Dissenting Opinion on Thurman Arnold-Liberal by Proxy, Trust-Buster by Hearsay
RICH, J. C.
Dissenting Opinion on Thurman Arnold-Liberal by Proxy, Trust-Buster by Hearsay By j. c. RICH ANE of the legends now in - the making in the folklore of liberalism is that Thurman Arnold is a...
...The son, meanwhile, has attained his first bar...
...country...
...For history has shown that once persecution is unloosed on one minority it spreads like a blight...
...much of a reality...
...He was a citizen of the world in the very best sense of that oft misquoted expression...
...But who in God's name in the State Department got hold of the hay-wire idea that a Habsburg could ever hope to return to these countries in which their name is being used to frighten little boys and girls to bed...
...America, like the individual American, has gained its great and unique strength from this respect for the smallest minority...
...Arnold went after the carpenters, the electricians, the -**»«ns, and others, and they clawed back, »ae'h^ ^Brman Arnold has been one of the few public figures today C1...
...Is it 'absolutely necessary," so they ask me, "that one should have been on intimate terms with the Fuehrer or the Duce, that one should have changed one's name a couple of times to prevent discovery of a few less fortunate incidents in one's previous career, and that one should have been an enemy of democracy to fir.d favor in the eyes of official Washington...
...new war books...
...Success...
...Our economic life was being neatly ordered into a checker-J^Tv ,*"*^1 a few groups moving the pieces...
...And he did not know how his superiors took to that sort of thing...
...And this unrecon-•-"MOid, dissenter is of the opinion that no "Mtter what the legend may say, Thurman Ar-"H ?? liberal only by proxy, a trust buster by hearsay, and a martyr by dint of industrious JJd never,relenting striving for sacrificial robes...
...But what has that to do with liberalism...
...And here goes...
...And so I shall not try to anrwer it right here and now...
...What has thoroughly discreditable persecution of unions to do with the New Deal...
...Today the answer to this question «eems to be decidedly in the affirmative...
...I feel very sorry for the State Department whenever I think of what they must suffer from our amateur diplomats...
...Yes, it had seemed quite a bright idea when I wrote the flrst of those epistles but after a little while the idea did not seem quite so bright and I gave it up...
...After all, he was the commonest of common privates and some of his officers could actually read and write and probably knew what papa was up to...
...Ours is an ^"¦¦"ial society, and like all social groupings a "power" society...
...Faced with chronic and overwhelming unemployment, the Musicians' Union notified the industry that the corporations which were waxing rich and fat by means of mechanical reproduction of the work of the musicians would have to bear at least part of the responsibility for the livelihood of the craftsmen involved...
...We have always been a nation of minorities...
...Then something happened...
...Arnold is a "trust buster...
...But I must remember that I hare a wobbly heart and that excitement ? apt to affect the old pump...
...Now our society is being tested in the crucible of war—a war distinguished not only by the magnitude of its military machines but also by new techniques of terror employed by our enemies...
...A Worthy Book WORRY No...
...Then Max can't object for he knows that such things happen every day in a busy newspaper office, and even if he objects, his books are never advertised very extensively in our weekly and so why worry...
...This is the first contribution to the new series— Van Loon's Diary...
...How can one man dare to hold out against the State ?" « * * Tie IM of Rights...
...The same goes'for the...
...But none of us know eery much about what has happened in northern France during the last four years, so all our ' fuming and fretting- about the local set-up hi that oniony seems a rather futile waste of time and effort The honest (or not quite so honest) citizens- who are getting all bet up about the situation in Africa seem to me to be very much like the advocates of a second front, who not infrequently favor me with their private projects for an invasion of Germany by way of my native country...
...He always preferred to settle out of court...
...It is a constant reminder to us that once we strike down the expression of ideas which we despise w* have forged an instrument for the suppression of ideas which we cherish...
...The prosecution against'Petrillo and the Musicians' Union is a case in point...
...For our weekly journals of literary criticism have very little to do with establishing .a discriminating point of view among the laity at large and I'can see the editors of these highly prosperous publishing ventures shaking their heads in a kind of mild despair and asking themselves: "Now, why did Max Eastman do this ? For we like Max and can that boy write...
...To have fought Hitler, Franco or Mussolini is apt to interfere with one's success in the national capital...
...In the meanwhile, however, he succeeded in subjecting the union to heavy legal expense and in agitating public opinion against labor...
...It is an exciting political journal of our times...
...But let the reader with a sound heart take a chance...
