THE PEOPLE'S FORUM
. . . THE PEOPLE'S FORUM . . . By Owen Favors Third Party Dear Sirs: I am in favor of a third party. To me polities and church are one and the same thing. I believe that the Democratic and...
...For many decades political scientists have worked to build up a better appreciation of the civil service, and to awaken in their students a sense of obligation of citizenship...
...The Council, having endorsed the cause, should not repudiate the effects...
...It is estimated that nearly a million are trade union members . . .Any time a labor dispute is reported, the published version, with few exceptions, is colored in favor of the employer...
...He himself had been in government posts as a young man...
...In warfare, it means one thing, but I am confident our democratic senses will respond vigorously against it as a "way of life...
...The new popular idea of voting for the man and not the party has left the common voter without even the party principles to guide him in his choice...
...This makes a third party essential, a party which stands for the progressive principles desired by the common people and on whose platform they can vote for the men to carry them out...
...Du Bois, Penna...
...I, too, once took a seminar under Frankfurter and found him a warm and stimulating teacher precisely because of his intimate technique...
...Rodell left unsaid, I have to remember your lack of space...
...How can scholarship and mental culture flourish in this sort of national environment...
...7 is evidence...
...Maurice E. Sherman, Sr...
...We hear on the radio that we raised more farm produce in 1943 than in .1942, but the final Government reports do not confirm it...
...that he abhors bureaucracy, regimentation, and the forcible suppression of our people's talent for organization...
...Now Wisconsin readers can understand this, and the existence of resentment to it, because precisely the same attacks are made on Wisconsin graduates in such fields as labor and social security administration...
...Other values have had to take back seats, and the results become evident all over...
...Church Must Repent Dear Sirs: The Federal Council of Churches deplores the appalling increase in delinquency among the nation's youth, especially among young girls...
...Fred Rodell Yale Law School New Haven, Conn...
...However, in this connection, I would like to ask him this question: Even if it were possible to set up a world government on the basis of equal representation, would we then create a real democratic setup...
...J. F. Schlosser Sunnyside, Wash...
...A man is no good for the armed forces who is over 38 years old...
...And any teacher worth his salt follows up such students, encourages them, advises them, helps them get jobs...
...His front page article cf Feb...
...I would agree with that statement if by communism was meant progressive democracy in which government is controlled by the peopl: in furtherance of their interests...
...Proof of how vital this method has been to special interests is the fact that several years ago —; when church leaders formed a Council to promote economic and progressive thought—one of our leading magazines, the American, carried a lengthy article exposing the Council as a hot-bed of communism...
...We were glad to sec Bob La Follette vote for the right of the troops to cast their ballots in November...
...Pvt...
...I do not think the common voter has any part in choosing party candidates...
...As Mrs...
...What Prof...
...15 issue...
...R. S. Cpl...
...They tell us that we are going to raise more this year than last, but it will be short of a miracle if we do for the country is stripped of manpower...
...The farmer is sure getting the rap from the New Deal...
...Fred Rodell's Reply To Prof...
...Ro-dell's insinuations, quite unsolicited and out of the blue—a warm ar.d encouraging letter...
...Give us the simplex binder...
...When the time of need comes, there they are...
...Yes, Premier Stalin has prepared his people for another sudden change: He has announced more independence to the 16 republics after the war is won...
...A final word...
...John M. Gaus Political Science Dept...
...Now it is evident beyond controversy that war and vice hold to each other the inexorable, scientific relationship of cause and effect...
...and later still, at a time of difficulty and conflict for me, there came—and I had better say to offset Prof...
...Wants A Binder Dear Sirs: Stuart Chase is one of the really big men of our time...
...H. T. L. Fort Dix, N. J. * * * Pass this Paper On...
...For a long time they received little help and much discouragement from the law schools, with a few honorable exceptions...
...I have talked with many CIO United Automobile Workers, the union to which I belong, and they all say that Bob would make a great President...
...Read Myself, by John R. Commons, for the picture of a professor of economics who pioneered here in these fields 40 years ago, aroused students to the challenge of these problems, accumulated a fund of knowledge and insight that was a national resource, encouraged his students, helped them get jobs, advised them...
...W. G. Washington, D. C. * * * Honest Picture Dear Sirs: Comdr...
...They might better appreciate who their real friends in the Government are...
...Ada Ferguson Santa Cruz, Calif...
...I am in favor of a farm policy whereby the small farmer can acquire the land and equipment to operate a family-sized farm at a decent profit without being shut out by the ever-increasing corporation form of farm production...
...We had a very erratic season last Spring with excess rain and a very late start in planting...
...Frankfurter's seminar, in Administrative Law, in 1919-20...
...The editorial appeared in the Jan...
...far from being one of the "abler students" whom Prof...
...One of the most vicious weapons used by reactionary forces to control • public opinion has been the prostitution of the clergy by political pressure from vested interests...
