THE PEOPLE'S FORUM
THE PEOPLE'S FORUM Liberalism and Realignment Dear Sirs: James A. Wechsler's "The Liberal Retreat and the Need for Political Realignment" in the May issue of The Progressive is an unusually fine...
...For information, please get in touch with the AFSC office, 237 Third Avenue, New York 3, N.Y...
...Dear Sirs: James Wechsler's "The Liberal Retreat" should have included comments on the retreat of moderates and conservatives, because we have witnessed a full-scale political retreat from democratic ideals...
...But they will demand leaders who have the courage to lead...
...Satisfying Dear Sirs: The Progressive is the most satisfying and informative journal of its kind in our country...
...Wechs-ler...
...The kind of two-party division that he—and I—want won't be brought about by a division "within the broadly defined categories of 'liberal' and 'conservative.'" The words are far from self-defining...
...As a set of ideas and social forces, liberalism has long since taken up its principal residence in the Democratic Party...
...So it is natural that we should see things differently...
...With limited resources and limitless fecundity their living standards will remain low, but whose fault will it be...
...James Reston, chief Washington correspondent of the New York Times, put it well recently when he spoke of the struggle of the Humphrey-Kennedy-Stevenson forces for control of the Democratic Party machinery against the "centrists" led by Messrs...
...The Roosevelt-Truman pragmatism had its uses, but it ran down when it lost the ideals and ideas which it had largely derived from socialism and a simpler but more deeply rooted pro-gressivism of the earlier decades...
...Britannica Misquoted Dear Sirs: As a faithful reader of your fine magazine I came across a letter in the April issue entitled, "Joke of the Century," in which the writer quotes from the Encyclopaedia Britannica as follows: "Biological warfare . . . represents another attempt by man to examine and control the forces of nature for the use of civilization...
...I found a rare geological fact, ignored by the Army engineers...
...I urge readers of The Progressive to write quickly to their Representatives and Senators, and especially to those on the Appropriations Committees, asking them to have regard for the treaty with the Senecas, to work for a competent and impartial comparison of the values of the two plans, and to oppose any appropriation for the project until a genuinely independent examination has been made...
...the saving of a very large public expenditure...
...I told them that if this dam were essential to the protection of a great city such as Pittsburgh, in my opinion they should not object...
...Labor, powerfully organized in its own unions, is a necessary force for the success of any "liberal" program...
...Let us instead renew our devotion to democracy...
...It can't merely parrot old programs...
...Far be it from me to belittle Americans for Democratic Action, to which I proudly belong...
...It must come from individuals who share a common spirit and a common vision...
...For in the whole sweep of history, it is clear that the preservation and strengthening of the institutions by which a democracy can reach consensus is of infinitely greater worth than hurrying to a quick decision at the expense of the basic machinery...
...The institute will be held August 13-20 at the Homestead, Carmel, Putnam County, New York...
...Nor do I think them politically feasible...
...The rules and customs under which Congress operates require liberal Presidential leadership to enact liberal legislation...
...The modern parliamentary liberal rarely fights unless he thinks he can win, and the material rewards of success loom far too large when compared with fulfillment in defeat while struggling to adhere to principle...
...Liberalism is growing in strength in the Democratic National Committee...
...Let us proceed with integrity, with humility, with courage, and yet with patience and forbearance for those who do not swiftly run the intellectual course...
...Therefore permit me to quote from the Encyclopaedia Britannica as follows: "Biological warfare—often referred to as germ warfare, bacteriological warfare or BW—represents an attempt by man to examine and control the forces of nature for military use...
...Your Lindbergh fabrication lost you the confidence of loyal readers...
...GRamercy 8-5998...
...Who could foresee The Progressive reselling the line of the National Review...
...At the convention this summer the contests over the seating of Southern delegations, the adoption of a civil rights plank, and the choice of a nominee may bring on the showdown of which he speaks...
...have consistently refused to make samples available for impartial tests, or to disclose the composition or method of manufacture...
...While the stylistics of Time show what horrors may result from a misguided attempt to inject life into periodicals, there surely must be a middle way for The Progressive...
...Progressive Invaluable Dear Sirs: I want to compliment The Progressive for being an intellectually honest, open-minded forum, in which issues and problems are responsibly discussed...
