The Home Front
BOHN, WILLIAM E.
The Home Front By WILLIAM E. BOHN Santa Claus and the Atlantic Charter I HAVE always beam in favor af Christmas. Against ail acreages aad cynics I have stoutly dofended it What they aare aad te...
...2. Twice that evening he dashed wildly swsy from his police escorts, running down the street for blocks "just for exercise...
...Virtually all Michigan ClO leaders are in sympathy with the Detroit Asss...
...Anna Rosenberg, a good choice, might get the spot...
...On that one night in the world's history, stars are supposed to have wandered from their fixed courses to illuminate the humble shepherds and spotlight a chili, born of working-class parents in a stable...
...He eoaid not ssjaainly postyssJg aatil the day after New Yeasr—when we ex*ee*e»JW let down...
...Even in the most fortunate parts of the world, life has remained tough for great populations...
...Whole populations could rise above the tedious level of treadmill existence...
...The odds are that he will...
...It conducts its activities behind barred doors, and it* employees, most of them Russian, reportedly don't mix with other foreign press representatives in the'US...
...We have escape plays, escape novels, escape poetry...
...Watci for shake-ups in the New York Republican and Deaa-cratic parties...
...according to present plans...
...All miner parties were wiped off the ballot in Michigan...
...In an off-the-record session with members of the Foreign Press Association here Elmer Davis disclosed that a postwar effort will be made to shift key OWI writers into the Stste Department, perhaps as Press Attaches to our embassies abroad...
...The deception is on a wider scale and with deeper motivation...
...Washington circles do not believe that President Roosevelt, will appoint a new Secretary of Lsbor although Madame Perkins is renting a New York apartment (how did she get one...
...Not about Santa Claus coming down the chimney...
...The three great powers have been cooperating...
...It has a 85-man staff, by far the largest news organization maintained by any foreign government in the US...
...Thst daring young man who stirred up a breese st the recent off-the-record meeting of msgazine editors with Secretary of State Stettinius and OWI chief Elmer Davis was Time-Fortune's John Davenport...
...Peace oa ferro—reae...
...Dick Seller, pro-Communist organizer for tfet New York Newspaper Guild, is leaving thst jet to become secretary of the new Representative Hugh DeLaey, another pro-Cess at snist leader fresi Washington...
...Then the United Nations Security Council will be sot up—and we shall turn the peace song of the angels into reality...
...Even hypocrisy has its usee, aa Alexander Pope remarked...
...Liquor and honeymoons are two other well-recognised avenues of escape-Only the most cross grained and impossible of persons object to some form of relief from the rigors of living...
...The hoys take care of their own...
...e„t the ornamenu and baying eandlea And he left set a single illusion...
...POLITICS—Norman Thomas polled 78,960 vota for president throughout the nstion...
...Off-the-Record By Robert Clark JUST a column to tell the inside stories of the men who make the big headlines and the big headlines which make the men...
...We a* in tha scene est tougb, isHIiii world, but sew a k better organised aad tha smell and the weak have tea chance than aver...
...We look at them, hear their talk, sympathize with their ambitions—and we just can't stand facing the contrast between what we want for them and what the world really has to offer...
...Frank Gannett, the upper Nee York State publisher who was described last week ia the Senate' as a "fascist," and Cspt...
...His prospects for going abroad have dimmed, especially with President Roosevelt swinging far to the right in his appointments...
...Gorgeously clad kings cross class lines by traveling great distances and bowing down before the low-born babe...
...Incidentally, among the questions NOT answered were two sent up by (lene Lyons and William L. White —who asked whether Lithuania and Poland could submit their disputes with Soviet Russia to the new League which will be set up as a result of the Dumbarton Oaks conference...
...But one day during which we nt least go through the motions of being idealistic—it's something, a tribute to excellence...
...Also, watch for the White House to dump Vice-President Wallace early next year...
...And especially for children...
...DeLaey, who grows indignant warn he is called a Commie, waa one of the top leaders of the anti-British American Peace Mobilization which picketed the White House in pretest against Lend-Lease...
...Eddie Riekeg...
...The great majority have never been able to face the future with a sense of security...
...And of them all, Christmas is the moat widely publicised, the most elaborately organised and moot authoritatively sanctioned...
...It sounded fine, and we believed hi U. We all went to see Daryl Zanuck's Woodrow Wilson...
...The general picture of mankind in this world—toiling, resigned, only momentarily hopeful - has been little changed...
...Boundaries are to be settled in consultation at the peace table...
...Christmas is an escape from realism...
...In the end there is a half hearted promise that next year era shall all be together aad things will be batter...
...The United Auto Workers, CIO, working throngs Reynal and Hitchcock, has set up a book of the-moata club of its own...
...Mayor LaGuardia plans to run again...
...I am still in favor af Christmas...
...An escape for a day is not good enough...
...With the advent of modern technology some far-sighted souls saw the possibility of escape from the eternal round...
...And—with all ear knowledge em erganisation—we are steeling straight toward seats* World War...
...He made it prisis-sty wham we were getu...
...Said Editor and Publisher: "TASS alone, among foreign new* agencies . . . is markedly unwilling to talk about itself...
...1 HAVE a feeling that this year all the proteases are worn tain...
...There are ao secret treaties, we are told...
...With a great wave of spending and giving we try to create a heaven for a day...
...Laat year am ware still under taa snail of tha Atlantic Charter...
...But the weeds lack conviction...
...Station WMCA Will drop Johannes Steel shortly snd replsce him with the CIO's Ray Walsh as news commentator...
...Then Want eM Winston Churchill had te make that •peach last week...
...Look back for a minute over the history of human beings...
...It found that Russia's To** handles more words than all the others put together although the Soviet press doesn't print them...
