THE PEOPLE'S FORUM
THE PEOPLE'S FORUM The Lord's Business Dear Sirs: It is most refreshing to read The Progressive out here, especially in view of the present pressure for the rearmament of Japan. You may be...
...Perhaps at a later date I shall feel moved, as many of your readers apparently are, to cancel my subscription suddenly, in which case I promise to tell you why...
...Eddie Moyer Macedonia Cooperative Community Clarkesville, Ga...
...To quote from "Holmes and His Hecklers," by Fred Rodell, "So long as Oliver Wendell Holmes' words can still be read, their philosophy and their teachings are insecure...
...She is not revoking feminism...
...Justice Holmes, with his tribute to the essential dignity and decency of human beings, typifies America...
...Schlesinger well says that "the broad thrust of our policy must, of course, be affirmative," but here he is talking for himself and not by any means for Mr...
...Legal Humbug Dear Sirs: It is now apparent that the UN, exploited by power-seeking politicians of both Russia and the United States, has been converted into an instrumentality of war...
...Only, at the height of her "ego titillations," Mrs...
...Great Pity Dear Sirs: Morris Rubin's "Missionary, Save Thyself" in the April issue was unusually fine and directly to the point...
...I was under the impression that one of the fundamental tenets of feminism was that women have brains and should be accorded as fair a hearing as men when they express their ideas...
...Barth's own dissatisfactions, I am afraid, have arisen and will continue to arise from the fact that her main motivation is self-expression...
...May 25: Max Kampelman, formerly political science department, Bennington College, contributor to The Progressive: "The United States in Crisis...
...Holmes and Pegler Dear Sirs: The attack upon Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes is not justified...
...Barth has written this article would seem to indicate that she still expects to be listened to with consideration...
...I only hope the result of Mrs...
...I must say that I have been so absorbed in particular articles and issues discussed on the pages of your magazine that I have given little constructive thought to criticism of the journal as a whole...
...How they can do it is each individual's privilege to explore, but women should not submerge silently into a mess of homemade bread because of some who "know because I've tried it" or the happy cynicism of the ever-repetitious Wylieites...
...Rodell fails to see that it is possible to ' do all of the following at the same time: 1) to attack Holmes as unduly cynical and, in a sense, a traditional humanitarian, falsely labeled...
...Ramona Barth doubtless knows about third rate writers, but she glosses too easily over the fact that third rate wives and mothers exist also...
...3. We fail to differentiate between Stalinism and the longing of the peoples of Asia and Africa for national independence and a better life...
...Time after time we have allowed the Soviet Union to seize the political initiative because we were so totally preoccupied with the negative business of rearmament...
...Barth's supposition that feminism is a dogmatic, unchanging set of beliefs...
...Rubin's editorial pen has become the boldest and most far-sighted in our country...
...or that (contrary to your belief) he has responded to the groundswell of liberal criticism, which came from within the State Department as well as from without...
...The fervor once applied to spread feminism is now applied to fight it...
...And more fighting—even if we won—would but fertilize the soil for an expansion of totalitarianism...
...As for Far Eastern policy, Mr...
...May we look forward to a final report, upon the conclusion of psychotherapy...
...Barth confides to us that she feels "the emotional fervor of any convert...
...H. M. Miller Park Ridge, 111...
...But that was in January...
...Acheson's state of mind in January...
...It is her proselytic fervor that Mrs...
...It is true, as Rodell states, that natural law advocates resent Holmes' attacks...
...Although many American citizens share these views, our national leaders—in spite of their differing emphases—continue to think in purely military terms...
...I am not sure I understand just what she means by "feminism...
...Barth Dear Sirs: Mrs...
...The writer is a believer in Absolutes and the natural law and yet feels no compulsion to accept the specific conclusions of fellow natural law men...
...Bob Repas 739 Disston St...
...I'm afraid I cannot but conclude that Mrs...
...Only terrible devastation, perpetrated by the magnificent male-minds of the "advanced" countries, that cannot seem to act in terms of anything but the power of destruction...
...Not Progressive Dear Sirs: I consider your magazine to be anything but progressive, for you seem to have garnered a large preponderance of reactionary socialists...
