A Polish Catholic Looks at History
NOMAD, MAX
A Polish Catholic Looks at History By MAX NOMAD A HISTORY, OF POLAND. By Oscar Hasecki Roy Publishers. 336 pages, $3.00. (CONDENSING one thousand years of a eoan-^ try's history within 300 pages...
...A second trial waa begun a few weeks age, and cut abort by the disqualification of a juror...
...They are af* fmm trajBc accidents, and it would help the kids to think *riouily of serious things now and then...
...The lady happens, to be Negro, but she might have -been, of any race, and her enjoyment of physical punishment has no...
...Aad while eft the subject of PM, dad you see that seven-page spread they had en crooner Frank Sinatra...
...The illiterate and totally disfranchised peasant serfs thus become the core of the Polish nation because they did net depart from the Catholic faith dear to the anther The latter is...
...This sounds hifalutin and 'inspira...
...Most of us think ef the 2fS°*» fj easy meat for fakirs...
...could be taken in by very few politico...
...Their implications for our way of life are'dear...
...This is all true, no doubt...
...So what...
...Its followers, he says, ^never took deep root in...
...The second vow was a solemn oath of the King "that when once his native land waa tread, the peasant population should...
...The oat ef em-trained, constantly changing volunteers is net only uaaatiafeebprg^ but will encourage the Mayor aad other badgei-cuttara to apJKpL still further the recreation appropriations...
...Few of them seemed to realise that there were great issues abroad Vn' the world, or even that there was a war to settle them...
...Literati ft Co.:—Capitol critics say that those recent remarks by Clare Luce on U. S. foreign policy ware oaly a bowd^erixed version of Walter Lippmann's book on the same subject...
...We have o« rat* and our 8-balls, but for the most part the men here are detent tad will help each other out with no prompting necessary...
...statement amounts to this: If we have^two men of equal ^•bon...
...Uew ??????—There was a time when Pars tag Dvnbax Bronaiey...
...Men are fighting in the Jungk» of the Pacific...
...I will print in this spot any remarks in reply from any aap er say war front written by anyone from private to major...
...P.P.S...
...Paf had a phenomena] jump in sales...
...Kansas (remember...
...L'ajfmire Charlie Chaplin reminds ua that the Theater Guild is still hoping to put oa the series of new . Eugene O'Neill plays, called The Paspeseesseis Seif-Dwyoeeeeeed (not a bad title, wonder what that's going to be changed to...
...while Redding is a middled ass intellectual, a college professor...
...Needless to say, the author is one of the outstanding figures of Poland's Catholic clerical A Negro Discovers His People By BRYLLION FAG IN NO DAY OF TRIUMPH...
...It is time that we accept the Negro's position in out society aa a challenge to our civffization—not because he is either good or bad, picturesque or amuerbut because no nation can clarm to be civiljfced so fang as twelve per cent of its people remain enslaved...
...Although restrained, it has always been present, he point* out, but Hitler has burst all limitation in his great onslaught...
...But at the same time, why »* lyrijawjfi'iiri turning churches into playrooms, social centers an" other useful places...
...It has been smug and over-proud—in^ a word, chauvinistic...
...bias is shown right at "the start The author rejects the theory, that foreign conquest lay at the foundation of the Polish state—even though he accepts that theory for the Russian principalities which were established by Norse invaders who imposed themselves as the ruling nobility over the primitive Slavic tribes...
...There is a certain grim humer in what the author says abont the motives that deter-mined hie country's and her neighbors' policies...
...he is hard-working, honest, and loyal...
...Many of us hope that when Labor puts ik President into, the White House, that that will be one of the first reforms undertaken...
...For there actually were no bmrrings of heretics in Poland and the drowning ef dissenters in the waters of the Vistula was considered a sufficient punishment for the crime of non-com-formity...
...front Prescott Dennett was a distributing agent for Congressional groups...
...3.50...
...Most people here—and they si aft dopes, all of them, by any means—just don't speak the «*e language we did...
...The fate of the country depends "the number of un gullible persons...
