The Home Front
BOHN, WILLIAM E.
The Home Front By WILLIAM E.BOHN Workers •ad fssj—efs T*H*. Btn of the liberation ef Heme rtached me ai I was hoeing- the beans. A cheerful emissary from the group around the radio brought me...
...Danny, I hasten to report, is a strictly non-ideological gardner...
...The Negro," he explains, "should be encouraged hp pall himself up by hi* own bootstrap*—to fight far hia right to have hi* own school*, hospital*, theatres, factories (or factory shift*), Army and Navy units, etc...
...Relentless offense, we determined, is what wins battle* and wars...
...The Negro work* hard enough...
...Ia another past ef hit tetter Mr...
...These farts were checked, and PM's Gardner Jackson, a careful reporter with wide progressive contacts in Washington, rsn * story denying ALN'* sllegstion...
...Henri Gregoire, a noted historian, who also edit* the school's review Rspaissance...
...Ha thinks the colored folks should have all the good things ef We...
...Lately aoat* progress has been made in thia direction, but very little...
...That was seeaething fine, sossathiag gead, something **ll*fys...
...He was also anti-Semitic...
...Surprisingly enough his first inspiration in this direction came from a Communist leaflet widely distributed on the Kast Side...
...Last week, the Communist Allied Labor News sent a dispatch from Montevideo (with sources in Chile) that the government bad imprisoned various labor leaders...
...It* direct, sentimental yearning bites under the outer crust of conventional hard-boiled cynicism—which is, I suspect, the reason for its success...
...Perhaps his staff did...
...The addition of Listen Oak te our number has done far more than to give us a first-class make up man and a ready writer...
...and 12th St...
...The unconditional surrender or utter destruction of all enemy weed*, bugs and worms was firmly announced as our objective...
...If a man i* barefoot, you can't aak him te pull himself up by his own bootstrap...
...That was in the Commies' vigorous radical and anti-capitalist days, long before they thought of their present happy united front with the N.A.M...
...The results, as I viewed them on that day of the liberation of Rome, were deeply satisfying...
...We had our plot plowed by a farmer...
...The man ha* planted three gardens this spring, one for himself and two for his friends...
...But between now and that day of final victory lie yet many daya of pleasant work and sweat...
...In preparing, planting and pampering the soil and the vegetables we hsve all the pleasures of social converse added to the joys which regularly go with such fruitful form* of exercise...
...Gregoire4* article along with an opposing view of the Polish question...
...A protest against the Editorial Committee's action has been signed by 40 men st the school and the Board of the New School intervened...
...But the Pegler man si—s te think it is high daas net to plsy ball...
...Prof...
...So he pretended that the staff pe*pie canned all tamed sour...
...The idea is never to give the enemy a break...
...He has joined the leftist agriculture deviation which follows the doctrines expounded in Edward Hubert Faulkner's Plowman'* Folly...
...Luncheon come* to about $1.75, which rightly removes Comrade Browder from the proletarian class...
...Leff Aaruultural Deviation Mr own garden plot I hesitate to mention...
...Gregoire, the editor-in-chief, waa not even informed of the decision, and learned about it only on receiving a copy of the censored issue...
...Books by former student* have been issued by 12 different publishers . . . John L. Lewis's Mine Workers Journal claim* that it dossat seek to spread anti-Semitism...
...My inspiration is a purely military one...
...Maybe he was playing the part of the serpent...
...A bunch of political prudes in the V. S., organized in aom* rah-rah music organization, shelved the song here because they thought it would hurt soldier morale, but as Fillmore Calhoun report* in Life, Lili Marlene ws* enthusiastically taken up by the U. S. troop* at Ansio and i* becoming familiar to Americans in England...
...What objection ran there he to that...
...Danny i* willing to swear that thia is the only matter with regard to which he ever fell under the shadow of Commie influence...
...Thia expense was covered neither from the publication's or the school's funds, which are low...
...Flavwfssss Mm...
...GEORGE DOERR, of w fid wood...
...Deerr weald go a step further ami acknowledge that the proreae of emancipation to far treat tu—piste, that bath Brave and enslaver are •till suffering from the original curse...
...While Prof...
