The Home Front
BOHN, WILLIAM E.
A Page of Featores Americana The Home Front By WILLIAM E. BOHN Easter and the Editors THE editors are having a bit of fun over Roy L. Smith. Roy is the editor of the Christian Advocate of...
...Ns Warner Bros, release ever said that . . . But this Irrnd of picking ever little details here and there is distressing, because the issue seems to as the most fundamental of our time—the totalitarian state ami the totalitarian state of mind...
...The author went to Siberia in 1916 as an Austro-Hungarian prisoner of war...
...Much more serious are his general assertions...
...President Hoover ordered Butler's court-martial, hut later quashed it in the face at a national furore...
...He speaks for a group, for sup-Porters, for influences...
...311...
...esc (p...
...The New Leader's wrath aad fury seem te stem mnlsdy tennv the fact that ia my story I dared menti— that apart from The New Leader, such groups as the isolationists sad the Carnage Tribune are attacking Davies, and Warner Brothers for film lug his book...
...TP HE author has undertaken an interesting, * though unachievable, task, that of presenting an encyclopedia on Siberia in one book...
...Bot the letters are personal messages from man to man...
...All I can hope is that you will give this letter the same fair treatment that PM gave yours...
...Anglo-American-Chinese war into a single global war...
...Such consideration for a fellow's feelings...
...Some make him sing...
...If the Germans should come, they will destroy the Lithuanian nation, but will leave us our homes and property...
...The Bell Tolls for Me THIS brings me to Danny Bell, our managing editor...
...Whereas the history of the political exile in Siberia (based en Georges Keonan's book) is reported perfunctorily...
...These he treads out like a horse in a treadmill...
...The sentences always clicked in my face aa tin* Party-line cut in...
...The'slanderers of Leon Trotsky fafl aadar the same contempt as the mean, miserable liars about Muttoetti and Neilo and Carlo Roselli and the framed Germans ef the Mete tag Fire Trials...
...This was as true whan he reported the pro-Franco scandal of For Whom tk» Bell Tolls (which this column dug up) as ob Mission to Moscow...
...books, saw whom she forces attaching the Aim eenatet of...
...Honesty" becomes sheer deceit, and "truth" a jingle for the low-spirited cheap-jacks of a morafry corrupted press...
...Inaeuch as she teaches political topics only occasionally, and Fust's stuff in PM is always topical...
...On _ March 17 he sent a dispatch to ' PM discussing the campaign against Mission to Moscow, the film version of the Joe Davies book...
...His trip through the America* for the Chamber of Commerce laid a lot of feundatiens...
...But the answer to the problem lies even more ¦ with Russia than with ourselves...
...Both Berlin and Moscow believed that as a result of their agreement, Britain would again back down as it had at Munich and that Hitler and Stalin could partition Poland without a general war...
...But when Britain formally guaranteed the independence of Poland, Hitler had to give way, surrendering his demand for Danzig, unless he could find some counterf orce to balance • Britain's new determination...
...Smith is so much in favor of Easter, how about a little Easter in the preacher's head...
...I cannot jest away this offer as jauntily as some of my colleagues...
...In Riga, flowers were placed before the Statue of Liberty, while "in Kaunas students sewed mourning bands on their sleeves...
...But it may happen somewhere...
...It is for this and against that...
...writing about their hospitality, he states: "It was the custom of this tribe to kill their daughters and feed them to their guests" (p...
...Anyone who does not agree with you, is, in your opinion, a "Commie" or fellow-traveler...
...W—Id The New Leader have me or PM suppress,the fact that it is against Mission to Moscow, simply because McCormick also is against it...
...A Page of Featores Americana The Home Front By WILLIAM E. BOHN Easter and the Editors THE editors are having a bit of fun over Roy L. Smith...
...Once policy enters the door style and personality fly through the window...
...Nevertheless, Lengyel's book must be commended...
...From a literary viewpoint, the beak is very uneven...
...Apparently Siberia roused Lengyel's intense interest Some specialists would have caught or avoided many anecdotal mistakes which evidently are inevitable when foreigners write about Russia...
