THE PEOPLE'S FORUM
THE PEOPLE'S FORUM Tired Liberals and ADA Dear Sirs: Since Fred Rodell's article in the March Progressive, "Our Languid Liberals," was based chiefly on a series that appeared in The New York...
...One recalls reputations built up for a while, like Swinburne's, and then their slow but sure disintegration...
...Just As It Is Dear Sirs: The Progressive's exposure of characters like Senator Eastland and its solid interpretation of current development make the magazine a more imperative must these days than ever before...
...Harold S. Fowler North Manchester, Ind...
...Drab, Timid, Malicious Dear Sirs: This is the second time I have subscribed to The Progressive...
...Clearly the United Nations stood on unassailable ground when it demanded Israeli withdrawal from territory seized by violence...
...When my husband died I had to get myself a paid job if I wanted to keep a roof over my head and food in the kitchenette...
...As his article implies, if we want our child to get the best possible education, we are going to have to devote a considerable amount of our time as parents to this task...
...Rodell's attention...
...One of the favorite sports of tired liberals these days is the business of accusing everyone else of being tired...
...This is not to say, of course, that Mr...
...Roosevelt know more or less about American liberalism than Fred Rodell or whether the liberal issues they talk about are more or less important than Rodell's discovery that anti-colonialism and civil liberties are the great problems today...
...I have long been fascinated by the fact that in many newspapers ADA seems to be news when it is denounced but a footnote when it offers an affirmative program...
...Capitalism Defaulting Dear Sirs: Congratulations on the excellent articles by Justice Douglas and Fred Rodell in the March issue...
...The same might be said for parents...
...I just don't want to be languid about this magazine, so ugly in form, so lacking in taste in its layout and presentation of its articles...
...If he meant, on the other hand, that the Church is opposed to civil liberties in some way, then I fear he is guilty of the pristine error of identifying the dogmatic obedience demanded by the Church with an hostility to democratic freedom...
...Having no state teacher's certificate I was limited to private institutions...
...One chairman of the English department in a small university said to me: "You have infinitely more to offer than any young person I shall get...
...As long as free enterprise has no other than its own aggrandizement as its objective, it will go where it finds the greatest profit, with the greatest security, and to hell with underdeveloped countries...
...Justice Douglas describes the laissez faire capitalism known in Asia, but he fails to point out that this dragon was not slain in the United States by the New Deal, but merely forced to make room for the working man, so both could prosper at the expense of the people...
...James A. Wechslu Editor New York Post New York, N. Y. What Liberalism Lacks Dear Sirs: To read Fred Rodell is always an interesting, even an exciting, experience...
...Here we reach the revolting—and yet not a word about this in the timid Progressive...
...The latter term Is even more in need of definition than democratic socialism...
...But that is not all that is wrong with the timid Progressive...
...The Republicans advocate "keeping," and the Democrats "taking," with "sharing" never mentioned...
...I took a job as house mother in a first class university where, as one of the dean's staff, I was eligible for free tuition in the graduate school...
...Yet, having completed that exercise, Mr...
...Responsibility is the greatest element lacking in America today—consideration for all people—and the realization that cooperative interdependence would mean more profit for all, both domestically and internationally, than continued strife, selfishness, and cold war...
...Justice Brennan, Impressed me as being fine examples of the bad argumentation used by intelligent men in attacking something they simply have not bothered to investigate...
...Bowles and Douglas, both of whom have been practically silent on some of these more important issues...
...Laura Kroger Los Angeles, Calif...
...A realistic study of Eliot as poet and critic is in order...
...None of my work was any great financial success...
...Is foreign to our polltleal scene, except as the President, and he alone, is trying to advance it...
...his H-bomb proposal was certainly the most dramatic effort anyone has made to focus public debate on the atomic peril...
...Meanwhile, may I add a small postscript...
...Mayer's writing must be pretty sharp cheese for some members of the human family, but it should be required reading in every school and home —and especially in the halls of Congress...
...The appropriations for civilian development represent but a paltry proportion of this record-breaking peacetime budget...
...During the second decade, with my children in their teens, I wrote a lot—anything that came to hand, Sunday features, articles, a few stories, two books...
...But we have a rigorous retirement rule—you would hardly get settled in before we would have to retire you...
...Of course...
...With due reverence for John Lord O'Brian, may I suggest that the record shows that probably no one has done as much in the battle for civil liberties—both as an individual attorney and in his work for ADA—as Rauh...