...Mitcellowy MlLTON KONVITZ, who write* regularly in these psges on minority snd civil liberties issues, has a grant from the Roeenwald Foundation to complete a book on America's minority problems...
...Beautifully ordered rows of sprouting thing* are not the end result In our imagination, we csn already taste the corn and bean* and tomatoes...
...Wherever I went I saw people planting who had never planted before...
...As in Europe snd the Pacific, we still have a long way to go...
...Apparently sbme private individual put tip the money to carry through this brazen instance of private censorship...
...As I paused for a suitable moment of celebrating, a pair of enterprising robins who had been watching from a nearby apple-tree hopped in between the rows in hope ef finding a succulent Sunday dinner in the moist earth which I had turned up...
...I he Infernal ionof of War Onk of the most fascinating stories of the year was told in Life last week: the ballad of Li'fi Marlene...
...Nothing leas than lyric poetry could do it justice...
...He proceeds along strictly traditional lines, plants hi* atuff, takes care of it, and watches it grow...
...The FsVr Employ meat Fractal*¦ Committee, than, kt trying te help along the process...
...White we have been handling matters of high policy, I hare been haunted by the notion that The New Leader might be suspected ef treason to the notion's food pro gram So let me hasten te set down that our staff members are planting and transplanting and hoeing snd fertilising as never before...
...Did you see the column in which he tried, in his sour way, to make fun of our gardens...
...I am willing to believe that we bad 2,000,000 new gardens...
...Three families have cooperated to bring it to its present stage of beauty and promise...
...Meddle ThINGS are still hazy about the Bolivian situation The Villaroei government has kept the three tin barons out of power, that i* certain...
...His weeds Listen carefully conserves snd piles between the rows to make a soil-protecting mulch...
...A cheerful emissary from the group around the radio brought me word of a battle far away...
...A weed no sooner shows its innocent-looking head than it i* decapitated...
...And in my dreams, I know that you are there The lamplight still shining, upon your golden hair Our fear* are mingled with the rain I will come home and stay again With you, LUi Marlene, with you Lili Marltne...
...There b something on which we caa all agree...
...The school is headed by Prof...
...If our leading writers were to encourage thia trend instead ef always bringing up the question of social intermingling and in term* i riage...
...Here are two verse* from one version of the ballad: Every evening, underneath our light Outside the barracks, in the stormy night I wait ftr yen, a soldier'e girt, Jntt to forget, the whole, mad world With you, LUi Marlene, with you LUi Marlene...
...It was ¦ fine experience for them...
...In order to destroy the printed issue and re-run the Issue, an estimate $1,500 was required...
...And now he so proudly describes the results of this revolutionary procedure that you would think Faulkner had displaced Marx and Veblen on his bookshelves...
...In some parts of the country it was a veer had one...
...We are les* enterprising or, if you will, less revolutionary than my friend Liaton Oak...
...But we raised 10 par cent more feed thaa the year before...
...The leaflet was entitled, "To the Workers and Peasants of the Lower Eaat Sid...
...The man is a demon with hoe or spade, and seeds begin to sprout when he no more than looks ia their direction...
...Nothing revolutionary about him—that is, as long as he stays in the garden...
...the words have a passionate triteness, which makes them all the mere endearing among the men, alone with their thoughts...
...Dsany Bell ii less enterprising oa the soil than at his desk, but he is repeating his isst year'* program with raws ef corn, beans, radishes snd encumbers...
...The British are making a movie out of LUi Marlene and, if the Writers War Board»and I'M'* John T. Mi - Menus don't protest, it may be shown here...
...At the same time, the U. S. has a comprehensive report from Avra Warren, a special State Dept...
...There is a much delayed report on the garden front...
...It is trying to give the Negro e pair ef bootstrap* to get held of...
...He should police his owa districts, own and manage hia own business...
...We have everything which they had in Eden except the serpent...
...Morse, the son of a Protestant Minister wrote a book, called the Foreign Conspiracy Against tho United States, which sought to prove, thst the Holy Reman Alliance was s papal plot directed against the young American Republic and later formed an "Anti-Popery Union" which worked with the Native American party...
...Our entire staff agreed to a policy of attack...
...It kt at least lasaginable * * • Carrara...
...Within those limits our dictatorship is supreme...
