THE PEOPLE'S FORUM
THE PEOPLE'S FORUM Harsh 'Justice' Dear Sirs: Robert Michener, 19-year-old Quaker conscientious objector, was sentenced to 10 years in prison by Judge Delmas Hill at Topeka, Kan., Feb. 23. Judge...
...Tydings...
...Since Munich, "appeasement" has been condemned as the most contemptible vice...
...Don't your readers find that this pose of superiority, this silly snobbery, becomes most tiresome very quickly...
...but the irony of Joseph Mankewicz's coiled and high-spirited satire . . . derives almost wholly from the stage style of social comedy of Philip Barry, S. N. Behrman, and Noel Coward...
...Brien McMahon in the March issue of The Progressive...
...In World War II, F.D.R...
...Although a resident of Kansas, Michener was a student at Drake University, Des Moines, la...
...Moreover, any nation that practices, as this nation does, the imprisonment of young men who refuse to learn the ways of war, is going to have an impossible task in convincing anyone that it desires peace...
...Letters of protest should also go to the Department of Justice, Washington, D. C. Public opinion can correct this injustice...
...Just how shall we use the "extra time" he tells us mobilization gives us...
...And to think, we always count on women to make the world better...
...The fact is that the supporters of political democracy have stopped Communism wherever it has been required to compete in a free market of ideas, and it has only gained where it could be imposed by force on people who lacked the force needed to repel Communist aggression...
...He served this sentence at Springfield, Mo., until his release on parole...
...Silly Snobbery' Dear Sirs: Why is the state of the cinema reviewed in the "thinking" magazines so often by critics who hate the movies, even the best films...
...Communism was once supposed to stand for militant opposition to Fascism and Nazism, and for collective security against aggression...
...We have West Point for the Army and Annapolis for the Navy...
...Smith's Sense Dear Sirs: There's more good sense in that less than two pages of the March Progressive by Howard K. Smith than in a stack of Congressional .Record's ten feet high...
...Both are based on the same hate-the-Russians, fear-the-Russians psychology...
...After saying, "I stand for all the tanks and planes and atomic weapons," he adds, "they must learn that we do this only with heavy hearts...
...Being a burlesque of Broadway in response to Broadway's burlesques of Hollywood, All About Eve is naturally an implied argument for the cinema...
...Today Russia controls three-fourths of Europe, one-third of the world, and 800 million human beings...
...Raymond F. Olds Monterey, Mass...
...Mrs...
...Berke describe the quality of talk in most Hollywood films...
...Samuel Berke Los Angeles, Calif...
...If only every American would give 30 minutes to read Sen...
...Tydings...
...One of the Greatest' Dear Sirs: The McMahon article in March was one of the greatest you or anyone else has ever published...
...Smith was trying to show us is that we cannot put ten gallons of soup in a one-gallon bowl...
...All About Eve was not in their class...
...For example, we have licked Communism in the labor movement here...
...It's time that the attitude of pretentious and protean puerility displayed by Mr...
...Lorin Mayer Hopewell Junction, N. Y...
...Obviously there are defects, otherwise its Assembly, intended as a conciliatory body, would not be acting the part of a fault-finding grand juryThe fact that some of our staunchest allies oppose our present policy, or only hesitatingly support it, should make us ponder...
...Has Mr...
...The Communist Parties in the nations where political democracy exists have declined precipitately except for France and Italy...
...Gigi and Kind Hearts and Coronets...
...Its real meaning is better associated with good will, a primary objective of the UN...
...gave away the fruits of victory for which our loved ones died, at Teheran and Yalta, before the war had even ended...
...Glick obviously dislikes motion pictures: and, with a single-minded-ness not infrequently characteristic of immaturity, includes in his dislikes the place where most films are made...
...Glick be abandoned...
...Does the "sic" after "six-figured" suggest that the top salaries have more or less than six figures...
...Certainly as many new films are made each year that are worth seeing as there are new good plays produced on Broadway, or as new books written each year which are worth reading, or as many new symphonies composed that are worth hearing...
...which I discussed along with All About Eve, ¦were really good films: all of a piece, witty, sensitive...
