THE HOME FRONT
BOHN, WILLIAM E.
The Home Front By WILLIAM E. BOHN The Search tor the Right Words THE other night H»rry D. Gideons* wu introducing Brook* Atkinson to an intimate gathering of New Leader folks after a friendly...
...Professor Withers Takes a Fling I WOULD strongly advise readers to turn back to our number of January 4 and read an article by Professor William Withers...
...Down in Washington, where I s*t with 120 founding fathers and mothers of the Americans for Democratic Action, the lack of a soul-satisfying formula or slogan seemed to be sensed on all sides...
...Eugent Lyons, well-known futhor...
...This is, of course, a vulgar caricature of Socialism, but there has been so much of it that it has helped to spoil a fine word...
...Here the liberals—or progressives—¦ lack both program and organization...
...We know as wall as the next one that democratic planning is what intelligent Socialists have always wanted...
...Wallace's services in the last six months has been to divide and weakeu the progressive forces which . . . have been an important counterpoise to reaction...
...2) A mixed economy...
...denied every shred of civil liberty and personal - rights wader Stalinist rule, have eeagfht refuge a ad asylum in free ceemtriesT If Henry Wallace is really sincers in his "striving to advance the four freedoms everywhere in the world," ¦we should be very happy to receive a cable from him—with the information as to when and where he will be ready to begin...
...The Cable to Bevin The cable which The .\V*r Ltadtr dispatched last week to Ernest Bevin, Foreign Minister of Great Britain, made prominent headlines in the press ©f both the United States ami England, and was circulated to all the political circles of the world by the leading wire services...
...Being the possessor of a sharp and erderly mind, Harry took occasion to remark that life would be simpler if we had some sort of principle or formula or slogan in accordance with which we could line people up and determine who is to the left of whom...
...Only a few took a different tack and found different .words...
...3) Basic economic freedoms...
...Unless a man has Wallace's unjon-label apparently he li not a liberal...
...Wallace, are ready to weaken, in their desire to appease Russia at any price, some of-the most precious of our political principles...
...Its program must be practical, experimental, flexible, but—above all—rooted tight in American tradition...
...Nice theory...
...If such persons are Socialists, the surest way to drive Americans away from a progressive movement is to attach to it the name which they bear...
...The editorial pointed out 1) that *one of Mr...
...4) Cooperative enterprise...
...You will recall that the British Fabian Society included Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells...
...Others would take a trip overseas to find their unifying and inspiring picture...
...Bnt when, and where, on what page and em what dates, has Mr...
...The celebrated Manchester Guardian reprinted the cable in its entirety and in the issue of Janury -¦> devoted alsmost two columns of its leading editorial to a discussion >f the international political issues raised therein...
...Wallace er his followers ever pat ia a friendly word for Um great number of Europeans, Russians included, who...
...Obviously democracy is ho constituent part of their sort of Socialism...
...1 stand for civil liberties everywhere...
...As for the position of PM one would think that that journal would l*- the last place for eyebrow-lifting over the use of "Liberals...
...The Home Front By WILLIAM E. BOHN The Search tor the Right Words THE other night H»rry D. Gideons* wu introducing Brook* Atkinson to an intimate gathering of New Leader folks after a friendly dinner...
...European Socialists who are far from simple have had their share in the debasement of the word...
...Alex Boot, trade-union leadsr...
...He spoke half facetiously, but—perhaps unconsciously—he was voicing the long-felt want of American'liberals...
...Wallace denies (as he does* ea every second Tuesday of January and Jane) that he is a defender of Stalinist imperialism or appressioa —"I have repeatedly staled that I am against all imperialism, Russiaa, British er American...
...He Impugned the integrity of the signers, who seemed t<i him very "curious...
...We want a better life for the people of this country—all of them...
...In Britain all the dailies featured dispatches from their overseas correspondents...
...We know what we want...
...When he gets down to business he suggests six concepts as the basis of a new social economics...
...But his first call is to economic theorists...
...The point la that a man may be a 'conservative* or i 'radical* in his political theory, b»t when he takes a stand in behalf of peoples' liberties he is championing a I Hit i*l ideal...
...Here they are: (1) The national budget...
...But there Is a very good reason why It is inadvisable to'call this line of thinking Socialism...
...Karl Brandt, Stanford University...
...And we believe that we ran achieve that better life by democratic planning...
...Some weeks ago we published a statement by Kurt Schumacher which has not attracted the attention which it deserved...
...When speakers sought words in which to define our objective they almost stammered in their embarrassment...
...According to their simple minds, we now have capitalism—in time we will decide to have Socialism—and then everything will be OK...
...He wants men who ran produce "a new economic philosophy that would be as captivating as Marxism ever was when emotionalized as a method of emancipating the masses...
...5) The optimum rate of capital accumulation in a planned economy...
...It must, of course, have a different name...
...Probably Professor Withers would include novelists, playwrights and pamphleteers who could reach the miOionfold public ear...
...Though its basic thinkers were scientists and social workers, it was well provided with populariier...
...Professor Withers is hot about all this, but he is an economist and writes like one...