...to admit them into the Soviet Union . a leajaeat mate* was the lsnd in the Baltic Slates would not be forcibly nationalized or that religious persons would not be persecuted, nationalization decrees were issued h» July, while special "people's courts" were created to hunt out and impose penalties, including the death sentence, on the "enemies of the people" who included the former Foreign Ministers and various other officials...
...I recall numerous protests from the reverend crew against the gay apparel in Which the pretty girls shyly mount the church steps in the midst of male admiration...
...I am writing this on Monday...
...i Ace at the Erlich-Alter meeting this week was young Jim Carey, secretory of the CIO, who turned up to electrify the audfaneS with a fiery speech...
...It was neither...
...fyashington Notes:—The word is thst the plan...
...For instance, Lengyel classifies the Samoyeds as . . . cannibals...
...The construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway is described very weU and in great detail...
...He calls Nadeahda Sigida "Madame Hope Sigida" (p...
...We didn't call Peter Fuxsf s PM story quite that but we didn't like it and this column thinks that in seme ways it's worse, for PM should know better...
...While professing friendship to Hitler, Stalin's policy during this period was to strengthen Russian security against a future attack...
...Only the communist parties, ware permitted to participate, under the ansae of the "Union of the Toiling People" It was not surprising to find this one-party system getting mere than 90% of the votes...
...He did not ate it Communist...
...I hardly believe that the offering of a plaque, even of the most appropriate, could bring about this miracle...
...If a good editorial could be lured out of any typewriter by the offer of medals, plaques, badges, insignia, citations or any other gauds of that sort, every newspaper manager in the country would offer 365 of them every calendar year...
...Yale University Press...
...There is a certain round of notions, varying with the calendar or with the events of the day...
...I don't trust his stories any mora than I trust Louella Parsons' on say, Orson Welles and Citizen Kane...
...No doubt inspired by the belief that Germasy having destroyed Fitjwci, noulil tarn to the Bnitir, Soviet Russia decided to> strengthen its hold on the area before it man tea late...
...But he, too, has his traditions run-* ning back to all the gazettes and newsletters and timeses that have ever been...
...In the secret understanding of August, 1939, Stalin promised Hitler he would not seviet-ize the Baltic Republics which fell under the Russian sphere of influence...
...That, Mr...
...The problem is to fuse the present Russian war and tile...
...Roy is the editor of the Christian Advocate of Chicago, and he gets this year's oscar for optimism...
...MOW that Soviet Russia is so prominently in the »•»*, Mr...
...It is well that I am a strong man...
...A few hours before, Carey lecetvsd a call from Joe Curran of the NMU who threatened "te punk hat xssl in" if he showed up...
...And yet, you too are slinging Red Herrings all over the place, at least as vehemently and viciously as those two champions of dam so-racy...
...Which really brings me to my point...
...Spring is—after all—here...
...In PM, Editor John P. Lewis is trying a honey of an idea...
...The Christian Advocate still speaks to my subconscious with a voice of authority...
...As far as-he is'concerned there might as well be no United States Census, no Truman Committee reports, no graphs from the Labor Department...
...It is not ante-Russian to ysuggest that the seizure of foreign territory in the name of security is imperialism, regardless of the power committing the act...
...Basic English seems to keep the writers down to banality...
...Now he's been after Thomas J. Hamilton's book Appeasement's ChUd, a devastating indictment of the Fascist regime in Spain...
...To data, I can only see eae mistake in my attitude toward you, and that is that I had always thought you a "liberal publication...
...He makes the old motions and in the old tones enunciates the accustomed and expected thoughts...
...The Moscow Trials remain as clear te us as the murder of Marteerti...
...This thing started long before there were Christian churches...
...But I did read all of the editorials and all of the reports of sermons...
...I have a notion," he remarked with no emphasis but much guile, "that folks don't like your editorials as much as they do the column...
...This "outrageous" story of mine, which appeared jb fm on Wednesday, March 17, was a simple, factual rtaMrt of Mat is being done at Warner Brothers wkh ex-ArehaesMer Bmn...
...I want—with a very straight face—to make a counter proposal...
...He says it was "simple and factual...
...There is something to think about...
...There is a curse on all editorials, on all unsigned editorial writing...
