The Home Front
A Page of Features Americana Books and Writers Chatter The Home Front By WILLIAM E. BOHN AN the way up to the office this morning I mat Harry Paiton V/ Howard grinning his satanic grin. "Hay...
...Now the friend of the victim is necessarily the enemy of ¦ the criminal...
...but when another is threatened or harmed the real Christian* will inevitably bristle and offer resistance to injustice...
...This, despite tne facts repeatedly brought to light by Gaetano Sal vemini regarding the part played by Pope in supporting fascism...
...Max Verge*, asWsatoas Altof> traveler, i* chairman of, its board...
...is left to % reader...
...Remember the tone at Cfcwlejtoi viDe...
...noted poet and critic is aww Asms cits Professor of English at the University of Maryland.] THE BIG ROCK CANDY MOUNTAIN...
...Its story of the new national song omitted the rorsnn The sow Soviet anthem, ss many have been quick to point out, carries the ***** ob* Lenin snd Stalis, although no other national anthem pays boaiege to ita country's heroes...
...By Wallace ftteemer...
...This giving spirit may represent something just as deep in human nature...
...Eta* goes to Hardanger, North Dakota, where her Uncle Karl owns a grocery store There she meets Bo Mason who sells beer illegally in his billiard parlor...
...They laughed at VfcerPresident Wallace when he said something about a quart of milk for every child.in the world...
...ibSn ha-bee* touring the country and buiod by the Commuhiat j^wss mM "first Negro to be elected to the CIO in tarnations' rtecothv board' The Washington New World, • party-line paper caBee Smith in a hoadhne «T*» First Negro to Hold tfi* High Port...
...With changing times, of course, there have come new saints and new celebrations...
...Recently M. E B. Davenport, author of Ye*i*d ln*e*e*U or Common Pool, a savage isastotmeet of monopoly forces to Britain, and a regular contributor to The New Stessrstes and Nrntum, wrote this to the left-wing English periodical: "Everyone I met who is wnstorlew «f the importance of bew & earnest sad 'high-brow,' is taUttog of Mr...
...Whatever the answer, III be glad to trade a gorgeous box of assorted talcum and bubble-bath for some Ivorv soaD-flake* " An Individual Vision ly NO MAN liACifOD [Mr...
...It is more than likely that soma of the me* now indicted will "talk" aad reveal bow Nasi Gsrmany was the paymaster of a string of pro-fascist sheets in this country • * • Oa rfte Cemerie 'reef *T*HE Soviet Union has a new national anthem, bat although * every paper printed the new words...
...During these few days we reverse—or pretend to reverse—our ordinary ways...
...Ce*wrief the ftlfhf-MTIaf Axis JUST like the Communists, the right-wing axis is developing a *F number of innocent fronts, and when one collapses the io> move on to another...
...Virginia, to 1*39, when Browdar said "There is as much a chance of Bnaoia concluding a pact with Germany aa I have of being elected President of the U. S. Chamber of Commerce " Last week, to a speech on Italy, Brswder vehemently attacked Lutgi Aateatai and Gene rose Pops, denouncing the latter far his "fascist record...
...WHEN Samuel Grafton called Victor Emmanuel a "moronJc little kiag" some month...
...But I have no feeling of charity toward Hitler or any of those about him—or, let me add, toward any of the malignant or misguided persons in this or any other country who insidiously want to nudge us toward Hitlerism...
...HI, No...
...They saw nothing but the devil of profits behind every card, every tree, every bell, every candle, every present...
...The good Samaritan has become the symbol of Christian charity, fie succored the poor victim of the strong-arm man on the road to Jericho...
...And, of course, the Catholic Church is an old hand at throwing ita weight against democracy, liberalism and socialism, wherever they arise...
...There is a flashback to take care of Bo's childhood and adolescence...
...This instinct, which he labels democratic-liberal, has led him to denounce isolationists, reactionary publishers and Congressmen and the State Department with impartial invective...
...Because the Vatican is on a mental preferred Hat, few commentators have directed pointed phrases at the Pope...
...In making selections which cover four years, -Grafton has taken a chance on the fact that events might catch up with him...
