The Home Front
BOHN, WILLIAM E.
The Home Front WILLIAM E. BOHN Aunt Mattie and the Atomic Bomb IN Hiroahlma the two-billion-dollar bomb may have laid thousands low. In New York it brought thoueand* to their foot, eye* slatting...
...Tha id** of giving »oine th* chance to h* rich by making other* poor would hav* to be given up...
...and Dwlght Mac-donald left, one to "the managerial revolution" and the other to Politics...
...I ions newspaper workers have developed an unusual strike technique...
...The legislators, business leaders, generals, trade union officials, teachers, social service folks, philosophers—they, we loudly agree, are a aorry lot...
...Wall, to far th«r* ia little of newness •bout It...
...The more important the technological advance, the mor* pointed their message...
...Last week th* unions put out · newspaper of their own, the St...
...The great capitalists and politicians, of course, cannot be expected to change th* world...
...All that two billion dollars' worth of science have given them is added stridency...
...San Francisco and Potsdam have not improved on Versailles...
...National sovereignty would have to be fitted into world government...
...Every new invention ha* given u* a new choru* of Voices...
...When we are together at Christmastime, I like to get one of the grandchildren to ask Aunt Mattie about when she was a girl...
...When Park Avenue goes communal, can the revolution be far behind...
...It reported that a 19-storyand penthouse apartment building at Park Avenue and 71st Street had been sold to the tenants on · cooperative basis...
...In New York it brought thoueand* to their foot, eye* slatting from their •ecket* and mouths loud with argument...
...Th* nearly complete destruction of large cities in Germany waa clearly one more stage in th* charitable growth of armaments.' With the atomic bomb, armed charity has reached its complete flowering...
...And well all go on our way—the millions of workers, farmers, housekeepers, common folks of all sort* doing the necessary work, th* scientist* making new invention* and the writers writing their heads off to explain what it's all about...
...It is generally agreed that the real difficulty ie presented by the stupidity and conservatism of the workera...
...Morals would hav* to com* somewhere near those advocated by the leaders of all th* gloat religious...
...The workers accepted this idea but objected to the relatively high salary that had been suggested for the director...
...A cryptic notic* appeared In the real estate section of last Sunday's NY Time...
...She is so tiny that you could fick h*r up and carry her away, but her •harp, btrdlike eye* spy every speck of dust With quick, deft motions, not unlike those of a wren, she keep* h*r aeajsa In auch order that it sets the standard for her relatives...
...Why not •end a delegation to the Russian Consulate in Paris and find out how similar questions were handled in th* "fatherland of the proletariat...
...Among them they couldn't produce an atom of uranium 235 or of social sense...
...eJleand jon ?ke J?ejjt Ry ROMRT TOWNS!ND, JR...
...I think our best answer to anyone who doubts this is that we did not start the war, and if they don't like the way we ended It, to remember who started it...
...Ever sine* gunpowder replaced the bow and arrow, it has been argued that the new weapons of death, being more efficient, will save lives...
...Qaofofion Mark* Called for 1 COULD All this column with the name* of literary Cassandra...
...Aunt Mattie in very fond of the birds, and I should have mentioned that she has a tiny rose garden in her backyard...
...That, you see, is wheie the trouble lies...
...Statement by Major General Leslie R. Groves, commanding officer of th* Manhattan project, which developed the atomic bomb...
...During the past week I have sat in on two or three Inquests over th* remains of this dead duck which we call the human race...
...A new novel by Erich Maria Remarque, author of All Quiet On tht Wettern Front, will appear In September...
...The strike started when the publishers of the Po*t-?i*pateh, (ilobe-Democrat, and Star-Time* decided to regard the carriers as "independent merchant*" and on that ground rejected collective bargaining...
...A minority of three members of the SWP national committee, Albert Goldman, Felix Morrow and r. Williams, have issued a statement full of reference to Bolshevik strategy and Bernsteinian revisionism, but concluding with an appeal for unity of the two groups...
...Up to recently this inspiring thought would have ended such a symposium...