...Since the number wss already printed, it was decide to print snotber edition without the "incriminating" article...
...insinuating that there i* a gigantic plot conceived by Lehman Brothers to dominate America...
...Gregoire's srticle, U I* learned, may appear in a distinguished university oubtieatiAH...
...In the laat issue of the magaxine, Prof...
...I planned my campaign with ruthlees thoroughness...
...LUi Marlene is a German soldiers' song which wa* picked up in the lonely African desert by the Aussie and English Eighth Army who soon adopted it as their own...
...The story carries some deep political overtones, for it illustrates "th* international pf war," the sickness of men with dirt and fighting, the futility of killing and the plaintive nostalgia for some little fragrant remembering of home...
...War bulletins from Rome hardly interested them...
...t. Mors*—Am Historical Footnote ThEY were celebrating last week the 100th anniversary of Samuel F. B. Morse's invention of the telegraph...
...The tune is simple, yet haunting...
...We did a wonderful thing last year...
...Before the bugs appear the poison is spread for them...
...Alvin Johnson, director of the New School for Social Research, hat resigned from a prominent club in New York because of its prejudiced stand against Jews . . . Gorham Munson's summer course in Professional Writing starts at the New School next weak...
...No mere defense for us...
...Perhaps Mr...
...After, a prolonged debate, a majority voted to print Prof...
...SammatF...
...But none of the stories related the fart that Morse was one of the most virulent Catholic-baiters in American history and a spiritual founder of the Know Nothing Party...
...It was individual, voluntary, democratic...
...What he need* ia something to get hold ef, a Job, some land, a business, a chance...
...N. J„ Made in a very persuasive letter te shew that he ia net kaartiea* with retard to the Negroes...
...Deerr state, that •Slavery ultimately brings ruination both to the enelaver aad the Slav...
...He expresses the fear that I gave a wrong impression in seas* remarks Which I appended te a letter of his nai weeks age...
...In that fine moment I don't know why I had to think of Westbrook Pegler...
...My allies, the birds, celebrated with me and were, I suspect more successful then I in expressing their pleasure...
...If white men and women help him to get hia chance, perhape they are doing aotaathing to work off the primal run...
...Cejtaral dualism would five evolution and natural set**, ties a chance to strengthen the stock...
...Gregoire was away, ill in a sanatorium, the secretary of the editorial' staff called a new meeting and decided to stop the issue...
...Gregoire, in a survey of event*, praised the Russians highly, but ventured, to suggest, in cautious terms, -that the dispute with Poland could be settled by negotiation and mediation...
...N«W Trombte of the New School ThERE i* a let of trouble stirring at the French Eeole Libre des Haute Etudes, a wartime adjunct of the New School for Social Research, which i* made up of refugee French and Belgian scholars...
...Ia fact, in one issue it ran en article by Max Danish of the I LC.WC on rsee prejudice, bat the current issue of the union magazine has • sly- and revolting piece of anti-Semitism...
...To be sure it is, strictly speaking, not mine but a sort of Kolkhoz...
...Ne plowing this year—and that mesas no waiting round for the highlypaid but leisurely plowman to come round and condescendingly run his shiny share through the soil...
...It wss not a good yesr...
...Still, the Communists violently attack the government...
...In one respect we were conventional and traditional...
...We did it because wa wanted to...
...Presidential dine, urea forcing the hiring ef Negroes as street car conductor* etc, the government pamphlet en race and Ml nan Smith's bee* are doing mere harm than good...
...There is no equal struggle for existence in the part of the universe rounded in by our carefully tended gutters...
...they would be doing far mere toward uplifting the Negro thaa they are doing new...
...There is to be no appeasement or negotiation...
...Bolivia...
...Some members of the editorial staff protested, and held to the protests despite reminders thst on past occasions the publication ha* been critical of certain arts of Churchill and Roosevelt...
...Inside and Out By MURRAY EVERETT Sif a ef the Time*—sVewder at Leeacboatps The Communist Party ha* embraced capitalism and come out for the NAM line on labor—so it is only fair that Earl Browder should have the table which is reserved for him every day at the swanky Longchamps on Fifth Ave...
...investigator, that the government is not pro Neti...
...Prof...
Vol. 27 • June 1944 • No. 24
