THE PEOPLE'S FORUM
THE PEOPLE'S FORUM Democracy at Work Dear Sirs: This is a report on a play and a dozen players. It is not a dramatic review, though the incident was of the essence of drama. A play opened at...
...3. Is it not time for honest liberals to come out squarely "on the side of true social revolution" and to realize that "the only revolution that does not end in Stalin-urn must be a Gandhian, non-violent one...
...The purpose of using the dramatic form was to bring together in convenient, compact form a vast amount of data placed before the House Committee Investigating Lobbying Activities over a period of many sessions...
...Our biographical box identifying the author, Julius Duscha, pointed out that the use ol the dramatic form was "imaginary" and that the author had "chosen" to call the group "Americanism, Inc...
...It is hardly this country's capitalistic and reactionary policy that so embitters Russia but rather that this is the only country that might block her world conquest...
...No such meeting as described ever took place...
...John F. Hirth Pittsburgh, Pa...
...or, not wanting that, "wash his hands" of the editorial responsibility and allow the magazine to fall...
...Our family mustered our resources in beds and bedding and found we could accommodate three...
...You bite and pull hair in the clinches—and I hate dirty fingers...
...Their fixed policy of rule or ruin makes it impossible for any group to work with them...
...Tails Tucked In Dear Sirs: I am discontinuing my subscription because The Progressive has ceased to be progressive...
...A preventive war would have the effect of uniting Russia and her allies, at the same time alienating the rest of the world from us...
...He doesn't just gently nudge the reader's conscience...
...One with any sense of the dignity and the decency of mankind can feel proud of Weston...
...Shall we just sit supinely by and say to the North Koreans and their "Big Brothers," "Tut, Tut...
...Their laughter, their fund of hilarious anecdotes of the road, eased—or seemed to ease—whatever stings they had suffered...
...We are publishing your telegram in full in the November issue, together with this letter, to reaffirm the obvious fact that there is no such organization as Americanism, Inc., and that, of course, no such meeting of a non-existent organization could have taken place...
...Matthews Must Resign Dear Sirs: Secretary of the Navy Matthews should be asked to resign because of his advocacy of a preventive war...
...Prompt action is necessary, its first consideration the removal of Matthews and decided rejection of his policy...
...The Progressive is one thing we wish to take with us from the U. S. May its illumination continue to shed light in a darkening world...
...In all Jesus' teachings we never find any justification in taking men's lives for any reason...
...Francis, 1 think I would have allowed that it is a bright light in this dark holy year...
...As a first step, to minimize somewhat the damage, please regard this as a formal demand for a public and full retraction supplying us immediate information as to reprint rights you may have granted to others for circulation by them...
...As long as The Progressive will rise and let the light of moral intelligence, without which liberalism is doomed and damned, shine from its pages, I intend to keep subscribing, to subscribe for others, and to help on the extras, whenever they are needed...
...Russia will not be defeated by dropping a few atom bombs on her munitions factories and cities, but our nation would become an outcast among nations...
...But his contribution to the October issue was the last straw...
...It is pointed out that the policy of armed intervention by Western powers in Asia under the UN flag, whether in Korea, Formosa, or the Bao Dai regime in French Indo-China, is "the surest way to strengthen Stalin's hands...
...Martha Z. Williams Rio Hondo, Tex...
...One woman, a sort of Paula Revere, got on the phone and kept the wires burning with requests for spare rooms for the outcasts...
...A play opened at Westport, Conn., preliminary to a visioned Broadway run...
...One has to break with them or surrender...
...The people of Westport took to the play...
...It is a salute to Weston...
...I submit that the proposition is utterly ridiculous—not because I want to support the infamous Dn Rhee, but because the North Koreans have violated the only principle upon which the UN can build—that is, the territorial integrity of each nation...
...7. The ordinary Russian docs not want atomic war any more than the ordinary American does...
...Do good to them that hate you...
...We have been talking UN, hoping UN, dreaming UN, and a lot of us have been living and working UN...
...Friends on Korea Dear Sirs: Even if the Friends (nicknamed "Quakers") "were given to liturgical language," your editorial offer in October of a hearty "Amen" to the Friends is not acceptable to certain Friends...
...I hope that Catholic editors, too, will feel the salutary sting of its reproach...
...What's happening here...
...Masterpiece Dear Sirs: "Chain Explosion in the Orient," by Helen Mears, in the October issue, is really a masterpiece...
...We live, suh, in the Solid North...
...Charles W. Gheer Ft...
...Question Dear Sirs: An interesting question is raised by Mr...
...A lot of citizens of Westport and the nearby suburb of Weston resented the situation...
...It gives support to the contention of the Kremlin that the United States is an aggressor and irresponsible war monger...
...Demand and Reply [Telegram] M. H. Rubin, Editor, The Progressive Madison, Wis...
