A Page of Features
A Page of Features Americana Books and Writers Chatter The Home Front By WILLIAM E. BOHN The Mantle or Debs pUGENE VICTOR DEBS was born on November 5, lg55. His *• heroic life came to an end...
...Thia basic drive was not peculiar to him...
...We may talk here in the office...
...There is one thing about my life here in The New Leader that I like better than anything else, I am surrounded by •aaag people, especially by young men who are full of life and hope and eagerness to play the right sort of part in the world...
...diplomatic pi a sea, RamnWr thaw wild days of hia as foreign editor of the N. Y. Poet, when he had . wars and revolutions breaking out for every edanoa in aeuth Europe, north Europe, the Rhine, the Balkans, sad Taansaasa...
...And Debs represented it at its best He left the recognized labor °»orement, but he never maligned it He fought against capitalists, «t he did not hate them...
...Was African campaegn," Crawford writes, "changed, the political character of the war...
...Pope, you see, bad eg, hausted every apologia for the 3tahzao» Bus...
...But there is an important pehttceU thesis to the Crawford OOP...
...written by Arthur Uphjan Pope, perhaps the most prolific of the Kremlin-Set spokesman...
...But it is an important book and one which may contribute no little to an understanding fo the problems behind Mobile, Beaumont, Detroit—and Harlem...
...Edwin herkham remarked that "the grasp of his hand is comforting, the **k of his lighted face is an inspiration...
...The book fat a very truthful picture of the working and thinking of die average German in modest economic conditions between 1900 and 1933...
...New Masses cxmtribatsr...
...Well, now he has seme inside tips...
...Dan, is s pretty near aft davit...
...His 'Bjhck Cabmeteers"—including even this "noisy, pairJboyarrt" reviewer—emerge as shining black knights on white steeds...
...There is one particular experience that I have with these young SUB over and over again...
...The sharp drive of such a creature is limited to an effort at domination...
...For which he "pays oat" dn*'t you fear...
...A fine, alert young fellow will come in...
...Clearly it was not "a revolution lot a world order in which the rtpressed masses of sit nations, through a process of socialization, would achieve a larger share of power and goods...
...They are not by any means limited to the socialist movement or the labor movement...
...to keep LUibaf ha...
...Just so in my^ boyhood I saw men and women lean toward some ancient gaffer who had seen Lincoln...
...He lived as a small boy with his Roman Catholic grandparents, a typical peasant couple in a small village,- and later with his parents, who were factory hands ia a big city...
...They are scattered throughout the American social structure...
...We may go out to lunch or dinner...
...If you've been wondering hew colummist Johannes Steel inanaswi to hmcasna stories on the head, it'a lima nan, at last, lava made some Matins in certain high foreign...
...Ksea Waa reviewing The Murnic Lover's jjantdnirlf by El is Siegxpeiataty leal Elie, of course, found all kinds of "people's harass" ir...
...Otthry's subject...
...V. J. Jerome—completely lacking in humor—solemnly proelaims that if Debs were here today be would be sloganeering for the "second front...
...the nsuaieaj past, and when Mozart emerged as "a poet of dswmerngy eaantat to birth"—well...
...It did not set him off fwm other socialists...
...At some point in the conversation he will lean toward me with a special Hght in his eye and say: "Tell me...
...His statement was connected with the Socialist Party Convention which made the famous decision to support LaFollette and tba Labor Party in 1924...
...They were by far less disciplined, for instance, than the Boy Scouts founded by a British general during the war against the Boers...
...Out of their ignorance of the ordinary German people, the authors come to ridiculous conclusions...
...Even the warden of his jail came to fwpect him...
...Houghton itifbm Company, Boston...
...It has happened so often that it has come in my mind to represent the attitude of an entire generation...
...Lillian Smith, editor of "South Today," reports that plantation owners in Georgia and other leaders of the Bourbon South are helping to place Mr...
...Ia that very same ceumn (Tuesday, she Hah...
...North Africa waa the proving ground and amphitheater of non-revolutionary warfare...
...The author is more than sure of himself...
...so Utvtneff went...
