THE HOME FRONT
BOHN, WILLIAM E.
The Home Front By WILLIAM E. BOHN First, Second, Third ...N-Class Citizens WHEN some Negro object* to being treated a* a second-class citizen, I am always fascinated by the phrase which he...
...The upturn registered in 1946 is, therefore, good news...
...The Soviet Government is nowhere mentioned, but the Communists are...
...Most of the folks living outside a few big-city centers get in print very inadequate reports of the things which they need most to know...
...Russia and her satellites in an Eastern bloc threaten this country, Britain and our other friends...
...With a vociferous Congress and that many printed palladiums of liberty we should get on very well...
...He outlined our way of life, based on tbo will of the majority...
...And the distinctions may be worth thinking about...
...There are millions of persons without them...
...Nature has decreed that they must be scattered, like earth, water and air, all across the land...
...They, too, art American citizens, third or fourth or nfth class citizens...
...The results sre far front satisfactory...
...The figures which he gives aYe astoninshing...
...If it leads to war the conflict will be in the interest of the best of causes...
...But, he said pointedly, "One of the chief virtures of a democracy...
...Newspapers are not at all controlled by government...
...We shall send experts to help administer aid and to train the Greeks in all the activities which lead to greater political stability and economic production...
...And it might be some comfort to the Negroes to discover that not all of their people would be in the lower groups, and by no means all of those who are called whites would make the upper' grade...
...It seems that the Editor ami PuSlishtr is feeling very happy about an increase in the number of dailies...
...We are not going into Greece to preserve the status quo or to favor any group or class...
...If you once start to grade the inhabitants of a state or of a town on the basis of any set of standards you can devise, there will lie n< end to the number of classes which you will reveal...
...I realize that papers like Tht New York Time* and The Christian Science Monitor have subscribers in the far reaches of Arkansas and Nevada...
...It is publicly said—not hinted—Jjiat if we do not intervene, Greece, Turkey and eventually other countries will have totalitarian governments forced upon them...
...In the past this country has contributed soldiers to great wars and relief to worldwide want...
...I am told that on Manhattan Island slone—not counting the other boroughs of New York City—there sre printed 17 dailies...
...This may mean a break with our past...
...Am Editorial— A Positive Policy at Last THE President's address before Congress on March 12 may mark the beginning of a new chapter ia American history...
...The Home Front By WILLIAM E. BOHN First, Second, Third ...N-Class Citizens WHEN some Negro object* to being treated a* a second-class citizen, I am always fascinated by the phrase which he uses to describe hia status...
...It would be a pleasant picture...
...But this is a deficiency which can be made up...
...And for the first time it is publicly proclaimed that we should go in to protect these two countries against Communist aggression...
...I am not one of the stultified highbrows who sneer at baseball or at the funnies...
...The steps proposed with regard to our foreign policy are as important as the Monroe Doctrine...
...And Harding's account of the} poverty and simplicity of the New Mexican peasants who had the wonders of scientific medicine brought to thsas was disturbing...
...The education for citizenship furnished by our dailies is ludicrously inadequate...
...It is, moreover, in line with traditional American doctrine and aspiration...
...All of this we muel take in our stride...
...We are going in to preserve and expand the possibilities of democratic developments...
...At is often said, distribution is our problem...
...We shall he accused, of course, of im« perialisin, of capitalistic expansionism...
...But these are the exceptions, the intellectual aristocrats...
...But the economists of business organization...
...It has a decisive bearing on world affairs comparable to the dispatch of millions of troops to participate in two World Wars...
...Each hoy or girl would grow up ia ¦ home where the doings of the United Nations or of Congress are daily discussed and evaluated...
...We Ought to Have—of Least—an Even Chance ThIS thing has been simmering in my mind ever since l read that \» «¦ Leader article by T. Swann Harding on a health service in a single Now Meaice county...
...What has happened in Poland, Yugoslavia, Rumania and Rulgaria js frankly described as coercion...
...There sre 60,000,060 such gadgets in this country...
...These men, who played leading inlet in planning reconversion, admitted that they and other economists made serious mistakes in their analyses of the po*t» war period...
...Think of our hospitals, our academies of medicine, all the miracles which are wrought—and tkta think of these poor souls who have, nothing and know little...
...If the papers were run on a service basis rather than just to make money for their owners, thev would be distributed in some quite different way...
...In 1946 the number had increased to 1,763...
...It may, in the end, make the world's news, some of the world's thinking and, even, some of the world's art available to everyone everywhere...
...0u» new policy of positive democracy offers at least s chance of maintaining peace, ON DEFLATING THE ECONOMISTS • Six of America's top economist...
...But further appeasement of injustice and) coercion would surely lead to war...
...It may mean a supreme effort to create a different and better future...
...Vthat the newspapers have failed to do the radio may succeed in accomplishing...
...Then he continued: "1 helievo it must be the policy of the United Slates to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities and outside pressures...
...I mentioned some time ago—basing my statement on Mortis Ernst—that the newspapers were dying faster than they were being born...
...Jefferson said he would rather have newspapers without a Congress than a Congress without newspapers...
...Two things are notable about the actions which are proposed...
...Very soon we shall have about 5,000 broadcasting stations...
...We have not only officially recognized that this struggle it in progress...
...It is probably the nearest we ever came to national unity...
...A paper that failr to report foreign affairs is not serving its purpose...
...That is, during the year just passed nearly 51 millions of papers were printed, sold and, presumably, read every day...
...And the daily newscasts and commentaries, too, are to be heard everywhere...