...Robert Hovda St...
...No important issue has been settled on a permanent basis by negotiations that has not resulted entirely in Russia's favor...
...Muste...
...Mrs...
...I hope that my clerical comrades will read it...
...Must it always be the unacknowledged God-led who build the bridges for the rest of us...
...My husband I, and three small children, will be leaving "this great land abounding in freedom and opportunity for all," in search of a truly democratic, non-militaristic and non-imperialistic little country maintaining a government we can conscientiously support...
...This is based solely on your methods...
...There's still a spark now and then—but not often enough lor me...
...Thank you for giving it, and so many other good things to us...
...Mary's Cathedral Fargo, N. D. Flight From Militarism Dear Sirs: We were among the disappointed when, in August, The Progressive upheld the United Nations-approved U. S. attack upon Korea...
...Committee for Constitutional Government, Inc...
...But when it can rise above its social and racial prejudices and take in the outcast and unwanted, that is much more...
...Mayer's article for the answer...
...And admittedly, that will jar us either to Kingdom Come or the Other Place...
...If it was necessary that the UN follow such a course of action to save face, then there must be a flaw in its makeup...
...I am sending under separate cover my renewal...
...What is prayer unless it is honest, intellectual activity brought to bear upon some problem which we face...
...So, when Milton Mayer now condemns the UN for suddenly and dramatically making its stand in a situation as clear-cut as the Korean situation is, I feel like resigning from this laboratory and going back to freelance nibbling at the walls of my ivory tower...
...This was the pattern of their living, and custom creates calluses...
...They came, they stayed, they con-quered...
...But the hotels and rooming houses, with a few exceptions, would not take in the players...
...I, as a Westoner, am proud...
...Good troupers, all...
...Celo Health Center is a well-equipped clinic for diagnostic and medical therapeutic work, in a county of 16,000 people served by five physicians...
...If Mr...
...Also, why not give us a good poem or a bit of fiction slanted to the liberal viewpoint...
...whether it be paying taxes used for military supplies or complying with the many government orders and regulations...
...We demand that you immediately inform the teachers of Anderson and wherever else you have authorized distribution of this magazine or the article that this story is a hoax and pure fabrication...
...The show had a week's run, to excellent houses...
...Yugoslavia is Communistic, and Russia cannot work with her...
...We feel we can no longer earn a living in the U.S...
...We have favored multilateral, not unilateral activity...
...Muste admits this is a risk, but urges Jnat we must make the effort "if a truly human existence is to continue on this Planet...
...Let me say at the outset that I admire Mr...
...All he says is "Pray...
...Of what significance is the idea that we ought not to oppose the North Koreans because by so doing we support a "reactionary puppet government...
...Morris H. Rubin Editor, The Progressive Madison, Wis...
...The October issue left me a little confused...
...205 East 42nd Street New York 17, New York (Letter of Reply] Committee for Constitutional Government...
...More from Muste Dear Sirs: Give us more articles by A. J. Muste or others like him...
...Have you taken measure of your financial responsibility for putting into circulation such false and damaging statements...
...Here's hoping you die a well earned death—and soon...
...We have found Costa Rica to be such a country and have been extended a warm welcome...
...This country's consistent working with reactionary forces is to be deplored...
...Francis of Assisi's feast day of your October issue with Milton Mayer's basic essay: "The Progressive...
...The Pacifist Position on Korea" made sense...
...Not of the poor little role we played in the play...
...For example, all through the postwar years we progressives have been trying to sell people on the idea of implementing the United Nations...
...We like Milton Mayer very much and we want to extend laurels to The Progressive for being the only magazine of its kind willing to print criticism of its own editor in a feature article...
...For most intelligent people, when the religious language of the past is used, the mass of superstition and forms associated with such words as God, immortality, and miracle well up from the individual's background and make understanding impossible...
...They harbored no hate...
...As for using something other than military force as an argument, they have demonstrated repeatedly that that is the only thing they respect...
...Well, that's what we did and it resulted in action, the ultimate practicality of which is as yet unknown...
...In every case in the past, Russia accepted all concessions we made, then sidestepped or reneged on her own...
...Francis D. Hole Madison, Wis...
...As for the basic data in the article, dealing with the attitudes and viewpoints of the individuals and organizations covered, we find nothing that requires retraction...
...Are the keepers changing the maze again...
...Edwin S. Potter Arden, Del...
...5. And so the pacifist asks: "Shall a Communist totalitarianism be allowed to drag democracies and Christian peoples down to its own level by tempting them to defend decency and love against violence by greater violence...
...Ernest L. Meyer Westport, Conn...
...Happy Coincidence Dear Sirs: It was a happy coincidence, the arrival on St...
...We will send a forwarding address in Costa Rica as soon as we become established there sometime near the end of the year...
...But we saw as time passed that the UN seemed to be just another alphabetical assembly...