...Debs'had specifically advocated this action...
...Among the colleagues of Kansae rich st Cornell were the following com redes la arms: Corliss Lament...
...William Z. Foster, who was the-candidate of the Communists, wrote Debs a letter in which he expressed astonishment...
...aa Fischer poiraU imnisiiMii could have been rands hi the open te high press aw FA Walter Duranty r avis wed the TiMfimst reoavnahy for the rimes and of course had nothing to say...
...The stream of books on Hitler Germany is still increasing...
...We see not only prancing tempestuous Marcus Manasseh Garvey, but the disillusioned hundreds of thousands of Negroes who sought escape through hit All-Black movement from "all forms of Jim Crow, humiliation, discrimination, slander and even violence at the hands of the white civilian population...
...Ottley himself can hardly believe that the people who apeak so graphically in his chapter on "Negroes Are Saying...
...F am any it* had been an outspoken anti-war propegeneiet in -the rTahuJirwalla period . . . Bat there ia more to the story...
...It is a desecration, These people are narrow, sharp, ruthless...
...The exposition serins persuasively enough...
...I am writing thia column a week or two early—and for a very essd reason...
...niumnist for years on tke staff ef Bansy Golem, Stalinist daUi » N. Y., an editor of Science at Secasty, Kienahn-get iiMa^agfa, end teacher st the "School for Dmnsereey...
...Such thoughts come to my mind in reading William Hubben's book, "Exiled Pilgrim...
...He gained even more intimate knowledge of The Party's activities when he followed his old Amsterdam News strike leaders end other Negro writers like Claude McKay, Richard Wright Ellen Tarry to the old WPA Federal Writers Project, where he served as a worker and editor of "Negroes in New York," an unpublished volume listed in the bibliography of "New Worst A-Coming...
...That's right Rooeevek and CtnrrMl And if a columnist or correspondent wants to get a saooial amah, he has to have goad friends in high places mdsod...
...Workers, clerks, aVtisans, housewifes, peasants, village teachers and village priests, that means 909c of the people, do not exist for these authors...
...It is on this account that a genuine socialist feels a deep hurt *hen he hears Communists use the word comrade...
...It is the fact that to those under its spell nothing is sacred...
...William Hubben was perhaps too much on the periphery of the events...
...Ottley deea * not use his breezy informal style to explore many other Harlem corners which he knows unite WelL Surely few people have had his opportunity, for instance, to see the Communists at work in Negro communities...
...It does not depend on citations...
...They murder the soul by bing, cheating, deceiving...
...The former German village teacher, long since "an American citizen, is now an outstanding personality in the educational work of the Quakers in this country...
...pake Cover, Carlson .—Never (as any rrjjghtsnarl fish will Mil * yea) swallow anything book, Una and linker...
...i Exposing s Dark...
...And few could deny that this group has been more influential ia many ways than the Negro "nationalists" and fascists, to which he devotes quite a bit of attention Boy Ottley (it was "Roy" in those days) was a home relief investigator during that desperate depression period when the Reds seized both the Harlem relief bureaus and the Negro unemployed organizations as instruments of the Third International...
...Pqpe naturally goes right down the party-Tine on every issue of ftovtet policy, protesting that every turn was really a switch just ia time to save nine million proletarian Uvea...
...chalk me up to the 'United Front...
...Of course, its nanahlsua relatione with PAY, which refused to print Ctswford'i copy on ¦lasalatVai Of his PM assignment gives the book special flavor...
...It involves the whole nature and Purpose of Gene Debs in contrast to those of the dictators of all •oris...
...Skimpiest of the skimp . . . The Tmihanga, ia fact,,ham bean members of the Labor * Socialist International fop 35 yeacal • • • i ' UaJl-Feuew.Travsfor-WeJKMet!—The phrase is s niineWfwl one ** we think, and it was than) up by Weeds* Keen...
...ail professional apologists...
...They may not found all the answers...
...In 1933, Hubben and his family left Germany for this country, because his conscience made it impossible for him to teach in a Hitler school The Httbbens left Germany penniless with a philosophy which is the only reasonable one for a refugee: "It is the future that counts...
