The Home Front
BOHN, WILLIAM E.
The Home Front By WILLIAM E. BOHN My Double Life I VIBRATE between two live*. Prom Monday to Friday I am bar* in too orBee. From Friday to Monday I am in to* garden. It was not till last week...
...Perhaps our dictators, diplomat* snd genersls should be given frequent vacations for work with, the hoe...
...It's Dlfierenf /¦ the Garden It is not merely that birds and flowers and the smell of freshly turned earth are plessant things...
...They went through my clothes and scrubbed and washed and donned them all...
...But I prefer to quote a passage about how be wss made to feel nt home by the peasants of ? Belgian village...
...By Max Nomad NORMAN ANGELL has produced more than sufficient evidence to prove that the so-called liberals of today, by their defense of Stalin's totalitarianism and imperialism, have betrayed the very essence of all that traditionally liberalism is supposed to stand for...
...From its very inception liberalism was not only a act of lofty, progressive principles professed by good men opposed to political and economic reaction...
...Even the British Libersls found it possible to engage in Jaw-baiting when they believed that this would contribute to the weakening of the influence of the ruling Conservative Party, then headed by Disraeli...
...They gave asa coffee and part of their meager allow sans of food...
...I was reading my Nem Yerker a* th* train slid along from New York toward Delaware, which is the garden state, and slowly I sensed · change coming over my mood...
...Ia those daydreams they refuse to listen to the moans of the millions of political prisoners confined te the "isolators" and the forced labor-camps...
...And no matter how far away may be the people who are being wronged, some sort of report is sure to come seros* The New Leader desk...
...But at that very moment I was reading a press release about the 20,000,000 displaced people of Europe...
...We have ? world full of friendly, kindly, decent peopl...
...Robert Maelver...
...1 had accumulated chow that was sent from home, chicken, pork, corned beef and jam...
...The impulse to share goes all through the year...
...It wss the average home...
...msSSSSm, all th* injustice, all th* shsmslsss cruelty shoots Ms rays ha hero...
...TmIS ia the first et several eosaaaenta on th* extrsordiaary article by Norman Angell hl OOS Anniversary Im« Other comment* w IB So asade hy George ? Shnster...
...I try not to eat at their horns, because we have a kitchen setup and they pot out ? rations now, which include steak and chicken...
...Th* strangs thing is that if I had my garden in Franc* or Germany or Russia or China or— yes—even in Japan...
...man, wife and daughter of fourteen...
...This year spring has been even more than usually agreeable...
...Ia fact the horns and hoof* ef business competition are nowhera in evidence...
...It took me a langish tint* to figure it one...
...Americans in France, Holland, Italy have had the same experience, and the same thing will happen in Germany...
...Now, such explanations may bo sufficient when applied to individual eases...
...Seoaetisnes It somas to m* that all the troubles of the world, all th...
...I should find th* ssano spirit surrounding it This fa) s crude snd primitiv* way of stating the problem which alt our great statesmen have failed to solve...
...Even good old corned beef is a luxury here...
...Trng village has about 30 homos, and if I walk down the street to the chateau people ask mo in for coffee and eats...
...In our days of monopoly capitalism the dissatisfaction engendered by the growing economic insecurity has driven into the anti-capitalist camp many sections of the educated middle and lower middle classes which wer* traditionally liberal In their outlook...
...It seems as if practically everything were in blossom at one...
...At the beginning of the industrial era the verbiage of liberalism served the capitalist bourgeoisie as the moral weapon in its struggle against the feudal, interests and the government machine controlled by them...
...Th* totalitarian features of that system and its imperialist tendencies bold no horrors for the bulk of these modern neo-liberals and would-be bureaucrats...
...Mora than a hundred years tgo the young generation of liberal republican intellectuals of Paris took It for granted that as a reward for th* liberalism of the French the Germans should not oppose their western neighbor's ambitions with regard to th* left bank of the Rhine...
...It Is not merely that people are starving and dying...
...The individualist tradition of their liberalism notwithstanding, these elements saw their interests better served by the eollee-tiviat feature of munieipally-ownod public utilities with their prospect* of permanent employment...
