Is America Going Fascist? A Symposium on John T. Wynnes Thesis
Redell, Fred
Is America Going Fascist? A Symposium on John T. Wynnes Thesis Fred Redell Mi Hudrll, Piofettor of Law at Yule Law School, it tkt author of the widely dttcutted profile of Wtllki* in the...
...John T. Flyn* ¦ays that Roosevelt —and the exigencies of war -are leading as down the road lo Fascism...
...There is the fanatical glorification of brute force for its own sake...
...Or where \HI we marching...
...Every soldier I have heard from emphasizes this point—they would like to vote if there isn't a lot of reel tape connected with it...
...At an American I.ahor Party luncheon meeting ie-cently, speaker after speaker lambasted Congress and lauded Mr...
...Are we marching down the same path la dia aster that European nations followed...
...n his recent steefc, 1 As We...
...If they are— well, in such men ignorance is almost as inexcusable as mendacity...
...But if we are, it is not because of an unbalanced budget and a huge public debt and the ()T A. The causes, if any, would have to lie deeper in our national personality and they would tie far more sinister than any such comparative trivia as "unsound" government finances...
...The easy parallel, between Italy and Germany in the twenties and thirties and the United States today, drops too many factors out of account-factors having to do with the natuie of the peoples involved, their temper, their traditions, their essential toughness or lack of toughness...
...Roosevelt...
...There is the brazenly avowed hatred and contempt for political and social democracy...
...At least in the case of the Ovra and the Gestapo, there is the extension of kidnapping and murder into foreign countries in time of peace...
...I seriously doubt that he merits it...
...Drawing a parallel lo Italy and Germany, Flynn claims that the stupendous na tional debt, unbalanced budget, huge public borrowing and tremendous pabiir expenditures bring a greater <onienlration of power in the govern men!, and regimentation of the economic life of the country...
...Now that Big Business has discovered (or thinks it has discovered) that it can "do business with Stalin," another epithet is being brought into use...
...1 don't know about that...
...Our viewpoint will he stated next week when the symposium will be ......lu.lt-d The Soldier-Vote Fraud By Jerry Voorhis Congrettman from California...
...Editorially, The New leader disagrees com plelely with Mr...
...They should receive a bat-lot without asking for it...
...I do not like to think that these men are guilty of wilfull falsification...
...and the taxing power, if the big-government boys have their way, will likewise become one...
...We never do...
...The compromise bill that was finally passed will accomplish 'nothing that has not already been done by the states themselves...
...Thai was the question The New l.radei ad dressed lo a group of American writers and intellectuals...
...They are its fundamental characteristics, from its very beginnings as a seditious movement to its day of triumph and on to the present lime...
...and if the soldier applies for a state ballot before September 1, and if he does not receive it before October I, and if he makes out an affidavit that he did apply for it but did not get it—then he is privileged to apply for a Federal ballot, and vote if he receives it in time...
...The Army and Navy heads testified that if a simplified Federal ballot were distributed in bulk, without red tape, and returned in bulk, they could handle the matter, but they were doubtful of handling it otherwise...
...In all candor, I cannot repress a sense of satisfaction when Congress asserts itself and seeks to restore its constitutional prerogatives—even when 1 disagree with the particular action it takes in a specific case...
...President Jefferson's personal character as well as his public policies were savagely maligned...
...This hodgepodge bill will nullify the provision in the 1942 law which said that no soldier should be denied a vote because he had not registered or paid a poll tax...
...in accordance with the varying requirements of state laws...
...The Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Nsvy should now authorise the posting at all places where our armed forces are located of instructions for the use of state absentee ballots as issued by the various states...
...Marching...
...I recall them too vividly to join the fashionably liberal attacks on Congress...
...it only adds confusion to the situation...
...There is the "monolithic" character of the one party...
...The Abolitionists called President Lincoln a "slave hound," the Copperheads called him a "nigger lover," Abolitionists and Copperheads joined in denouncing him as the author of a bloody war, and the Radical Republicans intrigued against him because he did not make the war bloody enough...
...My own hunch is that, from a long-range point of view, we are probably moseyiim pretty much in the right direction regardless of the sashays...
...There is the systematic destruction of labor unity* and breuking-down of wage-and-hour standards...
...The atrophy of tepiesenta-tive government which is the prelude to the modern totalitarian state has always showed up first in a decline of the legislative branch of government and a growing mono|H>ly of executive authority...
...Their replies are printed below in a svmposium: la America Going Fascist...
...They make a little more sense that way...
...JpiE Worley (Federal) bill would have given soldier* a simple method of casting their ballots in the 1944 elections...
...At any rate, we always have in the past - and if we've got to use analogies let's draw them fiom the history of our own nation and our own people...
...They don't realize that once our thiee branch government is broken down, government by an almighty executive will be established for "bad" no less than for "good" Presidents...
...But there are also some who have had the advantages of education and who figure as intellectuals...
...It cannot be defended even by arguing that "it is the best we could get...
...There is the complete denial of all civil rights—freedom of speech, of public assemblage, voluntary organization, and of the press, right to open and orderly trial, and so forth...
