THE PEOPLE'S FORUM
THE PEOPLE'S FORUM What Ails The Progressive? Dear Sirs: I have tried to figure out why you can't make The Progressive go. There are many answers, in spite of the fact that the magazine should be...
...Norman Thomas' article on "Our Bewildered Country" should arouse liberals to see the necessity of becoming really liberal, clearly showing that they—the so-called liberals—need to be converted to positive, progressive liberalism...
...This goes to the core of the matter...
...His record in the municipal government of Chicago speaks for his real worth and integrity...
...2. Force the issue of Bernard Baruch's "work or fight" legislation with its accompanying wartime tax schedule designed to eliminate war profiteering...
...7. I refuse to guide my thoughts or my actions by the reaction of the Kremlin...
...Mayer forgets that Churchill has endorsed many conflicting measures as his moods and the prevailing political winds changed...
...Smart Aleck Mayer Dear Sirs: I see you left Milton Mayer out of the May issue of The Progressive...
...Says Graham Wallas: "It gives many a man as he sits on a jury his first lesson on the fallibility of the unobserved and uncontrolled inferences of the human brain...
...A doctor is not permitted to give a mercy sip to an incurable patient to hasten the end of his suffering, but it is perfectly acceptable conduct for a nation in wartime to blow up cities and destroy hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children...
...That is precisely what is worrying Sen...
...Chase permits himself the same sort of generalizations from nothing-in-particular that characterize the Senator...
...The staff and directors are mostly amateurs, who have nearly succeeded in living down the calamities of a period when professionals with commercial publishing experience took over...
...2. Are you concerned with the trivialities of liberalism instead of the fundamentals...
...Yes, a situation like this in America sounds strange, but we must be factual, and "it is happening here"—I mean removal on "suspicion...
...Mrs...
...1. Start a campaign for Sen...
...Chase refuse to give it credit...
...And I say, "Yes, Mr...
...We need a good, intelligent, fearless magazine...
...I hope, before this world goes much further in rearmament, it will stop to ask itself whether it has the moral right to use the hydrogen bomb to destroy God's children...
...There is no way in our democracy by which he can be silenced...
...There are many answers, in spite of the fact that the magazine should be overwhelmed with subscriptions if the subscribers thought you were hitting on all cylinders...
...He thinks it is a passing evil, while I think it pretty serious...
...He is doing his best to tear down the jury trial system, built up over the centuries in Anglo-Saxon law...
...Chase...
...Has he looked at the signposts on the path...
...Suggested Role Dear Sirs: In this 25th hour, with the dynamite already in the hands of a six-year-old, and man's continued being itself at stake, I wonder whether you shouldn't devote much more of The Progressive's columns to the cause of peace...
...Frederick J. Libby Executive Secretary National Council for Prevention of War Washington, D. C. Suggestions Dear Sirs: Every issue of The Progressive provokes thought from cover to cover...
...Most of us want to leave the door open to negotiation, but with Russian imperialism's record of ruthless expansion, we should receive some definite proposals that would make high-level conferences successful...
...This places him in the company of such men as Sens...
...L. L. Bernard State College, Pa...
...I note that the June issue is filled with personalities mainly...
...The Franco regime represents the antithesis of democracy...
...Wherry, Mundt, Hickenlooper, and that valiant jouster at windmills, McCarthy...
...Unpatriotic Dear Sirs: After reading your June Progressive, I cannot help but think you are more interested in keeping the Communists in our country, especially in Washington, than you are in getting rid of them—a very unpatriotic attitude for anyone calling himself American to take...
...Tydings, to which you refer in your footnote, have been put together by us with the omission of repetitive parts and reprinted by order of the Senator by the Government Printing Office as a single speech...
...Although the author must still subsidize his work to get it in print, he has the satisfaction of knowing that it is published for its merit, not for his money...
...Do you have any definite idea of what is wrong with our system...
...I am not as worried by the cost of farm supports as I am by the growing irritation with farm subsidies, an irritation promoted by the fact that farm income drops while food prices remain the same or even rise...
...Chase...
...Douglas deserves the support of all those who favor realistic but progressive activity...
...Now comes the June issue, and darned if it isn't even better...
...In the recent Senate refusal of a $50 million loan to Franco's Spain, Mr...
...Brien Mc-Mahon's shorter speech in quantities at $1 per 100...
