American Youth Seeks Direction
Corey, Olga
American Youth Seeks Direction By Olga Corey AN analysia at contemporary organisation aammg pr*gr**eiv^-miodod collage atadenis revsai* tana - significant trenda. There is the encouraging; fact...
...NovOhere have progressive ideas triumphed: reaction hi every-where...
...His education, his religious background, his political experience (or lack of it) have all accustomed him to think on two planes: the mythical fairyland ef professed beliefs aad the harshness of the world as it actually is...
...The lock of consistency asnoat, potentially liberal forces is dear when a man like Senator Pepper votes for the Smith-Connolly Bill, when William Green endorses Dies and Nye, when trade unions practice Jim Crowism, when Negroes are anti-Semitic, and vice-versa...
...What if aeme ef ear old slogans have to be discarded...
...Consequently, our reactions are chaotic...
...Per several years, the A8U dominated the student scans, but when Hitler sad Stalin made their pact, the etodent orgsnisatien condemned the war aa "Imperialist" aad isneaarsd all aid to Great Britain...
...Soon it will be too late...
...Why, then, expect a student movement to he more...
...The Teheran Conference proved little beyond the complete arbitrariness with which the affairs of the world arc to be settled...
...It is clear that we can no longer expect a convincing answer from ths powers that be...
...No matter that we will rarely receive recognition as gracious as Beard's...
...readers may remember her report e« the Michigan Commonwealth Peerrati*ai which appeared in a recent ieaae...
...But the war has been going on for five years now...
...Yes, the ideas are there: it ia the will to put them into effect that we need ao badly...
...But we do have to believe...
...Actually, the failure of the world today lies with every man or woman who haa ever given serious thought to the problems now before us...
...They are tired end disco iirag'ed...
...Otherwise we remsin confused and ineffectual, divided against ourselves...
...Disillusioned by the ffaaalan fiasco, eheefced by the horror of fanciest, they crawl into their shells...
...If liberals had a faith, one more pragmatic and (esc subject to arbitrary modification, they might achieve new and greater strength...
...What if some of our comrades have deported ? We still have a job to do...
...But there are many at am...
...She is new seine labor education ia the Midwest...
...It means that we, ths liberals and radicsls of Amerirs, owe a debt to society...
...But can we afford to be critical ? Has the radical movement supplied any better answer to the worloVa problems 7 Certainly there is no comfort in the blomi and thunder of the Communists, or the scrupulous disdain of the pacifists, or the revolutionary purity of the Socialists, or the ethical acrobatics of liberals...
...There haa been time, more than enough, to evolve a more positive political program...
...To the offices of the United States Student Assembly come a number of young people from all over the country...
...For democracy...
...I only know' that if they are to be reached, it'must be soon...
...IW srgaatsatasa waa formed In INI from am sag a number of group* that had farmed independently all aver the country hi pretest aajahnsf the Csaaesin dsaahaatad Aaaoriean Stadant Uaea...
...Nor would we have to dilute that strength, as the Communists do, by combining it with equal parts of fanaticism and double-dealing...
...there was no other choice but to fight...
...For freedom...
...With us lie the hope and the heartache...
...What are we goiag to do...
...Already Russia has made it dear (Continued en Page Five) -USSAb TiK Castas) Stotoe ¦liilial AanueaMy...
...they seem to have "nothing .to leek backward to with pride, and nothing to leek forward to with bene...
...It has not been done...
...A student movement, after all, is but a focus and reflection of those forces which sffect the national scene...
...It i« easy to put the blame elsewhere and to absolve ourselves of any responsibility for the mess the world is in...
...and that if we are to defeat totalitarianism permanently we must effect an equally radical, but democratic solution...
...Miss Marget Haas is natiaaal tecreesry...
...In America the liberal movement at best has influence in a very limited sphere: its activities are circumscribed both socially and geographically...
...Perhaps the President does...
...For ideas are weapons only when in use, and a gun without a warrior is useless...
...There is something gross and a little obscene In letting a man die for a cause that haa never been completely defined...
...Imperialism and discrimination against racial and psBtk-sl mtoertiss mast ha sbelmhod...
...Here we are sacrificing thousanda of men, yet apparently unwilling to risk a moral and intellectual assault upon thoae vested interests thst produced fascism, Perhaps what is lacking in this whole conflict, perhaps the thing that keeps u from having a real vision of what this war is all about, is the fact that ao few of us have any moral frame of reference...
...But we must know map we ere doing them, what in the long run we are after...
...be desired...
...These boys need an answer...
...But in war such adjustment is no longer possible...
...For whom...
...Beard aays that "it is from the independents, progressives and radicsls that new ideas, inventions, devices, aad proposals for the improvement of society are to be expected...
...there have been victories...
...Miss Olgs Corey who writes the shove article was sett re in etadeat affairs in recent years...
...There is the not-*o encouraging fact that that movement ia without any real guidance (the kind that Communist youth groups have always had) from its older friends throughout liberal America...
...It is the responsibility of all of us...
...Bat is euch a negative approach entirely vaUdT After all...
...No matter that our ideas may be scorned...
...Our own State Department seems to be a victim of vicious and outworn conventions, and as a result our foreign policy —what there is of it—leaves much to...
...At the beginning it was enough to say: "Fascism must be defeated...
...One has only to observe the antics of Communist and Communist-front goups to realize the strength that derives from having some ultimate objective...
