Where the News Ends
CHAMBERLIN, WILLIAM HENRY
Where the News Ends By WILLIAM HENRY CHAMBERLIN "The Protestant": A Protest My sttention *u first called to "The Protestant" when I *aaw a high-powered advertisement of an article, written, I...
...They discussed the re-education of their eld world countrymen, the political reconstitution of the fatherland, the reorganization of the trade union movement All of these vexatious problems they debated with abundant information and in the most democratic, idealistic spirit There was no hate or rancor against any other country...
...Tortured and persecuted, —* to blood, And wkerefort , . ." I have been following Mr...
...To quote his exact language: "They have laid one more dangerous trap along the pathway of the future peace...
...I wish all the intellectuals could get out and mingle with the run-of-the-mill Americans, for a season...
...It gives the impression of holding the Roman Catholic Church and the critics of Stalin responsible for everything that has gone, wrong in the world, from Mexico to Poland...
...an information with regard to it held up asfi the public could be given accurate detest* The State Department and the Ofifce a.' War Information should give us the fall itofr e-none at all...
...Per ass* esty is still alive—and a ribraet force...
...lives in Toledo, Ohio...
...Walter LummjZ voiced a widely felt feeling when he -^n the ether day: "Mr...
...fcj anyone, knows the American people His mm aad now this appendix to it are overt asnas> ea the strongest feature af the Rassa3S ministration...
...I hold no brief by training or personal viewpoint for Roman Catholicism...
...Where the News Ends By WILLIAM HENRY CHAMBERLIN "The Protestant": A Protest My sttention *u first called to "The Protestant" when I *aaw a high-powered advertisement of an article, written, I believe, by its editor, Kenneth Leslie, and entitled "God's Red Army...
...Take the following sentence for a torturous bramtwister: "The very fact that mass protest meetings . are actually being held in America, whose ' only purpose can be to bring the Soviet - Union into disrepute and thus to lower her pott-war influence, surely indicates not only that Erlich ana Alter might very well have committed the crimes charged against them but that those who arrange and project these mass meetings live in the very moral and political climate which produces (tie) such - cringes...
...But why bring Sod into the picture of an Army that has never tolerated a military chaplain...
...They know that the use of subsidies offers the only practical way of holding prices...
...The entire nation must assert itself...
...The Nr» Leader applauds Mr...
...Stalin received one offer to share in the loot of a German attack on Poland...
...Roosevelt is luecessk* greatly es Commander in Chief and i* aaahe out seriously as Chief Exeautive aad - S-of the nation...
...Why have seise* "greet democracies" offered naa> and other unfortunate peopkai» haven of refuge from--, the hen brutalities...
...It is the open-season for profit-seeking lobyists...
...And that's no cause for optimism...
...The great majority of farmers are behind him...
...He called ft aa "inflation sums are," a •high-cost-of-living measure...
...It would snap them back to reality...
...SCHUYLER To tke Editor: It seems to me that Mr...
...The House failed to over-ride the veto and then passed a bill which would have furnished funds for...
...At the present moment the whole business la'in the hands of a Conference Committee...
...Unexpected diplomatic reverses put a crimp into^theii plans...
...It is less definite than the Atlantic Charter...
...The logic is as defective as the English grammar...
...It seemed h) ma that everyone was applaadhf the collapse of the Bill af Rkeha...
...Recently I got hold of the April-May issue of "The Protestant" and its contents exceeded my worst expectations...
...Strike pledge or no strike pledge, somehow they will have to force a rise in wages...
...This is the time when every well-intentional Congressman and Senator must be held to a strict accounting...
...Negro Attitude Towards War from freer...
...The very politicians who were loudest in denunciation of the miners' strike are now most shameless in seeking more money for farmers, food-processors and food-speculators...
...THE GERMAN SOCIAL DEMOCRATS IF ALL the American people could have had * broadcast to them the proceedings of the conference of German Social Democrats and Trade Unionists, the cause of world democarcy would have been well served...
...If we elect hia pan...
...Willkie is so obviously on the tie* a the angels with regard to all tea baehsnej and underprivileged nations whom he ntf love to lead into a new heaven that om knits te* to be harsh with him...
...Listeners-in found at least one basis for optimism with regard to the most mooted of post-war problems...