...What a victory we would win in the ideological war were we to make growth and progress by war impossible at home...
...You have failed to maintain your faith...
...I think this is serious—the more so as I have just returned from Washington, and felt the atmosphere...
...Shair and I seem to agree about McCarthyism, but differ on "intensity," as the pollsters say...
...Menomonie, Wis...
...Adam F. Levengood Paris, France Tydings on Franco Dear Sirs: I note with some misgivings that Sen...
...We also can supply Sen...
...If for no other reason than his engaging manner of making human beings face their repeated hypocrisy, keep Milton Mayer on the payroll...
...M. A. Ackermann New York, N. Y. Chase on McCarthy Dear Sirs: The implications of the June piece on Sen...
...Does Mr...
...It is a slender but sound beginning...
...There will be a long period of readjustment and retrenchment by commercial publishers, and perhaps during this period authors will have to resort to the old custom of financing their own books, or finding sponsorship among friends...
...Mr...
...Churches and War" by Homer Jack is also an article the church's ministry and laity can read with profit...
...Chicago, III...
...Sooner or later, the blasts of hot air, if that is what they are finally determined to be, will be regarded with the same disdain and distress by the majority of the American people as they are currently viewed by Mr...
...Paul Douglas for President in 1952...
...The 'Said I's,' and 'thought I's," and 'Said he's,' which are the material of ordinary reasoning, are here banished on the ground that they are not evidence, and witnesses are compelled to give a simple account of their remembered sensations of sight and hearing...
...Tydings' article, "The World's One Great Hope," in your May issue is well deserved...
...Thousands of GI's and others of us are going to have to sell our homes at a loss if we are transferred elsewhere since real-estate prices are already sagging...
...You publish a lot of stuff by Mayer which appeals to minds incapable of reacting to stronger material, but you probably lose more subscribers than you gain that way...
...His scare phrases, loaded with wolf cries of democracy in crisis, generally have little or no foundation in solid fact...
...What are you trying to do...
...If it was not for this safeguard, our jails would be jammed with political prisoners...
...Chase feels that as long as there is any chance of a worm getting into the apple, it is better to throw away the crop...
...Democracy is "discredited" at this juncture— if it is—only because men like Mr...
...It is the mass market for trash that will be usurped by television...
...We had meetings of Stalin and Churchill at Teheran, Yalta, and Potsdam, and look at the mess we are in...
...Single copies can be obtained on request from the Senator's office...
...The slogan is "best books, not best sellers...
...Millard Tydings, author of the inspirational article on world disarmament in the May Progressive, lacks the simple virtue of consistency...
...When he sets down the "Results to Date," Mr...
...Chase...
...Congratulations on setting new standards for American journalism...
...Then the thing I fear might happen—a dictator might take over as the only power which can silence a cultural anarchist like McCarthy...
...This to me seems inequitable and unjust to the home-owner...
...Par be it from me to discourage one convert to peace, but as the greatest offender and the most powerful political leader, we should look to ex-seminary student Joe Stalin to show some Christian love and humility...
...They have taken us back 800 years before Magna Charta, when a person had no legal protection against false, malicious, and murderous accusations...
...Too bad, but at least it would eliminate pot-boilers...
...Who else would keep the People's Forum in an uproar7 May I suggest a few steps that I believe might well be followed by the magazine in keeping us out of the foils of fuzzy-mindedness...
...He is certainly wrong when he suggests that I want to shush the wild man from Wisconsin...
...Chase feels he can cope with egoists...
...Curious World Dear Sirs: What a curious world we live in...
...I fail to understand his anachronistic doctrinaire Christianity (Is the non-Christian world necessarily misguided or wrong...
...Possibly I have overlooked a point or two . . .," Mr...
...Margaret Smith's speech in Congress on June 1 emphasizes the fact that all is not well in the ranks of non-liberals...
...Chase know where he is heading...
...W. A. Stumpf Durham, N. C. Too High Dear Sirs: The price of The Progressive has gone too high...
...2. I do not believe that the reputations of these men are "damaged for all time/' except in the minds of those who have a predisposition to damn anyone with views at odds with their own...
...What innocent man or woman will go next to the guillotine7 Stuart Chase Redding, Conn...
...As you say in the accompanying note concerning the author, the position he takes in favor of total and universal disarmament is extraordinarily significant coming from the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee...
