INDIFFERENCE COMES HIGH
Indifference Conies High IT IS hard to determine whether "The Great Debate" has clarified or confused the issues of American foreign policy. It is simpler to see that the multi-million word debate...
...Actually, the official election returns show that Italian Reds increased their vote from the 32% of the total they cast in 1948 to about 40% this year, while the French Communists, though losing a half-million votes as compared with 1946, emerged again as the largest party in France with 26% of the total vote...
...But if you are opposed to the Communists, wouldn't Communist laws be bad laws...
...There is no one simple explanation for the failure of Marshall Plan aid to wean Frenchmen and Italians away from Communism...
...He was in a concentration camp," I said...
...I'm not sure I would want to live in that kind of country," I said...
...My brother looked at his watch and hurriedly left me...
...But why didn't they like him...
...But we're opposing them—does that make us Communists...
...We have to make it clearer than we have, by our actions, that our goal is peace...
...This man was captured by the Communists because the Communists didn't like him...
...But the authorities were Communist authorities," I said...
...That doesn't make any difference," my brother replied...
...If you get people into the frame of mind of opposing laws in Russia, they might begin to oppose them here...
...Oh, don't tell them he was in a concentration camp," my brother said...
...Thus, the House of Representatives slashed funds for public housing and acted to cut the heart out of the public power program by forbidding the construction of publicly-owned transmission lines...
...They want no part of the next war, and many who voted Communist were doubtless showing their concern over the completeness with which their governments were being harnessed to American foreign policy...
...Even Washington wouldn't like that...
...A curious incident last month graphically illustrates the plight of the Administration...
...Here the Communists were on unassailable ground, for both Italy and France are rotten-ripe for basic reform...
...Most old-fashioned Americans wouldn't want to either...
...All right," I said...
...If you question the authorities when the authorities are Communists that doesn't make you a Communist, does it...
...But this 82nd Congress, now near the end of its seventh month of continuous session, has managed to compile a shabbier record that is even more barren of constructive achievement than the 80th's...
...The Tory coalition of Republicans and Southern Democrats, more firmly in the saddle than ever before, has succeeded in nullifying the Fair Deal victory of 1948...
...I always said you could tell those Communists by the way they look," my brother said...
...Election Realities MANY Americans may have assumed, from the headlines in some papers and the chatter over the radio, that the Communists took a drubbing in the all-important elections held recently in Italy and France...
...Wayne Morse, the Oregon Republican who has forged to the leadership of Republican liberals, had just finished a powerful argument in favor of decisive action against inflation...
...There might be some hope of breaking the do-nothing spirit of Congress if there were a more affirmative, insistent demand on the part of the people for constructive action...
...The elections clearly reduced the political power of the Communists in the sense that they have fewer offices in both countries, but it would be the most childish kind of self-delusion to gloss over the fact that the popular strength of the Soviet-dominated forces in Italy and France remains disappointingly great...
...I can smell them a mile off...
...You'd better look out or the FBI will be, after you too...
...But this was a Russian concentration camp," I said...
...We don't want a disrespect for law spreading around," he said...
...The main thing is that the Communists sent him to Siberia for two years...
...Who said he was violent...
...But those were laws made by the Communists...
...They fool you," my brother said...
...Look here—he was just an ordinary person like you and me...
...This is a difficult and delicate chore, to be sure, but we may have a better chance now that the realists in Paris and Rome have had time to ponder the meaning of the elections...
...We have a tough job ahead of us...
...We want trouble in Russia, don't we...
...My brother glanced apprehensively over his shoulder...
...I'm not sure I ought to be talking to you...
...Everybody knows the Communists believe in violence," he said...
...But these were Communists who smelled him," I said...
...I asked...
...But it's democratic to oppose laws which citizens feel are bad laws, isn't it...
...But there are several helpful clues...
...You can oppose something in another country but not in your own, is that it...
...I said...
...I asked...
...People shouldn't make speeches," my brother said emphatically...
...I mean, they knew he wasn't a Communist...
...You mean eyen in Russia people are supposed to obey the laws...
...Many people do not understand that," my brother said...
...It is true, of course, that the Communists lost a substantial number of the localities they had controlled in Italy and nearly half their seats in the French National Assembly...
...No, he didn't look like a Communist," I retorted...
