LENS' UNFAIRNESS'
Neuberger, Richard L.
'Lens' Unfairness' By RICHARD L. NEUBERGER pENESIS I, No. 3, tells us that y "there were giants in the earth in those days." It is a favorite pastime of mankind to look back nostalgically upon an...
...In the 1930's, he tells us, liberals really amounted to something...
...I do resent, however, his slurs at courageous public officials like Paul Douglas and Hubert Humphrey...
...To put across his point, Lens indulges in a vast amount of faultfinding, but he comes up with a minimum of remedies...
...He claims that "sewer liberalism wants the same Social Security program that Mr...
...This, in Lens' view, is per se bad...
...I may not be as smart as Lens, but I do know that all of Western Europe might long since have been invaded and conquered if the American military did not possess the equipment which Lens finds so evil...
...The Social Security reforms just passed by Congress will endure as the most far-reaching social legislation enacted in the United States during the past 20 years...
...If Lens' case is that hard to prove, then he actually may have no genuine case at all...
...And what era ever has produced a liberal woman of greater vision, energy, and bravery than Eleanor Roosevelt...
...Lens credit even for accuracy in his diatribe against liberals of the 1956 vintage...
...Nor can I give Mr...
...President Eisenhower opposed it, the so-called "sewer liberals" fought for it—and Lens does not even mention it...
...It will be of immense benefit to women who have worked hard in laundries, hotels, restaurants, schools, canneries, and hospitals—but Lens is disdainful...
...For example, Lens is critical of modern liberals because they accept the fact that the American "military spends $45 billion a year, owns $124 billion in property, and employs 1,170,000 civilians in addition to its three million soldiers...
...Aggressive and ruthless foreign powers once had muskets and then, later, long-range artillery, which shot as far as 80 miles...
...And, of course, I was both amazed and chagrined by the technique of guilt by association which evidently enabled Lens to indict Adlai Stevenson because Herman Talmadge has endorsed him...
...The custom is prevalent among athletes, authors, poets, doctors, politicians, playwrights—and, in this case, liberals...
...he calls him "the pin-up boy of the liberal eggheads...
...Abuse and overstatement are not necessary to lay down a vigorous program...
...I suppose the ultimate in Lens' unfairness is reached when he criticizes the moral tone of Gus Tyler's contribution to Voting Guide 1956 of Americans for Democratic Action...
...Today, the Soviet Union has bombing planes that fly at 400 miles per hour and can carry missiles devastating enough to wipe half a nation from the earth...
...Is this not a sample of the McCarthy technique which Lens presumes so much to despise...
...He scoffs at some of Stevenson's soft language...
...Why wrench one paragraph out of context to try to prove that Tyler and ADA are disinterested in principles...
...nor are the two always in conflict...
...One line runs: "New occasions teach new duties, Time makes ancient good uncouth . ." I would suggest this wisdom to Lens...
...By 1941 Norris had learned a lesson Lens has yet to learn in 1956—that war is bad but conquest by tyranny and barbarism can be worse...
...It is a favorite pastime of mankind to look back nostalgically upon an earlier era and to voice this observation...
...Lens merely applies to Stevenson his own peculiar brand of political invective...
...Adlai Stevenson comes in for some hard blows in Lens' article...
...He ranks in my book as a courageous Senator...
...I may read my history awry but, unless I am mistaken, the greatest American liberal of them all, Thomas Jefferson, frequently employed moderate language to state bold principles...
...Because "a pacifist solution" might have been indicated three or four decades ago, no such panacea inevitably advises itself now...
...Eisenhower endorses, but for lower age limits for women...
...Furthermore, as the sponsor of the first Senate bill in the 84th Congress to reduce the retirement age for women, I resent the flippancy with which Lens treats this major reform...
...Yet they number in their ranks men of the enlightenment of Paul Douglas, Herbert Lehman, Wayne Morse, Hubert Humphrey, and Adlai Stevenson...
...Alas, Lens does his looking back with a good deal of brutal language...
...Curiously enough, this phrase is quite similar to the ridicule hurled against Stevenson by Senator McCarthy, Vice President Nixon, and others...
...Modern liberals not only receive no credit from Lens for this program, which they pioneered against Administration opposition, but Lens actually scolds them for it...
...By that time, the destruction of Sweden and Norway and Denmark would have long since become a fait accompli...
...Lens has cited the illustrious George Norris as a sample of a liberal of yesterday, whose like is rarely seen today...
...Lens may be right...
...What political figure of recent times ever has come so close to Jefferson in statesmanship, in expression, and in general background as Stevenson...
...This will give some measure of comfort and security to 300,000 disabled men and women in the first year alone...
...Does Lens propose that American liberals live up to their tradition by recommending unilateral disarmament of the United States, while Russia still is girded to the teeth...
...Yet, the illustrious Norris, who was nearly lynched for opposing America's entrance into World War I, gave his support to World War II against Nazi Germany and imperial Japan...
...I wonder how many American working women agree with him...
...In his article for The Progressive Lens asks for "a vote on war...
...Was Lens interested in writing a sensational article or in presenting a valid case...
...Lincoln's favorite poem was The Present Crisis by James Russell Lowell...
...Undoubtedly, modern liberals have their faults and frailties...
...He demands to know why liberals have "become a fellow-traveler of the military, thinking parallel thoughts with the Pentagon as both drive on for 'containment' of communism...
...Estes Kefauver has now been nominated for Vice President, and when did Kefauver ever vote against the public interest...
...This must mean that Lens regards as trivial and unimportant the provision to provide disability benefits to all permanently and totally disabled workers at the age of 50...
...Nobody emphasizes political morality more than I do, but there is a place for principles and there is a place for practical politics...
...But today, he mourns, the present vintage merely can be written off as "sewer liberals...
...Does Lens seriously suggest that America conduct a referendum—consuming many weeks and perhaps even months—before moving to the rescue...
...Does he believe such a policy would serve the cause either of liberalism or of humanity...
...Lens is indignant because Tyler discusses practical politics rather than moral principles...
...He scorns Stevenson's alleged "moderation" on the issue of civil rights...
...Although I am a liberal in politics, I do not bristle at his language for myself...
...What if the Soviet Union invaded Scandinavia...
...Was not the same guilt by association used during World War I against Robert M. LaFollette, Sr., whom Lens so admires, when certain pro-German factions endorsed Senator LaFollette's opposition to American participation in that conflict...
...Is she not in a class by herself...
Vol. 20 • October 1956 • No. 10