...It is indispensable for any thinking citizen who would know the trend of the times— our halting steps toward world peace—and even the distracted state of our domestic affairs...
...This is a member-controlled on ganiratton, making profit at the moment' for no one, but potentially for Its members, who ate the authors of its books...
...Chase's remarks, intentionally or not) is much more dangerous to the values of our country than the damage to the personalities which may accrue from the present course...
...Anthony, Idaho Co-op for Authors Dear Sirs: Anthony Netboy's comments on the book business in the May Progressive are both depressing and stimulating...
...5. The type of man who would be scared away from a position of responsibility by the irresponsible attacks of a McCarthy does not meet, in my book, the test of a "good man...
...If you would publish in each issue a forthright analysis of a major social ill and propose a remedy, I wonder if you would not run your subscriptions up rapidly...
...Instead, your leading article is a vague, rambling speculation on Hiss...
...It may take a little while for everybody else to catch up to bis judgment...
...Johanna Shoultz Muscatine, la...
...He has dis- anguished company in the Island Press catalogue, and he has a contract drawn up to give him as much return from sales as the accountants say is possible...
...it could, if authors wish, become much more...
...when coupled with his general liberalism (best illustrated by his many articles in other journals now meeting with genuine public Interest...
...I hope he is right, but I am afraid he is wrong...
...This means, first, that the quality of books published will be vastly improved...
...I am a married man, and a Government worker, and if Sen...
...Chase on pages 12 and 13...
...On the other hand, if the home-owner has to take a loss, as so many of us who had to buy during the last several years are having to do now that real-estate prices are sagging a bit, he cannot deduct half his loss...
...Tydings is listed among those who voted in favor of the loan...
...David L. Shair New York, N. Y. Chase Replies Dear Sirs: Mr...
...Why should we not have the relief afforded the dealer since we are taxed for any gain...
...Couldn't you smash McCarthy in a page of direct outright exposure and get down to facts about what is wrong with our system...
...3. Force an investigation of the middlemen in agriculture (meaning the food processors...
...H. E. S. Washington, D. C. Churchill as Peacemonger Dear Sirs: Repentant sinner Churchill, according to Milton Mayer in the June Progressive, has "hit the sawdust trail" to salvation through a love for peace that veritably "pass-eth all understanding...
...McCarthy, and the Un-American Activities Committee before him, have torn it aside...
...Chase...
...Knockout Dear Sirs: The June issue was a knockout...
...I have failed completely to notice the evidences of the "stunning blow" mentioned by Mr...
...Chase is the one who is dejected, dispirited...
...June Even Better Dear Sirs: Excellent as the May issue of The Progressive was, your June number was better...
...J. Luther Kibler Newport News, Va...
...You have overlooked the point...
...The field is wide-open for a cooperative, and although authors are about the poorest material from which to organize one, the attempt has been made and has survived 10 years...
...The young man did a great job of inter' pretation and delivery to win a "Superior" rating (19 out of 20 points) in the regional Idaho Declamation Festival...
...A non-rejspecter of the American culture...
...6. It is my earnest and prayerful hope that the relations between this country and its democratic allies rest on a framework which could not possibly be upset, or even shaken ever so gently, by the huffing and puffing of a McCarthy...
...Netboy says that "new books are purchased primarily by inveterate devotees of culture...
...You have failed to light your candle because you are too busy cursing the darkness...
...But please keep him by all means...
...Ralph Sackley, M.D...
...Tydings, and just about everything else...
...McCarthy would happen to "say" that your magazine is "Communistic," then my family would have to starve, as I would be immediately kicked out of my position at an age where no one would employ me...
...Sara B. Douglas Alexandria, Va...
...You use too much space on the cinema and book reviews to suit me and there is too long a period between issues...
...I want 50 more of the May and June issues to place advantageously...
...1. Are you afraid to buck the Administration in its absurdities...
...The {act that U. S. citizens profit from war (considering the majority) and the [act that we do not do anything in peacetime to correct the possibilities of war profit are great boons to anti-American viewpoints...
...Linton T. Lange, Jr...
...Perhaps "progress," by giving us radio, movies, television, the tabloid, and quickie magazines, has actually turned back the clock a few hundred years and we are entering an age when book reading will once more be confined to a literate elite...
...I refer to the Island Press in New York City...
