Van Loon's Diary
Van Loon's Diary for mungo: in Memory of His Master, Lieutenant B. Robsano, 579th Heavy Bombardment squadron; missing m Action Since October, 1943. fVJO, Mungo, it is no uss waiting-, for be...
...What the ALP Stands For TP-HE American Labor Party held a large and ea-* thusiastic conference on January 14 in which were represented its forces from all over the State of New • York...
...Because of your great strength, you could afford to be pleasant to everybody, but all the time you knew that there were certain things in thia world nobody With an ounce of pride or decency could stand for and that on certain occasions there was nothing one% could do but risk all...
...It is dangerous, moreover, because it proposes to admit to policy-making positions numerous Communists and fellow-travelers...
...To this gathering Alex Rose, the psrty's sec re-, tary, delivered a keynote address...
...fVJO, Mungo, it is no uss waiting-, for be will never ronse back...
...Your master, too, was fared one day by that choice...
...The same colonel may still be at the aame camp, but I am sure he won't bear you any grudge, for American colonels are not built that way and, besides, you belonged to nine of his best men and so he msy even feel like adopting you himself until we know what to do with you...
...We need better education, better life, a better way of understanding and getting on together...
...In one short psra-graph Mr...
...That many citizens lack a sense of national responsibility is indubitable...
...Capt...
...I am wrong again...
...He is right when he says that "the men in war production are not essentially different from the men who are proving themselves heroes in the South Pacific and on the Italian Peninsula...
...That, of course, is a poor kind of consolation but I may as well try end mske the best of my message, for there it something else I have got to tell you and that too is very bad news...
...Party members realize what is at: stake and are entering this fight with the greatest enthusiasm, determined to win...
...These few words go to the bottom of the whole business...
...HIS sentimentality, however, was all on the out-aide, for at heart you were conscious of belonging to a race of fighters...
...When he proceeds, however, to explain that these men are "victims of the failure of the nation to develop a sense of responsibility'' in its citixens he is guilty of a false implication...
...It is too bad they locked you Up ("Quarantined" ia too complicated an expression for you), but they were sfrsid that you might become "a menace to public health" on account of all the hydrophobia in our national capital, but I trust they treated you very nicely, for they are very fond of dogs over there and you are so beautiful, who could help loving you...
...He had to make up his mind quickly whether it was to be a glorious and victorious death or a long and dreary life of acquiescence...
...But it is no use, you poor, beloved beast, for if you kept on inspecting strangers until the very end of time, it would slwsys be the wrong one...
...Among them are war profiteers, lobbyists, a lot of congressmen—as well as industrial workers...
...Squad...
...And his notion that any sort of service act will supply s lacking sense of responsibility is wide of the mark...
...hsve not got the kind of brsin thst must always putslo things out into their final and baffling details...
...The ALP hss fought to keep itself clear of Communist entanglements, so thst it could work straight toward liberal and labor objectives...
...And, anyway, remember that you had a year of complete happiness, such happiness as it is given to few dogs to experience...
...The right one is gone snd you will just have to make the best of it...
...But if there is any kind of consciousness about such things in your bright canine brain (and sometimes I suspect that there is a great deal more than we have yet begun to realise), then you will find consolation in the thought that whenever, in city or camp, they shall talk proudly about your master and his comrades, you, can say to yourself: "And of such men, I was the dog...
...Petitions to plsce on the ballots the names of candidates for the State Committee are being circulated...
...Missing in Action...
...This conception of a political party is completely foreign to the traditions of our nation, and would be harmful to the labor movement...
...To breed a population imbued with any sense of duty to this country and to the world, we need something more than a service law...
...But you are young still, as age runs with dogs, and even under the best of circumstances you would have to wait quite a while, ao you might as well make up "your mind that he is not coming back...
...If they share our feelings, they will never open them, but they will keep them for their children and their grandchildren as glorious momuments to the devotion, coursge and loyalty of those magnificent babes-in-arms who used to stand around you in grinning groups in the streets of St...
