ADA THREE YEARS LATER

...Trail" is really Project No...

...Vian said "Sullivan" was an unknown Negro writer...

...Second, since ADA has frankly declared its solidarity with progressive forces abroad like.the British Labor party, which are clearly oriented awav from obsolete economic and political ideas, is it not also obligated to begin exploring the possibility of creating an American variant of those forces...

...f * a • A French author, Boris Vian, recently "passed" as an American Negro by publishing in France three books by a "Vernon Sullivan" which he said he had translated from English...

...ADA'S LACK OF intellectual leadership— which is what its programmatic failings come down to—is paralleled by ;in overweening concern lor what is fashionably termed, by liberals, "practical politics...

...Phil Hamburger is doing a New Yorker profile of Oscar Hammerstein...

...The first omission: One of these controls, the most severe in fact, was lifted on January 1. Previously workers engaged in agriculture and coal-mining, although they could move freely between Jobs in their particular industries, were not allowed to seek employment outside them without the permission of the Ministry of Labor...

...And, of course, so is the South, where •ADA scarcely exists...

...Although this insurgent spirit is not always evident, the second convention echoed Wyatt's sentiments when it said that it would be "guided," in its choice of any candidate for office, "by his over-all position regardless oj party...

...In practice, in states where ADA is strong its members arc a power in the Democratic organization, and ADA is rendered superfluous...

...but hv 1949 this phrase was deleted from the official program...

...but today, when democratic unionism is seriously threatened from within—and not by Communists—no ADA plank exists to express this idea...

...The past twetve months have witnessed a succession of shattering events: the Atlantic Pact, the Berlin blockade, the satellite purges, the spread of Titoism, the decision to manufacture the H-bomb, the announcement that Russia possesses the A-bomb, the war in In<*o-Ch;na...

...inflation...

...We should be prepared to work with any regime that fosters such a program [of land and other economic reforms] and at t!ie sam.: time represents a truly independent China...

...Trail is a little town in British Columbia, 15 miles over the border frommthe U.S...

...American liberalism was approaching its nadir when these forces combined to bring about its recrudescence...

...The Wall Street Journal "condensed" the article, first printed in Labor and Industry In Britain, by omitting two key sentences...

...In one Midwestern state, a high official who was only too glad to receive ADA backing in 1948 has served notice that its endorsement this year will be a liability...

...but fraught with grave dangers, when examined in perspective...

...And...

...e., it must try to influence the selection of candidates in primaries and campaign for them in elections...

...Should it remain a Democratic front or dissolve into the Democratic party...

...What can labor achieve through ADA that it cannot get by working directly (as it is doing, in any case) with the Democrats...

...from that part of the article which talked about the continuation of Britain's wartime powers of direction of labor, the Wall Street Journal "condensation" omitted this sentence: During the past 15 months not a single worker has been directed...

...Now, three short but crucial years later, ADA is recognized here and abroad as the organized expression of contemporary American liberalism...

...for ADA—though an insurgent element—sprang from the government party and has been careful to remain, in a literal sense, only a loyal opposition...

...Dwight Macdonald has sold a profile on the new Macy president...

...That is to say, they have become organized for the first time, and despite their seeming impatience with the status quo they arc not anxious to work profound changes...

...with branches in about two dozen states but mainly in '.he larger cities thereof, is essentially an urban organization with the slenderest roots among the Crucial farmers and small townspeople...

...At Washington next week ADA is expected to re-declare its independence...

...however, there has been little publicity surrounding departure of the ships carrying this cargo...

...But that would not solve the problem for the large number of ADAers who consistently and stubbornly vote for independence every year...

...Two: ADA, unlike other movements of political protest, has never sought the defeat of the government in power but only its reform...

...is still "the arsenal of democracy...

...Six: It is a fact to be noted without...

...ADA Three Years Later . . . . . . By Daniel James AMERICANS for Democratic Action was formed at a meeting of L 180 liberal and labor leaden, on January 4, 1947, called by Union jor Democratic Action, a group whk'.i nad been functioning half-heartedly since 1941 but had managed to keep aiiv» the distinction between a liberal and a Communist fellow-traveler...

...ADA's course on China, in particular, reveals regrettable ignorance: While it is true that China has never given liberals an easy time, a forward group like ADA could fairly be expected to display* more sophistication on the subject than the layman—certainly not less...

...Yet, last year, when Mao Tsetung's armies had by no means won final victory and China was still a debatable issue of incalculable magnitude, ADA devoted a mere 10 lines to say: "In China we recognize the possibility of a split In the Chinese Communist party between nationalist and Moscowdominated elements...

