatened...
...No national solution could be adequate...
...throughout the world...
...Both these aspects of the "clear and present danger""doctrine have been explicitly repudiated by Attorney-General Biddle: 1. In the pre-war Minneapolis labor trial of 28 Local 544-CIO and Socialist Workers Party leaders (18 of whom, were convicted under the Smith Act of 1940 and are now appealing to the higher courts), Biddle's assistant, Mr...
...And there is the fear that Stalin may take advantage of a crushing victory over Germany to carry Communism all over Europe on the bayonets of the Red Army...
...But let us not lie to the American people...
...The population entered the war at least partially organized...
...arithmetic will make the situation clear...
...It had not even brought us back to the level of 1929...
...The nation .no longer at the mercy of a crisis gone berserk...
...And we have power...
...Even if through some miracle the war could have been prevented, any merely national plan of salvation would have failed...
...Despite the recession of 1938, confidence in our government and our social system has been measurably restored...
...While the Russian war against Poland was at first defensive in character it assumed the form of a revolutionary crusade after the Polish armies had been driven from Russian territory and the Polish Government was willing to offer very ia...
...George Goebe/ Runs Again From GEORGE VYITHEROW To the Editor: Daytona Beach has the finest climate in the world and one of the worst city governments...
...We are now turning out wealth at a rate far above that of 1929...
...Schweinhaut, rejected the "clear and present danger" doctrine to which the defense "had referred...
...The people of the town never even knew what was going on until George Goebel came to town five years ago...
...But these examples indicate that there is and can be no absolute assurance that a victorioui Soviet Union will show moderation in success...
...WAGES AND FOOD THE wage situation is loaded with dynamite...
...Let us send oil and wheat...
...If his premise is correct, as I think it is, then it means a recasting of Socialist, syndicalist and anarchist tactics...
...In a series of opinions Justice Holmes argued that the government may not imprison revolutionists except when their activity constitutes a "clear and present danger" to the continued existence of the government...
...Often" we hear the lament: "If only this war had not come, the New Deal would have solved our problems...
...Although America and England have sent Russia substantial aid (a ???* which Stalin found it convenient to forget irbae he declared that "the Red Army alone is bearint the whole weight of the war"), between five and six thousand airplanes, approximately an 0?«*> number of tanks, over 80,000 trucks, Moscow * still the headquarters of an organization devoted to* the overthrow of democratic government...
...The young leaders of the Red Army, Golikov, Vatutin, Rokassovsky and others, would be impatient at an order to stop at the frontier...
...But it can nevertheless be a very potent source of intrigue and <M***J* in the postwar world, as an association of ?*·· columns at the disposal of the Soviet Government from China to Peru...
Vol. 26 • March 1943 • No. 10
