The Home Front
BOHN, WILLIAM E.
The Home Front By WILLIAM E. BOHN A Certaia Wit* Liberol WHAT is s liberal? Well, William Allen While was,, ™ one. If we can get » picture of this man, it may serve in place of a definition....
...Sumner Welles is doing a book on American foreign policy to be published by Harpers...
...Their aim...
...He idolized Lincoln rather than John Brown At some moment in his boyhood he must have derided that thinking is better than shooting...
...In 1922 they had a railway strike out there...
...And the distinctive mark of the man ia that he did think—and did change—right down to the end of his life...
...His stress on reasonableness grew out of life in Kansas...
...The Liberal and the Socialists WRITING in his town of 13,000 inhabitants and for his paper with 7,000 thousand readers, Bill White had, first and last, a lot to say about socialism...
...His social theory was soft and pudgy...
...In 1920 he wrote: "This is a funny country—not exactly Pharisaical, hut object blind...
...tut He Did Float BUT when the socialist assemblymen were thrown out of the New York legislature in 1920...
...The Monopoly State 1 IKRF...
...Instantly a placard went up hi his own window—and he dared the court to arrest bha...
...Editor White went red...
...He wes arrested...
...Delegations are divided in three parts, government representatives, employer representatives and union representatives...
...His earliest editorials were in support of McKinley, the very symbol and picture of conservatism...
...But that doesn't matter...
...All the political eggs of the party have been placed in the Teheran basket...
...If the results are satisfactory, the pressure for a national service act may relax...
...Whoop it up for the ragged trousers...
...the smaller firms say no...
...we are running that old jay for governor...
...is a footnote to the article by Daniel Bell os " "The Monopoly State...
...The heart of all this mart's thinking was neighborly ness...
...It was nothing in God's world but a smartly put together lot of catch phrases designed to make P'm.i people look silly and richer people look good...
...But if there is freedom, folly will die of Its own poison, and the wisdom will survive...
...Anyway, if this is Real^elitik, I'll have spinach...
...What it does not want to see, whether immoralities, or human nature functioning in the good old-fashioned wsy, or social evils —it simply won't see...
...The sponsors are planning . a JI00 a plate dinner to cover costs...
...Murray, lashing out sharply, stated that the stand taken by the party-line beys was based on Soviet policies, not trade union considerations...
...Perhaps the moral of this business is a piece of good news for Wendell Willkie Some Republicans csn improve...
...Legislate the thriftless man into ease, whack the stuffings out of creditors...
...Kansas never did believe in diversified crops...
...The boy editor sneers: "We have an old moss-back Jacksonian who snorts and howls because there is s bathtub in the state house...
...Also putting on pressure for relesse of the story was s newspsper thst bought the principal account of the atrocities...
...The atrocities took place after the capture of Bataan, nearly two years ago...
...We must be friendly with Russia, says the Post, and the enemies of our friends must be oar enemies If Russia wants sections of Poland, and we interfere, then we will lose Russis's friendship...
...All right...
...There are already Hungarian, Polish, German, and other such committees functioning, with help fom numerous innocent and nottoo-innocent liberals If the Soviet Union sends delegates to the ILO.sessions in Philadelphia, there will be quite a problem...
...He grew up among men wtie had shot the other fellows instead of listening to them...
...The editor of the Emporia Gazette looked soft and pudgy...
...By MURRAY EVERETT Inside and Out Til* line May Change Again HTHE Communist Party line may change again at a * secret plenum of the Central Committee called for next week...
...What was this famous editorial enquiry which set out to answer the question: "What's the Matter With Kansas...
...He liked the ideas of it first rate and thought they were just naturally coming along—would, in fact, come much faster if the fanatical socialists didn't get in their way...
...The CIO leader was highly criticat of President Roosevelt, stating thst the President was willing to sign any anti-labor bill...
