THE PEOPLE'S FORUM
THE PEOPLE'S FORUM Hunger in Korea Dear Sirs: I marvel at the Korean people. There are trucks, jeeps, and huge trailers crowding the streets, often pedestrians are killed (there are no...
...What use is it...
...American people...
...McCarthy has shown courage in one instance...
...Yes, but a home to which to go...
...Gedye Valuable Dear Sirs: The December Progressive is the best yet...
...5 to wake up and find that the American people had used their heads for once and swept the whole socialistic bunch out of office...
...This year work has been going on on a huge building project, which by the end of this year will house 2,500 families, with all shopping and recreational facilities...
...In the complete distortion of facts with which he made so many of his accusations, he has initiated something new, at least in American politics...
...G. J. Cooper Houston, Tex...
...If all of the people who voted for Stevenson were to contribute) one dollar apiece, a fund of over 26 million dollars would result...
...It is high, barley is also very high...
...The Rosenbergs have steadfastly maintained that they are innocent of forwarding bomb secrets to the Soviet Union...
...May I at the same time say that to my mind our freedom of the press is only of value to the degree in which the people who write for it have a sense of responsibility and a regard for truth and are prepared to discipline the urge to be arresting and provocative by a sober and honest search for facts...
...And I am not forgetting the editorial writer, either...
...Our parents are north of the line, we1 haven't seen them for so long...
...Austria The Relief of Mayer Dear Sirs: Among the literary styles of the regular contributors to The Progressive, that of Milton Mayer is among the most intriguing and stimulating...
...People, however, are eating barley and millet, for rice is higher...
...The price one year ago was one-fifth of this...
...Please—for your conscience's sake—write or telegraph today to President Truman urging that he grant executive clemency to Ethel and Julius Rosenberg...
...Mayer Is Grand' Dear Sirs: Congratulations on recent issues...
...Since 1950, however, I have seen not only an incredible amount of rubble clearance but also a number of new buildings go up...
...Packages will come through better if they are sewed up in a cloth bag and if the words "Baby Fold" are printed in large letters on the package...
...Last year new apartments were erected...
...For the sake of the authentic peace movement I hope you will stress increasingly the necessity of objective and just analysis of Communist-inspired "peace" movements...
...My experience with many average middle-class Berliners is that they are deeply concerned about the German situation, well aware of the ex-plosiveness of the place where they live but settling down to their job with calm and very often humor...
...Gedye's article could easily have been written by Pegler...
...The Germans in the East can say with truth that this clearing and building have been done by themselves through voluntary help (some unwilling and some enthusiastic) and without recourse to foreign financial aid...
...Wheat is coining in, but not in sufficient quantities...
...In West Berlin there is, as Milton Mayer points out, a facade of luxury...
...He is riding the crest of a tidal wave of public fear and opposition to Communism...
...The immediate work which I see for myself is taking over a "Baby Fold," now carried on by some church women here, and seeing that the babies get enough milk...
...Thank you for taking charge of it...
...Your staff of writers is second to none...
...dramatic sounding but untrue) to the general picture which he gives of conditions in the East and West Sectors...
...It's amazing how well informed on Europe this man is...
...Plea for Rosenbergs Dear Sirs: The U. S. Supreme Court has refused again to review the case of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg...
...The people seldom have a change of clothing, soap is a rare commodity, people buy their water (we get water every six to ten days), prices are soaring, people do not have enough to eat, yet they seem to be fairly clean, they smile, they carry on one way or another...
...You must have been quite shocked on Nov...
...Others might have trembled at flirting with the American sense of truth and fair play...
...But what of his conclusion that "the" Berliners are "a little decadent...
...When can we go back to our homes...
...Stevenson talking sense to the...
...In the meantime, send clothing with two or three items of food or soap tucked in some coat pocket...
...Can they find a common ground for peace with people from the Soviet Union and other counJ tries within the Soviet orbit...
...As one woman wrote, "I guess 26,000,000 Americans got the same idea—Dollars for Sense—at the) same time...
...McCarthy is not a crusader, recklessly braving powerful enemy shafts...
...Korea, or to others you may know here...
...The thoroughly and vociferously indignant are in the minority today...
...It should be required reading by every high school scholar in the nation...
...United Nations Civil Assistance Command Korea (UNCACK) attempted to house all before cold weather came...