...His voice of protest sgsjaat** injustice of the Nasst, Ovaaa* niate, Poles snd other* 1} «f and true...
...If they succeed in their endeavors, no_ matter how brilliantly we win on the war front our home front will be a shambles...
...We are told that to be anti-Stalinist "today means anti-Russian...
...I felt immediately that something most be amiss with snch a publication...
...a Washington Why are vague and*v^cfoesTt-porte allowed to leak into the press' If flan was—or is—a de Gaullist oath, why eat...
...wueai can advance Ins cause by urging s paher more militant attack or of more detaoaet* post-war planning...
...It may interest you te know that although I have traveled thousands of miles through this country since Pearl Harbor, I have yet to encounter a sane Negro who believed this was a war for democracy or that an era of sweetness and light would follow the putting down of Hitler, Tojo and Co...
...These advocates of the dissolution of the Comintern are apparently little short of criminals, in the eyes of Mr...
...Of course they do not believe any of this nonsense about a "people's war" nor are many taken in by the fraudulent sloganeering about democracy...
...LETTERS TO THE EDITOR George Schuyler Writes on Mood Of U.S...
...He task long about foreign affairs with regent a whieh rainbow generalities serve bis parssst He maintains, a discrete silence with regtnj to knotty domestic mix-ups on which he emfil have to talk hard sense...
...Praises Dennen Article on Poland To the Editor: Prom GCOftaVf IJCHNft The fine article by Lena Dense*, "Polish Tragedy in London—Tm Death of a Man," ia The he* Leader two weeks ago was psis-fully touching...
...Here is a magazine that seems devoted to two mala purposes: undiscriminaling abuse of the Roman Catholic religion and undiscriminaling glorification of Stalinism...
...Tole-dano as quoted by Dr...
...Willkie as transfer...
...It may be pnh/ a coincidence...
...As a member of an underprivileged| caste be has long been in a position to compare national praUkca with national professions in a vary personal way...
...This whole business ftm reached a stage at which it la a threat a confidence within the United Nations...
...This left Mr...
...A realistic observer cannot but think this is just the moment to deal seriously with "racial, religious and cultural differences...
...Their minds are epaa aad ftanJfcli Their wish is envy to serve the world by doing their utmost to bring Germany back into the ranks of civilized and tjuatmvjrthy nations...
...They have no right to go AWOL...
...Bohn in his Home Front column in last week's New Leader is entirely correct about the psychology of the young men he is mingling with in the Army...
...AB af the big food-selling corporations are on hand...
...But the Mayor refused to comply with this recommendation and a spokesman for Boston's Trotskyism, while expressing abhorrence of the distortions of the film, came out against suppression...
...Thus far the 'press hat reports...
...Whatever their intentions these men have...
...Overcome by the brilliance of the revelation, he scorns all recognition of differences and difficulties...
...This is not a basis for optimism, but for pessimism...
...The German armies in Russia have been rolled back...
...ident how will he keep prices down' Be* wiM he keep labor happy while price* go ay...
...The writer of the editorial also uses the curious, phrase "with true Western hypocrisy...
...One ef its principal editorials is a vicious gloat V over the killing of Erlich and Alter and tries to justify that crime with some of the most muddled reasoning that could well be imagined...
...It is a pity that Stalin does not accord more consideration to these commentators and give them somewhat more accurate pipelines to his psychology and intentions...
...His precarious position has sharpened his wits above the average and made him keener in detecting the fraud, bunk, hypocrisy, larceny and chicanery that constitutes so much of America...
...Which is just as sensible as to say that being anti-Hitler is being anti-German...
...Perhaps the piece de resistance of this particular issue cf "The Protestant" is an article by Ralph Bates denouncing the suggestion that Moscow should repudiate and dissolve the Comintern...
...Bates...
...Europe is under attack...
...It is past time," he remarks grandly, "for us to be talking the old nonsense about racial, religious and cultural differences . . . Men who talk of such things are living in a world of yesterday . . . They haven't felt or seen the ferment in the ancient parte of the world where people are throwing oft* the old ways...
...If it is lost any other victories will be close to useless...
...I console myself partly st he* by reciting the exquisite pane, "At Strife," by David EJusnestt "Hated are we, aad eVusav., from our komes...
