THE PEOPLE'S FORUM
THE PEOPLE'S FORUM 1951 A.D. Dear Sirs: Am I glad I'm running a laundry instead of a magazine these days! Fred M. Kummin American Laundry Placerville, Calif. Muste v. Schlesinger Dear...
...Charles M. Larson Whittier, Calif...
...I am glad there is a vast host of people who are not talking now but will do the talking with the ballot come election day...
...This looks like an outstanding example of what George Orwell in 1984 described as "doublethink" and "doublespeak"—"War is Peace," "Freedom is Slavery," "Ignorance is Strength," etc...
...That the natural Chinese urge (which he had just discussed so understandingly) to clear their mainland of foreign aggressors, should be characterized as "imperialist lust for expansion," while our presence in full military strength half-way around the globe from our own homeland is coolly described as occupation of our "strategic frontier"— what is this but "Doublespeak...
...Is it not of concern, in its bearing on our global relations, that that speech contained not the slightest reference to the UN, which is our one justification in the eyes of our own people and of the world, for our fighting a war in Korea at all—i.e., that we are for the first time in history fighting, or claiming to fight, on behalf of the collective security of the UN and under their mandate...
...I do not know if I have ever seen the Republican Party praised in any way, and as for Sen...
...How must the other nations of the UN, whose sons have been fighting side by side with ours in Korea, interpret the only passage in which MacArthur alluded to the outbreak of the war: "While I was not consulted prior to the President's decision to intervene in support of the Republic of Korea, that decision from a military standpoint proved a sound one...
...We are now in the stage of capitalism, and while it has made great contributions, it has no greater permanence than the former stages...
...A possible solution is to reach a controlled agreement between the adversaries...
...The one type of article I still enjoy is the one by foreign correspondents on foreign countries—such as recent ones by Helen Mears, Carleton Beals, and G. E. R. Gedye...
...Their creative imagination has had to jump beyond knowledge...
...I wish I had word pictures to tell you how far from the never-never land of free speech and calling a spade a big fat spade The Progressive makes us feel over here—and how glad it makes us that our big, rambunctious, sometimes stupid, and always interesting U.S.A...
...Imagine the outcome if the contemporaries of Columbus, out of respect for him, had refused to explore farther...
...It was carried out on such a high plane of frank and fair expression that it brought out the issues clearly...
...Is America on the road to the Fascism she fought a war to defeat...
...It has served its purpose and it is now in the process of being merged into a new and better system in which democracy will rule in the industrial as well as in the political world...
...The Europeans have developed the feeling that we are rushing them into a state of military rearmament they do not want and cannot afford...
...So who could, expect anything but for them to try to make political capital out of the MacArthur removal...
...Schlesinger seems to believe...
...Capitalism is organized and operates for the sole purpose of enabling a few people to make profits at the expense of the many and it has operated so successfully that 60 families own or control the productive wealth of the nation while the workers who created all of that wealth own but one percent...
...Anti-Truman Hysteria Dear Sirs...
...Judge Hill kept the sentence at five years on each count, but he stipulated that all three sentences were to be served concurrently...
...or if Edison's first incandescent light had been accepted as too wonderful to use and been put into a museum instead of into ever Increasing service to humanity...
...I believe that in recognition of the orderliness of the moral and spiritual universe...
...Eleanor Grace Clark New York, N. Y. Exhausted Reservoir Dear Sirs: I wonder if Americans realize how rapidly they are exhausting the reservoir of goodwill they once had with the people of Europe...
...If we follow the lead of men like Taft, Wherry, Hoover, Kennedy, and their kind, we can kiss their help good-by and isolate ourselves still further from the mainstream of humanity seeking a peaceful solution to the world's problems...
...Who are our stage-managers...
...The hypotheses so reached have had to be tested from every possible angle before being accepted as true, and even then only with the recognition that they are subject to modification or rejection in the light of further knowledge...
