THE PEOPLE'S FORUM
THE PEOPLE'S FORUM Six in Five Minutes Dear Sirs: This week I took my May Progressive to the meeting of the executive board of the Washington State Federation of Teachers of which I am...
...Alice Franklin Bryant Seattle, Wash...
...The ACLU is right about as often as Mayer, 99 per cent of the time...
...One of them added sadly, "This is not free China...
...Louis, Mo...
...At dusk the fire was quelled, and the neighbor politely called to ask if the fire was out...
...In response to my question they all said that ex-Governor K. C. Wu's allegations published in American papers in 1954—that our dollars were building a police state in Formosa—were true...
...Another significant thing is that the hotheads who might like to capitalize on the Montgomery situation are quite out of it...
...Communist sympathizers, and softheaded liberals throughout the world...
...I am in agreement with him on some points, such as his admiration for Philippine President Ramon Magsaysay, his statement that we should not be angry with India because of its neutralism, and his belief that to be successful our policy must accept the fact that the days of white imperialism are ended forever...
...You clarified my thinking on the Powell amendment and you have won at least one convert in me...
...At the moment, the moral initiative lies in the hands of Southerners like the Rev...
...Truth About Unions Dear Sirs: Why is it that so many administrative staff people in organized labor can't tolerate the simple truth about unions...
...H. Larry Ingle Wake Forest, N. C. Mayer a Good Fireman Dear Sirs: During the not-so-long-ago McCarthy hysteria, Milton Mayer took the ACLU to task (July 1954 Progressive) for circumscribing what the U.S...
...I mention the parallel chiefly to point out a crucial difference, and indeed the difference which has riveted everyone's attention on the Christian-Gandhian character of the Montgomery movement...
...Then recognize the mainland Chinese and admit them to the U.N., merely as another member...
...Eddy is so hard put to back up his ideas that he quotes from Chinese Communist propaganda...
...liberals today are ready to give the facts for their cases and are ready to be critical of existing ways, but many times we do not have constructive or positive programs to offer...
...Clubb is not alone in this...
...In the March issue of The Progressive Sid Lens wrote that there is less idealism and spontaneous democracy in labor unions today than there was two decades ago...
...In Formosa Mr...
...This was...
...A longtime American resident of Taipei and several other foreigners there expressed similar opinions to me...
...This is being done without any lavish fanfare...
...Earl L. Jennings Oakdale, la...
...King received his doctorate at Boston University, where he studied with such men as Allan Knight Chalmers, a long-time member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation...
...King, benefits from the non-violent teachings of some of America's leading exponents of non-violence...
...To close our eyes to shortcomings, to hold labor sacrosanct, above honest criticism—this is hardly the best way to serve the cause of trade union democracy...
...Chester M. Patterson, Jr...
...Sometimes it needs its supporters to stir its conscience...
...It is regrettable that he—like our traveling Senators and diplo-mats—did not have time to talk with a number of Formosan business and professional men on various occasions, as I did...
...It is interesting that the bus protest arose spontaneously, taking all the acknowledged leaders of organizations like the NAACP, the Fellowship of Reconciliation, and CORE quite by surprise...
...The latter have been accustomed to calling themselves the "people" of the South—the ones who voted, held office, and enjoyed the other benefits of citizenship and humanity—while Negroes were something (not even someone) quite apart...
...One is reminded of Trotsky's account of the spontaneous outbreaks of the February revolution in Petrograd, 1917...
...Indeed, a young Japanese warned me, "Your country is high-pressuring us to rearm and is sending us weapons...
...Convert Dear Sirs: Thanks for your March issue editorial, "Subsidies for Segregation...
...Thanks for a well thought out and well argued piece of writing on a timely subject...
...On the other hand, the non-violent organizations are sufficiently alert, well-staffed, and solvent to pitch in and help...
...THE PEOPLE'S FORUM Six in Five Minutes Dear Sirs: This week I took my May Progressive to the meeting of the executive board of the Washington State Federation of Teachers of which I am secretary...
...Of course, with the present Administration in Washington, this plan would never be put into practice, because to Mr...
...Senator Neuberger's excellent article almost won me over, but not quite...
...It is easy to be negative, but very hard to be positive...
...What is first of all striking is that the leadership is entirely indigenous and at the same time, through Dr...
...We could do much to stop the advance of communism by cooperating with such countries as India in larger programs of the Chester Bowles type for raising the living standards of the poorest people, who are now being attracted by communist promises...
...In less than five minutes I had six new five months subscriptions...
...Hearst advocates arming our Asian allies more heavily, which would obviously increase our taxes without alleviating the poverty which invites communism...
...The greatest challenge is upon white Southerners...
...The Southern whites have yet to produce a leader of his stature in this generation...
...Challenge to the South Dear Sirs: Homer Jack's article on Montgomery in the May issue was most welcome, and I am glad to see the distinctions he makes between what the bus protest movement is in fact and what it could become...
...Certainly if Dr...
...All the political parties and pundits raced to get to the head of a movement which had suddenly swollen from a more or less routine workers' demonstration to a full-scale revolution...
...The left-wing sects who draw their inspiration from the futile violence of the Bolshevik revolution are simply unable to get into the South...
...Your reasoning convinced me...