...The later chapters, dealing with the last years of the German republic, do net perhaps have the same original quality...
...The story introduces us to a German province which, from our political viewpoint was one of the darkest in the fatherland, completely dominated by the Church and the Catholic Centrist Party...
...Thus, we see not only Father Divine, Daddy Grace and the other publicized charlatans and cultists, but also the "ten thousand and more Negroes (who) lived in basement dungeons, cellars that had been converted into makeseift flats," and the desperation which made anyoie "God," if he could provide security and a cVeken dinner for 15 cents...
...hail-fellow-mveler-weH-mat reeourcef ulneea...
...It is important because it is s book which will be read—and is being read—by the people who should learn something about the problem...
...This is not to intimate that Roi Ottley Is a Communist...
...The argument is specifically directed against Norman Thomas sad members of the Socialist Party, but it hits just as directly all genuine American socialists no matter what their affiliation...
...This love of human beings made them inclusive and constructive rather than divisive and destructive...
...And Mr...
...They are "talented . . . shrewd . . . self-effacing . . free from duplicity," and skilled m "the delicate task of negotiating gains for the race...
...In these deft pen portraits—with a broad canvas of social factors in the background—Mr...
...Ottley bludgeons them over the head with a few unpleasant facts which had previously escaped their attention...
...And they were certainly not militaristic...
...It is exactly that part of German life missing in 99 per cent of the books of Germany, which he describes in his unassuming life story...
...It makes very interesting reading to see hew the Social Democratic village teacher joined the Quakers without giving op his basic Social Democratic ideas...
...I consider the report on the experiences ef the boy and the young teacher a classical drjtuamiit on certain features of Germany's culture...
...or at least eaumfasFumV world's understanding of the kind of war the United Nations . were fighting...
...The Worker of last Sunday eontains a pathetic piece of desecration...
...There Roaseyelt revealed to the people of the world, tMhuflng his own nnanie, what land of war he si is seal to fight and Uamafoaa What hit indicated objectives were...
...We know what Debs' position would be today," says he—not explaining through what pncess of table-rapping he secured his inside information...
...He was distinguished among them merely for a fuller possession of it and, especially, an inspired gift for its expression...
...What, then, ef the eompaaaat that Wm...
...Das (tan)' Walker pi eg see an item which has Been making the rounds of every little fascist pamphleteer from Maine te California...
...Ottley's book on the beat seller lists...
...Most of these books lack one thing in common: whatever their judgment on the Germans, rarely or never J-----------* ! — .1---* i.--1,_ nnnnlA "______ does one meet, in these books, the German people...
...The author writes discretely "I know of a newspaper editor who arid that, regardless of facts, his paper was so far committed against State Department policy in North Africa that he could never admit that Robert Murphy was not essentially s fascist.'*) . . . And Crawford's explanation of De Gusms-Gcraud-et ml...
...Stories about terror and war sell better than reports on a struggling democracy, of growing social security and patient efforts for more education of the people...
...Ottley had been working- on a book aboat Harlem and Negro America...
...I is unfortunate, however, that Mr...
...To Asse of us who knew him personally the time is one of poignant narrow mingled with deep satisfaction...
...Praiad the Scoop;—You know who gets and roi seise the tug new* ° scoops of the war...
...Leaor and Humanity DUT the real argument is something deeper than this...
...are looking solely to Mr...
...This man is looked back to— looked up to—aa men used to view their prophets...
...I do not recall that the foreign correspondents showed a similar interest in the sober and positive work in the Weimar Republic...
...But if you meet one of them you need no such proof...
...For better or far worse, thus war lest Ha revolutionary feel in North Africa...
...Under thia new convenient category falls the, just japllsaml biography of Maxim Litvinoff...
...With Mobile, Beaumont and Detroit fresh in their minds—and Harlem in the headlines before them—it was only natural *hat the reviewers should have turned to Ottley's "Inside Black America" for the answers...