...that realization of any improvement must come through men, and that the outer limit of any system of ethics must be that which the mind of man can grasp and put into operation...
...And how interpret the General's supreme disregard for the obvious incongruity of his comments on the moral and material reasonableness of evolving nationalism in Asia...
...Recent travels of my own and letters from friends in three countries in Western Europe, have told a sad story of the state of public opinion there...
...You don't have to believe like we do, but let's work together peaceably...
...there, as in the physical realm, man's understanding of these "laws" is the outer limit of his conscious use of them...
...Language, however lofty the style and noble the delivery, becomes meaningless when used in this way, save as a device for hypnotizing men's minds, denying the evidence of their senses and their reasoning faculties, and mobilizing their emotions...
...Only now is there beginning to be what might be called a scientific attitude toward moral and spiritual "law"—a recognition of the fundamental order of the universe, of man's responsibility for following through insights with testing in everyday living, a willingness to modify or reject hypotheses in the light of experience...
...Otherwise we are doomed to become a part of the splatter of an atomic bomb...
...Too long men have tried to build a better world by forcing the rest of the world to be good...
...Are the people of the U.S...
...Europe is still recovering from the frightful blows of 1939-1945...
...Caroline F. Urie Yellow Springs, O. Michener's Sentence Dear Sirs: In the April Forum, I reported on the Feb...
...Certainly the Nazi demonstrations were no better stage-managed...
...President Truman's critics have said that he was a little man for removing Mac-Arthur...
...The Department of Justice did not oppose the reduction of sentence...
...Nor do I think he is God, as Rep...
...Real Prophet Dear Sirs: What I pay for is Milton Mayer...
...It is easy to sympathize with Mr...
...It will demand great sacrifice and will require great depths of spiritual power, but with the help of God, it is possible...
...Dear Sirs: The Progressive deserves our heartiest applause for giving us the Muste-Schles-inger debate in May...
...Schlesinger's prescription...
...MacArthur's Speech Dear Sirs: Has anyone given attention to analyzing MacArthur's speech before Congress...
...But I still think that when my subscription runs out in about a year, I will not renew It...
...To lay down our weapons of defense, without parallel action by the Russians, would be to betray all our hopes and all our ideals to the imperial arms of a power whose lust for conquest has been demonstrated too often to need re-documentation in The Progressive...
...Disgusted Dear Sirs: I was a great admirer of your magazine for some years, particularly when it was in newspaper format...
...There, as in the physical universe, must be order—in other words "laws" which are inherent in the nature of the universe...
...Otherwise our presence in Korea looks like a raw imperialist adventure...
...a recognition of the practical application as occurring within the limits set by man's understanding, limits which therefore are capable of progressive expansion...
...Frank Simpson San Diego, Calif...
...Dewey Short of Missouri intimated when he said the voice of MacArthur is the voice of God...
...In the moral and spiritual realm there have also been trail blazers whose creative Imagination jumped beyond knowledge...
...They could not take away our freedom, as Dr...
...We must try to understand them, work with them, and help them, if we want their friendship and cooperation...
...Taft, your writers seem to consider him beyond the pale...
...The reason I think the whole mess is anti-Truman, and not pro-MacArthur, is that the crowd promoting the hysteria— Wherry, Jenner, Capehart, Knowland, Nixon, Joe Martin, and all their sort-fought everything President Roosevelt ever tried to do...
...Then let us abandon our military machine and say to the world: "Come, join our efforts...
...We wish to thank the many persons who wrote letters to Judge Hill, the district attorney, and the Department of Justice about the case...
...so unmindful of their democratic tradition, so blinded by fear and hate that they are looking for a man of destiny—a "Fuehrer"—to lead them...
...Private profit instead of human need motivates capitalism...
...I have nothing against Gen...
...They think we are urging them on so that they can take the first and bloodiest blows from the Russians when the attack comes...
...It Is a rough and stony, unexplored path...
