THE PEOPLE'S FORUM
THE PEOPLE'S FORUM Fascism Coming Dear Sirs: I am no longer a progressive or liberal. My observation has been since this war and also the last one: that the liberals just mess around making minor...
...But Boss Flynn and Mayor O'Dwyer, Catholics with more courage to defy the political Cardinal than Protestant or Jewish New York newspaper publishers show, refused to kneel...
...That just about puts the liberal movement's preoccupation in a nutshell—Commy-hunting...
...5. All the meetings will be held at the Northwestern High School, and they will all begin at 7:30 p.m...
...And so, each year, I plod my weary way to the polls and, with hand to nose try to find that candidate and party which, for the moment, points most closely to the direction in which I'd like to travel...
...More powerful monopolies, small business on a decline, one-third of the nation still ill-housed, ill-clothed, or ill-fed...
...In my more juvenile days (i...
...Tickets for the whole series are available at the Socialist Party offices, 8751 Grand River...
...That is a lie, in so far as "Southern culture" or habitual general behavior goes...
...What did arrive, however, and of what Mr...
...Why not deal with the Negro question as a seething national issue rather than throwing it in the teeth of the South...
...Thomas F. Opie, D.D...
...House of Representatives Washington, D. C. Second Era Dear Sirs: It is essential to the maintenance of a healthy democracy that the less orthodox, less conservative, more questioning, more protesting, more progressive point of view have adequate medium of expression...
...As long as the press, radio, cinema, and the schools go their way with a minimum of improvement, free from bold criticism, progress is a mythical matter...
...Rose says that the Smith book about the "dream-killers" tells him that Southern males "placed their wives on pedestals, grew cold toward them—and then went out into the backyard to love Negro women who reminded them of their gentle mammies...
...We have fear bred of insecurity, discontent fanned by the hucksters, exhaustion due to assembly line schedules, increasing unemployment, technological and premature unemployability...
...Gilbert L. Oddo Washington, D. C. Rose's Review Dear Sirs: Arnold Rose's December review of Lillian Smith's book, Killers of the Dream, is literary-sectional blasphemy...
...You remember why the Cardinal called Mrs...
...The word socialism scares the liberal to death...
...The windup feature will be Tucker P. Smith, one of America's outstanding socialists, Interpreting, "America's Stake In The British Elections," Mar...
...The man in the street has little time and educational equipment for figuring it all out...
...Yes, I, too, have come to doubt that we'll realize our dream the nice, easy, ballot-box way...
...Lillian Zangville New York, N. Y. The Hard Way Dear Sirs: I read each number of The Progressive" through—and Milton Mayer three times, at least...
...Quoting out of the context of Fred Ro-dell's article, "The liberal anti-Communist-left had better shut up and go home...
...in your January issue leave me with a feeling of angry frustration...
...The Progressive has furnished such a medium over the years and it is to be hoped that this Anniversary is the beginning of a second era of usefulness equal in results to its past achievements...
...Nobody who has ever lived in the South, no-matter what his native section might be, or his color or race, who has any sense of the amenities, or any sociological balance whatever, could entertain such ri-diculous ideas as that...
...Our politics are partially the result of our educational system, our class mores, our commercial culture...
...You have done a splendid job...
...Bernard Attinson Bronx, N. Y. Splendid Job Dear Sirs: I want to take this opportunity to congratulate The Progressive magazine on its 40th Anniversary...
...so are the Socialists and all moral people...
...Rev...
...That moment in which the South was deprived of its possession (and I hold that slavery is wrong whether south, east, north, or west) by the U. S. Government, all responsibility for the Negro's welfare shifted, legally, to that Government...
...However, as the torchbearers of progres-sivism, your job is greater than past achievements...
...Such books as this and such biased and warped reviews as yours in your December issue are not calculated to solve the Negro-White problem...
...At the moment the Emancipation went into effect, all "responsibility" for the Negro, on the part of the Southern whites, ceased, legally...
...Let's see some of it...
...Thirteen years ago I came to the conclusion that when socialism comes to this country it will do so with the aid of the old parties...
...We can cheer positively that such men as the Ta-bers, Hallecks, Martins, Wherry et, al...
...Face the facts—don't blaspheme the South—for a wretched race-relation which is not sectional, but as nationwide as is other crime...
...Lehman was nominated...
...19, the topic will be, "Is the Labor Party Sabotaging Production...
...But the South, bled white as it was, and unequal to proper care for its very own, at least saw to it that the Negro survived— fed him, clothed him, housed him—and even educated and nursed him to the best of its ability...