...A gec4 deal of the time he was convincing Latins that the premises ef "goodwill ambassadors" like Doug Fairbanks, Orson Weftes anfi Walter Winchell weren't official...
...I confess that she gives me more of « lift than many sermons...
...TrmuttSed by Loon Vnoim...
...In May, 1939, the official organ of the Russian Omuwnftt ppt* wrote.-land of Socialism does sot require the aid of any other power to defend its intfcptnfl-ence...
...You would think the editor had a much better chance to be vital and fresh and new and punchy...
...So we get the headlines which I read on the train...
...His March 17 story on rereading and investigation seems more reprehensible now...
...Erie Johnston is the Big-Business boy to watch on Peace and Post-War plans...
...Dallin's analysis of Eus-sian foreign policy of the'past three years is especially timely and in§wtintf He has given us the best atndy of Battfta's foretin porJey wfthfn recent jMtfa a stM...
...The Baltic parliaments were Hmttrndj and new elections called...
...Chatter Inside and Out By MATTHEW LOW (fission Bull:—We're in a fight, boys...
...Any one who is interested in Siberia and who has been engaged in studying it, even if only perfunctorily, knows full well the tremendous tasks involved, how ample the literature is, and how much of this country is still unexplored, even undiscovered...
...He remarked the other day in an off-hand manner—as if there was nothing at all on his mind—that some people like my column...
...He deals with Siberia's geography (and even geology), ethnography, history (from the Mammoth Age, the Yenissei Man, the Golden Worf and Genghis Khan up to the present time), with personal impressions and even with problems of high policy (the United States—Japan—Siberia...
...All is patent and slightly pompous pedestrianism...
...Stalin knew that if Germany destroyed western Europe and Britain, Russia would be the next victim...
...The pacts which Russia then made with these Republics re-affirmed this promise...
...According to hira, up to the Bolshevist era Siberia had been only a land of exile and penal servitude ami it had came to life only under Soviet rule...
...But spring comes again—always— and we blossom or sing or work according to our nature...
...Bell's letter in PAf...
...159...
...To be sure, these are all trifling matters, yet they are irritating and give proof of more than dilettantism...
...But Cardenas has his hands full trying to ant a finger on Hamilton's best-seller...
...That the scene was later cut from the picture fee various reasons, I did not knew until Warner Brothers informed me of that fact en March 18...
...In the first one he said something like this: I am always writing editorials for you, but I never get a chance to tell you what I think: . . . You "e* The man can't break through the inherited editorial form...
...It will go on as long as there are men and trees and birds...
...The dear man has offered a medal—or, rather, an "appropriate plaque"—for the best editorial on the subject of Easter...
...The Posf, too, has taken UP this style—perhaps with the laudable secret ambition of luring away readers from the reactionary Neies...
...Erlich and Alter stead Innate as, and their shadow cut across a free spirit like the shadows at...
...Relying solely upon its own strength it will be able ta withstand the stuck of any coalition and to destroy the enemy on his own territory...
...A "book about Siberia" is, therefore, warranted only in case it deals with strictly limited, special problems...
...Last week he started a series of letters to readers...
...He wears a certain sort of suit, stands a certain way, throws his voice at a certain pitch...
...Dallin peats out that this theory was not discard**1 «vaa after June 22, 1941, when Russia was attacked...
...The United States, however, caa hope to aae the world rid of imperialism only if* it in willing to jeia a collective 'security system which will protect Russia and all other countries against oppression...
...Firstly, there are many more exiles and convicts in Siberia under tits Bolshevists than there were in Tsarist times...
...The girl in bright array is, after all, a natural part of the renewing creation...
...He mistakes the Cossacks who, in his opinion, had come to Russia "from Lithuania and Poland" (p...
...In this respect Mr...
...That's because I dont treat Mm, Which would seem fair enough...
...When I had patted down the last shovelful of earth a soft, warm rain started its musical sizzle-sozzle and a songsparrow at the top of the old pear tree celebrated with a triumphant burst of trills...
...Miles after mile we aped along...
...Coming back to town this morning I read the papers of Baltimore, Philadelphia and my own dear New York...
...written with acenracy and objectivity...
...3.75...
...I don't remember a dispatch which seemed to me fate and straightforward...