...Workers — And a Sense of Responsibility In his plea for a National Service Act, Secretary of War Siimson ststed a basic problem without supplying the answer...
...It is not 'He...
...We know how he solved the problem and that is why you will hsve to spend the rest of your years seraching for some one who will never be found and why you will have to amble up to every stranger with an expectantly waving tail and then have to turn around with a sad, "No...
...Rose was able to aum up the character of the party and its reason for being: "We are opposed to the political closed shop...
...So we don't worry on that account, but our hearts are sad when we think of that day when you will hear the familiar old jeep, but it won't be your boss who comes to take you bark but somebody else, snd thst will be hard, terribly hard...
...In these days, more than ever before, labor needs allies, and we must unite with all liberal-thinking people—no matter to what economic group they belong...
...Liberal citizens would hsve nothing to ssy about the running of it...
...Of course, if thia universe were arranged as it should be and if there were a special Hesven for dogs (who deserve such a place so infinitely more than most men), he might some time come to visit you, and Saint Peter and all his saints would not be able to hold you when you heard the familiar voice calling your name...
...You live according to a different pattern of thought and action and so you will be conscious of only two things—thst one dsy he was there and then, the next day, he waa no longer there, and that then began that endless period of happily rushing up to every stranger—the stranger a bit uncomfortable when that gigantic creature suddenly rubbed its enormous wet snout into his hand—to see whether perchance this visitor might be "He...
...And there, my dear Mungo, I had better stop, for like rll the members of your breed, you were a most sentimental cuss and even as a puppy, whey you had done something you should not have done (though we will say this for you, you learned faster than any other dog we ever knew), you would look at us with such deeply sorrowful eyes that we alwaya forgave you and forgot all about it until you did it again...
...The campaign for control of the American Isbor Party is now on...
...We don't want an exclusively trade-union party...
...John's, terribly proud that they were at least part-owners of the biggest dog that ever lived and the handsomest one withal, and also the most copious and persistent drooler that ever graduated from good Marpherson's far-famed kennels...
...The so-called Hillman plan is dangerous because, if it were to succeed, it would plsce the organization, for the duration of the •present campaign, definitely under the control of certain trade union leaders...
...Whether we should let vou stay where you are now or whether we should bring you back to spend the rest of your days with your brothers and sisters and uncles and aunts in the old Newfoundland home, or whether we should transport you to that farm near Salina in Kansas, where the father and mother of the Master live, for they may want you near them because their son loved you and therefore they may want something living to remind them of the son whose body lies with bis trusted comrades in the soil of that thrice accursed country which we must conquer that they, Cod keep their souls, shall no longer be obliged to sleep in foreign earth...
...In the meantime, cheer up, my little two-hundred-pound pun, for you won't have to stay in that silly pea in England forever...
...It would not furnish an instrument through which they could throw their energy into the presidential campaign...
...Ws do .need and want just what we have been working for during eight years, s party of militantly progressive Americans...
...67»th Bom...
...Not only is the Master himself gone, but your other shipmates too have flown into the Great Beyond and their people, like ourselves, are now receiving letters with those dreadful words stamped on them: "Return to Sender...
...Stimson is a widely respected Secretary of War, but in this matter he got considerably beyond his depth...
...With the Communists in even partial control, the organisation would be a liability, not an asset, to President Roosevelt and his foffes in the coming campaign...
...Fortunately you have a sense of humor and it will make pen smile when you see that jeep and think back to thst famous day when the colonel had decided to go and inspect the csmp snd found you in the back seat and had to take you along because nobody knew how in hell they were going to get that, dog out—just look at his teeth...
...see DUT about all this, my deer Mungo, you will ** never understand much, because you and your kind (count yourself lucky, my good dog...
...We don't need another Communist Party...
Vol. 27 • January 1944 • No. 4