...Paul bade farewell to the Pharisees, Augustine to Manicheism, Mrs...
...Chinese and Korean women have labored lovingly for centuries in just such a domestic manner, and what has it brought them...
...I do not see why The Progressive chooses to demand Mr...
...And not all who believe do so because they find "comfort in believing," but because they feel, even Holmes (and apparently Rodell) notwithstanding, that the truth is there...
...Schlesinger now takes so much comfort had occurred then...
...Incidentally, the April issue of The Progressive hit a new high in quality...
...Barth giving up the privilege of voting...
...If Mrs...
...We call on all our fellow citizens who hate war to ¦how a missionary zeal in spreading a con-idence in peaceful procedures as opposed to military action...
...The address is Clarkesville, Ga...
...2. Our refusal to seat China in the UN both weakens that organization and serves to attach China more firmly to Mosce-w...
...Rev...
...Simeon Ross Badger, Wis...
...Acheson seems to have dropped the idea of a "limited war" against Communist China and of the aggressive use of Chiang-Kai-shek (if he ever entertained any such idea at all...
...Pegler represents, and to an extent some members of the Bar Association represent, a totalitarian philosophy...
...The situation certainly needs clarification...
...Women's Obligation Dear Sirs: Mrs...
...As for the rearmament of Germany issue, we have seen nothing to indicate that Mr...
...Reply to Schlesinger EDITOR'S NOTE: First a word about the point at which Mr...
...Dear Sirs: "Farewell to Feminism" is an illuminating study of the reorientation of the mechanisms of personality defense...
...Rubin, and fiery blasts from your readers—the discussion centering about the justification for UN military action in Korea versus the justification of the pacifists' position opposing such action...
...This leads me to believe that either Mr...
...Is there a dearth of children today...
...The broad thrust of our policy must, of course, be affirmative...
...Without belittling the danger from Communist imperialism, I believe the really important battles in the war between democracy and authoritarianism are being fought on the home front...
...Using our fear of Communist aggression as a smoke screen, the authoritarians of the right (led by the emissaries of the Vatican) are carrying on a relentless war of attrition against our democratic institutions —like a pickpocket who yells, "Stop thief," to distract our attention while he lifts our wallet...
...Philadelphia Forum Dear Sirs: The people of Philadelphia and area will have an opportunity to hear left-of-center discussions on foreign policy...
...We rejoice with Mrs...
...This is not to disparage the creativity of those whose natural art lies in large families and simple neighborliness, and whose instinctive charity and kindliness are an overwhelming blessing to the unnatural ones of us, but it is folly to think that deliberate imitation of this inborn graciousness is the solution to all frustrated womanhood...
...Just a little more than twice fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation...
...that negotiation, undertaken in the proper spirit, can relax the tensions between ourselves and the Soviet Union and deliver us from a crushing burden of armaments...
...We shall rave with her at the "coo" and "gurgle" of our little ones, at the glee in our husband's eye when he munches homemade bread, but we shall not feel that we cheat ourselves or our families if we carry on a profession, however modest, that we have freely chosen and thoroughly enjoy...
...In the path of Paul and Augustine now advances, radiant and whitewashed, Ramona Barth ("Farewell to Feminism," April issue...
...Rodell will give us some articles on other phases of this insidious campaign...
...Since a psychiatric analysis revealed the false Ramona to the true one, thus giving her the key to the modern woman's problems, Mrs...
...We have found Mr...
...After all, Prof...
...4033 University Way Seattle 5, Wash...
...The very fact that Mrs...
...Harsch and Mr...
...Wylie, and a billion other people to the contrary, I fail to see a Great deal of sense In the abundapH creation of little American drones it tftf^Mf of all this domesticity is to arrive in Wor« War III...
...Is Mrs...
...In consequence, I do not like to see my limited and specific objections merged with The Progressive's general and fundamental objections...
...At that point The Progressive editorial would have been appropriate...
...Masterpiece Dear Sirs: "Missionary...
...Monroe Jones Tishomingo, Okla...
...Harvard University Cambridge, Mass...
...4. Communist promises are alluring to those in extreme poverty...