...Dallin has written a distinguished book, particularly in view ef the fact that he is dealing with a contemporary subject t Land Beyond the Urals By VLADIMIR ZENZINOV SIBERIA...
...Roy L. Smith, the sparrow, the tree and I were having our Easter there in the garden...
...The Governments of these Republics remained in fear of sovietixation, and in June, 1940, the president of Lithuania private^ said...
...It has already been noted (e,g...
...Mr...
...Daniel Befl, said in hi* letter to PM, "a responsible publication wonM have checked Its facts...
...Dallin's sober account of the Russian absorption of the Baltic Republics is revealing...
...Certainly the Rosso-German agreements of August, 1939, were the immediate cause of World War II...
...After reading it, it is hard to understand why so many British and American "liberals'' who in World War I protested vigorously against Russian imperialism, jheals aww favor turning over Central and Eastern Europe to Russian domination after this war...
...But Britain did not back down, and no one was more surprised than Hitler and Stalin...
...So—since Brother Smith has been so generous—I propose reciprocation...
...I propose that we unite in offering through the Christian Advocate an "appropriate plaque" to the clergyman who gives us the most pertiaent preachment about the war or—let us say—the next presidential election...
...A Siberian bibliography would comprise scores of volumes and the literature on Siberia has been growing by leaps and bounds in recent decades...
...That judgeship of Thurman Arnold's is said to be a mere hibernation until '44, where the disgruntled Trust-butter will hop onto the Republican bandwagon...
...I wish I could believe that the Easter celebrations of the churches have had an important part in sustaining it and stretching its meaning...
...Because certainly no liberal publication would have allowed one ef its writers, one Matthew Low, to call a "fellow" anti-FasCist writer "the most untrustworthy Hollywood correspondent...
...But I much prefer my magnolia tree, my songsparrow or the gaily gowned girl coming down the church steps...
...Then twice he visited Siberia as a tourist in the Bolshevist era...
...Such good manners...
...Washington circles recalled the time when DeMartino of Italy protested some aati-Muaaolini remarks of General Smedley Butler...
...for ah early »v Continental invasion by the Allies has been pushed haek owing to the greatly increased severity of German U-Boat warfare...
...46) for Caucasians...
...In his book he has touched on many matters...
...Nevertheless Russia continued to* have no illusions as to Germany...
...The State Department has no reason to like Hamilton, for seme of the urrpretty stories he telle of Hull-France relations...
...The essays all sound more or less as if someone had written them in his sleep...
...Carey read his address in a w^bJteJgtJgj'Mft eyes blazing, and his jaw way out in front The applause ha got was thunderous...
...There is, as in the case of the preacher, a certain accepted style...
...I mean a little resurrection, a bit of coming to life...
...Chasgteg, that the Baltic Govern in tail had, violated them giuta ises to Russia, the Soviet new Jjsjeihsji extended its control...
...When I reported in my story that the film was representing Trotsky as having visited Ribbentrop, I did so because I sww that scene being firmed, and because I later saw publicity stills of the scene...
...have its southern terminus at Komeoreelsk and from there mb along the Okhotsk Sea, eventually reaching Kamchatka Peninsula and the Bering San, The building of the railway would be a formidable eater-prise...
...While providing for a Russian military protectorate, the pacts "must not affect in any measure the sovereign rights of the contracting parties, in particular their economic systems and state organizations...
...Within a few months after Russian troops entered the Republics, the situation heg*a to change...
...Now comes a Peter Furst screed from California, We always take a dare, se here it is: On Friday, March 19...
...Whatever the Advocate says must be taken seriously...
...My final judgment is that both editorial paragraphs and parsons' preachments are as dull— no, not as the devil—not even as ditch-water...
...Sincerely yours...
...Such material will arouse the readers' interest in the country which aa early at 1914 Fridtjof Nausea dabbed "The Land ef the Future...
...During this period Russia was the great "appeaser...
...He was the "Franco agent" involved in the "expedient" censorship of anti-Fascist sections of the For Whom the Bell Tolls movie...
...the newspaper PM was fair enough to prints eolumn and a half latter fnsm yew ia whieh you.snw" fit to label a dispatch of suae on Warner Brathess' Mission to Moscow a "shocking instance of yellow journalism...
