THE PEOPLE'S FORUM
THE PEOPLE'S FORUM Heresy on the Right Dear Sirs: There is a serious problem which I am surprised the liberal press has not discussed at length: in the current heresy hunt, why is it apparently...
...Charles W. Gheer Ft...
...It also asks the participants to "make a deliberate effort to widen their friendships across group lines" and "join others of a similar concern in their communities to work jointly for improvements without segregation in housing, employment, and recreation...
...We must also remember that the standard of living behind the Iron Curtain is the lowest of any civilized area anywhere...
...If not, why the unwillingness of either to rearm which is causing so much concern among Western statesmen, particularly in Germany...
...Orchids also to the entire Progressive staff and all their masterpieces for democracy...
...And—ignorant heathens that they are—they actually believe itl Anyhow, they think that they ought to be allowed to run their own country in their own way, and settle all internal disputes among themselves...
...Robert Luderer Akron, O...
...2. Cooperative communities for developing Gandhian non-violent social action, to be supported by regularly-earned wages of some members...
...Shorter fails to consider that wars are fought for two reasons—domination and fear of domination...
...These masses are the natural allies of the democratic peoples fighting Stalin...
...Keep up the good work...
...that there are dozens of nationalities within the Russian orbit yearning for independence...
...And does not militarism appear to be practically dead in both countries...
...Best in the Field Dear Sirs: The Progressive is the best magazine in the field today...
...The "perfect barbarism" of which Mr...
...Following proposals advanced by The Progressive would certainly play completely into Russia's hands...
...Evidently war does accomplish something...
...Concretely, in Korea, it is well-known that the North Korean and Chinese Communist troops fighting the UN exist on starvation rations...
...Alice Franklin Bryant 2813 North Broadway Seattle 2, Wash...
...Walter, chief Republican heresy-hunter, and the kept Republican press raised the roof at the persecution of this valuable witness...
...The man who confesses to a crime or to an ideological deviation is assumed to be a much nobler character than one accused who, honestly or otherwise, protests his innocence...
...that it should be "moral" and "militant", and should offer "something positive" in the way of a program...
...The basic idea of this campaign is that it asks those who really believe in interracial brotherhood to "refuse to patronize places that discriminate—and make their reasons known...
...Donald A. Theuer University of Chicago Chicago, 111...
...Let us utilize their aid...
...3. A project for sending food instead of bombs to our "enemies" in Asia—implemented by a direct appeal to the UN to accept such a gesture of compassion and atonement, sacrificially symbolized by groups and individuals all over the country fasting for a specified number of days and sending the money thus saved as food for the people we have been so grievously injuring...
...Time is too valuable to waste it on such papers as yours...
...I will be happy to present copies to all who will send me stamped, addressed— preferably long—envelopes...
...Alternative Dear Sirs: In your January issue, Helen Mears writes, "Perhaps the most melancholy reflection on the conduct of American foreign policy today is the fact that both major parties have joined forces to deprive the people of this country of any meaningful choice in the one field of policy and action which dominates all our lives...
...that Hitler's soldiers were greeted as liberators by the Ukranian peasantry...
...How are we to judge concerning the character of any activity, religiously, ethically, or otherwise, if not by its actual effects upon history...
...Stalin's oppressed slaves would not fight the benefactors who bear them a gift of food and a promise of freedom...
...We must remember that when Hitler invaded Russia two million of Stalin's troops surrendered to him with hardly a struggle...
...Now China and Korea must sink or swim together...
...When the Justice Department moved to indict him for perjury, Rep...
...Is it not just a little illogical for him to maintain that "when we maximize our power we sacrifice our principles" when the plain fact of history is that we have in recent decades sacrificed our principles both in war and in "peace" precisely because we did not have power and therefore had to curry the favor of reactionary cliques...
...Two items for examples: Whittaker Chambers, during the first Hiss trial, admitted having perjured himself seven times...
...I believe that many readers of The Progressive would like to put it into the hands of their friends...
...The same tactic could be applied in every area of friction in the world...
...If American planes dropped food, clothing, and medicine to these men and leaflets telling them that if they surrender they wouldn't be shot or imprisoned, they would give up in droves...
...Just how does he square this with Jesus' teaching that a tree is known by its fruit...