...Even the race: reaajjhsS congressmen hesitate to attack him ea S ante, it is difficult to see how Mr...
...What he heard in Cairo and Iraq wHI not gat him the answer...
...On the contrary, there was reiterated insistence that the criminal Nazis be sternly dealt with...
...But it never got very far...
...Turning t)var the page after reading this editorial, one finds a smear article on Poland, entitled "Roman Catholic Anti-Sovietism" and written by Edward Falkowski...
...Falkowski's qualification*, as a writer on international affairs are rather vaguely indicated by the characterization of' him as "a student of international affairs, who...
...When he comes to passages where one might expect some practical solutions looking te post-war agreements and working plans, Mr...
...laid a trap in the way of-progress...
...The bill as it came to the President's desk forbade the use of any of the funds sppropriated fay roll-back purposes...
...This is very fine, but it does not go one inch beyond the President's unconditional surrender...
...These men and women are just a few ef ike anti-Nazis who escaped There must be millions of similar mind and views aad temperament in Germany...
...Bates, sneering at the suggeJr* tien of John L. Childs, George S. Counts, Rein-hold Niebuhr and others, that the dissolution of the Comintern would improve Russia's relations with America and with the outside world as a "modest" proposal...
...These persons in confer--ence were all Germans...
...We are to "commit ourselves to staying with this war until it has been really won...
...The Living Church never published very much in the way of periodical literature...
...Their hearts are entirely with the Allies ia the prosecution of she war...
...It rejected them all...
...Most of the believers in 4he Orthodox Church suspected, with good reason, that the founding fathers of the Living Church were OGPU stooges...
...He argued, and I think with very good sense and reason, that the right method of dealing with such a film is not to invoke the double-edged weapon of suppression, but to hammer in to the public consciousness the falsehoods, absurdities and inconsistencies, of which on .< can find such an abundance, ¦ „ EDITORIAL COMMENT COrWKSS IN CONNIPTION •lU week the Senators, hot, exhausted, 'Tjljiialiii "I' Twrstt...
...and aching for an authoritarian central government—which he will assuredly get ere long...
...It is refreshing to And that so small a percentage of the American populace has succumbed to the Washington-Wall Street-Bank of England propaganda bait which so many "intellectuals" have avidly gobbled...
...pendeace after this aat...
...He repeats in a sort of ecstacy: "This is one war and this world one world...
...One could parody Such jumbled nonsense quite fairly as follows: the very fact that protest meetings are being held against the massacres or Jews by the Nazis, protest meetings that can only bring Nazi Germany into disrepute proves first that the Jews committed all the crimes that the Nazis laid to their account and, second, that the po...
...The average citizen—had he been able to hear the addresses —would have sacesved a new conception of the meaning of America...
...What he wrote in "The Moscow Daily News" was generally more orthodox than "Pravda" or "Izvestiya...
...In the first years of Russia's New Economic Policy an organization called the Living Church got under way in the Soviet Union...
...There has been state/ of irresponsible gossip directed again*: Gome and his friends...
...WiUkm is an aspirant to the p-r ,1 presidential nomination...
...Be hi supmmtaT be a master hand at public ¦emthma...
...If we lose this fight the war will be turned into a race for profits...
...Jane 26] about the rnteMgent Aframerican being the least gullible of our citizens...
...pie who arrange these meetings also doubtlesb participated in these crimes...
...There is much to be wSSjL the defense...
...It places itself in the same category of extremism that one finds in certain Catholic publications that are close to Coughlin and the Christiai...
...In the conduct ef the wee, Z. eluding foreign relations, the Pteeideat a av ing a great job...
...Actually the Polish Government received three offers to share in the prospective loot cf a German attack...
...anti-Socialist, increasingly anti-Semitic and Negrophobic...
...For' here is Mr...
...but when I was living in M' scow ten years ago, one of the most persistent contributors to "The Moscow Daily News" (which one irreverent Russian friend privately christened "The Moscow Daily Snooze") bore this same name $t Edward Falkowski...
...In the field of ideology, Mr...
...The Detroit riots did not occur in ancient times...
...We have here a brazen and open attempt to bring on inflation...