...After reading through the Jeremiads of any honest evaluators of the contemporary scene in this day of our visitation, it is a pardonable relief to read Milton Mayer's Progressive accounts...
...Elmer Henry Hoefer St...
...Only President Truman can now prevent their electrocution and he probably will not be moved to do so unless many more tens of thousands of shocked Americans write or telegraph him...
...It would break your heart to see these tiny, ill-fed infants housed In an old and drafty temple...
...The young couple, parents of two small children, will be the first Americans ever to be executed for espionage upon sentence of a civil court...
...Even Wisconsin's churchmen, according to a recent poll, mostly share her belief that "he [McCarthy] has the courage of his convictions and that it takes courage to stand against a majority...
...There are trucks, jeeps, and huge trailers crowding the streets, often pedestrians are killed (there are no sidewalks), the streets teem with people...
...34 Stmk...
...From~his description of the East Sector as a forlorn and desolate waste, one would conclude that like many other foreign visitors, he did not go further into the East Sector than the 200 yards or so that took him to the "colossal marble Soviet Embassy" (only not marble, Mr...
...Mayer...
...The plan was launched in Madison, Wis., at a post-election meeting of persons bearing no party label and was received with great enthusiasm...
...But your correspondent, G. E. R. Gedye, by his intemper-j at article, "Red Pacifism," in the December Progressive, makes me doubt that we can hope to find in The Progressive the kind of reporting of this conference that we need...
...Milton Mayer also topped his many good articles with "We Europeans...
...On the contrary, the force of arms is on his side...
...There are many other new buildings...
...This constant reiteration of "courage" in connection with McCarthy's activities is as baffling as it is baseless...
...It made me sad as I tried to hold out some hope to them...
...E. R. Gedye's "Red Pacifism"), which I fear are doing real damage in muddled liberal minds...
...Perhaps if Milton Mayer had stayed with a German family instead of eating cheap tenderloin steaks at the American Press Club, he would have had a more realistic picture of "the" Berliners...
...Added to this is the hopeless outlook for a united Korea...
...We haven't any, for the one man we had has been transferred to educational work...
...It is not true that "in the East Sector, things remain as they were at the end of the war" while "the West has piled up all the loose bricks and carried away the piles of plaster...
...The average house is six by six feet, yet it must do for the whole family...
...My wife and kid are on their way to Japan now...
...Is there any hope for us...
...But then, I am just one of "the" English with the Diggle-Canterbury complex for liking to know something about both sides of a question...
...It would have been true to say three years ago that nothing had been touched in the East Sector...
...C. E. Payne Aberdeen, Wash...
...I am sure that we Westerners would have given up all hope long ago...
...Mayer's article is peppered with factual inaccuracies, from less important ones, such as that on the Tiergarten stands its "single surviving edifice, a small statue, etc...
...Homesick...
...The saddest thing I see is the look of desperation on the faces of working men with families, many of whom are my close personal friends...
...Regarding material living conditions in the East Sector, Milton Mayer again gives an incorrect picture, possibly because he has not understood that there is a currency of West Marks in West Berlin and East Marks in East Berlin...
...Cool and dispassionate reporting of this conference will help us to understand the most important issue of the day...
...If these little thin board houses have roofs, they are of heavy cardboard, or tin roofs made of beer cans...
...They will probably remain so until new events cause a shift in emphasis...
...Judith Greguson Seattle, Wash...
...I'm sure not going to leave home again...
...Milton Mayer is really grand...
...Entirely different was the feeling of a group of GI's I had Just talked with who said: "Just two more months...
...All your raving and ranting for Stevenson went for naught...
...They need warm bedding, the children need supplementary feeding and vitamins lest they be crippled for life...
...Stevenson to continue to talk sense to the American people will send -his dollar to "Dollars for Sense," 911 Swarthmore Court, Madison, Wis...
...Just one other inaccuracy of many still left: Milton Mayer's ^picture of "the" Germans grovelling for cigarettes just doesn't square with my own experience...
...One can only reflect upon the impossibility of red-blooded Americanism of a past era evaluating the activities of a McCarthy as courageous...
...Our dollars will be effective only if they are collective...
...Conditions are terrible in Korea...
...This is a somewhat sad commentary on present day Americanism...
...Many people are living in little box-like houses built on stilts along a stream or along the side of a hill...
...Since his maudlin dialogue with a "Christer," I cannot imagine defending his place among the excellent writers in The Progressive...
