Where the News Ends
CHAMBERLIN, WILLIAM HENRY
Where the News Ends By WILLIAM HENRY CHAMBERLIN Items on Political Censorship COME of those who were opposed to America's W entrance into the present war committed themselves to overly .grim...
...What is needed is not some provisional agreement with Russia as to the precise boon-daries of her sphere of influence in Bntopl-By collaboration we must understand an agreement on concrete ways to aid and promote t free and united Europe...
...But The New Leader does vociferously object to the economic picture of which the wage freezing and job-freezing are a part Boris Shiskin, economist of the American Federation of Labor, put our objection into epigrammatic form when he said: "A war economy half frozen and half free cannot endure...
...It is threatened by the Congress of an United States...
...The aircraft industry enjoyed a net income of 48.8% in 1941 and of 4S% in 1942...
...They represent the Secretary's approach to internationalism...
...We do not think that bureaucrats are stepping in to rob us of oar liberties...
...ernment of Japan may well serve aa a ratdel American boys have been murdered...
...Zevi was ' a member of the Italian anti-fascist underground and participated in the student demonstrations against Mussolini a few" years ago...
...But there is one thing that totalitarianism, whether its results are good or bad...
...The Cannon Bill, House Resolution 98, hat been passed and now lies on the Presidenfi desk...
...When a hoo»T Tag*!' <g down it is not customary to baud an* homes for the residents before nmeshe them from the flames...
...Now, according to reports ia the .movie trade press, the OWI's Lowell Mellett is trying to muscle, in With "a standard procedure" for transmitting "voluntary propaganda requirements" to motion-picture producers...
...It must come, not from "exploratory" commissions, but from the heads of our jot...
...Before all the world President Roosevelt roakej « formal pledge on our behalf: "The American Government will hold personally and offiehoij responsible for these diabolical crimes all of those officers of the Japanese Government *U have participated therein and will in due coury bring those officers to justice...
...If we wish to prepsre the ground for a third war now, the easiest wsy is obviously for us to think in terms of spheres of influence...
...and Italy as we had done for years, when the democracies were not even at war...
...the world, js something else again...
...True not in the sense in which Fascism is totalitarian...
...Faulkner and his colleagues and Mr...
...J"jh tew sample figures will give a good pic-^twpt'df what is happening...
...But I feel sure that all good anti-Fascists, of every political tendency, object to the dubious privilege of having Italy considered "a different matter...
...from HENDRIK WILLEM VAN LOON To the Editor: ,'Jxfvjim' -sorry, but that will never do...
...They object because such a statement is generally based on two dangerous misconceptions...
...Europe must be united and free, free not only from Fascism, but from all the elements that have caused Fascism—some of which are prevalent even within the ranks of the United Nations...
...It was put throurk under the pressure of the Farm Burets Federation and the National Grange...
...Then, of all times, a plausible case might have been made out for adjourning the Presidential eVhj^ipp until after the end of the war...
...Cecil Browne and other American correspondents who have encountered some of the excesses of British censorship...
...The "hold the line" order, they remarked, is being administered as a "hold one side of the line" order...
...We know that the Undergroun4jnt*»-ments are strong throughout Europe, nut sanation, no continent can survive in isolstioa, particularly Europe after the tragedies ih* sat endured...
...HALF FROZEN—HALF FREE WAGES are now essentially frown...
...Shipbuilding received profits of 28.9% in the earlier year, 26.6% in the later...
...Corporation taxes have thus far not altered the general situation...
...Th* ffer* ht America (1941), makes several scholarly references to Jeffersoiy%s "Tom"- e.f...
...Certainly we are justified in assuming*that 1f the 'Congress of the United States is unready for the first step there is little hope of its taking the last The Associated' Press proved to be conspicuously inexpert at the business of poll-taking...
...Fluidity of labor wottU give these underprivileged workert a choir* of residence and occupation...
