The People Forum
THE PEOPLE'S FORUM Confessions Dear Sirs: I am sure that your editorial entitled "Confessions" in the October issue seIVed to clear up a large doubt in the minds of those people interested...
...Unfortunately, their letter proves the Ewings to be unaware of the help that the dams would be to the Indians in that area...
...He believes these peasants would turn against the Vietcong, should it continue to wage the war after we have taken "credible and strenuous" efforts to stop it...
...If patients cannot afford to pay the small amounts for ordinary office and house calls, they would be, or should be, on some kind · of welfare...
...As examples of credible and strenuous efforts he lists stopping all bombing, or all offensive action, or stating a period during which we would withdraw all troops and bases...
...Then they have nothing on hand even for small extras like an ordinary office call...
...CHARLES L. SMITH 61 San Mateo Road Berkeley, California 94707 Refreshing Dear Sirs: A "thank you" from a friend in Lon don to whom I sent a subscription to The Progressive says: "It is refreshing that there are other opinions and attitudes than those we hear on the wireless or from daily papers...
...He knows the Vietnamese people and can speak with authority...
...WILHELM MOSER, M.D...
...I will seek him out in the future, however...
...Every time an "official spokesman" makes a great show of stating that we "want no wider war," the war is further escalated by the U.S...
...It must be pointed out, though, that our police force does not have to be any less efficient by guaranteeing the Constitutional rights . of the individual...
...On the other hand, on an out-and-out deadbeat I would take assignment...
...What better way to educate them than with napalm bombs...
...MORRIS F. FRIEDELL Ann Arbor, Michigan Dear Sirs: What Hoyt W. Fuller has succeeded in exposing, in his excellent article, "Negro Writers and White Critics," in the October issue of The ProgressiveJ is the utter poverty of American "literary criticism" and its irrelevance to the thought of intelligent Americans, white and black, rather than any lack of interest on the part of white readers in the Negro as a subject of literary treatment...
...I cannot imagine a more depressing prospect...
...The chairman of the Hualapai Tribe, George Rocha, claims that, "Bridge Canyon Dam is the only asset we possess which can provide my people a real chance to raise themselves out of continued poverty...
...I think we all tend to become somewhat irrational when we feel our police agencies' effectiveness is or is going to be hampered without really analyzing the issue at hand...
...foreign relations abroad...
...Most Vietnamese peasants do not speak English, but why are we not wise enough to listen to those who are able to speak for their fellow countrymen...
...Hahn's argument is as follows: He says that in the cities, anti-Communism is good business, and the people literally live off money spent by the United States and the troops...
...They rightly pointed out that due to the importance of international issues, many people might be unaware of the existence of HR 4671...
...We are fighting in Vietnam to defend the right of the Vietnamese to have a United States-approved government...
...Instalment buying without curbs makes most people live way beyond their means...
...twenty cents postage if both items are desired...
...Two-Encourage saving and thrift...
...Thoughtless whacks at the AMA are now becoming fashionable even in the mass production magazines...
...The Vietnam peasants are not educated Christians, as we are...
...Public pressure on the futility of war in Vietnam must make the government change its tactics, quite apart from having the young men killed on both sides...
...Thank God that Negro writing is full of protest...
...From my experience of thirty years of general medical practice I would favor the following points for a realistic medical economics: One-Medical insurance, private as well as public, for disasters only, which of course is not always easy to define...
...Here are the facts: Being not richlike a great many doctors-I have to insist on direct billing, in order to keep going myself...
...3. I regret I am unable to help elevate the late Melvin B. Tolson "to his rightful place in the American pantheon of poets," never having heard of him...
...ANN HUBBELL Ypsilanti, Michigan Educate with Napalm Dear Sirs: Many are questioning why we are in Vietnam, where we do not seem to be entirely welcome...
...As for the critics finding the basically Negro subject "boring," I would like to ask Mr...
...2. Without raising questions about their assumptions, James' Baldwin is not a firstDecember, 1966 rate writer because he is not a first-rate craftsman...
...Central Bridge, New York Favors Dam Bill Dear Sirs: In the October issue of The Progressive there was a letter from Dean and Joan Ewing opposing HR 4671, which provides for two dams in the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River...
...ROBERT S. DICKENS Cheektowaga, New York Vietnam Fiction Dear Sirs: Like the editors of The Progressive, I too feel alarmed at the speed and ease with which we are pouring men and money into Saigon, and the great hesitation of either the Administration or Congress to push for necessary legislation in the "war on poverty" and the field of civil rights here at home...
...Even Beethoven is seldom lauded as the greatest deaf composer...
...There are many reasons why HR 4671 should be supported and many why it should not be supported, but certainly we should pay some heed to the people our ancestors drove into a second rate existence...
...No milk can be gotten from a barren cow...
...For the really serious student of the sub ject I have a thirteen-page Supplement to the above bibliography which lists 300 additional items...
...IE any readers would like to have these back copies, I will gladly send them to the address indicated...
...If I would operate on assignment only, chances of ever being paid the $50 deductible plus the twenty per cent above that, which is not covered by Medicare, would be small...
...Hnwever, it is good and right that there have been and will be obseIVers that comment that the pendulum may have swung too far in the direction of personal liberties, to the point that the general security is jeopardized...
...There are, of course, two sides to every story and the public should be made aware of both...
...by James P. Degnan in the September Pro gressive, a four-page bibliography on the Anti-Monopoly Water Law may be re ceived by anyone who sends a five-cent stamped, self-addressed, business-size en velope to me...