...I eould aaltaer borrow nor steal a copy...
...In the meanwhile, Bo has made good ia waits-mud...
...Bnt no one asanas to have road it...
...Perhaps we should, tell him that it was Santa Claus himself who kindly made it possible for him to spend the dollars he earns by working Saturdays on bubble-bath) instead of saving it for the war stamps he's been hearing so mach about at school...
...To cut a long book short, it is probably sufficient to say that Bo Mason—despite the best intentions comes very close to destroying the lives of his wife and his two sons...
...An instinct that operates to see fundamental differences between these two is subtle, but it is not one in which, it is possible to place one's fondest hopes...
...In this connection Grafton's instinct apparently refused to come through when it Was confronted with the factor of the Vatican, although it appears, judging from obscure news items, that Pius Kit snd America have reached an understanding which will result in the Vatican throwing it* influence definitely on the side of the Allies, once it is satisfied that Germany will be defeated...
...The other day my old friend, Professor George Hartman, addressed letters to members of Congress in which he begged them to vote for'the signing of an immediate peace with Hitler...
...Transport Service Worker * Uric*, who was olcctod si iknmt gahiaasm...
...His diabolic grin meant: Yon fellows who believe in fighting Hitler to the death are nothing but hypocrites...
...g&50...
...He was saying to me that the pacifists are the only real Christians...
...So far as it is possible to todge this policy is one of seeking to prevent Revolutions in conquered and occupied countries...
...His goodness surely would have impelled him to deal the foul thug a few lusty blows and thus prevent a deed the results of which he was later only able to mitigate somewhat by tardy ministrations...
...The auditorium in which the IssjW ¦ took place was decorated with a huge 20-foot plaster aroftla of Stalin, as well as some photo-montage* of the Soviet campaign...
...Bo Mason aad Elsa Norgaard are married despite the objections of Elsa's family and the conflict ia fully joined...
...A fine'Christmas spirit you will create in that way...
...t fF* anything, the novel develops in narrative power from ibis point on...
...At the very end...
...Inside and Out By Murray Everett 4* Xatows If frewdar , CBIEDBICH KNGSLS oace remarked that if a man goes tote * politic*, be ought to be son to put on hi* dirtiest pair of pasts...
...was obviously designed » appeal to the adolescent in age and taste...
...the National Maritime Union nomtnatod Ferdinand Smrtri, a Negro, to the mt«national executive board of CfO...
...Well, for the present I have adopted the Catholic version...
...ago, it precipitated an international sensation that lasted almost A weak...
...If you try to love everybody and everything you resign your responsibility as a moral being...
...Then Be comes back from buying supplies for the voyaga to Bad Chester, sick aad whining with a sore throat...
...R# sales Els* to return to aim...
...v In "An American Diary," which is a collection of excerpts from his column ofer the past four years, Samuel Grsfton has pnt on — record his immediate reactions to international relations and domestic politics...
...IrvW to go to Ohio and Michigan and change the ideas of certain person's -who opposed taking baths...
...We" Protestants have always said and sung, "Peace on Earth, Good Will to...
...taara Clans Week WE human creatures are an amusing lot...
...J . • • • Cedar aad ra* •arty Do* 1 some C*ramenist» as Negro leaders, at tte r*to C#Lt*jAr, Uon...
...be shouts, "ha can't gat sick Sow...
...These fellows, the new imperialists, poke fun at the idea of this country playing good uncle to the world, acting the part of Santa Claus to mankind...
...Before Soger began to speak the bandmaster played the Star-Spaagied Banner and then asked the audience to regain, staging for the Soviet national anthem, whereupon he immediately Uoachoa into the Csarist National Hymn...
...IN 1988, Wallace Stegner published a story entitled "Bugle Song" ia the Vuapi^Qaax-* terly Review...
...who conducted the sfpetu investigation of the FCC for Congressman Cox, will line up k&h . -Ser.au— Wheeler's witch-hunt on Under Cover...
