THE PEOPLE'S FORUM
THE PEOPLE'S FORUM A Time for Self-Analysis Dear Sirs: I have been a student of Russian and Soviet history since my junior year at the University of North Carolina, 1915, and I have traveled...
...His continued refusal to open the Suez Canal to Israeli shipping is a brazen bid for popularity among Arabs...
...Dear Sirs: As a teacher who, like Dorothy Samuel, has taught in a public school system, I would like to relate an experience, closely paralleling the one cited by the author, to dramatize the seriousness of the "curve" device...
...Dear Sirs: Dorothy Samuel, in her article, "The Villain in Education," makes two assumptions that need to be examined...
...This sort of nonsense calls for a lighthearted attack...
...are good and some are bad...
...Dear Sirs: Milton Mayer reproduces in his May article the official claim of the East German government that the per capita consumption of butter, sugar, and animal fat in the East is higher than it is in the West...
...However, I cannot agree with your praise of Florida's Governor Leroy Collins...
...But a free society requires that rational thought processes and dispassionate analysis—in short, "straight thinking"—not be confined to a small group of professionals...
...There is nothing like first hand information and we want Mr...
...However, you seem to allow a pure propaganda article to infiltrate the magazine too often...
...Referring to East Germany, he says, "this Ohio-sized land is as hopelessly incapable of economic self-support as Israel...
...Nixon is at the verbal game of combining pluses and minuses that add up to nothing...
...Silent No Longer Dear Sirs: The international events of the past month have stunned me into silence and disbelief...
...Anthony Olivari San Diego, Calif...
...Bailey: "By midsummer 1959 milk production in East Germany had sunk so low that it could no longer be offered for free sale...
...Time and observation have shown me that Miss Samuel's assumptions, which seem entirely reasonable, are, more often than not, false in practice...
...The type of logic used would be something I would expect from a liberal "Senator Joe...
...One of the causes is the "curve...
...Lack of Moral Fiber Dear Sirs: Although I do not always agree with the viewpoints expressed in your articles, I respect the arguments presented and respect the logic behind most of them...
...No doubt those who object to reading the truth concerning Nixon can find reading matter which is more palatable without giving up reading entirely...
...The second is that if they work harder they will learn more...
...It is time for the civilian forces of government to recover control of national security...
...Here are a few comparative quotations: Mayer: "It [the rebuilding of East Germany] was done in part with the assistance of Russian credits and imports that was niggardly compared to America's priming of the West...
...Only the fast-flying dart, not the battering ram, will prick the bouncing bubble on the fence...
...Intellectuals in Politics Dear Sirs: Intellectualism frequently is not held in high repute, even by people who might reasonably be expected to support it...
...Bayless to visit us for a week—free room and board—to see for himself, firsthand, how it is...
...Truman and Eisenhower, while they differ in many ways, share two characteristics: they hardly resemble intellectuals, and they are winners...
...Khrushchev today enjoys a higher degree of the confidence of his people than almost any other leader of world stature...
...The "cold" and "holy" warriors must not be permitted to profit by this blunder, whether they engineered it or not as some believe...
...We work too hard and long on our farms...
...Mayer's fundamental clarification comes with a special timeliness and exposes another glaring example of our futile, cynical, and half-baked foreign policy...
...This was close to 5.3 per cent failures...
...There are a few rich farmers, but the majority are poor and getting poorer...
...Furthermore, I am in close contact with others who have traveled widely there...
...Rather the tragedy lay in the possibility that the political professionals and the more vociferous amateurs would reach the simple conclusion that a candidate who makes an undisguised and unashamed appeal to reason is not a good campaigner...
...This unusual expansion has transformed austerity conditions which prevailed until 1954 into relative prosperity...
...It is pure tripe...
...The unspeakable State Department that by implication has "rewarded" the Germans "for being Nazis...
...In the six years since the desegregation decision, he has offered absolutely no leadership towards ending segregation in Florida's schools...
...I, too, received a quick and emphatic summons from the administration for an orientation course in the school's "marking system...
...and as one, on the other hand, who has been most apprehensive, to say the least, of the Germany of Frederick the Great, Bismarck, the sabre-rattling Kaiser, and the schizophrenic Hitler, to name but a few...
