THE PEOPLE'S FORUM
dorsement by the New York Post, in the last edition, on the eve of election day. ITEM: The first piece of business the Governor demanded was an increase in the gas tax, "to help complete our...
...Perhaps it is time we faced this issue in stead of trying to avoid it...
...Rot!' Dear Sirs: What, exactly, in his hodge-podge of everything and not much of anything, was Senator Fulbright (November) trying to convey to your readers...
...Does he mean that the persons who originated the Great Books movement did themselves represent special group interests, to be advanced by stifling the growth of intelligence in youth in the schools...
...It seems to me inconceivable that we should have a head of state with such a gigantic conflict of interest...
...LEO NEWMAN Springfield, Mass...
...To prepare for the general nuclear war which is inadmissible, is schizophrenic, to put it charitably...
...Sorely Needed Balance Dear Sirs: I have nothing but praise for the continued high quality of your great magazine...
...VICTOR PASCHKIS New York, N.Y...
...THOMAS BRODERICK Schenectady, N.Y...
...By means of an issue of special government bonds, bearing an attractive rate of interest, the federal government or an agency of it would purchase all stock of all the steel companies—in other words, complete ownership...
...For our thoroughly reprehensible past actions in Latin America...
...Liberals Should Sweat Dear Sirs: The Progressive is to be praised for listening to a historian in "The Coming Shape of American Politics" (September 1959...
...nor what the "national mood" might be...
...And since Rockefeller and his brothers, in the reports and policy statements they have so far candidly issued, have demonstrated that their thinking is, as one would naturally expect, closely keyed to their material interests, the prospect of Rockefeller becoming President strikes me as a substantial threat to world peace...
...We should de clare that true brotherhood means not only equal opportunities in education and hous ing, but in choosing a marriage partner as well...
...For the Eisenhower Doctrine...
...ARTHUR C. WOLFE Truk, Caroline Islands The Real Issue Dear Sirs: I am glad Milton Mayer's September article on our racial problem received such an enthusiastic reception...
...This kind of public control of such a basic industry would mean that the cost of living could be stabilized—might even come down...
...I think they are also aware that, marriage being a very personal matter, there is no logical reason to expect more inter-marriage in a non-segregated South...
...But even apart from morality: does Senator Fulbright believe that if we would lose a "small conventional" war, we would not resort to bigger and bigger nuclear weapons...
...Rockefeller's friends...
...Cries of "fishing expedition" soon died away when indictments followed by convictions started to decimate the ranks of the office holders...
...The fear of intermarriage is, I suggest, a blind, a subterfuge, used unconsciously by the Southern white to hide his real fears from himself...
...Foreign policy the domain of the people...
...DAVID WESLEY Editorial Page Editor The Gazette and Daily York, Pa...
...Does Professor Childs really believe that "other generations" have nothing important to say to us...
...Is he for leaving Shakespeare, James, Tolstoy, and Mill out of education—and the Bible too, which is likewise a "great book of other generations...
...For our keeping alive a civil war (Chinese) for over a decade...
...Your September issue, with both the Milton Mayer and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., articles, was tremendous, as have been several other issues in your Anniversary year...
...that they had impure and ulterior motives...
...The fact is, the great mass of the American people don't have a thing to say about foreign policy...
...ITEM: Rockefeller's politicking ranges from the commission of injustices to the city of New York to a much rougher kind...
...I think most Southern whites are aware that there is very little inter-marriage in the mostly non-segregated North...
...I agree that money should not limit our national political activities (although I believe that a reasonable and truly creative foreign policy would cost much less than our present mad one, which Senator Fulbright wants to make still madder), but I also feel we must balance the budget...
...The idea that there is some inherent "difference" between whites and people of color which causes miscegenation to be inherently evil is an insidious one which is deeply rooted in our culture...
...Now, the way things are developing, Negroes are in the process of being pulled out from under whites and placed on the same level...
...He would have us celebrate now for results which are destined to be realized by the actions of time or the habits of history, the "inherent cyclical rhythms...
...Childs would not reply that he considered the Great Books movement to be impure in origin, I ask him how the proper study of "the great books of other generations" would impair the development of intelligence about contemporary problems...
...The public would receive frequent, complete reports on the industry...
...I do not believe this is a fair question, and I do not believe it betrays any hidden attitudes...
...Instead, they demanded a guarantee that the funds collected would not be diverted to other uses...
...The Southern white, especially the poor white, is in this predicament...
...ROBERT D. GOFF Salt Lake City, Utah...
...The family's fortune is based to a large de gree on huge foreign investments and now, as the result of family activities in the past decade, on military production...
