THE PEOPLE'S FORUM
THE PEOPLE'S FORUM Rubin's Latin America Dear Sirs: The amount of knowledge of Latin America Morris H. Rubin was able to extract on his recent tour is almost as impressive as his ability to...
...LEWIS R. LANG, M.D...
...But, please, how can you still condemn Castro after what you have written...
...Let him peddle his wares in some insane asylum...
...Family meals, the outofdoors, simple comforts become experiences to be savored because they are denied to many others—among them our 19-year-old son...
...IRVIN ASHKENAZY Pasadena, California Dear Sirs: I compliment you on your June issue...
...This ably written document both reports essential facts which should shock us into action and makes excellent recommendations as to what we can and must do at once...
...between Hitler and Churchill...
...It offers an alternative which must be met through economic competition, not military competition...
...GUY W. FINNEY Burbank, California Dear Sirs: Your June issue on Latin America represents the kind of distinguished public service we have come to expect from The Progressive...
...Morris Rubin did an astonishingly comprehensive job in packing into one tour so much information on current Latin-American affairs...
...The parallel between Tito's Yugoslavia and Castro's Cuba is not in any way farfetched...
...EMMA DARMSTADT LOS Angeles, California Liberal Dogmatism Dear Sirs: Many "liberals" automatically rise up in anger when they sharply disagree with some person whose (liberal) opinions previously had been in comfortable accord with their own thoughts...
...We seldom get this kind of story in the American press...
...The Church is described as a "force for social reform," and it is said to "assume moral leadership of the struggle against [Trujillo...
...LORENZ HANSEN Upper Darby, Pennsylvania Opposes Medical Aid Plan Dear Sirs: You are still fighting the battle for a social security medical-aid program on the basis of condemning American Medical Association statements rather than considering the program itself...
...NORMAN BALABANIAN Syracuse, New York Population & Religion Dear Sirs: In your otherwise magnificent issue on Latin America, I feel that you did not give sufficient attention to the vitally important matter of over-population...
...Yet, I know of no capitalist who believes that Tito has destroyed Communism and most certainly the Communists do not expect Castro to destroy capitalism...
...To my mind it reflects a terrible lack of moral judgment...
...CHARLES W. ANDERSON Department of Political Science University of Wisconsin Madison, Wisconsin Dear Sirs: As one who has traveled widely in Latin America, I want to express my great enthusiasm for Morris H. Rubin's splendid report on our neighbors to the south...
...It is questionable whether romantic musings of this kind help the situation in any way...
...Please do not cancel my subscription...
...One of the most reactionary forces in Latin America, always allied with the tyrants and the oligarchs excoriated by Rubin, has been the Roman Catholic Church...
...HUGH B. HESTER Brigadier General U.S...
...I have written Secretary of State Dean Rusk suggesting that he read your report...
...It is the Conewango-Cattaraugus plan which would "discharge excess water from extreme floods northward into Lake Erie via the pre-glacial channel of the Allegheny...
...While I disagreed with Mayer, in nearly every turn he took, I certainly don't feel that he is in any danger of losing his credentials as a liberal...
...In my view the poisoning of the human mind constitutes the greatest possible harm...
...You seem to conclude that we must negotiate with Castro and must not try again to overthrow him by war, but you never suggest—what would seem to follow from your own observations—that any man of intelligence and good will would naturally support Castro against a corrupt United States...
...HENRY FRUCHTER New York, New York Education in Oil Dear Sirs: Regarding your editorial, "Sin of Omission" on the oil depletions allowance in the July issue, I think your editorial writer needs a little education on what the oil business really is...
...They are facing expulsion from their ancestral New York homeland because of the proposed building of the Kinzua Dam recommended by the army engineers for flood control...
...It is an indispensable tool for all who seek the truth...
...Chapel Hill, North Carolina Defends Stevenson Dear Sirs: Your June issue on Latin America is indeed valuable...
...As one who lived through the beginnings of Hitler Germany, with the opportunity to see what the repeated "rubbing in," in speech and print, of Hitler's theories did to the German people, I wonder whether it is wise to let calumny, threats, and incitement to hatred go unpunished, even if no harmful action has been committed...
...Stewart Alsop, in the Saturday Evening Post, June 24, "The Cuban Disaster: How It Happened," explains that Mr...
...The present population of all of the Latin American countries...
...The program does not look to the future: it will make more difficult the expansion of medical aid programs to other segments of the population (crippled children, for example) equally deserving of Federal help...
