THE PEOPLE AND THE POLITICIANS
The People and the Politicians CONGRESS HAS lost touch with the country. Its sour, scrimping approach to the problems and needs of the world around us not only violates the historic traditions of...
...Another indication came from an outstanding organization of American business and industrial leaders...
...But it was we who were being taught a costly lesson—thanks to the shortsightedness of Congress and the cunning alertness of the Communists in fishing in troubled waters...
...Voluntary donations by check or money order should be addressed to Friendship Grain...
...A coalition of Republicans and Dixiecrats wrote into the measure an amendment demanding that in return for the loan of the grain, India scrap her embargo against the export of military materials and ship us commodities for the building of warplanes...
...The time to get your fee is while the tears are still hot.'" The Senate voted that way—to demand materials for jet planes and to collect while the tears were still hot (i.e., the people of India were still starving) in a measure intended to relieve famine and in competition with the proclaimed Soviet policy: "Let's forget terms and feed the hungry...
...The one weapon we have in abundance in this war for the minds of men is food...
...This people-to-people approach to the problem was nearing a climax in mid-May as Sen...
...That is why The Progressive is convinced that the coordinated program of group and individual action on a private level, as outlined by Sen...
...Everywhere I encountered a deeper and more sensitive awareness of the nature of the struggle of our time than I was to find, shortly afterward, in Washington...
...Humphrey in announcing coordination of the grass-roots efforts, "is guilty of tragic delay in providing food for the starving millions of the Republic of India...
...Months of sullen inaction in Congress shocked large segments of the population into mobilizing on private levels for the relief of famine in India—with the result that Congress at long last was shamed into taking up the relief measure...
...Still undecided, too, was the policy of the government of India—-whether it would accept the strings and agree to swap war materials for grain...
...A committee of the CED, which includes some of the most hard-boiled, successful American business men, left no doubt that it was supporting the rearmament program, but it hastened to add the "social and economic aspects" of programs like the Marshall Plan must be "preserved and sustained" because rearmament "must be regarded as supplementing, not replacing, the cooperative effort" to build a society of freedom and opportunity against which Communist propaganda and infiltration are helpless...
...Remember the old lawyer's advice to a beginner in the profession," cried Sen...
...Saksena in an acceptance speech: "It is unfortunate that, at the present time, there are people who cast doubts on our friendship towards the people of the United States...
...In a week more than $370, enough for five tons of wheat, was raised...
...Sen...
...II The first shipment of grain was urgently needed by April 1, but first the Administration, and then Congress, dallied and gabbled although both the grain and the shipping were available—and the people of India and of the world knew it...
...Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota announced the launching of an integrated, nationwide campaign for "Friendship Grain" for the people of India...
...A typical example is the experience at Bucknell University at Lewisburg, Pa., where a group of students organized a "Wheat-for-India" movement...
...Humphrey's announcement, the Senate was stirred to action...
...But the bill it passed was almost as much an American military measure as it was a helping hand to the starving of India...
...Dispatches from New Delhi reported that Nehru was greeted with "prolonged cheers" when he reported to Parliament that 50,000 tons of Soviet wheat purchased on a "cash basis" were already en route to India...
...The Red Cross has agreed to accept unsolicited contributions and act as agent in procuring food...
...Actually, as the AP emphasized, the United States is presently shipping more grain to India, through normal trade channels, than the Russians propose in their entire project, but this quiet operation has been totally obscured by the reluctance of Congress to act on the larger need for 2,000,000 tons and the dramatic action of the Soviets in filling again a vacuum our own inaction had created...
...Its sour, scrimping approach to the problems and needs of the world around us not only violates the historic traditions of American compassion and generosity, but collides head-on with current public opinion on America's role in world affairs...
...III Scores of private organizations and thousands of individuals in the United States have showed their disgust for the way Congress has behaved by organizing projects of their own to help alleviate the famine crisis in India...
...Humphrey, is more important than ever...
...But in Congress—and among those of the Truman Administration who have become prisoners of the Congressional Know-Noth-ings—the word negotiation has become synonymous with appeasement and appeasement with groveling surrender of principle...
...Everett M. Dirksen of Illinois...