...Stevenson devoted an extensive amount of rhetoric to both subjects in the campaign...
...Today we have the effective monopoly of industry-wide pricing and the clear monopoly of industry-wide "bargaining...
...We have sought to achieve public understanding and acceptance of the liberal view not only on foreign policy and civil liberties, but also on what are apparently to Rodell only pedestrian issues—education, health, housing, employment, and the like...
...their thinking on the problems of Asia has been incorporated time and again in the ADA program...
...N. Y. Arbitrary Ban Dear Sirs: Most educators are at least vaguely aware of the problem of future teacher-shortage presented in Dwight Bolinger's fine article, "Delinquent Parents," in the February issue...
...Certainly there is reason for disquiet about many aspects of the state of contemporary liberalism...
...Eisenhower's bootlicking of a rather sordid Mid-East dictator—for purely down-to-earth, down-to-oil business reasons— rather takes one's breath away...
...another Is the tendency of some liberals to spend most of their time deploring the absence of a liberal movement in America...
...It is a constant Joy to find him wandering in fresh pastures off the beaten path...
...So Egypt was in a state of war against Israel when Israel reacted against the provocation of Egypt's declared war...
...Your gift for making issues intelligible, so that we can understand the stakes involved, is enormously helpful...
...But this whole idea of voluntary restraint, of responsibility...
...Rodell gives little help...
...Some of the stoutest champions of the Bill of Rights call themselves conservatives or neo-conservatives...
...Douglas published in the issue of The Progressive that carried Mr...
...all you have written on the subject is nonsense, malicious nonsense, and I suggest that your editorial writers be sent to school to learn the facts of life, particularly in the Middle East...
...Yet Mr...
...If by this traditional conservatism he meant the Church's hostility to rationalistic or agnostic Nineteenth Century liberal ideas, then why did not his indictment cover the religions of all Christians on the Supreme Court...
...The child's attitude toward the world around him and toward the process of learning takes shape long before the child ever reaches school...
...But it seems to me that the tone and spirit of Rodell's comments on others interviewed neither give a fair picture of the positions many of them took nor help to illuminate the problem...
...My subject is English...
...We have debated these issues on their merits in the councils of our organization and then worked for the liberal point of view through political campaigning and community action...
...Rodell shows remarkable lack of knowledge or grace when he proposes to Rauh that he get into the fight to revitalize the Bill of Rights...
...Neither party, it seems, has a constructive substitute for maintaining the wheels of industry and of commerce and . must rely on the building of an ever-expasa- [ lng military establishment A. Garcia Diaz j New York, N. Y. A...
...I need hardly recite here the roster of his clients (mostly non-paying...
...Of course, it Is not all ill with The Progressive...
...but I am astonished at the light-heartedness with which Rodell diagnoses his defeat...
...The speech by Mr...
...Orvis Ross Rochester, Minn...
...I would make the same criticism of his International program...
...Rodell's article was in fact delivered at an ADA meeting in Washington...
...Write I might, an the side, but teaching was the answer to a monthly pay-check...
...Every conversation, every question the child asks can become a learning experience if we use our creativity...
...We in die Americans for Democratic Action have tried to dig into all these issues— including anti-colonialism and civil liberties...
...It is rather a problem of communication...
...If you were even 10 years younger than you are" (I was supposed to be at that time, St...
...Then I set out, with modest hopes, to hunt for a teaching position...
...Bolinger points out, for young children work (or learning) is fun but that fun is also work...
...I think that Fred Rodell, in writing "Our Languid Liberals" for your March issue, should have broadened his target to include many who write for The Progressive, including the writer of the editorials in that Issue...
...Still at best I can only lop off 10 years, which leaves me in the "This Way Out" zone...
...Rodell is silent on disarmament, economic aid to underdeveloped nations, and the acute crises of Middle Europe, the Middle and Far East except for blanket endorsement of Messrs...
...This condition in turn has aggravated the sense of frustration and pessimism among liberals who obviously have a deepening fear that they cannot cut through the platitudinous fog of the Eisenhower era...
...My appearance is all right—I weigh only what I should, am erect in posture, wear glasses only for reading, drive my own car, walk anywhere from two to five miles a day the year 'round just because I like to walk...
...The creative job of teaching children in such a way that they will never lose their childish inquisitiveness is work, but it is also fun...
...To a considerable extent I share Mr...