...Investigations, grand jury proceed ings and trials were still in full swing when the man with the handsome, cheerful, full, frank, open, boyish face announced that be ginning November 1 there would be no more funds and all unfinished business of the special attorney general would, there after, be handled by the Republican attor ney general...
...Some letters from liberals who have worked hard for integration seemed critical of Mayer's thesis, but I had the feeling in reading their letters that perhaps this was because they didn't really believe in the ulti mate in racial equality—intermarriage and miscegenation...
...Profits would go to pay off the special bond issue—which therefore should not be considered a part of the national debt—and once the bonds were paid off, steel would be run on a non-profit basis, lowering prices whenever increased productivity would allow...
...I might even vote for this man for Pres ident just to get him off the backs of the people of this state...
...There lies danger in such thoughts for liberals, for it emphasizes wishes instead of perceptions at a time when liberal magazines struggle for existence in a conservative-controlled mass media, when controversy is almost lost, when people only hope with a mild liking or disliking instead of with passion, when the desires of youth are little more than restful surrender to fate (other men's actions), when both major parties are reflections of each other...
...They will go to almost any length to protect or defend their self-esteem when they feel it threatened...
...Pure, unmitigated rot...
...For our rash, ill-considered intervention in Lebanon...
...Traditional liberals have placed their faith in men's actions, works, sweat, intellects and political voting decisions...
...In two articles that we have recently print ed on this Presidential aspirant, an attempt is made to point out the enormous stake Rockefeller and his family have in an ag gressively militaristic American posture in our world relationships...
...Face the Racial Issue Dear Sirs: I was greatly impressed by Milton Mayer's article on miscegenation in the September issue...
...I think that miscegenation is the main issue...
...CONNER REED Seattle, Wash...
...Fulbright Frightening Dear Sirs: The article by Senator Fulbright (November) is truly frightening...
...Our means of working toward our short-range goals must be in harmony with our long-range goal of complete racial equality...
...The Negro has constituted an essential prop for his self-esteem...
...From this contentment and conservatism we are to expect totalitarianism, depression, or a flourishing creative period...
...When magazines such as The Progressive are popular reading matter, liberals may listen to their historian's "don't worry, your period will follow again after the next conservative period...
...The "simple self interest" which is recommended has brought America and the world into its present impasse...
...Once the process begins, and time passes and integration is an accepted fact, or if space travel is proved to be safe, I would consider my answer in the light of these developments and might quite possibly give my blessings...
...Assuming that Dr...
...For our frenzied intervention in Formosa in 1958...
...Perhaps we can struggle against this idea mainly on other fronts at the present time, but Mayer has done us a service by reminding us so cogently that destruction of our irrational fear of miscegenation must be our ultimate goal...
...This should remove much of the pressure for wage raises that comes from resentment of the union toward management high salaries and high dividends to private stockholders...
...Considering all the wordage that was consumed in describing our wonder boy's animated eyebrow, Grant might well have extended his article to the extent of mentioning that the measure merely lowered the exemptions to about half the previous rate...
...citizen the owner of one share (non-transferrable) of stock in the steel industry...
...For a thousand and one other primitive, ill-considered actions that have gained us naught but contempt, suspicion, and ill-will...
...Let us raise taxes until our intake covers what we believe we have to spend...
...I have a plan for doing exactly that, without government ownership or control...
...Well, my answer is a definite "No," but I would give you the same answer if you asked me if I would let my son or daughter be the first to orbit in outer space...
...ITEM: Grant quotes the Democrats as having labelled the Governor's tax measure as a "soak-the-poor" plan...
...Would he hold that this generation has nothing to gain from a study of the ideas of Jefferson, Marx, Freud, or Darwin—and in their own words...
...BERNARD ATTINSON New York, N. Y. Rockefeller Interests Dear Sirs: I can confirm Donald Grant's impression (November issue) that Nelson Rockefeller is kindly and charming because I once worked on a close-up of him for Life magazine...
...If this isn't so, how do we account for our ill-famed dollar diplomacy...
...Governor Harriman appointed a special At torney General to investigate some evil odors in Suffolk County, a Republican stronghold...
...All human beings need to feel adequate, to have a reasonably good opinion of themselves...
...Or does he mean that many groups with special interests to defend have merely attached themselves to the Great Books movement, which is itself at least well-intentioned...
...But since when has The Progressive skidded down to the Life level of slick, gee-whiz journalism...
...Contrary to his statement, it seems to me that the only basis for a successful diplomacy and foreign policy is the "moral context," which Senator Fulbright brushes aside with one cavalier sentence...
...that true brotherhood means becoming oblivious to differences in skin color in all areas of life...
...ITEM: The first piece of business the Governor demanded was an increase in the gas tax, "to help complete our magnificent road system...