...This is an area we must explore to the fullest...

...The record of ADA on political action is excellent, considered in the short term...

...IF WE OUGHT to judge a movement, first, by its stated program, ADA has traveled a long ideological road and not always a straight one—since j 947...

...No other period in our history has been weighted down with ns many complex and crucial questions as is ours...

...Four: ADA has made no great impact upon the lower income groups which are usually more sympathetic to change, such as the trade union rank and file and the Negroes (North or South...

...But, paradoxically, ADA's electoral successes are having an adverse effect on the organization...

...On March 7, Vito Marcanionio...

...ADA's position on civil rights, natural resources, taxes, trusts, and social security reveal an attention to detail, and a maturity of understanding absent from earlier documents...

...In sum, ADA has done an intelligent job of sizing up specific domestic problems, but has dropped its original perspective of working for a unified (if non-doctrinaire) conception of the better society...

...In the atmosphere of that year, when Republicans rode high, the newborn ADA could proclaim somewhat idealistic-ally: "Between the all-powerful state and the anarchy of 'rugged individualism' is the wide and fertile Held of independent authorities, municipal ownership, cooperatives, federally initiated projects locally administered, and alt the possible combinations of these democratic devices...

...IN THE SPRING of 1947 which was also the springtime'"of ADA the then co-chairman, Wilion W. Wyatt, declared: \ y "We call to our ranks all those who believe in the democratic war ol life____We do this in the spirit of the Grangers, the Populists, the BullMoosers, and the followers of the New Freedom, the Wisconsin Progressives, and the New Deal...

...Richard Weil, and has signed up for another—a profile of Roger Baldwin...

...As the Marxists used to say: scratch a sectarian and you will unearth an opportunist...

...Though it was the first liberal group to expressly exclude Communists (and other totalitarian), and though its opposition to communism is not to be questioned, ADA displays no real depth of understanding of the world's most vexing political problem—Soviet imperialism...

...In one of its platforms ADA reminds us that "Asia is in the grip of e revolution...

...If such is the case, and ADA still intends to stay in the leadership of independent liberalism, then it must provide the lutter with more sustenance than mere resolutions...

...Some mystery assignment...

...It may or may not be significant, but CIO-PAC Director Jack Kroll has never been active in top ADA councils...

...Matthew Passion...

...In addition, a large number of ADA figures were elected to city, state and na: tional office...

...At its inception ADA favo:ed "a policy based - on an understand.ng of the legitimate aspirations of the Soviet Union" which, studied in the context of the period, could easily imply acceptance of Russia's de facto control of Eastern Europe, and acquiescence in her then formidable fifth column activities in France, Italy and China...

...One would think that ADA...

...Here, at onn and the same time, ADA faces a grand opportunity to clarify its own role, to educate its members away from .sophisticated know-nothingness, ant perhaps to stir up new and exciting debate in the country at large...

...Again, three years ago ADA could say, "Labor has the responsibility to insure the democratic operation of trade unions...

...Original italics...

...Should it attempt to be a mass pressure group or an educational vanguard...

...Actually more basic forces were at work: Roosevelt's death, widespread dissatisfaction with his successor, a rampaging Republican Congress, and growing disillusionment with Soviet postwar policy...

...9 'i The Whip recommends unreservedly the Vox LP recording of the St...

...Strategically speaking, this has broken ADA's monopoly on insurgent liberalism, for the question may fairly be asked: What can ADA now offer which Truman cannot...

...The ADA emphasizes its independence of any political party...

...All ADA had to offer a year ago was moral and political surrender to Chinese Communism—an act which some of its loaders arc now prepared to supplement...

...and they stem preponderantly from the managerial, professional and small business classes...

...ADA was brave enough to assert, in 1947, in the face of a Congress hard at work on Taft-Hartley, that "it is labor's responsibility to eliminate work stoppages resulting from jurisdictional disputes...

...Franco Spain...

...While ADA was in large part responsible for the great liberal victories of 1948-49, this year it is not welcome in a number of capitols, state and national, by its own kind...

...Heard on the Left ^,HE WALL STREET JOURNAL on March 8 published a "condensation" of an article by Allan Flanders, formerly an official of Britain's Trades Union Congress, entitled "How Much Is British Labor Controlled...

...Lust month, tlie Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers called an "all-Canadian" conference there...

...It may just be possible that herein lies that dynamic which liberals have been seeking...

...We are com petted to rido it or be crushed by it...

