LETTERS
LETTERS The Mainsprings of Intolerance From ALFHONSE F. X. CALABRESE To the Editor: IT was indeed gratifying to read Dr. Bohn's column of January 4, entitled "A Time I for Common Sense." It is...
...They were carrying bolts of heavy cloth over their shoulders, and my interpreter explained they were probably some of those who go out to factories in the smaller cities to buy cloth and bring it to the capital for un rationed sale at black-market prices...
...Then they expect the opposition to lose even its nominal toehold tn the government...
...As my Polish friend and I walked on, he explained that it is the same whenever he returns from abroad...
...Russia's hand is not as obvious in Poland as mfght be expected...
...But they are . not so obvious as their fellows In ' Vienna and Berlin, nor aa boisterous as GI's in any American-occupied area...
...It mans at least ten Houses of Hospitality throughout the nation and four or five communal j>r cooperative farms (the nearest being at Easton, Pa...
...It has been previously stated, and rightly so, that Catholicism, if practiced without qualifications by a small majority of Catholics, would make Communism look pale...
...It is strongly reminiscent of the KKK brand of "Knownothingism," when an editor of a liberal periodical cannot quote a papal document without heaping upon himself the opprobrium of individuals who refer to themselves as liberals...
...As in Nazi Germany, informed people talk of concentration camps in Poland like the old Nazi ones there...
...If I had any optimism that the 1946 referendum represented the people's voice, it vanished in Poland...
...It is but another example, if one need be cited, of a consistent and truly liberal policy of The New Leader staff...
...When my friend asked him whether he did not like conditions, then, he became suspicious and looked at the grey sky...
...No one gives it more credence than would be expected when the...
...Otherwise I could not want to live...
...Of course, you couldn't tell him anything that would pierce his hopelessness...
...One sees a few, Russian soldiers...
...a lot about Molotov in the papers and guess at what the other representatives must have said to inspire hit remarks...
...I am sure that if any readers are interested in the workings of these labor schools, Father Carey will be more than happy to show them around...
...But after the referendum ballots were in, the police seized the ballot boxes, in alleged fear that they would otherwise be taken by "bandits" and took the boxes to Communist headquarters, with the result that a strong government majority was announced in the community...
...The nearest .o The New Leader office is just down .he block, in the college of St...
...They had been torn and resewn, and he said never before nor during the war had he worn such bad shoes...
...He struck up a conversation with the man to get a typical "manin-the-street" view...
...Personnel of the CW is comprised of young men and women who have left the security of their homes and jobs to work among the poor...
...They have started an underground newspaper...
...People press him as to whether the West will make war...
...It is my opinion that The New header Is one of theXbest, if not the best, liberal weekly in the United States...
...Many Poles fear the nation will become 100 percent Sovietized...
...It has nothing sensational by Western standards but it is made readable simply because it prints news of out' side developments which the Polish papers do not print...
...1 love Poland," he explained...
...Others say it is worse...
...as ft records jihe sane and .sober...
...In one small community near Warsaw, for example, it was well-known that almost everyone was for the Peasant party opposition...
...Report from Poland: Where Reactionaries Are Liberal By Walt Racine Warsaw...
...There is a common recognition that many Russians wear Polish uniforms, but the Poles seem to have considerable confidence that the army is more and more being turned over to Polish control...
...The reference was of course to political prisoners...
...Other movements that these people could look into would take too long to mention and describe...
...Communists, who control all four government parties, counted the votes...
...It will undoubtedly remain so as long...
...It is especially gratifying when contrasted to the policies of the many pseudo-liberal periodical* which spew hatred, hurl vituperations and invectives, paradoxically enough, all in the name of tolerance...
...It will overcome the present situation and things will get better...
...The Eastern control comes through the well-known indirect pressure...
...A visit to Friendship House at 135th Street in Harlem, where an entire force of white and colored Catholics work and live to bring justice and comfort to the Negro, will demonstrate this...
...With another acquaintance, who la actually for the opposition, I met an official in one Government Ministry...
...The Poles fear that, if Western governments do not intervene effectively, these results will be repeated in the January elections...
...He listened with more wistfulness than interest...
...THREE figures caught our eye on the grey, chilly 'street In the heart of ruined Warsaw—a man and two women with cloths tied over their heads...
...The Catholic Worker movement is another example of the action taken by Cstholic individuals to put into practice the teachings of the Pope...
