THE PEOPLE'S FORUM
THE PEOPLE'S FORUM Beds' 'Calumnious Concepts' Dear Sirs: It is with great surprise that we have read in your January issue an article, "Latin America Afire," by Carleton Beals, which contains...
...Ike with no such past is still impossible but "Tricky Dickie" has not even reached that stage...
...O. Alvarez Mainardi President of the Dominican Press Society Ciudad Trujillo, D. R. Beals Replies Dear Sirs: It is not necessary to repeat that there are no free parties in the Dominican Republic and no free press, and that the Press Society in that country is merely a creature of the dictatorship, its head chosen for his supine obeisance to the tyrant...
...The Governor asked, "Where were all our churchmen...
...Is a consistent record for ten years to be characterized as "newly unveiled...
...Supreme Court abolished segregation, and as far as I know there is not one single integrated school in Florida...
...Those who complete the course are assigned to a full time j ob with the union...
...He lifted no finger against McCarthy...
...For ADA'S stand on civil rights, on prompt and effective remedies for the recession and to bring about full employment, and its foreign policy stand in favor of increased economic aid and liberalized tariff provisions, is along the lines of what the allegedly "new" Nixon is supposed to stand for...
...It is nonsense to attempt to justify your position on the grounds that a man's past should not be held forever against him...
...This, I think, should be delivered from every pulpit in the land...
...Collins asked a very pertinent question when he said "Where in that situation were our Presbyterians...
...Where Was Governor Collins...
...He also supported the Greek-Turkish aid program and the Marshall Plan...
...The one-year course combines classroom and field work...
...Certainly to say that Cross' activities in the Bakers Union were synonymous with "business unionism" is a gross distortion...
...The overwhelming majority of the voters are getting exactly what they were promised...
...In attacking the Democrats recently, Vice President Nixon stated that the last five conventions of the Democratic Party had been dominated by "its ADA wing...
...You follow this by some pertinent remarks on Dulles, his moral depravity, his arrogance, his breaking of promises, his refusal to try to make peace with Russia...
...In spite of this indictment against the president-elect of the Teamsters, Lens says, "There seemed to be an indecent haste in tossing out the Teamsters . . .." although the accused had had a hearing seven months before expulsion...
...Clara Sturges Johnson Claremont, Calif...
...Correction Dear Sirs: There is an incorrect identification in "The Reviewers" in the March issue...
...W. L. Pearson Keysville, Va...
...Among the most notorious boot-lickers of the land is Dr...
...DuBois to write an article explaining his position and give us the opportunity to read some of the ideas and opinions of a man who although 90 years old is as young and witty and progressive as a young man of 20...
...This charge involved the selling out of a Teamsters strike in return for monetary reward...
...Dear Sirs: It is with great disappointment that we read your editorial giving a degree of approval to Nixon as President...
...George H. Horne Portland, Ore...
...Ralph R. Sackley Chicago, 111...
...Nixon, on the other hand, according to your own quotation, admitted that he behaved the way he did because he wanted to get elected to office at any cost...
...DuBois in the February issue...
...To these, we open the doors of the Institute...
...Moreover, for him to suddenly accept your contrary counsel would be to betray those who elected him...
...What it is saying, however, is that a union guilty of corruption, if it wants to stay affiliated to the AFL-CIO, in certain cases must accept an AFL-CIO representative to act as monitor to supervise the housecleaning...
...Beals, who apparently in setting forth his ideas had followed the pattern of the yellow sensationalist North American press, controlled by known and open sympathizers of the Red cause, which keeps the sane opinion of the North American citizen wholly confused...
...Alfred Hassler Acting Executive Secretary Fellowship of Reconciliation Nyack, N. Y. Doubly Disappointing Dear Sirs: Reading "The Trial of Pilate—Today" by Governor LeRoy Collins in The Progressive for February was a doubly disappointing surprise...
...M. Novella Miami, Fla...
