THE TEN HEROES OF 1950
The Ten Heroes of 1950 HATE is taking no holiday this year. The season of peace and love and joy finds war and hate and sadness clutching at the hearts of a world gone mad. The carolers' voices...
...BRIEN McMAHON, chairman of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, because he risked the wrath of the "get tough" clique in his own party to propose a bold, imaginative alternative to an atomic armaments race...
...the hope that we shall try to understand why others say what they say and do what they do...
...Reuther proposed that the United States provide for the next hundred years, through the UN, $13,000,000,000 a year for social and economic reconstruction throughout the world...
...The first prerequisite is to stop the guns...
...From my close association with the problem, as chairman of the Senate Armed Forces Committee, I have come to the conclusion that armies and armed forces are not the answer to the settlement of international disputes and the easing of international tensions...
...There were countless men and women in pri-vate life, everywhere, who fought for the same principles in their own communities, but we have chosen to limit our list to men in positions of power and responsibility who resisted the prevailing pressures and tried to show us a better and more hopeful road than the road we were traveling...
...But to no avail...
...Here, then, are The Progressive's Heroes of 1950—and the why of them: RALPH BUNCHE, Nobel prize-winning official of the UN, because he has steadfastly emphasized the creative possibilities of negotiation even as all around him seemed to lose their bearings...
...the hope that we shall seek honorable peace, not in harsh threats and military might, but in moral dedication to the ways of peace, which are negotiation, mediation, and conciliation...
...Our ten range in social and eco-nomic outlook from toryism to so cialism...
...The other half wants Gen...
...Like Mr...
...LESTER B. PEARSON, Canadian Minister for External Affairs, because he defied the little men to call him "appeaser" when he urged peace negotiations with the Chinese Communists "by every means...
...President Truman can Jiardly wait until he blackens the eyes and smashes the nose of a music critic who thinks Margaret's voice is flat...
...MacArthur thrown to the wolves...
...The hope that we shall regain humility...
...We made the tragic mistake," he said, "of believing that freedom's fight in China could be won on the battlefields alone, when all the time we should have known that freedom's fight had to be won in the rice fields...
...Churchill said: "I do not believe another war is inevitable, and I be-lieve we have more time if we use it wisely and thus more hope of warding off that frightful catastrophe...
...Above everything else the UN stands for negotiation and conciliation of differences...
...Convinced that the Truman Administration strategy of "containment and "merely building military strength to meet strength" was too sterile and negative, Mr...
...Each of our heroes of 1950 sought to shift the emphasis away from "total diplomacy," "containment of communism," and exclusive reliance on rearmament, to affirmative measures for social and economic reconstruction, universal disarmament, encouragement and democratic guidance to revolutionary ferment in the under-developed areas of the world, or direct, face-to-face negotiations with the rulers of Russia...
...The world would be a lot better off today if there had been more real negotia' tions among the great powers dor" ing the last three years...
...Revolution is a great heritage of American life...
...The Communists have not conquered China...
...But if there is neither love, nor joy, nor peace on earth this holiday season, there is yet the eternal mainspring of life itself—Hope...
...But this should not deter us from the undertaking...
...SEN...
...Paul Douglas and Wayne Morse, usually two of our saner Senators, are restive because we're not enforcing our will on the world with atom bombs...
...Heroes of 1950 For all its villainy, 1950 raised a robust, but not numerous brood of heroes...
...While others were demanding the atom-bombing of China and a final break with Russia, Dr...
...What I am proposing is an attempt through diplomacy to reach a modus vivendi with the Asian Communist world...
...If Russia refuses to participate, or the conference fails, we shall be no worse off than we are now...
...I know this policy will be called appeasement by some...
...Such a disarmament conference as you propose will fail.' No one can predict its outcome with certainty...
...The 'appeasement' at Munich, where one country was short-sightedly and shamefully sacrificed for the secur-ity of others, is not in any way involved here...
...Marshall dismissed...
...Bunche reaffirmed his conviction that "there are no problems between the East and the West which appear insoluble or require resort to arms . . . . Governments everywhere, whatever their sincerity, must speak to their peoples in terms of peace...
...Tydings: "The State Department's position condemns us to a new arms race and trial of strength...
...SEN...
...SEN...
...Nothing must be left undone," he said recently, "that could lead to an honorable and peaceful settlement in Korea, as a prelude to fuller negotiations with the Peiping Government...
...When hundreds of millions of people are hungry while their officials live in luxury, we cannot fill their empty bellies with pious slogans about the virtues of democracy...
...J. u '¦":«» we must act in another spirit that that of indicting the Politburo as criminal before the bar of mankind "What is needed is a sober, truth-ful account of the happenings in the history of the last 15 years as seen through the eyes of a people with our training and ideals...
