THE PEOPLE'S FORUM
THE PEOPLE'S FORUM Mayer and the Pope Dear Sirs: Milton Mayer was never more eloquent, angry, and penetrating in his prophet's role than in "No Holier than Thou" in the February issue. I plan...
...Thomas Broderick Schenectady, New York 'Our Half of the Truth' Dear Sirs: I find myself (regrettably) in sympathy with the comments of J. W. Crichton in "The People's Forum" in the February issue where he criticized The Progressive's "oversimplified and lopsided treatment of the Vietnam war...
...The Concerned Voters of Beverly Hills 202 N. Beverly Drive Beverly...
...Perhaps the least inaccurate estimates are those prepared by the U.N...
...Bernard Kltjehe Walla Walla, Washington No Substitute Dear Sirs: Congratulations on printing a wonderful magazine...
...Crichton...
...But he never applied for sick leave from the army of the Lord...
...The many advantages of this include encouraging people to become politically active and the opening of channels of communication by serving as a catalyst for discussions on a local level...
...If we cannot turn away from our present unprofitable course, we will not only send more ugly Americans abroad, we will be continuing the risk of creating an ugly America at home...
...Meanwhile we shall have some small part of the bishop to tide us over in his monthly Spectator letters, at the hands of friends who are preparing them for printing and binding...
...Thein Wah San Antonio, Texas Questions Arab Data Dear Sirs: In his December issue article, "The New Arab Refugees," Don Peretz says the Arabs who fled twenty years ago amounted "to more than 700,000...
...Hot Ticket, Weighty Friend, Young Turk—Norman Whitney was more than a delight to Quakerism (to its theology, its religion, and its literature), to the work and prayer of the American Friends Service Committee for peace and social justice, to the Syracuse Peace Council, to the Friends World Institute, and to the life of humane letters...
...The knowledge of the existence of such talent in the Federal bureaucracy must, of course, be a source of satisfaction to the taxpayer...
...The fact that it exists at all is because the Americans stayed in Vietnam, thus contravening the 1954 Geneva agreement...
...Hills, California 90210 State Department Fiction Dear Sirs: The release of secret testimony by William P. Bundy before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, regarding the "Gulf of Tonkin Incident," reveals that the best fiction writers in America are probably in the U.S...
...This is a war waged by the most powerful military nation in the world against a mainly poor, peasant population...
...We would like your readers to know how deeply we admire the courage and determination of so many Americans in their efforts to end this terrible war before it becomes World War III...
...In a sense, nobody listens to him because what he says is usually so irrelevant to man...
...but it seems to me that it is the duty of a magazine like The Progressive to seek out such views so as to present a balanced spectrum...
...May you continue to exist while there are free-thinking human beings...
...But behind his genteel pince-nez was the sparkling of a soul spacious enough for sapience and nonsense...
...The first director of U.N.R.W.A...
...Government to do everything possible to bring about a cessation of hostilities...
...We urge your readers to do this in their community—we hope to see it lead to a national referendum...
...What I do see is a growing dependence of our economic system on military expenditures—fostered by a not-entirely-healthy fear of the products of the 1917 revolution, and on a failure to appreciate the genius of our revolution of 1776— and therefore a failure to maintain a belief, and a faith, in our own unique contributions to the improvement of human society...
...May we, through your columns, plead with the President that he grasp this opportunity and that he does not stipulate conditions which will prevent peace talks taking place...
...There was a lot of talk and some earnest effort on the part of the hospital people to "dig"—but in the end, nothing came of it...
...We have compiled step-by-step suggestions, which we will gladly send, for $1, to help get a referendum started...
...The "Gulf of Tonkin Incident" was, in a very real sense, a best-seller...
...They are and have always been very possessive of the neighborhood, derisive of the middle class backgrounded hippies, and they set out to "raid" the Free Store every single day...
...Father David Kirk Emmaus House New York, New York Dear Sirs: On reading Milton Mayer's article, "No Holier than Thou" in the February Progressive, I was surprised and disappointed that you saw fit to publish it...
...A group of about twelve assembled at the Free Store, and we proceeded to the hospital where we were soon joined by six or seven psychiatrists and case workers...
...Mayer's piece brings to our attention certain points we missed in our hasty reading of the encyclicals of both Paul VI and John XXIII...
...To proceed with this unjust war can only succeed in isolating America still further in the eyes of many countries and most progressive people...
...They arrived with shopping bags, taking and taking, whether they needed or not...
...A bad, sad scene...
...The place was a shambles...