...The worthy Dominicans have been tortured and killed over the years, or driven into exile, where numbers of them have been assassinated, even on American soil...
...There was no deception...
...This shows his real interest...
...Sid Lens, in his article, "Upheaval in Labor's Ranks," in the February Progressive is guilty of misplaced emphasis as well as a number of factual inaccuracies...
...This I deeply regret, for we who live in his district are not deceived by the build-up he is getting...
...This is different from saying the AFL-CIO has power to send a monitor into an international union...
...If he has done anything worthwhile he has kept it a well-guarded secret...
...The painfully obvious fact is that Nixon has done nothing like that...
...he was following his principles...
...Alfred Baker Lewis New York, N. Y. Dear Sirs: You write regarding Nixon that he "has been so careful to say the right things much of the time lately...
...I was very upset to read F. L. Broderick's disgraceful smear article on Dr...
...108 of its graduates now hold union office in the ILGWU...
...Write before April 15: ILGWU Training Institute, 1710 Broadway, New York, N. Y. out the lives of millions of innocents, but that our lives and liberties are somehow worth such a price...
...Supreme Court decision abolishing seg-gregation in our schools...
...Bob Repas Williamston, Mich...
...As a Congressman, he voted for the anti-poll tax bill and for a voluntary FEPC bill...
...Incidentally, if he really has new and liberal principles, there is no reason for attacking the ADA...
...Dear Sirs: In the January issue you extended "Holiday Greetings" to Vice President Nixon, with the comment that his "newly unveiled devotion to civil rights and foreign economic aid makes him seem, for the moment anyway, a somewhat less forbidding political figure than the Nixon of old...
...The fact that The Progressive believes the voters were unper-ceptive is hardly reason for Eisenhower to disregard his mandate...
...Eisenhower's current performance is neither fluke nor surprise...
...Those who know him best feel that Meany is one of the dwindling number of Americans who actually believes in "Thou shalt not steal" as a properly moral attitude rather than one dictated by fear, as Lens implies...
...The last thing we expected was to see the Editor of The Progressive add his voice to the "New Nixon" chorus...
...Furthermore, there is one basic difference between a man such as Nixon and a man such as Harry Cain...
...I know of no great men in the Dominican Republic, only the corrupt and cruel dictator and sychophants...
...Certainly we don't hold his past against him, because he worked hard to undo the very wrongs he helped to create...
...The latter behaved in a reactionary manner because he believed he was doing the right thing...
...I have challenged numerous Catholic, Protestant, and secular scholars to produce genuine historical evidence of the existence of the Jesus of the Gospels and to forfeit f 1,000 if such an evidence is presented—without obtaining satisfactory answers...
...Our Episcopalians...
...Well, I assail it here and now...
...Hoffa was included in each of the following by name: 1. "Use of union funds for personal purposes...
...Surely he has shown himself to be far more interested in Richard Nixon than in the welfare of people and increasing rather than decreasing what democracy we still have...
...Actions speak louder than words to those who know them but the press does not give his voting record, nor facts such as the China Lobby's having sent a man across the continent to form a "Citizens for Nixon Committee...
...Nixon's record is clear and cannot be challenged...
...Many more die of trivial diseases because they have no medical care, while we exert ourselves to direct more and more young scientists into the laboratories of rocketry and nuclear weapons...
...2. "Use of official union position for personal profit and advantage...
...Certainly the foundation he has laid for a political career is not one to inspire the confidence of the serious and conscientious citizen...
...The consequence of your proposal gives us advocacy of the new Nixon...
...Yet both candor and the political realism that the Senator possesses should prompt him to acknowledge that his half-billion dollar bill for cancer research hasn't a chance of passage...
...DuBois was another compromising "Uncle Tom" or a pseudo-religious buffoon like "Father Divine" or "Daddy Grace," Broderick and the Amsterdam News would be praising and running banner headlines on the occasion of Dr...
...Our system works according to form when the majority of the American voters get the President they want...
