Dear Editor
DEAR EDITOR The two articles by Granville Hicks [The New Leader, March 22 and 29], with then-portrayal of "Retarded Liberals" and "Panicky Conservatives,'' clear many misunderstandings, and the...
...I would like, however, to take exception to Mr...
...Thomas was absolutely right in calling Communism and McCarthyism twins...
...If one must assess either movement against the other, it might better be asked not what would happen should either movement seize total power, but rather which movement is most powerful, which has the most advocates, and which is so strog that politicians in bath Republican and Democratic parties refuse to fight its abuses of the democratic machinery...
...Take, for example, James Rorty's review of Norman Thomas's The Test of Freedom [The New Leader, March 22...
...Rorty is trying to discriminate only in pointless extremes...
...McCarthy does damage without becoming President...
...But to deny that quality to McCarthyism (which is every day becoming a stronger and stronger pole of attraction for the lowest instincts of the mob) is to repeat the mistake of those who, before World War II, were inclined to minimize the danger of Hitlerism, falsely assuming that a clear recognition of this danger might somehow strengthen Stalinism...
...Hicks's tendency to connect liberalism with the "rationalistic tradition of our modern era...
...Rorty argues that, if McCarthy became President, he couldn't institute here the ''apparatus of totalitarian dictatorship, including suppression of the opposition parties and press, a police terror, slave-labor camps, demonstration trials, and torture and execution without trial," all of which would follow Communist success in taking over the United States Government...
...Samson Soloveitchik Challenges Rorty on Whether Reds, McCarthyism Are 'Twins' In his review of Norman Thomas's book, The Test of Freedom [The New Leader, March 22], I found it difficult to follow James Rorty's argument, i.e., that Mr...
...Einstein's request...
...New York City Mary Francis Harvey' Reprinted' Letter to 'Times'Was Withdrawn from Publication Only today did I learn, through a strong letter of protest from a lawyer for the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee, that you had published a copy of a letter I originally wrote the New York Times...
...Kansas City, Mo...
...Apparently, the successes of world Communism --and of Communist espionage in the United States--have shaken many Americans' faith in democracy, which is, after all, "matter of "methods...
...There can be no doubt that Communism presents a "clear and present danger...
...So far as political freedom is concerned, Mr...
...DEAR EDITOR The two articles by Granville Hicks [The New Leader, March 22 and 29], with then-portrayal of "Retarded Liberals" and "Panicky Conservatives,'' clear many misunderstandings, and the author's criticism of these two types of American intellectuals is well-timed...
...As a matter of fact, the basic tenets of liberalism--the principles of the dignity of the human being and the brotherhood of men--can be derived from an anti-materialistic (idealistic or religious) philosophy...
...Rorty to the contrary notwithstanding, Mr...
...The Communists can do --and, in cases of espionage, already have done --great damage to the United States without establishing a totalitarian dictatorship...
...Many of your readers will surely agree that, Mr...
...Such a stand makes any weighing of the degree of danger presented by these political twins futile, misleading and dangerous...
...Our apologies.--Ed...
...Einstein...
...New York City Norman Thomas Only upon receipt of this communication did we learn that Mr...
...Hicks's articles are, fortunately, free from a tendency which has been reflected in some other recent New Leader articles--namely, a tendency to minimize the danger of McCarthyism...
...He has already embarked on his own brand of "demonstration trials," and has accused the opposition of "twenty years of treason...
...I am not particularly concerned about any protest from the Emergency Committee, but I am deeply concerned that your publication of the letter makes it appear that I was guilty of bad faith in my promise to Dr...
...I gave no permission for its publication and, as a matter of fact, I had taken pains to withdraw the letter from the Times at Dr...
...Hicks, I am certain, would not deny the title of liberal to men like Niebuhr, Maritain and Attlee...
...But Mr...
...To make rationalism or materialism a basis for liberalism means to split the liberal front...
...If there are still liberals who hesitate to abandon their illusions about Communism, their hesitation can only be snapped by a firm, unequivocal stand on the part of people who realize that McCarthyism, far from being an enemy of Communism, is but another aspect of the same anti-democratic totalitarian ideology...
...Thomas is mistaken in seeing "sixth-column" McCarthyism as more dangerous to America than fifth-column Communists...
...The fact that Whittaker Chambers, after having rejected Communism, simultaneously attacks liberalism and rationalism cannot be considered proof of the existence of a logical tie between the two...
...Thomas had withdrawn his letter from the Times...
...Thomas is quite right in holding Communism and McCarthyism to be "twin" evils...
...On the other hand, Mr...
Vol. 37 • April 1954 • No. 15