...That this concern is increasingly shared by men who are generally identified with the Administration point of view can be confirmed by the recent utterances of Benjamin Cohen, Justice William O. Douglas, Archibald MacLeish, and in some of the columns of writers like Marquis Childs, Doris Fleeson, Joseph Harsch, Thomas Stokes, and James Reston, none of whom can even faintly be associated with the anti-Acheson crowd in Washington...
...Women have an equal, if not a superior, obligation to their children to give them something beyond well-powdered bottoms and rounded tummies in their infancies...
...Surely one can see the faults of early feminist thinking and still feel a real debt of gratitude for the courage and sacrifice of the dedicated women who started the movement...
...By backing up reactionary regimes we force large and justly dissatisfied elements to look to Russia for help and leadership...
...6. Rearmament of Japan and Western Europe would reduce living standards already far too low and would thus cause the Communist parties of these countries to become more powerful...
...There is indeed a fundamental cleavage between Mr...
...Acheson Has Reformed Dear Sirs: Since your leading editorial in the March issue—"The Man Who Stayed Too Long" —quotes my criticisms of Mr...
...Is the work of the United Nations on the status of women already outmoded...
...In believing as she does that women are unhappy and ill adjusted in proportion to the amount of education they have received, Mrs...
...Through it all...
...Shelton were equally anxious...
...Your analysis is keen and has the spiritual insight so needful today...
...Correction Dear Sirs: The January issue of The Progressive published an article on Macedonia Cooperative Community, by Albert V. Fowler...
...Grace Braden Gibas Circle Pines, Minn...
...Already they have gained such effective control over the press and radio that the voice of democracy is almost stilled while everybody is subjected to a continuous barrage of anti-democratic propaganda...
...at the Labor Education Center, 415 S. 19th Street...
...2. We call for a spirit of negotiation among the major powers for solving problems and agreeing on universal disarmament...
...There are many young women today who have no desire stronger than to make a home and have children...
...Harsch, Mr...
...Obviously it meant a far different thing to St...
...Barth neglects to define feminism, there is nothing vague about her attitude toward education...
...His own condemnation of Acheson s China policy as "madness" appeared Jan...
...Now the democracy they established is again in imminent danger, facing determined and well-organized assaults from the forces of authoritarianism at home and abroad...
...However, the meaning of the term "natural law" has not had a uniform history...
...3) to disagree with many of the anti-Holmes people...
...If Mr...
...Barth can now look back at her old feminist self and say: "I was a ferocious female allowing no compromise in myself or in others...
...Acheson's policy in connection with your own demand for his resignation, I trust you will permit me a brief comment...
...Thus, you cannot lump together, as Rodell apparently does, all anti-Holmes natural law men...
...Mary Connelly McMillan Hiroshima, Japan Divergent Views Dear Sirs: Since receiving my first copy of The Progressive, which happened to be the July, 1950, issue in which you made in your "Office Memo" an appeal for cooperative criticism from your readers, I have had it in mind to write to you...
...Final Report...
...Philadelphia, Pa...
...Does she now believe she should hold no opinions but her husband's...
...Save Thyself...
...World War II allowed it to expand...
...Your argument, as I understand it, has been that the peace-through-strength policy is a mistake...
...Philip Segal Jamaica, N. Y. Rodell on Holmes Dear Sirs: Prof...
...The only address on the article is Macedonia, Ga...
...It is perfectly true that in January (when I wrote) things looked very bad...
...in the April issue was a masterpiece...
...Does it hurt our pride to be outdone in this by India and the rabbits...
...Rhoda R. Reith New Castle, Pa...
...Those who regard Holmes highly are not always in accord as to their reasons...
...I disagree with Mrs...
...Let us hope that the present attempt made by Westbrook Pegler, together with a number of lawyers, to degrade the symbol of America which Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes represents, will not succeed...
...As long as we place our trust in God or Stalin or the UN, rather than in our own efforts, we deserve more censure than pity...
...Without our slavish support war would be impossible...
...Acheson has indeed reversed himself, that clearly would be good news, although we would still be left with some misgivings about a Secretary of State given to such violent fluctuations of opinion on so decisive an issue...