...The "new" Nixon is just as contemptuous of the truth—when he thinks he can get away with it—as the old Nixon, who ran against Helen Gahagan Douglas, and used a baseless Communist smear against her as the heart of his campaign...
...I know, as I was at the founding convention...
...But then we are not looking for young people who want the easy plush life...
...Lens' Inaccuracies Dear Sirs: It is unfortunate that an article written about such an important event as the second convention of the AFL-CIO was written in such a sloppy manner...
...To be sure, and so it was in the past, and it mattered not whose lives were wrecked nor how many were otherwise anguished—he then said the "right" things in order to advance and now admits to having been a "very young and very hungry politician...
...Alvarez Mainardi...
...Al Silverstein New York, N. Y...
...against black-listing, loyalty oaths, persecution of people for political or religious beliefs, the denial of our right to travel, and so on, ad nauseum...
...I am not giving a course, much less a "special" one, on films at Teachers College...
...His attitude towards civil liberties is well known...
...To date we have chosen death, believing not only that we can save our own lives and liberties by being prepared to snuff INTERNATIONAL LADIES' GARMENT WORKERS' UNION David Dubinsky, President Memo To: Morris H. Rubin, Editor, The Progressive From: Gus Tyler, Director, ILGWU Training Institute Subject: A DIFFERENT KIND OF JOB OPPORTUNITY It occurs to me that the kind of young men and women who read your magazine would be actively interested in a job-and a challenge-that others of their generation have accepted and turned into a rewarding way of life...
...he has done nothing against the Walter-McCarran Immigration Act...
...Carleton Beals Killingworth, Conn...
...He could have named other Protestant denominations...
...No New Nixon Dear Sirs: Your suggestion that there is a new Nixon, and that he is sufficiently new to deserve to be President in place of Eisenhower, runs contrary to the facts...
...The Dominican reality is very different from that described by distorted inventions by Mr...
...He speaks for a lower tariff and personally raises the tariff on special items, presumably at some special request...
...I was disappointed to see you flaunt the sermon of Governor Collins without pointing to his record of disobedience of the U.S...
...Elmer Daniels Sacramento, Calif...
...The AFL-CIO levied a number of specific charges against the Teamsters...
...Maybe the greetings should go to the editors of The Progressive and other liberals who are just beginning to wake up to the fact that Mr...
...I would like to see The Progressive invite Dr...
...For example, the general tone of the article implies that President Meany opposes corruption in labor's ranks because he's fearful of the McClellan Committee...
...Business unionism today certainly implies a narrow social philosophy but this is something different from equating it with stealing...
...The term "business unionism" implies pure and simple concentration on wages and working conditions as contrasted to the view that unions ought to concern themselves with all issues affecting the community and the nation...
...He has given lip service to medical insurance, public power, education, housing and then arranged their attrition by appointing known enemies to their regulatory boards...
...Dear Sirs: In your January number, you praise Nixon...
...While some continue at this mission as their first and enduring love, others branch out to take on responsibilities as business agents, local union managers, educational and poltical directors, area supervisors, time study experts, etc...
...The Training Institute is now in its eighth year...
...Dear Sirs: To say that I am shocked to read in the pages of The Progressive anything implying confidence in Richard Nixon is putting it mildly...
...Leroy Collins last June it was only natural I should turn first to his wonderful sermon, "The Trial of Pilate—Today" in the February issue of The Progressive...
...Dear Sirs: In your February issue editorial, "The President Should Resign," you say you have affection for Eisenhower, that he is one of the most decent men in public life today and his dedication to peace is genuine and his devotion to the general welfare unassailable...
...As for the present press of the Dominican Republic, scarcely an issue appears without lauding the dictator to the skies...
...This sparkling, contrived personality is erected on the character of that "young—and very hungry— politician...