...What a Saw, limited and unseeing dead-end it is...
...In spite of oppression he loves to laugh...
...ut we may be.wrong...
...All," he telle us, "talked the language of pedants...
...Poland" beeagng ^thont tonehiag J»e amTthe nobility...
...significance other than that some people—Negro eg well aa white—are Masochists...
...have already told you something about the ordinary soldier's ,ttjtade toward the war...
...Particularly if that history is a continuous record of foreign wars, changing dynasties, religious dissensions, national insurrections and social conflicts...
...It was a long time before the musicians could get safely back to the hotel...
...Radicals and liberals have gone oat of their way in discovering and sentimentalizing the Negro's virtues...
...How do they feel...
...Some of the things I said in this imaginary colloquy will ? repeating...
...Ethel Waters, Lena Herne, Cab Calloway, et al...
...incidentally, right when he says tan* Ht^saaBd be absurd to speak of a religious persecution .comparable to what was then going on ia other countries...
...Carl Carper, Ruseei Crouse, Clifton Fadrman...
...sent * on to us, we get these curious items...
...to band...
...hHqion Will Not Dow...
...They are individuals, with differing aptitudes, attitudes, and sensitivities...
...I shall *™* about crows and weeds and worms...
...They are a burden on the people who support ana...
...Unfortunately...
...thanking Dennett, were read into the record...
...He blames Poland* s misfortunes on the fact that during that epoch "international morality" "no longer existed even in history...
...The book is full of dynastic details of only slight interest to the American reader, but it touches only superficially the question of the country's social classes, as for instance the fact that' since the dawn of Poland's history the inhabitants of her towns and cities were mostly...
...I must be wrong, jfaj i» a man who keeps up all the best traditions of, the SabOtd Mb V. B. Tolby writes from Boston in more constructive "m- He is all for my idea of turning cemeteries into parks and ^pounds...
...he makes and loves music...
...Well, another Utile bit of bual-ne*s_ has^^u: come to a dead-end, mvolvmg another Hs^ags^ ^fip^SJE ???^^^??^?^^d^^an^aSnCA^As^e...
...ww?m^%%e?a«| passed from...
...The current Commie orgie of patriotism will not stop even at scab labor...
...Oppression— social and economic—not only degrades the oppressed but it bmtalises the oppressor, tt ? . good to have Mr...
...and position—one white and one Negro—the Negro more skeptical, the lew gullible...
...20th-Centaxy Fag, whaeh is doing a film life of Eddie Rickenbecker, is planning to play up to the liberal sue by doing tern pro-labor films, "Home of the Brave" and "Up From the Depths" (lousy titles, wonder what they're going to be changed to...
...other are not Some are bitter and rebellious...
...The mighty struggle against the weeds and worms pro-2*4 tit* mounting fury...
...And yet it is wholesome to have these unpleas- . ant stories and reflections about the American Negro...
...he has genuine religion...
...Here is a basis for optimism...
...the Ukraine and a good part of Russia up to Moscow...
...V. The Daily Worker hat been running the dispatches of Frank Rhylick (who used to be a gpad reporter when he worked on the N. Y. Poet, bat aotvhrn some of the most garbled and tortured stories in the annals of journalism), and .they sizzle with indignation against so-calhaj Hitlerite - Han - Socialist - Trouky-ite" sabotage...
...But I rubbed -J?.6* **en I-read that statement...
...1*HIS is a courageous book...
...But dosing the churches need not interfere with freedom ¦ vorthip...
...It is disgraceful that while f*Penies and corporations are so heavily taxed that they are ¦"fly sbte to pay a dividend, the churches, now as much a money-¦rtue» concern as any of them, pay nothing...
...I stent the seeds of controversy...
...Religion has passed out dthe cradle stage...
...Or Redding's reflections on Negro academicians...
...Try a couple of paragraphs: 'About the graveyards fof playgrounds—why not...
...Too many, of titan.warn saen TsnMrtr ulators of knowledge...
...hot it's true...
...Well—this too' is a way of interpreting historical events...