...His son was earning 250 slotys a day in a job cleaning up Warsaw— which is $2.50 officially but only about 50 cents at black-market exchange, which more closely represents purchasing power...
...The secret police*arrested this teacher, bent him, held him a few days and finally released him...
...Many want war, so as to get out of Communist control, snd so come to expect it...
...When we left, my friend lcan6d over and said with a meaningful grim #"He'i a secret reactionary too...
...The remaining breweries today were small and they would* not expand, for sizable industries are taken over by the government...
...Others with similar backgrounds, said the friend, are arrested and simply disappear.• • • PoLES who resisted the Nazis begin to fit into the old pattern...
...An attorney asked an American girl whether she thought there would ,be war, and when she said no, he expressed surprise...
...Even an apologist who naively accepted the official line quieted down suddenly when talking to me in a public restaurant because he said the man at the next table was straining to listen...
...The Polet explain thai their women would lose faee to go with Russian...
...PoLES disagree about the situation under this Government...
...Francis Xavier...
...It would be ludicrous were it not so tragic that he be accused of secret alliances with the papacy or desertion to the Papist forces...
...Other conversations led me to believe that the unwilling street salesman had demonstrated the outstanding ingredients of Poland aa it was two-odd years after "liberation"—extreme nationalism, bitterness about Russia and Communism, despair, and a vague hopefulness that the West will do "something...
...The Friendship House movement is another work engaged in by Catholics...
...observation, of such, trustworthy individuals as now comprise the editorial4 staff...
...I believe in the Polish spirit," he went on...
...I rode past a prison in central Warsaw and was told it is more filled than during the brutal Nazi occupation...
...Jobless, all this father could do, he said, was try to make ends meet by this petty trade...
...They usually walk In-pairs, quietly, They do not speak often with the populace, and they are rsrelyipen with Polish girls...
...The existence of Catholic labor schools, where men regardless of race, color or creed are trained for and fitted to better underitand their uniqps and to actively participate in its activities, are ample proof...
...For proof of this we need only turn to the encyclicals of Leo XIII, chief among them "The Chief Duties of Christians as Citizens," "On Civil Jovernment," "On Human Liberty," and the classic document, "On the Condition of Labor...
...Indeed, so close are these objectives that the only political platform which comes anywhere near duplicating the program set down in the papal documents is the platform of the Liberal Party...
...But soon he was confidential again, and he was putting a question to me...
...The Church has not limited its observations to a mere documentation of the facts...
...So Communist "democracy" has attained'such popularity in Poland that those who believe In government of the people lake pride In epithets like "reactionary...
...The man explained he had worked in a brewery before the war, but it had been bombed...
...This school is directed by the •nergetlc and capable Jesuit, Father Philip Carey, S.J...
...The Catholic Trade Unionists, The Young Christian Workers, and The Catholic Rural Life Program are just a few of the various movement now in operation...
...He displayed his footwear to us, which he described sarcastically as "democratic shoes," in bitter reference to the way the word "democracy" is used in Poland...
...There are about ten such schools in Vew York and Brooklyn...
...More people note that there is...
...Brooklyn...
...If only these grossly misinformed individuals would take the time and energy to examine some of the papal documents, they will, if they are intellectually honest with themselves, see how close are the objectives of Catholicism and the Social Democrats in the social sphere...
...He sees you are a foreigner and he asks what you feel the outside world will do to rescue Poland," said my interpreter...
...It is in the interracial line...
...She has acted, and in a most energetic manner...
...As Is usually the case, the intolerance springs from a prejudiced opinion and misinformation...
...Sometimes the Poles listen to foreign broadcasts to keep up with what is really going on...
...Certainly, the social teachings of such Catholics as Belloc, Chesterton, Penty, Berdeav, Mounnier, Peguy, Bloy, McNab and Gill, Just to mention a few, does make Communism appear rather pale...
...Like the man wo talked to in the street, they are cagey in criticizing, loosen up slowly in expressing opposition, until they are sure you can be trusted...
...No, it's starting to rain," he replied...
...A thoroughly reliable friend who survived the insurrection told of an acquaintance who had been in the anti-Nazi resistance...
...A teacher, he was a democrat in the Western sense and tried to maintain independence of thought...
...Some say it is "just like under the Nazis...
Vol. 30 • January 1947 • No. 4
