Dear Editor
DEAR EDITOR PROGRESS A historical footnote to G. F. Hudson's "Dulles and the Arab Plot Against Israel" (NL, April 15) : "During the prolonged negotiations with the Saudis/' the New York Times...
...Rather it is Chamberlin's juvenile approach to modern music which requires comment...
...I should also CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE DEAR EDITOR CONTINUED The producer who brought you Marlon Brando in*'On the Waterfront" now brings like to point out that the use of the word "poetry" with respect to Wagner's librettos is somewhat questionable...
...my aversion to it is quite unabated...
...E. D. Klemke Mr...
...In a free society, the Reverend Klemke has the same right to like modem music that I have to dislike it...
...New York City Mark Vishniak LABOR TEST hi his "Employers, Unions and the 'Right to Work*" (NL, April 15), Ernest M. DiCicco refers lo the Taft-Hartley Act and the "right -to-work" laws as "repressive" legislation that "ignores err tain basic social and economic principles...
...And if he finds contemporary dissonant music too disturbing, he might try systematically—and with a little mental effort—enduring an exposure to such music with an effort to understand what it is all about...
...Petersburg (outside the pale of settlement for Jews...
...It is also easy to judge all unions by the ideal theoretical union and ignore Reck-ism, just as it is easy to tar all unions with the pitch of Beckism...
...One needs only to read the lines aloud some time to note the ludicrous characterBut it is not Chamberlin's passion for "Wagner that I would question...
...Critics of somewhat wider fame than the Reverend Klemke have expressed different judgments about the poetic quality of such passages in Wagner's librettos as the "Liebes-tod" the Immolation Scene in GoUerdam-merung, Wo tan's Farewell, Hans Sachs's "Wahn, Wahn" and many others...
...Stanley M. Arnot WAGNER It is difficult to understand how The New Leader could have permitted so trite and corny a column as William Henry Chamberlin's on Wagner in the April 15 issue...
...It involves two simple steps: 1. A factual comparison of the strength and status (to use DiCicco's own words) of unions and union members in the U. S. prior to the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act and since it has been passed...
...However, if he is too biased or too antiquated to be able to do' this, then I would suggest that he stop pretending to be a music critic...
...that the Russian interpretation was indefensible on moral grounds...
...And now...
...San Marino, Calif...
...Mr also says that they are "aimed ut destroying union seeurily" and that "the question of the "right to work' seems to be constantly raised by the most vicious of the anti-union employers...
...Finally, he wiu> wishes to stop his education in the culture of the past with the year 1917 is being somewhat ridiculous...
...I must, however, dissent strongly from his view that liking modern music is just matter of education...
...There is, however, a simple and practical test that can be made if one wants an impartial, scientific answer to the question of what effects Taft-Hartley and the "right-to-work" laws have had...
...Chamberlin forgets tliat, when the works of "the immortal Wagner" were first performed, they were also referred to as "arid wastes of howling cacophony" by his listeners...
...Referring to the trade treaty signed between the United States and Tsarist Russia in 1832, Blaine, in a letter dated July 1881, said emphatically that the intentions of the United States in signing the treaty were not and could not have been as the Russian Government was interpreting them...
...It is so simple to hurl adjectives and vituperative epithets...
...DEAR EDITOR PROGRESS A historical footnote to G. F. Hudson's "Dulles and the Arab Plot Against Israel" (NL, April 15) : "During the prolonged negotiations with the Saudis/' the New York Times reported on April 9, "the State Department tried unsuccessfully to get the Soviets to drop their present refusal to grant entry visas to certain Americans, including members of the armed forces, of Jewish faith...
...The struggle continued for thirty years...
...To my sorrow, I have been exposed to- huge doses of "first performance'' modern music in concerts of the Boston Symphony Orchestra for more than 15 years...
...U. S. Secretary of State James G. Blaine declared that religious discrimination as between American citizens could not be tolerated...
...Champ!in, Minn...
...And then, after all, there are some who love Sigmund Romberg or Rodgers and Hammerstein...
...Chamberlin likes Wagner because of "the sustained dramatic content of his work, the integration of poetry with music.'' This comment has been overworked to the point of nausea...
...One cannot dispute matters of taste, as someone wisely observed long ago...
...For there are some fine qualities about Wagner's music that should not be overlooked (although Chamberlin does not mention them...
...And it certainly was not difficult to top Professor DiCicco's article with a blurb reading, "Is it better to be dominated by the company or by fellow workers...
...On December 18, 1911, the treaty passed into history...
...In 1880, the Tsarist Government of Russia began to expel American Jews from St...
...This matter is not simply one of tastes, at least initially, but of education...
...He is unaware that his ear became accustomed to the novelties which Wagner introduced...
...Facts, after all, are much better than adjectives, epithets and theories...
...but it would have been no more difficult to ask, "Is it better to be dominated by racketeers, gangsters, goons and Becks than to have the right to work...
...The use of such pejorative epithets as "corny," "juvenile" and "ridiculous" does not strengthen his weak case for the blaring dissonance that passes for modern music...
...2. A factual comparison of the strength and status of unions and union members in the 18 states that have right-to-work laws and in those that do not...
...Chamberlin replies: The Reverend Klemke seems somewhat deficient in the capacity to accept deviations from his own standards of musical taste...
...On December 13, 1911, the Congress adopted Joint Resolution 166, which declared: "The people of the United States assert as a fundamental principle that the right of its citizens shall not be impaired at home or abroad because of race or religion...
...it was formally abrogated in reprisal against the Tsarist Government's refusal "to honor American passports duly issued to American citizens, on account of race and religion...
...Indeed, such loaded questions may satisfy the interrogator, but they are not likely to convince anyone of anything...
...and that, on such questions, local law could not be permitted to override the express terms of «. treaty...
...that the Government of the United States concludes its treaties for the equal protection of all classes of its citizens without regard to race or religion . ." Asserting that Russia had violated the treaty of 1832, the Congressional resolution called on the President to denounce it...
Vol. 40 • May 1957 • No. 18