...Let us adopt a concrete Christian program to build a better world based on a vital love, humility, and spirit of service, and set about it with a passion and sense of urgency...
...I consider him to be one of the most honorable, honest, and capable men in Washington, completely sincere in all ways...
...Schlesinger appears to attempt a casual allusion to Scripture on the subject of saving souls and losing worlds...
...in the assumption of responsibility for discovering, understanding and utilizing those "laws" lies the best—if not the only—hope for the future...
...Thomas G. Carson Rossville, Ga., Moral "Laws' Dear Sirs: To say that there is no Absolute and to say that this, that, or the other is not the Absolute are quite different statements...
...Schlesinger's article was that morality is not practical...
...Dwight Platt Bethel College Newton, Kan...
...It seems to be completely biased toward the Democratic Party and the welfare state idea...
...This is the only revolution which offers our civilization any security...
...The only passage this brings to mind is the one that says, "For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul...
...Is this the utterance of a designated servant of the official organization of the nations of the world, or of an irresponsible military adventurer...
...It deserves consideration...
...Schlesinger is less than honest when he implies that we must follow his program of ". . . condemn to slave labor and death the heroic men and women in Europe . . ." Seems we were going to help the heroic men and women of South Korea...
...Isabel B. Bachels San Francisco, Calif...
...The mobilizing of the emotions appears to be unquestionably effective, to judge from the response of the mass demonstrations in all the great U.S...
...This, then, is the true revolution—the revolution of the spirit, of ideals...
...The result is no net gain for America and a big increase in total war potential throughout the world...
...A certain element is trying desperately to saddle this country with MacArthurism abroad and McCarthyism at home...
...Yet it would not occur to anyone to say that the "laws" of the physical universe were made by man or that their reach is determined by man's capacity to grasp them...
...E. K. Peckham Cairo, Egypt...
...Man's understanding of them is the outer limit of his conscious use of them, and as his understanding grows their utilization expands...
...Isn't it about time that we made some honest efforts in a new direction...
...MacArthur are the same ones who fought the Democratic Administration for the past 19 years...
...is there, noisy and opinionated as ever, to go home to...
...Judge Hill had the authority to modify the sentence within 60 days...
...It took a big man to take that step, knowing the buzzards would be waiting to swarm about his neck...
...Schlesinger either blinds himself to the fact that this policy leads to war or accepts war as the best available end possible under present circumstances...
...I believe that the great eternal principles laid down by Jesus Christ are the practical moral and spiritual laws by which this universe operates...
...Instead, we must start with ourselves—the only persons we have control over...
...I wonder if we have...
...Nor do I think he is infallible, indispensable, and the sole person standing between liberty and total defeat by the Communist hordes of the world...
...Cecil L. Franklin Maiden, Mass...
...He is certainly not infallible, but his is the only voice in print that rings with the sincerity of the real prophet—and he is the only one who even has a style...
...That would have a revolutionary effect on the people of the world...
...Muste v. Schlesinger Dear Sirs: In his reply to A. J. Muste, Prof...
...This past year I have become much disgusted with your articles and the magazine in general...
...In the meantime, the liberals had better quit playing the mouse and speak up, or we will have fascism in America and Communism abroad...
...23 sentence of Robert Michener, 19-year-old Quaker conscientious objector, to 10 years in prison by Judge Delmas Hill of Topeka, Kan...
...cities MacArthur has visited—demonstrations reminiscent of Nazi Germany at the peak of Hitler's triumph...
...We have postponed an honest attempt in this direction until we have preponderant military strength...
...Sen...
...The newspaper editors, columnists, radio commentators, and writers who are supporting Gen...
...MacArthur personally...
...We would meet them with an uncompromising, self-sacrificing stand on the essentials of truth, but with the return of love for hate...
...It seemed to me that one of the main contentions of Dr...
...Both Justice Holmes and Fred Rodell agree that improvement in the ways that men live together is possible...
...they continued in the same old style of obstruction after Truman became President...
