The Home Front
BOHN, WILLIAM E.
The Home Front By WILLIAM E. BOHN Madia fto»r*s Mm Pr*s* NoW that th* tumult and the shouting neve died down, I went to kick in with couple of ex post-farto points of opinion. My flnt con...
...Moat of them sent whole stables of reporters...
...So this is the town from which the Soviets mads their announcement...
...It mesas, of course, that wo have started a fresh chapter in Asseriran history...
...And he Is far from leosey...
...Leading spirits are William J. Goodwin, the treasurer, Robert Harriss, and John J. O'Connor...
...Sidney Hillman, R. J. Thomas, Phillip Murray, Das Token—they were not there as petHieners, They were helping make the ascisioas...
...The high nd thick wall that should divide news from editorial matter has been leveled with the ground...
...Think of three things...
...No one hsd ever heard of such a thing before...
...The People's Voire Alls its whole front page with a triumphant head: NEGRO— CENTER OF DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION...
...Labor was right there—on the inside, not on the ontside...
...It seems to feel that because it is so .far away it ran peddle its lies in unrestrained fashion and get sway with it...
...Sample: "Question of the Week: "Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin met at Teheran and made declarations towards sssuring peace, security and freedom for the world...
...They blush, leek away aad pretend he isn't there But what can they ds...
...The addresses were more honest and ths audience reactions more spontaneous...
...Ia this changing society labor necessarily occupies a higher place...
...The report was carried by ON A which certainly would not distort Mr...
...The rival casts got an even break...
...A new story about the Wise Mea of Chelm...
...It is just terrible...
...The article appears in the current issue...
...But humor or cheesecake by mai force and violence are not the bssis of my complaints...
...Hillman...
...How horrible that an American political co>- ition 'as taking orders...
...He hears the speeches, listens to the applause, even sits in on rival ballyhoo from the audience...
...My kick ¦« that the reporting was not strsight and honest...
...There ia "a furtive aad mysterious stranger, Sidney Hillman, a continent si ideologist, holding forth ia an official c—saand peat'' The nice old Democratic bosses aad th* lasoceat little delegates are chilled by th* sight and sasell of th' mysterious stranger...
...The New World, of course, makes Baldwin appear as a Naside fender...
...The writer who hails the "outstanding Christian-Americans" is K. C. Adsms, the publicity man for John L. Lewis snd the editor of Lewis's United Mine Workert Journal...
...But journalists are sot required to take an entrance examination ia sociology or history...
...K. C. must have a black impishness in him, or why else write in boldface, "Christian-Americans...
...Whoa the move was made to make James Byrsea Vie* President they said so...
...The People't Voice, Powell's Stalinoid Negro paper in Harlem, runs a town ball page where questions are asked of readers...
...The newness is something to be noted, to be celebrsted, to he explained...
...When they catch sight of Sidney Hillman at a national political convent**, they cannot be sapected to view the situation philosophically...
...Oar industry and government are far more functional—leas traditional—than they was* twelve years ago...
...They could sense nothing but bitter party rows...
...The big dailies spent plenty of mony...
...Practically all of the reports from Chicago were carefully angled...
...The announcement ia of great symbolic significance—for in Jewish folklore, Chelm and it* inhabitants are widely renowned...
...Sidney Hillman was sinister villain slinking in the background...
...Sad to relate this criticism applies to sll of the New York dailies—from the iVewe up to the rimes and Humid Tribune...
...Sergei Eisenstein, the Russiaa Aim director whs was in charge of Nan Soviet cultural relations during the pact, is shooting a film about Csar Ivan, who in earlier days wss railed I van ths Terrible, but who now is known as Ivan the Good...
...He, )s-aocent fellow, goes to Chisago asd Is prneticnliy kseJed over by what be see...
...A number of papers are warning against a "soft peace" with the generals, particularly I'M...
...Today, of course, The New World is a 200 per cent super patriotic, jingoist sheet...
...Union men were firmly planted at the heart of the Democratic convention...
...Phillip Murray is a sshsr chap and a good Catholic...
...The paper is called The New World, but at one time, it called itself The New Dealer...