...Government forecasting was so badly wrong as to be ah most worthless, Charles Hitch said...
...And in the nature of things—thank God!—these stations cannot be concentrated in New York or Chicago...
...Actually there is no such even distribution of newspapers or of anything else...
...Each citizen could go to the polls duly instructed on the issues...
...Aid it is the system which is controlled which responds most fully to public demand sad which gives the most widely distributed service...
...It is openly stated that we should move into Greece and Turkey to till the vacuum created by the forced withdrawal of Britain...
...We are not interested in maintaining or extending an empire...
...made even worse errors...
...But a lot depends on what happens in Congress...
...There is, of course, the little matter of owning a receiving set...
...The point is important and will appeal to the American people We tra not merely giving charity...
...The radio systems, too, are run to make money...
...we propose to move in with men and funds to participate in it...
...Aa listeners to the radio we all come closest to being first class citizens...
...What ws have, then, is some sections where people resd the same news over and over again until everything swiMs before their eyes and other great sections where they have practically no papers at all...
...We have about one daily paper for every family in the country...
...The trouble is not thst (here is Uck of papers but that there is gross maldistribution, f When yon look at the caehty of the «»•»iIv iouiiials the situaUSM looks worts...
...We have, as I said, 1,763 daily papers...
...The President's proposals, if backed by Congress and by public opinion, will mean that from now on we shall take a positive and principled part in world affairs—if he means what he says...
...No words are minced...
...In 1945, we are told, there were 1,749...
...Both the newspapers and the radio are dependent on the drives of what we call private enterprise...
...The all-time high circulation figure for 1946 was .>0,!»27,M>5...
...In a country where about half the citizens habitually remain away from the polls, we are obviously not all first class...
...I suspect that if we could make a careful evaluation, we should find that the further civilisation has advanced the greater ha* become the distance between, those enjoying the most and those *njoying the least of its benefits...
...I would not want a paper without «it her one...
...Radio systems, again>bora use of naturs of their medium, are, with regard to soaso points, pretty rigidly hold In check...
...In this town the average family reads three or four papers every day...
...met at Harvard and agreed that inflation instead of deflation is the dominant economic problem of the immediate future...
...With the help of the Federal Covers, ¦sent one little section out there had) nurses, clinics and hospitals...
...The difference in the results attained gives food for thought Papers are run to make money without any regard to the service which they render...
...The Government experts admitted they had overestimated the danger of unemployment and underestimated tsf danger of inflation...
...is that its defects are always visible and undei democratic processes can be pointed out and corrected...
...It meant nothing tt all ta others whose homos war* just ever tht) line...
...And we tra doing it, consciously and avowedly, not merely to help this one country, but te bolster freedom wherever it is threatened...
...If they were evenly distributed, every little domestic group could have its own little herald of domestic and world events...
...Already the chains bring the Metropolitan opera and the Philharmonic Orchestra to the isolated farm homes in far places...
...This means that in a formal address to Congress the President of the United States has recognized the worldwide struggle now going on...
...We have embarked on a policy af worldwide support of the things which we have treasured for ourselves at heme...
...The otber day one of the boys handed me a clipping about newspaper circulation...
...The lives of all of us are tied in with things that go on among the nations...
...In filling Britain's former placs the USA will have one great advantage...
...It is emphasized that we shall go into Greece and Turkey with financial and industrial assistance rather than with troops...
...Three were employed by ths Government, three are leading business economists...
...But the more you consider the matter, the more your discontent will increase...
...There are fewer than a dozen journals in this country which fairly cover these two fields, and all of these are in the great metropolitan centers...
...Many persons read more than that...
...Think of it this way...
...Every daily should carry good Washington reports...
...We have behind as the Yalta agreement, the Atlantic Charter and the Charter of the United Nations...
...It will he said, further, that this new and positive foreign policy is a prelude to World War III...
...Most of our people get practically no service...
...The Reach of the Radios 1 HOPE you will read the article by Norbert Muhlen on the present expansion of radio broadcasting (Page 6...
...Anyone looking over the situation is likely to be suffused with a feeling of sweet content...
...This reversed a trend...
...The President specifically critiied the present Greek regime...
...When President Roosevelt talked into the microphone we had as many as 20,000,000 or 2.">,000,000 citizens listening to the same words at the same moment...
...But, owing to the nature of the mechanism through which they serve their public, the distribution of their wares is far more satisfactory...
...It seems like a lot...
...The course which the President has marked out is bold and imaginative...
...The President was boldly explicit...
...And once every family has a set, much will have been done to iron out inequalities in tbis matter of access to news and amusement...
...We hear a lot about the millions going to high school or college, the millions who hava all the gadgets...
...Even if it is Fred Allen oi- Fibber McGee who calls us into a circle which stretches across the continent, it is all to the good...
...We do not hear shout the other millions who hardly get to school at all or whose gadgets are limited to a hoe and a washboard...
...That was) good for ths folks who happened to lit* right there...
...He sketched the Soviet way, based on "terror and oppression, a controlled press and radio, Axed elections and the suppression of personal freedoms...
...We are openly and franhty striving to realize the political and moral objectives of the war against Nazism, W« are not pledged to maintain any partieular government in any country which we support...
...And they make moneylots of money...
...But this is all a dream...
...That ia just about 1/100 of the journals published in the country...
...It is in connection with the enjoyment of the products of this system that we reach the highest degree of egalitarianism which we have yet attained...
Vol. 30 • March 1947 • No. 11