...Hostile judges and prosecuting attorneys, with 1 ^**1-joined sophistry which seems to be a $Wi*fty of the legal profession, perverted the law to accomodate their own preferences and prejudices, filled it with extra-legal dicta and opinions and saddled it on the industrial population of the United-States as if it were the considered will and desire-of the people...
...Yes, -¦ that is it...
...It was a magnificent piece of literary craftsmanship...
...He bad been trained according to the best of Jesuit traditions, which of course meant that he had been trained with a thoroughness which is totally unknown in our own part of the world...
...and that is what I don't like about it...
...We can always claim that they come first...
...Mankind, not the corporation, comes first...
...At such a time it is but natural that we should feel the need for a restatement of our ideals...
...He has personal magnetism of a sort and he has always been willing to supply headlines and news leads to his friends...
...He did so repeatedly, consistently and with malice aforethought...
...We display it with pride alongside the oldest slogan of our nation—"E Pluribus U????''—Out of Many, One...
...By Wrn...
...At least two liberal jemals, "The New Leader" and "The Nation,'' have run tearful obituaries about the «»twhile head of the Anti-Trust Division of the Department of Justice, and have said ah ??, eh me, poor Thurman Arnold was kicked "tetairs...
...And that brings me up to a question I am hearing more and more among those fugitives of Nazi and Fascist fury who have succeeded in reaching our shores...
...Well, in that case Dante, too, was guilty of "stunting" when he wrote a rhymed report about his visit to the Nether Regions...
...That charge that labor men make against him is that he used his office and the treasury of the United States to inflict heavy financial burdens and public obloquy on the unions in order to promote his own interests, to further his own personal ambitions...
...By and by, Max Eastman's Lot will be old stuff and then we can tell him that it is too late now to do anything about his work...
...Arnold's career...
...1. Where were the critics when Max Eastman's poem about old man Lot and his charming daughters appeared...
...No Czech or Serb or Hungarian would for a moment countenance the return of a Dynasty which used to send a bill for the execution of a Bohemian, Italian or Serbian patriot to the family of their latest victim...
...And the, "Please, father, how am I supposed to read all this stuff, when most of the time I am so dog-tired that the moment I get through with my...
...Whatever else the framers of the W intended to accomplish with it, they never to apply it to labor or, incidentally, to •ifKultural organizations...
...Of course, I don't blame the crafty Hanfstaengel, who, being bored stiff in a dull Canadian prison-camp, thought that this would be an excellent excuse for enjoying a pleasant little holiday at the expense of the U.S.A...
...He had endless patience and a wonderful sense of humor...
...No one group can control this free people...
...know the answer...
...The poor fellow broke an arm grabbing for the haio...
...When the corporations refused, and insisted that either the musicians themselves, or the public at large, support these workers 'when they are unemployed, the Union called a strike...
...wt-bnsting had gone out with the muckrakers, but Monopolies...
...Some of the ancients had as a symbol of unity and streng* bundles of sticks which, built together, could not be broken...
...Dissenting Opinion on Thurman Arnold-Liberal by Proxy, Trust-Buster by Hearsay By j. c. RICH ANE of the legends now in - the making in the folklore of liberalism is that Thurman Arnold is a liberal, a trust buster and a martyr to the cause of progress...
...For that matter, what would success in trust busting signify in respect to liberalism, radicalism America's Ideals...
...That has been our symbol tea...
...The !(i endous power wielded by the dominant Industrial groups moulds and...
...against this background that The New Leader viewed, with its own criticisms, ple ctl^">es of Thurman Arnold...
...The arrangement worked out beautifully all around...
...Both are attempt-ing to weaken us at home by wrenching at tm> bonds which unite our innumerable minorities into one indivisible America...
...consistently raised and focused attention on one of the most i^rj*' Problems of democratic life: the role of monopoly...
...It has been so during my own lifetime and probably will continue to be for the next ten or twenty centuries, for that continent is easy plunder and the White Man is just across the sea, only two hours away as the bomber flies...
...What is even more significant is that he instituted new prosecutions against labor organizations in view of and in spite of adverse decisions of the Supreme Court...
...Habsburg (is he an orchestra conductor, that he must be referred as a Herr Doktor...
...That precious document represents a great historic struggle to make men free, it is the cornerstone on which our cultural and spiritual values rest...
...We know that man is strong only when man is free, that man is free only when he has those inalienable rights proclaimed by our Declaration of Iodepenedence...
...AAd I for one am perfectly willing to let them attend to their own affairs within the realm of European politics...
...Must he be forever re min de J of being the son of a supposedly famous father...