...The Cannon Bill is the meets whereby they hope to accomplish their purpose...
...It is the entire nation...
...It is regrettable that tills thesis should be so widely popularized by the democratic press...
...Wfnnfng ft is right now the supreme consideration...
...And so I hasten to add that the case is not> exactly as it is made out to be by Mr...
...THE article must be read in its entirety to get "• an impression of the bumptious boners which our censors hare been pulling...
...Because there is no equality of sacrifice, inflation goes on and the workers are caught between' fixed wages and rising living-costs...
...If Italy has a Mussolini and a King, she has also a Matteotti and a Carlo Rosselli...
...The 27,000,000 workers in essential industries are, with their families, the very heart of the civil population of this country...
...Our citizens are justified in being impatient at what is taking place on the island of Bermuda...
...Labor in this coon-try is not so weak that it must fear being robbed of its right to work where it will for the best wages which it can get It is perfectly able to defend itself...
...CONGRESS FACES THE FUTURE NUMEROUS public opinion polls have shown that the citizens of the United States favor our cooperation in some scheme for the maintenance of international security...
...I confess that it was originally called "Thomas Jefferson, American," and the "Tom" was substituted because of the well-known shortage of rubber type...
...Van < Loon, who, it seems to me, has been unduly influenced by the compelling Federalist myth that the "people's President" was really a man of cold, forbidding hauteur...
...Congress and the administration face a crisis...
...Furthermore, so far as Germany is concerned, we have one reason more to question this second thesis...
...The help of the Western democracies if vital for the growth of this new and democratic Europe...
...j(um...
...Movies are often trivial and sometimes positively moronic...
...Thl JeSenon...
...Because of the wide interest ' in the speech we asked Mr...
...We have complete faith that when this straggle is over, the freedom of labor will be restored...
...But the effect of this flow of purchasing power is powerful and constant Here is a line which Congress and the President are conspicuously not holding...
...Lillian Hellman, a name that has appeared on more than one Communist-sponsored manifesto of recent years, is how reportedly at work on this "realistic film," which the Monitor correspondent describes as "a fair,example of the new propaganda, expertly done, which is engaging the attention of the studios nt'the moment.'' Bureaucratic usurpation and edging in with schemes of censorship and indoctrination: this is what lovers of liberty must fight if the danger of transition to totalitarian and semi-totalitarian practices, via the chloroform route, is to be resolutely smashed...
...leadership was repudiated by the majority of his countrymen...
...ernments...
...They want to maintain their grip on their half-starved underlings...
...utmost to help Russia arid to collaborate wfth her...
...Willkie y.-as censored, for English readers, when he "deplored the race discrimination that prevented Negroes from serving as combatants in the U. S. Navy...
...Ia this battle one must ischos with a Third Front which cuts across sb nations and which will lead to th* real etansions...
...Inevitably their mood is effected.- Their enthusiasm for the national cause is cut down...
...They say that "so far as Italy is concerned, it's a different matter than with Germany and Japan...
...No federal board is consulted...
...cannot allow—the co-existence of an opposition...
...Now in this matter I think that both exaggerated alarmixm and unreserved complacency are out of place...
...the Western demecrscite have shown no interest in the I ndar-ground...
...Van Loon Locates an Error— Or Was Jefferson Called 'Tom...
...And some former ardent interventionists have been inclined to wax complacent over the state of civil liberties, to twit the prophets of gloom with the failure of their more extreme predictions to materialise...
...The President's solemn warning to the gov...
...Every person saved is a blow at the dictatorship...
...The Cost of Living Committee of the CIO put the same idea in another form...
...For Mr...
...The day of doom h a hand...
...the abbreviation of his name) but never Tom...
...It fc...
...There hyAjfiMa' Mc Nntt says, a war to be, wen...
...For ont thing, the law would prevent the taking of farm-laborers from counties without the eon-sent of the County Agent, and this official is usually under the influence of the Farm Bureau group...