...You see, dear Mr...
...I don't mean that I read every word...
...New governments were treat ad wet by the local communists upon whom Moscow frowned, but under the aegis of high Soviet officials who dominated each Baltic eaanary...
...After the ticket-collector and a couple of other fellows woke me-up I went into conference with myself...
...Listen to this...
...The question was now either an agreement with Moscow or the complete defeat of National Socialism...
...Mooney and Billings...
...It would be a continuation of the Alaskan Highway . . ." (p...
...Such repressive measures did not completely muffle protest...
...Secondly, causes much mora complex titan ¦ the Bolshevists' "idealism" underlie the tremendous psychological changes that have gone on in Russia as well as ia Siberia during the last three decades...
...He has all the news of this „corivuls1ve world for his texts...
...ISfhat Big Eyes Yen Have, Grandma:—Appeasement's child ia ** the U. S., Spanish Ambassador Juan Carden*- n<*» i*teu...
...It is heavy with buds which should be out in full bloom just about the right time...
...517 pages...
...til...
...Some words make him froth...
...It takes a genius like Bill White to break through it...
...He even Usees this railway on the map which is attached to the book...
...But Britain could not pay the Russian price—"the violation of the independence of a number of small states...
...It was out-and-out propaganda on behalf of the Kremlin Line, and its punilii eidntiUrn cover was obvious camouflage...
...All the parsons he has ever known have said a certain set of things...
...Why not a fresh inspiration rising from among the old bones of faintly recalled and automatically repeated notions...
...A LTHOUGH Soviet Russia was dominated by fears of insecurity, it did not abandon its communist ideology during this fateful period...
...Were some of the pastors of my boyhood to spy me writing- derisively of anything appearing in that august sheet they would be roused from the rest which they so richly deserve...
...Actually, however, there is aa such railroad at aH and Lengyel has to acknowledge this himeett when he states: "it is believed that meat ef the line was already in operation by the end of 1941____Enumerating the Soviets' achievements he writes: "An American traveler in Siberia brought back the story in 1941 of the building of another railway line in the Soviet Far East...
...But in both sheets the experiment tends to degenerate into baby talk...
...That headline was changed for all other editions...
...Furst, is straight out of the Daily Worksr...
...New let's get it all straight Peter Furst is the movie correspondent for PM...
...If our Mr...
...He left Russia in November 1917...
...It certainly is not my fault that The New Leader happens to be on the same sWfc— not pofitieaily, but so far as tins picture is conOrnce ' as MeCormiek and Westbrook Pegler...
...Furst Things First:—Why pull punches...
...Unless we are willing to support the alternative, we cannot logically protest if Russia insists on the seizure of new territory after this war to protect itself against a new German attack...
...It is just as true of workers on the most radical papers as it is of those connected with the slickest organs of big business...
...PETER FURST, Hollywood Correspondent PM...
...That was something...
...As to your Matthew Lew calling me "the most untrustworthy Hollywood correspondent" well, well just ship that I dont have to go around citing the stories I have written or the headlines hi my paper m order te defend myself, aa did Mr...
...Emil Lengyel has net escaped this risk...
...You object strenuously to being mentioned in the same story as the Chicago Triomne and Martin Dies...
...Dallin reviews in careful bat interesting detail the efforts of Britain to come to terms with Russia is the fateful summer of 1939...
...He spends words, paragraphs, columns which add up to nothing ranch except that he and his paper are for this and that and against that and the other...
...Then we discussed other things, articles, make-up—until finally this disarming diplomat got round to his real point...
...Trees, birds and men all lead a pretty hard life...
...Otherwise, it unevitably will be too generalized...
...But I * am all out for Easter, for rising up, sprouting out, bursting fbrthi...
...274) is actually a photographic view of the residence of the director of the Magnitogorsk Metallurgical Combine...
...Our paragraph of two *** weeks ago, ^Submission to Moscow," has gotten a rise out of Peter Fuxst who cables us from Hollywood...
...Editorial writers on such papers as the News solve the problem by being very cosy and folksy and chatty...
...452 pages...
...As your editor...
...Practically never is there a quip, a personal twist, the slightest up-welling of the human spirit...
...By Emil Lengyel Random House...