...The labor elements who form so important a part of ADA are now asking themselves...

...True, the 1947 piograin also denounced appeasement, but its specific plank on China said, "We fully back the Marshall report"—which (as everyone now knows) was the last word in appeasement for it was predicated upon coalition with the Communists...

...In the Northeast a group of prominent ADAers refused to reserve a table at the organization's Roosevelt Day Dinner because, they believed, it might hurt the re-election chances of their local party leader (who is himself an ADA figure...

...politics a notch higher: in the future, no party will be able to offer less than the Democrats, and expect to win...

...Our government ought immediately to let the world know—and proudly, too—that the U.S...

...with a proposal for recognition of the/Mao government...

...One: ADA is a phenomenon unique to American politics, and there are therefore no ready precedents upon which to base a solution...

...Similarly, the working-man votes Democratic, but he has no inkling of how much ADA has affected his choice of oarties...

...Ships ought to leave with colors flying, bands playing, radio spot coverage, send-off speeches from distinguished Americans...

...Ridiculed and attacked by friend and foe, the small band which, in July 1948, persuaded the Democratic convention to adopt a militant liberal platform, elevated U.S...

...o * * MEMO TO THE WHITE HOUSE: From here on out, we're going to be shipping arms and munitions to European signatories to the North Atlantic Pact...

...Third, since party labels in America are frequently meaningless, and it is evident that the two-party system has not been functioning as it is supposed to in the history books, should not ADA subject this system to thorough and bold re-examination...

...The Royal Mounttcs and our border patrol rounded up the "delegates" (some were there under false names) and asked them to depart for the U.S...

...talking about the Chinese Communists with Rep...

...but then think of the money we're saving by not seeing Stromboli...

...James W. Ivy, editor of- the Crisis, NAACP monthly, sought to locate Sullivan, decided there was no "Vernon Sullivan" and then wrote Vian accusing him of perpetrating a hoax, which Vian admitted...

...championship of civil rights would have endeared it to Negroes...

...On other levels, and by other i.icans, that revolution today ovenrurm the entire globe...

...Fortunately, Csapski had spent several years in the Soviet slave-labor camps in Siberia, so that nothing fases him...

...OUB ANALYSIS of ADA's program and politics inevitably leads to the big issue which faces the coming convention as it has faced the two previous ones: What is, or should be, ADA's primary role in American politics...

...Omer Becu, however, is expected next week...

...distill better, a new "ideology" which will be more likely to fill the growing vacuum...

...Seeds of Treason, the de Toledano-Lasky story of the HissChambers trial (April 7 publication date), is dedicated "To Joseph Stalin, without whose help this book would never have been written...

...9, a top-secret, joint U.S.-Canada heavy water and atomic experimental station, and the union has been kicked out oj the CIO because it* is Communist-controlled...

...Wonderful listening even though the records cost a lot...

...ADA's position vis'-a-vis its "parliamentary fraction" is downright tragic...

...Author of Terre Inhumalne, the story of his investigations of the Alier-Ehrlich murder and the Katyn massacre, Csapski was taken to the office of a wealthy, retired N.Y...

...This phenomenon—in an organization which is composed overwhelmingly of urban brain workers— •s partly attributable to the perverje anli intellectualism which American intellectuals love to dredge up from the folkways to prove that they can look soiled too...

...The exbanker looked at the magasine carefully and then announced he would order a' subscription immediately...

...However, considering the organizations near-jnenopoly of economists, it is interesting to learn that in 1947, at the height oi inflation, ADA called for measures "to forestall deflationary dangers"—but last year, when deflationary trends kad'set in, ADA was staging a Full Employment Conference for the purpose of fighting...

...In th*> intervening period, it had made<no effei't to press for "municipal ownership" or "cooperatives," or even attempt— in a purely intellectual way—to "explore to the fullest" such propositions...

...To ADA's everlasting credit must go the astonishing electoral victory of, 1948, and the carry-over gains of the off-year 1949...

...Each election also exposes the ambiguous, and often confusing role of an organizatoin which, not a party itself, nevertheless must try to act like one (i...

...but ADA has failed to get its story over to them, and on the other hand Truman more ellectivcly symbolizes the civil rights struggle...

...But if such differences do exist—and the concept of the mixed economy enunciated in 1947 indicate that they do- then ADA is obligated to clarify, develop and express them without inhibition...

...Yet ADA's slender resources did enable it to print a slick, 15-page pamphlet setting forth its position on what—in this age of the H-bomb—appears to be the most momentous issue of all...