...Listen to this: "To deny the right of representation is vastly more unAmerican than the disloyalty of the Socialists...
...Here yeu see the soft and mystic side of liberalism...
...There is an explosion brewing in s number of CIO unions where the top leadership has been putting pressure on lower officials to support the Hillman plan...
...There was an element of blather-skitism about the Populists...
...He started with the theoretical furniture furnished by bis time and place...
...But young White's masterpiece firmly set up the picture of well-dressed snd prosperous capitalists talking the sure good sense that would lead to universal wealth and ease...
...MiscaHaay 1*HE Post-Office hss withdrawn its ban on the sur¦ realist art and literary magazine View...
...Mark Hanna and William McKinley, who remained unmentioned, were established as fountains of wisdom...
...The twenty-eight-ycarold writer threw all his talent into the effort to make them look foolish...
...Russia is going te take what she wants anyway, the News ssys, so why should we mix in...
...Like the drunk, Mr...
...up with another version of power-politics...
...Apparently the title is changing from "Yanqui im-' perialism," to "Russky imperialism...
...He was a stand-pat Republican...
...this social somnabulist suddenly came to life...
...In the new struggle between capital and labor he wanted reliance on idea.- rather than guns...
...Now they fear they have overreached themselves . . . the new Jefferson Schorl of Social Science, formed out of a merger of the Workers School and the School for Democracy is having financial troubles...
...Contributions should be sent to Norman Macleod, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland...
...The Big S are for quotas based on pre-war sale, seeking to ireeie their advantages...
...In 1913 he thought like this: "If you were e socialist, wouldn't you . .. chuckle end chuckle...
...Russia, it says, is entitled to some form of Monroe Doctrine for Eastern Europe, and she is entitled to have her way In Poland...
...In 1910 he practically apologized for the editorial that made him famous.' "The editorial was pat," he wrote, "now it is not...
...Every time a Negro was lynched or denied a job or otherwise wronged this man stood up in holy anger and swung with both fists...
...On this analysis young Bill, the future liberal, pours his biting scorn: "That'a the stuff...
...What she really needs is more men "who ran bellow about the crime of '73...
...The Wall Street /otimsf last week reported: / "Cartel talks sre under way ia London and Washington...
...That was during the days of the Kansas Industrial Court...
...It shouldn't worry about being acceptable to the people—only to the Russians...
...But we'vs^ heard the British sre lighting hard to preserve their industrial combines, weald like to see U. S. counterparts (steel, for example) linked together with international sgreesaents...
...About half the socialist platform of 1904 is now on the statute books of one-third of the states, snd much ef it is in the platforms af at least two of great parties____The socialists might a* well go out of business...
...Put the lszy, greasy fizzle who can't pay his debts on the altar...
...The principal reason given for withholding the stories was that publication would interfere with exchanges of internees and prisoners...
...But the fight got hotter...
...That is the writing that made William Allen White famous overnight...
...The Commies are busy organising labor front committees in various foreign-language fields...
...Race War"—la «..-er,e "TPHE Czechoslovak government apparently accepsj Hitler's dictum that this is a race war...
...Commenting1 on the Czech-Spviet treaty, Czech foreign minister Hubert Ripka states: "Hitler's imperialistic program was not merely Sg outcome of Nszi crsvings, but, in a crudely brutal form, expressed the century-old Teutonic urge to enslave the nationa of Central and Eastern EuropSi especially the Slavic nations...
...Derision, a new anti-fascist play coming to Broadway will cause as much excitement as Lifeboat...
...Just about this time Bill White wrote of himself: "What a fine old reactionary was the callow editor ef the Gazette in his twenties...
...An international tariff commission and an international commerce snd trsde rommissioa are mentioned...
...There was a lot of foolishness about the Populists...
...White thought Utopia would come swinging round in time...
...Publication of these stories, including an article by Hoyt in a national magazine, was impending, snd these may have forced the general release...
...The New Republir btbs...