...And, more recently, for our bomb-rattling and brinkmanship...
...The industry would eliminate overlapping functions and plants, and by consolidation of purchasing, production, and sales make such savings as to increase the rate of bond payoff...
...The motorists did not oppose the rise...
...Were you to ask the president of United States Steel Corporation if he considers it good that, eventually, every American citizen become a stockholder, I am sure he would say yes...
...It is not, of course, the wealth of the Rockefellers that is at is sue—we have had rich Presidents before—but the nature of the vast Rockefeller holdings...
...There was such a stench about this bill that even his own party was reluctant to go along with it...
...Fortunately, the newspapers and radio gave the matter an airing and the life of the commission was temporarily saved...
...The fact is that no one can predict the future and certainly not human behavior...
...You are leading in the development of thought in these days when original political thought has been decried...
...The federal government would then declare each voting U.S...
...If the chairman of our Senate Foreign Relations Committee has nothing better to suggest than is explained in this article, and, if, moreover, he finds the suggestions "creative," then our country is terribly sick...
...If anything, I believe it has improved in quality...
...As a former Wisconsin resident, I am proud to point to The Progressive as an active "cleanser of the atmosphere" in the McCarthy era, and point out that you battled McCarthy while he was alive and sinisterly powerful...
...ALBERT STEPHEN TERZIAN, MJ) . Philadelphia, Pa...
...Public Control of Steel Dear Sirs: It is commonly noted by industry spokesmen (steel, as well as other industries) as a sign of great progress that stock ownership is becoming more widespread...
...The Governor's reply was to force through the bill with a haste that was reminiscent of Eisenhower's anxiety to make the offshore oil safe for Mr...
...It's a catch question similar to "Do you still beat your wife...
...It doesn't matter how "courageous and creative," how willing "to perceive and accept the full sweep of their responsibilities," the American people might be—nor does it matter what they think or know...
...At the next national election the voters would elect a board of directors for the entire steel industry...
...Lastly, I want to mention one item that did not appear at all in Senator Fulbright's article which connects his home state of Arkansas with foreign policy: breaking down the barriers of segregation—North and South —is an essential creative act of foreign policy...
...This has always been the prerogative of whatever primitives might be in the saddle at the time...
...It is this prospect, rather than impending miscegenation, which they cannot face without violent reaction and opposition...
...GLENN A. HARPER West Lafayette, Ind...
...Planning for those men laid off by automation could be done industry-wide, coherently and intelligently for the first time...
...I presume that the national political parties would run slates of candidates—well-known men, with business and financial experience, yet politically sophisticated...
...You seem to furnish a balance sorely needed in these "brain-washed" times...
...For the Bagdad Pact...
...We have no right to burden future generations with the consequences of our bungling...
...You are idealistic, yet close to the practical...
...Catch Question Dear Sirs: I enjoyed Milton Mayer's article on miscegenation but was somewhat confused at the question he regarded as a difficult one to answer: "Would you want your daughter to marry a Negro...
...Childs to clarify his position only on what he calls "the great books of other generations," by which I understand him to mean the Great Books movement...
...I was astounded to read such a superficial report by so high-minded a journalist as Donald Grant in one of our few responsible journals...
...It deserved it, even though his basic premise (that the issue is miscegenation) is, I think, erroneous...
...Dulles and the segregationists asked us to place our faith in time's actions...
...Yet there would be no interference by the federal government, beyond that influence acting on both government and industry from the active citizens who govern the parties...
...Does he think the Russians would act differently...
...Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., predicts a liberal government in 1961, not contrary to our wishes, but this is to come about in a most strange manner...
...RINEHART S. POTTS Pitman, N.J...
...Labor would be much more content, I am sure...
...The issue is something more subtle, but real nonetheless...
...Until then, every liberal has reason to sweat profusely...
...The Great Books Dear Sirs: I am puzzled by the statements of Professor John L. Childs in "John Dewey and American Thought" (November) that "Many groups with special interests to defend—theological, 'patriotic,' economic and racial—have joined in the movement to require our schools to abandon a program designed to make the young intelligent about trends, possibilities, strains, and conflicts in American civilization, and instead to give their attention to the conventional 'three R's,' formal discipline, and 'the great books of other generations,'" and that "These groups are skilled in the arts of propaganda . . ." I ask Dr...
...For taking to our bosom the vicious dictators Franco, Trujillo, Perez and the tyrants, Chiang, Rhee, Salazar...
...He tells us that foreign policy is "ideally the hard work of the intellect, as it responds to the insistence of an informed . . . people fully engaged with . . . national responsibilities...
Vol. 24 • January 1960 • No. 1