...Effective action must be taken at once if the danger is to be averted...
...Landlords who depend on sharecropper* or wage-workers object to having a part a! their labor supply taken away and sent ts'rt* gions~where wages are better...
...But others are not making equal sacrifices...
...The danger -that we might slip into totalitarian practices is to be found in subtler, more-indirect developments...
...The New Leader favors every step that will hejp to win the war...
...velt administration, the farmers or the weather man...
...When workers ask for wages sufficient for livelihood, a thousand voices rise in protest...
...The Reciprocal Trade Law, which expires on June 1, is being hctly debated in the House Ways and Means Committee...
...jLfeel rather, flattered that Mr...
...Qf course, there have been other Presidents...
...Until now...
...V...
...As far as the legal machinery permits, the administration has stabilised wages and employment in industries that include more than half of the work done in this country...
...Neither the idea nor the phrasing was particularly Original...
...There is apparently a determined desire en&* part of some high executive authorities to ¦withe coming inter-Allied food conference a hush-hush affair, with newspapermen barred from foetal contacts with the delegates and restricted to official hand-outs: This danger has aroused the gratifying chorjaTo^ protest from the press...
...But whether a realistic film would' conceivably be liked by the Soviet thought...
...It is not openly discussed, but in certain quarters of the democracies it is hinted that Italy lies within the sphere of Anglo-American influence, while Germany—or the greater part of Germany—lies within the sphere of influence of Russia...
...But enormous profits flow quietly...
...Alex Faulkner, citing cases of thought control by American censorship that arc nothing short of scandalous...
...It is oa this Third Front thst those who hone for a ne» Social sad democratic freedom have volunteered a?' fight...
...Item 2. The last issue of "Harper's" con...
...and immobilized us — perhaps because they know that, no matter how little understanding-they show of our purpose, we shall sjtvays be on the side of democracy and freedom « is vital, however, if a third war is to be prevented, that the democracies clearly understand the position of European aiiti-FsatiiUl This position was expressed recently by Igs*** Silone in a few words which I snail quote: Thia war is not like that of 1914...
...I do not think, however, that the story of our disillusionment should be told here...
...149, 161, 165...
...The situation as a whole simply does not make sense...
...It amy be thai many favor various means of international security who are not willing to go out on a .Iimblfor an international police force...
...T|j democratic governments have so far checks...
...Taxes are not going up fast enough...
...It is not the Roosevelt administration that is being hurt...
...bat if this is what people want, presumably they hare a rgpft" to A preliminary censorship that would be particularly active in doctoring up films about foreign countries would have much more sinister implications, as exemplified in Item 4. According tolhe Hollywood correspondent of "The Oiristian.Scie.nce Monitor" Harry Hopkins recently suggested to Samuel Gold'wyn that ho should try his hand at "a realistic story about Russia, one that the Russians would rik/ft...
...And profits are, for the most part not coming down...
...The election of 1864 was held at the regularly prescribed time and the votes were honestly counted, as the very cjosaues's of the popular vote shows...
...We will learn there if the principles of the Atlantic Charter are really understood as international issues and, equally important if they are to be implemented accordingly...
...There the delegations of Britain and the United States are carrying on "exploratory" discussion...
...It should be vetoed...
...The issue was far But Abraham Lincoln, the finest human embodiment 'of the American democratic ideal, was St a man to uphold "government of the people the people for the people" by the methods of a.- Jacobin Committee of Public Safety or a Communist Cheka...
...I wish only to suggest that no collaboration is possible between a master and a slave...
...As a matter of fact as, anti-Fascist" in exile/have been pUcel ia » position where we are almost us* I cm is onr countrymen fighting Fascism from Inside...
...With a legitimate mandate from a people that had been able to express its viewpoint freely, he was again President of the United States, destined to bring the war to a successful conclusion...