...Inside and Out By MURRAY EVERETT Th* Wis* Mag of CholM The Polish puppet group from Moscow made its announcement on Saturday about forming a new Polish Government from the town of Chelm, which had juat been captured by the Red Army...
...Clare Booth Luce waa painted as the perfect compound of s pin-up girl snd Joan of Arc...
...This Supreme Junta is a fake and has been brsnded so by alt responsible Spanish Republican leaders, including the ex-Premier snd now ex-fellow traveler Juan Negrin...
...He headed b committee that lined ap aboat a million stool workers...
...Even the one "no" answer in a page-ful of "yes" replies, accepts the assumptions of this loaded question, see Wast Coosf Pesthole Out in Seattle, on the far West Coast, there is on* of the most scurillous Stalinist sheets in the country...
...The degrees of Seriousness wers not equal...
...Several books by Sidney Hook were slashed...
...It was s terrible discovery to make...
...And the Negroes were there...
...see Free Gar ma my SoME of the Communist "Free Germans" seem to hsve gotten their signals crossed...
...But sease writing chap sitting at a desk on Wont 41st Street thought i| smart to make that crash...
...They might have given a lot more information about what W' ' on behind the scenes...
...Despite the bosses and the behind-the-scenes management, the Democrats much more than the Republicans gave me the notion that they were in earnest and that they had some sense of what the nation faces...
...Asd that was th* end of that It was something sew...
...But they told about the hosts gathered to nominate Dewey as if they had been a company of blessed sngehi best on selecttnr.t Moses to leed them out of the wilderness...
...BlJT to got a prime example of alasting of th* sews look st the treatment given to labor...
...They tried to put the best possible face on both shows...
...The first one to "break" the story of this Junta wss the Algiers correspondent of Tass, the Soviet news agency...
...The fat' ion fancier, the saloon sentimentalist, the ropy boy and a couple of janitors went along...
...His listener is getting the reality over the air waves...
...e Reolism Rides fin* 4ir By comparison the radio reporters come off with a mark of A. It is true that they were not critical of either performance...
...Now the paper is featuring stories linking up Roger Baldwin, th* Trotakyitea and the 29 Seditionists on trial in Washington...
...it changed its name because from 1939-1941 it was whooping it up against Britain, denouncing conscription and Lend-Leaae and aiding every defeetist and sabotage measure of the Communist Party during the Hitler-Stalin Pact The men who run the paper are Hugh De Lacey, a former vice-chairman of the American Peace Mobilisation, and Terry Pettus, an old party-liner...
...And it wss sll run by bosses...
...Two days later Marker retracted and in another ON A dispatch said that he had no special information thst the creation of such s government was planned by the Free Germany Committee in Moscow...
...PM ought to scan the records of the tens of generals, S.S...
...These men, ambitious politicos, have hung on to the tail of every panacea and pension scheme hatched on the West Coast De Lacey today is running for Congress on the Democratic ticket...
...Now The Neu- World has launched a lynch campaign against anti-Stalinists in the Northwest At a recent conference sponsored by the Quakers, Pettus led s gsng which stormed the platform and took over the meeting...
...These are served to us every day by the same jiu-jiten methods...
...A radio reporter must stick close to the truth...
...On* begins to wonder if newspaper men have forgotten all the rules...
...In that Democratic convention women played a more genuine part than they have ever before played in American politics...
...They know whet is going on...
...One of its latest plants is to spread stories about a Supreme Junta in underground Spain...
...Last year some Stalinist bug waa slicing pages out of ami Stalinist books and was caught and sent to prison...
...So the result was thst what came through was comparative truth...
...Some of the stories were really dis-grr ' i. Both confabs toto, of course, run by poli-ticinns...
...That's nenr th* middle at things—not at all ou the fringe...
...Who else would or could run them ? The professional journalists are nil wise guys...
...Correspondents who write such stuff and editors who order it that way and edit it that way evidently take the readers for suckers...
...Any traveler, especially their historic antagonists, the Litvaks (the Lithuanian and Russian Jews), can trap the men of Chelm into the wildest follies...
...Do you think the Teheran agreement makes possible full employment and full equality for all people...
