Dear Editor
DEAR EDITOR DJILAS Permit me to agree with Eugene Lyons's letter in your August 26 issue concerning Milovan Djilas's book The New Class. I, too, cannot possibly see bow Norman Thomas can. deduce...
...Nicholas Granet LABOR LEADERS In his article, "The Teamsters and Labor's Future" (NL, August 26), Reinhold Niebuhr writes: "I am not wise enough to suggest even a tentative answer to these problems...
...Parents," he writes, "'well knowing that mass media can absorb energy, often lighten the strain that the attempts of their children to reach for activity and direct experience would impose...
...What is wrong with having a child—who has just spent several hours playing furiously with his friends but is still raring to go— relax by watching a television program that encourages him to draw pictures, make puppets, sing, play the triangle, etc...
...The trouble with Dr...
...characterizes Senator Herman Talmadge of Georgia as man of "exceptional political skill, considerable administrative ability, and real intelligence...
...This is primarily because of the existence of alternatives in all facets of life...
...it was like a huge family of the same flesh and blood...
...He has not seen the corruption of the so-called "walking delegates," w'10 are always ready to accept bribes from the highest bidder and overlook employer violations, to the detriment of the rank-and-file...
...Portland9 Ore...
...deduce Djilas's conversion to socialism (democratic or any other kind) from anything he says in his book...
...Charleston, IT...
...Certainly, it would seem to me, one of the prerequisites of intelligence is a mind free from prejudice and capable of assessing situation on the basis of facts...
...they allow some energy to be absorbed by the vicarious experience of the television screen.'' And he concludes that it might be better to feed youngsters on "poppy juice, [since itl offers no models in which to cast the imagination...
...I would suggest that he view such programs as the "Charity Bailey Show," "Ding-Dong School" and "Romper Room," except that the networks saw fit to drop all three of them this spring...
...I would wager, though, that he is not a parent and has probably had little—if any—experience with children...
...The fact that, as he writes, he is "an outside but friendly observer of trade-unionism" no doubt blinds him to the fact that not labor unions but men like the late Henry Ford, the late Lincoln and Edward Filene, the managers of the Kodak Corporation and many, many more were the initiators of the reforms in our industrial labor-management relations...
...Look what has happened to it since the corrupt, brutal labor bosses arrived on the scene...
...A careful reading farces the conclusion that Djilas believes only a pluralistic society, such as we have under American democratic capitalism, can provide truly free society...
...With the first-mentioned attributes I have no quarrel, not being in a position to assess them...
...Los Angeles Ernest 0. Porter...
...Scarsdale, N. Y. J. Anthony Marcus TV AND CHILDREN Ernest van den Haag's "The Menace of Mass Media" (NL, July 29) contained many cogent observations...
...Surely he is wise enough to have suggested that, just as we cannot trust one man too long in the White House, so it should be with the labor leaders...
...1 doubt if it will survive the blow it has received from the grewly, ambitious labor mis-leaders...
...No one person should ever be permitted to stay in the office of union president or any other strategic position for more than, say, eight years...
...History is replete with tyrants who attained their positions simply because their following permitted them to stay in office too long...
...As for parents occasionally seeking to "lighten the strain" kids impose, many a child would be visiting his mother in an institution if she didn't have the good sense to do just that...
...Is this not providing a "direct outlet" for the child's energies, which Van den Haag himself insists is necessary...
...But I question strongly whether any man who repeatedly utters outrageous and intemperate statements against members of another race possesses "real intelligence...
...As one who once belonged to four labor unions—and who studied the inner workings of the corruption-infected men at the top as well as the utter apathy of the rank-and-file at the bottom—I can see ultimate disaster for the entire American economy unless the workers themselves rise to overhaul the super-government which has come to rule them...
...He has not had bullies with clubs come up to his shop and force him into a labor union...
...Keiv Gardens Hills, N. Y. Barry Jonathan TALMADGE In the August 19 "National Reports" section, Charles 0. Lerche Jr...
...W. E. Chilton III 'HUNDRED FLOWERS' Your symposium on Mao's "100 Flowers" speech in the August 12 issue made a considerable contribution to the understanding of this puzzling document...
...And this, I think, points up the evils of television that he might have attacked...
...For generations, the managers and workers of the Stude-baker Corporation enjoyed the greatest friendliness...
...I am especially grateful that you chose three writers—Herbert Feis, Harold Isaacs and David Rowe—who approach the subject from such obviously different perspectives...
...The trouble is not that a youngster watches television, but that the industry has withdrawn even the few shows that were worth his time...
...Niebuhr's unrealistic approach stems from the fact that he has never felt the lash of the tyrannical labor unions which have come to power too suddenly to respect the rights of their constituents...
Vol. 40 • September 1957 • No. 37