...BaBaSsU 11---- fu,i rt — — — - - SVVrFlTIf SIW fc/WWI LfrWW Ml V r IM yea remember that furor in Congress last month when Re-publics'- House members revealed that a midwest Prefoteor who was to charge of a New Deal agency dealing with reloeetipn of J apanage Americans had written a pamphlet urging th...
...Shan and Pearee...
...What Grafton's instinct does not tell him, apaarontiy, to that replacing a mas or two in the stale department, or finding the proper charactericatioja for Giraud are not enough to exercise fumtontentai Allied 'policy...
...The Masons are in Seattle ready to take passage for the future planned...
...be practical, play Shy lock...
...But it it not of this actual mountain that Wallace Stegner writes...
...as what we usually see about us...
...Whan P»>s lefased the offer of a unites front, the Communists attacked arm...
...This situation would have been roughly analogous to that of Americans in connection With this war...
...Bat the ssest solemn note on the passing of tho Internationale was reserved for the staid New York Ttssos lamisttol writers * h« «sid in the editorial commas a* Witoiasay...
...Instead of going to tow Klondike, they open finally a cafe to Btiiiiaraa, oat to the timber...
...As exemplified in the case of the epithets assigned to the withered monarch of Savoy, what emerges is the fact that Grafton's "instinctual" feelings and prose Mave boon maintained on a shrill sad sear-hysterical level almost since the day he began his column...
...His pockets are full of gold dust...
...I don't know who is to blame, but it occurs to me that even the retarded twelve-year-old is going to notice that there is considerable discrepancy between preaching ami practice...
...Sterner's cone option of time in this novel reads like a prose statement of T. S. EBofs Ftorr Quartet...
...Parenthetically, it should be noted that President Roosevelt never figures in these operations, as far as it is possible to judge from Grafton'* selections,' apparently he feels that Roosevelt has only a remotes interest in foreign affairs...
...But we have been busy from their day down to this introducing new ones...
...And I have been chattering about things that don't matter...
...Vol...
...Bo Mason sells the hotel, but by this time there are children to take care of—Bruce and Chester...
...By Samuel Grafton...
...I could have made this festive season much gayer for all anxious reamers...
...The conflict is translator Bo brutally disciplines Braes for some, childish failing...
...I recall...
...The story of The Big Book Candy Mountain opens in Minnesota...
...To desire peace with Nazism and Fascism means to curse mankind...
...James Burnhara's book, Tk* Managerial Revolution...
...Grafton's instinct has urged him continually to condemn the state department for its benign cooperation with fascists and near-fascists, and its more recent series of deals in North Africa...
...Hay there,*' said "here's a brilliant idea—and brand new...
...TniiMiitoi jMni11 occur in Allied occupation policy w-fll probably take place as a result of the action of those whs are being subjected to it, that is, of the people in the occupied countries...
...Eldorado, he says, is to be found in the Klondike...
...Suppose that the good Samaritan had .come upon the scene 4 hit earlier...
...The only other guy who caught on was s fellow-traveling: professor from U. of Alabama, and was he burned up...
...r I should run a column of Hints to Harried Home-Makers...
...tike sawlitips portrayal of life on a Saskatchewan farm, the realistic treatment of the infisesuta epidemic (which Stegner had successfully described to aa earlier novel), the melodramatic praxeritetiea of Bo'* booze running over the Canadian border to Groat Falls and from there op to South stokoU or to Salt Lake—aD combine to make a full-bodied and pace-making novel...
...At the oalabratio* mooting far Dtmttroff on Wednesday night, s message* from Cuban sHetator Batiste waa res...
...in several ettiea...
...It is the Eldorado for which Bo Masoa, the • father of the Bruce Masoa in Bugle Song, sras always searching and never fosmd...
...They fuss about the ownership of oil fields in Asia...
...For us, the interesting spocalation ia how far the theory oi the managerial revolution can be applied to British society...
...But on September SO, ie*l, several months before Pearl Harbor, an editorial ia the same L'Unita del Peseta, the Italian Communist paper, p"¦r»/< Gananaso Pope The Osaasnuniat editorials stated that Pope's switch against Mussolini mas an important atop towards unity ia the Italian-American community...
