Var Is a Silent Film

SOLON, SAM

Var Is a Silent Film By SAM SOLON ¦fe^IERS.--The first thing that strikes you after returning for awhile lap Algiers from ~BraHal> U how "talkative tne world is. jtiverybody is talking, radios...

...For several years Is New York he was an editor of the "Modem Quarterly" with V. F. Cat-verton, and wrote for the "American Mercury" as hook editor, snd did various freelance writing...
...We have a right to expect that enemy propagandists within our gates will receive short, fair trials and be quickly placed where they cun do no harm...
...At first I wondered at this...
...They secured funds, published journals, held meetings, conducted campaigns...
...He got off as we were drawing past g JWyjgtfg truck...
...In addition, 11 persons are still held under a similar indictment drawn up a year ago...
...I have sat in the comfortable apartment of an officer in Algiers, sipped his excellent wine and talked to his charming French girl friend...
...1 r» not sure whti these incidents mean- they're aft breaks...
...What in'fofi trying to do—beat the shell...
...Keep it moving...
...They like to get the large,, beautifully-colored popular magazines from back home...
...Of course, it wasn't safer than anywhere else in the grove where we were ramped...
...Of these IS.'t persons, more than half are native Americans...
...ls,Jthere an impulsion, in the face BB evlpssai indignity of death which tears a man ¦H*h from haunch to accept us immutable the fact |fhjtaaii dignity...
...Of course, no labor, or democratic leaders are ndvsnced, that might mean "anarchy...
...The first day you can't take it and you go up to Hied feeling faintly nauseous, SSere are ft,few minutes when you say the hell with it...
...There must be conditions that lead to this sort o( thing...
...y think that war leads to ¦Spur • lass stratification ? A'e y°u Ju8t annoyed Kpeople seem to be haying a lot of fun, kesuic-Bmu with WACS and purses in jeeps, going to K taking snapshots, buying souvenirs, eating ZHa plates of icecream and chocolate cake at the 9Qpahab...
...Why is there the difference be-ajsjag the front and the back areas...
...Phrases like "just as important as the man with the gun," "propaganda is mightier than the sword," etc., etc In addition his conversa-tir n was singularly bloodthirsty whew referring to the enemy...
...it's much better even if less "newsworthy...
...the firing line...
...I'll cable the office in the moming E&Ltll them I'd rather not take a spell in Algiers...
...It's simple, logical, to the point and restrained--ns all life liecoines restrained where there is nothing but you, monotonous rations, cloudy skies and a gun to watch and think about...
...But the fact is, too, that only a mall percentage of men in an army come lace to face with a shell, only a small percentage do the bitterest fighting and most of the dying...
...Is it the gloom ^EpEgut* or <*0 you rea...
...A truck ahead of us nMjfseding tco close to the vehicle in front...
...r^Ll you'll rind people you know, a routine you're familiar with, mud that you hate but that 9JS_jstxt day you make the rounds...
...The front is a *e*> defined area, it seems to me, bounded by im« minent death...
...He led him to a shallow irrigation pit under I large olive tree and said, "We'll bunk for tonight...
...Well, I, left with the feeling that I'd listened to an advertising man toll me why he was more important than the steel worker...
...It is clear that they represented trends t.<> which their activities gave direction and added force...
...Put writing rrom aeeona-nans and gnost-wriiing outer people's first-hand experiences wss too drab for a restless guy like Solon...
...ut it ami their conversation which I've listened" to for several months isn't quite what clever rewrite men from Tiifif magazine think it is...
...When men were drowning in the mud oi' the Volturno and struggling up incredibly difficult slopes under machine-gun fire we drove back to Naples to find the streets filled with souvenir-seekers madly dashing from shop to shop in search of silk stockings, perfumes, watches, handbags to send home...
...flPWJtK'^ another incident I remember...
...He's had time to get organized, and 1 assume he is doing an excellent job oi the special propaganda work that he has been assigned to do...
...perhaps they reflect a certain at-aoaftore of mutual respect from man to man which ^¦sipBSS the closer you draw to the war...
...After writing several articles from there, and collecting material for a book, Solon went i •> England and was there for a year during the bombings and the fighting...
...Hitler's Secretary of State, who served as Secretary of State under the Weimar Republic...
...Don't (hint the kid's the only one who is scared around m*r he said...
...could see the puffs of smoke from bursting ihslpv^alliug short of the road...
...Okay, corporal...
...And sometime before the war, as correspondent for The New Leader, he sailed for Lisbon, the "escape-hatch" of Europe...
...They have an unpleasant job to do, a necessary job, and they're doing it...
...Of clinical interest are thi pseudo-liberals (read Johannes Steel) who make clucking noises when the potential Darlans are named, but cheer the selection of Bismarck's grandson, Count von Einsiedel, or the German General Seidlitz op the Moscow "Free Gefflan OTnmitW...
...iiiHiuiuiiiuiiiiHiiiiiiiiitiiiiiiiiiiiiiiliiiiiiiiiiiiiniiitiiiiMiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiihiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii'iiii miiiiiiiiimmii...
...An Editorial Some Native Nazis IN Washington, 22 men and women have been in* dieted because they "willfully, feloniously . . . conspired . . . with each other and with officials of the government of the German Reich and leaders of the Nazi Party...