...A formal alignment of the liberal elements in labor with ADA would not, it seems to me, produce any basic realignment in American politics...
...Even as it is, unnecessary suffering and death are caused by reliance on worthless treatments—because the afflicted then do not get medical help in time...
...I am less concerned with a retreat of liberals than I am with their reluctance to fight...
...Realignment and progress can and will come within or without the present structure...
...Byron L. Johnson House of Representatives Washington, D.C...
...Shannon on Nixon Dear Sirs: Having someone from the New York Post write an appraisal of Vice President Richard Nixon was like asking the President of the Anti-Saloon League to give an opinion of Scotch whiskey...
...To me the problems of liberals can be solved if one of us moves into the White House next January...
...the massive winter storage of water against increasing need for summer augmentation on the Ohio...
...the honoring of America's oldest treaty...
...Furthermore, in the legislatures and governors' offices of many states, there has been progress in liberal programs...
...Marion Gans University Heights, Ohio...
...They have fully observed their treaty...
...Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askelon," lest the editors of the National Review rejoice...
...G. Mennen Williams Governor of Michigan State Capitol Lansing, Mich...
...Ralph M. Batcheller New York, N.Y...
...As for a "hearing," it is difficult to see how the FDA could hold a meaningful one on Krebiozen at this time: no experts, other than those with a direct stake in the outcome, have been permitted to test it...
...This is inexcusable, since the substance has been in existence for more than nine years...
...Rau" we had better be setting them straight...
...This is not to say that the level of writing in The Progressive is not often disappointing...
...While the latter two may be more permanent in their effect, they will be slower in coming...
...Barring The Bomb (and who decided it must be dropped on cities to demonstrate its power...
...How can you explain anti-Semitic declarations in Lindbergh's infamous September, 1941, Des Moines address...
...The Need for Political Realignment" is simple...
...and the fact that because of its simpler construction, the Conewango project could be built in less time than Kinzua...
...What the Senecas are asking—and all they are asking—is that this alternative, the Cone-wango-Cattaraugus Plan, be given a fully impartial and competent examination before a decision is made as to which plan to use...
...and Michigan is not alone by any means...
...Lindbergh, the known anti-Semite who cooperated with the Cliveden set and America Firsters, you depict as having been a martyr for the Jews...
...Andrew C. Ivy, professor of physiology at the University of Illinois college of medicine...
...It is true that "our political warriors" need nerve, but they need something deeper which, on Mr...
...We have waited for a push from behind and have not been willing to risk paying the price of leadership...
...In spite of pockets of reaction, the party as a whole is liberal...
...When you quote Truman Smith substantiate or apologize...
...Wechsler's own showing, Americans for Democratic Action has not provided...
...It is taking place in state Democratic organizations...
...The British at that time were trying to align the Indians against our new and struggling government, and the assurance of loyalty by the Senecas was no small matter...
...Senators Russell and Eastland, and their cohorts in the Senate, plus Representative Smith and his friends of both parties on the House Rules Committee, could command enough strength to defeat a good civil rights bill because Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson and Speaker Sam Rayburn were unwilling to defy the Republicans and join the liberals...
...The theme will be "Search for New Directions: A Quaker Approach to International Affairs...
...Murray A. Berman Sacramento, Calif...
...Our frustrations for the last eight years have been almost entirely the result of a lack of liberal leadership from that end of Pennsylvania Avenue...
...They want more integrity and less political artistry...
...The House Study Group, the informal organization of liberals in the House of Representatives, is yet another example of the liberal movement...
...They attract followers and build a movement by the force of character...
...A pertinent example is your series on the Presidential candidates, which has been an excellent source of material for a similar series of programs we produce in cooperation with a local radio station...
...When LaGuardia honored a pro-fascist he admitted his mistake was "a beaut...
...I hope he uses greater discretion in marking his freshman compositions...
...Henry Cadbury, honorary chairman of the national board, AFSC...
...On the other hand, I heartily agree with James Wechsler that every effort must be made to clarify and strengthen the liberalism of the Democrats...
...Progressive action requires leadership that deliberately moves to the front and refuses to conform...
...It was so slanted I nearly cancelled my subscription...
...It all depends on where our people find the sparks of greatness capable of kindling a flame...