...A completely candid answer from Nixon to the impressionable Englishmen might have been: "Gentlemen, if I hadn't planted my hobnailed climbing boot on Helen Douglas's neck while reaching for support of Joe McCarthy's friends and patrons, I wouldn't be here today to impress you by saying the 'right things.'" Everett Taft Glen Lake, Minn...
...Day after day this rolls forth...
...4. "Failure to comply with the provisions of the AFL-CIO ethical practices Code Number 1 with respect to local union charters...
...Geneticists report that nuclear bomb tests already carried out will claim almost twice as many young victims as the number of children who die in a year from cancer...
...Dear Sirs: The speech by Governor LeRoy Collins to the Presbyterian Convention at Miami, adapted in your February issue, was timely and interesting...
...Nor have I heard Collins come to the defense of the Negro nurse he mentions...
...Any information that could be obtained through ordinary channels in the Dominican Republic would be merely the propaganda of the dictatorship and personally, since so many of my friends have been murdered there and abroad, I find that it is the one country on earth, and I'm not usually hesitant about such things, that I'm afraid to visit...
...To me, his "open skies" proposals like "neutralizing space" are unreal and childish...
...Lens wrote "it [AFL-CIO] has the executive right to monitor these affiliates if they were adjudged guilty...
...The AFL-CIO has never said it has the right to interfere in any international union...
...I suppose, if Dr...
...If we would make a full turn—abandon our armaments and put the same wealth and effort into ending disease and wiping out poverty—we could become the truly "blessed nation" of the prophets...
...5. "Relationship between Vice President Hoffa and notorious racketeers...
...Ike has given lip service to civil rights...
...Yet this is the man whom Ike calls "the greatest Secretary of State this country has ever had...
...Preoccupation with Death Dear Sirs: Senator Neuberger is to be commended for acknowledging the stirrings of conscience that afflict him over the failure of our society to deal with the problem of cancer while it appropriates 40 billion for war...
...And, what is worse, despite the words of Governor Collins, the administration has resisted and is ready to resist to the hilt every attempt leading to integration...
...Or do you think that segregation can be wiped out with beautiful and sanctimonious words...
...We want those who will enjoy the sting of challenge in the three-dimensional world of flesh and blood people confronted with raw existence...
...Where were all of our people who are dedicated to this proposition of All for Christ...
...3. "Improper activities relating to health and welfare funds...
...Fred L. Dixon Washington, D.C...
...We hope that in the future when your chroniclers refer to the Dominican Republic that before setting out to prejudge our country and its great men, that they will first build properly on many other sources of honorable and objective information available in our country or that they will visit us in order to observe personally our reality...
...Remarks he is reported to have made to the effect that he is sorry for having done the vicious things he did are exactly the kind of thing one would expect from a political opportunist who now realizes that his past might be a political liability...
...It is a pertinent question, but also pertinent is where was Governor Collins at that time...
...This proposal forfeits The Progressive's claim to being a source of serious political guidance for liberals...
...Where was the Honorable LeRoy Collins when a Negro tried to enter the University of Florida...
...Ike speaks for foreign economic aid and nullifies it by asking for more money for arms...
...Every well informed person knows that Jesus is not a historical character and therefore there was no trial of Jesus before Pilate...
...Nothing is more needed today than a critical analysis of the labor movement...
...If we continue this preoccupation, the trend will be away from concentration on saving life, not toward it...
...The International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union conducts its own "West Point," to prepare young men and women for careers in labor leadership...
...The pitiful young victims of cancer do not stand alone as a rebuke to our maniacal preoccupation with the science of death...
...It seems to me that until he acknowledges his opportunistic and dishonorable behavior and sincerely attempts to make restitution to Helen Gahagan Douglas, Alger Hiss, and all the other persons he ruined for his own political advantage he can only concede that the change in facade is just another evidence of his unreliability...
...The course I am giving is "Intellectual Foundations of Modern Education," a course in the history of ideas...