...General Giraud ia Wiahisgtm is obviously helping to solve immediate sputa ry and administrative problems with rsjjej to French interests in the Antilles, Our aaV tary authorities are going forward in praeomi fashion to organise the French fores* into the struggle to attack Europe and liberate Francs...
...Peacemakers bent on preventing the rise of another Hitler will make a sad mistake if they suppose that men can rid themselves of such differences by yearning for "education, health and liberty.' ^- . ¦ 32 Mr...
...This the Prsfiliiit property vetoed accompa-nying his veto with a sizzling and unanswerable message...
...Willkie implies that the victories have somehow come about as the result of following of his advice...
...The workers will be placed in an impossible situation...
...In the meantime...
...Bohn raised the question concerning the statement fat my article on the Negro Press [Wednesday...
...Yet in this addendum of his Mr...
...just enough to feed prejudice and heigaan suspicion...
...The Farm Bureau Federation, the National Grange, the National Milk Producers Federation are working over-time...
...Front and is just about as helpful, from the standpoint of promoting national unity Sid reasonable understanding between Americana oT differing religious faiths...
...APPLAUDS EDITORIAL From PAULA EUASOPI ' To tke Editor: After reading your edi torts...
...did their worst to bring our federal institutions into disrepute...
...The German offensive in Russia is meeting stone-wall resistance...
...Thai must be scene special reason why Mr tuna refrains from attacking the Roosevelt knar policy, the price-fixing policy, the farm peso the tax policy...
...Such scepticism is unmatched by any other class or group, but white people increasingly sense that Negroes see through them, and it makes them uneasy...
...WILLKIE AMONG THE STARS WENDEL WILLKIE has added a note to his One World, tt is sufficient to prove that he is...
...The war, run by the general staffs of the United Nations under the leadership of Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt has gone well...
...Da* nen's friendly references » * plight of the Ukraine sal »* people...
...The inconvenient fact that first Germany and then the Soviet Union attacked Poland and carried out a partition which differed from the partitions arranged by Catherine II, Frederick the Great and Maria Theresa only in the greater brutality of treatment meted out to the victims, is brushed aside by our Toledo "student of international affairs" with the following piece of magnificent irrelevance: "It is no historical secret that prior to the outbieak of the war in 193» the leaders of the Polish government in Warsaw had earnestly contemplated a plan of joint Polish-Nazi military collaboration against the Soviets...
...It is this body which has furnished tunds for uiammions forms of subsidy which hate played a part in keeping down prices of a number of food products...
...Willkie's urging, but in accordance with plans laid down long before his trip...
...Having studied Homo Americanos in every sector of his habitat I do not hesitate to say that the average one is' isolationist suspicious and a little disdainful of foreigners, anti-Communist and...
...The arguments brought against it by such men as Senator George seem to them far-fetched and specious...
...And the Soviet Government itself soon lost interest in the idea of encouraging any religion, even a tame one...
...These youngster* are typical Americans, not" word-mongering liberals and radicals from the lofts^end cellars of New York...
...For our conflicts aad ronfsmma the President does not bear exclusive khan, but they exist and cast a heavy shadow...
...f I am glad that Dr...
...But now that your paper km come, I feel free agsin...
...Here is a man, a fine, upsurging, obstreperous man, who on a sort of Cook's tour of the seats of power has suddenly discovered the oneness of mankind...
...The State Department and the Brshs-American military authorities are obvhmg .not responsible for this state of af * r...
...In them the people of the United Nations have a solid phaUnx of allies within the enemy country...
...The successes have been achieved, not as a result of Mr...
...Willkie exhibits a really dangerous tendency to talk obstacles out of our way...
...at the Anti-Strike Bill I felt jsyea to know that The New Leader » the paper that it is...
...Bates and "The Protestant," who belong to the "I am not a Communist but".school in the deflated, not to say silly position of defending to the death an instrument which the Soviet dictator himself felt had outlived its usefulness...
...It is DO SSCTSt *• the Ukrainians, wbese'vesw _ae as yet not been heard is tat alfs council's would also like te from the Atlantic Cfoater fffjf regain . . . some ia insure ef saW...
...His patriotism would have received intelligent reinforcement For these men and women, seeing with eyes opened by the suffering of Europe, love this land with a sort of devotion which no native can ever experience...
