THE PEOPLE'S FORUM
THE PEOPLE'S FORUM Thomas Spanks F.D.R., Jr. Dear Sirs: Your readers may be interested in this letter I have written today to Rep. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr.: Dear Mr. Roosevelt: In the report...
...The Progressive gives us information which helps to mold our opinions, but (like Lucille) we have often felt helpless to do anything about these vital problems...
...Emile Gauvreau Point Pleasant Bucks County, Pa...
...L. M. Washburn San Diego, Calif...
...Wilbur Dunbar Washington, D. C. Cover Too Plain Dear Sirs: I do not admire your front cover...
...Roosevelt: In the report of your speech at the banquet given to pull one of Mayor O'Dwyer's campaign committees out of debt, I read with surprise the following statement: "Let me make one thing clear...
...Mayer is the kind of individual who would enter a mellow, crowded Scotchmen's barroom on Christmas Eve, accept a drink on the house, and then express his emphatic doubt that bagpiping is music...
...You have every right to differentiate yourself as a Democrat and eulogist of Mayer O'Dwyer from us Socialists...
...I' would like to know if reprints of this article are available from The Progressive...
...The circulation of these magazines is in inverse ratio to the amount of truth that they print Mayer should be thankful that such a vehicle exists for him during our current demoralizations...
...it looks too plain and unattractive...
...McMahon's Crusade Dear Sirs: I have just written a letter of congratulation to Sen...
...He should remember that we are all in the same boat: blasphemers and truth-seekers alike...
...It is probably beyond his realization that his disappointments as a tortured prophet could not have been more tragic than those of the Christmas sportsmen who were caught with their skis up, instead of down, and their $500 slope suits hanging uselessly in their closets...
...Somebody should have informed him that the lack of a white Christmas during the past season has put America's million dollar ski industry completely into the red...
...In the explosion that would naturally follow, little Dick-en, presumably present to learn the facts of life, would have his two front teeth knocked out, and Papa Mayer would take him home and decide that the world is hopeless...
...Let him alone by all means, even though he has now devastated Christmas for the U. S. Chamber of Commerce...
...Here there are so many guides, each claiming priority, or monopoly, or special privilege, that a strong thinker like Mr...
...Let's stick to the pumps and keep bailing...
...Truman's hydrogen bomb...
...The cost for this would be a mere trifle compared with the cost we shall have to pay if we persist in playing the tune to the military pipers, whose mentality cannot rise above their "practical" program of cold wars, backed by sheer brute force...
...Alton L. Hall Huntington, Calif...
...I am more concerned about the fact that no union protects the gadflies of society...
...C. F. Littell Cornell College Mount Vernon, la Outstanding Dear Sirs: Morris Rubin's article, "Europe in 1950," in the February issue was an outstanding job...
...Had Sen...
...Too Much Black Dear Sirs: Frankly this reader enjoyed the contents of the February Progressive very much, particularly "Europe in 1950" by Morris Rubin, but is definitely not cheered by the new cover design out of Paris...
...If General MacArthur should announce that on a certain day he would be at home to all who might call, Army men would understand him to mean "to all members of the Armed Forces," and the other white people there would understand the invitation as for whites only...
...aturally I can't compliment a man like *0li5 without taking a small poke at him— wasn't Churchill's description of Attlee "sheep in sheep's clothing...
...They do not prevent Christmas from becoming a blasphemy...
...I have felt all along that the one promising formula to safeguard us and all mankind against self-destruction is that, out of our abundance, we should let loose upon a dying world such a flood of good-will that no forces of evil could possibly stand up against it...
...It would logically follow that you hate Attlee and the Labor Party as much as you hate Stalin and the Communist Government...
...Like Mr...
...However, the contents are better than ever...
...Or do you want your political opponents to infer that you don't hate Communists too much if they'll vote for you...
...McMahon on his stand for a 50-billion-dollar American peace crusade...
...You were elected to Congress on the Liberal Party ticket, having failed to get the Democratic nomination...
...Attractive Dear Sirs: The cover on your February number, which has just arrived, is very attractive...
...Douglas MacArthur because those who write about him disagree widely on what sort of man he is...
...Stick to the Pumps Dear Sirs: As one of your respectful subscribers I digested Editor Rubin's report on Europe's contemporary soul sickness with mingled feelings colored more by hope than despair...
...So the People who heard Jesus tell about God, and 20 years later wrote down what they thought He said, unconsciously wrote their own narrowness into their account of His teachings...
...The former covers with colors were much nicer...
...McMahon's program been put into operation as soon as the actual fighting came to an end, true peace would have been well on its way by this time...
...I do not feel that all of the possibilities for an agreement with Russia have been exhausted by our present Administration at Washington...
...At any rate, as someone has said, "To perish is also a solution...
...This statement requires explanation...
...Did you really mean it when you told an assorted lot of Democrats, including Tammany men, that you hated Socialism—and hence these Socialists—as much as Communism...
...Bierbaum should be intrigued with the idea of going it alone...
...One issue with Mayer in it is worth a 2-years subscription price...
...I am merely describing him...
...Such explorers sometimes find their reward by discovering rare publications in which they are permitted to fulminate...
...Bierbaum, I cannot rely absolutely on ancient records...
...George Orwell has just paid the final instalment for the pleasures of being one of them...
...Cong rat' ulatlons...
...Of course, Sen...