...Wallace was nearer Mr...
...The series price is $1.25...
...as well as the 'guilt feelings' . . . made necessary a formal segregation of Negroes,"—all this is social blasphemy...
...Roosevelt a "bigot...
...This to me is a singularly vicious attitude for a man to take who was Secretary of State when our country and its then Presi-ident based our entry into the war on high moral grounds...
...Have we any more intelligence than other people have...
...J. Hayden Moore, Sr...
...Progressivism as such has failed...
...G. W. Chapman Ontario, N. Y. Hooray for Herbert...
...The Progressive has adhered religiously to the basic principles that "Fighting Bob" established it for, namely to bring government back to the people...
...Professors split hairs and rarely leave the parlor...
...I did read Miss Smith's first book, however, and as a reviewer of books I held that it was just another third-rater...
...Granted that Mr...
...Prof...
...We are docilely taxed to give the farmer a living...
...House of Representatives Washington, D. C. Good Sense Dear Sirs: I am happy to have this opportunity to express my appreciation of the role that The Progressive plays in continuing to stimulate thought and discussion on vital problems of the day...
...That, to this writer, is something worth cheering, albeit, I'll agree, not too lustily...
...My observation has been since this war and also the last one: that the liberals just mess around making minor reforms until the fascists become strong enough to take over...
...I think (and fear) that when it comes, it will come the hard way...
...With the New Year, let's get going...
...Until such time as the progressives can produce better results I shall continue to greet the election of Uncle Herbert Lehman and his kind with a loud Hooray...
...Truman is not capable of the same flair for liberal leadership as was his predecessor, and granted further that too many of his appointments arc tinged with conservatism, nevertheless cheering need not only be negative...
...Throughout the years, there has been an increasing demand for publications promulgating liberal ideals and principles...
...are no longer the titular heads of Congress: is it not infinitely better for progressives that through the election of 1948, such men as Dean Acheson, Charles Brannan, Oscar Chapman, Oscar Ewing, Leon Keyserling, Paul Douglas and Herbert Lehman are helping shape our national policy...
...Well, for one thing, for voters with more sense of real issues and real proportion than the gloom-revelling Fred Rodell seems to have...
...I like his scintillating satire (it burns like live coals, and we deserve it) and also agree with his philosophy, because I am, after 53 years of voting, of wandering the winding calf-path of progress, not any nearer the goal than when I started...
...As G. B. Shaw said, "Wallace was the only Presidential candidate who knew what it was all about...
...Hooray for the Voters...
...Rodell says that he, for one, is not satisfied with the so-called victories of the past two elections...
...That seems to be the pattern of the past...
...And the public elected Lehman...
...Otto C. Doering Chicago, 111...
...Rodell ("Hooray for What") did not seem to be fully cognizant, was the arrest of the march backwards...
...He plagiarizes, dilutes socialistic ideas, and is foiled by his own semantic fear, his worship of a "free" enterprise no longer in existence...
...The theme, it would seem, should be "be thankful that the backward march was halted...
...Exactly how does Prof...
...Once we start as a people to use plain language in condemning such inexcusable tactics, we will begin to get somewhere...
...The only inspiring, original note in the December issue is Milton Mayer's moral stand...
...On Feb...
...Detroit Area Readers Dear Sirs: Readers of The Progressive in the Detroit area will be interested in the new series of educational meetings being sponsored by the Socialist Party of Michigan...
...Roosevelt's size than any of the others...
...Great Barrington, Mass...
...He insists on "something more substantial—something like insisting on militant, able, genuinely progessive men for public office...
...Dear Sirs: The December issue of The Progressive carries a review of the Stettinius defense of the Yalta Conference...
...Shameful Blot...
...Just for that, the Cardinal didn't want him nominated...
...Yes, I'm getting a little weary of waiting, and waiting some more...
...And this has never been pointed up so well as in the article's constant repetition of the term "anti-Communist Left...
...But what have we...
...Ellis Ogle New York, N. Y. Shut Up, Liberals Dear Sirs: "Hooray for What...
...In the election Dulles sidestepped the issue by saying he opposed any Federal aid for schools...
...O. M. Thomason Willernie, Minn...
...Be Thankful Dear Sirs: Most progressives with their feet on the ground realized that the millennium for liberalism did not arrive with the election of 1948...
...No doubt there were some lecherous SouffiS erners who did just that, but to hold that this was "typical" and that the idea <rf the "sinfulness of sex...
