Messages of Condolence
Messages of Condolence Following are excerpts from some of the many cables, telegrams and letters that have been received by The New Leader and the Levitas family. Sol Levitas' personality...
...No journal had such a wide influence among intelligent men of the left...
...What shall we do without that little center of vital intelligence and good will over there on 15th Street to resort to with trust and affection...
...He had always been our friend and supporter...
...His editorial pen, which labor will sorely miss, always reflected his liberalism and his humane ideals...
...We were terribly sorry to hear of the news...
...His warm personality and dynamic qualities will be sorely missed at home and abroad...
...New York City Dick Clurman Deepest sympathy on the death of our good friend Sol...
...His dynamic energy, devoted completely to The New Leader during the last three decades, contributed greatly to the influence which it exercises in intellectual, liberal and labor circles here and abroad...
...Together in London we met with the Labor party leadership—Hugh Gaitskell, George Brown, Denis Healey and the others—all of whom saw in Sol Levitas what so many other important Europeans of the liberal democratic left saw in him throughout a quarter of a century of troubled times: a vital and continuous transatlantic link with America and Americans that was unofficial, sincere, civilized and unfailingly sympathetic...
...New York City Anatole Shub No publication ever had a more stimulating, passionately concerned, tolerant, warm-hearted editor than Sol Levitas...
...President Morris Iushewitz Secretary James C. Quinn Treasurer Was greatly shocked at sad news...
...Washington, D.C...
...He was a prince of men...
...He will be missed in the labor movement of New York City...
...During a fighting life which showed him to be a bold and fearless defender of democracy and freedom, he had always been a friend of the free German labor movement...
...The country has lost a splendid citizen and a great editor...
...San Jose Jose Figueres Greatly affected by the death of my dear friend, Sol Levitas, with whom I was privileged to work for many years in the cause of human freedom...
...But we are all grateful that his voice was raised and heard in the confusion of American democracy and did much to bring order out of confusion...
...Grieved sudden passing Sol Levitas...
...Cambridge, Mass...
...He made a unique con.tribution to the welfare of all his countrymen and he will be sorely missed...
...His understanding for our cause found its expression chiefly in his activities as a journalist...
...I had not known that he was in the hospital...
...He has established his forum of truly international expression and debate, which has been and certainly will remain an inspiration and a model...
...The world is colder and poorer without Sol...
...Princeton George Kennan Louis Fischer Deeply grieved over the news...
...We should like to express our deepest sympathy to the family and the colleagues of the deceased...
...Sol Levitas was a great and good man...
...Adrienne Koch Sol Levitas was truly noble and unique...
...For all of us who knew his love and sweetness in the comradeship of the good fight, who knew his supreme loyalty, his idealistic devotion, his practical wisdom, our fighting on in the cause of liberty will never be the same again...
...London Hugh Gaitskell Chairman, Labor Party Deeply in sorrow over loss of great editor and good friend...
...New York City Theodore Draper With what unutterable, unspeakable sadness the fearful news of Sol's passing leaves us...
...New York City Reinhold Niebuhr I have just heard with very real sorrow the sad news of Sol's death...
...Rome Paolo Rossi Vice President, Chamber of Deputies It is with regret and sorrow that I mourn the death of my friend Sol Levitas...
...Paris Francois Bondy Editor, "Preuves" In the name of the Congress for Cultural Freedom may I express our profound grief at the loss of our dear friend Sol Levitas...
...His death is an irreplaceable loss to the liberal community...
...For those of us whom he used to like to call his "boys"—we have lost a father and we shall always honor his memory...
...He had made a gallant fight for health and I had hoped he would win for many more years...
...None of us then had an inkling that this was to be our last meeting...
...He was like a father to me and I feel the loss as any son would certainly...
...His dedication to the ideals of social democracy was more than lip-service...
...His motto, "Don't antagonize your enemies," was for many of us the painful beginning of wisdom, and his phrase, "our people," still hold out the promise of a community that existed most selflessly in his own heart...
...New York City Frances Grant General Secretary We Hungarians in exile were deeply grieved by the news of the death of your distinguished editor, Sol Levitas...
...To his co-workers, his wife and children, I extend for myself and the union heartfelt sympathy...