...We are repelled by the barbarous and inhuman treatment meted out by one of the allegedly most humane and civilized countries of the world...
...To show their faith and profound interest, a group of Diggers sought out administrators of a nearby hospital and asked for a meeting...
...The scene in the East Village, and particularly where the Diggers are concerned, is different now—a bad scene by their own sad and bewildered admission...
...he was a necessity...
...Sylvia Ashton New York, New York Communist Line Dear Sirs: One of our local liberal ministers subscribed to your magazine for me because he felt it was the only one in which "truth" could be found concerning such things as Vietnam, politics, and other areas...
...I, too, was astounded, greatly disheartened, and highly incensed, by certain passages in Pope Paul's Christmas message...
...C. P. Stevens Escalon, California Dear Sirs: Milton Mayer's "No Holier than Thou" was one of his best pieces ever, really hardhitting—and warranted...
...Your motto is not (I hope), "our half of the truth shall make you free...
...Among these "other" are now a small number of Puerto Ricans and blacks...
...How can education programs be designed to appeal as much as "Peyton Place" or "Family Affair...
...A few Diggers took it over from the original group, who are all gone away now...
...J. A. Warner Durrington, Worthing Sussex, England Vietnam Referendum Dear Sirs: The Concerned Voters of Beverly Hills are conducting an energetic campaign to bring the issue of the Vietnam War to a vote by their community...
...Such men impregnate the world with their kind, and so propagate...
...Milton Mayer Deerfield, Massachusetts The Price of Guilt Dear Sirs: I was pleased with the perceptive article by Dr...
...I am neither a Catholic nor a member of any church, but I consider this article in poor taste, and no doubt highly objectionable to many...
...David Reese College of Medicine University of Kentucky Lexington, Kentucky Educational Television Dear Sirs: It was good to read Arthur S. Harris, Jr.'s article in the January issue on present and future television programming and his comments on educational television...
...The problem, I submit, is less that of behind-the-scenes quarreling, than lack of study of the audience which educational television is trying to reach...
...Has she been there lately...
...As a Catholic priest, I have been sick at heart at the double-talk and double-acting of Pope Paul...
...Since the Palestine Arabs have one of the world's highest birth rates, their population increase has been considerable, resulting in more than a million refugees today...
...We add our profound hope that he will act immediately...
...is causing ever-increasing suffering to all parties involved, and will almost inevitably lead to the involvement of China and a nuclear war...
...I was invited to attend...
...Yet, the sadness is that he is in a position to be a kind of moral force in the Gandhi tradition...
...The murder of Groovy and Linda caused the undercurrent of hostility from neighbors and sad despair of the hippies of the area to surface and then blanket the place...
...Charter which advocates equal rights for all peoples...
...Economic Survey Mission, which give a total figure of about 725,000 who left their homes in Israel and Israel-occupied territory as a result of the 1947-48 war...
...Of these, the Economic Survey Mission calculated that some 630,000 were in need of relief...
...Did Peretz mistake the number of Arab residents for the number of refugees...
...Mizra Khan, in an article, "The Arab Refugees: A Study in Frustration," in a symposium, The Middle East In Transition: Studies in Contemporary History, edited by Walter Z. Laqueur (1958), says: "The nearest correct approximation of the number of refugees is probably in the vicinity of 700,000...
...So, too, to the thousands who encountered him for a week as dean of a hundred Service Committee institutes and discovered in him what a full and ready man a Quaker might be...
...Many of us in Britain are thoroughly disgusted with this war...
...Certainly not because it's good for them...
...No Holier than Thou," for example, displays an unbelievable lack of understanding of the position and responsibilities of the Pope...
...However, it should be apparent that such guilt is restricted neither to students nor to the war in Vietnam...
...Don Peretz State University of New York Binghamton, New York Tribute to Norman Whitney Dear Sirs: Because Norman Whitney died as unostentatiously as he lived, many of his admirers all over America (and around the world) might come to know of his death only after a period of many months...
...But until producers of educational shows understand and work toward wide audience appeal the small amount of money they have might as well be returned to well-intentioned donors...
...One cannot but admire the uncanny precision with which minute details of the sequence of events were described, in all likelihood at least two months before the incident did not take place...
...We shall see his likes again...
...I used to find Mayer's articles interesting and worthwhile, but now it seems to me that success may have "gone to his head...
...It is most deplorable, and discouraging...
...The civilian casualties far outnumber the military ones...
...Milton Mayer also tends to grate on my nerves as he does on those of Mr...
...We support those Americans who are protesting against their country's Vietnam policy...