...JULIUS LEWIN Johannesburg, South Africa Reconsiders Dear Sirs: After imbibing Mayer's nauseating intellectual concoction, "Eichmann in Israel," I decided to terminate my subscription for fear that future issues might treat me to a few more of his "dialogues...
...Castro offers the West a great opportunity to get moving again...
...The future of oil in this country depends upon the adventurous gamblers—the small independent producers...
...Moreover, it would save the taxpayers an estimated $100,000,000...
...JACK D. BERRY, President Thomas N. Berry & Company Stillwater, Oklahoma Tolerance for the Tolerant Dear Sirs: I wish to express my wholehearted agreement with Alan Pa ton's doubts as vented in his letter published in a recent issue of The Progressive regarding the advisability of unlimited freedom of speech...
...What is really sought is an orthodoxy, individually suited to the complainant's point of view...
...You see the facts and refuse to accept them...
...If the measure passes, we are going to find a larger number of hospital beds occupied by these pensioners to the exclusion of many medically more urgent patients...
...The timidity shown by Rubin in exposing the reactionary role of the Catholic Church is in sharp contrast with his courage in taking on American big business interests, the Pentagon, and the Central Intelligence Agency...
...Monday after a three to four minute "trial...
...His presentation, which must have cost him many long hours of pondering, came out one of the sanest available anywhere...
...It is rare that one finds such expert reporting and perceptive interpretation in current writings on Latin America...
...He, and we, were prepared to face serious trouble —possible violence—a prison term of some kind...
...The Soviet Union has learned to live with Tito and the United States will have to learn to live with Castro...
...Nor do I feel that his publisher is wandering down an "aberrant path...
...I find only one fault with Rubin's report...
...EDUARDO REYES University of Chile Vina del Mar, Chile Cancels over Cuba Dear' Sirs: I have just read and pondered your long and important article on Cuba (which for some undisclosed reason you call a "tragedy"), and I have decided after serious consideration to cancel my subscription to your periodical because of it...
...At the present time, only one domestic well in seven ever pays for itself...
...Kempton was...
...Naturally, I read the Puerto Rico story with interest and appreciation, but I am finding the whole issue extremely worthwhile...
...Wouldn't a hard look at what has happened to the sit-in demonstrators and the Freedom Riders who have been put in jail, or a realistic consideration of all that needs' to be done in the long pull ahead, be more to the point than talking about "the distance to the farthest stars...
...Our pride in these dedicated, courageous young people who have offered themselves as the price which has to be paid for simple everyday freedom—to ride, to walk, to eat where one will—cannot be measured—this in a free country which now, willing or not, must lead a world to freedom...
...JEFF W. GOLDSTEIN Madison, Wisconsin Kempton 'Romantic' Dear Sirs: As someone deeply in sympathy with the integration movement, I found myself both annoyed and embarrassed by Murray Kempton's article on the "Freedom Riders" in your July issue...
...We try to keep in mind that Gene and the other Riders are dedicated to showing "courtesy, tact, creativeness, tolerance, understanding, and above all, self-giving love to everyone, in and out of jail...
...Just as Rubin describes the Communists in Venezuela as supporters, for their own reasons, of the extreme right wing opponents of the democratic Betancourt, with whom they are in fundamental opposition, so the Catholic Church at times espouses positions of enlightenment for its own reasons...
...The liberation of such energy and putting it to work is the only answer to our "mortal sickness...
...I hope that you will study the matter further and come to see more clearly the present predicament of the independent oil producer...
...The first step in Mississippi justice was fast...
...This factor is the unbelievably rapid rate of population increase...
...I hope that President Kennedy will carefully consider Adlai Stevenson's report on Latin America, read the June issue of The Progressive, and read Karl E. Meyer's article in your July issue, "The Liberals and the New Cult of Power...
...With few exceptions, only the world outside of the United States offers the information that you brought back from Cuba...
...It is not too late to right a wrong and refrain from violating the ancestral homeland of the Seneca Indians...
...At once there is a cry for a "truly liberal" approach...
...All they can possibly do is to allow a larger number of the unfortunate inhabitants to die of malnutrition and the attendant diseases...
...Your June issue will greatly improve United States understanding of what is needed in Latin America...
...MRS...
...EDWIN HALSEY Ajijic, Jalisco Mexico June Issue 'Shocking' Dear Sirs: The articles on Latin American countries in the June issue of The Progressive were shocking in that they made practically no mention of the factor that is Meet responsible for the unfortunate economic condition of these countries...