...The silent, glum, mud-splattered men you meet behind guns in knolls overlooking the enemy positions or see erecting bridges across flooded rivers, or who drive unlightod trucks along slender threads of rosids through the razor-edged mountains at irght—these arc the proletarians of the war...
...In a way...
...They have no glamour and I do not think they have much hate...
...Asothir thing you can't help thinking about is how •IWal this so-called total w-ar is...
...Hp»Vr.t chap's feelings," he sojc&Td better jp it straight...
...The best-known among them have been for years enmeshed in interlocking networks...
...Thv German ToJteyrancfi •fHE debate is under way as to whom we shall pick * as the German Talleyrand to bridge the old regime with the conservative new...
...Mia must not shrug this thing off...
...INCIDENTALLY It is not true to say that most of * the uniformed shoppers "were yesterday on...
...But I soon saw the point, ¦pr'aea were removing themselves as eyewitnesses JMf tfes scene which they knew would troable the Etm sergeant tried a few eld jokes, but it didn't Ht Then to my amazement I saw the sergeant Beige his mood...
...I can fly back to thejfront lines in a day...
...ff^MWSmber one iid who broke under a night of mm ghetling that we were getting near Catania, fe'jferaea white, trembled, wept in terror...
...As we passed the Bsc* he signaled to us to stop, He climbed aboard...
...These men and women, who have collected money, published papers and received the public support of Senators and Congressmen, are now publicly branded by the Department of Justice...
...Through Mud and Mire CAM SOLON i» a ¦« with a yen for adventure and an itch to Write...
...More disturbing still is the fact that these persona under indictment hail connections in high places...
...I in ii was' a conversation from which snatches remained in my memory...
...More than one of them went in and out of the Senate and House office buildings...
...They like picture.- of pretty girls best of all and are laired by the d. ped-up stories and advertisements dealing with war...
...It's a silent film...
...It's safe...
...realists" and military men pick out General von Mannsjein who would have the allegiance of the Briny, perhaps the most stable unit in Germany's social structure...
...You try the icecream and cuke rig ¦»**•« r°u f**l a little better, but the theory hug* pepping up...
...Say, you war correspondent," b_e said to me...
...We were Wm up* to the Simyo River on a road that was WK enemy olisc^yKJvn from the hc;ghts on the djagtulr 'There was a large sign as we rounded Us Send which iWa1: ^'Un^er direct enemy observu-tBKjtpad under Heavy shellftre...
...Many of their outgivings have been printed at public expense and mailed out far and wide...
...A ser-fasst sum' over to him and I saw the men nearby ¦Bflg more away...
...How many citizens thought their way, gav ¦ them support and were influenced by them, no one cun know...
...Our concern about the disloyalty of these persona grows with consideration their connections...
...An MJyedlcoi shouted to the driver: "Slow down...
...some legalists, conservatives and Catholics raise the name of Erwin Bumka of the German Supreme Court, who cxuld preserve the fiction of legality...
...I'm not discus-' ¦H^ks eastern front in Russia where the land war » OB a tremendously larger scale than what we have ypwwi in Sicily and Italy...
...But they have no illusions al...
...tell them to cut out the technicokr and lyrics...
...These men and women—Dennis, McWillians, True, Pelley, Dilling, and the rest—were bom here, educated here, h'ld all the advantages of living here* If these persons with Nazi minds were developed here, there must be others...
...Yon would imagine that he wiped the gore from his bayonet several times a day, except hi' was too immaculately dressed for that...
...politicians and diplomats name Otto Meiss-ner...
...we heard him •ssat '?'You can take it...
...He's been in Algiers for almost a year...
...A few miles away the war seems to decrease in importance as death becomes a progressively more remote possibility...
...But the fact that numerous native Americana are found within this number requires more thoroughgoing action than any that can take place in the mints...
...As a war correspondent for the London "News-Chronicle" and The New Leader, Solon has been for the last several months in Italy with the British Fifthr and Eighth Army, He was in the first landing-waves on the Italian beaches and his stories for the combined British press were distributed by the Associated Press snd printed on front pages all over the country here...
...It was e"asy to see that he was Wag tfct he pretended to be almost as terrified us ths key...
...jtiverybody is talking, radios going full blast, the rich pastry of conversation—too rich...
...The Congressional Record was always open to their lucubrations...
...UMssd a friendless act...
...Now Holon is in Algiers, with the British army, resting after the mud and shell fire...
...These cannot be isolated cases...
...Some groups, upper class and the banking fraternity, talk nuietlv of Hjalmar iSchncht...
...Whatever their rear area tasks are they do them and do them well...
...Hitruck slowed,down to twenty miles, then nf-sejHben it was barely moying...
...His piece, special to The New Leader, is a dramatic human account of what the men there think and feel...
...Senators Nye and Wheeler and Congressman Fish were among their contacts and friends...
...One night near Campobasso a soldier who was turning the pages of a very popular picture magazine by flashlight suddenly kicked it into the ditch...
...The firing line doesn't happen to be their y b—and it would be stupid to blame them for this fact...
...That's what I'm trying to say...
...Is there a so-fgkm of shellftre which makes men at the front all fifjfcs same...
...Very gcod, and only in one's meaner moments in Italian mud and rain does one resent it...

Vol. 27 • May 1944 • No. 2


 
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