...Making more children afraid of failure will convince many that there is no point in working, and will make others so fearful that they will get less and less benefit from the work they do...
...Actually, Mr...
...D. E. Truax Pittsburgh, Pa...
...The unofficial answer is the following slogan in East Berlin: "Keine butter, keine sahne, aber auf demmond, die rote fahne...
...To be sure, some people specialize in scholarly pursuits...
...How can I remain silent when my own government engages in similar illegal acts...
...He seems to have absorbed the idea (heaven knows from what source) that some nations (or is it races...
...But I cannot remain silent any longer...
...The intellectual, then, is distinguished more by his standards and perspective in his approach to problem-solving than by his profession or title...
...I compromised, maintaining rigid standards on daily work and unit exams, and donating a "curve" on final tests...
...When the author talks about "strict grading" she assumes that for any subject, in any grade, there is an objective, impersonal, absolute standard by which students may be graded...
...Mayer: "Today the per capita consumption of butter, sugar, and animal fat in the East is higher than it is in the West...
...I say this as one who has lived for thirty years in Germany...
...It disgusted me...
...Since any standard will result in a certain number of failures, will Miss Samuel tell us what percentage of the student body she thinks should be failed in any course, or how she would go about setting her grade standards...
...He is attempting to be a universally popular neutral on an issue which admits of no neutrality, and to present and former residents of Florida such as myself, it comes as a surprise to learn that he is seriously regarded as a "voice of reason" in the South...
...These are well known facts which seem to have had little effect on Mr...
...But it is Stevenson who has amply demonstrated that political discussion in the national arena can be effectively raised to a sophisticated and responsible level...
...During the coming months we can expect him to come out for "dynamic docility," "creative conformity," "courageous caution," and other pulpy principles...
...The "percentile cult" permits an approximate maximum of seven per cent in each of the "A" and "F" groups, but discourages even that many in the latter...
...John R. Reed Maplewood, N.J...
...appreciates the land of the tidy and the industrious...
...Army (Rtd...
...It has not been made apparent to Stevensonians that there are compelling reasons for the Democrats to substitute another candidate this year...
...and he is doing his best to undermine Western positions in black Africa, in the oil areas of the Middle East, and recently in the Caribbean...
...Bad strategy is a poor substitute for excellence in philosophy...
...R. A. Bolster San Diego, Calif...
...Since it was established in 1948, in spite of the war launched by the Arabs and their persistent belligerency and boycott, this Vermont-sized country has managed not only to receive one million refugees, but also to integrate them into her economy and to give them hope for a new life...
...I have particularly enjoyed the articles by Milton Mayer...
...Simply "pass them if they were civil and cooperative, and caused no class disturbances...
...The result...
...This is no time for tub-thumping or sabre-rattling...
...Bayless to have it...
...Thus, Israel's exports now cover about fifty per cent of the imports despite the fact that the population has more than trebled...
...Which one of these writers knows what he is talking about...
...It is Stevenson who has so conspicuously demonstrated high mental stature and moral strength in the heat of major campaigns...
...But they achieved nothing, I argued...
...The unfavorable reaction it created among some of your subscribers was almost inevitable...
...Miss Samuel tries to make it appear as though some rare situations are typical of our public schools...
...I was disappointed and surprised to find The Progressive climbing on this shoddy bandwagon with the substandard article by Dorothy Samuel...
...Once the Arab States renounce their belligerency, once the Arab States and Israel put an end to their arms race, and once Israel is given a chance to develop its water resources and irrigate half of its territory which is now lying barren, then I am sure Israel can support itself with even a much larger population than the present two million...
...Ellis O. Jones Washington, D.C...
...Ronald G. Havelock Boston, Mass...
...there are rigorous techniques and procedures of research and deduction which necessitate specialists...
...Only a few years ago there was strict rationing because of food shortages...
...Education's Villain Dear Sirs: I have read with some annoyance the article by Dorothy Samuel, "The Villain in Education," in the May issue of The Progressive...
...It is disturbing to me that the author considers motivation for learning to be so greatly influenced by a grading system...
...A party which, on the criterion of excellence, deliberately chooses a second-best candidate may well discover that its strategy misfires even in the short run...
...it is assumed that all teachers who graduate from college nowadays use the relative grading system exclusively...