...It is to wish ill to the great majority of our fellow humans...
...I recall the dour old Socialists who regarded the whole celebration as a capitalist trick...
...resents end Prierities BERN RIVERS prods me from California...
...They laugh at William Saroyan and his beautiful people...
...r Aa on* sage put it, polities is what you took under the bad for...
...Our great god now is health...
...To passenger stiffs it was the hobo heaven (see George Milburn's The Hobo'* Hornbook), Whore the cop* have wooden leg*, And the handout* grow on buthet, And the hone- lay toft-boiled egg*, Where the bulldog* all have rubber teeth And the cinder dick* are blind— Where there ain't no *n»tr, Where the rain don't fall And the wind don't blow On the Big Rock Candy Mountain...
...I wonder if he really considers himself a better Christian than the boys who are dying to stop Hitler...
...Even when Stalin had concluded his non-aggression pact with Hitler, Grafton, to judge from the selections given here, found little to Bay about the fate of the little man under the Stalin dictatorship, or the totalitarian ease with which the Kremlin tyrant moved his country into a pact with Fascism...
...Salvemini and La P.ana report in their book, " What to Do With Italy, the Vatican tote proposed a program, apparently completely acceptable to Roosevelt and Churchill, which has the following aims: "first, to prevent at all casta the establishinrat to Italy of a government controlled by anti-fascists, ha they Communists, Socialist* or Demoevsan...
...MsMM Education, was followed by a blast by Walter Watte, head sf Ife NAACP, who warned of Caaantawtot totttratioas tote the THfTi community...
...release of distaste for some current governmental stupidity, but it is also one whose range is limited to being just a few months ahead of official policy...
...Bat Marl Browdsr,be never gets bto peats dirty, ho* always caught with his pants down...
...The story is in counterpoint and the resolution, if any...
...Write an editorial that will make you famous...
...Bnsinass ia stow tost Eisa feels that they have mads a home at aorta aad that they should is satisfied to stay where they are...
...Stagger's individual vision...
...Pinky Jordan drops in one night...
...Grafton's instinct for the comma* man, which he assures us has rarely failed, does not seem to operate at its highest skill where Russia is concerned...
...But in our revolutionary age, that hardly represents the ultimate in progressive thought...
...These others, right now, are troubled for fear we shall not have enough bases to control air traffic after the war...
...It was reprinted later in The Story Wctfkehop, a textbook edited by Wilbur L. Schramm, and studied aa a model in many American towage tfcfitt story writing classes...
...The opposite thing is represented by Shy-lock, by Scrooge, by Gradgrind...
...The strategy of the Wheeler investigation is to open sessions immediately f allawtes the announcement by Assistant Attorney Can aril Rogge of the new indictments for sedition...
...The Browder meeting was sponsored by the Italian Communist paper L'Unita del Pomelo...
...So we have anti-tuberculosis week, clean-your-teeth week, clean-up-your-yard week, wash-behind-your-ears week...
...The *>«t Negro to hold tins high post as a member of the O'1 International Executive Board, however, is not Smith, but WBttrd Towasond, the Btad hf tbe lati...
...To wish well to such persons is to encourage their sort of doctrines and deeds...
...In Harry's proposal is an important moral implication...
...Bruce decides that perhaps it takes several generations to make a man and that he is the only one left to fuMfill the contract...
...515 pages...
...The Catholics, with what authority from the original texts I do not know, have always said: "Peace on earth to men of good will...
...Communist efforts to gain control at Negro circles were blasted this week when.aiz prominent educator* resigned from tho Board of the George Washington Carver Sehol in Haifam...
...The resignation of tea til educator*, including Dead George Fayae of tieJK.Y.tJ...
...The boy...
...It transpires that De Gaulle is about to receive the full Allied blessing, which will make his status equal that of Giraud...
...And.is gatoiag support in sertain British leflwnjng circle...
...This is Christmas and—believe it or not—there is a lot of the old joyous and forgiving spirit abroad...
...Eugene P. Garey...
...Hare's the title: A New Foreign Polity—Peace r» fart* Good WtH to Men...
