A ROOM OF OUR OWN
Follette, Isabel Bacon La
A Room of Our Own 'Fifth Column' Peril Arm Chair Warriors A Mature Country By ISABEL BACON LA FOLLETTE MY observation on the 'fifth column" clanger to our country is that those talking it and...
...The generation which should have been guiding England's destiny was killed off In the last World war, but with us I have all faith that the need will call forth leadership of first quality...
...If this point of view is all that these people see on the American scene, they are jrossly ignorant or pitifully blind...
...How can we repress a smile at hearing the most violent of them advising that all opposition be done away with and a coalition government run the country...
...They remember 19H ¦when exactly the same arguments were being used to get us into that war as are being used by the Amer-lca-after-we-have-taken - care - of - the - world people here today...
...These are the people who have never really liked democracy anyway...
...labor has got to be put in its place...
...He asked her if she thought America should get into the war over there...
...Roosevelt is in the position of responsibility, he mast lead and we must give him all possible help...
...If, as there is apparently room to believe, our defenses need a thorough overhauling, it is the president's responsibility to do this Immediately...
...They also know that clear, constructive thinking is imperative if we are to preserve the "democratic system'' here at home...
...it is more difficult t olook after a wife than ft kingdom...
...Every prediction of Robert M. La Follette made during those bitter days has come true...
...A real American, that woman...
...For better or worse, like age itself, that youth is gone, and with it the luxury of excess energy...
...Affectionately as we may be tied to the land of our ancestors, whether we stem from Norwegian, German, Jewish, whatever stock, America must be our first loyalty...
...Because...
...I aLso refuse to grant Hitler a monopoly on daring and courage...
...As he should, he is calling on able men regardless of their party affiliation to put our defeases on the best possible basis...
...Where were all these people when they really had a chance to help a democracy within Germany...
...When the real America decides on her course of action, the qualities that have made our country great in the past will save democracy for the world...
...Rust rots the steel which use preserves.— Bulwer...
...I hope you have all carefully studied Bob's fine stand which he expressed at the Wisconsin Rapids birthday party in a speech published in last week's Progressive...
...I resent this attitude with •very fibre of my being...
...Congress has given him the money...
...He never counted the cost of getting into everybody else'3 fights, because there was never any question of his own boundless strength...
...legislators are bribable and only concerned with hanging onto their pay-checks...
...In our maturity, one loyalty must come first...
...America's period of youth is gone...
...Anyone who has any real qualms •bout democracy should know our young people...
...came the prompt response...
...Because the judgment of the American people who elected during the last world war a president to keep them out of war...
...I refuse tc^,be bull-dozed by the talk of Hitler's "genius" as contrasted with ordinary mortals...
...But, let us beware this talk of "coalition...
...Money and MEN...
...Hitler came out of a need, and as an Italian friend pointed out to me In Italy last year, "Great leaders can develop In a free society...
...Too much talk and selfish emotion is coming from the comfortable who sitting at their well-loaded dinner tables over a good cigar tell each other and the world that 'democracy won't work...
...What real Americans want is that our government do an "A number 1" job in meeting the change in our national defense policy...
...I saw them in the countries of Europe a year ago, and now in time of stress they are showing their colors here at home...
...She sadly answered, "Oh, no...
...Until recently our country was like a big strong lad with all kinds of Internal conflicts which came and went without affecting his potential power...
...Americans do have confidence in their government...
...The American people realize what is going on in the world today: they know that the democratic way of life is in dire danger...
...They •re quite properly concerned with America and the lives and welfare of each of us...
...I likewise resent the attempt of these arm-chair warriors to infer that "the younger generation" are cowards if they don't want to rush off to Europe in the first plane...
...Today, if these people had their way, we would not only be tackling Hitler on the battlefields of Europe but we would "take on" the world on our enemies' terms...
...he is the administrator...
...Of course, it is true, as Progressives have long been saying, that democracy has to work in terms of 1940...
...These people have been loudest in their tax-eomplalnts in peace-time...
...A Room of Our Own 'Fifth Column' Peril Arm Chair Warriors A Mature Country By ISABEL BACON LA FOLLETTE MY observation on the 'fifth column" clanger to our country is that those talking it and looking for Communists and Fascists and Nazis under their beds would do well to take a good look on the top of their beds—namely, at themselves...
...That is the way they do things over there...
...How are they going to meet war taxes...
...This talk about "defense of America by aiding the Allies' is the 1940 version of "making the world safe for democracy.' Even the names and positions of its sponsors ring very familiarly in our ears...
...The issue is the same today, but like modern war-fare, in the 1940 edition...
...These people tell you that it's just too bad, but the people haven't the intelligence to have a "big view...
...That is why we came to this country...
...Doubtless busy pursuing the "broad view" which permits them to conveniently overlook the real danger to democracy here at home...
...We are a mature country, with the problem of deciding where our best permanent interest lies...
...If the basic soundness of the American people has not made itself felt It is because our leaders failed to put the issues so that our people could take a stand...
...One must be forthcoming, and soon...
...It would be amusing if the stakes weren't so desperate, to hear Mr...
...Most of them do not come out into the open YET and admit what a prominent French leader told Phil a year ago when he asked him what they would expect of America...
...I live in a university community and see many young people, but I have not come across any young man or woman who is not eager to give him or herself generously in the service of our country in peace or war...
...however, he fails to lead where the American people want to go, we have the right and the duty to turn to leadership which offers a sounder course...
...Roosevelt's bitterest enemies talking, as they did the last time they were scared to death In the bank crisis, about "getting behind the president...
...Words of Wisdom Moliere was once asked why it was that in some countries a king was judged to be fit to govern when he was 14, but was not allowed to many until he was 18...
...replied Moliere...
...the "farmer always was a selfish individualist...
...The "old folks are interested in only what they can get out of the rest of us...
...This young America was so serenely confident of his strength and resources that he spent them lavishly as the mood dictated...
...Another thing...
...has been more than justified...
...So long as Pres...
...Thus far we have lacked an American foreign policy...
...These people ask why talk about 1914...
...The people, they claim, just don't know what's good for them and what we need is "a financially independent and thus free governing class...
...A census-taker told me recently of coming across a woman with five brothers in Norway...
Vol. 10 • June 1940 • No. 22