...His father hastened bis migration from Massachusetts through Ohio westward in order to reach the dark-andMoody"r*g'round of Kansas and take his part in the freesoil fight...
...But in the Soviet Union the government is the employer and while the unions are state organs...
...Kansas has been "raising hell and letting the corn go to weeds...
...A fight is also under way in the auto industry between the Big 3—General Motors, Chrysler, and Ford, —against the smaller companies on WPB allotments for civilian output which will start the end of the year...
...On July 87th appeared the free speech declaration thst brought the Pulitser prize*: "You eaa have no wise lews nor free enforcement of wis* laws unless there is free expression of the wisdom of the people—and, alas, their folly with it...
...The CIO Lowoowa rT*HE meeting of the CIO Executive Board, held last * Thursday and Friday, was the stormiest in s long time...
...Max Eastman, and his wife Ileyna Krylenko, the painter, have gone to Guatemala...
...Bill was born in 1888 when the wounds from that feud were still bleeding...
...Inside Washington oaselaldam, there sre quiet meetings...
...The Maryland Quarterly, a new literary magazine, is looking for the verse, criticism and fiction of young writers...
...There are two sides to every question —keep your shirt on—listen to the other guy—things like that...
...The democratic idea has been that if you legislate to make the masses prosperous their prosperity will find its way up through every class...
...His most blistering remarks were reserved for Hsrry Bridges, whom Murray denounced as a "stooge...
...There are those who believe that if you just legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous this prosperity will leak through to those below...
...The New York Pes/ also suggests that Russia be given Eastern Poland, in an editorial even more ingenuous...
...The times had changed a little...
...Give the prosperous man the dickens...
...We don't know for sure...
...Free speech was at stake...
...One part of the thing was good...
...The Industrial Court ordered them taken down...
...It's thst way with classes, and the socialists might ss well quit...
...AlUe la the Polish Wonderlond •THE Daily Sews editorially suggests that Russia be * given parts of Poland because we*shouldn't' give a damn about what happens there...
...It is to our shame that this thing Is done by the Republican Party...
...Here was a fighting issue...
...Editor White was all for conscience and conference and compromise...
...Bryan is quoted: "There are two ideas of government...
...But Washington circles sre now buzzing with the question: why were they released at this particular time...
...TOO Atrocity Headlines •yHE Jap .atrocity stories have stirred every person * in the country...
...Add to Ccmmie fronts a Greek-American Labor Committee wkh headquarters at 253 West 28th Street...
...Bill White had changed a lot...
...Businessmen of Emporia put cards in their windows proclaiming their support of the strikers...
...On the other hand, the military authorities have been worried about a feared apathy on the Pacific campaign...
...The Poles, says the Post furthermore, ought to change their government to make it acceptable to the Russians...
...One of the reasons fur the draft labor act that President Roosevelt gave to CIO's Murray and A PL's William Green wss thst the army demanded it, for the services felt that with victory in the west the production effort would relax and affect the operations In the east The release of these stories now is intended, it is felt, as a trial balloon, to spur production and bond-buying...
...The state has "started in to raise hell and she seems to have had an over-production...
...The Populists were on the rampage with hope of victory putting new fire in their eyes...
...Mark Hanna circulated more than a million copies of this satyrical script as part of the most scurrilously corrupt campaign we have ever bad' in this country...
...No wonder he apologized for it 14 years later...
...Phil Murray, in a white heat, blasted the partyline unionists for their stand on the labor draft, which is in opposition to the official CIO position...
...The dare waa taken...
...That was during the Bryan campaign in 1896...
...Katherine Dunham's show was censored in Boston...
...But the moment civil liberties were touched he would stand up and fight like a bear That's what a liberal is—at least a good liberal...
...But various persons in OWI had been pressing for the release of the stories, including Palmer Hoyt who resigned as domestic director...
Vol. 27 • February 1944 • No. 6