...But East Germany—what a heartening contrast...
...Harold and Rosina Woodhouse Power, Mont...
...Mayer implies that the blood and bone of West Germans are akin to the Nazis...
...Nasser is an ambitious ruler who has dedicated himself to the conquest and domination of the Arab world under one government with himself at the head...
...Farmers Getting Poorer Dear Sirs: We read in the May issue a letter by E. A. Bayless, Albany, Oregon, about "our rich farmers...
...I think Mayer's caustic and usually accurate analysis of the evils of Western society would get a "positive" response from many of us if only he could bring himself to love us and the Germans and himself a little more...
...The "voice" may be there, but the deeds are not...
...No butter, no cream, but on the moon, the Red Flag...
...and that all this is "unwritten school policy...
...Julius Fleischmann Zurich, Switzerland Dear Sirs: Please accept my heartiest congratulations on Milton Mayer's magnificently informative analysis of things German in the May issue...
...If he [a German] were more lovable, he might be loved...
...I see nothing in the intensive criticism of the Vice-President's record to justify the harsh words of some of the letter writers, and I feel that the Shannon article is badly needed to inform the voters of what sort of a man is now seeking the Republican nomination...
...Propaganda to the contrary can only do great disservice to this nation...
...Shannon on Nixon Dear Sirs: We were somewhat dismayed in reading "The People's Forum" to see objections to William Shannon's article on Richard Nixon based on opposition to The Progressive's policy of printing such facts...
...We have more than enough of these in our colleges as it is...
...Robert S. Vogel Pasadena, Calif...
...Bailey: "East Germany is too poor and too dispirited to provide from its own resources the capital investment it needs to keep production increasing at the rate the Russians have decreed...
...Hence the Russians must foot a large part of the bill...
...I say this as a former Tito Partisan in Yugoslavia who endured Italian fascism and imprisonment for many years...
...The same is true of Grant, Harding, and a number of other former occupants of the White House...
...It is my considered judgment that Mr...
...This brochure differs from all others in that it was written by Southern students— from six different states—who have been a part of the non-violent movement...
...Russians of course wouldn't stoop to anything so revolting as anti-Semitism...
...Nasser's admiration of the great dictatorships of the Twentieth Century forced the Middle East to go through several severe crises during the last few years...
...But it requires a most tortured interpretation of history to conclude that our best and most distinguished Presidents have been those of this character...
...He has signed into law legislation designed to close any schools which a federal court orders integrated...
...In 1959 exports totaled some |300 million compared to $45 million in 1950...
...Over the past four years the government that represents me has been committing provocative acts that could lead to war...
...We are not lazy or ignorant...
...Loving him is inconceivable . . . and as long as he isn't loved he will have to hate and be hated...
...Disputes Mayer on Israel Dear Sirs: Milton Mayer, in "The Germans Again," in the May Progressive, makes an unfortunate and unjustified statement regarding the economy of Israel...
...Somehow, I was "to get these students through...
...I would like to invite Mr...
...Dear Sirs: After reading "The Germans Again" by Milton Mayer in the May Progressive, and "This is East Germany" by George Bailey in the May 12 Reporter, I'm in the market for a third opinion...
...The Arabs, and especially Colonel Nasser, admire brutal force—be it Communist or Fascist...
...knows it intimately...
...Surely, teachers should be more concerned with making school work intrinsically satisfying and meaningful if they wish to produce scholars of high ability and creativity...
...Yes, he and the rest of us ought to love the Russians too...
...John Boardman Syracuse, N.Y...
...Lewis E. Stieghorst Denver, Colo...
...Mayer's Remarkable Capacity Dear Sirs: I want to express my appreciation to you for publishing Milton Mayer...
...Those who deprecate intellectualism are attacking the ultimate strength of our society...
...It may be calamitously concluded that 1952 plus 1956 furnish adequate evidence that an individual in the Stevensonian tradition must never again be entrusted with party leadership...
...C. W. Griffin Denville, N.J...
...loves the Germany of Goethe and Thomas Mann, of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms...
...No leader could possibly retain the support of his people by yielding to this kind of pressure...
...I learned this: it is too idealistic to expect strict standards of achievements from my pupils...