...Their luggage, books, and writing materials were returned to them on the following Thursday...
...A separate health agency not connected to social security would be more flexible in this regard...
...Morris Rubin has done a superb job of reporting and interpreting the critical situation in Latin America...
...Arthur Morgan states that this plan would give Pittsburgh total protection from floods, while the Kinzua plan would give only thirty per cent...
...How shocking that our mass circulation magazines like Time should be indifferent to the human factors involved...
...If you think gasoline is now high, wait until we are dependent upon the foreign producer...
...CHARLOTTE PHELPS Austin, Texas Dear Sirs: Morris H. Rubin's report, "Latin America: Dynamite on Our Doorstep," constitutes a challenging appeal to our consciousness to come to the assistance of all elements which seek a new freedom...
...In view of the rapid growth in population of the Latin American countries, any "do good" efforts by the United States and others are doomed to failure...
...JAMES P. WARBURG New York, New York Dear Sirs: As one who specializes in Latin American affairs, I write to tell you that Morris H. Rubin's report in the June issue is one of the most hard-headed, clear-cut, well-balanced, and thoughtful studies of Latin America I have seen in a long time...
...HELEN MEARS New York, New York Dear Sirs: Let me express my deep and abiding admiration for the marvelous panorama you have presented of Latin American conditions, political and otherwise...
...Thus we would preserve the first treaty of the United States: "Treaty with the Seneca Nation of the Iroquois Confederacy," signed on November 11, 1794 by Timothy Pickering, personal envoy of George Washington, and confirmed by a personal letter from Washington...
...between Jesus Christ and every monster in human form throughout history...
...The next steps were slower...
...Have we adequately considered the alternate plan suggested by an independent engineering firm and Arthur E. Morgan, formerly chief engineer of TVA...
...This is an easy path, but it does not increase our knowledge of the issues...
...My observations of Castro's Cuba last December and January generally support the affirmative points in your report...
...After describing at length and from firsthand observation the enormous improvements in the lives of the great majority of Cubans under Castro, after an outspoken description of the duplicity and malevolence of American policy toward Cuba, and the treachery of the CIA and President Kennedy in the abortive invasion, you seem always to come back to an implied "nevertheless" and the suggestion that Castro has been an evil influence in Cuba's history...
...The Progressive is the best liberal periodical published...
...The United States can play a leading role if its government identifies itself with the rising expectations in Latin America for social and economic progress, backing up needed reforms with a strong will and quick steps...
...Finally, the Anderson-King bill makes no provisions for even a small partial daily payment for hospitalization for those who will be patients in a hospital for a long time...
...Stevenson was deceived, believed that he was speaking the truth, was "understandably furious" when he learned of the deception, and "demanded" that there should be no more of "this sort of thing...
...government policymaker concerned with international relations had to study and pass an examination on this issue of The^ Progressive...
...Or are you weakly suggesting that we have not had enough evidence on which to decide...
...Quite obviously a religious system which encourages self-reproduction and threatens with hell-fire those who try to limit their families by artificial means is directly responsible for the poverty that must stem from over-population...
...I hope greatly that the June issue of The Progressive receives a wide circulation...
...D. R. SHARPE Pasadena, California...
...Why is this subject never aired, even in such freedom-loving publications as The Progressive...
...If you are suggesting that there is any sensible reason for supposing that the United States will change its consistent and longestablished record of exploitation of Cuba and Latin America, you are treating your readers as sanguine idiots, and I resent it...
...Why not a dialogue between George III and Patrick Henry...
...We do not have nearly enough facilities to support such a policy...
...MARY JO UPHOFF Minneapolis, Minnesota Help Seneca Indians Dear Sirs: While we speak of settling disputes in Laos, the Congo and elsewhere, are we aware of the plight of the Seneca Indians...
...Here at home we have a sharper awareness of what it means to be able to walk, to ride, to enter, to use public facilities which have no demarcation lines...
...Is this what you want...
...The same blame must be attached to the Eastern religions which teach their congregations that self-reproduction is a virtue instead of an antisocial practice, in an age when over-population is said by the statisticians to be a greater menace to the human race than the nuclear deterrent...
...Neither Mayer nor the magazine need be so soundly condemned on the basis of one clash of opinion...
...He [Attorney General Robert Kennedy] pleaded with unknown colored children to cease their rides . . ." The college students I know would find "children" a fighting word...
...PATRICIA HERRON Meadville, Pennsylvania Freedom Riders Exciting Dear Sirs: One of the most striking features of the "Freedom Riders," as Murray Kempton aptly pointed out in the July Progressive, is that they are simple, honest people seeking justice through quiet resolution...