...Hew sheet H: Bhtnev Reek—Lewis Mamford—Ferdinand Laadherg Qahaty nuywe— Waldo Frank—Max Eastman—Alfred Biaghaaa—Dorothy Thornpsen—Reinhold Niebuhr____ • • • Wis taken Identity:—There is s pimply-faced, scrawny littje anles main in the old Coughlixt Soqktf Justice outfit called Das Walker He was exposed in John Roy Carlson's Undercover . .. Now eomes • glamour-boy columnist Damon Walker of the N. Y. DaUg ffems to inform bis 3 million resign...
...What would he think and say and do if he were here now...
...Albert Rags WliUaaM...
...and who want America to throw its full weight into coordinated military offensive with our Soviet ally to hasten the common victory...
...The typical Communist « Fascist is hard, bitter, ruthless...
...But the worst thing about dictator psychology is act that it leads to physiological murder...
...The worst of these is the fairy tale that since the days of Arminius the German rebel against Roman Imperialism nineteen hundred years ago, or at least since the drive to the Bast by the Teutonic Knights, all Germans have been potential world conquerors, that sll Germans are warriors, eager to follow militaristic leaders to battle and death for Germany's glory...
...This, we think is sue of the first fresh raid-war analyses by a serious political ebssiwi . . . and we'd Tike to hear rakmnali from etna i observers and comments tors...
...Finally they fired Ottley, too, and after vainly pleading for union support from the Red-dominated unit, he remarked with characteristic Ottleyian humor: "I am a victim of Soviet foreign policy...
...H. W. L. Dana...
...A Picture of Pre-Hitler Germany By WILLIAM F. SOLLMANN Former Minister of Interior of the German Republic EXILED PILGRIM...
...Well, I guess there gees tee chance for a BntisT-L" & alnance • • • *T*h« Cornell Story:—The "special Cornell story/ which we promised two weeks age before a virus a tabbed us in the seek, has been broken in part by Fred Wottmea ef the Werid-T eiej>en . . . Hundreds of Army men and officers ha the Rnenmn aegumn ef , the Army's Special Training Piiigum are being hmtrecaad by an...
...All civilized men and women can ,iur* his heritage...
...The socialist move¦wn* has always been wide, deep, humanitarian, civilized...
...The suthor's chief contribution will be found in his breezy, informal approach to his subject He sneaks up on his readers with most of the tales they love to hear about Negroes...
...It attempts to link the Administration with "internet...
...Where is the foreign correspondent who has ever toured the living quarters of German workers or lived with German peasants, and at that long enough to gain a little persona] confidence...
...Only the future...
...The uncivilized have disinherited themselves...
...Is it completely forgotten, that around 1900 the modern free youth movements were started in Germany...
...those with Hitler secret Stalin ¦laawmani with one to get a bettor dead wrth taw other...
...3.00...
...It would be easy to ill this column with quotations in which Debs denounced Communist ideas and methods...
...the Communist weakly...
...They loved people here and now, aH aorta of people—not just those who voted their tickets or ¦outhed their ideologies...
...We see not only Mme...
...His influence goes far beyond political or class loyalties or intellectual theories...
...one < Jewish finance''—and Walker wrote of the influence hi Washing ton of Israel Moses Sieff, Britain's chemstore arultl mllliesalrs Joe Kamp is still circulating hip scurrilous pamphlet en SJefl...
...The American Communists had displayed their Machiavellian trickery...
...Our basic war policy, it became apparent, was one of military expediency and power pomica rather than reform and waif are paaTtJaa- ft waa realism wMt a vengeance...
...No statement about anything could be sillier and sloppier than this...
...Alter all, the bulk of the German people do not frequent the Hotel Adlon or Kaiserhof and luxurious clubs and bars...
...This contention arslenderiy based on a couple of early statements in which the ameriean Socialist hailed the Russian revolution...
...One of the very last political acts of his am was scathing criticism of the American followers of Bolshevism...
...And even if it took the last Harlem riot to give "New World A-Coming" one of the biggest buildups in publishing history, it may well be worth |t in the long run...
...THE latest Harlem riot could not have been more propitious had Roi Ottley willed it so...
