Dear Editor
DEAR EDITOR Says Poet, Reviewer Distort Meaning of Plotinus's 'One' Neil Weiss's review of recent poetry in your October 25 issue is something less than cogent on at least one point. To praise...
...It was not Senator Flanders who, as a boy, was bound out to earn his board and room...
...To praise James Stephens's poem "Theme and Variations" on the grounds that it is a philosophical masterpiece betrays a curious lack of understanding of the subject matter which he so rashly praises...
...Roy attributes to Senator Flanders the statement that we have "had only one solid achievement in matters of foreign policy to date (1950): EDC," he holds him up to scorn in his own bailiwick, where the UN, the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, Point Four, and peaceful coexistence are matters of faith...
...despite his belief that Keefer was more guilty--which seems to me to have been his rationalization...
...Granted that Queeg was unstable, and that he did break down in the extreme situation of the typhoon, wasn't he justified in feeling that all his officers were against him...
...Roy could not find room in his copy--or in his conscience--for a disturbing digression in the Vermont Senator's career of glowing purity...
...The ostrich-like character of Mr...
...give those Democrats hell, play ball with our team, and everything will be OK...
...ARTHUR ALGERNON Ralph Roy's profile of Senator Flanders was a very interesting piece which offered considerable new data about the controversial Vermonter...
...then he attributes our international successes to the atomic bomb and violently disputes Mr...
...the chairman was Victor Lasky...
...Roy accuses the Senator of insincerity in introducing an amendment requiring an oath of loyalty to "Jesus Christ, Saviour and Ruler of nations" by each Federal employe, and says that he believes "America may be on the road to decline and decay...
...The critics were most enthusiastic...
...Was it not his "cure-all...
...This sympathy, however, does not lead them to decide that Queeg was a hero, or that he was any more suited for his position than they had thought before...
...In the '20s and early '30s, Dos Passos published a number of novels about businessmen in which he took a point of view that was not unalloyed adulation...
...Fortunately, McCarthy is constitutionally unable to play ball with any team, and Senator Flanders had to speak from the mountaintop once again...
...New York City VICTOR LASKY Mr...
...New York City JAMES F. WHITE Even though it be true that most of your readers have a low opinion of Senator Flanders, I protest that the article by Ralph L. Roy is so unfair to the Senator as to suggest a smear...
...That he has done so is to his everlasting credit...
...It contained one bit of innocent folklore, however, that should be corrected once and for all, since it has appeared in other places, including the New York Times...
...Rather, Plotinus regarded the One as a pure simplex beyond any possible qualification, including that of knowledge, even self-knowledge...
...They reversed their tone and, in general, began to speak of Dos Passos as a once-great writer whose current novels were pretty bad...
...They know that there was such a thing as Communism in Hollywood during the era dealt with by Most Likely to Succeed...
...How could you let the outpourings of this self-admitted Republican, Mr...
...The Senator's own family was poor and probably would be considered "underprivileged" today...
...Keith later wonders whether the mutiny (which removed an unfit commander hut also took a needed ship out of action) would have been necessary had he and the others done their duty despite their personal feelings about Queeg...
...The latter is what the movie suggests...
...Woltman's sole connection with the Rand School (a distinguished scholastic center for anti-Communist, anti-totalitarian trade-unionists) was to participate in a symposium on Communist infiltration in journalism...
...New York City ALFRED KOHLBERG James Rorty has been appearing in out "hitherto undefiled" columns for eighteen years...
...Ed...
...New York City C. DICKERMAN WILLIAMS...
...Following Senator Flanders's initial attack on McCarthy last winter, Low-blow Joe delivered a Lincoln Day address in Milwaukee denouncing the Democratic party as the "party of treason...
...Roy not forget that even moralists are not always free from the temptation of political opportunism...
...later, he and Keefer both learn to sympathize with the captain's position as captain...
...His observations of the ferocity and treachery of the Communists toward liberals and Socialists led him to write The Adventures of a Young Man in 1939...
...Herman's strictures against the Nation are so out of line and unfair that I can only conclude THE NEW LEADER would have to fold up if the Soviet Union collapsed...
...The capacities for knowledge, in Plotinus's Triad, are involved in the notion of the Nous (self-discernment) and of the Soul (knowledge of particulars...
...And it was astonishing to find such a review in THE NEW LEADER...
...Mumford's statement that "submission to Communist totalitarianism would still be far wiser than the final destruction of civilization...
...It's unassailable...
...in the book, Greenwald is not entirely convinced of the former...
...Those who are not afraid to face the realities of Communism in the United States will, in my opinion, be enthralled--especially the readers of THE NEW LEADER...
...he considers him a symbol of heroism, and defends the symbol...
...Another participant was Victor Riesel...
...A. "realist" may very well ridicule the "love" idea as fantastic, but that is a sad commentary on the religion in whose name the Western powers crusade...
...Was not a high probability of breakdown on the part of an unstable commander made certain by his officers' disloyalty...
...It is the petty, unnecessary or highly doubtful rebellions that cause more mischief than they remedy...
...Princeton, N. J. MARVER H. BERNSTEIN Objects to Cynicism in Review Of Lewis Mumford's Latest Book Will Herberg's review of Lewis Mumford's In the Name of Sanity [THE NEW LEADER, October 11] is certainly thought-provoking...
...I should like to clear the record: 1. Kamp alleged that Frederick Woltman had been arrested as a pro-Communist in 1928...