...Let us put aside our daydreams as to how this or that organizational change will save us...
...Unless, of course, the general level of freshmen writing has gone up since I last taught it...
...By simply cutting through that dyke and using the "hole"—a near-useless swamp—for a reservoir, three times as much flood water could be stored as by the Army's Kinzua dam, and at less cost...
...I admit we need a Washington breakthrough, but we are knocking on the door...
...Joseph S. Clark U.S...
...Each plays an effective role in its own way now...
...Most fair-minded people would concede that Nixon, in South America, acted about as an American would be expected to act...
...Dear Sirs: The technique in your Lindbergh propaganda is old stuff...
...Senate Washington, D.C...
...The existing political parties are, I believe, still the best vehicles for the expression of the American political consensus...
...For then he urged in public speeches in the United States that no aid of any kind should be given us in our fight against Germany...
...Next year a liberal Democratic President can require these men to carry the Democratic platform into effect under pain of losing their positions of power...
...If the majority does not accept the view of the militant liberal, it is because the militant liberal has not persuaded the majority of the reasonableness of his view...
...Recently the fourteen States of the Democratic Midwest Conference met in Detroit and adopted a series of statements for distribution throughout the party...
...The Corps is strenuously opposing it...
...Wechsler's heart—and mine...
...Progressive leaders help to shape the times and refuse to be molded by pressure...
...I refer to the reference to Governor Luis Munoz Marin as "Governor Marin...
...William Delano, national board member of the American Civil Liberties Union...
...They will choose a positive sense of purpose over a negative ability or an aimless drift...
...Ray-burn, Johnson, and Truman...
...Dear Sirs: When John Kerr was offered the part of Lindbergh in The Spirit of St...
...Georce S. Stanford Hinsdale...
...And norteamericano is lower case, not capitalized...
...Liberals, whether in ADA or not, should prepare now for these critical decisions...
...Lindbergh had the necessary courage for his memorable trans-Atlantic flight but, thus far, he hasn't had the "guts" to present his case personally to the public...
...Certainly Chairman Paul Butler has been outspoken on the liberal side...
...Even getting more Southerners to vote can contribute to a realignment of parties and blocs in Congress...
...The crucible of World War II and its aftermath molded new forces of fear and hypocrisy that undermined our faith in ourselves and in the democratic way of life...
...They nevertheless asked me to look into the matter...
...Hazard's cause would be better served were he to pick his brickbats with more care...
...However, 1961 can easily inaugurate a new era of imaginative, dynamic progress at home and abroad with a Dem-acratic liberal in the White House, and an increasingly liberal response in Congress, to unite what is now going on and fashion it into a new national liberalism...
...Even if loyalty oath education and cold war prosperity offered more material advantages—and they do not—than the democracy upon which we were reared, we must reject them for moral, spiritual, and practical reasons...
...The blight of decay fell as heavily upon those who primarily seek to maintain the virtues and good of the past as it did on those of us who try to make changes and improvements in the name of progress...
...Your misuse of Christ's words for The Progressive's slogan is defilement...
...And the Socialist Party is making progress in saying what socialism ought to mean in our day for freedom, peace, and plenty...
...Notwithstanding the Corps of Engineers' repeated statements to the contrary, there never has been such an independent comparison...
...Dear Sirs: Notwithstanding James Wechsler's cogent criticisms, what is needed is not so much a new political party in the North, as two parties in the South with honest and frank talk about the race issue...
...I note this for the record not to pick nits, but to offset complaints from Spanish-speaking readers who rightly whince at the barbarisms we gringos so often inflict on their language...
...To harvest this crop of liberalism requires a national leader...
...They have witnessed the barrenness of hypocrisy and fear...
...You cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear...
...Let us stop berating this group or that group that may have failed at some crucial moment...
...Jim knows perfectly well that he would greet with joy unconfined the appearance, in any of his English classes at Connecticut, of one student whose prose approached in lucidity, ease, and force that of The Progressive...
...Given the nature of the party, this is a continuing and urgent necessity...
...How can you explain his racist article, "Aviation, Biography, and Race," in the November, 1939, Reader's Digest...
...I have read the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1959 edition, in which the article on biological warfare appears...