...McCarthy by Stuart Chase are as regrettable as the motives and methods of the man under discussion...
...W. Z. Miller Wynnewood, Okla...
...McCarthy is now in the position to blast the life of anyone in the Federal Government for all time, simply by mentioning a name on the Senate floor...
...There Is no argument •with Point 1. That is a simple fact...
...But the U. S. can't exist without a government in the fifth year of the atomic age and the cold war...
...All honest citizens (and it is possible for conservative Republicans to be honest, too) regret the antics of the Wisconsin Red-hunter...
...Thanks for that omission...
...The editorial policy is pleasing in its consistent philosophy of liberalism, the articles noteworthy in their presentation of viewpoints frowned upon by the daily press and doctrinaire liberal publications, and the book reviews useful to those of us short in faculties as well as facilities...
...Stanleigh Malotte Birmingham, Ala...
...Why should the prospect suddenly scare off the "good men...
...It would be gratifying to see the editors of my favorite American publication assume, more and more, the role of the planetary psychologist, exposing rather than encouraging collective psychoses for what they really are...
...Meanwhile, let's try to reach the Russian people with the message that we are not the "warmongers" that Stalin claims we are...
...It was developed to protect us against erring human nature, against believing a man guilty because we don't like him, against guilt by association and guilt by accusation...
...Margaret Chase Smith and other thoughtful Republicans...
...And Sen...
...J. P. Reed Emmett, Idaho Mayer Terrific Dear Sirs: The Progressive is doing a mighty fine— and necessary—job...
...In short, aren't you infested with the idea that the way to run a magazine is in the direction of the tangents to fundamental issues rather than hard hitting on those issues...
...I believe that the American citizen, by and large, has as much common sense and respect for the dignity of the individual as Mr...
...To this I see no objection...
...It is inconceivable that a man who claims to espouse the cause of world peace through mutual disarmament could vote for the financial support of a government which symbolizes world militarism and tyranny...
...3. Unity is never "bitterly needed" to the extent of drowning out all diversity of opinion...
...Quoting Churchill on peace is like an atheist using the Bible to prove his own doctrines...
...June Better Dear Sirs: Your May issue was marvelous—the "Open Letter to Secretary Acheson," the article by Sen...
...Some questions occur to me, but I doubt if you will consider them...
...Louise Thomas Cherry Valley, N. Y. Tydings Reprints Dear Sirs: The play you gave Sen...
...W. McNeil Dowry's "Hit and Run—How It Works'' is the best presentation of the McCarthy mess our family has seen anywhere...
...He is just a smart aleck fool...
...Thomas' article is a masterpiece of political surgery...
...Chase surely knows the level of calumny which has marked attacks on some of our greatest Presidents, from Washington to Jefferson to Lincoln to Roosevelt...
...Bert Minwegen St...
...Tax Injustice Dear Sirs: Now that there is some disposition to plug tax holes and remove some nuisance taxes, it seems like a favorable time to do something about the following situation: The home-owner who sells his personal abode at profit is taxed for half the long-term gain, assuming he has held it for six months or more...
...Quantities can be ordered through the National Council for Prevention of War (1013-18th St., N. W., Washington 6, D. C.) at $2 per 100...
...Milton Mayer is terrific...
...For most of us ordinary people, our homes are our largest single investment...
...But the person who buys and sells houses as a business is permitted to take such a loss...
...Happening Here Dear Sirs: I would like very much to read The Progressive regularly, but, and you will note this is a big but, I can't take the chance...
...Your readers may like to know that the three addresses on this subject, made by Sen...
...He is saying Jhat democracy cannot "tolerate . . . internal attacks" and cannot "cope with egoists...
...I would like to check back over some of the 10 "results" cited by Mr...
...Walter R. Storey Philadelphia, Pa...
...But the rest of the crowd . . . well, he's not so sure...
...Is there no limit to how good you can get...
...Where else can one find a consistent liberal...
...However, any intimation that McCarthy should be repressed, censored, or prevented from speaking (which pervades Mr...
...If somebody is tough enough to kick over the rules of the game, while breaking no formal laws, especially with Senatorial immunity to protect him from libel suits, he can make our government inoperable...
...I edited his masterpiece in the February Progressive, "The End of the Line," for a speech student of mine as an oration...
...Chase concludes...
Vol. 14 • July 1950 • No. 7