...Alfred Baker Lewis New York, N. Y. School for Statesmen Dear Sirs: We inveighed against Japan and Germany for their militarism...
...Michener had previously been sentenced to a year and a day for non-registration by the same judge...
...McMahon Reprints Dear Sirs: I have just finished reading "The Imperatives of Peace" by Sen...
...Milton O. Shrader, Sr...
...And how satisfactory was our treatment of war refugees and displaced persons?* Sure, we helped some, but what of the rest...
...Boiling Response Dear Sirs: With eagerness I sat down to read "The Imperatives of Peace," by Sen...
...Jane Nickerson Hartford, Conn...
...In fact, support or opposition to Fascism became merely a matter of taste, according to the Communists—like a preference for one color over another...
...He voluntarily returned to Kansas from Iowa without being arrested...
...Woe be to our country if her kind become more powerful...
...Harold E. Kieler Urbana, 111...
...Judge Hill sentenced him to five years in prison, the maximum under the law, on each of three counts of Selective Service violation...
...Your article about political gangsterism in the February issue of The Progressive recounts the part played by Ruth McCormick Miller, publisher of the Washington Times' Herald in helping to defeat Sen...
...Two of the sentences are to run consecutively and the third concurrent, so the effect is that of a 10-year sentence...
...I can't imagine anything that would better reverse the trend of American foreign policy, which is losing us friends everywhere, than the adoption of his splendid program...
...And doesn't he realize that his support of all-out rearmament negates the humanitarianism of his program...
...At the same time the average sentence for White Slave Traffic Act violation was 28.3 months, postal violations 27.3 months, immigration violations 27.9 months, narcotics violations 10.6 months, liquor law violations 4.8 months and all other Federal crimes 27.9 months...
...The record shows conclusively that they have no unifying idea except invariable support of Russia, and that means support of imperialist aggression whenever Russia attacked her neighbors, as she attacked Finland and Poland, and through her North Korean puppets attacked the South Koreans...
...Whatever is good about this picture is due to its "stage style...
...But that does not mean I gain by finding only its faults (and inventing a few it doesn't have) instead of working on those aspects where we can agree...
...Austin's Antics Dear Sirs: If the United Nations fails of its purpose to free the world from war and to preserve the peace, it will not be the fault of its promotors and organizers...
...As long as that is our attitude, they will certainly be morally compelled never to make concessions to us...
...In the January issue of McCall's, Ruth McCormick Miller was listed as one of the ten most powerful women in Washington...
...I've read them both and I know...
...All About Eve makes the cinema a little more adult and intelligent," says Glick, "but it is in itself no argument for cinema...
...It isn't quickly apparent, but it turns out that Mr...
...America is facing her darkest hour...
...Women and Power Dear Sirs: I certainly do hope there will be a thorough investigation of the election of Butler of Maryland, which caused the defeat of Sen...
...If we really want the UN to survive— the world's only hope for the establishment of peace—we must choose as representatives conciliatory counselors, not agitators...
...If Truman's approach doesn't work, how can Thomas...
...In the sentence he misquotes, it is the satire which derives from the stage style, etc.—the irony arises from the situation in which a film satire of the stage uses traditional stage technique...
...McMahon's article in your March issue was one of the great utterances of our time...
...Now that I have read it, I am boiling inside...
...In our country Communism stood at one time for dual unionism, and then for opposition to dual unions...
...Michael W. Rice Cambridge, Mass...
...But, as I wrote, not a valid one...
...Working Up a Sweat Dear Sirs: Reading The Progressive is the surest way I know of to work up a good sweat...
...I believe there are hundreds of others like me who would like to do the same...
...While I concede that his intentions are to have peace (as are Truman's and Stalin's), he certainly refuses to fulfill any of the requirements of peace...
...Berke is in error...
...What Mr...
...And why do these reviewers so frequently give the impression that they are attempting to attain a position or a stature, which they obviously don't have, by a supercilious derision of the whole medium...
...They promise at one stage of their attempts to win control over various countries, that they will give the land to the peasants, and when they get control they take the land away from the peasants, forcing them to become landless employees of huge state farms...
...and, incidentally, it never fails to goad my rather sluggish conscience into stirring up my brain to thoughtful reflection...
