NO NEED FOR RETRIBUTION
DALLIN, DAVID J.
No Need for Retribution [THE HIGH COST OF VENGEANCE. By Yreda Lfky. Henry Reyoery Company. 310 pages, $3.50. Reviewed by DAVID J. DALLIN MISS UTLEY HAS RUM THE RISK again and again of...
...Centers then proceeds to find out the occupational composition of these four classes...
...Nor do people in the United States regard their occupational category as in any strict sense defining their social class...
...This claim is based on fact and is one reason why Miss Utley's new book deserves serious attention...
...Maclver it Professor of Sociology at Columbia University...
...Nearly three quarters of all business, profesional, and white collar workers identify themselves with the middle and upper classes [but overwhelmingly with the middle], while> 75 per cent of all manual workers identify themselves with the working and lower classes" [but overwhelmingly with the working class...
...A delightful political anecdote related by Miss Utley is symptomatic of the situation in all Europe: The foreign Minister of San Marino, the story runs, came to Washington to try to get a loan...
...I would be delighted to help the good people of Sen Marino if I could...
...The theoretical equipment of the author falls considerably behind his statistical equipment...
...THE AUTHOR DOES A GOOD JOB tracing the relation between occupational groups and social and political behavior...
...In his Mem Kamp Hitler promised the decimation of certain inferior peoples, especially of Slavs, by brutal methods...
...Princeton University Press...
...He Is the author of "Social Causation...
...The diplomat answered that San Marino was a very small state and a happy one and had no communists...
...Bombing of the civilian population in Dresden and other German cities, mentioned by Miss Utley as an example of war atrocities, certainly destroyed hundreds of thousands of lives...
...2) Only 43 per cent of farm owners and managers voted Republican...
...Yet the number of dead is far smaller than Miss Utley indicates...
...an occupation which has lasted over four years has obviously outlived itself...
...All this criss-crossing is as highly distinctive of present American attitude as is the universal tendency of the higher economic groups to be more conservative and the lower to be more radical...
...The liberal and radical percentages increase continuously as we move down the line, through whitecollar, skilled manual, semi-skilled, and unskilled categories...
...Then he investigates the relation between class identification and political and social attitudes...
...The considerable percentage of communists in the American administration in Germany and their influence upon the policies of the David S. DaUin is the author of many book*, the most recent being "The Rise of Russia in Asia...
...But it also illustrates the weakness of so much of our current socio-psychological research...
...It rises well above the level of the usual research project...
...Instead of reorganizing existing industries, their destruction and the removal of machinery became Allied policy at a time when hundreds of millions of dollars had to be spent in rehabilitating * Germany's economy...
...3) American workers overwhelmingly reject the appellation "lower class...
...he appealed to his friends and followers to liberate themselves from "too humane sentiments...
...We may, however, note that while considerable attention Is given to the Marxian theory of social classes— which, incidentally, should in the author's terminology be celled social strata, not classes —the account Is rather superficial...
...The fact that she was so prophetically right about Japan before Pearl Harbor, about Soviet Russia duriiig the war, and about China afterwards, adds weight to what she has to saj about Germany today...
...Nor do I believe that many innocents have been hung by the Americans in Germany, although American justice was not exemplary...
...AT THE GRAND HOTEL in Nuremberg, taken over by the American authorities, notice has been posted forbidding the entry "of Germans, DP**, dogs " In Allied Headquarters in Raven Miss Utley was not sure whether she had "any right to use the lavatory labeled: 'For the use of English ladies only.'" , The trials of war criminals and others in Germany have not alwnys stayed on the highest level of law and justice...
...Cruelty was frankly proclaimed a necessary measure by the Ftihrer...
...Sometimes the methods of American investigators were cruel...
...Freda Utley visited Germany in the second part of 1948 and made a detailed study of social and political conditions in the U. S., British, French and Soviet zones...
...He does not, for example, give adequate weight to such statistics as these: (1) Only 54 per cent in his "conservative category" voted Republican in 1944, and less than 50 per cent of the small business and professional groups voted Republican...
...Very sorry," said the State Department, "in that case we can't give you a loan...
...IT IS ALSO AN OBVIOUS exaggeration when Miss Utley reports, without giving a source, that 3,000,000 Germans evacuated from the East have died enroute...
...Centers addresses himself in the book before us...
...But he gets into some difficulty when he interprets his statistics...
...This is the kind of question to which Mr...
...People in this country don't much use the expressions "upper" and "lower classes," but they nevertheless make distinctions of class in other terms...
...Then it turned out, from his samples, that from 36 to 43 per cent called themselves "middle class," from 51 to 52 per cent "working class," and from 3 to 4 per cent "upper class...
...Reviewed by R. M. MaclVER FROM CERTAIN SURVEYS made a few years ago it appeared that anywhere from 79 to 88 percent of the people of the United States regarded themselves as belonging to the "middle class," while only about 6 percent called themselves either "upper" or "lower...