...It was better than a hundred .Volumes of destructive criticism of the less agreeable aspects of Old Testamentary literature...
...Or call it lacking in reverence, and you merely prove yourself a fool...
...So successful was he that, according to Mr...
...the percent rose to 70 in 1942 and has now approached to an undetermined point even closer to 100 percent...
...May be—If he has a bit of luck—the State Department will send him 64 dollars or a copy of the Britannica...
...ARNOLD'S only success in the Anti-Trust Division aside from personal aggrandizement is the collection of fines from persons and corporations against whom he brought proceedings...
...O. Douglas IN recent decades we have seen this great civilization of ours challenged more than once...
...Indeed, it may very well have happened that way.' "• · · ?? State Department Blues THE late (and as far as I am concerned, not greatly * lamented) Prince Metternich once observed that be could handle any situation except a liberal Pope...
...Arnold thereby enhanced his reputation as a "trust buster...
...Monro, "from 52.7 percent of the oil production In the hands of the majors in 1938...
...We know that our majority is created out of minorities whe know how to live together, how to work together, and how to stick together...
...Look at this...
...PHURMAN Arnold did make this attempt...
...It will also Bissel»% the peace we earn...
...What has failure to bust trusts to do with a ? repressive view of the nation's economy...
...Power and responsibility must go hand in hand...
...He said to those who were using financial and economic power for purposes of exploitation: "You shall not encroach upon the people's freedom...
...Journal of Our Times THE world is neither very old nor very big if one liven ? life as full and rich and exciting as Hendrik Willem . Van Loon...
...But where were the 'critks'who are supposed to keep a busy public informed about the great literary achievements of the day...
...But it may have happened...
...The application of the Sherman Act against labor was, of course, a swindle from the very first Indeed it became such a scandal that Congress twice went out of its way to check it and put proper restraints on the judiciary...
...That would at least get us the grateful support of the canine population of that friendly and nearby community and we shall need Newfoundland much more than we shall need this new Austrian Empire which seems to have been born out of the State Department by Hans Christian Andersen.* • · · "H" It tor Habsburg AND speaking of the Austria that is, I am reminded of ••the Austria that was, which has just lost its most intelligent and devoted servant in the person of Guido Zer-natto, God keep his soul...
...Japan has challenged it in her savage defiance of any right other than that which the Sword creates...
...is an amiable and not unintelligent young man...
...That is our training, our tradition, our experience, our strength...
...Hitler has challenged this society of ours In blind obedience to his pagan lust he has wrecked the culture that has nourished our civilization for two thousand years...
...He was a self-made man, but what a fine job he had done with the material that had been placed at its disposal...
...They cannot succeed...
...Now I am not of course referring to the unfortunate affair of northern Africa...
...But if our review should make the wrong person buy this book and he should thereupon write a letter to our boss accusing us of aiding and abetting a piece of gross immorality, then would we be in...
...The fact that he lost every labor casl which came to a final test in the Supreme Court is significant...
...A bit ponderous and of abominable musical tastes for the descendant of a family which inj Mozart die of lack of the proper nourishment And considering the sort of mamma he has and the bringing up he received in the world's most uncompromising strong* hold of reactionary clericalism, he probably has done surprisingly well...
...What kind of people are we...
...That poem of Max Eastman about silly old Lot was one of the most outstanding works of fiterary perfection of our time and I will not swap it for i dozen MacLeishes or T. S. Eliots...
...Bet unfortunately the name Habsburg is associated among ail its former subject nations with the gallows and the hangman...
...A dissenting opinion has been voiced by some labor peo' ? Rich, editor of the Hat Worker, enters that disagreement here...
...Amidst all the hopeless mediocrity of the foreign politicians-in-exile, he stood out as clearly and definitely as some medieval castle rising high in one of the valleys of his lovely Carinthia...
...To find an official of the government trying to invoke the Sherman law in a labor proceeding at this late day and hour is itself startling and outrageous...
...It is painful to intrude on the liberals with the facts of life, but the perversion of the Sherman Act robbed millions of American workers of the benefits of organization and deprived them of bread and butter...
...Pro and Con yJWKMAN ARNOLD, apparently, is a man with few friends...
...Call it a stunt, as some of my friends have done...
...Africa has always been a bothersome object I vaguely remember a quotation from Aristotle, that news from Africa was bound to be bad news...
...When I tell them it can't be done because it is a hell of a coast on which to land your troops, they are annoyed and show me maps of the North Sea and say, "Why, you poor fool...
...And when it comes to the respective merits of Giraud and de Gaulle, I am completely lost, except that I don't like those boots of de Gaulle...