...They stripped me to the weist end washed me in soap and water until I once more resembled a human being...
...Today that anti-capitalist tendency of the middle class liberals has been greetly enhanced by the newly acquired prestige of the Soviet Union...
...A few Ainotas later 1 entered upon the first peaceful and comfortable sleep in agat...
...For, to paraphrase a classical saying of Karl Kautsky's of more than forty years ago, the dissatisfied oppressors and would-be oppressors so* only that form of exploitation of which they themselves have been victims...
...Than I went to bed in a big, soft bed...
...This is no reflection on The Mow Leader office or on the ntem-bers of the eager task fore* which tarns out this paper, iv · Spits ? piquant frankness which 'robs their conversation of any tinge of dullness, this is aa friendly a squad aa you could meet anywhere...
...It was not till last week that I become conscious of th* tog of war between the two...
...I was thinking of th* human qualities which spring in and about a garden...
...I don't ssoaa that the matter was all clear a* that In * minute...
...Gardening, you see, brings oat ths best in us...
...AH the more so as these neo liberali hav* finally realised that the Soviet regime is not the rule of the working class but a system run by and for officeholders, managers and army officers...
...S >onar or later, however, there Is bound to ha a rade awakening...
...Anything which they had "good luck" with they went you to shsrs...
...In Rumania, the Liberal party which waa at th* helm sine* the establishment of th* country's independence, found It compatible with its principles to persecute ths Jews In order to further the development of nn "Aryan" commercial and industrial bourgeoisie...
...That process began a generation ago when Socialist candidates in England often found strong support in "white collar" or "new middle class" constituencies...
...Yet it would seem that ho missed one very important point in his analysis...
...Now he is somewhere fat Germany, and be writes back a vivid latter in which ha explains that credit for the rapid posh through Germany should go to "th* good »te foot sloggers, th* infantry...
...Th*y are as opposite as night snd day, sear* and war...
...The big world of war and international politics is filled with cruelty and devdish intrigue...
...You dig up a piece of soil and instantly the neighbor* tak* a cooperative interest Borne will come through the back fence with seeds of potatoes, beans or squash...
...snd others...
...R*dwc*d to the role of mer* underlings, with no voice in the shaping of the destinies of their country, that lesser nobility, ss ? were, may eventually challenge the unlimited power of Russia's super bureaucratic oligarchy...
...If 1 went into •very house and nte, I'd really put on weight They In a world where so-many people are heating up hate, insist at least, on my taking coffee, which Isn't real, this sounds good to me...
...He failed to supply th* motive...
...But never wws there so much suffering, never so much injustice as now...
...Joe Shipley stuck his head into our office this morning and, seeing th* flowers on our desks, remsrked, "Spring is everywhere...
...Patrick's Day and still others not until May Day...
...Maw So D/ferenf Over Ther...
...I cannot bat tsmpais tka community which surround* the garden with th* world community which is reflected in sll of th* report* which poor int* this office...
...Thoy heated ? brick and put it at my feet, and the mother tucked ass la...
...It was also an "ideology," that is, to use sn old, time-honored definition, a complex of ideas and phraaea serving to veil the real motives snd intentions of a definite social group or class...
...but organised as nation* and ompiros they are destroying on* another...
...Bar son...
...I arrived late, tired, dirty snd cold...
...The little hens* world is full of neighborly htadnsss...
...For after reading hi* article one is almost tempted to think that it ia either mental obtuaen*** or moral depravity of our liberal intellectual* that is responsible for their attitude...
...In th* rush of mor* rlssssrss*) topics I aaghsctod to give any final report on say garden last tall...
...1 cannot recall ever having so msny varieties of birds in th* trees about our place...
...Th* blsthwsss which I leave behind when I »et out for the land of sunshine nod flowers Is not of their making...
...But if a large group of people become impervious to the voice of common sense snd common decency, one is forced to assuss* that they are guided by Intellectual processes arid ethical standards of a special kind: those dictated by what they consciously or subconsciously believe to be their group or their class interest...
...S TAFF SERGEANT MAC STEIN used to work for the Nationalization Aid league here in New York...