...If ADA's declarations of independence do not conform to reality, this is because on one level it is given to wishful thinking while on the other it plays "practical politics...

...THE ORGANIZATION'S views on the more important foreign issues show less maturity, and, in some vital instances, fail the test of events...

...But ADA has not issued « single comprehensive statement on nny of thes* life-and-death issues/ When this writer asked an ADA official to explain the organization's silence, he was to'.d that ADA had lacked funds to publish a statement on foreign policy...

...Put labor can afford this kind of reasoning because a friend >its in th • White House—put there, it nu.-t be repeated, thanks largely to ADA'-: efforts...

...Obviously, if there are no serious programmatic differences, then ADA has no genuine raison d'etre...

...banker who has discovered liberalism, to talk to him about support for Kultura...

...The man who takes Harry Bridges' place, when and if, is Lou Goldblatt", no Red-baiter he...

...Within ADA chapters each Democratic victory raises anew the question: Why not join and work within the party, where one can be most effective...

...Continued over-emphasis on the latter must eventually lead to ADA's liquidation into the Democratic party...

...Then the Wall Street Journal, having omitted these facts from its "digest" of the article, on the same page published a lead editorial denouncing the British Labor Government and "the socialist planners," and omitting the fact that the controls had been abolished...

...This has provided ADA with mucn ol its drive and know-how, but it has also deprived it of that atmosphere of selflessness and idealism without which no new movement can flourish...

...Recently, a labor leader noted for his ADA activity has lost interest...

...Their attitude seems to indicate that a substantial segment of the public is still not convinced that the Democrats are, or can become, u fullfledged liberal party...

...Walter Judd, said: "Now that we've got this area, we are going to go ahead and get more...

...0 Herbert Harris has left UN World and joined the Reporter...

...Since then the President has adopted ADA's program for his own ;md has been combating reaction in both major parties with a vigor which should commend him to the most militant ADA member...

...ADA, it seems, does not want to be accused of being visionary...

...By 1949, when its current program was adopted at Chicago, ADA still relishing the fruits of the previous November elections, excluded reference to its initial interest in a mixed economy...

...Some labor leaders, commanding (so they think) masses of votes, question the need for consulting lib'-nds who have no mass following- "'inversely they grow impatient when tiles...

...It is no secret that the ire of some unions over the New York Chapter's support of the Republican-Liberal mayoralty candidate Newbold Morris, against the Democrat O'Dwyer, has not visibly lessened...

...Thus far...

...i* * Josef Csapaki, scion of a great Polish family, is in America trying to raise funds for a Polish language magazine, Kultura, which he and some fellow-exiles are publishing in Paris, for distribution inside Poland...

...The Whip...

...Since ADA officially begins its fourth year next week with a convention in Washington, D. C, where it will try to shape a program for liberals to follow in a period which may resolve the only issue that matters—war or peace —it is relevant to inquire into the nature of this organization, to essay its failures' and accomplishments, and to look as closely as we can into its future...

...It is also the product of long isolation from the political mainstream, and, since the New Deal, of heady awareness of liberalism's newfound efficaciousness in the political arena...

...These propositions, tentative and few, indicate that there is a function for ADA to perform alongside tho ' practical" one...

...J. R. Oldenbroek, new ICFTU secretary, arrives this weekend...

...liberals do not always follow labor advice...

...The party politicians have been treating ADA with new respect ever since...

...aspersion that ADA contains within it the greatest proportion of personally ambitious men and women which have ever assembled in a group so small...

...ADA REACHED ITS APOGEE in 1948 when it served most effectively as a protest against both the Republicans and the pallid leadership of Harry S. Truman...

...ADA CANNOT REPRESENT truo independence as long as its program and that of the Democratic party arc identical...

...At this point,, it might be well to keep certain thoughts in mind...

...Three: ADA's members, in the main, came to it without political experience, practical or theoretical...

...Yet, as we have seen, away from conventions ADAers act and vote, except in rare instances, as Democrats...

...Five: ADA...

...in areas where ADA is weak, it is ignored, or it is infiltrated and used by the regular Democrats...

...Should it become truly -independent...

...and no other group on tho American scene is as well qualified :>•* ADA, in terms of talent, energy and understanding, to undertake a vast inquiry into these problems...

...New York, where the Liberal party provides a counterweight to Democratic magnetism, is an exception...

...Its legislators have all but deserted the organization because, as officehold. crs, they find it expedient to work through regular party channels where the ADA label is an "embarrassment...