...Enclosed please find a money order for $50 to cover gift subscriptions, samples sent to others, and the balance for our contribution to help The Progressive keep passing on information not otherwise available...
...Then I turned to Milton Mayer's outlook, which I have learned to absorb after dinner, and not before...
...In that ill considered effort, you were willing to Join your enemies in equating Socialism with Communism...
...Socialists of all sorts took a very benevolent view of your candidacy and scores of Socialists, especially of the Social Democratic Federation, were very active in your election...
...A word as to how to contact God...
...Is it not about time that a little idealism should make itself felt in American diplomacy...
...When you say you hate Socialism, what do you hate...
...God is not a God of nations, or of religions, but of individuals...
...And, to sum up, plenty of white space...
...Also, there seem to be too many titles cluttering up the landscape...
...McMahon and his supporters will take their place with those of the great ones of all time...
...but unlike him, I do not infer that there is no God just because the books about Him do not agree...
...As Voltaire said: "We never live...
...Bierbaum's attitude is as if one would refuse to believe that there is a Gen...
...Norman Thomas New York, N. Y. Sen...
...Can't you inline i of bis style Into the other writers who >ar from time to time...
...That's Mayer's trouble...
...article was highly ible, in my opinion...
...Bierbaum will find helpful parts in the Bible and helpful people in some church...
...His February article left me with the conclusion that an optimist is a person who thinks the future is doubtful...
...That's outdoing Winston Churchill himself...
...Excellent Dear Sirs: That article by Rubin on Europe was excellent In fact, the whole February issue is fine...
...Such a resume of opinion as she suggests would be helpful in confirming our own convictions, or in adjusting them, when we find out how others feel about such problems...
...As a Democrat, I hate Socialism Just as much as I hate Communism or Fascism or any other ism...
...I am not criticizing him...
...William Hunter Galesville, Wis...
...Such talk Is detrimental to democracy, which depends upon straight and honest thought and speech...
...And in doing so, Mr...
...Mrs...
...You will perhaps recall that your distinguished father was volubly accused after the 1932 election of having carried out the Socialist platform and not his own...
...and to know Him we should do as we would to know an individual—find out what he is interested in and become interested in it ourselves...
...Ben Scherer Milwaukee, Wis...
...I always challenged this statement, but there is no doubt at all that the measures that you now defend as essential to a welfare state were first advocated in this country, as in England, by those who avowed themselves to be Socialists...
...McMahon and all who follow him will be called "idealists...
...A Word to Atheists Dear Sirs: E. C. Bierbaum, in the January Forum, says that he is an atheist because he finds contradictions in the Bible, a collection of books made many centuries ago...
...Joseph A. Phacher Berwyn, 111...
...Edward J. Oston APO San Francisco, Calif...
...Old Testament writers painted God as a tribal deity—cruel, arbitrary, vindictive— while the God of the New Testament is impartial, as forgiving as a father, interested in individuals, and hating the things which harm them...
...If history continues to be written, the names of Sen...
...His methods have been mine for years as a newspaperman and a writer of books, and all I have discovered is that the experience is venturesome...
...Without it he would undoubtedly burst a blood-vessel...
...I am no theologian, and represent no cult...
...we are always in the expectation of living...
...Mayer is a Mahatma Gandhi with sunk bombs...
...At last he has murdered Santa Claus...
...however, I thought the January and December issues had very fine cover designs, as I am rather favorable to color...
...Reader Ballot Dear Sirs: Several months back, in The People's Forum, Lucille Jonjok expressed an idea we wish to "second": to "find out how many readers stand squarely behind" certain positions such as the Friends on foreign affairs...
...But in so doing you should not join the pack of those who try to inflame emotions by using Communist, Fascist, and Socialist indiscriminately...
...Mrs...
...As to its being more so than previous ones, I am hardly qualified to make a comparison based on artistic merits...
...If so, please send me 20 for distribution to friends, and I'll mail you a money order to cover the cost...
...I think the thing that made it so good was the spirit of humility and sincerity In which he tackled the problems of postwar Western Europe...
...I havt sometimes complained about the lack of "readability" is some ProgreurM) tSit" The Editor1...
...Of course, if the Mayers of this world rock the boat too hard, we will all be thrown overboard before we can study the civilizing effects of Mr...
...In view of all these facts, I cannot escape the conclusion that your statement was a handy demagogic attempt to get out from under a name which certain economic and political interests are trying to make into a bugaboo to scare voters...
...Wants Reprints Dear Sirs: "Europe in 1950" In the February issue is, I believe, the most intelligent summary of events I have read in a long time...
...Unfortunately, these practices do not reform the world...
...Who would not rather perish with his face to the stars than groveling in the spew of his own selfishness and distrust...
...Neither in your own right, nor as your father's son, do you need to further your political fortunes by stooping to this low level of political rhetoric...
...Black, it seems to me, is much too much in evidence...
...Even the Great Teacher may not have been correctly reported...
...As Editor Rubin reports, let's not get riled up too easily...
...but to me Mr...
...Even now it is not absolutely too late to save a situation that anyone can see Is daily becoming more and more impossible...
...You didn't say that when you needed their help...
...I mink page numbers (for each title) would be useful...
...Raymond Hammond Jackson, Term...
...Like Christianity, the word has acquired different meanings and different interpretations...
Vol. 14 • March 1950 • No. 3