...Alcoa did fight and did lick the pants off the "trust buster" and, so far as anyone can discern, it still retains its stranglehold on the aluminum industry of America...
...We will pretend that somehow or other it got overlooked...
...This he did by offering them bargain rates in the law...
...The dirty reactionaries have made him ^ Judge in the moet.4mportant Federal Court •?* to the Supreme "Court...
...Hadn't he suffered enough when his father wrote his Story of Mankind for him and his brother...
...We know that the constitutional safeguards of equal justice under the law are absolutely essential to the preservation of liberty...
...I can't even pretend to understand and God knows, I am a pretty good pretender when it'becomes a question of saving face...
...One of the crudest tales—and it's no legend— m the folklore of capitalism is the record of j* Shennan Anti-Trust Act and its application to labor...
...But we under...
...As a mat-ter of fact, I do not remember having read a single serious criticism of this incredible performance...
...But here I am again...
...That French colonial politics were as rotten as the domestic brand, we knew or could have found out if we had only ceased long enough in our admiration for a France that never existed (the post-war France of the American schoolma'am's dream) to get down to a few basic facts about the France that...
...So far as I can learn, Arnold never went to trial if he could help it...
...However, the corporations which did decide to fight almost invariably won...
...Recognition of the smallest minority is written in blood as well as ink in our Bill of Rights...
...But the incident must have been received in Berlin with indecent hHarity (Gott im Himmel, sind die Amerikaner naiv...
...oil industny which according to an article by David A. Munro in The New Leader is the single biggest undertaking of Mr...
...That art is one of America's unique contributions to the history of government It Is the Mi whiesT will not only win the war...
...He offered his victims a plea of nolo contendere with which, on the payment of a suitable fine,, they could clear themselves from prosecution...
...In pantoufles he could not possibly hope to maintain himself as the Leader of a Movement, not even as the President of some society of young French lyricists or a suburban club Des Gourmets...
...In time it has ranged—via the power of art and the mind—through all the centuries of history...
...And so it has happened over and over again in the history of this country...
...In addition, of course, Mr...
...Similar successes can be deduced from the article by I. F. Stone in "The Nation...
...Yet almost the only J* nude of the Act was as an instrument of oppression and persecution of working people...
...And anyway, it can never be very much of a success...
...To be sure Arnold's charges fell down and he was tossed out on his ear in complete and ignominious defeat...
...If the mourner's bench will quit moaning and ofhing a minute, perhaps they will pay heed to * dissenting opinion...
...In place he has moved around the globe many times, preparing his maps and geographical narratives...
...Perhaps I was foolish to have expected that any of them would dare to say what some of them at least must have felt...
...At best—even if we boosted it as if it were a new Hemingway, it would only sell a few hundred copies...
...I loved that man and I say so without any restrictions...
...As it is, the market fat being flooded with...
...For is there a man alive today who knows anything at all about Central Europe who does not feel convinced that the Habsburg dynasty is completely ausgespielt when it comes >o playing an active part in the future political life of that part of the Old World...
...The water reaches straight up to the coast" When thereupon I show them my navigating maps of the territory, indicating the endless rows of sandbanks which protect this coastal region as if with rows and rows of invisible barbed wire defences, they get angry with me as if I, instead of Almighty God, was responsible for this uncomfortable geographical arrangement and proceed to lay their plans for a second front fh Denmark, where the situation is exactly similar...
...What is the foundation of this society which faces the mechanized might of the totalitarian states ? The foundation of our society is the minority...
...America has always " known the answer...
...The monopoly pattern •as p*"088 tne seas and joined hands with similar groups in Ger-jt "ranee and England...
...Tfce EetWes Begin INEVER got very far with those "Letters to my son...
...Or take that absurd Habsburg comedy in which the United States people aire once more being taken for a ride and what a ride...
...And there are many other pussies like these, which make as poor outsiders wonder whether that part «f our taxes which are used for the support of some of the officials of that hallowed institution (for there is something very sacred and aloof about the young men who attend to our affairs of State) could not be much better used for some other purpose, such as giving our unfortunate Newfoundland pup an occasional meal of real meat...
...At times it was but a single voice which later swelled into a chorus...
...Arnold could show a balance on the profit side of the ledger of his Division...
...Most corporations have hard-headed businessmen as executives and almost all of them have learned simple arithmetic...
...From all the available reports of my private sleuths...
...I may be wrong, but ? certainly heard no hosannas...
...It is first and foremost the smallest minority of all—the individual conscience...