...The U.N...
...Arthur H. Washburn New Hope, Pennsylvania Dear Sirs: Milton Mayer's "No Holier than Thou," in the February issue, is a striking blow (if I may use so "violent" an expression) to the mealy-mouthed, vague generalities that are frequently sacrificed upon the altar of religiosity...
...After the murder of the two kids, some of the Diggers were quoted as saying a lot of people there needed help—medical, psychiatric—but didn't know how to get it...
...The window was smashed...
...The Free Store was the focal point of all kinds of violence...
...My esteem for him has lessened considerably...
...I have read nothing better during the past two years...
...He traveled and talked and wrote—and did the dishes and mopped the floor—as if he was indefatigable...
...As an alumnus (I fought forest fires, helped build soil conservation dams) of that successful organization, I look with dismay at what appears to be a growing inability on the part of my Federal Government to offer anything comparable for the idle (unemployed or turned off) youth of today...
...C. Owens Robinson, Illinois...
...He was seventy-six when, last spring, a teenager who spent a weekend at a conference with him characterized him as "a hot ticket...
...In view of the latest offer by the Pope to act as mediator, I hope you will urge your readers to encourage the U.S...
...It never did...
...E. Thorpe Old Canton, Norwich Norfolk, England Dear Sirs: Despite a friendly personal attitude between the people of this country and the United States, the policy of the U.S...
...When I questioned this figure, I was referred to the April, 1963, Foreign Affairs article, "The Arab Refugees," by Don Peretz...
...Leading members of the U.S...
...He was fatigued...
...And, as usual, his wit provoked some good laughs...
...However accurate that may or may not have been previously, it is certainly not true today, when North Vietnam has officially stated not merely that it might, but that it will, negotiate if the bombing and other acts of war against it ceases...
...Dennis J. Frailey West Lafayette, Indiana Britons Protest Vietnam War Dear Sirs: A few months ago we six Members of Parliament were invited to America, where we expressed the wish of millions of British people that your Government should end the bombing of North Vietnam...
...Ian Mikardo, Frank Allaun, John Mendelson, Stanley Orme, Norman Atkinson, Russell Kerr House of Commons London, England Dear Sirs : I am writing to protest the American Government's role in the Vietnam war and to point out to your readers the growing opposition to this war in many countries throughout the world...
...The Free Store had to be abandoned by the people who started it because of the corruption that leaked in and finally overwhelmed them all...
...Reverend Stephen H. Fritchman Los Angeles, California Dear Sirs: In his February issue article, "No Holier than Thou," Milton Mayer put into words what so many of us have been thinking...
...It takes only one leader and one lawyer to begin...
...With his words, the Pope has become, to a degree, a partisan...
...It is a crime against humanity and an infringement of the U.N...
...It has been estimated that more than a million children have been killed, burned, or wounded so far...
...Being now in my seventh year of 2-S deferment, I can testify to the reality of my guilt because of non-involvement...
...There is no substitute for the truth...
...Maida Steinberg Chicago, Illinois Ugly America Dear Sirs: Remember the Civilian Conservation Corps of the 1930s...
...I have enjoyed the educational programs within their limits, and I certainly agree that they are aimed toward an audience which is already concerned with the blighting effects of Vietnam, the problems of the Negro minority, medical and cosmetic quackery, bad education, and worse housing...
...The neighborhood has always been home to Ukranians, Poles, Italians, and a sprinkling of what social workers call "other...
...I don't know the answer to the problem of building a public, but it must certainly lie in a deeper understanding of the hoped-for audience...
...In view of his background and training I believe the Pope acts much as one would expect...
...Such actions are hardly likely to commend "our" way of life to others...
...To this number, the natural increase since 1948 should be added...
...Mayer doesn't have that much responsibility...
...Although I disagree with Mayer in that I believe the Pope's call for an end to the bombing as a step toward negotiations in Vietnam is specific, not vague, I agree that some of the other language Mayer cites is too general...
...They were sure that in time the real meaning of "freedom" would get through to their invaders...
...But the gestation is slow, and the progeny may be separated by a generation, or a continent, from the parent...
...Surely there are intelligent, qualified liberals whose views on the Vietnam war lean toward those of the present Administration...
...Much greater magnanimity is required to make peace than to make war, so no humiliation in the eyes of the world need be feared, or at least of that section whose opinion the United States would respect...
...If so, he should say "less than 560,000 who fled twenty years ago...
...Since the British government had not conducted a census of Arabs since the 1930's, its population statistics, which served as the basis for determining the number of refugees, were also based on estimates...