...Then Russia made an alliance with Hitler and so the official Communist doctrine became that from the workers' point of view there was no difference between political democracy and Fascism...
...To be sure he repeated his demand that the U. S. set out on that immense idealistic program for world betterment, but he spoke like a man whose head had been buried in the sand...
...If we want something new, different, let us implement the philosophy of such subversives as Jesus, who said to disarm and to love the Russians...
...We saw the peace of World War I lost by inept statesmanship after the armed forces had gained their hard-won victory...
...Then he finds that "more centrally wrong is the trivial peg of ambition on which the plot hangs...
...Brien McMahon in your March issue...
...If you publish reprints of this article, please consider this as my order for $5 worth of them...
...Conscious of being the delegate of the wealthiest and most powerful nation on earth he occupied a domineering position from the start...
...This sentence is the harshest ever given for Selective Service violation since the first draft law in 1940...
...McMahon's article...
...McMahon's article and write to Washington demanding action nou>, we might save ourselves years of bloodshed and bitterness...
...Nevertheless, in saying so, he must give the back of his hand to Hollywood, and carp at the creators of the picture, at least twice in each sentence...
...For some years now they have been a medium of adult entertainment...
...O. M. Thomason Willernie, Minn...
...I have an unreasonable affection for even the sadder specimens of Hollywood's films...
...Berke right as to the traditional relationship between subject and predicate...
...Shakespeare used ambition very differently in Macbeth: he explored it, creating a poetry of guilt and terror...
...Take your Nathan Glick's piece in the January issue...
...Our capacity to produce increases by long leaps but the circulating buying power in the pockets of would-be consumers goes by short starts and long stops...
...I also believe that unless there is a widespread demand from the people, his proposal doesn't have a "snowball's chance in hell...
...Doesn't Hollywood have an inferiority complex...
...Following this there is a reference to the "customary banal soundtrack...
...We can't stand any more fiascos of statesmanship...
...We should quit insisting on having exactly our way, calling it immoral to make any concessions to the Communists...
...That doubtless was and will be the most costly mistake anyone has ever made...
...Judge Hill has the authority to modify the sentence any time within 60 days of the date of sentencing...
...How does one begin to put Mr...
...And yet that is just what we are trying to do...
...Mr...
...Concerned persons who wish to ask the judge to reconsider this sentence should write directly to him at the U. S. District Court, Topeka, Kans...
...A great many intelligent people like the movies...
...Glick Replies Dear Sirs: Mr...
...and in France the demonstrations which the Communists tried to organize against Eisenhower proved to be flops...
...Surely Nate knows that a traditional playwright by the name of Shakespeare wrote a pretty good play called Macbeth, the plot of which hung on the "trivial peg of ambition...
...Lyle Tatum Executive Secretary Central Committee For Conscientious Objectors 2006 Walnut Street Philadelphia, Pa...
...McMahon has not been seeing the eager war-job seekers I have seen, or listened to the glowing, war-inspired oratory blaring from nearly every radio...
...In his review of All About Eve, for instance, he refers to the movie colony's "inferiority complex which all the swimming pools, mink coats, and six-figured (sic) salaries in Southern California cannot dissipate...
...His next beef is that if "one of the traditional playwrights" had done Mankewicz's comedy it would have been more "meaningful...
...In Italy, the Communist Party, though still strong, is breaking up because the Communists necessarily had to declare their support of Russia even if Russia should invade Italy (or any other land...
...Now we are put in the ignominious position of asking the people we destroyed to take up militarism again to help save us from our own, or rather, Roosevelt's incredible stupidity...
...Just how would Mr...
...What was trivial was not ambition as a theme, but its mechanical use in the film...
...It's time for movie reviewers, even in serious magazines, to start looking and listening attentively with an open mind and a sympathetic heart...
...Elinor L. Nelson Los Altos, Calif...
...EDITORS NOTE: See "Office Memo" for an announcement on reprints of Sen...
...It will certainly be news to Hollywood that Twentieth Century-Fox had Mr...
...If we would only release full capacity production of consumer goods we would soon have two garages with two cars to each instead of the family living in the flat-roofed basement with no house on it because building materials sky-rocketed and general incomes flashed and fizzled...
