QUESTIONS FOR AMERICANS
Friedman, Ralph & Lindeman, Eduard C.
Questions For Americans Two disturbing dispatches on the kind of questions asked visiting Americans in Asia reached The Progressive the same week, one from a distinguished professor of social...
...Is not your country a democracy...
...I nodded and he politely offered me a chair...
...I arose and said irritably, "Did you ask me to sit down so I could hear my country insulted...
...Yes...
...I was to hear those questions, and many questions like them, again and again everywhere I went...
...The man who offered me a chair said, "Please, sir, answer the questions we have asked...
...I said: "Aren't you being too critical...
...Some may get more, but none will die of hunger...
...Your country, as I understand it," said the man behind the counter, "is telling the world how fine life is in the United States and how the rest of the world should follow its example...
...Yes...
...How can you speak to us of freedom when Indian students are deprived of freedom in your country...
...Would you say the Negroes have equal opportunities...
...The interrogator smiled again...
...Why do you need additional food when your Government stores vast quantities of food to keep it off the market and permits countless bushels of potatoes to be destroyed...
...Among the questions which recurred most frequently among students and faculty members are the following: 1. Are American scientists inhuman and must they do whatever the Government commands...
...Then the man behind the counter spoke...
...Red Propaganda Reaches Its Mark By Eduard C. Lindeman New Delhi DURING the recent months of my visiting professorship in India, I was approached by students and faculty members at three Indian universities with many questions about America, the mood of America, and the direction of America, Some of the questions are unusually revelatory of the student and faculty frame of mind in India...
...It comes to the people of Asia and says, 'Look, we are your great friend,' but in your country Asiatics are not treated as well as —," he searched for the right word —"as the Caucasians...
...Well," I stammered, for, in truth, I didn't have the answer at my finger-tips...
...Thank you for your reply," he said, "but it does not meet our satisfaction...
...4. You seem to be highly critical of the philosophical concept "that the ends justify the means" as practiced by Soviet Russia, but what is your reaction to the use of the atom bomb by America in Japan...
...Where do you get such information...
...It came...
...How about you...
...3) the comparative success of Communist propaganda...
...Why has Democracy thus far failed to find a similar channel...
...I am an American," I replied...
...nor did they move or take their eyes from my face until I had finished...
...Your country must prove in deeds what it says in slogans and promises before your answers are accepted...
...7. How do you view the large number of postwar divorces in America from a cultural standpoint...
...2) the weakness of our effort to put America's best foot forward in our overseas propaganda...
...I asked the others...
...The bookshop was located in what foreigners like to call the "native section"—a part of town not ordinarily visited, except for sightseeing, by the average tourist or even the British residents...
...No," I admitted, "that is a shortcoming...
...9. Why doesn't the United States make a serious effort to be friendly with Soviet Russia...
...If you don't sit, I'll stand too...
...The two other men in the store looked up quickly...
...They write to the Indian newspapers and to their relatives and we hear...
...I was in Colombo, capital city of the pear-shaped island of Ceylon, a British crown colony in the Indian Ocean...
...It is well known here in Ceylon that Indian students cannot join cer-(Continued on next page) EDUARD C. LINDEMAN, professor oi social philosophy at the New York School for Social Work, Columbia University, recently completed a tour of duty as visiting professor at Delhi University, India . . . RALPH FRIEDMAN, now a free-lance writer living in California, roamed the world as a working seaman for two years...
...I can hear them now —even when I am home—mocking the fine phrases on freedom and democracy which our statesmen write and speak abroad, not knowing, perhaps, that even on an island in the Indian Ocean they know more about us than we imagine...
...Conversation In Colombo By Ralph Friedman (Continued from preceding page) tain societies in the American universities because of their color and nationality...
...There must be a reason...
...But why, sir...
...The man behind the counter smiled and said calmly, to the others even more than to me, "Yes, where there is no explanation the shortest road to an answer is anger...
...And I was to carry the memory of that interrogation around the world with me to the scores of ports in the 25 countries I visited...
...Questions For Americans Two disturbing dispatches on the kind of questions asked visiting Americans in Asia reached The Progressive the same week, one from a distinguished professor of social psychology, the other from a wandering seaman...
...Sit down please," he said...
...Oh, no," they protested with hand and voice...
...Is it true," I was asked, "that your scientists are studying to discover if food can be made from seaweed...
...I did my best, but most of the time I was groping for logical things to say...
...I challenged...
...There is a marked triviality in American thought, and frivolity— even immorality—is the order of the day...
...In democracies, there is no single minute when a man does not die of hunger...
...We have had many talks among ourselves about Americans," the third man remarked...
...Do you not think that such an abuse of the divorce system is capable of shaking the very social fibre of a nation...
...I said I thought I remembered reading something to that effect in the papers...
...I tried...
...His smile dropped sharply...
...America's great moral geniuses and giants, to wit Emerson, Thor-eau, Ingersoll, are today talked of as if they were idiots and imbeciles...
...You are the first American who has been here," one of them said...
...And does not democracy mean equal opportunity for all members of the country...
...If what the American films and magazines show is in any way representative of American life, do you not think that America, with all its rich, warm humanity needs a moral renaissance...
...I was asked next...
...Conversation In Colombo By Ralph Friedman Colombo THE MAN standing behind the book counter said, "You do not sound British...
...Will the wicked millionaires who conspired against Wallace ever be punished...
...2. Is Henry Wallace to be compared with Gandhi...
...From the Indian students themselves...
...India's present illiteracy rate is approximately 85% of the total population...
...We publish them side-by-side because together they add up to a revealing commentary on 1) the extent to which our wayward domestic behavior influences foreign policy moods abroad...
...The man who had gotten me a chair said, "Is that not the fault of your country...
...In what way...
...May we ask you some questions...
...Have you ever been close enough to Henry Wallace to be able to touch him...
...Can you tell us why this happens...
...They did not interrupt me...
...With all its so-called defects, if security of food is there, what is wrong with Communism...
...8. Don't you think that dictatorship in the transitional period is preferable to a so-called democracy in a country where the majority of citizens is illiterate...
...they cannot eat in certain places, and unless they wear a turban—which your cultured country looks upon as, shall we say, quaint—they are treated as badly as Negroes...
...This was in regard to atomic bomb development...
...These sample questions are susceptible of many and varying interpretations, but one fact seems to be inescapable, namely: Communist propaganda has found an avenue to the minds of contemporary Indian students...
...How...
...5. There is security of food for each in a Communist state...
...I did not tell them that in my own mind many of the questions they had asked were bothering me, too...
...I walked out of that faraway bookshop greatly troubled...
...You are our guest...
...I sat down and the questions began...
...3. Do you consider that philosophy should have a utilitarian motive, or should it be only knowledge for sake of knowledge...
...I could tell what was coming next...
...He paused, his smile as poised as an executioner's knife...
...We are not a nation of saints, but neither are we a land of devils...
...6. It has been said that the present American culture begins with the eating of ice cream and ends with seeing half-naked Hollywood stars...
...I squirmed...
...From the United States...
Vol. 14 • March 1950 • No. 3