...Keep in line, or else the wrath of the Green Mountain God will again fall upon you...
...In fact, the novel is deadpan...
...Webster's approach is indicated by the nature of his principal objection to the book: the possibility that someone might think the story is "representative," by which he apparently means "typical...
...As a strike observer for the American Civil Liberties Union, he was arrested with a large group at the scene of a strike in Pittsburgh in 1928...
...Was not "love" the philosophy of Jesus...
...Roy, and the self-admitted Taft Republican, James Rorty [THE NEW LEADER, October 25], get into your hitherto undefiled columns...
...But let Mr...
...I think, too, that Wouk's comment outside the book about "sniping at authority" is significant in a different way from that in which Hicks takes it...
...But charges against him were quickly dismissed by the court...
...This is not so...
...Author Offers Corrections To His Article on Joe Kamp In condensing my lengthy manuscript on Joe Kamp for the November 8 issue, THE NEW LEADER's editors inadvertently obscured one important point and omitted another...
...But there is a difference between deciding that a specific rebellion might have been unnecessary under the total circumstances and stating that authority should always be glorified as such...
...But it never suffered from a severe lack of the basic essentials of life...
...Had he been, he could not have defended Maryk...
...Sara Mateo, Calif...
...he was never fined, sentenced or rebuked in any manner...
...my article, as published, said he was never arrested...
...New York City DISMAYED Congratulations for the recent article on the Nation...
...Long Beach, Calif...
...The reviewer dubs this cynically as the "magic cure-all of 'love...
...Are we now to hide behind the cloak of practicality, when our century's greatest achievements have come from the iconoclasts whose genius has defied the stagnation that accompanies being practical...
...The editors and readers of THE NEW LEADER, however, are adult...
...New York City WALTER K. LEWIS Readers Comment Pro and Con About Article on the 'Nation' Louis Jay Herman's article, "The 'Nation': The Ideology of Surrender" [THE NEW LEADER, October 25], is one of the finest pieces I've ever read in the field of political analysis...
...At the same time, it does not--nor could it be expected to--assert that the characters in the book comprised the entire list of Communists there...
...Webster has followed the line which has been conventional for the last fifteen years, and his view is precisely what I would have expected to see in the Sunday New York Times...
...But when Dr...
...He concludes, "What would Christ do...
...Urbana, Illinois ROBERT WILSON Roy's Portrait of Flanders Criticized from Various Sides I found it an unfortunate omission in the laudatory profile of Senator Flanders by Ralph L. Roy [THE NEW LEADER, November 8] that Mr...
...It was excellent...
...I think it is clear that his personality, and his position as a Jew in the war against Nazism, forces him to do this...
...This attitude toward Communists was decidedly premature--for the critics, at any rate...
...The One is, to Plotinus, so transcendent that it entirely escapes all predication...
...Thoreau reduced common sense to the snoring of men asleep, our dullest perception...
...But there is no doubt about his personal feelings...
...Humanity becomes "beyond good and evil," and common sense and practicality, the bulwarks of mediocrity, become the dogmas and apotheoses of our pitiful time...
...it nowhere suggests that Communism was universal in Hollywood...
...The "One" of Plotinus is a hypostasis arrived at by abstraction which cannot, in any valid manner of implication, be interpreted, as Stephens does, as a Knower or Witness...
...If this question is irrelevant, then nothing in Christianity is relevant to the human situation today...
...Especially interesting was the examination of the "love begets love" philosophy suggested by Mr...
...Belief in the principles of Christianity can come only through practicing them...
...Such smears may tend to discredit the Senator among your unsophisticated New York readers...
...Instead, it was Flanders's father, who was bound out by a destitute mother...
...Would that every open-minded "liberal" read the article...
...I found Most Likely to Succeed the work of a master novelist at the height of his power...
...Mumford...
...Norman Cousins, in the Saturday Review, places every man in the position of deciding whether or not the H-bomb should be built...
...Wouk builds up a case for the mutiny that stands despite Keefer's defection, then raises these questions: Granted that the mutiny was justified under the momentary circumstances, did not Maryk, Keith and Keefer bear a certain amount of responsibility for the total circumstances...
...This, of course, would destroy the basic concepts of right and wrong...
...One may claim that this is not practical, but is anything in Christianity--or, for that matter, in human nature and conduct--"practical...
...Greenwald does not really make Queeg a hero...
...Suffern, N. Y. ROBERT W. LOWNDES Objects to Webster's Review Of Dos Passos's Latest Novel My disagreement with Harvey Curtis Webster's review of Most Likely to Succeed, by John Dos Passos [THE NEW LEADER, September 27], could not be more complete...
...In sharp contrast to his position as Chief Moralist of the GOP, Senator Flanders then chose to forgive the erring child, saying in effect: "Atta boy, Joe...
...JOHN LEONARD Disagrees with Hicks's Charge That 'Caine Mutiny' Is Dishonest Without suggesting that The Caine Mutiny is a great book, I want to take exception to Granville Hicks's contention [THE NEW LEADER, September 20] that it is "more than slightly dishonest...
...2. Woltman was also accused of being a faculty member of the "Communist" Rand School...
...Most important, I assume they believe that the subject is not so obscene that it cannot be discussed out loud or made the theme of a novel...
...In 1937, he went to Spain to assist the Loyalists...
Vol. 37 • November 1954 • No. 47