...human affairs can never Ire conveniently reduced to simple formulae although there are folk who find intellectual comfort in trying to do so...
...All of these, 1 repeat, are not incidental features of Fascism...
...Eugene Lyons Editor, American Mtreury, Author, Attignmant in Utopia, eta...
...The Army and Navy will have a big job collecting them...
...The conference committee members disagree as to what it means...
...Of course the ruck of the name-callers are cheap and vulgar |K>liticians, in both parties, who neither know nor care what an epithet really means, if only it will serve their sordid purposes...
...As chosen means to the winning and holding of power, there are murder (in the literal sense of that word)—secret murder, murder by individuals, by organized mobs, mass murder of defenseless groups— the concentration camp, physical torture aggravated by ingenious moral torture, arson (again in the literal sense), wholesale deportation...
...if Franco's secret s»cvice has not practiced this (of which I am not sure), it is for lack of opportunity...
...If the procedure is complicated, few men in the midst of fighting, all over the world, will be able to vote...
...Only our mediocre presidents have escaped reckless and ruthless abuse...
...To argue that this has been "inevitable" .i,„, not make it any less dangerous...
...Congress has passed a bill that is as complicated as it can possibly be...
...Now let the Fly mis come forward with a bill of particular, matching these infamies with American facts...
...Maybe we are headed toward Fascism...
...The casual way in which all self-styled liberals join in Congress-hating is disheartening...
...Not so very long ago Mr...
...Vast provinces of law-making have been taken over by the executive, through regulations, directives, orders and lulmgs by its multitude of bureaus and agencies...
...Algernon Lee National Chairman, Social Democratic Federation TPHE vituperation which is being heaped on President Roosevelt is nothing new in American history...
...Just how the soldier will use these postcards is not made clear—if he ever sees one...
...Fascism...
...The consequences, he states, are monopolies, militsrism, and war—and eventually...
...We are moseying along in characteristic American fashion, with occasional sashays off to the side or even backward...
...the mud flung at the Reichstag in the closing days of the Weimar Republic...
...It would have been less hypocritical for Congress to let the 1942 law stand, or to leave the whole problem to the states...
...How many soldiers will have the time and energy to go through this complicated procedure I don't know...
...Congress has failed in its clear duty to make it simpler and easier for soldiers lo vote than the 1942 soldiers-vote law had done...
...This business of diawing historical analogies, whether by way of explaining the past pi predicting the future, is always rather an exeicise in rhetoric than a real search for truth...
...The bill provides for the sending of postcards to the 11,000,000 fighting men, as applications for ballots, for registration, for information, etc...
...FLYNN'S neat thesis leaves me, I'm afraid, a little cold-as neat theses usually do, including my occasional own...
...There is the basic theory of the one-party state, and its practical enforcement...
...Where Are We Marching...
...One of them listed the sins of the legislative branch at considerable length Whether or not it was the intention of the orators, the listeners gathered that opposition to the President, any attempt to question or restrict his administrative powers, was somehow in itself a form of "reaction" if not outright tieachery...
...Roosevelt was being branded as a Communist...
...Roosevelt is still called a Communist, but be is now being pilloried also as a Fascist...
...What are the essential features of Fascism, as we know it in Daly, Germany, and Spain...
...It all boils down to this—if the state legislature has passed a state law authorizing the use of a Federal ballot (perhaps half of them will not do so) and if the Governor makes a formal declaration that this has been done...
...President Washington was called a despot, a dictator, and a tyrant, and was accused of subserviency to the British government...
...This would be of greater help under the present circumstances than the bill just passed by Congress...
...Then the soldier takes time off from fighting to fill Out a sworn affidavit...
...Yet 1 find it hard to believe that they are so ignorant of the nature and record of Fascism as to imagine that they see any likeness between it and the New Deal...
...John L. Childs Profettor of Education, Columbia Vnirertity VroiiK symposium on the problem posed by Flynn's book is interesting, but I wonder whether a man who is as much controlled by prejudices as Flynn now is should receive this much attention in your very able paper...
...A Symposium on John T. Wynnes Thesis Fred Redell Mi Hudrll, Piofettor of Law at Yule Law School, it tkt author of the widely dttcutted profile of Wtllki* in the current ittue of Harpert...
...They don't say, "I^t's elect a better Congres," but "Let's re elect s 'good' President...
...He it the authot of Woe Unto Ye Lawytrt, and other book...
...THE moat' dangerous single tendency in the New * Deal, it seems to me, has been its concentration of ever more power in the hands of the executive branch, The war has, unavoidably, accentuated that tendency, The spending power, which used to be jealously guarded by Congress, is now largely an administrative function...
...Flynn'a thesis...
...Space permits me to mention only a few, and not in any logical order...
...Moreover, as a nation, we are not "marching" anywhere...
...Personally I rev-all the ridicule heaped on the Chamber of Deputies in Italy before the advent of fascism...
...Anyone good enough to fight for his country is good enough to vote, regardless of age, race, registration, residence, or poll tax...
Vol. 27 • March 1944 • No. 13