...In extenuation, I can only admit that Brother Mayer's wisdom on this point has been an enduring and much appreciated source of entertainment to me and I am reluctant to relinquish it, in view of the low standard of comedy on TV...
...William Robert Miller New York, N.Y...
...I passed it around, calling attention to the Neuberger-Lehman debate...
...King's example is to have value as a pattern for action elsewhere in America, it must go beyond exhortation to a full-scale structure of tactics and method...
...Mr...
...Hearst also shows a considerable willingness to have the United States intervene directly in a military way in the Orient...
...It only makes the situation worse...
...Today "Southerner" is coming to mean not ipso facto "white Southerner," but merely a geographical label...
...Hearst talked at length with Chiang Kai-shek and our diplomatic and military officials...
...However, Mr...
...May I suggest to Abbott that if he wants to test the validity of Lens' thesis, he can do so by making a survey among chief stewards and plant committeemen in mass production shops...
...I had been wandering about in a haze, not knowing what to think about the matter...
...Frank Marquart Education Director Local 212 UAW Detroit, Mich...
...Supreme Court on April 9, 1956, widened, the right of teachers to invoke the Fifth Amendment without employment reprisal...
...All day a neighbor watched from a distance, telling his wife it ought to burn anyway...
...In the May issue William Abbott attacked Lens' piece and contended that by printing such articles The Progressive was giving an irresponsible and distorted picture of American unions...
...There are good men among them, and when they overcome their fear of the Citizens Councils and the other rotten elements of the old, anti-human South, we shall witness down there a nonviolent revolution worthy of outranking even the most glorious episodes of the American past...
...second, their funds do not permit doing more than sitting in their New York offices and blowing off ruddy steam...
...This is in great contrast to the judgment of Admiral Harry E. Yarnell, retired, formerly commander of our Asiatic Fleet...
...First, they have no indigenous representatives there...
...How do you know they are always going to be used on your side...
...David T. Burbank St...
...of course, a very different kind of tutelage from that which existed in the revolutionary movements of Tsarist Russia...
...I am reminded of the farmer whose wheat-field was ablaze...
...My comment: The current (carefully restrained) soul-searching in the Kremlin, although it reveals nothing not known for many years to informed persons, does constitute official admission of precisely what Mayer denies, that Stalinist Communism has been, since the late twenties, the most thorough-going conspiracy in political history, not only against the Russian people, but also against rank-and-file Communist Party members...
...Fuzzy-minded Dear Sirs: Sherwood Eddy's article, "The Blacks and Whites of Red China," in your April issue, is the same fuzzy-minded thinking of all those who think that because communism has taken over China it is doing something for it...
...To deny that unions, as they become institutionalized, tend to lose their spirit of grass roots democracy and idealism is simply to fly in the face of a mountain of carefully documented sociological studies...
...The Fellowship of Reconciliation in particular has found a warm welcome among Negro communities in the South and is spending many man-hours in education along Gandhian lines...
...Why must they always interpret valid criticism as an attack on organized labor...
...And what is of great importance, the FOR has not gone in with a know-it-all attitude or a ready-made blueprint...
...Hearst on the Far East Dear Sirs: Recently I returned from an eight months-visit to East Asia, and I should like to comment on the articles by William Randolph Hearst, Jr., published in April, which give his impressions of the Far Eastern situation...
...he merely states the Commonwealth opinion in March 1955 and seems to imply that we should go along with that...
...I still think the forthright position presented in the April Progressive and developed in May by Senator Lehman is the better of the two...
...Margaret M. Carlson Bremerton, Wash...
...At this point there would be, in reality, two Chinas, one on Formosa and one on the mainland...
...We could then stop sending Chiang Kai-shek his warring materials and help him get on his feet economically...
...They will tell him in unmistakable language what has happened to the old fire and fight, the idealism and spontaneous militancy...
...Purnell H. Bbnson Madison, N. J. Kremlin Soul-Searching Dear Sirs: Apropos of Milton Mayer's extraordinary declaration (January Progressive) that "a conspiracy is exactly what Communism isn't," and my own remarks on this brilliant expression of political ignorance (February Progressive), may I be permitted a final comment...
...It seems to me that the solution to the immediate problem concerning Formosa and China proper is this: first of all kick the Formosan Chinese off the Security Council...
...But it is also a time to stand up and be counted in our own communities, to examine our civic consciences, North and South, and to press towards the goal of human rights which is being so magnificently dramatized by the dignity and courage of the descendants of yesterday's ignorant "darkies...
...This is a great time for genuine progressives, honest radicals, and other men of good will—a time to join and give active support to the above-mentioned groups who are helping out in Montgomery and other "trouble spots" in the South...
...He thinks it not improbable that communism will make further gains in Asia, but says: "The important thing to remember is that our intervention can't stop these things...
...Dulles, the status quo must be preserved at all costs or "massive retaliation" will be the result...
...Martin Luther King...
...Admiral Yarnell was referring to military intervention...
...It wouldn't have been If I'd had to wait for you," was the reply...
...And on which side would the armament be used if war came...
...Mrs...
...San Jose, Costa Rica...
...Clubb makes no definite statement as to eliminating the problem...
...Clubb on China Dear Sirs: O. Edmund Clubb's "Dead Hand over Asia" in the May issue was one of the best articles that has appeared in The Progressive in some time on our China policy...
Vol. 20 • June 1956 • No. 6