...I am in my 72nd year though I lie like a trooper about my age—and get away with it...
...How about utilizing, for as much as it may serve, a practical means close at hand...
...As for Milton Mayer, his extraordinarily keen insight and his clever use of th< language, with its bit of whimsy, are eternally refreshing...
...Norman Thomas New York, N. Y. ADA and Liberalism Dear Sirs: In response to Fred Rodell's "Our Languid Liberals" in the March issue of The Progressive, I would like to say that there is too much work to be done by liberals in America to waste time arguing whether Adlai Stevenson, Wayne Morse, and Mrs...
...President Eisenhower is meeting this problem head-on in asking both labor and ownership to exercise restraint...
...Gordon P. Liddle Community Consultant Quincy Youth Development Commission The University of Chicago Chicago, 111...
...Dulles...
...Unassailable ground...
...its virtue, if I may say so, is equalled only by its lack of originality...
...Someone might profitably be doing a study of press handling of ADA's statements...
...Much is very good: the articles by Seymour Harris and William O. Douglas, the book-reviews, particularly the one by Louis Filler...
...surely his prose is the very worst currently being inflicted on us...
...Rodell offers in tones of wide-eyed discovery the announcement that all problems confronting liberals would be really simple if they would recognize that the quest for peace and the defense of civil liberties are the two great issues of our time...
...Remember I have experience, education (brought up to date), seriousness of purpose, natural ability and (if I may be forgiven for putting my best foot forward) an alert mind, good personality, and vigorous physical health...
...We cannot export free enterprise and American capital, with Walter Reuther in the next boat, organizing the "natives" to get their "fair share" of the profits...
...For six years now I have knocked on school doors, in person, by letter and through agencies...
...The crusaders will need dedication and the faith that makes mere mountain-moving seem a commonplace of civil engineering...
...it needs a better philosophy and program adequate to today's world...
...Perhaps I'm a poor judge because ht is talking about liberals and I greatly prefer to describe myself as a democratic socialist rather than a liberal...
...But his article in the March Progressive will hardly enhance his reputation as a constructive thinker...
...Two people working together have always been able to make a bigger pie than the sum of their individual efforts...
...All of which leads me to suggest—as several of those interviewed by The Post series did—that the critical problem may not be any desperate shortage of ideas...
...Nothing that Rodell says affirmatively adds a word to hundreds of statements issued by ADA in this decade...
...Keep The Progressive just as it is...
...THE PEOPLE'S FORUM Tired Liberals and ADA Dear Sirs: Since Fred Rodell's article in the March Progressive, "Our Languid Liberals," was based chiefly on a series that appeared in The New York Post, I hope I may be permitted this comment...
...The appearance of the magazine has become very drab...
...Joseph F. Kett Holy Cross College Worcester, Mass...
...And If the people are ever to know lower prices, they must likewise come from this tiny Increment...
...That is certainly a worthy sentiment...
...It also heightens the self-consciousness of men In public life who might instinctively be drawn to identification with ADA...
...Before marriage, "away back when," I had had one year's teaching in a high school recognized as part of one of the finest school systems in the country...
...But Mr...
...I commend the problem to Mr...
...My own main criticism of "liberalism" is that it lacks more than enthusiasm...
...Filler is the first I have come across to point out the very low standards of American criticism, and to write without awe or bootlicking about Eliot and James...
...Unfortunately the proportion of light to heat in this denunciation is very small...
...A little later the following: ". . . Egypt would be free to resume her 'state of war' against Israel etc...
...Perhaps that is why Mr...
...Rodell legitimately cites Senator Lehman's reference to the "failure of nerve" as one of the soundest observations elicited by the interviews we conducted...
...Taken together, I believe they supply a next step for a political party...
...Alas, I was disappointed...
...National Chairman Americans for Democratic Action Washington, D. C. 'Catholic Conservatism' Dear Sirs: Charles Berger's references to what he envisions as a traditional Catholic conservatism, in his February issue article on Mr...
...Let me quote two extracts from that editorial...
...For the most part, creative adults are the products of open minded parents who are willing to share actively in the education of their children...
...name withheld at request] Open Minded Parents Dear Sirs: Dwight Bolinger's article in the February Progressive on the role of the parent in education is outstanding...
...You can join us in that effort by writing for an ADA application blank to 1341 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., Washington 6. Joseph L. Rauh, Jr...