...The Coughlinites hsve organised the American Democratic National Committee, which will support Dewey this year...
...officers and Nazi killers thst grace the lists of the Free Germany Committee in Moscow...
...The people there, are called "The Wise Men of Chelm," but, unfortunately, the term ia meant more ia a derisive and ssrdonic way than in a literal sense...
...On Ssturday, Paul Merker, the head of the Free Germany Committee in Mexico, stated that the Moscow Free Germany Committee "will certainly constitute itself a German antifascist Goverment in East Prussian territory...
...Any babe in the wood can take the candy from the mouths of the men of Chelm...
...The change ia not exclusively due to the increased site of the labor movement Th* CIO was partly the hearer of explosively dynamic social ideas Some of those just asturslly must had political ways sad mesas...
...The innocent newspaper boys, fresh from the Y.M.C.A., had never heard of such vils fellows before...
...For "the Wise Men of Chelm" are the most nmiable morons in liternry history...
...And above all stood the great boss, F. D.R...
...His statement of two days previous "wss merely an expression of persona] opinion...
...The Home Front By WILLIAM E. BOHN Madia fto»r*s Mm Pr*s* NoW that th* tumult and the shouting neve died down, I went to kick in with couple of ex post-farto points of opinion...
...The Committee is sending out letters to businessmen asking for funds...
...The thing had to be funny or sci sppeslish—even if the poor typewriter-pounder broke an arm or a leg...
...cries the defender of ftsmsrratic virginity, "la God's name how came this noa-toilisg, sedentary conspirator...
...You can't tell him that the Republicans sre all loving brothers and the Democrats all knife-wielding conspirators...
...After listening hours on end to both shows I came awsy with the impression that the Democrats hsd a lot more of the good juice of American life in them...
...to give orders to the Democrats of the United Statesr Just on the point of crying, teach not a hair of the agiag Dsanecrntic heeds...
...Bat—sad this moat of all—th* depression and th* war hsv* forced upon us a isaigaai-sation of society...
...Herbert Hoover was pictured ss a sainted represents!ive of s glorious past...
...The Newt was more noisesome and the Timet offered mere seeming respect to what used to be considered honest journalism but the upshot was pretty much of s sameness...
...Merker's views...
...see ftnchi Fringti RkAD this quote—the boldface is in the original: "The Republican Convention which met in Chicago and nominated Dewey and Bricker—both of whom hail from outstanding Christian- American families and who are still old-fashioned enough in their belief to have faith ia the traditions aad concepts of the fundamental patterns that made these I'nitrd States the greatest nation is the world...
...The "basis" of it are some remsrks allegedly made by Baldwin at a recent maaa meeting of the Civil Rights Defense Committee meeting here...
...The towering Tsxans were ready to tear northerners snd Negroes limb from limb...
...My flnt con fiction ii that our high-powered press came off a bad second-best in the business of reporting the two national conventions...
...e e No fee by the Woysid* BoOKS by anti-Stslinist authors are being mutilated ia ths Brooklyn Public Libarary...
...The Allied Labor News is a Communist front snd its msjor news activity is spreading Communist dope stories...
...The questions are models for journalistic impartiality...
...Eves the high-class HermU-Trikmne referred to the CIO aa the "lunatic fringe...
...Practically sll of the stories in the form in which they appeared had the effect of prettying up the Republican convention snd smearing the one held by the Democrats...
...It was all just too, too lovely...
...The hysterical spirit of The New World has already disgusted hundreds of liberals and trade unionists on the coast...
...Not one paper said to the readers: Here, this is what actually happened—make up your own mind about it...
...And, of course, there Is the psiafnl PsgWr...
...he jest breaks down snd blubbers...
...see Warning A news service celling itself Allied News Service (A I.N > has been rirrula riling labor papers, claiming to have an elaborate system of foreign correspondence in London, Moscow, Chungking, Mexico City, etc...
...r to wore of Slick Sf rangers...
...And when the Democrats got together the same men slsnted their stories all the other way...
...But their smoothing «ver and brightening ap technique was evenly applied...
Vol. 27 • July 1944 • No. 31