...the preservation of one valuable recreation area and the creation of another...
...Stanley M. Fabian New York, N.Y...
...If Asians see things as does Miss Mears' synthetic "Mr...
...Now, in the April issue, in "Those Doubting Asians" by Helen Mears, I find similar spe-ciousness...
...You can't get a more realistic party alignment and pussyfoot about conditions of disarmament, the need to strengthen the United Nations, recognition of China, and an adequate program for using the world's marvelous skills and resources for the conquest of poverty...
...The Senecas have a strong attachment for what remains of their ancestral home...
...Wechsler I believe that in this respect the achievements of ADA have been notable and that its political leverage is substantial...
...Wechsler feels obliged to put them in quotation marks...
...The Japanese were...
...The stakes are vast: the safety of a great city from extreme floods...
...Also, "The Affluence Peddlers" by Margaret Halsey, is somewhat beneath contempt, gossipingly malicious...
...The Senecas once owned a large area, but surrendered most of it to the United States on the assurance that the small remaining part would be theirs in perpetuity, to enjoy "as long as the sun shall rise...
...Norman Thomas...
...Moreover, any threats of a third party, since 1948, are childish and will be regarded as empty...
...Your editorial becomes a collector's piece...
...Affluence peddling" is a far-fetched conception, but bracketing Eisenhower and Nixon with such deceitful but pitiful heels as Whittaker Chambers and Charles van Doren is going far afield indeed...
...But it has no ideology...
...Now it is a hard-working programmatic conference which speaks out on issues of concern to its member states...
...Like Mr...
...Dear Sirs: I stand in the Senate, Mr...
...But perhaps the more fundamental answer to Mr...
...They weren't robbed of their machines and technologists as were the East Germans...
...Wechsler doesn't discuss what we not too accurately call "foreign" policy today, but the problems it presents can neither be evaded nor solved by the more or less interchangeable generalities about peace, it's wonderful, in which Presidential aspirants now indulge...
...Samuel H. Beer National Chairman Americans for Democratic Action Cambridge, Mass...
...They were never happy on Madison Avenue...
...Similar growth has taken place in a number of states—Minnesota, Wisconsin, California are examples...
...they are, on the contrary, the pragmatists, the realists, the men of flexibility...
...Samuel McCracken Madison, Wis...
...Arthur E. Morgan Yellow Springs, Ohio Peace Workshop Dear Sirs: A community Peace Education Workshop is being sponsored by the Middle Atlantic Region of the American Friends Service Committee in Cape May, New Jersey, June 24 to July 1 in connection with the biennial Friends General Conference...
...Taking in turn the sly slanting and the typically feminine petty sniping, I would point out that: The Hungarians and Tibetans were not aggressors...
...There must be some organization that tries to meet this need...
...Boris Karpov, Russian member of the Office of Public Information, U.N...
...Registrations are limited to 80 people...
...Krebiozen Untested Dear Sirs: A letter in the April issue of The Progressive deplores failure of the Food and Drug Administration to admit the "cancer drug" Krebiozen to interstate commerce...
...The known anti-Semite Carl Jung openly served Nazism seven years but in 1946 was reintroduced as "friend of Freud and the Jews...
...Obviously, there is much room for improvement...
...Robert Gilmore New York, N.Y...
...For these reasons, it seems to me, proposals to form a third party or liberalize the Republicans are far-fetched...
...The help of the White House can produce the votes to do it, even if there should be no further liberal gain in the Congress as a result of the 1960 election...
...Men of all political persuasions forgot that a free nation cannot endure if it places exclusive faith in military deterrence and police state security...
...Charlotte Malsbary Charlottesville, Va...
...As a student of Portland State College and especially as a member of its forensic program, I find the information provided by The Progressive often invaluable...
...I can speak with considerable knowledge of the growth of a liberal, issue-oriented Democratic Party organization in Michigan...
...Seneca Indians Need Help Dear Sirs: The Seneca Nation of Indians in western New York has a reservation along the Allegheny River assured to them by a federal treaty signed by George Washington...
...Corrections Dear Sirs: In editing my article, "Castro's Cuba" (May issue), one of your editors inadvertently ran afoul of Spanish nomenclature...
...the saving of a fine water level highway through the mountains...