...And in the long run, it almost certainly will find that its moral strength and even its political power, like its honor, have ebbed away—largely because it has alienated the intellectuals...
...Dorothy Samuel deserves unreserved commendation for pointing up this serious issue in education...
...Today, Israel is faced with farm surpluses...
...Nasser's 'Hitleresque Tactics' Dear Sirs: Your March issue carried an article on Egypt by Sidney Lens...
...Dear Sirs: Among the many who have contributed to the recent popular attacks on our public schools, the general pattern has been to paint the picture of our school administrators as a group of people who are either stupid or determined to undermine our nation's strength...
...Where does it come from...
...This is far from the truth and is an unjustified effort to weaken the confidence of Americans in their schools...
...If this trend is not stopped we will end up with all the land in the hands of a few...
...But if he didn't hate everybody else so much, he could love them and yet not be afraid to see and report that tyranny is abomination to the human spirit...
...So—the Germans (well, the West Germans, that is) are a degenerate, damned people and there is nothing to do but hate them...
...Hugh B. Hester Brigadier General U.S...
...After a week, he can stay as long as he likes if he works as long and hard as we do for fifty cents an hour or less...
...Dear Sirs: Milton Mayer and The Progressive have rendered another great service to humanity with the May issue article, "The Germans Again...
...George Pinkerton Muscatine, la...
...William R. Allen Department of Economics University of California Los Angeles, Calif...
...It is time to redouble our efforts to avoid catastrophe by continuing seriously the present negotiations for banning bomb tests and for disarmament...
...Mayer on the Germans Dear Sirs: I find The Progressive immensely useful...
...Lens tries hard to convince us that Colonel Nasser is not a dictator, but he fails to determine just what Nasser is...
...Using Hitleresque tactics, Nasser has tried to create a false image of Israel as a threat to Arab security and an image of himself as a great protector of the Arabs against aggression...
...His "The Germans Again" is a masterpiece which I intend to translate into German for publication in the liberal press of Germany...
...These are just random excerpts...
...Psychological studies seem to indicate that the rigid grading system she wishes to return to strangles the genuine desire to learn and breeds anxiety...
...If you should ever improve your standards, I would be glad to reconsider reading The Progressive...
...The pamphlet may be ordered from CORE, 38 Park Row, New York 38, New York, for twenty-five cents...
...From my point of view the "curve" is merely an attempt to get away from the arbitrary and often prejudicial whimsies of individual teachers...
...Philip Plant Donald Hayes Knoxville, Tenn...
...John C. Holt II Boston, Mass...
...All grading is subjective, all marking standards are arbitrarily set by someone...
...I have just read "The Affluence Peddlers" by Margaret Halsey in your May issue...
...What is even more disturbing is the effort made to rationalize the wrong, to make it appear that the Russians are to blame for our immoral acts...
...Adlai Stevenson is not the only potential Democratic nominee with credentials of in-tellectualism...
...My beloved country has done wrong...
...To those who argue that it behooves a party to nominate a person who appeals to the "little man" instead of to the "intellectual," it should be sufficient rebuttal to mention such names as Washington, the Adamses, Jefferson, Madison, Lincoln, and Wilson—unless it is forlornly felt that our forefathers were a much more discerning lot than the present generation...
...It is a time for the most difficult of all human operations: that of self-examination...
...Mayer has a remarkable capacity for penetrating and exploring the soul of man...
...It was done with the frightening German energy, efficiency, and conscientiousness that did it in the West...
...Chapel Hill, N. C. Nixon's Pulpy Principles Dear Sirs: As several of your correspondents have indicated, William Shannon's article on Richard Nixon was too heavy-handed...
...M. A. Palmquist Washington, D.C...
...Here are two responsible observers, writing in the same month in two reputable journals, who do not seem to agree on a single issue...
...His defense of "progressive conservatism" (not to be confused with "conservative progressivism") shows clearly how adept Mr...
...Dear Sirs: Milton Mayer writes about "The Germans Again," and some of us read it and groan, "Milton Mayer again," and marvel that he wants to do it—again and again...
...During the Tallahassee bus boycott, he obligingly suspended city bus service until the city council could draft a new ordinance designed to continue segregation under another name...
...The results, I might add, on the daily work, were always far superior...