...They hired the most skilfull lobbyists to does*«!-* k's Pr08ecutions and bring pressure for settlements...
...It was the finest piece of poetry I had seen'for many a year...
...Arnold's real success lies in his ability to hoax well-meaning and liberal journalists into accepting him as a fellow of liberal and free spirit...
...Labor SS...
...THE Hanfstaengel incident is now a thing of the past * but who was the bright boy who thought of bringing that poor clown to our national capital to be of assistance in the shaping of our attitude towards Hitler or whatever else he was supposed to have been doing here...
...Newspapermen have cause to make a pet of him...
...it refused to permit the recording of more music for commercial use...
...To have him labelled a liberal and even a New Dealer for the attempt is beyond comprehension...
...For we bellev» in and are dedicated to majority rule...
...The boy, I soon noticed, did not like it any too well to be singled out in this manner aid to be made slightly conspicuous- among his companions...
...I declare myself defeated...
...So it was over thirty years ago when the nation first heard the mighty voice of a great dissenter, Louis D. Brandeis...
...The least of them is that he is an ignoramus in the law, and I don't think he is nearly so unlettered as his record indicates...
...And it was a sublime indictment of all the Lots of the last 5,000 years and God knows, there have been lots of them...
...u*ho r» * th's 001,11 that Thurman Arnold stepped in, and in loud, stentorian tones shouted re-ij3' , The horse of monopoly may still be galloping ahead, but a lot more people today m the implications of its wild ride, tk...
...Why are we such a disturbing and dangerous symbol to the aggressors...
...At the same time I would like an occasional chance to purge my heart and brain of a great many ideas and therefore, if you don't mind, I shall keep a sort of desultory diary and ? shall tell you what is worrying me...
...Big ?**"*88 doesn't like him...
...Few persons realized what was happening...
...It has helped to create the great united America that we are today...
...Thurman Arnold thereupon rushed to the press with public clamor and instituted antitrust proceedings against the union...
...He was a grand person...
...It is not merely the minority based on -peTce, creed, or color...
...Now I don't say that that is what happened...
...They usually found that it was cheaper to cop a plea of nolo contendere and pay the fine than to undergo the bother and legal expense of fighting Arnold's indictments...
...But when thaw themselves became intolerant, there was a Roger Williams to challenge them...
...chores I fall asleep...
...I wonder what His Serene Highness would have said about our present State Department for though my profession is that of an historian and I am therefore supposed to make sense out of what otherwise (and without the explanations offered by my craft) would make neither rhyme nor reason, I must confess that the State Department is too much for me...
...That makes it doubly hard to bell him what is what Not because—bless his simple heart—he takes it amiss when papa decides to offer him a bit of advice...
...The Puritans rebelled against the haugthy power of the Anglican Church...
...The corporation got rid of a nuisance at bargain rates, and Mr...
...This, I say, opens him to several serious charges...
...J* The Peoples' Freedom A GAIN and again protest and rebellion against ¦** unjustified power have strengthened, not weakened this nation...
...Van Loon's Diary" Random Notes on the War, Habsburg And the State Department Blues...
...Hitler would say: "What a weak rod on which to lean in comparison with the forced unanimity of my people...
...The Clayton Act was one stich effort, and the Norris-LaGuardia Act was the other...
...We have seen it withstand the ravages of an economic, depression which served as the occasion or excuse for throwing Germany into the arms of a modern Genghis Kahn...
...But when ? comes to the domestic brand, I am as much at a loss as Metternich said he would have been with a liberal pope...
...I am sorry but somehow or other, they were like a river in the desert They started out all right and' at first it looked as if ? had "got something there," to use a rather vulgar but very descriptive phrase...
...He is as much at home—as the book of "Van Loons' Lives" proved —in the ancient world of Pericles and Aristotle as in the days of Jefferson, Voltaire, and Beethoven...
...It is true that the bills ewer* most carefully itemized—so much for the rope, so much for the services of the executioner, so much for the use of the gallows, at much for the coffin, etc...
...I sort of feel that those boots are to him what his hair was to Samson...
...So suppose we just forget about it At least for the moment Suppose we put it aside and tell ourselves that we have not yet found anybody entirely suitable for this difficult , job...
...was indeed...
...h'm...
...The concentration of that power becomes a threat, 10 ««noeratie ways...
...stand each other so completely that we really never feel any need of high-falutin' discussions and so why bother...
...For I have a suspicion that the things that worry me are very much the same sort of things that will worry the sort of people who read The New Leader...
Vol. 26 • March 1943 • No. 11