...According- to Jobp Chapman, the first play, 74« leemam Caste**, ia "a screwed-up half-ancient Greek, rough-talking drama of a ? rasa wich...
...Unfortunately he does sot eover the current legislation which seeks virtual annihilation, a point it had reached already at the time of his lecture...
...gat included it Jb the script...
...Bat for the first time, I nave really come in contact with a ta«td America down here...
...Kenneth G. Crawford, who reaasawj recently from North Africa (he's no longer with Paf> is finishing a book on the Darlan episode aad aftermath...
...You will recall his ?columnar paragraphs and his feature articles about Spain and the South American countries...
...This nonsense of the peepul's war is Mt beard from the lips of soldiers, whatever the intellectual jsMpais amy any- We want to get this war over and done with ? that we can get home...
...And how good for pang men to get away from it...
...I think I am more of an American, at least esr* widely an American, now than two months ago...
...Those are the war aims and peace terms ef tie American soldier...
...New York: Edition* de ?? Maiton /ranfais...
...The Negro, it has said, is not only as good aa the white man but better...
...Citizens who can't be fooled !*J...
...But on this theme, only men in uniform have a license to vnta...
...tion opened this week, and the Stalinists are still on the ran...
...Racial Laws ty HEDWIG WACHtNHUH LE DRQIT RACISTS A LASSAUT DM LA CIVILISATION...
...others are docile and obsequious...
...l Ernest Hamburger describes German anti-Semitism in the last two centuries...
...All really earnest Christians could then kneel and the service in thfiir own homes and get God's blessing in ?11" °*aanre, because that is how He wants men to worship ffim- He expressly told them to go into their rooms to pray—and , •et make a display of it in public...
...No less amusing is the author1...
...I think I will send ¦•tibought en to William Green, who is a good Baptist, and ""lip Murray, who is an equally good Roman Catholic...
...f I eft-Cross:—Out in Michigan the labor movement has been ? moving fast to meet new challenges...
...Aad names of the great and near-great, living and deceased, continue to cascade lala the records of German Agent George Sylvester Viereck...
...Mr: Schuyler was talking about the Negro...
...That long story, for instance, aboujt the Masochist woman ia fairly interesting in Itself, but it belongs in Kraft-Ebbing or D. H. Lawrence...
...taking me to task...
...In a way...
...The Potfe* nation," the anther adds, "was newer to be false to that promise...
...Quietly the literary battle over the new Sinclair Lewis novel has been raging...
...in its turn be liberated from the serfdom by which it was oppressed...
...Some are arrogant and snobbish...
...The Widening Scandal:—Lund is the word for the «a#w*W * Viereck...
...of the numbers racket...
...The first of them consisted in a solemn proclamation "that the Blessed Virgin should henceforth be vencenthl a* Queen of the Crown of Poland...
...And it is courageous of Redding to undertake an inquiry into his place in a world dominated by the white race...
...They felt it necessary to gush with "love" for the black brother, perhaps in order to atone for his pain and humiliation...
...Two or three to whom I have reed this letter immediately bristled...
...She ahm took to task the Teaehers* Guild for refusing...
...But he's the sort of fellow who takes hold of an idea and goes to town on it...
...No Day of Triumph is to Negro literature what O'Neill's "The Hairy Ape" was to American drama twenty years ago...
...are no longer necessary...
...Not a great book, nor even aa altogether good one, but a book which sooner or later had to be written by a Negro about his own people...
...Unlike Yank he does not find that "tinkin"' is hard...
...Negro literature has hitherto all too often reflected the defensive complex of a downtrodden people...
...Aad hare in New York the fellow-traveler boys, Mike Quill, Joe Curraa, Saul Mills ? Co., are in for a little shaking up ia their CIO Industrial Council outfit From Auto, Textile, Ships, aad a group of other powerful affiliated unions a challenge4us being prepared, which mag unseat the old crowd of fellow travelers...