...For after all Gene's life ass a triumph of goodness and strength...
...But the purpose of the panegyric sssn becomes clear...
...It has to do with the deepest things that move men to action...
...Such stupidity, of course, requires no reply...
...Eugene Victor Debs knew thar record and understood their game...
...Even the militaristic trends, as far as they really go, are not omitted...
...In his reply Debs explained incisively that the Communists, had intended to support LaFollette "and no doubt would have done so had not LaFollette, knowing the record of the Communists and understanding their game, publicly denounced them and positively refused their endorsement" In 1924 the Russian revolution lay in the past...
...It ia quite possible that "New World A-Coming" is not as great and authoritative a work as many persons believe it to be...
...He leads them into "curious, entertaining and often bizarre corners...
...The book is important because it is interesting, entertaining and—at times— engrossing...
...Inside Black America By TED POSTON Well-known Negro lUmwzist sad correspondent SEW WORLD A-COMING: Inside Block America...
...Leninism was evolving into Stalinism...
...You feel that this party member is less tfcan a man...
...Communis, the argument runs, are the true inheritors...
...Just what was Debs like, what was there no special about him...
...Incidentally...
...And before they can recover from the shock, they are chuckling again—but another "mugging" is waiting around the corner...
...the critic was moved to marvel at the anther...
...And then, while they are chuckling in amusement, Mr...
...It descends to the depths of duplicity and dopiness...
...V. J.' Jerome, one of the C P. theoreticians, writes a page-long article decorated with characteristic photographs of that face which we knew so welL The heading is: Who Are the Inheritore of Debs...
...Strang waa a small-fry emissary...
...Its importance lies not in its startling revelations—for there is little new here to any serious student of Harlan or race relations...
...Kunatav, only lama was a rapprochement with Germaay...
...in H amused as no end, for Carlson as an Armenian msssilf ought to have knaara Km, He accuses the Dashnaga (members of the Armenian Baau|iirV<>Sii Federation) of collaboratioa with U. S. saiiters...
...For many millions of Americans Eugene Victor Debs stands for the highest ideals, the supreme limit of human devotion...
...It is the supreme tribute to a spiritual heritage...
...C. J. Walker, the millionaire "scalp specialist . . . (who) pulled herself up by the roots of other people's hair," but also the false sense of social values and the vain strivings for "Caucasian standards of beauty" which segregation has foisted on a large segment of America's population...
...he only "reports" the living...
...anwsf would be a sign thai Stalin wasn't playing for keeps...
...All the representative socialists, find them where you will—Keir Hardie, Jaures, Liebknecht—had the same sort of sense of human brotherhood...
...who are moved to admiration of the Red Army and its great leader, Stalin...
...Roosevelt for leadership in their "rendezvous with destrny'.** But these are not major faults in a good book...
...Supply and Demand How strange it is aad yet how true Of ana, sad probably of yon...
...One trees...
...Even these chapters are of value, because they show the observations of a man who was primarily a religious seeker and not a political activist...
...Much that Roi Ottley learned oh this project appears in his book, but little about the Communists—on the project or back uptown...
...This is the ISM~ of the rolling year in which we always remember him...
...The evidaaei...
...You can read figures to show *ow many non-conformists have been murdered in Germany, in annua, in Italy...
...he is not It is rather illustrative however of his surprisingly uncritical approach vo the living" in his book...
...The record of the Bolsheviks was already clear...
...By Rot Ottley...
...Let no miserable scribbler by to falsify this record...
...New York: MaaMiUan...
...Be did net even see faaajlia -Secretary Eden, who left Cairo for Moscow s few keen before HaO arrived...
...Even Roi Ottley does not pretend to know them all), but fhey found enough to give his book a critical acclaim unequalled since Richard Wright's "Native Son," or Claude McKay's "Home to Harlem...
...It is difficult to imagine that such books would be produced if the authors had ever sat with a worker's family in their kitchen, or worked with a peasant in his garden, or had hiked with a group of boys sad girls in pre-Hitler Germany...