...As for the eggs, pigs, and goats sent by Heifers for Relief to Korea, most of them went to agricultural experiment stations for special care until the day they can be turned over to the farmers to help them get on their feet again...
...Robert j. Havighurst Chicago, 111...
...My thanks to them for their regular stimulus to mind and conscience...
...I wish everyone would write the President, asking him to send shiploads of our surplus grains for the people of Korea who have been made homeless by this war...
...Mayer's 'Inaccuracies' Dear Sirs: I should like to point out some of the many inaccuracies in Milton Mayer's picture of the Berlin situation in his extremely superficial article in the October number...
...We could use a hundred...
...Classic Dear Sirs: The article by Judge Learned Hand in the December Progressive is a classic...
...Esther Laird Taejon, Korea Intemperate Dear Sirs: The Vienna Peace Congress is a meet-i ing about which we need to be objectively informed...
...I was in Berlin briefly in March of 1949 and have been living here since August of 1950...
...Take the most obvious thing, building: "where the West has dozens of new buildings," he says "the East has one...
...As a result of stories carried by the wire services, contributions and offers of help have been received from all parts of the country...
...Quite the contrary...
...Many people prefer to take their word—even though they committed such "sins" as supporting the Spanish Loyalists against Franco and reading the Daily Worker—than the word of confessed spy David Greenglass whose uncorroborated testimony saved him from serious punishment by providing the sole convicting evidence against the Rosenbergs...
...Betty Collins Berlin-Zehlendorf, Germany In Spite of Mayer Dear Sirs: For two years I have wanted to send The Progressive to relatives in the Middle West, but no one back there could take Milton Mayer nor understand my tolerating his smug superiority in interpreting Christ—whom they adore...
...How I wish we had a dozen agricultural missionaries...
...Few can afford any rice at the legal price of about $60 for 100 pounds...
...And McCarthy has won...
...Still, I am renewing my subscription for another year, for The Progressive is excellent in spite of Mayer's lifelong tenure...
...This is precisely what McCarthy does not do—oppose odds...
...He is championing a popular cause, with the plaudits of the crowd following in his wake...
...Rev...
...A. Herbert Peron Chicago, 111...
...They have no work, no income, no sense of security at all...
...With the thought that the people who voted for Stevenson were inspired by his magnificent radio addresses, "Dollars for Sense" was organized to raise money to keep Gov...
...Yesterday, a number of stevedores, about 50, gathered around me as they quit work and asked: "When will it be over...
...The publication of material of this kind certainly justifies the existence of The Progressive...
...Especially valuable is your unmasking of the false "peace" activities (G...
...Courage nearly always impl^gs the opposition of odds...
...Marcia J. Lyttle Chicago, 111...
...It appears that many anti-Communists will be in attendance...
...Just where does "courage" enter the picture...
...Certainly not when McCarthy shields his attacks with his Senatorial immunity...
...I hope that every reader who wants Gov...
...As long as there is any reasonable doubt of guilt or fairness of trial, fair-minded Americans must not let their government take citizens' lives...
...Dollars for Sense Dear Sirs: I am writing to you in the belief that your readers may be interested in an organization formed in Wisconsin recently...
...Please keep things coming, more eggs, more goats, more pigs, and as this animal program develops things will improve...
...You can mail packages to me at 137 Sun Wha Dong, Taejon...
...McCarthy's 'Courage' Dear Sirs: Maisle Heise asks for reactions from readers to her letter in the November Progressive...
...But McCarthy shrewdly gambled on the growing fear of the public to override these objections...
...Harold R. Wolfe, Chairman Madison, Wis...
...Consult them...
...Louis, Mo...
...for a good home life back in their own towns, for a life without fear...
...Here are mine: First, Miss Heise's viewpoint of Joseph McCarthy probably approximates that of the majority...
...I'll soon be back eating mom's cooking...
...The American Friends Service Committee or Church World Service will forward food or clothing...
...If Mayer had taken the trouble, for instance, to go around the corner from the Soviet Embassy into Wilhelmstrasse he would have seen a whole row of new buildings, ministries erected since 1950...
...Prof...
...Edwin S. Kiefer Graz, Carnerig...
...Martin R. Haase Society of Friends of Humanity New York, N. Y. Crow Dear Sirs: How do like the taste of crow...
Vol. 17 • January 1953 • No. 1