...Rome Giuseppe Saragat Chairman, Social Democratic Party Deep regrets for loss of prominent democrat and friend of Italy...
...Levitas was a warm and affectionate human being...
...Although we were not able to meet very often, I know that I have lost an old and close friend...
...New York City Jay Lovestone Assembly of Captive European nations and millions of people whose aspirations to freedom it voices share grief of the orphaned New Leader family...
...For all his intellectual achievements, Mr...
...London Melvin J. Lasky Co-editor, "Encounter" Shocked over Sol's passing...
...Washington, D.C...
...With great wisdom, with great courage and with a profound understanding of the relationship of the human spirit to the world society, he has been guardian of the future...
...He did a great thing in keeping The New Leader going, and this I say as one who by no means agreed with its positions all the time...
...I extend my sincere condolences...
...He will always be remembered by those who had the good fortune to know him as a forthright and courageous fighter for the cause of freedom and justice to which his generous and noble heart was dedicated...
...The end of his pain makes us all orphans, hopeful only that the heritage his indomitable life created for so many will prove some small comfort to those who shared his suffering...
...Embassy, Yugoslavia I was shocked and grieved by the news in the paper this morning...
...Rome Ignazio Silone I am deeply shocked and saddened to learn of your husband's death...
...We shall remember him for his single-minded devotion to the labor and democratic cause...
...We used to kid him about being the Jefferson of East 15th Street, but oh, how far the light of his idealism shone, and how incandescently in the struggle against the totalitarians of left and right, against the Nazi and the Communist dictatorships...
...We will greatly miss his indefatigable defense of democracy, as will all the ranks of freedom-loving men...
...Bonn Erich Ollenhauer Chairman, Social Democratic Party Herbert Wehner Vice Chairman Waldemar von Knoeringen Vice Chairman Deeply distressed at sad news about Sol Levitas...
...Neiv York City Harry Van Arsdale Jr...
...He was a great editor and educator...
...We shall be among his many friends who will cherish his memory as long as they live...
...His warm Russian soul, skeptical Jewish mind and American pioneer spirit reach far beyond the time and place we knew him...
...London Denis Healey Member of Parliament Have just learned with sorrow of the death of Levitas, a fighter for liberty, free thought and social justice...
...Oakland, Calif...
...Serafino Romualdi AFL-CIO Inter-American Representative Deepest sympathy to New Leader and family of Sol Levitas...
...You can be sure that his ideals will survive in the thousands of people who were honored to learn from him and to work with him...
...Paris Andre Philip Have just learned of the death of Sol Levitas...
...The New Leader guided many of us from abstract idealism to a pragmatic view of our responsibilities in the domestic and foreign affairs of our great nation...
...Sol will always live in the hearts of the peoples of Eastern Europe to whom he rendered imperishable services...
...He was the friend of all oppressed peoples...
...Unfailingly wise and good...
...His was a courageous and wise voice and he will be sorely missed by free men and all those who aspire to freedom...
...Berlin Willy Brandt Mayor, West Berlin We are deeply saddened by the sudden death of S. M. Levitas...
...As editor of The New Leader, he maintained the integrity of that journal as a forum for liberalism and as a determined enemy of those who seek to enslave man...
...We last met with him at the party congress of the German Social Democratic party at Hanover, where he followed the deliberations with his characteristic nimbleness of mind...
...That hope is alive in the world for freedom and justice is due in large part to his superb effort...
...Sol not only generated warmth and affection from all who knew him...
...New York City George E. Sokolsky The Inter-American Association for Democracy and Freedom extends deepest sympathy on the death of our colleague and friend, Sol Levitas...
...We have lost a superb fighter, a wonderful man, a great unique personality, and how poorer we all are, and eternally so, for how could there ever be anybody quite like him again...
...New York City David Dubinsky President, 1LGWU I was saddened to learn of the untimely death of Sol Levitas on Tuesday...
...The free world has lost in him a truly heroic fighter and a brilliant intellect...
...The cause of freedom has lost a courageous fighter...
...All of us will miss him...
...Brussels Omer Becu General Secretary, ICFTU The New York City Central Labor Council AFL-CIO wishes to express shock and sorrow by the loss of Samuel Levitas champion of labor and liberal causes...