...And left-wing circles ought properly to look down and see sahgiaer they have their feet toHdtg on tke ground...
...Which, being interpreted, means that Mr...
...Debs belongs, we are told, to the democratic tradition of America...
...Similar statenants could, of course, be culled from the writings of all socialist leaders of that day...
...It was not a theoretical love, a promise of harmony in some vague future...
...So it ansa...
...But at one point ss Leads Fischer neatly reveals, he protested too nruch...
...He was a columnist and later sports and theatrical editor on The Amsterdam News when The Party temporarily seised control of that paper's militant Newspaper Guild unit and neutralized it while the publishers fired all the leaders of the unit's previously successful strike...
...This means, then, that when Litvinoff resigned en Mar > 19S9, Stalin had decided that the pact with HnJer was te ha a_ going with the French and the British...
...RICHARD ARMOUR...
...For several years, Mr...
...George Allan England once spoke of "his absolute loyalty to the Cause of Labor and the Cause of Humanity itself...
...lead ham open to the charge that he was an "apologist" for Dense...
...They have no respect for human beings, •0 sense of individual human dignity...
...The man was first of aH a lover of humanity...
...nek seam, Jesm Boy Carlson's Lwder-Cover...
...see Taw sotfordj of Socialism | AM writing this column as a sort of letter to all of these young * men who have put questions...
...active Communist propagandist—Vlsdssajr D. K serial irk...
...I never came across a book by a former Reman Catholic which presents his own development from the naive belief in the dogmas to the final resignation from the Church with so much tact and] justice and yet with so much firmness ia principle...
...Report on Sorth Afrit* is ia part sharply polemical, but no one hat yet joined tares with it on the right point...
...Last week Steal gave prominence, ha an i ana rani, discussion of Italian affairs, to the editorial peltries of L'Uuite del Pepolo...
...He has resigned from the human race...
...Harriet Moore, of the lusattuta of Pacific Bmattoae . . . Dav lesser Sigermt . . . Cape...
...All this has been proved •at of their statements, their records...
...Like many other unpublished authors he must have worried about the build-up his work would receive .Then, on August 1—just a few days tabfore the reviewers received their advance copies of "New World A-Coming"—an heft broke loose uptown and focussed the country's attention on Mr...
...The AagtaTraaeh dealings were open...
...etc, ate...
...He embraced all humanity in his long arms and did "a best to carry it on toward a world of mutual cooperation and o»ivenal respect and decency...
...Sergei Kournakot...
...Ottley is at his best No one can undergo such frequent "muggings" without retaining ja few "lumps" when the chuckling is over...
...CINCE Hitler rose to power, a library of books have been written on Germany...
...He analyzes and evaluates the respectfully ''dead...
...By William Hubben...
...Already ''slum-shocked" is becoming a technical phrase m housing circles in Washington...
...This is how Pope explains the Hitler-Stalin pact StaUn any pected England" and Franca to go on appeasing...
...Its an ill-wind that blows nobody good...
...That allthe things I've disregarded ~ Or dene without or esse discarded I suddenly begin to need And covet with a mazer's greed And crave, in fact with hart taajaaatsaed The very day that* they are rationed...
...The conclusion is, of course, that the true heirs of Debs are "the millions of Americans who are profoundly sympathetic to the soviet Union...
...Thus his portraits of current Negro leaders are slightly one-dimensional...
...Berk Political Plot:—That precious dispatch **from Cairo to the Her old-Tribune which told of Cordell Hut a stop-over pointed out darkly flat "he took his meals in his room sad left the Sanaa easy, so take a quick look at the pj ramies...
...Inside and Out By MATTHEW LOW preface to a Controversy:—The Kenneth Crawford book has been ' "out now far a couple of weeks...
...His *• heroic life came to an end on October 20, 192C...
...met He Ia Not To Be Coat a see With Said Fascist . . . Writer this Broadway bnrea: "the Dan Walker mentioned in Undercover is not this columnist, though the 'people who whipped up the book might khe uriama reamers to think so . . ." Tsk-tsk-uk' A bad conscience...
Vol. 26 • October 1943 • No. 43
