LETTERS To the Editor
LETTERS To the Editor Sollmonn Says Many German War Prisoners Seek to Help Anti-Nazis From WILLIAM F.SOLLMANN w wt rrsor utr m«n cn'Miir/ Wf i Ml W Il/T A^RTICLES that I have written for...
...Our government rejects any political indoctrination of the prisoners...
...An example of what to avoid is Dr...
...5,000,000 others did not belong to sny youth organisation at all...
...Inevitably the Department of Labor's strength must be rooted in a firm relationship and sympathy with organized labor...
...I have, for one thing, been criticizing tke communist position for a number of years, inside as well as outside the classroom...
...Again mother friend calls the German campaign in Northern Africa a "military disaster of the German army...
...But the crux of the difficulty lies elsewhere...
...However, it avoids ths roots of this conflict...
...Certainly among the 10,-000,000 outaide the Hitler-youth there were many potential young Nazis...
...According to official German statistics, in 1932, soms months before Hitler's dictatorship, there were about (,000,000 v..nog Germahs in now Nasi youth organisations...
...Actually, organized labor seems to have reached a point where it is not overly concerned with the prospect of estrangement" from the Bureau or the Department of Labor...
...Thst wsys and means can be found to bridge the gap is attested to by the many fine studies done by the Bureau in bygone years...
...I doubt that I could havt dose that with any effect if my students and other audiences hsd felt that 1 might endanger my bread and butter by prsii-ing instead of criticising the philosophies of Lenin or Stalin or the prsctices of the Russian government...
...the Nazis forced him directly from the concentration camp Into the elite formation of the Nazi army...
...Washington, D. C. Milton Mayer Defines His Neo-Politics from MILTON MAffft To the Editor: In two recent, successive looses ef The New leader I was doacrfbed, la one...
...Clearly, the uniona' attempt to meet the Bureau on the ata-tistical Acid was, in the main, a sloppy failure...
...The Young man says "There were many changes in my life, but my conviction is still the same...
...If a Nee-Themiat is a person who hss read anything written by St...
...Aside, it might be added that less than two years ago Bureau economists wers honest enough to admit the index's shortcomings, and to seek, unsuccessfully, for appropriations to make it more reliable, but this was before the administration's "stabilisation" program had elevated the cost of living index to the higher realm of economic "law...
...Incidentally, I wish to be the I rat to congratnlate The New leader on ita impending discovery of the wisdom of Randolph Boarne's seseilion that whoever mounts the back of s wild elephsnt mnst go where the wild elephsnt gees...
...If I were . teacher at Hunter College, I would fee] very badly about some of the prohibi...
...tions imposed on the faculty...
...He is correct in assuming that this proves to me without further detail that he haa nothing whatsoever to do with the Nasi barbarians...
...Thomas Aquinss and thinks that some of what the eM boy wrote mskee good sense, then I sm a Neo-Thomiet...
...To tk* Editor: I hops it is not too late for a comment on the controversy between Professor Mitchell sod President Shuster in Thi New Leadsr ef March 11...
...All, without exception, assert openly or in disguised form that they are faithful to their Social Democratic past...
...It seems it is impossible for most Americans to see the problem of reeducating the German prisoners in the same way as many political refugees do...
...LETTERS To the Editor Sollmonn Says Many German War Prisoners Seek to Help Anti-Nazis From WILLIAM F.SOLLMANN w wt rrsor utr m«n cn'Miir/ Wf i Ml W Il/T A^RTICLES that I have written for American periodicals have induced some German prisoners of war in this country to write to me...
...But since "sdmittedly the line is difficult to draw," students will probably be inclined to suspect an instructor who criticizes Communiam of laying a safety margin between hia words and the possibility of dismisaal for "demonstrable misconduct...
...One of them in a purely private communication mentions that he was in a concentration camp for several years...
...I hope yen will inform year credulous resders that I am not snd never was s ¦ember ef the America First Committee or a supporter to Its policies...
...Unlike the Department of Agriculture and Commerce which arc prepared to "speak for" the farmer and business respectively, the Labor Department has long since chosen the path of not too splendid Isolation from the labor movement...