...It would be a terrible thing if drugs were to be permitted in interstate commerce with no evidence of their value other than the claims of their promoters...
...A decade ago, the Democratic Midwest Conference was a loose gathering which exchanged pleasantries, heard a banquet speaker, and adjourned...
...But to arraign a magazine for lack of distinction in its style is hardly to accuse it of crudity, vulgarity, and barbarism...
...Karl Meyer Washington, D.C...
...It rarely rises above the achievement of most competent but lifeless periodical prose...
...Corps of Engineers has planned a dam on the Allegheny River which would flood nearly all this reservation except the steep, uninhabitable mountain sides...
...With James Stewart, the picture lost millions...
...Therefore, I see no need for the drastic measures proposed by Mr...
...The all-important questions of foreign policy on which the world's peace depends cut across such groupings in the United States...
...On pages 192-193 of his book, The Fateful Years, Hugh Dalton, Chancellor of the British Exchequer, states: "Lindbergh was very busy in England in the autumn of 1938, making propaganda for Hitler . . . and he served Hitler well, not only at this time, but when war broke out...
...they fared as well as they deserved...
...Homer Jack, associate executive director of the American Committee on Africa...
...C. S. Jha, Indian ambassador to the U.N...
...The Democratic Advisory Council has gone a long way toward giving the Democratic Party a liberal national voice when, as now, the Presidency is held by a Republican...
...But organized labor today is no longer a kind of surrogate for "the people" and its own recognized interests no sure guide to a program that will awaken, inspire, and guide Americans to the ends dear to Mr...
...I am more optimistic about the record of the last decade, particularly in the state organizations of the Democratic Party...
...It has a tradition that is humane, egalitarian, and progressive...
...Wechsler's own analysis shows how that hope has waned...
...Evidently he needs "spokesmen...
...Woe unto you, scribes . . . and hypocrites...
...Menckenesque Vehemence' Dear Sirs: My old colleague, James Hazard, who calls The Progressive "barely literate" in a letter in the April issue, seems to have let his Menckenesque vehemence get the better of him...
...Marin" is the name of the Governor's mother, and "Munoz" is the Governor's family name...
...Resource people will include Eleanor Roosevelt...
...Albert D. Parelhoff New York, N.Y...
...This, I think, is where socialism comes in...
...Wechsler is this: The liberals had better accept democracy and the concept of majority rule...
...Never has the opportunity been better for a Democratic President to gather a new liberalism together and regenerate the nation in the process...
...The glaciers dug a great hole and pushed up a dyke, turning the river south...
...And that is something like a basic philosophy such as many of the outstanding labor leaders and liberals found in socialism in their younger days...
...In Washington today Senators Joseph S. Clark, Hubert Humphrey, Paul Douglas and their like are not the ideologists...
...Christopher Emmet, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Round Table, WEVD...
...These statements were liberal documents...
...in its essential outlook in economics, race relations, and international cooperation, still lies our greatest hope...
...the permanent removal of unwanted flood waters from the Ohio River...
...Sly Slanting, Petty Sniping Dear Sirs: For some years a subscriber to The Progressive, besides contributing a little cash, I feel entitled to a beef...
...Louis he needed work but refused the part, explaining "I am not that kind of an American...
...Information regarding this vacation in an attractive shore resort, providing an opportunity to delve into relevant present-day action for peace with like-minded vacationers, may be obtained from the undersigned...
...They came to me for advice...
...Your readers may be interested to know that such a week is being sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee in Putnam County, New York...
...Why didn't you ask someone from the New York Herald-Tribune to do your article on Senator Hubert Humphrey...
...William H. Meyer House of Representatives Washington, D.C...
...Bill Stevenson Portland, Ore...
...They are radical only when inner conviction tells them that they proclaim a better way...
...Wechsler's theme seems to me to overlook grass roots progress already under way...
...THE PEOPLE'S FORUM Liberalism and Realignment Dear Sirs: James A. Wechsler's "The Liberal Retreat and the Need for Political Realignment" in the May issue of The Progressive is an unusually fine article in style and substance...
...But its promoters, headed by Dr...
...There is much more concerning Lindbergh's pro-Nazi activities on the same two pages...
...Our people are ready for a change...