...But this result was achieved not because of any sharp reduction in popular support, but rather because new election laws in both countries were openly and avowedly rigged against the Communists...
...I don't have to prove anything," I said...
...I was discussing with my brother what I could tell prospective employers...
...Well, maybe he made a speech or something—one speech...
...He wasn't a Communist but he looked like a Communist, is that it...
...Millions of Europeans who have no love of Communism, and would prefer to be associated with us, have acquired a mortal fear that the Atlantic Pact and American foreign policy generally are hastening a military showdown with the Soviet Union...
...That's what you're trying to prove," he said...
...Does that look as if he was a Communist...
...Where preliminary action was approved, it was all slanted rightward toward reaction...
...But weariness in the face of recurring crises, frustration in the field of foreign affairs, and a general air of melancholy resignation have immobilized large segments of the population...
...The Senate was debating inflation controls...
...For the simple reason," I said, restraining myself, "that he himself was not a Communist...
...I exploded...
...They will bounce back—as they always have—but their first job then will be to pay the price for their present indifference...
...They made no effort to preach Marxist doctrines, but shrewdly confined their campaigning to tirades against existing evils, calling for such reforms as land distribution, more equitable taxation, higher wages, more effective price controls, and liberalization of social security...
...By "Bread and Homes" the Communist orators meant basic reform of the domestic economies of the two countries...
...You mean it's Communistic to oppose the Communists," I said...
...Not from the Communists," he said...
...The governments of both nations have not used Marshall Plan funds to achieve a better standard of living for all the people, but instead have invoked the trickle-down theory...
...When they pick you up they'll want to know who your friends are...
...Keep your voice lower," he said...
...Peace, as expounded by Red propagandists, meant no entangling military alliances with the United States...
...You sound subversive," my brother replied...
...Even the Communists have to have laws," he observed smugly...
...The Communists campaigned on a platform of "Peace, Bread, and Homes...
...He wasn't a Communist so how could he look like a Communist...
...Much of the assistance has gone to the big operators in industry and agriculture in the hope that the benefits would seep down to those on the lowest economic levels...
...But this man was not a Communist," I said...
...I said...
...But I'm talking about Russia," I said...
...In mid-July there was still no decisive action on inflation controls, taxation, major appropriations, defense housing, public health measures, or public power bills...
...It is simpler to see that the multi-million word debate has paralyzed the legislative function of Congress and thrown a blanket of fog around critical issues of domestic policy...
...What difference does it make how he looked...
...Many people think that anybody who was in a concentration camp was a Communist...
...We have to defend our way of life," my brother said...
...And we shall have to exert friendly but firm pressure on our Italian and French allies to undertake the basic internal reforms which are so long overdue...
...Maybe he didn't make a speech, maybe they just didn't like the way he looked...
...He opposed the authorities, in other words," my brother said...
...It's all because it's in your own country," he said...
...I asked...
...They change their names and get their faces remodeled...
...Isn't it democratic to oppose laws which would put people in concentration camps and outlaw those who have serious criticism of the government and mean business about making it better...
...The Senator who rose to attack the Morse case for controls was Burnett Maybank, South Carolina Democrat, who, as chairman of the Senate Banking and Currency Committee, was supposed to be the Administration s leader in piloting the control program through the Senate...
...If he was in a concentration camp, he must have been mixed up in something...
...my brother said...
...We have to defend our way of life," he said...
...They will tell you he must have been a radical or something to be so violent about politics...
...What he did was to oppose the Communists," I said...
...They sent him away for being against the Communists...
...Laws are laws," he said...
...Then why did they capture him...
...The facts, however, do not add up to any such cozy conclusions...
...Adapted and condensed from Roy Finch's original in Alternative...
...You Sound Subversive By ROY FINCH A FRIEND had asked me to help in getting a job for a man who had just arrived from Poland...
...That ought to be a good recommendation...
...It would be breaking the law and unpatriotic...
...Not when it's the law," he said...
...He never did anything in his life...
...The 80th Congress of bitter memory (1947-1949) was widely thought to have established a record for inaction and reaction that would stand for a long time...
...my brother asked significantly...
...The Administration itself, harried by intra-party strife and weakened by lack of effective leadership, seems resigned to its fate as prisoner of a hostile Congressional majority...
Vol. 15 • August 1951 • No. 8