...This proposal constitutes a real alternative to the stupid, vicious foreign policies advocated by both parties, for it is a peaceful, unselfish way to conclude the present war against totalitarianism victoriously, as well as a real way to help the suffering masses behind the Iron Curtain...
...I lived for 19 years in the Far East, two and one-half of which were spent in Santo Tomas as a prisoner of the Japanese...
...31, in which he maintained that the Tightness or wrongness of war is "a metaphysical, religious, and ethical, not a historical question...
...You do not keep a straight line...
...If Mr...
...The Kremlin is the most ruthless, power-hungry group the world has ever produced...
...Stewart Rowe Cincinnati, O. Russia's Game Dear Sirs: The Progressive's continual harping on the idea that this country should abandon its dependence on military power and negotiate peace with Russia makes me want to throw The Progressive in the wastebasket...
...Mayer speaks is the perfect illustration of the truth of the saying, "Gentleness keeps brutality alive...
...Henry Beston is always tops, and Mary Sheridan's department is extremely interesting...
...Would there be any need for either the rearming of former aggressors or the drafting of millions of American boys today if we had had an immediate showdown with Russia in 1945 over the Baruch atomic control plan while we had the overwhelming preponderance of power instead of disbanding the mightiest armed force of all time...
...The fact is that pacifism has always failed in a world of power-politics, and pacifism is filling the world with violence today...
...I will look forward to each issue, knowing that I will not be in agreement with you at all times...
...Breeze of Reason Dear Sirs: I have just finished reading completely my first issue of The Progressive...
...After reading the copy I sent him, Mr...
...If Stalin is not convincing, then Mr...
...My subscription is now one of my most prized Christmas gifts...
...John Taylor Buchanan Fisk University Nashville, Tenn...
...Finally, if successful, such a tactic would obviate the necessity for huge expenditures on armies and armaments...
...I enjoy all of the articles and some of the letters, but I think you should not publish more than one page of the latter...
...MacArthur's men were approaching the Yalu river whose hydro-electric installations are absolutely vital to Chinese industry...
...Rubin surprised me very pleasantly by offering to publish a note about the folder in The People's Forum...
...Unilateral disarmament might be effective if hostilities had but one side, that of fear...
...Miss Mears is right, of course, but the alternative she suggests to the present disastrous policy is weak as tea, and would mean, in any case, capitulating to Stalinist totalitarianism...
...My folder, Short Shorts on U. S. Policy, contains pertinent excerpts from authorities as well as material that I have written...
...Shorter ought to take a look at history and the many imperialistic wars fought by the "free" nations of today...
...But Mr...
...An obvious weakness of such a pledge is that it seems to restrict itself to one month...
...Short Shorts' Dear Sirs: Since I am by heredity a reader of The Progressive, I naturally take up arms against our misguided policy toward the Far East...
...The only article on world affairs that faced facts in recent issues of The Progressive is the one by Norman Thomas, "The Great Debate," in the February issue...
...Also, I would like to reply to Fred W. Shorter's letter in which your stand on disarmament was criticized...
...Only a man with great penetrating insight, a keen savor of humanness, and un-dauntless courage could originate such an article...
...These projects would be carried on in several scattered centers, to demonstrate the possibility of a brotherhood-self-help society developing within the wider society...
...juliane karassik Pittsburgh, Pa...
...mutual-aid production of food by others...
...Into this war between the needy and the greedy, the Chinese have moved, but not until their own national existence was at stake...
...Theodore B. Dufur Los Angeles, Calif...
...This forced the Chinese to come to the help of their hard-pressed neighbors...
...Mayer's Pacifist Fallacies Dear Sirs: Seldom have we seen a more deplorable example of pacifist fallacies than those of Milton Mayer in his Chicago Round Table address Dec...
...And how I hope the recipients of Short Shorts will lend them around promptly...
...Mayer's claim that we want war is a total misrepresentation of our position...
...The most important part of the pledge itself which people are asked to sign is the first point, which reads: "That where it is at all possible for me to do so, I will refrain during Brotherhood Month from patronizing any place of business, recreation, or worship that does not admit on equal terms all men of whatever racial or ethnic group...
...They've always called themselves the Hermit Kingdom...
...Lauderdale, Fla...