...I cannot accept Communism: its methods are quite as bad as Thomas' or even Mac-Arthur's...
...In 1943, when the country was in a "red hot" war with Japan and Germany, the average CO sentence was 30.6 months...
...Now, how churlish can a reviewer get...
...Donald Ewen Minneapolis, Minn...
...Man-kewicz write and produce All About Eve as an "argument for cinema...
...His vest pockets were filled with polished dimes with which to make the members from destitute countries readily conform to his every opinion and demand...
...Another difficulty with the notion that Communism is an idea that can not be defeated by force is that in practice the idea has changed repeatedly except in the one respect that it is always what the dictator of Russia wants it to be, and therefore always supports Russian aggression...
...Nathan Glick New York, N. Y. Stopping Communism Dear Sirs: E. E. Coleman, writing in the Forum of your February issue, repeats the fallacy that Communism is an idea and that you can't stop an idea by force...
...Hope of McMahon Plan Dear Sirs: Sen...
...Charles Reith Zelienople, Pa...
...And is Glick saying that the social comedies of the three playwrights he names are the exclusive domain of the stage and have never been done on the screen...
...Therefore, I would like to suggest that The Progressive undertake to make reprints of this article available...
...One of the best ways that I think I will be able to do this is to distribute personally to all my friends and other people I meet copies of his article...
...Glick really likes All About Eve...
...And a really good film is something wonderful to behold...
...F. D. R.'s self-defeating unconditional surrender policy opened the gates of Europe to Russia, against which Germany had stood as a bulwark for centuries...
...it was at times clever, mobile, well-acted, and at others vulgar and sentimental and out of its proper intellectual depths...
...Did we join the UN in a genuine spirit of friendly equality and justice or did we, from the very beginning, doubt the achievement of its ideal purposes and, anticipating deterioration into international bickering, send as our representative not an outstanding advocate of the Golden Rule, but a former state's attorney and corporation lawyer...
...It goes right to the heart of our problem...
...Therefore, I, for one, am going to undertake to generate the expression of such a demand to the greatest degree possible within my capabilities...
...He pled guilty when arraigned before Judge Hill and was sentenced immediately...
...Since Communism is declining where free political discussion exists, and since the Russian dictatorship is therefore resorting more and more to naked aggression abroad and terrorism at home, we have to meet Communism, which now means Russian imperialist aggression, by force...
...McMahon not heard of "Operation Killer...
...at the time of his second conviction...
...Can anyone tell me how many more times as much money was spent on gambling and drinking in this nation than we spent on all our efforts to allay human suffering in a war-wrecked world...
...His memory seems to fail him when he adds, "We would far prefer to use our skills and moneys for human enrichment...
...Why, please why can't we get as excited about something so hopeful as we can about conscription, and UMT, and 70-billion-dollar military budgets...
...And when wages go forward one jump prices take two jumps...
...It seems to me we should also have a School for Statesmen...
...It presents a plan of action which is bold and daring in concept, practical in terms of administration and operation, and deeply moral in outlook and philosophy...
...It seems to me the harder our armies fight abroad, the worse we become at home or maybe it's the other way around: the worse we become at home, the quicker we are to be fighting abroad...
...New York, N. Y. On Norman Thomas Dear Sirs: Print a few more articles by Norman Thomas like the one in your February issue and I will completely reject American "Socialism...
...I am, and believe than any intelligent, thinking, and responsible citizen must be, in complete agreement with him...
...They fought Roosevelt as a "Social Fascist" in the 1932 election, supported him as a good progressive by concentrating all their attacks on his opponent in the 1936 election, fought him as a war-monger in the 1940 election, and supported him enthusiastically in the 1944 election...
...The District Attorney received Michener's full cooperation...
...Berke seems to share with most Hollywood movies a disrespect for fact, for lucid expression, and for the immense possibilities of film...
...Could you do this...
...Will it make negotiation easier if we arm even more, and talk ourselves into believing that the Russians want a war...
...They fought all liberals at one period and wooed liberals eagerly at another...
Vol. 15 • April 1951 • No. 4