...AH through the autumn months WS wore carrying bankets of things to the Mighoers, and they war* proudly bringing gifts to us...
...Msx AscoH, Jarqer...
...Th* New York solcher and the Belgian peasants seem to got on together...
...But these, people feel insulted if I say no, so I sit down and have fried potatoes with on* slice of bread snd butter...
...And not just in formal gardens where we have planted and tended things...
...And there is no reason to hope that it will improve very much ss ? result of the groat allied victories...
...In Poland af a generation ago—when the country wss still under Tsarist rule—the liberal Intelligentsia, beaded by soch outstanding progressiva writers as Niemojewski and Swietochowski, carried on a violent anti-Semitic campaign againat the Polish and Lithuanian Jews engaged in business and in the professions...
...Th* sergeant's mother her* moat have ? warm feeling for that Belgian mother...
...The news of all this pours in...
...The mutual feelings which are engendered are a mor* reliable international bond than all the Secret understandings , Oh Liberalism, How Many Crimes...
...Whan that moment srrives many of our totalitarian "liberals" may be cured of their tragic delusion which shakes them prefer th* tyranny and imperialism of totalitarian eolloctivUm to ths tyranny and imperialism ef monopoly capitalism...
...1 was leaving trouble behind—and before nss was nothing but plea» nre...
...I wonder if you realise how much news you never get We could easily fill a larger paper than ours every week with news about little nations which ar* right now suffering terrible wrongs...
...At the same time it was also used ss a justification for the most ruthless exploitation of the industrial workers...
...But it was not just the loveliness and generosity of natur* which was enlivening my mood as the train hummed along...
...We can publish no more than a fraction of it Even the little that we do print cauaea some to say that we are over pessimistic...
...The picture of what Is happening is realty horrible...
...I naturally called back, "Yes, and I wish we could get more spring into the pages of th* paper...
...This contradiction between the professed lofty idens snd the not so-lofty material interests runa lik* a muddy stream through the history of sll liberal movements...
...Never before ha* there been such an outburst of bloom...
...Government* are being set up that have no shadow of foundation in the people's will...
...All of the kinds of tyranny which w* have ever fought against ar* being perpetrated...
...But everywhere—under the trees, in the Iswn, peeping out from among the shrubs—bits of white and red and blue are bursting out Ton csn pick srmfuls of flowers snd there ar* still as many as before...
...Only hard necessity forced old-time liberalism to make concessions to the principle of government interference for the protection of workers...
...We are winning two great warn, and w* nre glad to be winning them...
...When I brought these things to their table, they wont mad over them...
...Experience is shared in a way which is not at all competitive...
...Russia's present setup is showing an ever deepening cleavage between th* thin upper ernst of top bureaucrats and managera, on the one hand, and the rank and file .office-holders, technicians and ether intellectual workers, on the other...
...The reasons were similar to* those that made for anti-Semitism in Romania even if the arguments used were somewhat different...
...No, there are no complaints about my fellow worker...
...Some things should hs planted on April Fools Day, others on St...
...In their day-dreams the liberal intellectuals of today see themselves no longer as the pushed around flunkeys of an overbearing, ignorant plutocracy, bot as th* full-fledged nobility of a non-capitalist paradise, lording it over the great mass of manual workers and farmers...
...for the loss of India snd other "jewels" in the crown of the Empire, would be too high s priie to pay for the pleasure of consistency...
...From Col am bos, th* elevator man, to our manager, the men and wsmsn hare catch ma up from th* missjsnj of ssy arrival ia a whirlwind of coop** stive work...
...A system, in short, under which their owp crowd constitutes the ruling clsss...
...Others will he gsnsion* with good advice...
...Th* evopn war* bounteous beyond anything which WS anticipated Wa are still thawing oat and eating the vegstsMos which we harvested in Ssptsmbsr and October...
...British liberals never really opposed England's colonial ml*, particularly where colored or non-< . istian peoples wore concerned...
...they are altogether blind to the exploitation and oppression which they themselves impose or would like to impose upon others...
...Then they are bound to realise that their own interests will be best served by a combination of economic planning with the principles of decentralisation and political liberty...
Vol. 28 • April 1945 • No. 15