...fact that for the first time in a decade there exists in America s student movement—potentially strong—that is not under Communist domination...
...Nor does the will to effect change belong to the thinkers, or even the leaders...
...There is no time for hesitation or compromise...
...I have no program to offer...
...Yea, the war aitaattoa ia a 4e*c.ll one...
...But some of the things we are doing don't make any sense in terms of what we are supposed to be fighting for...
...If we believe strongly enough in what we are doing, we will not mind the stones, or mud, thrown at us...
...We have failed to point out that part of the reason for Hitler's success hi that he proposed a radical (if horrible) solution to Europe's economic and political problems...
...Ten, we ham ssuTsred setback...
...I don't expect the picture to be all black and white, but I would like a little more consistency between means and ends...
...Aad the resect is ceafunion...
...The blind belief in a "workers' fatherland," unjustified though it may be, nevertheless seems to bring with it complete immunity to apathy, the ailment that liberals are mora suceptible to...
...Like Frost's hired man...
...Obviously, liberal thinking is not all m a piece...
...These things are important...
...In thia war there wore no trumpets to make walls crumble, and if a battle) waa fought the sun stood not still," said Peter Slavek in Koestler's Arrival and Departure...
...Where...
...Nor does having a "faith" necessarily imply lack of self-criticism or inner democracy...
...I want to belie/s in this war, and actually, I suppose I do...
...We are floundering, practically and intellectually, for lack of real direction...
...I think, ia that liberals in America lack a poBsssphicsl base, aa istsMectaal rat*** d'etre for what they are doing...
...jp\mERICAN radicals have a special responsibility to the rest of the world...
...They need an answer that is more than the "lesser of two evils" theory that has been the basis of so many liberal decisirns...
...Moreover, ewea frees defeat ahould cease ant Just siialariin amt a sew se<enamsti*a u fight...
...That is quite a challenge...
...Fait Employment at heats based an the f alia at devotepmeni ef aamanal rmanrsia...
...Out on the battlefield there is only one reality: the gun in your hand and the gun that is aimed nt your heart...
...Thia fa net '••Uyannaism.- at ia an attempt to tosh at the adaaatien realistically ami pregmstically...
...And the reason far this...
...A World Order of Nations far large and small roan tries...
...Even sharper than the sting ef steel is the question that ie haunting our battlefields: why am I hen to die...
...There is no need for eay chased system, such as Bolshevism: there is a very definite need for some sort ef over-all program which r as bodies the everyday things that liberals are •ghtiag far and contains ia addition eumc impulse towards action...
...Probably there are a lot of persons who could tell us...
...The inspiration value of the Atlantic Charter haa long since worn thin, and Churchill's parentheses to it have certainly not helped...
...They aarvey the world aroaad them sai conclude that all U hopeless...
...The radical movement ha* forgotten the dynamic that ia stored t'n new ideas...
...It is time now for a new radical morality, based on mutual trust and democratic procedures...
...The United States Stadant Assembly waa farmed ef groups that supported tie aati-faerist fight from the start The program ef the CSS A cans far: • United Nation* Victory...
...referred to in the III liWWaavff article by Mien Carey, ia the only progressiva student organisation an the America a campuses today...
...Subsequent unilateral action by Russia haa demonstrated thia clearly...
...The work ef the USSA chapters, which are largely aatonemena, ia facilitated by the aatisaal saw* in New York at • Went inch St, which acta aa a clearing hearns far srUvhtiea...
...With it, there is no limit to what we caa da...
...At any cost the triumph of reaction must be prevented...
...As radicsls, we ahould have mere faith in the future, more will to perfect it...
...Somewhere between the ruthlessness of Communists and the naivete of liberals must lie the happy medium of political behavior that we are after...
...Some of these visitors are servicemen: most of them are college students...
...Our guilt is this, that morally the American soldier is unequipped to die...
...For in the chaos and confusion accompanying victory, the strongest voice will have the greatest following...
...What we lack is what the whole progressive movement in America lacks—a clarification of purpose and of esaential principles...
...The consequent adjustment our soldier has had to snake is typical of this land of go getters...
...Tbey are many types and say many different )i,,<g*., But the attitude that is most articulate—though not necessarily most frequent —is the one that goes something like thie: "I'm confused...
...Is this really so strange...
...New aad better ones will follow...
...It ia that impetaa, that motivating force, thai will make all thf difference, supplying the drive aad urgency we need.so badly...
...I don't know what the answer is...
...Perhaps one reason for this dilemma is the fact that sassy radicals have tost faith in their past...
...American boya are going out to fight, many to die, for what...
...Yet that, precisely, is what hi happening...
...Without it, we are well meaning failures, "talking at atreet , corners to scorning men...
...Certainly there are in America enough men of good will, possessed of intelligence and integrity, to outline s workable picture of what to hope for and expect in the postwar world...
...But when...
...What if seme of our ideas have been proven wrong...
...We have floundered so between hopeful respectability and minority frustration that we have lost our political identity...
...If there are to be slogans for this new movement, let them be Unity Without Uniformity and Diteipline Without Repression...
...but it was a duty, net a mission— and for dead illusions there was no resurrection...
...I cannot even tell you what the youth of America want...
...It is not enough to hold rallies against the poll tax, to urge equitable taxation, to fight for a democratic army, to demand a world police force...
Vol. 27 • September 1944 • No. 40