...Barth's desire to write a sensational article has carried her beyond the bounds of fairness and truth...
...Rodell, if we are Holmesian enough we will be sophisticated and realize that Holmes' ideas themselves are being tested in their competition for the minds of men...
...Mrs...
...Let us drop everything and crawl after her and have a good cry at our sins and begin to pour treacle on the embryonic heartbeat and choke up with the simple joy of munching crusty bread...
...S. G. McClellan Harding, Mass...
...The April, 1951 issue alone is worth $10, and the article on Page 26, by Ramona Barth, is about the best I ever read outside my Bible...
...Only when soldiers lay down their guns will they recover their manhood...
...Barth will perhaps allow us to compromise with her new fervor...
...2) to believe in absolutes and the natural law...
...Clarence M. East, Jr...
...In an age when war is concentrated mass murder, with countless innocent victims on both sides, the question of who started the fight or who is right or wrong is academic...
...Wounded Dear Sirs: I fancy Ramona Barth was wounded somewhere when she was out in the world...
...None of the developments in which Mr...
...Acheson "seems to have dropped the idea of a limited war' against Communist China...
...Questions for Mrs...
...Were Hitler and Mussolini (no feminists either, mind you) who herded women into one category and whooped up the population before us, right for once...
...The Progressive's editorial was written Feb...
...Ramona Barth's 'Conversion' Dear Sirs: It is always awe-inspiring to read the story of a great conversion, especially when the neophyte makes of his right-about face a public confession, and with frantic masochism lashes and lashes the memory of what he once adored...
...And, in retrospect, the presentation of the India famine relief programs seems hardly as deliberately and maliciously incompetent as you suggest...
...Barth to Feminism...
...The feminist movement brought about the opportunity for women to vote...
...Barth has brought to it...
...Rodell's Clear Analysis Dear Sirs: Fred Rodell's article in the April issue of The Progressive includes the first clear anlaysis I have seen of a vitally important struggle now going on in this country...
...Perhaps it was the sadness of compassion for a small-ness in people's minds...
...Indeed, World War I gave it its first chance...
...It sounds dull...
...I hope Mr...
...certainly, Pegler does...
...Barth is ignoring the bitter, emotionally unstable women who have had little educational opportunity...
...There is no doubt that our democratic ideals—freedom of thought, public education, all the rights, privileges and immunities of free men—are being endangered by the most determined, the most pervasive attack in all our history...
...Barth, career woman...
...admission of China to the United Nations...
...Acheson's almost exclusive reliance on the doctrine of "strength" too negative and sterile, too lacking in democratic purpose, in an era in which Soviet Russia is harnessing the revolutionary ferment in large parts of the world for her own sinister purposes...
...You did not make clear why you were sad on that particular morning...
...Barth thought once that she "was a wonder," it is not because various crowds applauded her or because she received fan-mail from foreign countries...
...we are no longer demanding instant German rearmament...
...The Socialist Forum will present "Our World Today" on Friday evenings at 8:30 P.M...
...As an alternative we recommend a "problem solving" approach: 1. By promoting just solutions of ecohomic, social, and political problems in .areas of unrest, we could wrest from Russia the leadership she now enjoys...
...Come and see us any time you are in Georgia...
...Others attack his principles and their reasons are not always the same...
...Dorice McDaniels Inglewood, Calif...
...There is no reason why we cannot continue to study and think on this important problem of how men and women can contribute their best to civilization in an atmosphere of mutual understanding and appreciation...
...In her sanctuary, everybody is lovely...
...The men who would have been their husbands were killed in World War II...
...We cannot help but be grateful at the thought that Mrs...
...Barth shows the greatest consistency...
...and 4) in so believing not to be "more nearly fascist" than Holmes...
...You may be interested in knowing that four of us missionaries working here in Hiroshima went to Tokyo last month to protest to John Foster Dulles, a member of our particular denomination, against America's encouragement of Japanese rearmament, an action which, if it is to be undertaken honestly, will necessitate this country's changing her present Constitution...
...Or let us not...
...Please cancel my subscription...
...I doubt it...