...There are other intellectual gems in this editorial...
...One might think that events since his odys-sey might have cooled his message, reduced his sense of its urgency...
...It is only natural that he should be...
...salesman for lofty ideals but harbors start suspicions of him as an aspiring candidate, FRENCH FEUDS AND FACTIOUS THIS week the wild wave of gue»mg esi gossip about de Gaullist and GlrasJkt groups reached fantastic proportions Evstfua most fanatical enemies of the State Depigment have been unable to saddle apon Itft, responsibility...
...They were considering the problems of the Germany which is to take ite place in the world after the war...
...But he has sansi himself in a compromising situation...
...Me one suggested that Germans should be let off easy...
...nrtie Joe Davies travesty on recent Russian and American history ran into stormy weather in Boston, where the City Council voted in favor of forbidding the showing of "Mission to Moscow...
...the bureau and permitted a restricted use of subsidies to hold the price One...
...after nine months, the same urgent soul gazing'at the same blinding-white generalizations...
...But "The Protestant" goes so far in its denunciations as to suggest the appiopriately named Know-Nothing Party of the last century or that queer sheet that usee to circulate in my boyhood under the grim title "The Menace...
...He is for "a lasting peace and not just an armistice...
...First Qmaxaas passed a measure extending has rife of the Commodity Credit Corporation...
...We have a tale of a solemn oath prquirei a* de Gaullist followers...
...North Africa has been taken...
...With saw honest virility, all liberal* sunt feel that there is still a seme house alive to keep disciplmt » a world that is breaking asaf from its moorings...
...Bates is one of tne "I am not a Communist, but . . ." school of writers who is often let down rather badly by the actual course of events...
...But if it had ever gone in for that sort of thing, the results would probably have been not very different from some of the articles which appear in "The Protestant...
...Willkie's claims to achievement are equally vague...
...In all the fields of practical matter* Pasta affairs are making satisfactory prisjissi t But the same sort of factionalism whet cursed France up to 1940 is still is svkjmm...
...If it is the same Edward Falkowski, he is run-1 ning eminently true to form in "The Protestant" By the time the unsophisticated reader gets through with his piece he would have the vague idea that somehow Poland and Germany made war against the Soviet Union...
...Needless to say, the great masses of the population are with the President in his fight The top officers of A. F. of L. and CIO have done their utmost to support him...
...With the Negro mastering the intricacies of this civilisation as easily as anyone and catapulted closer to economic equality by the growth of- war industry, he is no longer full of awe or respect and too often shows it At the same time the whites whose only superiority is the social one based on paleness of skin (admittedly tremendous in this society), feel affronted by this sceptical, cynical, amused attitude of Negroes which challenges what to many is their only asset Here is the genesis of race riots...
...He leaped at the opportunity like a trout rising to bait...
...Such unity as we had will be split wide open...
...The Red Army deserves respect as a touch, hard-fighting, gallant force that has lived up to the best traditions of Stalinite Russia's new heroes, SuvOrov and Ku-tusov and Alexander Nevsky...
...After we had listened to one of radio's trained seals spout the usual bilge one Sunday afternoon, she turned off the radio and said, "You know, I think some of these white people actually believe that stuff...
...One wonders just what sort of wise man of the East he fancies himself to be...
...They know that this method is successful in Britain and Canada...
...They will furnish us, after the victory, a basis for mutual understanding and cooperation...
...Ia his fair and c*ne-tire article "Soviet-Polish Yi» tion Jeopardises Allies, Uluaismj Claims Ignored," be wrote *J» the "Ukrainians are roans'J^' •nee toko kmve any right m am territories...
...Let us beware not to fall into it" Scarcely had this grave warning appeared in print when Stalin, the archpriest of Communism, for reasons of obvious political expediency, lightly tossed the Comintern into the ashcan...
...Their cynical amusement at much that goes on is illustrated by the remark of a Negro physician's wife in Florida...
...It is this bill which has now been defeated in the Senate after a session of jockeying and horse-trading and merry-go-round voting that reduced the solemn process of legislation to the status of farce...
...The great masses of consumer see him as their defender...
...In our domestic economy this struggle is crucial...
...On the home-front aide the President ksh, viously more vulnerable...
Vol. 26 • July 1943 • No. 28