...However much they were divided on the Truman-MacArthur split, or other issues of strategy and policy, the scores of Americans who spoke up at these meetings wanted to know how long our government would continue to play into Communist hands by withholding the help and hope and leadership for hundreds of millions of human beings who are revolting against the tyranny of their hopeless lives...
...Congress—there are some distinguished individual exceptions in both parties—persists in viewing the conflict between Communism and ourselves as a straight, old-fashioned power struggle in which a superiority of firepower and manpower will determine the outcome...
...A deepening suspicion that Congress is out of step with the country was confirmed for me recently in give-and-take discussions with a score of typically American audiences—service clubs, church groups, college crowds, and come-one, come-all public meetings...
...The Committee for Economic Development was sufficiently disturbed over the purely military-minded approach of Congress to warn recently that it would be fatal if we persisted in believing that "rearmament and security were synonymous...
...A vote against this amendment," shouted Sen...
...The staggering cost of Congressional blundering was on display on the front-pages of our press in May...
...Humphrey announced two aspects of the national campaign for individual action: 1. Donations and collection of grain throughout the country...
...April came and went, and so did a good part of May, too, before Congress decided it had taught India a lesson for voting against us at the United Nations...
...Perhaps the most striking example of the gulf between the politicians and the people turns up in the spontaneous, grass-roots surge of activity to alleviate starvation in India...
...M.H.R...
...Congress was still booting the bill around as this was written...
...2. Collection of funds with which to purchase desperately needed high protein content foods from the Com-modity Credit Corporation which has large surpluses of dried eggs, powdered milk, and dried beans...
...Here, in response to the universal and everlasting question, "What can I do...
...CROP (the Christian Relief Overseas Program) has agreed to coordinate activities in the nationwide collection of grain...
...The drive caught on quickly and soon became a town-and-gown project...
...It is indeed a pity that misunderstandings of this kind should exist...
...is a modest but affirmative answer for every reader of The Progressive—an answer which may not only shame our government into returning to the principles which once made America the most respected nation in the world, but which may also strike a decisive blow in the struggle between freedom and totalitarianism...
...One excellent indication of the gulf between Congress and the country is the Gallup Poll I cited last month in this space...
...Said Mr...
...H. Styles Bridges of New Hampshire, "is a vote against jet planes...
...But whatever the final outcome, this is clear: The reluctant and belated action by Congress will do little to reestablish our moral integrity in the eyes of a world in which we desperately need understanding friends...
...They are perhaps inevitable...
...A real sincere friend is not one who flatters you and approves everything you do, but rather one who supports you fully when you are right and does not hesitate to criticize you when he feels you are wrong...
...Individuals were asked to contribute the price of one pound of wheat (about four cents at local retail prices...
...An Associated Press report from New Delhi made this significant observation: "An important segment of Indian opinion, wavering between East and West, swung further toward the Russian camp when Nehru announced Russia already was starting the 50,000 tons without waiting for the conclusion of negotiations on the terms...
...American National Red Cross, Foreign Operations, Washington, D. C. Less than a week after Sen...
...But it is action like yours today which will resolve them...
...While we debate on the floor of the Senate on how to stop Communism by arms and military power, Communism is conquering the minds of millions of people who are victims of economic injustice and mass starvation...
...They misunderstand the meaning of friendship...
...Fully 60% of the people were recorded as feeling that we haven't tried hard enough—and ought to try much harder than we have—to negotiate the Korean conflict with the Chinese Communists...
...It seems incredible that, however blind it might be to the moral and humanitarian case against playing power politics with human misery, Congress could fail to see that from a selfish, American point of view, we were squandering away such good-will as we still retained in that vast, strategically vital subcontinent of Asia...
...A token bag of wheat and the cash were given to R. R. Saksena, Consul General of India...
...The American Congress," said Sen...
...The Soviet embassy allowed the story to circulate that the Russian ambassador told Indian officials: "Let's forget terms and get wheat started in order to feed the hungry...
...Such a program holds the humble beginnings of a people's peaceful revolt against a cold and sterile and failing foreign policy...
...Looking at the world through these 19th Century spectacles, it can lightly pick up the check for a sixty-bil- lion-dollar-a-year rearmament program to fight Communism around the world, and then gag at the thought of spending a tiny fraction of that amount to help prevent the still free peoples of the world from responding, in their hunger and desperation, to the siren call of Communism...
Vol. 15 • June 1951 • No. 6