...Acheson—the rearmament of Germany and the feeding of India—Mr...
...That ego sticking out so far could get hurt...
...Indeed, other recent editorials would suggest that you disagree fundamentally with the whole thesis that the best way to avert war is through the strengthening of the free world...
...Policy for America Dear Sirs: We have adopted the following statement on foreign policy: Our attempt to contain Communism by military force and threat is failing for these reasons: 1. Russia and her satellites can overwhelm our forces along their borders...
...No ism is unchanging...
...Thomas Aquinas than it did to John Locke...
...As you accurately noted, I then expressed "the darkest forebodings...
...She had not yet discovered, in spite of several maternities, that "the bearing and rearing of children" was the "climax of her erotic expression...
...Acheson has plainly abandoned his untenable position of last fall on the first...
...Along with many others, to judge by The People's Forum, I have been intrigued by the stimulating discussion started off by Morris Rubin's editorial in the August number entitled "The Consequences of Korea," and carried on in subsequent articles by A. J. Muste and Milton Mayer, editorials by Mr...
...Forgive me now, if I give way to the urge to express my personal reactions to some of the things I have read in your publication...
...Is all this whooping up of child-bearing necessary...
...Shelton, and I were wrong in our estimate of Mr...
...School of Law Loyola University New Orleans, La...
...Let us develop so vocal and vigorous a public opinion that even the stiff necks of our national leaders will have to bendl Seattle Emergency Peace Assembly Ray C. Roberts, Exec...
...Our Point IV, if wisely used and adequately financed, would be a most effective weapon against Communism...
...but, during the period of indefinite armed truce which lies ahead, the so-called "negative" elements are indispensable, if not in the form contemplated in January...
...June 8: Norman Thomas, the voice of democratic Socialism: "Our World Tomorrow...
...W. Glenn McFadden Elgin, 111...
...Acheson has had any real change cf heart...
...Enthusiastic congratulations seem to be in order...
...The three specific policies we cited are not separate from our general indictment, but illustrative of it...
...Barth was not happy...
...Indeed, her fervor is both iconoclastic and proselytic...
...In doing so they expressly repudiated the authoritarian tradition and established as the basic principle of the new republic the ideal of democracy, the principle that government, law, and other social institutions shall be based on human values—on the liberty, safety, and happiness of the people...
...The Progressive, I cannot but feel, is against Acheson...
...drunk or sober...
...Actually the project was abandoned not by Acheson, but by Gen...
...What many an unpretentious woman accomplishes obscurely every day, Mrs...
...The article deals too harshly with those who dissent from some of the ideas of one of the greatest dissenters of them all...
...Bombs are callously undiscriminating...
...Feminism has made a place for the unmarried woman...
...Today some ardently plead it as justification for the status quo while others feel it screams for social reforms...
...Will she be satisfied to remain at home after her children are grown...
...We are trying to encourage the Japanese to think independently...
...Rodell took Holmes' critics to task in your April issue, and many of them deserve it...
...Speakers and subjects for the remaining programs are: May 11: S. Fanny Simon, teacher and author, recently returned from Latin America: "Reaction in Latin America...
...Barth's article, "Farewell to Feminism," in the April issue was interesting and provocative...
...As for the other two issues which you hold against Mr...
...Acheson...
...The Progressive has been, to my mind, remarkable amongst journals of public opinion for at least one reason, namely, that it has presented divergent points of view with such exemplary lack of bias towards any particular point of view that it was possible for that "sad morning" to arrive in January (as you described it in your "Office Memo" in the February issue) when two readers cancelled their subscriptions, one because The Progressive had gone "all out for war," and the other because it was "spreading the poison of pacifism...
...It is easy from the safe security of a home and family to talk about the nobility of Motherhood...
...More fundamentally, however, we find little that has transpired since then to give support to Mr...
...I would appeal, so to speak, from Acheson drunk to Acheson sober...
...Barth, Mr...
...Schlesinger's wistful hope that Mr...
...We oppose any draft of 18-year-old boys or universal military training...
...Barth did in the face of the world, in fame and glory...
...Precisely the point The Progressive emphasized so well...