...On April 17, Robert Michener's sentence was reduced to five years...
...Schlesinger's fear that if we stop our militarization Russia will continue to expand theirs and swallow the world...
...Industrial Democracy Dear Sirs: The torrent of words that are poured out from press, pulpit, and radio and that are surcharged with wishful thinking, superstition, prejudice, hysteria and just plain ignorance about capitalism and communism, leaves little room for words that are factual, rational, and logical...
...I just do not agree with the military policy he advocates, and I do not agree with his political policy nor his economic policy...
...Then he proceeded to characterize Communist China as "aggressively imperialistic with a lust for expansion and increased power"—almost in the same breath in which he discussed "our strategic frontiers," embracing "the entire Pacific Ocean, which we control to the shores of Asia by a chain of islands . . . from the Aleutians to the Mariannas . . . and dominate with sea and air power every Asiatic port...
...Bread is not baked to be eaten but to be sold at a profit and if you cannot pay the profit, you cannot eat the bread...
...His is uneven (like all prophets), but it rises to great heights...
...We recognize these "laws" as inherent in the universe...
...I found myself agreeing whole-heartedly with Dr...
...For freedom can be found in the spirit of a man In the deepest dungeon...
...Their lesser followers, instead of recognizing their insights as working hypotheses to be tested in experience, were all too successful in crystallizing their own inadequate understanding into Institutions...
...In the realm of the physical sciences the trail blazers have sought Truth—understanding of how some aspect of the universe operates...
...William J. Farley South Bend, Ind...
...Mrs...
...But it is already dead in the most "democratic" mob...
...Lyle Tatum Executive Secretary Central Committee For Conscientious Objectors 2006 Walnut Street Philadelphia, Pa...
...I am thoroughly convinced that he is right...
...And on top of that, they feel that we are making the latter risk greater by our policy of bitterness and anger toward the Russians...
...They may not be expedient, but they furnish the only method which gives any hope of being able to build a better world...
...Since Russia is a free agent we cannot achieve such a preponderance...
...James H. Duff, Pennsylvania Republican, said that this nation was on an emotional drunk over this MacArthur mess...
...It has always failed...
...I am also convinced that the promoters of this emotional binge were far more interested in creating an anti-Truman hysteria than they are in welcoming a returning general...
...Muste's diagnosis—and Dr...
...How he relates this to his line of reasoning is not clear to me...
...James J. Wilson Columbus, O. Miraculous Dear Sirs: Receiving The Progressive in this intellectual hinterland smacks of the miraculous...
...It seems to me impossible to recognize the physical universe as the orderly place which it is—operating according to laws that can be increasingly understood and utilized by the mind of man—and still think of the "moral" universe as chaotic or having its origin or limits in the mind of man...
...New Direction Dear Sirs, I suppose that even Arthur Schlesinger, Jr...
...He spoke of the "normal nationalist urge for political freedom" and of the people of Asia "throwing off the shackles of colonialism" and seeing "the dawn of new opportunity and dignity and the self-respect of political freedom...
...It would probably not have been reduced over their opposition...
...Elizabeth Zutt Evansville, Ind...
...Let's start with Russia's proposal for control of atomic energy advocating inspection and access to mining and production facilities, and explore their intentions without reducing our militarization...
...in taking for granted the necessity for the existence of "laws" beyond man's present comprehension...
...The race has passed through several stages including slavery and feudalism, each of which contributed to social development and each of which was believed to be the final stage...
...The True Revolution' Dear Sirs: The debate in the last issue of The Progressive, between A. J. Muste and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., was one of the best things I have seen in-a long time...
...What of our professed reason for embarking on this war, and what of the UN...
...Then if the Communist regime should come "over here, we would meet them with a Christian spirit—the spirit of the early Quakers in this country, the spirit demonstrated by Gandhi...
...can see that increases in American arms result in increases in Russian arms...
Vol. 15 • June 1951 • No. 6