...The six Minnesota Freedom Riders were arrested Sunday afternoon and sentenced at 3 p.m...
...The proposed social security law (the AndersonKing bill) has the grave defect of leaving out of consideration entirely those who need help the most: the old people with no resources at all...
...As a means of solving problems of medical aid to the aged the program is a fraud...
...There is more to oil than the Texas oil forces...
...save Bolivia, is from 2.9 to 4.8 times the population seventy years ago...
...It has been one 6f the largest landowners, and some of the richest men in Latin America have been members of the Catholic hierarchy...
...On the other hand, the tremendous social and economic progress Rubin witnessed in Cuba can be explained only by that "intangible, impossible to evaluate statistically," the enthusiasm of the people who have now "a genuine sense of national consciousness" as they work for their own direct benefit...
...Stalin made the same mistakes that the Eisenhower Administration made, and with the same results...
...The problem of how white sympathizers with the Negro cause can offer solid help is an important and delicate one, but I do not think the answer lies in being patronizing and sentimental, as it seems to me Mr...
...He refers to Adlai Stevenson's being caught in a fib...
...But then you immediately abandoned the subject, the rest of your article suggesting that the problem of Latin America was solely an economic one- to be solved by financial help from wealthier nations...
...What a job that must have been—and done so quickly and so well...
...Last year Congress appropriated the money for the dam, and, according to reports, construction of new roads has already begun...
...Calhoun, Georgia A Mouse Named 'Freedom' Dear Sirs: "There is a little mouse that comes into our cell," our son wrote to friends from Jackson, Mississippi, "and we've named it 'Freedom...
...RONALD HUMPHREYS Washington, D. C. Dear Sirs: That was a wonderful issue on Latin America— especially that splendid report on Cuba...
...His report contains information that would take me perhaps weeks to dig out of Latin American publications...
...But I am not nearly so pessimistic as you seem to be about his Communist connections...
...an orthodoxy no less rigid than Goldwaterism, which gives awards for labor relations achievements to the Kohler Company...
...only one in fourteen ever makes a profit...
...Phrases like these are just what I wish to avoid in describing the South African scene accurately because I believe that both at home and abroad there is need for clear heads as well as warm hearts in assessing our situation here...
...The money we have for investment in new wells is from our depletion allowance...
...DALE PONTIUS Roosevelt University Chicago, Illinois One Fault Dear Sirs: I have just finished reading the June issue from cover to cover...
...A second point that you did not even touch upon is that the population of Latin America is Roman Catholic, and it is a well known fact that poverty is a feature of all Roman Catholic countries—Italy, Spain, Malta, Ireland, and others...
...When the press and television (with rare exceptions) slant the news, conceal facts, and dish out sophistry, it is heartening indeed to have the fearless, factual reporting of The Progressive...
...Any monopoly softens > up those exercising it...
...The Catholic Church is mentioned twice in the entire issue, once in discussing democratic Colombia and again in discussing Trujillo...
...Rubin has bravely and justly denounced corporations like the American Sugar Company and individuals like former Ambassador Whelan...
...It is the greatest achievement of the Cuban revolution—and I would say it is unique in Latin America...
...God help us if we fail to put our moral, spiritual, and legal strength behind the move to open the jails in Jackson, Parchman, Tallahassee, and Birmingham where a little mouse becomes a symbol of freedom...
...On page four you wrote, "During I960, Latin Americans, most of them already under-privileged, increased in population five times more rapidly than they increased their total production of goods and services . . . Latin America . . . is increasing now at the rate of 2.5 per cent a year—highest in the world...
...There is a correction that should be made, I feel, in Mr...
...Communism has challenged and broken the capitalist monopoly in this hemisphere...
...The money collected to defray costs of our elderly would be gathered on the basis of a highly regressive tax schedule: a man earning $5,000 a year for himself and family would pay the same amount to support the nation's sick as an oil millionaire with his 27.5 per cent depletion allowance...
...If we stop drilling, and many have already stopped, you, the consumer, will have to depend upon foreign oil...
...In simple, liberal language—each is entitled to his opinion...
...I don't know what your circulation for that issue is, but I wish it were more...
...Army (Ret...
...THOMAS HAVDN Cambridge, Massachusetts Dear Sirs: That was an exceptionally fine report on Latin America with its sympathetic treatment of a vastly challenging problem...
...I admit that it may not always be easy to draw the line...