...3. We recommend withdrawal of our troops from Korea and Formosa: withdrawal of our support from unpopular, undemocratic regimes...
...We hope other friends and interested folks will be made aware of our correct address...
...It did not stop conflict in Korea...
...The problem of the unhappy woman is not one of education or the lack of it but of a lack of satisfying values by which to live...
...Acheson's resignation at just the moment when he has come around on the three issues of criticism—unless it could be that The Progressive's real objection is less to these three specific policies than to the Acheson-Truman foreign policy in general...
...For Mrs...
...Hallen M. Bell Birmingham, Mich...
...I was greatly interested in reading the other night that Bernard Baruch had said: "I believe we pay too much attention to our standards of living and too little to our standard of morals...
...Madeleine A. Simons Charleston, S. C. Best But One Dear Sirs: As the pastor of an old-time Baptist Church, I must have The Progressive...
...The sooner that pacifists see through its legal humbug the better for them...
...But our great military expenditures reduce it to an impertinence...
...Governments start wars, but they cannot fight them...
...Arthur Schlesinger, Jr...
...What has happened in the two months since...
...12 for a March issue going to press in mid-February...
...Two people have written us to that address, but we never received the mail...
...It is because she was able to combine "successfully" a family and a career: "I was an up-and-coming mother, a superior wife, a lecturer, an author, an executive...
...The lives of women today are far richer and less constricted because of their efforts...
...she is merely restricting the stage for her self-expression—at least temporarily...
...Eisenhower, who realistically rejected the idea of having unwilling German mercenaries in the North Atlantic army...
...Take your three points...
...Schlesinger thinks our editorial might have been "appropriate...
...Westbrook Pegler is a third or fourth rate journalist without imagination, and I doubt lhat any dignified newspaper or magazine in other English-speaking countries would publish his articles...
...Acheson and The Progressive on the whole subject of American foreign policy, and we made no effort to conceal it in the editorial in our March issue...
...It will not do so in China or Russia...
...Florence Riggs Evanston, 111...
...One thing that I agree is unpardonable is to attempt to belittle him...
...Not "Farewell to Feminism...
...Barth, housewife, is no less a crusader than Mrs...
...Many are aware that our democratic freedoms are under attack but few seem to realize that the attacks are part of a relentless, coordinated campaign...
...This should be praise enough...
...Spiritual Insight Dear Sirs: Please accept my heartiest thanks for your excellent and prophetic editorial in the April issue, "Missionary, Save Thyself...
...We provide all the manpower and the technical skill...
...Better be a first class wife and mother than a second or third rate novelist...
...Books, plays, movies, radio scripts—in this Land of the Free—are being censored and often even banned almost as effectively as it could have been done by the Spanish Inquisition...
...It deserves more objectivity than Mrs...
...Barth that she has at last found her true self, but we are concerned about the "femininity" revival carried out in Soviet Russia and the United States...
...But Farewell to Ramona—I hope...
...The issue of war and peace rests squarely with us...
...If Mrs...
...Barth's article will not be to strengthen the forces that would limit their chance to live useful, dignified lives outside of marriage...
...I do not see any way of getting away from what you call the "negative" aspects of foreign policy (i.e., military force) so long as a Stalinist regime rules in Russia...
...Mrs...
...We came to Japan on the Lord's business, and we have faith to believe that He will be with us as long as we remember what His business is...
...5. Communism, being an ideology, cannot be killed with bombs or bullets...
...If this is your belief, I must register sharp disagreement...
...To accept natural law is not to deny that there is subjective appreciation involved in evaluating positive law...
...O. A. bodemer Indianapolis, Ind...
...I hope that there also crept in some small measure of satisfaction and pride, even though it were swiftly rejected as ungodly self-righteousness...
...Rubin's articles are always courageous and illuminating, and this one was especially forceful and made me think what a great pity it is that men of such insight do not have a deciding voice in the making of Amerfeafl Policy- Alma E. Meyer Ann Arbor, Mich...
...And she has now retreated to home and mother, a sanctuary where she and you, and you and I can all be uncriticized saints...
Vol. 15 • May 1951 • No. 5