...And all the time my eye was making what speed it could down columns upon columns, pages upon pages of editorials and sermons...
...Siberia, once a mere backyard to the city of St Petersburg, became a world force of the utmost importance under the Communist Government" (p...
...He's a swell guy...
...Cardenas had the affront*ry to pretest and attempt to halt the publication of the book...
...The very name 'Samoyed' struck terror because of its meaning 'People who devour one another...
...and has sought to maintain the position of a "third power" standing apart from the two contending coalitions...
...The editor and preacher are brothers under the skin...
...This hue was to...
...whose porftics are "obvious," as he saw fit to do in his gossip column in The New Leader of March 20...
...That is his business...
...Expect more about this...
...I put Furst down sa last am any list...
...I called Peter leant "untrustworthy...
...Liberalism" is a fake and a shame if it can manage to convince itself that there is one watery excuse to istigdj from that understanding...
...The moment a fellow feels the wight of responsibility descending upon him whatever little spark of spirit he inherited is quenched...
...Joan Scott's review in the New York Times Book Review, January 10, 1943) that the picture of sumptuous "Workers' Homes under the Soviets" (p...
...No—they are dull as a duplicating machine, v * * • A Plaque for the Preacher THE main point is that the editorials and sermons are much alike...
...I was pleased as a kid...
...Rumors ef the switch have been current for a long white, but the squeeze-play of the Monopolies which shoved him out of the Anti-Trust Division wat the last straw...
...Although Hitler did not mind this price, he was not enthusiastic about making an alliance with a communist power which be had denounced for twenty years...
...A preacher has to preach...
...Without any reason whatever he calls the Ukraine "the land of great rivers" and boldly derives the word "Sibir" from "Sievier" (p...
...Turn about is fair prey...
...Through the window I viewed shipyard after shipyard, airplane factories and flying fields, machine shops no end...
...at it again...
...After getting what he wanted in the Baltic, Stalin turned southwest toward the Danubian and Balkan States...
...I » » * Resurrection, Revolution—or Something I DO not intend to compete for that "appropriate plaque...
...It presents much factual materiel...
...His paper has a policy...
...Dallin points out, this was the key to Russia's war against Finland— a desire to dominate the vantage points of the Gulf of Finland...
...I fear that the preachers with their sermons are among the slighter attractions of the new spring season...
...In the first edition at PM, Peter Furst's by-line appeared...
...Yet in another instance the author's "wishful thinking" becomes even more manifest On page 310 he describes the Baikal-Amur Magistral, as if it actually existed, and tells how it connects the Pacific with the Lake Baikal—via the Lena territory—how it "stems out" "veers off sharply toward the North," "crosses the Lena," "loses itself in the virgin forest ef the marshy taiga," "reaches the Amur River at the city of Komsorn-olsk...
...And in the first edition, too, this sentence, later deleted, appeared—"Mission to Moscow was deliberately planned sa a figat to correct a host of misimpressions about Soviet Russia today, as well as to drive home some truths the isolationists, red bastes*, and Roosevelt-haters don't like to have mentioned these days...
...Dallin tells this story without passion...
...It so happens that this is the truth...
...Soviet Russia, rightly or'wrongly, mistrusts all other governments...
...THE new Baltic Governments then requested 1 the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R...
...If The New Leader k> m proud of its so-called "anti-GPU" stand, then way an sag** does it protest so vehemently when I meatkm it...
...In preparation for Easter I planted a magnolia tree last Saturday...
...the Soviets will leave the Lithuanian nation intact, but will confiscate ear homes and property, 1 prefer the former...
...As Mr...
...Sermons from stones may be all right...
...Books and Writers The Soviets, No Enigma By RAYMOND LESLIE BUELL David J. Dallin ; SOVIET RUSSIA'S FOREIGS POLICY, l»3f*l*42...
...We've called the picture "grotesque GPU propaganda," which we think in true...
...Men have always had a touching faith in renewal and improvement...
...It was dropped in all other editions, rn the first edition: the headline writer pointed up the real smear intention of the dispatch—"Strange Bed-fellows .aligned ngnhtot Fihn 'Mission to Moscow...
Vol. 26 • April 1943 • No. 14