...On being asked''whether they favor "preserving the peace throun an international police force," MSendtoW said yes, 32 said no, and 32 preferred to'reserve their decisions...
...Dixon Welter's...
...In a sense, they are basic, for they are the first gradual approach to the breaking down of nationalistic walls...
...So the landlord...
...But it must be said that numerous members of the chamber which must O.K...
...for 1942, 8.7...
...Speed is mom faS tmit hhr completeness of arrangement* And as for the millions still directly u*e» the threat of death in Germany or the at-cupied and satellite lands, a direct and totes* statement that murderers will be brought tt justice the minute the war is over would area, ably have a considerable immediate effect Taj Nazis themselves might give little heed...
...was in its fourth year...
...That hiadlrae about "Tom Jefferson" in The New Leader two weeks ago betrays an ignorance of history which makes us laymen shiver...
...I have no authority to speak for the Italian Underground, nor for the Italian emigration...
...I 'am sure ws can arrange to split the difference.— EDITORIAL COMMENT PROFITS AND INFLATION THE April survey by the National City Bank shows that after all deductions for taxes, reserves and depreciation, the profit rates of American business for 1942 were only a slight fraction below those of 1941...
...I am not so confident that, unless progressives- maintain a twenty-four hour watch agaiiist this danger, we may not be gently and unconsciously chloroformed into such a pattern...
...It is clear that we must do our...
...Our entire war effort is threatened...
...And fhe^patire tendency to withdraw not only military matters on which secrecy is imperatively neces-" Mry hut other questions of public policy from public scrutjny and discussion until final decisions hate •been/reached is most harmful, from the standpoint of democratic control of foreign relations...
...Generally, in talking of the two countries, people are accustomed to make a sharp distinction between Germany and Italy...
...According to this notion, Italy is "a different matter" because the Italians cannot fight and are unwilling to die for any cause...
...There are no hearings or investigations...
...He may have been thinking of Congress...
...The dropping out of the appropriation fcr the Farm Security Administration is *m» more disastrous...
...It is high time that a clear line should be drawn, on both sides of the Atlantic, between the job of suppressing military information and the indulgence of the whims and prejudices of self-appointed thought controllers...
...Whatever it may prove about the level of twentieth century popular taste and culture...
...Every limitation put on the oppresser's power to persecute and kill cuts down his power to prosecute the war...
...They are making their sacrifice, and they are willing to make it...
...The second thesis is of a very different kind and of international importance...
...Twenty-seven million war workers are almost completely fixed in their jobs...
...I" FACTIONALISM AND FOOD OUR 1943 food production program is «eri-ously threatened—and not by the Root...
...Bat these figures are obtained by averaging the percentage returns in more than 70 fields of mining, manufacturing, commerce and transport...
...Reducing tariffs—or abolishing them—gives us no guarantee against war, but it is a first step in that direction...
...We have been practically forbidden to act for the Underground in German...
...Thomas Jefferson was a competent mathe-ijmtffian, and as such he realized the importance of "distance," and after his younger days tfere .were only a fewf—a very few—privileged to call him Tom, and to the world at large he was Thomas, just as in his letters he was TH...
...There would seem to be a good case for international cooperation between Mr...
...No matter how loyally trade union officials may-go along with the administration, these millions of workers have a grievance...
...It is a misconception that if not abandoned, will seriously endanger the coming peace...
...Item 3. From Kalamazoo to Timbuctoo American movies are one of the touches of, nature that make the whole world kin...
...The figures are: for 1941, 8.9...
...This flow of credit endangers our entire War effort...
...controllers...
...A lage part of the increase wMft was registei-ed last year was duo to this activity The matter is now before the Senatsi-with a good chance that the blunder made if the House will be corrected...
...Such a phage would have far greater effect in Germany that in Japan...
...And one need hardly remind the labor movement of the contribution made to the anti-Fascist struggle by the workers, the peasants and the intellectuals of Italy...