...Lillian Lee Devils Lake, N. Dak...
...This entire story is pure fabrication...
...Samuel A. Wright Unitarian Church Stockton, Calif...
...The starting salary would not be high, but the job offers a decent living...
...tivity designed to alleviate the problem...
...The use of military force to stop an evildoer never has and never will prove successful in the final analysis...
...But in the case at hand, how can we say that non-intervention would prevent World War III...
...Neither is it acceptable to Jesus, whom Fox and the Friends claim to follow, for He taught and demonstrated love of enemies...
...Lauderdale, Fla...
...Let nothing I say be interpreted as manifesting any desire on my part that his work be left out of future editions...
...Mayer's position, it is something like this: We must renounce force and violence even when it is used upon us and the only positive course for us is to believe in the "Providence of God" and concern ourselves with the "direct action of prayer...
...Anton Nelson Los Altos, Calif...
...Any unworthy comments appreciated...
...Rarely had we entertained a group so intelligent, so full of heartiness and humor...
...We and the five or six other families (all members of the Religious Society of Friends, Quakers) who plan to emigrate to Costa Rica have contemplated such a move for the past three years...
...I have thought long and bitterly, as have thousands of progressives, on just that problem: How to meet force without force and still retain the integrity of the individual which we have won through the years so far and still continue to extend...
...But I'm proud of the urge of a whole neighborhood to combat, with all its limited resources, the unlimited intolerance man has for man...
...Roosevelt negotiated with full confidence in Russia's sincerity...
...But if his be prophesy, it shall not be heeded if the language used creates reaction instead of understanding...
...Doctor Wanted Dear Sirs: We have an axe to grind—for several hundred families in a southern mountain valley with inadequate medical services and for the one overworked physician at Celo Health Center who cannot keep up with the present demands for his services...
...Individuals should go on trying to weave strands of human fellowship and to be "soldiers of non-violence"—thus to build the World Community...
...Mayer's thoughtfulness and his ability, but in this instance I confess that I don't know what he is talking about...
...After a second reading of the Muste presentation, I was so impressed with its objective analysis of the problem to be faced in this Korean crisis that it seemed to me his line of thought would reach more readers if condensed in point by point form...
...Even without the background of this morning's mass of St...
...man will have reasserted himself as a human being rather than as a brute...
...As I understand Mr...
...While Mr...
...Would not the Russians distrust our sincerity at first in such a policy...
...Hurrahl I've had a gift membership this yedr and have grown from plain neutrality to open hared of the "P...
...19 commenting on the article, "Americanism, Inc.," which appeared in The Progressive for October, we find nothing that requires retraction...
...So was Mr...
...The cast was all Negro...
...Hal Galloway Mill Valley, Calif...
...If there is an honest reason for your continued existence—and you do live—won't you come out openly and hammer home your point without any sneaky trickery, half (or nine-tenths) lies, and dirty inuendos...
...Rev...
...without in some way being responsible in the program for all-out preparation for war...
...What followed was heartening to any— even faint—believers in democracy...
...he gives it a hearty dig with a very sharp elbow—and we need it...
...Someone has to be very deeply and courageously human "in order for others to be true to themselves...
...It had rough spots, but also good spots, and it was enlivened by hilarious scenes...
...In doing so we have sacrificed much, losing the respect and confidence of a considerable portion of the world as well as that of many of our own citizens...
...Godless individualism will never stop Godless Communism...
...Most of your writers have tucked in their tails and climbed into a hole — for fear of being called red...
...Muste frankly admits that the Korean situation does present a desperate dilemma, namely, global war and chaos or the triumph of Stalinism, still he insists on the pacihet s skepticism of the theory of meeting force with force...
...When a town inhabited largely by well-to-do New York City commuters, can rise above its financial prejudices and take in the poor, that is something...
...The more our Army disintegrated after the war, the more contemptuous and demanding they became...
...We surely cannot afford such a war, even though we should emerge as victors...
...purported to be a reprint from The Progressive magazine...
...The additional physician urgently needed by Celo Health Center should be interested in general practice, with a liking for health education, prevention of illness, and the broader social aspects of health...
...Louise Toness Burnesville, N. C. Reaction Language Dear Sirs: I suppose this letter will appear among those damning Milton Mayer for his discussion of The Progressive and Morris Rubin in the old language of religion...
...It seems hopeless, however, that this doctrine will ever be understood until humanity the world over is willing to make the personal sacrifice necessary to obey the law of love—"Love your enemies...
...Milton Mayer is right...
...Mjldred E. Mendenhall Fairhope, Ala...
...6. By his willingness to risk "destruction for peace and truth...
...It was not a first rate play...
...2. This idea is an effort to ride two horses in opposite directions, that is, war and peace...