...We may have a new Geneva agreement that the atomic bomb will not ba used in futur* wars—a* poison gaa was not used in World War II...
...They perform all the endlessly repetitive tasks which together make up life...
...My guess is that nothing lik* this will happen—or that it will happen so slowly that the eyes of those watching on the ramparts will grow waary with waiting...
...She lived on a great farm down in Delaware...
...She herself took part in spinning, weaving, candle and soap-making...
...Eleanor Roosevelt's forthcoming // You A»k Me Is a compilation of columns from a mtmthly department of the same name that she has conducted for the L?diet' Home Journal...
...Atomic Logic...
...Auto da Fi . . The hook catalogue of International Publishers, printed befor* the recent somersault of the Communist International, gives prominent place to Earl Browdcr's forthcoming American Marx fit and (he War: Ten Yean of Struggle for a Foreign Policy...
...The technicians proposed that a director be elected with authority to run the factory...
...Hook Noten...
...St...
...The chemists and physicist* go leaping ahead like the hare while government and education come limping along like the tortoise...
...Th* application af multiplying mechanical energy to tha task* of life adds to their comfort, and they are thankful...
...Dorothy Thompson or somebody said that we shall hav* a new world or non...
...She will never stop until her last breath...
...But technology has marched on...
...We suggest that the Major General's next project be a study of th* non **, quitu r. • Irving Salert, National Field Director of th* Jewish Labor Committeer, has named Miss Pattie Rills, Mis* Ann Terech, and George 7. Delaplane, a* regional directors to expand th* Committee's work In combating anti-Semitism and totalitarianism...
...To us it has epochal significance...
...So they hav* never accepted the ideas of the earnest and slightly inebriated debaters...
...This greatest show of all, the world, must go on...
...Of course*, nobody who is there knows anything about any science...
...Park Avenue Revolution...
...They are the biological basis of civilization...
...She has reared her children and tended her house...
...Aunt Mattie has lived through three great wars and haa had relatives in all of them...
...Everybody, including young children, worked from before day light to after dark every day of the year...
...She will reach her 88th birthday on a day not very far along on the calendar...
...It is a fascinating tale...
...She haa seen the introduction of electric light*, telephones, Ironclad war vessels, th* automobile, the air-plan*, the radio and, finally, the utilisation of atomic energy...
...Th* latest issue of Labor Action, organ of the official Trotsky ist Socialist Workers' Party, reveals the first overt sign of a move to unite the SWP and the Workers Party, oppositionist Trutskyites led by Max Schactman...
...But that restrains them not at all...
...Onward...
...From th* time of Jeremiah they hav* been shouting their warning* at mankind...
...Loui* Daily New: 100,000 copies were sold in an hour...
...She refuse* to get excited...
...Slnker» in HllMness...
...But the plot -11 in in a ? ? that accompanies the announcement indicates that Hollywood has left Its mark on this ex-German writer fwho expects to become *n American citizen this yesr...
...After a few hours the delegation returned, in a somewhat perturbed state...
...Sumner Welles will write an introduction . . . The Germern Talk* Hack, by Heinrich Hauser, i* a strange feat for an American publisher...
...This move seems to be associated with a growing reaction to the dictuma of infallibility and self-worship fostered by James P. Cannon and Joseph Hansen, majority leaders of the SWP...
...Every boy or gal, in every tin t of dialectical dialect, comes up shouting exactly what he has said from the atari...
...In th* course of time atomic energy will be applied to industrial purposes, altering relations about as much—let ua say—a* th* internal combustion engine...
...She I* th* only person in the world who •cold* m*, and there i« nothing like a good scolding to make a fellow feel young...
...And now see what a mess thing* •re in...
...On this happy note such of us as can still navigate start for homo, and the light* can b* turned off...
...But now something has been added...
...Excepting for a few tools, everything that the family ate or wore or used was made right there...
...Th* old way* of keeping other* down or pounding them to piece* would have to b* regarded ·· outmoded nonsense...
...At the age of 88 she has not stopped working...
...We always begin with song* of praise Tor science...