...Apparently we would be more successful in fulfilling our commitment to the people of Vietnam if we would use tactics completely the opposite of those we are now using...
...THE PEOPLE'S FORUM Confessions Dear Sirs: I am sure that your editorial entitled "Confessions" in the October issue seIVed to clear up a large doubt in the minds of those people interested in law enforcement...
...This should be autonomous like our Federal Reserve Banks, and with power to increase or decrease wages and prices according to merit...
...This is almost worse than thoughtless conseIVatism...
...I don't mind stating that people as often as not steal even a private health insurance check...
...unless we seize every opportunity to look into the Negro mind through the eyes of Negro interpreters, all our talk about "integration" is a mockery...
...it ought to be...
...WILLIAM L. BOWERS 1314 N. Schneblin Court Peoria, l11inois 61604 Water law Bibliography Dear Sirs: For readers who would like to read fur ther on the subject of water and land as discussed in "Who Runs California...
...LEILA SHELLEY ENGEL Bloomington, Indiana Doctors and Medicare Dear Sirs: There is more to the question of direct billing versus assignment in Medicare than meets the eye of an outsider, as written in "The Word from Washington" in the August Progressive...
...When we burn Vietnam villages and their inhabitants, it is sad that these people do not appreciate that we are doing this to defend them from aggression...
...Fuller if he has done much reading recently among the books they consider not boring, and whether he found that many came up to the reviewers' acclamations...
...The tribal chairman of the Southern Utes, John E. Baker, Sr., points out that because of the dams, "the vast coal reserves of the Southern Ute Tribe will be combined with industrial water to provide our tribe with a large royalty income and greatly increase employment opportunities for the tribal members...
...CORINNE ALLINSMITH Maplewood, New Jersey...
...But perhaps eventually the work of Negro writers will be "combed and filtered for evidence of disaffection" with life in America and will take its place alongside the proletarian literature of the Thirties...
...TOM DILL Lakeville, Massachusetts How to Defeat Communism Dear Sirs: I do not pretend to understand Dean Rusk's conflicting statements regarding Vietn;tm, reported in the October Progressive-one that we are willing to deescalate, the other that we will not stop until we win a military victory-but the two statements hardly seem compatible...
...Hence, I urge people to support this project...
...How often is Fitzgerald praised as one of the noted alcoholic writers of the century...
...As far as Rusk's or McNamara's statements on Vietnam policy go, they have been inaccurate so many times that it hardly seems worth while to even ask them to tell the truth at this late date...
...William Faulkner and Ralph Ellison are first-rate craftsmen...
...Air Force or more troops...
...Another Buddhist leader, Thich Thien Hoa, says, "The more American troops that come to Vietnam, the more guerillas and Vietcong there will be...
...Then at least I would get possibly something, whereas otherwise he would steal the Medicare check...
...It will be many a year before personal contact can accomplish what one gifted artist can, for individuals of both races are so armored against one another that I doubt if the shield is really pierced in a mixed marriage...
...LINDA Moss Berkeley, California Dear Sirs: Hoyt Fuller fails to realize that the critic's insidious denigration of the Negro writer, his disingenuous insistence "that men with chains on their arms and legs run the mile with seasoned and unfettered athletes without calling attention to their bonds," is merely a symptom of a deeplyrooted, peIVasive attitude homogenizing all art...
...One can be almost certain that a major portion of what the Administration says about policy in Vietnam is fictionalwhen it is not the exact reverse of the truth...
...They want peace and they want to survive...
...We must seek a proper balance between community security and personal liberty before everyone will be happy and this will take long hours and patience on our part...
...The peasants in the villages, on the contrary, do not support the war or the Ky government...
...I do, however, wish to venture the statement that de-escalation, while it might not lead to a military victory, might, nevertheless, be the best way to defeat Communism, which I am positive cannot be stamped out with bullets anyway...
...This would be language the people could understand, and he be lieves they would respond...
...The Supplement may be received by sending an envelope as above with fifteen cents in postage...
...The small minority who support the National Liberation Front do so because it seems the only alternative to the Ky-U.S...
...If everything is insured or given free, everybody wants something for nothing...
...Whatever else the 1966 elections may prove, it is clear even now that Vietnam preoccupation is effectively ruining any "Great Society" possibilities here in the United States as well as poisoning much of U.S...
...Getting Negroes in large numbers to recognize the falsity of many American values will probably have to wait until most Negroes are securely in the middle class...
...CANDICE KILKER Student, Department of Criminology California State College at Long Beach Negro Writers Dear Sirs: In response to Hoyt W. Fuller's ill-natured article, "Negro Writers and White Critics" in the October Progressive : 1. Contrary to the assumptions of black militants and many white radicals, most Negroes seem determined to enter the mainstream of middle-class America as rapidly as possible...
...FLORENCE JAMIESON Vista, California Offers Back Issues Dear Sirs: I have copes of The Progressive from October, 1961 to the present, with only the November, 1962 issue missing, which I would like to give to someone (or some institution) with a use for them...
...Three-Stop inflation with an office of price control...
...It is an experience we do not know and most urgently need to know...
...alliance...
...My authority for the above statement can be found in the September 1 issue of Concern magazine, in an article by Thich Nhat Hahn, the Buddhist monk and social worker who recently visited the United States...
...Four-A living wage for everybody...
...The Negro as subject and interpreter is the most important source from which white Americans should now be seeking the vicarious life experience that creative writing affords...
Vol. 30 • December 1966 • No. 12