...In a series of weekly speeches, climaxed by an address entitled "Let's Try God," the Vermont Republican denounced the "sterile" character of Administration foreign policy and called for an affirmative appeal to the peoples behind the Iron Curtain...
...Flanders called for action on the McMahon Plan as "an alternative to the debilitating drain on our financial and moral strength which is required by our concentration on armed force," Sen...
...Almost alone among Republicans —or Democrats, for that matter— Sen...
...This leads to closing of people's minds, and when ids are closed, they become impd.iOus to any argument for any peaceful approach...
...We have two choices, Sen...
...We need to create tolerance, understanding, good will to the world...
...Flanders has had the courage to suggest that perhaps the rest of the world has some doubts about the morality of our purpose, and that we must do more to earn "that decent respect for the opinion of mankind referred to in the Declaration Ul WUipUlUUlLL...
...Until we understand why deeply religious peasants attend mass in the morning and Communist rallies in the afternoon, we have not grasped the fundamentals of Communist power...
...It was Napoleon who said: There are only two powers in the world: the sword and the spirit In the long run the sword is always defeated by the spirit...
...The Chinese Communists have some constructive achievements to their credit, and it is wrong to ignore the fact that they are in power...
...The McMahon Plan would have made $10,000,000 a year available for five years for social and economic reconstruction— the program to be administered by the UN—in exchange for fool-proof international control of atomic energy...
...The United Nations wasn't formed on the basis of accepting' some governments and not others...
...I feel that we owe it to our conscience that no door should be closed which might lead to better prospects...
...Thoughtful men say...
...But events have confirmed their fears, and we can hope that what they proposed in 1950 will be disposed in 1951...
...McMahon said...
...Anti-Communist, he has spoken up repeatedly in Britain for new and continuing conferences with the Soviets in the hope of finding common ground for negotiation and mediation...
...In pursuing this, policy we would tap to the roots the resources of our ingenuity and imagination...
...Warmonger, Fascist, appeaser, Red, peace, democracy—these words are now used so loosely and irresponsibly that their coinage has become debased, so let us not be frightened by words...
...We need to show the people of the earth the warm and generous heart of America...
...Our heroes—there are ten of them—are all eminently practical men, trained in the harsh realities of a wayward world...
...The views of our heroes of 1950 did not prevail in the nation or the world, but the hope persists that out of the bitter facts of military and diplomatic defeat there may come the self-analysis which would guide us to acceptance of the dominant note struck by the heroes of 1950...
...Our list, as the year ends, is confined exclusively to men in public life who stood heroically against the surging current of hate and hysteria and sought a constructive alternative to the devilish doctrine that might makes right...
...The carolers' voices ring out with the everlasting beauty of the Christmas songs, but the meaning of the music is lost in the roar of gunfire and the clamor of angry voices...
...Once we have stopped calling each other names and running each other down, we will have created the atmosphere in which we can discuss the basis for lasting peace...
...salute as the year ends...
...The time has come for us to stop running each other down...
...Any organization ignoring the big fact of China," he has said, "is likely to come to erroneous conclusions...
...If we want peace, it is most illogical to go about irritating each other and pointing out the faults and sins of others...
...It is the function of diplomacy to seek accommodations which can be the basis of stable relations between different countries and systems...
...Churchill, who has sat across the table from them on scores ui un-asiuu^ insists that it is worth a great try...
...All of them seem to be saying Amen, each in his own way, to the judgment of one of the great generals of all history...
...This is a time for soul-searching, for nationwide and worldwide debate, and for the launching and Plaining of that moral crusade which alone can save us and lead mankind along the righteous paths of security, abundance, and liberty...
...The first great step to improve the chances for peace is for persons with authority to act for the government on both sides to get together more often to talk over their disagreements...
...In a memorable speech in the House of Commons, where all parties cheered him lustily, Mr...
...and—affirmatively—by their conviction that there are constructive, hopeful, and morally superior altera-atives to "containment of communism," "total diplomacy," and re-armament...
...MILLARD TYDINGS because, although defeated in the last election, he gave his name to an enduring program for world disarmament...
...However much they may differ on other issues, they have one gift in common: they have caught and expressed the great need, or some fragment of the need of our time...
...Sword and Spirit These are the heroes of 1956 we...
...the hope that we shall search our own hearts and minds for the source of our failures...
...We should try to surmount the difficulties, not cringe in surrender before them...
...Sens...
...total cost—for the full 100 years— would just equal the cost of World War II to us...
...Millions of the peoples of the earth are trying to do today for themselves and their children what our forefathers did for us in 1776...
...Only thus can we gain an understanding...
...I believe it is our duty to reach such a settlement...
