Dear Editor
DEAR EDITOR MISREPRESENTATION I would like to correct a very flagrant, and yet highly placed, misrepresentation of my most earnest opinions. In his book, Academic Freedom in Our Time, Professor...
...New York City DAVID MEYEK The New Leader welcomes comment and criticism on any of its features, but letters should not exceed 300 words...
...The upkeep of the Archives, of course, requires much time, energy and money, and a special society has been set up to aid it materially...
...Buckley suggests, by action of the Yale alumni...
...I think Professor Maclver owes me an explanation if not an apology...
...Thus, in 1951 the Bund succeeded in transferring the material to New York...
...Kounded in Geneva at the turn of the century by the General Jewish Workers Union of Lithuania, Poland and Russia, the Archives remained there until 1919 under the care of the late Franz...
...He saluted "Buckley's most original and challenging idea" that "essential freedom is the freedom of the customer to buy what he wants on the market...
...Individualism," he declares, "is dying not only at Yale but all over the country...
...What is more, he wants the Yale administration to do something about it...
...Here Kursky again took them in hand...
...Eastman advocates...
...And I want to do something about it...
...The Nazis did uncover them in Paris, but they did not succeed in destroying them before the Allies retook the city...
...New York City R. M. MACIVER BUND ARCHIVES The Bund Archives of the Jewish labor movement, dedicated to Franz Kursky and located in Atran House, 25 East 78th Street, New York City, is interested in securing any information pertaining to the Jewish labor movement in this country or abroad...
...New York City Max Eastman Dr...
...He also attributes to me a wish to substitute indoctrination for enlightenment, and an endorsement of William F. Buckley's proposal, in his book God and Man at Yale, that the alumni of a college should control its teaching staff...
...He is "optimistic enough to believe this will happen in the near future...
...But it puzzles me to know why I should be dragged suddenly into the discussion of another man's book merely because I happened to write a brief review of it...
...For his inexperience really becomes dangerous when he begins to suggest remedies...
...in 19 languages from 28 countries...
...Eastman characterized the extreme and grossly one-sided attack made by Buckley against a great university as "brilliant, sincere, well-informed, keenly-reasoned and exciting to read...
...Eastman applies his talents to the genuine defense of academic freedom, many of his old acquaintances and friends, including the present writer, will rejoice...
...Buckley would put indoctrination first, with enlightenment a poor second...
...Hundreds of reviews of God and Man at Yale, both favorable and unfavorable, appeared all over the country...
...Can it mean anything hut that administrations should exercise control over the selection of faculty members...
...He wants to replace the collectivist indoctrination with a counter-indoctrination...
...In his book, Academic Freedom in Our Time, Professor Robert MacIver attributes to me repudiation of the principle of academic freedom, a principle which I have always defended, and will defend, to the last ditch...
...Kursky...
...Thanks to several French Socialists, mainly Leon Blum, they were then brought to Paris...
...What does this mean...
...Is the purpose perhaps to destroy the force of my long-continued insistence that the principle of academic freedom does not give teachers the right to join or support a conspiracy to overthrow our Government and end all our freedoms...
...And, having been dragged up so gratuitously, why should my views be ruthlessly falsified...
...At the present time, the Archives contain tens of thousands of books, manuscripts, journals, newspapers, leaflets, documents, etc...
...Eastman wants something to be done about it at a time when, as anyone who cares to read my book can learn, the influences making for conformism in our institutions of higher learning have gained new strength...
...I submit that the evidence clearly shows it would put "indoctrination first, with enlightenment a poor second...
...What would be the net result of the "doing something about it" that Mr...
...They are indeed a treasure for those who are interested in the rise of the Jewish labor movement or research in Jewish history...
...Happily, in our greater universities, of which Yale is certainly one, the governing boards have the wisdom to leave the faculty practically free to select its new members, to pursue and to impart learning without dictation from above...
...But he cannot pose as a champion of this freedom and adopt positions that would effectually destroy it...
...Mr...
...In view of this, what are we to think of Professor Maclver's statement: "The type of alumni control advocated by Mr...
...Buckley that individualism is dying, not only at Yale but all over the country, and dying at the hands of Bigger and Bigger Government...
...Any individual, cultural organization or fraternal society interested in the Jewish labor movement can contribute to the Archives' continued expansion by joining the society...
...Since in many Eastern universities alumni are prominently represented on the membership of governing boards, it would approach Buckley's idea that alumni should supervise the teaching of scholars...
...Buckley's book that I published in the American Mercury (December 1951...
...Eastman had merely deplored this lamentable state of affairs, he might still have remained a theoretical, if misguided, defender of academic freedom, but he wants "to do something about it...
...Eastman and Mr...
...The alumni of a college who support it and the parents who pay their children's tuition are customers and the commodity they buy is education...
...And here is what I said in that review: "Mr...
...A half-conscious purpose of this kind explains much of the unfairness and lack of objectivity manifested by the ritual liberals toward those concerned with a downright defense of freedom...
...The tradition of academic freedom is still too strong in these universities to allow this freedom to be undermined...
...But I don't think the thing to do is to narrow the sphere of academic freedom...
...Buckley's book certainly won't do for Yale what he wants it to, and that is a good thing...
...page 110) I must remark that I admire Bill Buckley, and, like others, I found many brilliant and good things in his youthful book...
...If Mr...
...I can think of no other reason for such a lapse of scholarship in a noted scholar-or such personally injurious behavior in a man who is my summertime neighbor and with whom I have always had the most friendly relations...
...He doesn't call it by that name...
...I can't imagine anything that would botch up the business both of education and of research more completely than a march on New Haven by the Yale alumni...
...The ground Professor Maclver offers for these false attributions is a review of Mr...
...Least of all do I think it should be narrowed, as Mr...
...Maclver replies: If Mr...
...I referred to his review of Buckley's book not for any of the oblique reasons he suggests but because he lent his authority to supporting the main contentions made by that author and even went so far as to imply that these contentions were valid for colleges and universities everywhere in this country...
...he calls it 'value inculcation.' But it comes to the same thing...
...They were subsequently transferrcd to Merlin, where they remained until Miller's rise to power...
...He appeared to accept Buckley's ridiculous argument that anyone who advocates the mildest governmental measures for social security, better housing and so forth is "collectivist," "statist," a supporter of the "creeping socialism" that is the road to Communism...
...I share the opinion of Mr...
...I am glad to have that fact recalled...
Vol. 38 • December 1955 • No. 48
