CLUMSY SLANDER'
Tyler, Gus
'Clumsy Slander' By GUS TYLER THE central complaint against the liberals of 1956, according to Sid Lens, is the fact that they are in 1956 saying things that they did not say in 1936. My central...
...But my reasons are just the opposite of Lens...
...In the final 16 pages, I contribute an essay on the mechanics of politics, on how to put liberal principles to work...
...In either case, I again find this a highly empty way to argue important social matters...
...Like Lens, I abhor conformism, whether it be conformism to a present fad or conformism to past ritual...
...Fascism and World War II taught liberals a lesson that they applied in Korea and are prepared, in the final extremity, to apply again...
...I do find much denunciation of the liberal for having deserted the good old time religion as measured, not by its spirit, but by its ancient incantations...
...If arming is wrong, let Lens tell why, and let others tell why not—but enough of this business of saying that the liberal who changes with changing times has fallen into the "sewer...
...I have rarely attended any political meeting, no matter how high the ideals, where they did not make a pitch for money—whether it was Wallace, Thomas, Stevenson, or Eisenhower who was the candidate...
...You judge a program and policy by present applicability and not by outworn shibboleths...
...Just ring that bell, type that card, get that vote out—glory hallelujah...
...To attack liberalism in America because in a book dedicated 95 per cent to a discussion of principle and only five per cent to action there is in that final five per cent an appeal for funds is to indulge in a clumsy slander unworthy of one who, like Lens, professes so profound a concern for lofty principles...
...Among the many practical suggestions I make on how to win elections for the liberal principles contained in the first 100 pages of this book, I suggest in about 100 words that the liberal citizen contribute funds for electioneering...
...Lens could reach this conclusion only by skipping one hundred pages of a 128-page book and confining himself to two paragraphs from that section dealing with the how-to-do-it of politics...
...These are pungent pieces on foreign policy, prosperity, the Presidency, the general welfare, freedom and security, public resources and private profit, civil rights and immigration, and farm prices, written by Eleanor Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Reinhold Niebuhr, Robert R. Nathan, Paul H. Douglas, Joseph L. Rauh, Jr., Wayne Morse, Herbert H. Lehman, Charles F. Brannan...
...After all, Lens must know that no matter how high your ideals, to realize your ideals you must act—whether you are a serious revolutionary, radical, progressive, liberal, or reactionary...
...That is meaningful and fruitful debate...
...My overall impression is that Lens is more eager to prove that the liberal of today is a man without ideals than he is to help map a meaningful social program for our times...
...And in undertaking such a job of creative thinking, our point of departure must be truth and reality, not the other guy's lack of courage and a self-serving statement of superior virtue...
...May I add that I, too, feel that liberalism in America must take a better and longer and closer look at itself...
...Of the remaining 28 pages, 12 pages are devoted to a TViewers guide to the conventions...
...Lens knows this...
...They devote hardly a word to the mechanics of politics...
...Lens is irked with liberals for having learned something from the international experiences of the last twenty years...
...If America needs a national third party in 1956, let Lens state the reasons why...
...He is a trade unionist...
...From this Lens concludes: "Nowhere is it stated that above everything else the way to better government is sound principles...
...The first 100 pages are devoted solely to a discussion of issues, what Lens would call "principles...
...Another for instance: Lens complains that liberals who, a generation ago, were pacifist minded and against military budgets, are today in favor of armaments and arming and military defense...
...Voting Guide 1956 is a book of 128 Pages...
...Does he hold his organization together only on its ideologic strength, or does he insist upon the payment of dues...
...Most American liberals dropped their pacifism in the late thirties when confronted with Hitler...
...This also makes the modern liberal a liberal, adjusting program and language and method to his time, finding new ways for new days...
...To me, this is no argument at all...
...Liberalism must be creative—not imitative either of 1956 majorities or 1936 minorities...
...I feel that American liberalism can not live on the momentum of past cliches...
...My conclusion from this rather irresponsible distortion is that Lens is not really interested in truth but in proving his thesis, namely, the craven character of the liberals...
...Nowhere do I find a concrete proposal for a viable program...
...Liberals have the right to be irked with Lens for learning nothing from these experiences...
...But to denounce liberals because they urged a third party twenty years ago and do not do so now is a form of refined name-calling, a blind orthodoxy, an ultra-militant conservatism, hardly in keeping with liberal or progressive methods of thinking either in 1936 or 1956...
...In 100 pages of a 128-page book, these authors discuss "principles," spelling out new progressive programs and planks...
...But more basically, I find this whole dispute irrelevant because I do not think you judge the worth of a social program by how "left," or how "consistent with the past," or how "rigid" it may be...
...For instance: Lens finds fault with liberals who once favored a nationwide third party and now do not...
...Let others state the reasons why not...
...it needs fresh ideas and fresh methods...
...This, according to my lexicon, makes Lens a conservative, stuck with his once shiny raiment in the muds of dated ideological disputes...
...And to act through a movement, you must organize people, ring doorbells, raise money, distribute literature, get out the vote—for if you -don't then your hallelujah is but the braying of a high-pitched political eunuch...
...Lens states a fact...
...This methodology of Lens is most poignant to me because of his reference to my quotations from Voting Guide 1956...
...My central complaint against Lens is the fact that in 1956 he is saying precisely what he would have been saying in 1936...
Vol. 20 • October 1956 • No. 10