...This is a common error...
...C. J. Sarvb Columbus, Ga...
...Lindbergh's Anti-Semitism Dear Sirs: "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free," the quotation on your masthead, is a pledge...
...Norman Thomas New York, N.Y...
...They do not deny the inherent good in conservatism but they affirm the greater good in evolutionary change...
...Dear Sirs: Lindbergh was never pilloried as you claim...
...a two party system in the South...
...Stewart Mea-cham, director, International Affairs Program, AFSC...
...This inspiration cannot come from organized labor or ADA or any group...
...Many socialists and progressives in and close to the labor movement once hoped that in a labor or farmer-labor party, enlightened class interests would more or less automatically furnish the ideological and practical basis of a new party...
...Military strength became a false god rather than a servant...
...and Robert Gil-more, secretary, the New York City office AFSC...
...The Food and Drug Administration exists to prevent just this sort of thing...
...Dear Sirs: At the end of his provocative article in which he calls for a rebirth of liberalism through Americans for Democratic Action and labor, James Wechsler says, "It is time for a new beginning...
...The new beginning, I submit, is already under way...
...true apportionate representation in the states and in Congress...
...It has been planned to be particularly helpful to active peace workers...
...Thus Governor Munoz is the correct form, as I believe the original copy indicated...
...The true realignment comes through open discussion and debate, and through defining the issues, which build understanding not only in others, but in ourselves...
...Far be it from me to minimize the importance of organized labor with whose views I am in general sympathy...
...It and its adherents have found no substitute...
...But there is something lacking—namely, a positive program based on a positive philosophy...
...American liberalism is also sprawling, quarrelsome, and often incoherent and confused...
...Search for New Directions Dear Sirs: It is rare that liberals these days have the opportunity to tit down together and spend a full week in discussing the directions in which we are going, and to approach international issues in an atmosphere of truth...
...I am reasonably confident that the Democratic nominee for President will come from the former group and will be the next President of the United States...
...Courageously facing truth, even unpalatable truth, is essential, because men can build sound structures only upon sound foundations...
...Now the U.S...
...To allay any fears that cancer victims or the Krebiozen promoters are being discriminated against by the FDA, I would like to point out that the value of Krebiozen in any phase of cancer treatment is, to say the least, open to doubt...
...When I first began reading it you ran an article about the failure of the Soviet agricultural program, replete with "pinko" sneers for one and all who regarded Russians as enemies...
...George R. Woodruff New York, N.Y...
...Three factors can trigger a new era of liberalism: a liberal Democratic President in 1961...
...In pre-glacial times the Allegheny flowed north...
...They made specific recommendations in the areas of peace, economic growth, human welfare and aging, metropolitan problems, agriculture, natural resources, and civil rights...
...It would be of no good, he said, for we were bound to be beaten, and he doubted whether we deserved help, anyhow...
...Ajai Mitra, first secretary, Permanent Mission of India to the U.N...
...In Des Moines, Iowa, on September 11, 1941, speaking of "the Jewish people," Lindbergh declared: "Their greatest danger to this country lies in their large ownership and influence in motion pictures, our press, our radio, and our government...
...Dear Sirs: American liberalism is broadly based, receptive to many interests, and jealous of any that would set itself up as predominant...
...Betty Hagedorn Acting Peace Education Secretary Middle Atlantic Region American Friends Service Committee 20 South 12th Street Philadelphia 7, Pa...
...Obviously, there must be a further demonstration in Congress of the growing liberalism of the Democratic Party...
...To see editors of The Progressive among these "spokesmen" is depressing...
...Nevertheless, your March issue contained an editorial headed, "Lindbergh and the Jews," which is a shameless attempt to cleanse with falsehood the record of a proved pro-Nazi and anti-Semite...
...Wechsler in the editorial office of a liberal newspaper...
...There must be a style, at once journalistic and dignified, which improves upon the Saturday Evening Post...
...But let's face the fact that the influence of ADA is relatively small and the influence of labor has been badly hurt by Jimmy Hoffa and the revelations of the McClellan Committee...
...Like him I also believe that the quest for human equality in the United States—and elsewhere in the world—confronts the Democrats with a choice they cannot shirk...
Vol. 24 • June 1960 • No. 6
