THE EDITOR RESERVES THE LAST COLUMN
The Editor Reserves The Last Column THE REPORTS that ours is not a "singing army," that the boys in service are coolly efficient rather than passionately enthusiastic, that they are not drenching...
...It is fuzzy in spots, curiously mystical in others, and sometimes contradictory...
...Your greatness . . . can come back...
...It is your job to see that he hears that declaration...
...Action can restore you to your prime...
...By free enterprise he does not mean what the National Association of Manufacturers means—the'system of monopoly control and scarcity economics which has prevailed during this century—but an economy allowed full rein to put—as Stuart Chase has said so well—men first and money second...
...Mr...
...But, everything considered, he has performed a great public service in formulating and presenting so eloquently the supreme issue of our time—the need for releasing our economy from bondage to scarcity thinking and creating an economy of abundance which alone can provide economic security and political freedom...
...Herridge is an internationalist, but he recognizes that "if there is no constructive purpose in the national sphere, there can be none in the international...
...front must find a new faith and declare a new purpose...
...Mr...
...The common man himself is stirring towards action...
...They are beginning to use their strength...
...Not the man who is so very rich that nothing but his money thinks for him...
...A New Force' . This fundamental change, which he regards as nothing less than revolution—to be achieved, he hopes, by peaceful means—is essential if democracy is to be re-invigorated for the struggle, against those who have fascist designs...
...There is no push-the-button solution," he asserts...
...Democracy is not performing as it should on the battlefront because it is not performing as it should on the home front...
...He emphasizes the need for bold, fighting leadership and for an aroused electorate willing to slug it out with reaction...
...Nor he whose unearned poverty has turned his outlook into dull despair...
...Herridge occasionally shrinks from his own thinking: and shows a tendency to duck practical considerations...
...Many talk expansively about the postwar relationship of nations, but never say a word about the economic foundation of that relationship...
...He thinks he sees "a new force" in Democracy which must assert itself and conduct the peaceful revolution he envisions...
...That new force is you, the citizen halfway between the top and the bottom...
...Which Kind Of Revolution...
...If we have an economic system in which the individual has no voice or power, can we have a political system in which the individual is sovereign ?" This reasoning leads the author, in his quest for total use, to embrace the system of free enterprise...
...Therefore, the home...
...The home front must keep before our soldiers the knowledge of what they fight for, and must make them see that as they fight, they build, and that as they build, they 3teadily come closer to their heart's desire...
...You have been so docile that you believe reaction's foolish lie that want and unemployment are inescapable routine...
...is one of the most provocative books of the war...
...The Supreme Issue Herridge displays a sort of curious awe for Stalinist Russia and writes enthusiastically of Soviet progress, but he rejects communism for us...
...When leadership declares the need for revolution, you may be sure the common man will be ready with a great amen...
...M.H.R...
...But the people of the middle...
...they are building castles in the air...
...He believes passionately that a resurgent democracy must stake everything on the abolition of scarcity economics and the substitution of a breathtaking program of total use—with all barriers to total production wiped away in order to banish want and unemployment...
...You have left the battlefield to greed and stupidity...
...The war, he reminds us, has removed not a single injustice, and "not only are discontent, confusion, frustration, and bitterness as strong as ever...
...He insists on political freedom along with economic security and argues, too, for a free economy...
...In Which Kind Of Revolution?, the stimulating little book I discussed last week, William Herridge put it this way: "If your country means to you new hope, new happiness, if it means a democracy that works, then you rush out and attack so that these things may come fast to you...
...It is your job to bring your immense authority to bear on democratic leadership...
...The Editor Reserves The Last Column THE REPORTS that ours is not a "singing army," that the boys in service are coolly efficient rather than passionately enthusiastic, that they are not drenching themselves with idealism about the postwar world but worrying about getting home and landing a job—all this, plus the undercurrent of suppressed concern at home about that "inevitable" depression-illustrate a fundamental lack of faith in the future...
...Herridge, a Canadian lawyer who has been doing a lot of quiet thinking, is ready with his new faith and new purpose...
...Herridge is rather hazy about the political translation of his economic objective into reality...
...He fears excessive government control because the "old order" may capture and control the government, and, in fact, he appears to fear nothing so much as the present growth of the "fascist front" in the United States and Great Britain...
...You have gone soft...
Vol. 7 • November 1943 • No. 48