...The wind-up was more or less climaxed by the double murder...
...I thought you would like to know...
...Sidney Koretz Arlington, Virginia Peretz Replies Dear Sirs: There is great confusion about the numbers of Arab refugees because a complete census of Palestine Arab refugees was never conducted...
...Administration with regard to the war in Vietnam is occasioning increasing criticism and unpopularity...
...However, in making my own informal survey of taxi drivers, workers in the housing complex where I live, household helpers, store clerks, and others, I must agree that Public Broadcast Laboratory, National Educational Television, and other educational efforts have had little or no effect on the viewing habits of most of the hoped-for audience...
...referred to the '600,000 refugees' in November 1950...
...Robert B. Padley Shawnee Mission, Kansas Dear Sirs: It would seem likely that Milton Mayer's "Holier than Thou," in the February issue, will come as a real shocker to many readers...
...But he wasn't...
...He died suddenly December 1 in the German-town, Philadelphia, apartment he shared with his sister Mildred...
...Perhaps such persons are less vocal since their views are more in accordance with current policies...
...From some of his articles, I don't think he could handle it...
...A footnote at this point says "Gabbay, op...
...Administration told us that they, too, wanted peace but could find no willingness on the other side for negotiations...
...But Christopher Sykes, in Crossroads to Israel, says, "By the end of 1948 the number of Arabs within the area of Israel had diminished from somewhere between 700,000 and 750,000 to about 167,000...
...Conciliation Commission accepted the figure of 711,000, and an analysis of the population records of the Palestine Mandatory government shows the total Arab population of what is now Israel at less than 800,000, of whom 180,000 are now [1958] in Israel, leaving little more than 610,000 refugees...
...Seymour Halleck, "Students and the Draft," in the February issue...
...The U.N...
...The New York Times gave 725,000 as the number of Palestine refugees in 1948...
...I feel that ordinary people cannot realize just what is being done there in the name of America...
...I'm certainly glad Mr...
...An oak is down, and the woods aren't full of them...
...The bishop" had the contour and carriage classically appropriate to his nickname...
...However, there are others who are much worse, such as the late Cardinal Spellman, with his holy justification of the Vietnam war, and Billy Graham with his expressed desire to stay out of "political issues" like peace and justice (although he did recently step in enough to say that Nixon is the most qualified man the Republicans have...
...A. Smits New York, New York Dear Sirs: Thanks for printing Milton Mayer's excellent article in the February issue entitled, "No Holier than Thou...
...Marian Playfoot Chester Cheshire, England Dear Sirs: Are your readers aware how much good will America is losing among its former friends because of the vile war it is waging in Vietnam...
...Economic Survey, which studied the problem thoroughly in 1949, put the figure of Arab refugees in need of relief at 635,000...
...After a few articles, the same line is evident, almost to the point that I believe you must have been vaccinated with the same phonograph needle...
...and, thereby, has considerably lessened his great potential as a mediator of the world's quarrels...
...In what name can such a loss be justified...
...Although we respect the ideals of protecting the weak and stemming totalitarian power, which motivated the war in the first place, we realize that its continuance is totally failing to achieve these aims...
...From there on, all was lost...
...All the American people bought it...
...The Diggers were cool and beautiful...
...It is high time someone had the temerity to voice what many of us have been thinking every time we pick up our daily newspaper and read Pope Paul's statements on peace...
...Generally, estimates presented by Israelis or those favoring the Israeli position tend to diminish the number of Arabs living in Palestine at the end of the mandate, and Arab figures tend to enlarge this number...
...State Department...
...I believe that all of us who are not fully involved with ameliorating the inequalities of our society, be they in the fields of economics, education, or human rights, must pay the price of guilt...
...Calculation of refugee figures has been based on estimates of xhe number of Arabs in mandatory Palestine...
...I plan to read some of these scorching words in my pulpit and hope they will be accepted as scripture along with Jeremiah...
...Jack Knudson Palo Alto, California The Diggers Dear Sirs: Nora Sayre's piece on the New York Diggers in your December issue reads like all the superficial—and sensational—pieces that appear in the popular media about East Village...
...The glamor and excitement cost money...
...However, after looking over several issues, I find that it is not much different from the information in the Northwest edition of the People's World—the West Coast Communist weekly paper...
...Surely not in the name of freedom or Western democracy...
...How can educational television make viewers of standard programs want to "kick the habit" of their regular fare and glamor personalities and turn to something new...
Vol. 32 • March 1968 • No. 3