...Until the Latin American countries find some way of limiting their population growth there is no possibility of reducing hunger and poverty...
...The days since our son Gene and five other Freedom Riders boarded the bus at the Minneapolis depot have added up to several of the longest weeks of our lives...
...Today Parchman, Mississippi, seems as impenetrable as any iron curtain...
...But Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida were far, far away...
...Meyer's analysis...
...IRA B. JORALEMON San Francisco, California Castro Parallels Tito Dear Sirs: Your special issue on Latin America is superior in every sense...
...As time is running out—we have the world's highest rate in population increase— "slow pace reform" and "long term aid" imply a poor treatment for such an explosive situation...
...A look at Martin Luther King's Stride Toward Freedom will show that the membership was —and undoubtedly still is—much broader than that...
...This "liberalism," which manifested itself in several of the letters objecting to Milton Mayer's "Eichmann in Israel" article, is a type of dogmatism which often splits and makes liberal action ineffectual...
...But his relative silence concerning the role of the Catholic Church gives a distorted view...
...I want to record this because the "the Afrikaners' vicious racial policy" has not, in my opinion, reduced Africans to "abject bondage...
...The picture of the Catholic Church as a moral leader against dictatorship and in favor of social reform and enlightenment is belied by the facts of history in Latin America...
...According to the article, the Montgomery Improvement Association is made up of "cooks and janitors and country preachers...
...I am unable to recall seeing anywhere, in the many publications I see regularly, anything that analyzes Latin America with such great clarity and such sharp insight...
...Luis MUNOZ MARIN Governor Commonwealth of Puerto Rico San Juan Dear Sirs: Your Latin American issue was magnificent...
...I urge Progressive readers to take time to write a letter to President Kennedy asking him to help the Seneca Indians, save the United States $100,000,000 and have a more efficient engineering project...
...If you do, you will have to revise your ail-American determination to condemn because everyone else has, and not because the evidence warrants this view...
...It is exciting to find students doing something of genuine significance with dignity and courage...
...But it is a close, emotion-charged reality with which we are living...
...I hereby pledge a dollar a month donation for every future issue from which the name of Mayer is omitted...
...JOHN E. Govv Chicago, Illinois Indispensable Tool Dear Sirs: If ever there was a time for the vision, the courage, the depth of thinking of The Progressive, it is now...
...It is important to remember that Tito's Yugoslavia did not became a capitalist satellite by accepting aid from the West that was refused him by Stalin...
...THE PEOPLE'S FORUM Rubin's Latin America Dear Sirs: The amount of knowledge of Latin America Morris H. Rubin was able to extract on his recent tour is almost as impressive as his ability to impart that knowledge and make it meaningful...
...ELSIE R. RENNE Menlo Park, California Correction Dear Sirs: For the record, may I say that in my article on South Africa in your May number, the paragraph beginning "Furthermore . . ." and ending ". . . lonely position" on page 31, as well as the very last phrase on page 32, were inserted in your office, not written by me...
...Don't be such an incorrigible PoHyanna...
...Won't you re-read your article...
...Correspondence has come to a halt since the boys were put in striped prison garb—despite assurance that two letters a week were permitted...
...I would have some hope if every official and U.S...
...Active insistence through passive resistance...
...Before Gene's decision to go to Jackson, we felt we had strong convictions about human rights and racial justice...
...We have read quite enough about pantie raids, hanging football coaches in effigy, stuffing telephone booths and the like...
...It deserves a more understanding attitude from the United States government, even though the Castro regimen does not arouse its political sympathies...
...However, after reading your recent issue, with its letters of protest from equally outraged readers, I decided to stick...
...ESME WYNNE-TYSON Selsey, Sussex England Suggests Rubin Read Rubin Dear Sirs: Thank you for a factual and sympathetic report on Cuba...
...RAMON EDUARDO RUIZ Northampton, Massachusetts Cuban Enthusiasm Dear Sirs: Editor Rubin's report on Latin America is an accurate diagnosis of a "mortally sick'' continent, exposing the central troubles which keep the patient down: illiteracy, poverty, disease, underdeveloped economies, and crowning it all, a dead-end street fate for the majority of people...
...yet the principle, "Tolerance for the tolerant, whether or not we agree with his views, but none for him who preaches intolerance," might be applied as a guide...
...Traditional religious teachings that originated and made sense in a sparsely populated world should not be allowed thus to imperil civilization, but should be adjusted in the light of the prevailing conditions...
Vol. 25 • August 1961 • No. 8