...We have gone almost as far in this direction as we can go without a sweeping mobilization act...
...He was prepared to step out of .'office if Ids...
...The Albal power is approaching...
...Lincoln did not receive the 99.9% majority that is the sure hallmark of a 'fraudulent totalitarian plebiscite...
...Hollywood films are universally popular and reach large numbers of persons in every continent...
...The Associated Press polled the members of the Senate on post-war security—with very unsatisfactory results...
...A lasting peace cannot be berHt on this foundation...
...A realistic film about Russia would be excellent...
...They have given relatively Uttw help to the organizations in Germany sad Italy...
...Van Loon, in Ins turn,.would counter With footnotes on "^Mr...
...are atrainst it...
...It mast be baaed instead on international collaboration which, in torn, stems from independence snd freedom for the whole of Europe...
...The first book at hand, Prof...
...rather, an important war measure...
...But it would be interesting, as an anthropological specimen, to get a close-up of the certsof¦ 4Ath such an overdeveloped sense of his own authoritarian importance that he felt warranted in withholding from English norapaper readers the fact that a United States "Supreme Court Justice believed there was too much smugaess and com-placericy in circulation...
...In my judgment, the election that put the final seal on the toughness and abiding quality of American political democracy was held in 1864...
...At the moment we have no such assurance with regard to the Congress...
...And it must be understood that a* move in this direction because this is oat means of getting at Hitler's power and beating it down...
...We are not snaaaciows of the Manpower Commission or of tjts SeosmfisJc Stabilisation Director...
...Other citations could be listed,' but then Mr...
...The mechanics of dictatorship, be it that of a proletarian party or of Fascist criminals, cannot allow two Polish Socialist leaders to live—not even in these days when it might be to Russia's interest to avoid alienating the democratic countries or the powerful forces of democratic, organized labor...
...It would terminate, or at least seriously interfere with, the activities through which the Department of Agriculture has been transporting worken to sections where they are needed...
...Supreme Court Justice Roberts got the censorial axe when there was an attempt to transmit his public statement: "I cannot understand the smugness of the United States, I cannot understand its complacency...
...any agreement to stabilize the post-war world showed by their gratuitous comment that they have but the crudest notions of what this war is about...
...Wages are fixed, but the price of meat is going up—and so are the prices of canned goods, vegetables, hot-dogs...
...Teddy Roosevelt will always remain Teddy Roosevelt, but that is a different story again, Indeed a very different story...
...Some aspects of any arrangements to secure the release of refugees, to provide them with transportation and with even temporary asylum obviously require careful preparations...
...Where the News Ends By WILLIAM HENRY CHAMBERLIN Items on Political Censorship COME of those who were opposed to America's W entrance into the present war committed themselves to overly .grim predictions of what would happen to democratic processes, once hostilities had begun...
...I *$ limit myself to drawing one conclusion...
...UfiMJg very interesting article by the Amer-< lean correspondent of the London Daily Tele-' graph...
...That is why the understanding •» liberal Americans and of the labor •rganisa-tions is so important for us...
...Even if it could satisfy the immediate, selfish interests of Italy, this idea, must be vigorously rejected by anti-Fascist Italians in the light of the ultimate interest of Europe...
...It is a threat to our national economy...
...JeVrsdeived about 55% of the ballots", as against 46% for his opponent, General McClellan...
...Enormous profits are still the rale...
...in particular, our effort to win the war...
...As a matter of fact, general histories record that much as Stephen Douglas remains "the Little Giant," Jefferson has been known as "Long Tom...
...So are the salaries of the rich...
...The article is all the more impressive because it is writ-1|jgVj» » 'Ptrit of the most admirable good temper, with every recognition of the need far -suppressing information that could be of military value to the enemy...
...many a police officer, many a governor functionary would pay attention...
...But it would require.the curbnl^warphd brain that a certain international type of censorship mind develops- to see any military justification for suppressing the transmission abroad of part of a Chicago Sun editorial criticizing a decision to forbid the export to England of Erskine Caldwell's "God's Little Acre...