...Watch for a sudden accouplement move involving Lewis and the AFL...
...Kings la tha Stable In this tough world the story of Bethlehem comes like a breath from paradise...
...It is like want all of us hare bean saying from time to tune against tha observance of Sunday...
...It moves in semi-secrecy toward undisclosed end...
...It is the bad conscience of the adults that decorates the Christmas tree...
...John L. Lewis' daughter Ksthryn wss in New York last week-end...
...Watch for tin same actors who fought against aid to Britain before June 21, 1941, suddenly to set up pro-Elss committee soon...
...After an incredible amount of provocation from tk* foremost labor-baiter in the country, the worker* struck...
...The great majority have been slaves of one sort or another...
...Against ail acreages aad cynics I have stoutly dofended it What they aare aad te say against it is, largely, true...
...Some of the fear of Wallace, now rampant in official Administration circles, springs from his madcap series of "escspes" he made from the NYC police who were assigned to guard him the night of the Liberal Party Madison Square Garden rally last Nov...
...What I am gettiai at is thst it is about time to give the children sooacaaiB| reel...
...We all know that for most folks, living is a tough business...
...A half Isnsn Betas nations are being told right as* that they had better tabs what they get—or eiea sV secret treaties af 1»U leek rather innocent...
...It is a dream-fulfillment of the millions weary of the ways of this old world...
...There are the agreements of Moscow, Cairo and Teheran...
...The tottering Trotskyites have tat ssme position on the British-Greece situation ss the Stslinites...
...Nomas Vincent Peale's new church paper Guideposts...
...We have never yet learned how to live on this strsnge, half-cooled bullet which we call the world...
...Ne assskc what gaily wrapped presents they now receive whs ecstatic exclamations, tha chief gift which the •Ida-generation bands on to them is war...
...For ten minutes he shouted for the right to ask questions from the floor instead of submitting them on slips of paper for selection and editing by State Department advisers...
...So the CIO's United Electrical Workers snd the tiny but noisy Federation of Architects, Engineers, Chemists and Technicians have applied to the Federal Communications Commission for FM broadcasting ststion permits...
...Ever against the time when this season comes, all adults enter into a plot to fool the children...
...Here is what the Daily Worker said December 1*> "Samuel Wolchok, President of . the Reteil sni Wholesale Workers, in sanctioning a strike st th» Detroit Montgomery Ward Plant and the appsrew plans for a new Chicago Ward strike, is providing th* complementary provocation from the union side...
...Both the physical universe and the social structure are stood on their heads for that one sacred night...
...Even the animals are touched and glorified...
...And there has always been the conflict between the morals preached in schools and sermons and books and those practiced in what we call "real" life...
...Daily Worker Scab/ , FrOM Arnold Beichmsn's December 13 dispstch » PM from Detroit: "What would you do, as a union member, sfter watching Lee Avery for four years defy the Wsr Lsbw Board, defy the National Labor Relations Board, defy the U. S. Supreme Court, defy the White House^defr the vote of his workers, defy the no-strike pledge whs* affects industry as well aa labor—what would you • as you watched Avery's systematic campaign to under* mine the rights of working-people to organize into unions of their own choosing...
...backer, are on the editorial board of Rev...
...J. B. S. Hardman, who left Sidney Hillman's Amalgamated Clothing Workers during the campaign, plans to publish a monthly magazine...
...Only one word fits: SCAB...
...Texas' Senator Pappy Lee O'Daniel is planning to seal hill-billy bands through the country, preparatory to his campaign to boom himself for president...
...of Catholic Trade Unionists' campaign to clean the Communists out of the Political Action Committee...
...Undernesth all the smooth pretenses goes on a fight for wealth and place that is barely above the animal level...
...The Gradgrind who goes back to exploitation early Monday morning is a legitimate object of derision...
...This is what we face an Christmas, 1*44 Them eh*, drew whom we are trying to make happy for s say will just shout be ready far World War III...
...As if that were not bad enough, we have had—and still have— wars to add pain and violent death to the monotony which forms the staple of peace...
...PRESS—Bill White's article on Russia has provoked thoussnds of letters to the Reader* Digest—and they are three to one in his favor...
...In the economic struggle as well as in war, existence ia on a strictly survival basis...
...For weeks at a time we unite in an effort to make the children think the world is a One place where dreams come true...
...Commie unions hsve discovered the potential power of frequency modulation broadcasting— which after the war will compete with the present key band on your radio...
...That is a pretense easily seen through and carried on only through good-natured humoring of fond parents by, their sophisticated offspring...
...Also, New York Communist CIO leaders hsve joined with the Communist International Workers Order in organizing the People's Radio Association which, in turn, has aaked for an FM permit...
...All of the United Nations had signed a statement about security, dwelling in panes, no aggrandisement...
...So we try desperately for one day to pretend that life aa now lived is good enough for them...
...An I'M station can be built for as low as $54,000 and in ten years will reach millions...
...Great Britain and laasia have etae* aa a good part af the world Into spheres of iniaasaj...
...We sing—or Judy Garland does: "Well gat ourselves a nice Christmas...
...But thus far our success has been limited to a few happy lands and certain fortunate groups...
...Perkins doe* go, Mrs...
...Recently Editor and Publisher, the newspaper trade magazine, polled all foreign news agencies in the US in search of information on their operations...
...The great majority still occupy positions little above that of slaves or serfs...
...This newspapermen's division would be an sutonomous group inside the Dept...
...One day out of seven devoted to the higher things af life ia not goad enough...
...If Mrs...
...Most of us had the notion that things are going much better now than they did in 1918...
...As far as our purses and our bank balances permit, we try to make dreams come true...
Vol. 27 • December 1944 • No. 52