...Raymond Clapper, wife of th* Srripps Howard columnist who lost his life while covering the Marshall Islands invasion in l'.M4, will join the staff of Look magazine ?s a contributing editor and member of the editorial board...
...One of the major arguments advanced by Goldman, Morrow and Williams is that the "petty-bourgeois" character of the WP has been practically transformed into something with more proletarian purity since James Burnhan...
...Schacht-man announces that the WP is a little suspicious but none the less willing to be wooed...
...Containing the virulent Prusaianism of a German who has lived in upstate New York a* an enemy alien, the book i* aimed by th* publishers, Henry Holt, t*_ be accepted by the American public a* typical of th* "German mind...
...In * broad sense, all of them have told the truth...
...This was one basis for Major Seversky'* argument for mor* deadly bomb...
...But they know that the basic law is that they must never stop...
...But the world will be new only in the sense that it is new every morning when the sun comes up and the birds sing again...
...She can ? ecall so many inventions...
...Sometime* when we are together, she will say to me: "I have had a good life...
...Chang* runs against their interest...
...After the third round of drinks the mythical great big scientists are ready to do all the work of the world or blow the whole place to smithereens with a test tube full of practically nothing...
...They are of enormous importance...
...They had been informed that in a similar branch of Industry, a Russian director would receive 84 times as much, although the worker in Russia is paid much less than in France...
...Mrs...
...But the workers would be benefited by change—they just haven't the sense to perceive where their interest lies...
...The three dailies of that city have not been published since August 10, when a walkout of the Carriers spread to the Newspaper Guild, the Typographical, Stereotyper* and Mailers Unions...
...Here it is easiest of all to reach the sort of unanimity with which world affairs are now supposed to be run...
...Haw the W*r(*1 6··· ?» 1 WISH all the eager explainers among my friends could meet Aunt Mattie...
...Her father was killed in the Civil War...
...Since that moment over Hiroshima tha somber savers of mankind can proclaim with conviction: "Now they had better listen te me or they will have their silly haads blown off...
...The staid financial editor apparently saw this a* just another business deal...
...The use of atomic energy for good instead of ill would require a reorganization of our whole way of thinking and living...
...When we toy with thoughts of sudden and blinding changes, it is well to think of all the Aunt Matties in the world...
...Seeing no visible sign of the book, we phoned International Publishers to be informed that the book's publication will be indefinitely "delayed...
...A long discussion ensued, until a Communist hit on a brilliant idea...
...Christian Soldiers...
...Th* notion of cooperating with others would hav* to hecom* the regular practice...
...Titled Arch of Triumph, It Is hailed In advancr by publishers Appleton Century as Remarque's finest work...
...Soon after the liberation of France, the Renault automobile factory was nationalized, and the union called a meeting of all workers and technicians...
...Everything was done exactly as it waa in the 18th century or the 17th...
...Before the evening ia ended and the overflowing ash-trays can be emptied, we always get around to the working-class...
...With the American Trotsky ist...
...We have a two-billion-dollar punch-line...
...Men have been thrown out of work or hav* died under crumbling walls—and the changea in government have been totally inadequate...
...Through all the year* she has continued to tend to her own jobs...
...Th* atomic bomb is not an inhuman weapon...
...Then we get round to the fellows who actually run the world...
...But without all the Aunt Matties there would b* no columnists, for there would be no potatoes or corn or anyone to wash the dishes...
...The results of the invent?ra' genius they quietly accept and utilise...
...The diaries of Count ?iano, Mussolini's son-in-law, which recently ran serially In th* NY Timet, will b- published in January by Dnubleday Doran...
...Th* mor* lethal the new weapon, the greater th* danger of the destruction of mankind...
...Every argument I have ever heard in more than 40 years in and about Greenwich Village has suddenly had new life puffed into it by that lethal explosion...
...One bomb dropped on Hiroshima killed 60,000, wounded 100,000 and mad* 200,000 homeless...
...The columnists are very impatient with Aunt Mattie...
...THE Fatherland Replies...
Vol. 28 • September 1945 • No. 36