...The Big Bock Candy Mountain is a brown, rugged volcanic formation a few miles south of Monroe, Utah...
...from the modeled tfctahtog of a Gerinaa as*-to of philosophy named Karl Marx, who combined his fjpaafly German and Hegeliaa ideas of the supremacy of the state ytth s alopiaa dream bora of lurnsspal—ct to daintog with tho ago* leans of exist oace to the Loads* slants" There...
...The Daily Worker to...
...Bnt Tewaaead is anti-Comwa-n1»t...
...The same energy has been put into tfifc campaign to get full recognition for De Gaulle...
...After difficult months, Elsa returns to bar father, to Minn**nt...
...Wallace was speaking for as many Americans as some others...
...We have six or seven thousand conscientious objectors in their various camps...
...It is interesting in passtog to notice that Mr...
...What you all needed was some practical advice about what to%uy for father, mother, teacher, friend...
...Sept 20, mi...
...Every human's impulse is to hustle for himself...
...Sehramrff as a story with no conflict and no climax, it is actually the account of a boy's reccnrnization of two opposing reaims oi experience: the conflict is between the ideal world and the real world (read rood •versus evil...
...Madeod...
...The Professor, however, tuna* out now to be a fuU-btoodsd registered Ohio Republican...
...Here is Fern's lament: "In spite of attempts to discourage them, the warm-hearted adolescents in my classes have showered dear teacher with gifts...
...Meditating on this matter of non-resistance he went on something like this: To harm threatening his own person I can well see that the humble follower of Christ could triumphantly offer the other cheek...
...rather inaccurately I fear, a sentence out of Robert Look Stevenson...
...It is a deep saying, and one which pacifists should consider Well...
...A high official of the rich United States talking about milk for people in Africa and Asia...
...Aad toe family is guarsr.-ttoed for scarlet fever...
...Everything about it, from the title wfcici I had thought to give someday to .the Bene gdawMWg sequence, makes me wish that I had written The Big Rock Candy Mountain...
...who is later developed as Bruce Mason in The Big Rock Candy Mountain, recognises and inriralss all kinds of experience...
...God damn it...
...It wasn't Maris board or Marx's caih—ll| whtok were responsible for his inferiority feelings...
...He was scheduled, to lecture before nsspa Rotary gathering in Alabama, which had bsnhed a saris* *f speakers on world problems...
...and the Whole set-up, replete with pseudo-satin gift boxes (isn't there a paper shortage, too...
...Over the weekend I have had a chance to examine my booty...
...In spite of these difficulties, my students had no trouble whatever in buying for me enough bath-salta, talcum powder, bubble-bath, cologne, perfume and scented soap to eoniamrnnte the famous ozone of Los Angeles from one end of He fabulous city limits to the other "Although the ingredients are probably cheap, the prices were not cheap at all...
...There to a period of ia doc If ion and then Elsa decides: she has made her bed arid she will lie in it...
...Doitbieday, Doras...
...Thus, he devoted months of impassioned columns to calling for American entrance into the war, although it appears likely, that such participation was inevitable...
...That all these groups have earned the whip of Grafton's censure is hardly arguable, but it is unfortunate that there have been glaring instances in which his instinct failed to operate, and that the practice of imprecation, even when conducted with the high skill displayed by Grafton, doss not always lead to the most inspired criticism...
...Our Puritan ancestors abolished all holidays...
...But I am willing to bet that Mr...
...observers fast...
...To this end, sny politician, whether fascist or non-fascist, who cooperates with the Allied sysgles is eligible for support, if it issthought that he has the power to "maintain order...
...It must mean something...
...They deliberately, with all their clever, expensive publicity, fight the Santa Claus spirit...
...And The Big Bock Cand% Mountain was implicit in .this sensitive story of boyhood on a wheat farm in* Saskatchewan...
...lav-ffcesj es fag/its VoffM JAMBS BURNHAMS The Managerial ReroUtwn which ma* a ** terrific splash here, ia now having a vogue ia England...
...It seems to me to fit the theory pretty well...
...The things about which he becomes most excited have a tendency to straighten out in the way he indicates—and to bring a host of new and greater problems...