...Pinning the label of "intellectual" on a political opponent often is considered a shrewd move...
...THE PEOPLE'S FORUM A Time for Self-Analysis Dear Sirs: I have been a student of Russian and Soviet history since my junior year at the University of North Carolina, 1915, and I have traveled extensively throughout that area...
...In England, France, and the United States swastikas are aberrations of a few hoodlums, but in Germany they are symbols of a depraved nation...
...What is the answer...
...My administrators adjusted the grades, against my will and my marking system...
...The issue is "mediocrity...
...Mary Farquharson Seattle, Wash...
...We don't need more intelligence on Russian military preparations, but more intelligent and mature conduct in ending the cold war, in concluding a nuclear test ban agreement, in turning over our arms to the United Nations, and in tackling the real problems facing mankind—mass poverty, disease, malnutrition, illiteracy, racial inequality, and the vestiges of colonialism...
...After my first nine weeks of high school teaching, I turned in my grade report, which included seven failing marks out of 130 students...
...it is time for the President to recall the delegation of his fundamental responsibilities, and it is time for the Congress to recover its constitutional responsibilities over peace and war...
...A. M. Savitt Washington, D.C...
...The first is that if we flunk more students all students will work harder...
...Over the years, in statements both public and private I have condemned Nazi and Russian espionage activities...
...Sit-In Students Report Dear Sirs: The Congress of Racial Equality has published a new brochure on the current Southern Sit-in Movement: "Sit-ins: The Students Report," edited by Jim Peck...
...What are the alternatives...
...The articles which appeared under the title, "Who Fights for Freedom?," especially that on the Hungarian revolution, were the essence of truth...
...in a public system, no one should be failed, if avoidable...
...To some degree, everyone is an intellectual...
...Many failing students may be working hardest of all...
...I would like to suggest that this article be made available for the widest possible distribution throughout the country and abroad...
...E. J. Gumbel Columbia University New York, N.Y...
...his subversion necessitated the British and American intervention in Lebanon and Jordan in the summer of 1958...
...No matter...
...There certainly is a role for intellectualism in any society, but the role need not be fulfilled solely by some separate and special group...
...The stark truth is that the President by admitting that the U-2 was on a military mission, and then compounding this blunder by asserting this was necessary, closed the door on any further negotiations at the summit...
...The intellectual politician (or the political intellectual)—not very fondly known as an "egghead"—is deemed to be an asset of dubious value to the republic...
...What it develops is a breed of student who thinks that the aim of school is to outsmart the teacher, to figure out what he wants and give it to him...
...If we are to judge men by their deeds instead of their words, it is clear that Collins has no better record than his gubernatorial neighbors in Georgia and Alabama...
...The students who do best in any class are usually doing less work, in terms of time, effort, and anguish, than students doing far less well...
...What the State Department calls the so-called German Democratic Republic...
...Mayer: ". . . per capita production of electricity surpasses not only West Germany's, but Russia's, and it is half as expensive as West Germany's...
...Why you allow the many fine writers in your magazine to be down-graded by association with this pure propaganda, I'll never understand...
...Lens' writing...
...This, too, was "policy...
...Kennedy and Bowles, for example, have been known not only to read a book, but even to write one...
...Governor Collins' Deeds Dear Sirs: After reading the letters in the May issue attacking William Shannon's article on Richard Nixon, I re-read the original article...
...Nixon is a beautiful object for ridicule, as your editorial last month pointed up...
...What is one to do—"buck" the system, or conform...
...Teaching children to work for marks is not going to make informed, curious, or intelligent people...
...For many of us, the real tragedy of the elections of 1952 and 1956 was not that the Democrats lost...
...If a free society is to remain free, a substantial proportion of the community must be intellectuals to a considerable degree...
...Bailey: "Industrially, the most worrisome of all shortages is electrical power...
...Israel's production has trebled in ten years and the national product increased twelve per cent in 1959 alone...
...Nasser's policy of subversion has alienated Tunisia and Iraq from the Arab League...
...James R. Robinson Executive Secretary, CORE New York, N.Y...
...The impression of Colonel Nasser created by the writer is that of a benevolent ruler with only good intentions...
...This lack of moral fiber on your part is exactly why I am discontinuing your publication...
Vol. 24 • September 2006 • No. 7