...I am one of a vast and increasing group and I believe I may cite my own experience as typical...
...At 65 I was suddenly and unexpectedly widowed, found myself hundreds of miles from kin or friends, with a total income of $50 a month and a debt of over $9,000...
...In the third decade I began to have small private classes in Creative Writing in my home...
...Please forgive this over-long letter but I'm hot under the collar at all this wailing about teacher-shortage when over the United States there are thousands of women like me—widowed after middle-age and in need of a life and a moderate income, trained and often experienced prior to their marriages, eager for the job, ready to put their whole minds to it—and banned by an arbitrary age-limit, something that means nothing as to individual fitness...
...Rodell mentions no aspect among the denunciations and exhortations by which his apparently gutless liberals are to be aroused...
...Ro-dell's distaste for the languor of liberalism— at least as illustrated in the last campaign of which I was very critical...
...occasional lightness and laughter would be welcome...
...I wondered whether it had matured during the couple of years between subscriptions, and whether the editorials had more authority...
...Peter please nod, 57), "I would appoint you without looking at one more candidate...
...Rodell's derisive references to Joe Rauh of Americans for Democratic Action...
...Year after year, whether Republicans or , Democrats are in power, we are being sub- ' jected to an increasingly greater military budget...
...I love teaching and the classes were most successful—but again they were at best pin money...
...Everybody wants peace and nearly everybody can and does criticize Mr...
...It seems to me that Mr...
...Mayer's Sharp Cheese Dear Sirs: Every issue of your fearless magazine Is full of powerful articles, but what really moved me to get out the check book and the old fountain pen was Milton Mayer's monolithic masterpiece in the January issue, "The Turn of the Year...
...Our Arms Budget Dear Sirs: Of the nearly 72 billion dollars demanded by President Eisenhower in his budget message, the enormous sum of 43.3 billions is allotted for military purposes...
...Berger as not being worthy of consideration...
...The "failure of nerve" is a real issue...
...It has operated under serious handicaps...
...And not always so deadly serious...
...Let's quit arguing among ourselves which is the most Important of the tasks that lie ahead and try to do something about them...
...nothing seems to me to require less nerve than to conduct memorial services for liberalism...
...Nevertheless, there is sense in some of the liberals' observations about our times which excite his ire rather than his wisdom...
...Ro-dell's eloquence does not define a liberal approach or tell us with any precision what he would have a "liberal movement" do legislatively or otherwise with a bad situation which he describes with more passion than illumination...
...More power to all who are working on it from the end of altering parents' attitudes toward "learning...
...Keeping and taking, called capitalism, break down when applied to the world as a whole...
...His tributes to Justice Douglas and to Chester Bowles are well merited...
...As for economics, Mr...
...I worked hard for two heavenly years and earned my master's degree—at the age of 67—but, remember, I still looked in the 50's...
...it would never have supported me, but it gave me a great feeling of self-fulfillment...
...and here surely there is room for irony...
...And here Mr...
...I had to think—and act—fast...
...How about raising the outmoded ban on age...
...What I found especially objectionable, however, were Mr...
...Rodell writes as if he hasn't heard what it has been doing...
...One Is the tendency of men In political life to run away from It after it has helped them achieve public esteem...
...For ten years ADA has been carrying the brunt of the liberal battle...
...Rodell writes as if he had never heard the man's voice...
...I think that your editorial staff is out of touch with the facts of life in the United States...
...There should be more of this honesty and forthrightness in your pages, together with the irony and satire that the times call for...
...As Mr...
...Stevenson's role is above criticism...
...Irony could become satire when considering Saud's speech at the U.N., surely as morally high-flown and as maggoty with moralisms and spiritual fog as the President's...
...This is the prime reason capitalism is defaulting, and communism is picking up the chips...
...David Liebovitz New York...
...The highly moralistic Mr...
...I was reappointed with a pay-increase but took a job in a college preparatory school where I taught for three years, then was married and set about making a home and raising a sizable family of sons and daughters...
...The truth is that political debate in the United States has been increasingly smothered by the concentrated power of a one-party press (and I include, of course, the mass circulation magazines in this category...
...If "fairness" is any criterion, then greater productivity is the only source of both higher wages and higher profits...
...At any rate, to advance any such contention without an iota of proof is so heinous a violation of the fundamental principles of intelligent discussion that in itself it induces us to disregard the contentions of Mr...
Vol. 21 • April 1957 • No. 4
