THE PEOPLE'S FORUM
THE PEOPLE'S FORUM Mayer's Declaration Dear Sirs: I can't help but feel that this time (at least) The Progressive has paid too dear a price for the "beautiful writing" of Milton Mayer. Not the...
...Dear Sirs: Milton Mayer's article, "Will We Sign It...
...The conference therefore decided to suspend further dispatches of wheat to foreign countries until the position becomes clarified...
...We need some of this to occasionally take us away from the grim realities of life...
...There is no reason why we cannot do this without getting down on our knees to sign, as Mayer would have us do...
...It is a game that is played by both sides...
...Big business is always wrong, the Fair Deal and the laboring man always right...
...that marks a new milestone in the study of that immortal document...
...Everyone who has bothered to read the hearings and report of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs knows that the crisis was caused by floods, locust ravages, droughts and earthquakes, yet Mr...
...William Stern New York, N. Y. Dear Sirs: For many years our statesmen and orators have been extolling the Constitution, but neglecting the Declaration of Independence...
...J. Luther Kibler Newport News, Va...
...Partial restitution for this misuse of funds (which we readers have some share of) might be made by printing as an antidote Henry Steele Commager's "The Declaration is For Today," which appeared in the New York Times of July 1, 1951...
...H. C. Pritchard Milton, Mass...
...We want to know whether the fact that they were convicted of a felony has caused them to be treated differently by the authorities from other applicants for licenses...
...Now, after 175 years we have an interpretation of the Declaration of Independence, by Milton Mayer, "Will We Sign It...
...Richard Y. Mason Bethesda, Md...
...Josephine White Columbus, O. Dear Sirs: I like the nonsense of Milton Mayer for what it actually is—a game of words and ideas, not to be taken seriously but valuable as exercise and entertainment...
...I shall always be grateful to the friend who first started me reading The Progressive with a gift subscription...
...For this reason, he is able to show us a perspective which Mayer misses (or conscientiously avoids)—a perspective which may make it possible for a great many more of us to sign the Declaration and sign it in good and meaningful faith...
...Too One-Sided Dear Sirs: I have been on the point of terminating my subscription many times...
...James Kennedy Bronxville, N. Y. Dear Sirs: Milton Mayer's "Will We Sign It...
...If readers of The Progressive are aware of such specific cases, would they please write the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors, 2006 Walnut St., Philadelphia 3, Pa...
...I can sign because equality has a meaning for me right here on earth and I don't have to go digging timidly through the Book and 99 others to find the right combination of words to twist in order to know the meaning of equality...
...Immediately Nehru entered into negotiations with Pakistan to purchase every last kernel of wheat available for export to India...
...is a wonderful addition to the Declaration of Independence tor most of us read it like the men we are—not what we ought to be...
...It turned out to be less than two per cent of the needed grain...
...You seem too one-sided to suit me...
...His July effusion on the Declaration of Independence was a cleverly worded fraud...
...Just to set the record straight, however, his first assertion is that "any time that Nehru had wanted to he could have secured all the wheat he needed from Pakistan...
...This last sentence (just so Mr...
...If Mr...
...in the July issue was a beautifully written and brilliantly conceived essay on the Declaration of Independence...
...by Wiliiam Gibson Dildine in the July issue...
...Then, he provides two completely unsupported assertions, and insists on labeling them as facts...
...Facts," indeed...
...We also wish to know whether the men in question were pardoned or not...
...On Feb...
...Albon Man, for the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors Hysteria Dear Sirs: Some of the letters in the Forum on the MacArthur greeting refer to "hysteria...
...Perhaps they do turn to "propaganda" to present the picture as they see it, but how about government, how about labor unions...
...If that is hysteria let us have a lot more of it...
...The world is rampant with hypocrisy...
...J. C. Nackie Milwaukee, Wis...
...My wife and I have been much helped in our thinking by such articles as "What Ails Iran...
...William Burtch New York, N. Y. Dear Sirs: Milton Mayer's "Will We Sign It...
...Deepest Pleasure Dear Sirs: The enrichment of thought and the freedom I experience in seeking truth through articles in The Progressive are the deepest pleasure I have experienced in years...
...Equality, Mr...
...The following sentence is a fact which makes the above assertion inescapable...
...Dear Sirs: Spare us the pious humbug of a Milton Mayer...
...Kimball's bald assertion seems a little silly...
...Kimball states as his second fact that "he (Nehru) engineered the whole thing . . ." Nehru is a powerful figure in the Far East, but he has not yet gained the power to control the rains and the locusts and to conjure up an earthquake when he needs one...
...Not the $1500 that the prodigious Mr...
...For my part I can sign—I have signed— long before Mayer with his timid asking for guarantees...
...25, 1951 a trade agreement between India and Pakistan was concluded in which Pakistan agreed to sell India all the available wheat...
...The facts are that India needed around two million tons of wheat...
...Anita K. Koenen Milwaukee, Wis...
...Many of your writers on the race problem and international affairs are outstanding and constructive (such as Norman Thomas), and for their sake and because I want to keep an open mind, I shall renew once more, Mrs...
...The joy of seeing a red-blooded American again caused a spontaneous outburst of emotion which did the American people a whole lot of good...
...The Pakistan government said it just couldn't furnish more than this...
...Kimball will see the difference) is an assertion...
...Yes, I will sign it...
...Dear Sirs: Yes, Milton Mayer writes like an angel, but thinks like a fool...
...Now you are lashing out at the doctors, many of whom are giving a day a week for free clinical work, others charging only nominal fees in cases of real need...
...Kimball can turn 25,000 tons of wheat into 2,000,000 tons he will have performed a miracle rivaling that of Jesus with the fishes...
...Lauds Dildine Dear Sirs: Congratulations and thanks for your efforts toward truthful reporting and analyses of the news...
...Mayer, is what we don't have enough of and what I want, and I'm willing to search for it and to change my definition of it and the government that I have helped create to help me search it out...
...18, 1950 an official communique was issued by the Government of Pakistan which reads in part, "the Punjab Government find themselves unable to dispatch wheat for export to foreign countries...
...Mrs...
...It was not until February this year that the position of the Pakistan government became "clarified" and foreign exports began again...
...Commager's reason for writing the article is to make a serious and thoughtful examination of the Declaration's philosophy and not, like Mayer, to hold the door open with a shibboleth while he sells us a few cheap ergos...
...further, that in 1950 Pakistan not only could not supply wheat for India, but could not even honor their existing long-term contracts they already had with Japan and Germany...
...We of The Progressive are indeed fortunate to have so remarkable a document in our magazine...
...Or short of that, at least referring your readers to it...
...On Oct...
...We need to start our investigation from 1776 to find where we went off the track...
...In view of the official position of the Pakistan Government, Mr...
...Howard Penley Route 2 Mohnton, Pa...
...Jensine Rasmussen Gilroy, Calif...
...Vicki Smothers Des Moines, la...
...will rank forever as one of the great commentaries on the Declaration of Independence...
...Why must The Progressive make a specialty of it...
...Luce set as a price tag, but the cost in intellectual honesty...
...Gordon & Norma Chapman Oakland, Calif...
...Data on CO's Dear Sirs: The Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors would like to be informed of the experiences of conscientious objectors who received sentences for violating the 1940 or 1948 draft laws and who later applied for licenses to practice trades or professions...
...Facts about India Dear Sirs: William Rice Kimball of Utah takes you to task for leaving out some of the "facts" in your wonderful June editorial about grain for India...
Vol. 15 • August 1951 • No. 8