...I believe that the consequences would be either a mere postponement of the facing of an inevitable issue until a later time when the forces within which the democratic process has a chance of growing are weaker than at present, or in the alternative a sterile forfeiture of our individual integrity by default to an amoral aggressor...
...Admittedly, the action taken in Korea may lead to World War III...
...Harry and Rhoda Reith New Castle, Pa...
...It is not acceptable, for example, to George Fox, founder of the Society of Friends, for he condemned all violent warfare by force of arms...
...And what good is that kind of prayer unless it gives us answers in the form of some practical ac...
...And though we kept our chins high, our hearts were sagging, for we felt the falter in the moral idealism that swept the world in 1945...
...It draws patients from neighboring counties as well...
...Rule or Ruin Dear Sirs: I am puzzled by the article by Morris Rubin in the September issue, as well as other articles by men who are supposed to be intelligent and well-informed...
...We will not discontinue our subscription, but instead we have renewed it for three years...
...Our best wishes for a successful future...
...It also offers association with a small intentional community (17 families so far)—interested in working out a healthful and harmonious way of life—within which Celo Health Center is located and of which the present physician is a member...
...We are not escaping war, fully realizing that another war will encompass the earth in its destruction...
...I respect Mr...
...Mayer greatly...
...Looking through our glass darkly, I can see only dire consequences for refusing to allow the UN to object forcefully to the violation of that principle...
...More than that, they acted...
...Four young men in our group have served prison terms for refusal to comply with peacetime military conscription...
...What does he mean...
...This is not only a tribute to the players...
...We will go to a heretofore undeveloped area of virgin timberland to establish individual family-size farms...
...No such statements as it falsely attributes to Edward A. Rumely, our executive secretary, were made by him at any time...
...205 East 42nd Street New York, N. Y. Gentlemen: In response to your telegram of Oct...
...We are, however, freeing ourselves of a government we have been unable to change through honest efforts and one which has no remnant of anything lett which we can uphold or support...
...The Communists' success in infiltrating every group that is not determinedly anti-Communist makes dealing with those groups a question of dealing with Russia...
...Moral Intelligence Dear Sirs: Your September editorial rejoinder to A. J. Muste, continuing your interchange of a month ago, was marvelous...
...Weil-Earned Death Dear Sirs: So you are about to fold up...
...You cannot negotiate with any pretense of sincerity without making some concessions...
...Mayer's article, "The Progressive," in the October issue of the same name...
...From Anderson, Indiana, we have copy ot an article entitled "Americanism, Inc...
...If we had not started to rebuild and called a halt, Turkey and Iran would soon have been behind the Iron Curtain...
...I have searched my heart and Mr...
...Also that military necessity always leads to alliance with "the very elements that oppose progressive measures...
...Obviously there is nothing to "retract in the presentation of such data based on sworn testimony before the Committee since it is part of the official record...
...Such an action would destroy the United States' potential leadership for peace through unsound disarmament...
...C. Hovies Hampton, N. J. The Pacifist Position Dear Sirs: All credit and praise are due The Progressive for a great service in the cause ot truth in having included in the September issue the article by A. J. Muste presenting "The Pacifist Position on Korea," the more so because the Muste piece takes issue with The Progressive's own previous stand...
...In any case the pacifist must try to set the pattern even if no nation is ready to take this course...
...We just cannot remain a part of a war economy and we do not wish to stay on and accept the profits of another war at the expense of suffering peoples all over the world...
...4. Admittedly this presents a painful tactical problem...
...We have already made a colossal mistake in using the atom bomb against Japan...
...violence will get you nowhere...
...O. C. Heatherly Elizabethton, Tenn...
...Neither is it acceptable to many present-day Friends, who still hold to the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount, and who do not agree with the statements from two publications of Friends, which you quoted, to the effect that it is good procedure to wage war in Korea first, and then restore peace afterwards...
...Rubin says we should seek a live-and-let-live agreement with Russia...
...Can anyone name one benefit to the democratic world...
...The main points of the Muste argument may be condensed as fallows: 1. Nearly all of the various kinds ot literals now tend to favor the proposal on the one hand to increase the military defease of the West "for security," while on the other hand to stop supporting undemocratic regimes anywhere in the world and at the same time aid backward peoples...
...But, where was the alternative...
...But that is hardly a matter of choice...
...Rubin were suddenly to discover his unknown God, would he then become so single-minded as to eliminate all but the Mayers and Mustes from the magazine, and make it useless as a many-fielded medium...
...What the pacifist wants to know, says Muste, is whether or not the Western Powers have ever tried to deal fundamentally with the evils that begot Stalinism...
...For a few years it will truly be a pioneer life...
...Mayer's Prayers Dear Sirs: I swore I wouldn't get into the rat race created by your subscribers' writing about Milton Mayer...
...I don't find it...
Vol. 14 • November 1950 • No. 11