...It will be shameful if when the history of the period is written, America is credited with suppressing these struggles, with aligning itself on the world scene with reaction, tyranny, and oppression...
...Like prophets always, everywhere, our ten heroes were without honor in their own homes, for their government did not heed them...
...WALTER REUTHER, because his "Total Offensive for Peace" (see The Progressive for September) is a daring plan to recapture the moral initiative for democracy in its ideological struggle with communism...
...we would regard no suggestion as too startling or unconventional for careful consideration...
...There must be negotiations all the time," Lie has said, "and on all levels—the top level, the middle level, and the lower level—inside the UN and outside the UN...
...Some of them—Churchill and Reuther, for instance—were exposing Kremlin imperialism long before characters like McCarthy made a contemptible racket of red-baiting...
...M.H.B...
...We have agreed in the past that some such accommodation with the Soviet Union and its satellites is necessary...
...Said Sen...
...We have pored over our bulging file of notes and clippings hunting for scraps of cheer around which we could spin the traditional holiday editorial celebrating Peace on Earth, Good Will to Men...
...I mean the prime ministers and the foreign secretaries...
...We must not be so much attacking the Rus sians as expressing ourselves...
...TRYGVE LIE, because he has struggled so valiantly for conciliation between East and West in the face of being called pro-Communist by American jingoists one week and a Wall Street stooge by the Kremlin imperialists the next week...
...Nehru's devotion to democracy has not blinded him to the achievements of Communist China, nor to the need for working out a live-and-let-live agreement among nations of clashing ideologies...
...WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS, Associate Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court, because he has dared step down from the bench to warn his countrymen on repeated occasions against 1) military domination of American policy and 2) failure to play a constructive role in the revolutionary movements of the world...
...The military mind knows only how to destroy...
...McCarthy not only wants Acheson fired, but President Truman impeached and Gen...
...There are revolutions in the world which need management and direction...
...WINSTON CHURCHILL, because, although he is the original Mr...
...We need to do a vastly more difficult task...
...Tempers are snapping like birch twigs in an open fire...
...Half the country wants Secretary of State Acheson fired...
...JAWAHARLAL NEHRU, because he has raised his eloquent voice again and again for mediation, despite the barbs of criticism from both East and West...
...We shall not make effective, lasting progress against the Communists, we shall not win the millions of democratic allies needed to convert the negative defense against the Kremlin into a positive building of the peace until we understand and do something practical about the basic unsolved economic and social problems that are the source of Communist power...
...All of them would probably agree that we were out-thought, not out-fought during the past year...
...The Secretary-General of the United Nations has not permitted pride of organization to obscure the need for high level conferences outside the UN as well as inside...
...RALPH FLANDERS, because, for all his occasional lack of consistency, he has served as gadfly to the State Department in the Senate...
...Let us see if we cannot remove, by courageous, determined, and honest effort, from the minds of the Russians, and from the minds of our own people and those associated with us, the fearful and darkening threat of the possibility of the last great war of them all...
...Fear and frustration are corroding men's minds and freezing their hearts...
...from the nations of the world in which our suggestions for disarma-ment conference will not be mis-interpreted...
...One consists of resigning ourselves to a generation of waging the cold war—that is, striving endlessly to contain Russia's outward pressure, pouring out our substance to stay ahead in the weapons competition...
...No one need disillusion himself by underrating the difficulties which stand in the way of a settlement...
...None of our ten, of course, is a Communist, or even faintly a fellow-traveler...
...But they are united—nega-tively—by their anti-totalitarianism, whether Communist or Fascist...
...Churchill, I would like to know the answer...
...In an atmosphere charged with bitterness and recrimination, his has been a patient voice for mediation and conciliation...
...It is our Christian duty to try our best...
...Typical of Justice Douglas' recent utterances was this one: "It will be the great tragedy of this hour if we let the military be our spokesmen...
...but] I cannot help coming back to this idea of another talk with Soviet Russia on the highest level...
...Arrayed against the choice of such a policy is 5,000 years of recorded history, which teaches again and again that armaments races lead to war . . . > "The other broad policy which we may choose consists in moving heaven and earth to stop the atomic armaments race, to establish worldwide atomic peace, and to make possible atomic-created abundance among all men...
...We are confident that even sweet, dear old Pollyanna would shrink from the assignment in these cheerless days of the dying year...
...While others, with little or no experience, persist in scoffing at the notion of talking things over with the Russians, Mr...
...All of them, in one way or another, foresaw the tragic consequences of our over-emphasis on military power in the great struggle between communism and democracy...
...they have merely moved in to fill the vacuum created by our failure...
...His resolution calling for an international conference—UN sponsored—to develop a plan of total disarmament was pigeon-holed by Congress...
...The hunt for scapegoats is on...
Vol. 15 • January 1951 • No. 1