...4U?aaei e)QCDd?f i^a^Ai ^?tOTfC^L^A^* ?^4%??^ fite actual course of the war----So we protested From the Mm *Vfifffc% P^waomabfr has setae editorial mfJMQpeo on the.a^rnaa, came a letter, signifying helplessness, and recommending ? Office of War Information film bureau...
...His conviction in February, IMS, was eat aside last March by the Supreme Court...
...Occasionally the scrupulous reeec4attg of facts produces humorous effects of the first order After tile protracted invasions and civil wars oi the seventeenth century King John Casimir, the author says, "made a double vow...
...Harper: 847 pp...
...f Paul Jacob contributes valuable documents on the persecution of Jews in France and the protests coming from the underground as well as the Protestant eat Catholic clergy...
...This U,something important...
...W* ware surprised, to note hi tiie Tribune the other day her commendation of the Teachers" Union for volunteering to spend their one-week summer-school assignment as playground leaders...
...If we are, it is «*J news...
...Tk} Ethical Culture boys may have had more truth in their «kalism than we thought...
...V*V night operations seem to be especially effective...
...So the protest waa al on...
...So the protest was sent on once again, this time to the studio itself And this time the Isaak waa passed to the Array, which apparently prepared aneteria...
...In snort...
...Tombstones are fine ·» peek-a-boo, tag and other games...
...Panl ClWas, Jack Goodman, Oscar Hammerstein, Margaret Leech, John ? Mannend, and William L. Shtrer...
...Our own little world in New York of intellectuals ? Socialists was one of the topic* of conversation...
...One of these toibring up for discussion- , . « a subordinate clause the writer calls "the intelligent colored rS^^the least gullible of our citizens...
...as 1 a peaceful guy trying to do nothing but keep the * weeds down—and trouble-makers' simply will not leave me shse, There*is that old missionary, E. Haldeman-Julius...
...the formula runs, so playground service hv a patriotic duty----But there happens to be a list of trained, licensed playground supervisors waiting for appointment...
...The week of the race riots Anne Niefaol's face-conscious comedy...
...It will open your veaaboui* Negroes...
...Village dive...
...The author is leas severe about invasions what he speaks of Poland's rulers who were just as much interested in Lebensraum and who achieved glory by conquering vast Slavic territories covering all of Germany east of what la now Berlin, all of Bohemia (Czeeho-slovakia...
...Bedding's findings...
...I have dented...
...To this extent Richard Wright, in his introduction, is justified in praising the author's "honesty, integrity, courage...
...1 am losing the New Yorker's suspicion of people...
...Which sunpbjr mean* that the Labor Party hope -will probably get farther endorsement and they're dead set against that...
...a»st important inhabitants in the world...
...I think I had seen more of this country, from different angles, titan many of the Rand School crowd...
...Negro literature by white writers has been no better...
...you failed to George 8/ Schuyler's article in last week's Leader, stop right here, look up that issue and read that ¦J** «I history before you do another thing...
...Redding is not always Clear about what he has discovered, lie generalizes->-or implies generalization—on the basis of his material, and hie conclusions-do not - always seen) inevitable...
...We have all the secret weapons—in-•jSPg those of chemical warfare—but the enemies are animated !?^POwaTftti economic motives and never indulge in absenteeism...
...Jews and Germans...
...Who are they ? How do they live ? In what ways fib they derive their livelihood...
...Bare it seems to have no relevance...
...The Bishop of Girard even seat the length of enclosing a religious tract by a certain Pastor bust...
...1 Jacques Maritaia oppose, racial law to the - «????, ipll to...
...We hear from them and **- sad then they spend time on leave, putting us hep to what pet on among the soldiers...
...traveled over the country for years, and has worked on a jj™*er of the mos1*wideiy_?p?Culated Negro papers...
...explanation of the causes pf Poland's partitions and of her final disappearance as an independent country by the end of the eighteenth century...
...The Jewish problem particularly is handled very sparingly—except for the statement that "persecuted m other countries they'tbok refuge » Poland" where they found "favorable conditions of existence^* The^ fact of^ tbe^^»tter is had no7 urbat^SSe^aS of its...
...The third, aad current trial began mat Friday...