...not yet nineteen, turns down a marriage proposal from a man - seventeen yean her senior and leaves borne because her father has decided to marry again— to marry, that is to say, Elsa's best friend...
...Minis lag mat it had become a Communist front The school, namod far the famous Negro scientist, was one at a chain that had boon organised by the CP...
...Grafton's instinct gas guided him to write occasional columns thaj give the reader tbe effect of a quick emotions...
...And yet Braes, his son who had always bated aim, cannot entirely condemn him...
...so the party-line press apparently doesn't recognise his geW The Shrill Liberalism By HEUMAN SINGER AN AMERICAN DIARY...
...Maybe he is as near the truth as the ruthless realists who paint us all as brutes...
...it is too late...
...child* rosea*, aad the father deserts his family...
...12.50...
...Perhaps he is not threatened, but the people of Lydiee were.' Their death rouses no generous response in his heart...
...presages a drive to install Dtoutroff as to* "psnpla's Isedsr of she Balkan eta tea...
...Who knows...
...sooartd...
...As the Messrs...
...to aesare the preservation of the Late ran agreements, both the Treaty and the Concordat, made under the Fascist regime These two aims are inmsrao-pendent and they can be realised by preserving not only the Savoy Monarchy but the authoritarian government as well, no matter under what name...
...Although there was no reason to doubt that the designation, which was broadcast tons world by the OWI, was accurate, the publicity given to it also served to ispi-cate the basis of much of the thinking which is generally characterised aa advaisifcd and highly-analytical...
...What we need is not a washing in Michigan,'' Representative dare Hoffman (Michigan Republican) shouted...
...you are betraying the spirit of Christ and of Christmas...
...e all have a hit of Tiny Tim deep inside...
...Considering these things I decided to adopt the Roman Catholic wording of the saying of the Christmas angels...
...Bo is restless, aad when he hears that the railroad hi to be bsilt through Wsfteecad to Saskatchewan, ho decides to «n> Else, aoamv*rs will not agree to this move...
...Burnhaea bos got hold of something of the truth...
...i<t 'Internationale' has been die French-com-•ossd ia«i*ir ti...
...They are saying to the American people: Don't be idealistic fools, don't play Santa Claus...
...It seemed ridiculous...
...Suddenly a lot of things meshed in my mind...
...We need a washing gut of the New Deal dirty linen down here, a deanta* eat of the minds or brains or the Wheels that go around m the head* of abase starry-eyed, fuxxy-wnxxy professors...
...Bat be does...
...For a few days he steams himself up, compiles lists, searches the stores, spends more than he should to give things away...
...But surely the Christmas spirit is an anti-capitalist, anti-profit breeze blowing tat one short week over a selfish world...
...In wanting to make peace with Hitler, Professor Hartman is plainly overlooking the millions of dead and dying.victims...
...The whole thing reminds as of the story Gerhart Seger tells...
...Happily, being: compelled to buy it, I found the money well invested, for Mr...
...The boys were disappointed that on* didn't oasae from Hague...
...For several weeks I have been trying to find some oil cloth for my kitchen, also an orange juke strainer, also that pearl among pearls, a box of soap-powder with which to wash my dishes, I was told that the manpower shortage made it impossible to get these former necessities to the coast...
...Else N'orgaard...
...Because of his wife's objections to bootlegging, Mason sells the billiard parlor and buys a hotel in Grand Forks...
...They want to make sure that when the guns are stacked and the last shell has been dropped we Americans shall have a good grip on world trade...
...Aad now the K*# York Times has combined Freed aad oWtoiagy, all in saw POTtTT*pr This current build-up of Dtoutroff, after a partod of nam grit), including huge ads in the Now York Time*, paying hrm tarniagt...
...But, strange to say, Christmas week still remains the high tide of oaf year's celebrations...
...Elsa comes to the...
...New For* 1948...
...It was a kind of fortress to my mother, who as a child used to play cops and robbers to its fantastic corridors...
...He is the "I character" who gives focus to Mr...
...Characterized by Dr...
Vol. 26 • December 1943 • No. 52