...Until The Progressive can find a way to collaborate with the socialist and co-op press to reduce costs and increase publicity, it is doomed to a decreasing readership...
...That "guilt and fear complexes" in the South "serve as corner-stones for white culture"—likely to "destroy" the South itself and "perhaps destroy" the rest of the world—all this sounds like the ravings of a maniac...
...Lehman may be almost as old and as fuddy-duddy as your imperious Fred Rodell says he is, but he is the man who, when Cardinal Spellman called Mrs...
...The rest is just academic stuff that will be read mostly by conservative liberals (to whom it will appeal) and ingrown professionals...
...While millions are hungry, our food rots...
...Chase Going Woodhouse, M.C...
...I have not as yet read this book...
...Marvin D. Mbltzbr State Secretary Detroit, Mich...
...In my opinion, the deal that we made with Russia at Yalta makes us accessory before the fact to the enslavement of Poland and all of the other now Russian satellite nations...
...This talk will be given by an English M.P...
...While I do not always agree with everything The Progressive has to say, I never fail to be stimulated and encouraged by its candor, integrity, and basic good sense...
...Rodell propose to go about nominating and electing such men...
...Hooray for What...
...5 a prominent member of the Canadian CCF will lead a discussion on "Why the British Conservatives Support National Health Insurance...
...A case can be made and maintained that if it weren't for the dynamism of Franklin Roosevelt and the charged international scene, the backward march might very well have started in 1940, or more certainly in 1944, instead of in 1946...
...In fact, I might ask how he would determine who fits into this category...
...e. from '96, when I voted for Bryan) to 1920 when I voted for an inmate of Atlanta prison, I have expected, after each election, to see the full-blown cooperative commonwealth come steaming around the corner, its calliope blaring the March of Triumph...
...A considerable part of this defense is based on the supposition that we did not give the Russians anything that they might not, and possibly would have taken anyhow...
...She had simply said she believed in public aid for public schools, and private support for private schools, whether Catholic, Quaker, Jewish, Unitarian, or just snob schools...
...If you and several million other Americans had supported Henry Wallace, we should not be faced with a reactionary and incompetent Supreme Court, and we should not be rushing to Formosa to defend reactionary Chiang Kai-shek, or rearming Japan...
...The Negro was "segregated" because he was over-populous, not pleasant company (on the whole), a menace to public morals...
...Murky Tangle Dear Sirs: Congratulations on your 40th birthday...
...On Feb...
...Progressives can cheer that the election of 1948, which was won on a clear-cut progressive platform, arrested the march backward...
...Progressives cheered because in electing Gov...
...From the standpoint of one who has been watching the passing political scene for a good many years I can't see how the liberals of this country can get together on anything except mutual calumny...
...House of Representatives Washington, D.C...
...Gardner R. Withrow, M.C...
...He goes the way of all flesh, while politicians scheme and manipulate...
...If you can't woo the assembly line, the little middle class man, you are licked...
...After all is said and done, what is the net rather than relative result...
...The liberals and progressives are in a murky tangle of semantics and irrelevant erudition...
...My prediction is for a long period of fascism in this country with plenty of wars and then communism...
...Dear Sirs: Don't you and Fred Rodell (see his "Hooray for What" in the January issue) know the facts of life in New York state...
...more power to you...
...Lehman, New York elected a man whom Cardinal Spellman had tried to veto...
...Midlothian, Tex...
...The South has "nursed" the Negro for four generations or more—and no section of the country has done nearly so much for his total well-being...
...Yalta will remain a shameful blot on American history...
...So say many of us...
...The worker is a cog at the mercy of the owner of his tools...
...We certainly shared responsibility for the future of all the states of Europe, and because a brigand carries a gun or an ax, and shows intent to enter a home where we have some responsibility, that is no reason why we should hand him the key to that home...
...Most of our taxes are spent for wars, past, present, and future...
...I do not doubt the good intentions, and I admire the high ideals of the liberals, but they hesitate to make fundamental changes in our economic system because they might hurt somebody's feelings...
...You cannot make capitalism work in the face of the fallacy of profits...
...We have a medley-bedlam of voices telling us of the glories of the American way and the Hun-American Character-Assassination Committee wielding the smear-stick on everybody who loves a pink sunrise or says that private monopoly of air would be wrong...
...At least one-half the nation is ill-educated for enlightened citizenship...
...Richard Bolling, M.C...
...Dear Sirs: Articles like Fred Rodell's "Hooray For What...
...Roosevelt a "bigot," boldly spoke up...
Vol. 14 • February 1950 • No. 2