...You had better read it...
...Hermit Kingdom Dear Sirs: It looks like some of these Koreans have been reading seditious literature...
...training and educational work by others...
...The above are only three of several specific proposals for action adopted by the conference, which—whether they elicit approval or condemnation—can hardly be dismissed as "vague", and do in some measure meet Jim Burton's requirement of pacifism...
...Actually, if we once realize that the greatest enemy of the Russian police state is not a foreign army or an atom bomb, but the oppressed people of that state, then a simple way to end the war victoriously and yet bloodlessly is at once suggested...
...Why not use that other page to give us excerpts from the leading news columnists in our daily press...
...Caroline F. Urie Yellow Springs, O. Orchids Dear Sirs: In these portentous days, The Progressive s service in giving to me and thousands of others a clear picture of the world cannot be valued highly enough...
...Walter Groth Los Angeles, Calif...
...The January issue was as a cooling evening breeze of reason and progress in the midst of a day of fear and decadence...
...THE PEOPLE'S FORUM Heresy on the Right Dear Sirs: There is a serious problem which I am surprised the liberal press has not discussed at length: in the current heresy hunt, why is it apparently true that witnesses on the "right" side are immune to prosecution for perjury, and what is the effect of this situation on the administration of the laws...
...At the same time, it would work no hardship on the American people, for their vast food surpluses could be utilized to feed the peoples of the East...
...C. Manes New York, N. Y. Not Progressive Dear Sirs: In my opinion The Progressive is not truly progressive...
...Would these measures have to be carried to sucb extremes today if the unique plan for forming a UN police force of volunteers were adopted...
...Somewhere they have picked up the idea that "governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed...
...Mayer would only look around him, he would find many examples in which war has accomplished good: thus, for example, what of the "unprecedented opportunity for Christian missions" in Japan (enthusiastically discussed in periodicals which prior to World War II predicted the "utter destruction of Christianity" there if war broke out...
...Is it not an observed fact that men are relatively free to speak the truth in those countries now that their military dictatorships have been overthrown...
...This purchasing of personal immunity by pointing the finger at other, bigger fry, has been a notable feature of witch-hunts in all ages and all countries...
...How many quotations need be cited, quotations of Marx, Lenin, and Joseph Stalin, to indicate that the desire for dominance is also a source of war...
...I do this by writing, having printed, and circulating a little eight-page folder called Short Shorts on U. S. Policy...
...here and there you pay tribute to the false notions that contribute to the so-fashionable-now hysteria that breeds hatred, suspicion, etc., etc...
...I wish you would try to give us a little more of Fred Rodell and Carleton Beals...
...A report about the results of the campaign for this year will be sent to anyone who requests one from the campaign headquarters, 513 West 166th St., New York 32, N. Y. George M. Houser New York, N. Y. Practical Pacifism Dear Sirs: In the hope of somewhat reassuring your correspondent, Jim Burton and others who may share his objection—voiced in your February issue—that pacifism is "too vague —and does not offer a clear-cut and easily-understood alternative to the philosophy of market economics and the proletarian revolution," I should like to call attention to two or three projects approved by the recent national conference of Peacemakeri in Cincinnati...
...Last month, Henry Thomas, a union official, admitted having falsely sworn to a non-Communist affidavit, but in the process provided considerable ammunition to the Lin-American Activities Committee in the way of accusations...
...that the workers are horribly exploited...
...Brotherhood Campaign Dear Sirs: Readers of The Progressive will be interested to know of the Pledge Brotherhood Campaign which the Congress of Racial Equality and the Fellowship of Reconciliation have promoted on a small scale during February both this year and last...
...Actually we hope that during February people will become mindful of the degree to which they use segregated facilities and thus will discipline themselves, not only during this one month but during the rest of the year, to use those facilities which are open to all people alike...
...Why hasn't he been prosecuted...
...that the Russian army had the highest rate of desertion of any army in the world in the last war...
...that the peasantry hate the collective farms...
...1. A World Citizens Manifesto, supporting the Peoples' World Convention and a democratic world government to establish peace under world law...
...My hat is off to your David Burgess for his splendid and informative article, entitled, "Hucksters of Hate" in your February issue...
Vol. 15 • March 1951 • No. 3