...In New York and Washington there were long news stories reporting the statement of support on the part of more than 7(1 Americans in public life...
...Even The New Leader Has Troubles "YoU see the difficulty...
...The men to whom he lefers in his article are other economists, Alvin Hansen, Abba Lerner and Sir William Beveridge...
...3) that "the worst of some friends of Russia is that they claim a monopoly of goodwill and will not see that most of the difficulty in getting on with Russia is of her making...
...What he said was to the effect that Marx was not the exclusive founder of the movement, that Socialism is more than an embodiment of the theory of the class-struggle, that it is the heir of the civilization of Europe, that it includes the results of the American and French revolutions as well as of the later class conflicts—that, in short, real Socialism means freedom as well as social control, planning, economic security...
...Taken at ita best I.emer's editorial evaded the issue...
...lerner are the groat American friends of the Stab* regime, fa* New hemitr denies that this m oaaepstible with being 1) a friend of the R assies people, J) a chasapion of civil liberties, 1) an extender of four freedoms (er even eae), and 4) a teeahM sad intelligent Igkter for Among the additional signers of the Cable to Bevin, William Withers, professor of economics, Queens College...
...The Guardian (its reputation for liberalism is world-wide) commented: "The message which an important group of American IJberahs has sent to Mr...
...As f»r is PM is concerned liberals are li berth when the front includes Communists and fellow-travelers — they become "liberals" when it excludes them...
...It If a terrific task that is proposed: to devise the outline of a mixed, pragmatic, experimental economy that will be as appeallstg as the "emotionalised" Marxism of ai earlier time...
...Ptrtt of all, the Communists did a job on it Their USSR is said to be a Union of Soviet Socialist Republics—and it is the opposite of all that we want And plenty of honest and innocent Socialists have helped to bring the word into disrepute...
...Kevin is encouraging as a sign that Mr...
...Henry Wallace's crate anachronistic views about the 'Imperialism' of the British I-ahor Government are not universally shared amoag American progressives...
...The New York Times carried editorial comment...
...But we dont believe in that sort of word magic...
...6) Socialised decentralization...
...The professor's contention is that we on the liberal side need thought • right now more than we need organization...
...Henry Wallace put himself on record against Soviet imperialism ia Europe—ia Yageslana, say, er anywhere in the Balkans...
...It would be unjust to the Socialists of Europe not to set down that Ix'-on Blum and his friends in France and Kurt'S.chumachei' and his crowd in Germany are magnificently representing Socialism as it was understood from the beginning by its greatest sponsors...
...They would say: "Look, what we need is a new New Deal, a New Deal brought up to date, planned, systematized, given the drive of a great ideal...
...If we were Single Taxers or old-fashioned Utopian Socialists or Social Creditors or anything else of that sort, we could say simply to the blunderers in the seats of power: "Adopt our scheme, use our words—and straightway everything will be wonderful...
...It Is because the beautiful word Socialit m has been irretrievably bltched-up...
...Looking to the country from which we cut ourselves off in 1776, numbers of the conferees said something like this: "What we need is an American counterpart of the British Labor Party...
...Whea have Mr...
...Whether it can be dona—even whether say considerable body of American InteUectaals will think it worth doing—remain* to be seen...
...To this end he advocates the founding of a Fabian Society...
...Henry Wallace's attack in selfdefence was a typical instance of double-talk...
...Some of them went back to pick up the New Deal...
...We are up against it every day of the year right here in The New Leader office...
...Wallace and Mr...
...For Max Lerner the cable consisted of '•mumbo-jnmbo on the left-right.'' There was the usual profession of libertarian ideals and democratic socialism, which are hollow enough Lernerism—but appearing these dsyf in the pages of PM which has been printing Ralph Ingersoll's paesn to Poland "the New kind »f State," it is enough to choke a liberty-loving reader...
...They would outline oar purpose—to combine social and economic planning with freedom, to control production through political power without sacrificing the Bill of Bights...
...In general, the participants in the discussion used three methods in their effort to escape from their difficulty...
...What are Americans to think of the majority of Socialists in France and'Italy who are hastening to throw themselves into the arms of the Communists...
...We criticize the President, Congress, the labor unions, the National Association of Manufacturers, but we have no allinclusive plan to suggest that would set everything right with one stroke...
...Not just social security, health *ervice, housing, education, minimum wages, full employment—hut all of these knit together and made meaningful by a general social purpose...
...And then, half fearfully, they would say: ' What we want is democratic Socialism, Socialism without dictatorship...
...2) there is a curious conspiracy of silence on the part of the Waltace-Zilliacus axis "about the Russian attitude to political and personal freedom" — "the signatories of the cable to Mr...
...BevM are not far wrong, therefore, in thinking that the '"rebels" like Mr...
...Correspondents keep telling us that our policies are not definite enough...
...Tha attack on The New Leader's cable, Ernest Bevin, and the many signers of the message came from 1) the Communists, 2) Henry Wallace, 8) the Wallace fellow-travelers like Max Lerner of I'M...
...John LaFarge, editor af "America...
...Americans don't want a class party with a class name...
Vol. 30 • February 1947 • No. 5