...Ex-Senator Rush Holt was identified as the author ? fWho's Who Among the Warmongers...
...After a lengthy paragraph in which the Polish peasants are commended because they "never reacted by revolt so frequent in other anno tries," he admits that "in spite of all tab the second promise of John Casimir's was unfortunately not respected...
...By J. Sound** Redding...
...he threw light on all sorts of other things...
...Some .are good people...
...published at Viereck** direction...
...They have but one thing in common: the necessity to face in their daily lives a hostile social environment To' have made this simple discovery aad recorded it honestly is a valuable contribution to American literature...
...Their values are different, their life is djgerent...
...PHIS book contains four lectures which were * delivered at the last annual session of the Institute for Comparative Law at the French University, which is affiliated to the New School for Social Research...
...Bat Mr...
...It 1 has else a larger staff than is recognised in the checkbook of «er psnnU »™*??- Viewing thing, in this larger sense, we have a m list of collaborators in the Army...
...it is merely disillusioning...
...ing up of a JewUh m«idle dees was a^sevejgjg points of yea sent revults a^jjcMgb a'' pffieffir "every1 rna^'of^obul!ir^ take a personal share in the election (of ta*mt) and even to be elected himself...
...If only because it indicates a reaction to the romanticizing which has been going on in our literature for a quarter of a century...
...It was courageous of Yank—the American worker, the man of brawn—to launch an inquiry into his place in a world dominated by steam and electricity...
...I hope I ^ ? last find something that everyone is agin', f · ' * * *egro the Loos* Gullible...
...Seward Mam-ford Jones dismissed Gideon Planiek in the Saturday Mmvim as "old-fashioned" and "worthless...
...back snapped an evangelical letter from Girard...
...Hamburger admonishes us not to forget the Germane who have incurred persecution foT opposing the racial attack, although he is fully aware of4 the problem that will face us upon entering a nation whose younger generation has bees taught violence and hak cooperated in violence against the helpless'for more than a .decade...
...Irtih Root, did a spectacular business at the Lafayette, pleading for tolerance among peoples...
...Donald Adams is returning to the ?. ?. fanes Beek Renew-Robert Van Gelder will continue as acting editor, aad Adams will have a page of criticism ef his.own...
...He met bankers and miners, physicians and ditch diggers, schoolteachers and laundresses, and he tells their stories simply and honestly...
...Letters from prominent Washington politicos...
...I would like to have a good ?»»» to tiw passage about the soldiers' war aims and peace teens...
...Now Ralph is in a „atbern training camp, and here ia part of a letter from bam: -The Other night, standing—or rather waJkingL-guard, I paased a* hours sway by taking myself back to The New Leader and nttity*'* bnaginary conversations with all of you...
...I thought missionary seal •as falling off in these free-thinking days...
...We once told you the story ?? % prji-prodnction finegimg which went on before a certain Warjsff Bros, film (the name shaS never darken this column again) WJM finally put before the camera...
...And how battish and blind and laughable is our trick if talking for the 'worker' or the union member...
...Elizabeth Dilling bought thousands ef copies of Vie reek literature from their Flanders-Hall Publishing Co...
...It follows, then, that a large number.of educated Negroes, we shall have "«ge mjmber of ungullible crtisens...
...Nearly everyone was ¦writing a dissertation,' or 'gathering data," or 'fixing to study,' usually at Columbia...
...The heads of each denomination . . . would be allowed h conduct a full service, including a sermon, each Sunday over ¦* radio...
...1943...
...The last-man to go—and the one best to our readers—is Ralph Toledano...
...2? of father Divine...
...Peotawtea to Detroit:—From the file of notes Clark Ryan...
...Mr- Gottschalk provides a summary « the anti-Semitic legislation...
...The night -tmrkerand then the sun rose as I walked my post along the Ok ef the woods...
...Aad next weak I shall confine myself to safe territory...
...as well as on the Tact thai the Poles of the eighteenth century "bad no longer the deep religious faith which, had animated thejr ancestors...