...The Antagonism Between the Unions and Department of Labor From THOMAS WILSON To tk* Editor: Ulysses Rand's letter in a recent issue of The New Leader makes a strong case for the Bureau of Labor Statistics in its current controversy with the trsde unions...
...After all the modern youth movement originated in Germany and was much larger there than in any other country...
...One of theae young- Germans, whose name I have never heard, writes to me as "nephew" to his "uncle," probably because he believes that it is less dangerous...
...Another prisoner writes about his daughter, who as a child played often in my house, and closes his strictly unpolitical letter with the remark that he always will remain what he was...
...One of the letters relates thst the writer reads lloethe, Rilke and similar authors...
...Indeed, on such issues as the administration of Executive Order 9240 on overtime pay, the Department has taken a position which organized labor regards as one of hostility to the workers...
...eaenf for C bildr e« of India The Music and Theatre Wing of the Csrsvan of East and West will present The Gal*, a music-play, at the Metropolitan Opera House, on May 23, for the benefit of the children of India, channeled through the India Famine Relief Committee...
...Their communications prove that even on American soil, guarded by American soldiers and thousands of miles distant from Hitler Germany, they still feel that they have good reason to fear the Gestapo...
...the ban extends only to "propaganda...
...Before the Third Reich ruled, the young Germans belonged to orgsnizatlons of the churches, unions, sport groups, etc...
...Only 60,000 boys were in the Hitler-youth according to a declaration of the Nazi party, which la not known for understatement...
...He gives the details, which uf course must be omitted here...
...Some American organisations plan now in an objective way to interest German prisoners of war in American educational material...
...All of them were formerly members of the Social Democratic youth movement...
...Hinrichs and his colleagues might hsve probed the csuses of lsbor's dissatisfaction with the Department...
...Rand is fesrful of the friction between the labor movement and the Department of Labor...
...as "a Neo-Thomist" and, in the other, aa "an America Ureter...
...But it would be a great gain, if German prisoners of war by purely educational activities and according to their free decision came in closer touch with the American civilisation...
...on the contrary, 1 always was and still sm a violent opponent, publicly recorded aa seeh, of America First I ran net ssy I sm set a Nee-Thomiat bees as* I do not knew what a Neo-Thomist is...
...With Professor Mitchell, 1 regret deeply that President Shuster, to whom we sr* ao greatly indebted for hia huinanitarisn and liberal attitude on many occasions, defends instead of condemns the regulations which restrict the freedom of teaching in his institution...
...Even in Hunter College, President Shuster informs us, praise of Communism is not taboo...
...Hinrich's going out of his way to prepare a "rejoinder" (in a recent issue of the New Republic) to Harold Ruttenberg's plea for a rupture in the wage freese...
...They are still in their twenties or early thirties...
...A more recent almost solitsry example of the type of constructive aid which the Bureau can render the labor movement is the study on expendable earnings which appeared in the Monthly Labor Review of March, 1944—although it might have been better (earlier) timed to ease the sting of the annual cost of living report...
...Before leaping to the defense of their index Dr...
...It should, consequently, not come ss a surprise that the trade union movement could so easily, and, in this instance, not too^ wisely, be moved to attack the Bureau...
...Peadle Hill, Pennsylvania...
...A Note on the Academic Freedom From CARL LANDAUER Proft**»r of Economic*, Unwereity of California...
...The error to believe thst restrictions of teaching are of any value in lighting Communism bears a resemblance to the opinion that a dam against bolshsviim in Europe can be built by supporting reactionary systema of government...
...This does not alter the remarkable fact that' Hitler needed the power of the state in order to force the german youngsters into his youth movement...
...some of the traditions of the former free youth groups must still live...
...The fallen prestige of the Department in the psst few years hss been csused in greet measure by its increasingly bureaucratic aloofness from the unions...
...I am alee a Nee-Marxist, a Neo Milt G resets t, and a Neo-almoat-everything-bot-Sid-ney Hookist...
...Not, ia-deed, becsuse I wish to be an advocate of or a propagandist for any of tee opinions to which the warning signs ef President Shuster or of the New York Beard of Higher Education refer...
Vol. 27 • May 1944 • No. 19