...Full of stories of Pietro Nenni from Rome, of Willy Brandt and the German Socialists whom he had seen at Hanover, of the arguments with the Yugoslavs in Belgrade—for Sol, with characteristic undiplomatic directness, insisted on bringing up the question of Djilas in jail...
...Detroit Walter P. Reuther President, UAW Please accept my deepest sympathy over the death of your husband...
...Mexico City Daniel James No one who worked with Sol will ever believe he is gone...
...We remember his democratic conviction and his internationalist action...
...New York City Max Eastman Sol Levitas was one of the finest, gentlest and fundamentally good men it was our privilege to meet...
...Anthony Harrigan Associate Editor, "News and Courier" Loss of Sol Levitas will be mourned among Latin American liberals who appreciated his support of democratic cause...
...Sol Levitas' personality lent a unique quality of intimacy and understanding into the international brotherhood for freedom and justice...
...I know how much he labored in various ways to advance the principles in which he so ardently believed...
...New York City Bela FABIAN Chairman...
...How full of life and plans he was...
...Over the 25 years I have known, admired and held him in the deepest affection, I have gone far into his debt...
...All who knew him must share your grief...
...It was only a few days ago that we parted in London, at a quiet farewell dinner with him and his dear wife, after his all too exciting, all too strenuous visits to the various political capitals of Europe...
...Arthur J. Goldberg Secretary of Labor-designate We in the AFL-CIO were greatly saddened at the death of Sol Levitas...
...Paris Guy Mollet Chairman, Socialist Party Deepest sympathy from me and my party for the death of beloved and appreciated comrade and friend...
...But he rightly enjoyed the respect and admiration given only to men who make a large contribution to the lives of others...
...Victor G. Reuther IUD, AFL-CIO Deeply moved by loss of our friend Levitas...
...Sol was a noble, sweet, true and wonderful being, his loss a tragedy not to us only but to the whole free world...
...but his good works will always live on...
...The sad news reaches me simultaneously with the last of Sol's many letters which kept New Leader contributors of five continents at work...
...New York City Hans Kohn We mourn the death of Sol Levitas, the veteran freedom fighter whose self-sacrificing devotion to a good cause should inspire us all...
...Sol made The New Leader a vital force in American journalism...
...I kept praying that it would not be his last tour as I found myself receiving endless messages to pass on to him—from T. S. Eliot or from the American Ambassador, as if Sol himself was a kind of ambassador-atlarge, the truest best representative of that America which understood most sensitively the tragic realities of the international struggles of our time...
...George Meany President, AFL-CIO Profoundly grieved at passing of Sol Levitas...
...Arthur Schelsinger Jr...
...Throughout many years he devoted himself unstintingly to the service and interest of labor and all liberals...
...New York City Vaclavas Sidzikaukas Chairman Brutus Coste Secretary General I always had affection and respect for Samuel Levitas, who battled valiantly for good things...
...And all the time he was, in that inescapable phrase of his, "'signing up" new regular writers and correspondents, which was his way of describing that airy arrangement by which he conscripted us all to donate articles for the cause...
...We shall miss him...
...Charleston, S.C...
...Paris Nicolas Nabokov General Secretary The news I've just heard makes us all infinitely poorer and sadder...
...Washington, D.C...
...Washington, D.C...
...Robert Spivack Correspondent, New York "Post" Deeply depressed at the death of Levitas...
...Washington, D.C...
...New York City Henry R. Luce Editor-in-Chief, Time, Inc...
...My sorrowful condolences and friendship to the family and staff of The New Leader...
...He was a staunch liberal, a true believer in democracy and an unrelenting foe of Communism...
...New York City Norman Thomas My heart almost stopped too when I saw Sol's name on that fateful page...
...The question won't be of much comfort to you, unless it is a comfort to know how many thousands of us have a share in your sorrow...
...I treasured his friendship and confidence through years of common activities in the liberal cause and I mourn his loss...
...We shall all miss him...
...Belgrade Joe Godson U.S...
...I who have known him throughout the years realize how much he will be missed at this critical moment...
Vol. 44 • January 1961 • No. 3