...The American people had a crystal-clear four-year demonstration of a genial incompetent who announced and practiced, and now continues, delegation of his office to the agents of our monopoly corporations...
...As a nation we can seek our destiny through the instrumentalities of death or those of life...
...He himself has had complete security ever since he entered West Point...
...In my files I have clippings referring to him as Alexander the Great, Caesar, Pericles, Napoleon, Washington, Lincoln, Bolivar, Cromwell, Cortes, Jesus Christ, and God...
...Did he raise his voice in defense of the doctor or did he wash his hands of the matter as he accused his fellow churchmen of doing...
...With the job comes the challenge-to provide the kind of dedicated and ethical leadership that will make the American labor movement the creative social force it seeks to be...
...Mrs...
...W. E. B. DuBois and have found him to be a valiant fighter for the freedom and equality of Negro as well as all oppressed peoples...
...The charges against Hoffa encompass a lot more than "association with gangsters...
...Unfortunately the Lens article does not fall into that category...
...Mrs...
...We believe that your readers merit an honorable picture corresponding to the truth, and that they should not be defrauded as in this instance...
...We know him to be exceedingly clever, but as ruthless as clever through insinuating, and so getting people to believe, untruths...
...But there is little prospect that it will be...
...Collins' Wonderful Sermon Dear Sirs: Having had a heartwarming letter from Gov...
...Many thousands of children and their parents die every year because they do not get enough to eat, at the same time that Congress votes a million dollars a day just to store American surplus food...
...What has Collins done to open the doors of our universities and schools to Negro children and students...
...It was enlightening to read, in the New Republic, of his associating with big business men in New York...
...THE PEOPLE'S FORUM Beds' 'Calumnious Concepts' Dear Sirs: It is with great surprise that we have read in your January issue an article, "Latin America Afire," by Carleton Beals, which contains erroneous, infamous, and calumnious concepts of the Dominican Republic and its political directors...
...There is nothing soft or cushy about any of these jobs...
...If Nixon wants to demonstrate a change of heart, why doesn't he do as Senator Cain did...
...You yield to no one in loathing the old Nixon who has so much to live down, but you would take a chance with an older, hungrier, trickier politician implying he would live up to the "right" things he now says...
...He remains a very hungry politician, hungry enough to cover his spots sufficiently for a British journalist to ask whether he is doomed forever because he sinned before...
...But ADA has been in existence only about eleven years...
...perhaps he could have done other things to prevent the injustice he laments...
...Nixon really has what it takes to lead the nation in these critical times...
...Dorothy Benedict Chico, Calif...
...Virtually all started as organizers-to learn the labor movement at the grass roots...
...Senator Neuberger does us no service by pandering to the illusion that we can dedicate ourselves simultaneously to good and evil...
...when a public health doctor was discharged for conferring in public with a Negro nurse...
...Dear Sirs: Eisenhower should not resign...
...Samuel and Freda Sass Pittsfield, Mass...
...Ike says he is for peace yet he does very little towards urging all efforts to negotiate with Russia...
...Yet he plays golf at a segregated club in Georgia, the state where Koinonia Farm is being wiped out by the most illegal methods, including violence...
...Where were our Methodists...
...Surely the power of the Governor is great and he could have appealed to the people...
...A governor's voice could be heard above that of any churchman...
...DuBois' 90th birthday...
...And you have affection for himl You say his devotion to the general welfare is unassailable...
...Martin S. Dworkin New York, N. Y. DuBois 'Smeared' Dear Sirs: For the past 20 years, I've read many books and articles by Dr...
...Almost four years have elapsed since the U.S...
...That makes a period beginning about 22 years ago, since national nominating conventions are held every four years, and nearly two years have gone by since the last one...
...That change is a change of heart —not legislation...
...Ike was the one who said that anyone that wanted security could find it in jail...
...The other disappointing surprise is that you accepted as historical the mythical trial of a mythical Jesus before Pontius Pilate...
Vol. 22 • April 1958 • No. 4