...The sequel of this story provides the moral...
...4) Of unskilled manual workers, according to Mr...
...Centers' figures, 20.8 per cent are in the "conservative" category, 20.8 also in the "radical" category, and 39 per cent are "indeterminate...
...The author makes indeed the elementary error of identifying the Marxist bourgeoisie with the "middle class" (page 21...
...General Eisenhower issued an order to the Army in April 1943 which remained in force until 1947, commenting on American ocupation policies: "No steps looking toward the economic rehabilitation of Germany or designed to maintain or strengthen the German economy were to be taken...
...This is an exaggeration which may do harm and obscure the sound intentions of the author...
...Miss Utley has made detailed study of the so-called dismantling of German industry...
...So he worded his primary question as follows: "If you were asked to use one of these four names for your social class, which would you say you belonged to: the middle class, lower class, working class or upper class...
...The story of a military government in r foreign country can never be a pleasant narrative...
...It is not without significance that the average American does not regard the "working class" and the "middle class" as disjunctive categories...
...By occupational categories, as might be expected, large business is heavily conservative, with a minute radical percentage...
...In the first place, he is not satisfied with the surveys in question...
...At the State Department the first question put to him was: How many communists are there in San Marino...
...Centers' question would have been more straightforward had he left out the preliminary clause, "if you were asked," etc...
...I regret it exeedingly," replied Monsieur Bidault...
...She criticizes the so-called denazification and re-educntion of Germans as these activities have been carried out by the various occupation authorities...
...He tends to overstress the identification of economic level with social attitude and political affiliation...
...Centers' figures show that every economic category has a different political complexion from every other, although there is considerable diversity of political attitude within each category...
...Here at the outset there is a difficulty, for "hierarchical" refers to "higher and lower" within a structure, and "higher and lower" always contains a subjective element...
...He begins by distinguishing social class as a subjective fact, baaed on the sense of belonging, and sociaf stratum as a purely objective fact...
...Nor is it true that the German occupation authorities in France behaved better than, the British and Americans in Germany...
...As she observes, re-education was conducted by Nazis in the British zone and by communists in the American zone...
...244 pages...
...After all, it was a war measure and therefore cannot be compared with the calculated systematic annihilation of millions of men, women and children —Poles, Jews, Russians and others— because of their nationality...
...The book would be more convincing had they been eliminated...
...r-Mr...
...By Richard Centers...
...Why are theee exaggerations necessary...
...But unfortunately we canot spare "you a single communist since we need them all for tfce same purpose...
...It seeks to throw light on some fundamental questions and in part succeeds...
...What is significant is the relative proportion in each category that is politically deviant, and of course-it would be revealing to have similar studies over a series of years as a means of measuring changes in political attitudes...
...Military Government are illustrated by startling evidence...
...Mr...
...All this is obvious enough and we hardly need elaborate statistical researches to establish it...
...She compares, for instance, "war atrocities" perpetrated by the Allies, such as deportations of Germans from the East, looting and raping in the Soviet zone, and bad and insufficient food in the West, with Hitler's atrocities...
...We suggest, in passing, that Mr...
...Stratification is taken as the "hierarchically imposed" layers in a society...
...THERE ARE QUITE A FEW SUGGESTIVE, challenging, and questionable things in this significant study...
...Other difficulties follow but we cannot discuss them here...
...Small business is largely conservative, while the professional group contains a sizable liberal and radical element...
...it was contrary to the ideas and morals of the Allies, at least of the Western Allies...
...The negative sides begin to prevail over the essential purpose...
...Reviewed by DAVID J. DALLIN MISS UTLEY HAS RUM THE RISK again and again of presenting facts and views which have been unpopular at the time, but which have been subsequently proved correct...
...When I was in Germany last fall I particularly inquired about the grim story of this exodus.lt was indeed conducted brutally...
...Centers does not do equal justice to both aspects...
...He dwells rather laboriously on an "interest group" theory of social classes but without explaining what an "interest group" is and without drawing any clear conclusions...
...it was preceded, however, by the German bombingtlf the civilian population of Coventry and ether cities of England, Holland, Belgium, Poland and Russia...
...confessions were extracted and mock-trials took pla^e...
...So the Foreign Minister of San Marino went to Paris and said to Monsieur Bidault, the Foreign Minister: "France and San Marino have always been friends, would you do us a favor and lend us a few communists in order that we may get a loan from America...
...What does that mean, in view of the great economic and social disparities obtaining within the eighty or more percent...
...These facts here since been acknowledged by American authorities in Berlin and Washington but they have not been made sufficiently known in this country...
...In her vehement opposition to the policy of vengeance against the people of Germany, Miss Utley is sometimes carried away by her feelings...
...Today the Republic of San Merino has a Communkt-domlnlCM^nyernment.' ^^~v~ The Middle of the Middle Class THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL CLASSES...
Vol. 32 • August 1949 • No. 33
