Revolution
Reuther, Walter P.
Revolution By Walter P. Reuther WORLD WARS I and II taught us at great cost that peace and freedom are indivisible—that when they are under attack anywhere in the world they are in danger...
...Our job is not only to hold Communism by stopping aggression on the battle fronts, but to move ahead on the economic and social fronts...
...The great challenge in the world is to find a way so that men can so arrange their relationship of one to the other within a free society, and one nation to another in a free world, so that we can live at peace and harness the power of our advancing technology, develop our resources, and translate this abundance into a good life for everyone...
...While it is necessary to build military strength in our nation and among our allies in the free world, we must not forget that to win the hearts and minds of men we must move boldly ahead to meet their hopes and aspirations on the economic and social fronts...
...It is a revolution of hungry men determined to get the wrinkles out of their empty bellies...
...We have a practical decision to make...
...The Communists didn't start it...
...Revolution By Walter P. Reuther WORLD WARS I and II taught us at great cost that peace and freedom are indivisible—that when they are under attack anywhere in the world they are in danger everywhere in the world...
...There are hundreds of millions of hungry and desperate people all over the world for whom we must expose the hypocrisy of Communist propaganda which holds out to them the promise of economic security— but with a price tag...
...That is the great challenge...
...They are riding its back...
...The great challenge free men must face is not communism...
...The shortest road for communist propaganda to travel is through the wrinkles of an empty belly...
...He said, "No...
...I said to the Republican Platform Committee last summer: "You have no right to ask to be given or to assume the direction of our country so long as you demonstrate the inability to understand the basic social dynamics of our changing world...
...What we have to do is to answer the Communist propaganda but not with slogans...
...I believe history will prove that if we have the courage to carry out bold programs of economic aid to help people help themselves...
...if we understand that the more young Americans we send abroad with medical kits, slide-rules, and text books as technical missionaries to work on the social and economic fronts, the fewer American boys we will need to send with guns and tanks and planes to fight on the battle fronts —if we understand these great realities of the world of 1953, the cause of freedom is secure...
...Isn't there something wrong with free men when they can find a sense of urgency only in the negative terms of war...
...It is a revolution of people who want to march forward in freedom and independence by throwing off the shackles of imperialism and colonialism which have exploited them for so long...
...It cannot be won on the battlefields...
...He is a social and spiritual being, and just as food is needed for the economic man, so the spiritual man needs food, and freedom is the food of the soul...
...One-third of the people of the world are living on less than $1 per week, and that is why they are the easy victims of Communist propaganda...
...They said, "Then you wouldn't understand...
...You can talk your heart out about the Four Freedoms, but if a fellow is hungry, he won't understand you...
...People asked back, "Have you ever been hungry...
...The challenge is within ourselves—within free men and within a free society...
...until you understand that, you have missed understanding what makes the world go around...
...Both the Communists and the reactionaries are wrong, for in the world we are trying to help build, people can have both bread and freedom...
...The Communists promise to put food in their bellies at the price of putting their souls in chains...
...II This struggle in the world between freedom and tyranny, between democracy and communism, is a struggle for men's minds, hearts, and loyalties...
...If we have the courage to take the price tag off our peacetime efforts, if we understand the forces at work in the changing world in which we live, if we grasp fully the fact that freedom faces a continuing crisis and that Korea is merely a localized expression of a total world problem, then we shall understand and act in the knowledge that freedom's fight must be won on the economic and social fronts in the struggle for human betterment...
...There is another lesson that urgently needs learning: social and economic security is equally indivisible...
...We cannot make peace and freedom secure in the world so long as the simple necessities of life are denied to many millions of human beings and so long as they, and their children after them, are doomed to live without any hope of achieving social and economic justice...
...We must find a way to tap the tremendous spiritual reservoir that resides within a free people and translate that power into constructive approaches to the world's problems...
...I emphasize this fact because never before in history has there been such an aggregate of power mobilized against the cause of freedom—and never has it been so vital that we understand the nature of the struggle, the character of our adversary, and the relative effectiveness of the weapons used...
...There is a revolution going on in the world...
...If we do that we can win the struggle for peace and freedom...
...But man is more than just an economic animal...
...I talked to a farmer who went all over Asia asking this question: "Why is it that Communism is making such tremendous inroads in Asia...
...It is no trick at all to get people marching, sacrificing, and fighting for the negative ends of war, and yet we haven't found the way to mobilize that spiritual power for the positive ends of peace...
...The Communists would have people trade freedom for bread and the reactionaries would have you believe that if you want to be free you have to give up economic security...
...Until you understand the social phenomena of a deeply religious peasant who goes to High Mass on Sunday morning and attends a Communist rally in the afternoon...
...It is a struggle of the have-nots to get something for themselves...
...Man is an economic being and needs food, clothing, housing, medical care and all of the other material needs, and we struggle to make that possible...
...We need to answer the reactionaries who play the other side of that Communist record...
...It can only be won on the economic and social field in the struggle for human justice...
Vol. 17 • March 1953 • No. 3