...And if mine strikers or recalcitrant htor leaders get in the way, shoot them or kick them the hell ? ef tie-way...
...But Yank was elementary, without class-consciousness and understanding...
...On another occasion, however, he forgets about this concept of *4?(?>*-racy" when he speaks about the Reformation in Poland...
...Bertrand is his first name...
...It was cooked up by his pvssssgent who had Sinatra ping it on his popular radio program...
...The Negro does not have to be "good" to deserve' simple justice...
...author of The Seventh Creem, is dying in Mexico, after a siriiaa auto accident .. . Among the members of the War Writwr* aw...
...The crows...
...Yet there is every indication that the same thing happened in Poland—except that it was not the glorious Noraemen bat the somewhat leas romantic German freebooters who were to become the ancestors of Poland's proud nobility...
...Representative Stephen A. Day of Illinois was identified as the author of "We Must Save the Republic," the manu-script of which was received "in terrible shape," badly ia need of "rewriting into English...
...The Commies, for once took an awful beating eg the Wayne County Labor &en-Partaaaa convention last' Week, on everything from the Erlich-Alter issue ("a violation of the four freedoms") and the proepeet of an ^dependent Labor Party...
...others are humble and democratic...
...At the same time Hollywood halted the release of uhe alt-Negro film Stormy Weather (Bill Robinson...
...Anna Segbers...
...And from Lowell MeUett came a note, indicating thai he shared the objection, but stating that the "Government had no authority enabling it to tare any action in the matter...
...knows our colored folks aa, well as anyone does...
...The other •V I happened to remark that Kenneth Leslie, editor of The ??«Staat, had no right to talk about "religion or any other good to...
...but it characterizes American academicians in general, white as well as Negro...
...And the Forrest Club in Detroit's Negro section last Monday night Louis Jordan's band was completing an engagement The surrounding streets wer« the scene of a three-hour riot...
...J...
...Rabbits scurried into the bushes, the roosters oeved, the birds sang—and still our talk continued in good old 7 fast lath Street style...
...Now, George Schuyler 2...
...The fate of JJ^T, ultimately, depends on.them...
...4?%^??^??1???^?*?*' ^Awk»^k\mAw \???^?\?9...
...Subsidized by a foundation, Redding undertook a journey for the purpose of meeting his people...
...Newspapers are kW read down here, so let's not blame them for this feeling...
...awarding "?— to M—" 3 duds: Bex Stout, Franklin 1...
...Third...
...Over and over you hear these sentiments ex-piesssd, aafi they really come from the heart...
...Of Poland's trat historical king who accepted aad imposed Christianity upon his subjects in 966 we read that he did it in order to forestall invasions by the Germane "under the pretext of Christian propaganda," and in order to secure the protection of the Church' against the "Drang nach Osten" and the "Lebensraum" hunger of Goering's ancestors...
...CONDENSING one thousand years of a eoan-^ try's history within 300 pages is not an easy tank...
...read/French'-HS NEW LEADER has ? larger staff than you imagine...
...This week Harry Elmer Barnes returned with a rousing defense, and also an attack oa Jones as a "totalitarian liberal...
...Negroes are people...
...lobar ia to institute this whacking reform...
...So f ar we haven't heard from the Army (except if you want to mention a little thing like draft reclassification...
...There is no hint to that effect in the book, even though the very term Szlachta used in Poland for its nobility, ia derived from the German Ge-ecklechier (families), while the word herb which stands for coat-of-erme, comes from fthe German Erbe (inheritance...
...And the task become still more difficult if the author has to deal with the history of his own nation and if that nation's pride had been cruelly hurt by a number-cf-hmzuaaHence it ia not astonishing that in his "History «f Poland" Oscar Halecki, though "one of Poland's most distinguished historians" as we read, on the jacket, was unable to free himself from the spell of falsi country's romantic, past which stands ana falls with the glorification eg ito.paputi nobility, the only class that had ever any say in the shaping of Poland's dentin tea...
...In New York „ know the class-conscious clothing worker and on him we base , picture of America...
Vol. 26 • July 1943 • No. 27