...Air Transport advanced from 8.6 rV in 1941 to 22.4% in {942...
...Its question to members of the Senate was so clumsily definite that the answers cannot be taken as aHrue'index of attitude...
...Getting- every possible victim of Hitler barbarism out of German clutches is...
...Secretary Hull's trade treaties were first passed in 1933 and have been twice renewed since then...
...There is a simple basis for thif opposition to the transportation of workers from placet where they are not needed to places where they are...
...IVITH this kind of background, we are effec-W1!!**!* insured against any open violation of political and civil liberties that would clash violently with all our traditions and 'provoke an im-mediate outburst of hostile public opinion...
...Authoritative words from London aad Washington have increasing power in the Kta lands...
...They art «at interested in the war or the nation's welfare...
...By reducing tariffs according to their provisions we have increased trade, understanding, goodwill.-High tariffs are a part of the system which produces wars...
...When a people has never skipped a regular v Free election for one hundred and fifty years, which is our record ap to date, it is not ' likely that political liberties or due processes ' j ef law would be or could be swept away by - stroke of the pen...
...Russia is a totalitarian state...
...RESCUE OF THE REFUGEES TPHE trouble is that this business of saving * refugees has been regarded as charity...
...The Civil War...
...The ntfwjratfch here apparently was that, there should not be the slightest intimation to English readers that there are social evils in the United States which require correction...
...The American historical tradition, it seems to me, is a pretty good guaranty that we will never be blackjacked into a totalitarian pattern...
...LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Italian Emigre Urges Recognition Of Role of European Underground [The following communication was first presented a* an address, delivered last week in Washington, D. C. Mr...
...Van Loon should" have read my Jefferson piece with'so fine an historical glass...
...Jefferson was often called "Tom...
...The first, which is of national interest is deeply offensive to the Italian people...
...if the ideas and issues for which the united peoples are fighting today will prove to have such a value as to persuade not only ourselves, but also our enemies...
...This bureau has put tent ef thousands of small farmers on their feet, enabled them to continue and increase their an> duction...
...It is certainly another war for the imperialistic repartition of the world, N* that is by no means the whole stor...
...In these two countries we will discover if the war has truly been WOn—that is...
...Their morale is essential to our total success...
...Every new manifestation of it should be unsparingly exposed and condemned...
...Aa Jonathan Stout, our Washington correspondent, demonstrated some weeks ago, here we have one of the great motive forces of inflation...
...Zevi to send us the manuscript.—Ed.] From BRUNO ZEVI Editor, Quademi Italianx IT is in Germany and Italy that the inter-national system which will come after this war will first be tested...
...So the net income of 8.7% by no means represents the returns achieved in the great war industries...
...The President remarked the other day that "the country is ahead of Washington...
...Let me cite a few danger signals that I have recently noticed...
...But there are 20,000 of these Hitler victims in Spain who can be taken out as fast as ships can be provided and havens JM*in« qwett grant Britain and the Dnjh-States can find places to send them to^Z aaaaaa- of transportation...
...That time the outcome of the war i* not s matter of indifference to those who heps t* s new society, for on it depends the ear-rival ef those vestiges of Christianity, humanism snd detnecracy on which as baikL Bat the straggle bet* res Fascism sad liberty will not be decided on th* military plane...
...Their faith in the national leadership tends to weaken...
...What we need is action and the threat tf action...
...That same democratic press, by analysing recent casualty lists of the American Army, could have discovered that about 40% of all the American casualties are of Italo-Americans, children of Italian immigrants who constitute only 6% of the total American population...
...the strictest in...
...But headline-writer's license can hardly'be submitted as a defense against an horrendous historical error...
...In the end, in spite of all propaganda, their efficiency will be lessened...
Vol. 26 • April 1943 • No. 17