...If it were not for the local matter in our dailies here, I should help the paper shortage at once by dropping them in disgust...
...I came away from the seminar with a genuine respect for his ability as a teacher and scholar, and gratitude for the assistance he generously gave to one unfamiliar with many things that the other and better equipped students had acquired in their law course...
...Mrs...
...This is not new...
...H. W. Rice Toulon, 111...
...Soldiers, generally, are concerned about this unfair carping...
...But after all, the matter of soldier opinion and its alleged vitality is a straw man...
...National Scandal Dear Sirs: Throughout, the reading in the dozen pages of The Progressive, issued once a week, contains more sound and truthful information than may be found in six issues of the average daily newspaper, containing anywhere from 10 to 20 pages per day...
...It is my firm and sincere-belief that Lt...
...J. J. M. Fort Mason, Calif...
...Dear Sirs: A lot of the boys in my outfit are beginning to resent the manner in which the public takes for granted the charge that the seldiers are anti-labor...
...Inside the Army, a soldier's opinion is worthless...
...Burbank once said, "If we paid as little attention to our fruit trees as society gives to her children, we would have nothing left but a jungle of weeds...
...There are no independent avenues of education, expression, or activity...
...If it does not, and the future of the world's children is not secure, then the war is lost and the Hitlerites and other hogmen will have won their war of greed...
...In fact we were short about 500,000,000 bushels of grain...
...L. D. Pfc...
...Gaus' friendly letter of reproach to which I would take exception...
...And why...
...Most of them are working men...
...As in the present case, such drives are based on half-truths, omissions, and a paternalistic 'This hurts me more than it does you' attitude...
...Keep telling the truth with no holds barred...
...Robert M. La Follette, Jr., who was responsible for getting the pay of the private raised from $30 to $50 a month...
...It was at Yale University that he delivered, in 1930, in the Yale Lectures on the Responsibilities of Citizenship, four lectures on "The Public and Its Government...
...But Prof...
...Hutchins And Frivolity Dear Sirs: Especially intriguing in The Progressive of Feb...
...The press has conveyed this impression to the people, but I 1'iought you might like to know that nobody, not even the highest officials, speaking on national networks, has the right to speak for us if he says we are anti-labor...
...La Follette could be elected by the Progressive forces of America if we could only start this movement going...
...We seem to be living in an age of deceit and deception...
...At this rate, we should have 13,600,-000 in the armed services...
...But the principle of conscription is one thing we know well, since it governs our lives...
...21 is the reference by that fearless educator, Robert M. Hutchins, to the universal worship in American universities of the goddess of frivolity...
...Is there any plasma in Wisconsin ? A. B. Walton Cleveland, O. 'Nauseating' Dear Sirs: It is certainly refreshing to read in your paper views of men expressing what we have always believed were Christian views, regarding our enemies, personal or national...
...The underlying cause goes deeper into the roots of American living...
...that we are growing, developing, evolving humans, traveling along the long road of progress, we will begin to cease being mental and emotional children...
...The war will likely contribute something to that end...
...It needs a very handy, simple, cheap, and attractive binder so that it can be easily read and preserved for reference...
...I believe that the Democratic and Republican Parties are both infested with reactionary and Tory elements to the extent that they can control or stop progressive action in Congress...
...It Will Make New Friends...
...At the primaries he has to guess at the least evil ones...
...Adele DeWitt Burlingame, Calif...
...I wish you could hear the reaction of some of the boys to the awful stuff they have to listen to on the radio every night...
...14, I wish to comment on the article entitled "Draft Lt...
...in fact, what he taught was more government than law...
...The Council's lament reminds one of the ancient ditty, "Mother, mother, may I go out to swim ? Yes, my darling daughter, hang your clothes on a hickory limb, and don't go near the water...
...The government could provide land to individual farmers, collecting rent in the form of taxes...
...In our county of 8,000, 10 per cent are in the armed forces...
...Service Men Speak Soldiers Anti-Labor...
...I think of him, rather, as one who, like the late Frederick Jackson Turner, was a great teacher and made that year of graduate study something of permanent value to me...
...But there is an important aspect of Prof...
...There was a slight raise in soy beans, peanuts, and other producing seeds...
...Blanche Hammond Ives New Haven, Conn...
...Transfusions Needed Radio "is in urgent need of moral transfusions...
...Russia is down on old-style power politics...
...And the country of my origin, Britain, I'm sorry to say, isn't much better, but it seems they do object and are stopping the degrading jitterbug dancing...
...It appeals for greater efforts of churches, schools, and social agencies to combat the rising, aye, leaping tides of vice...
...Can we boast of that after the war is won...
...Nyna Hunt Rockford, HI...
...Pasadena, Calif...
...I know he would be a fine choice because, like his father, he is for the working man and the good old U. S. A. without a lot of foreign entanglements...
...As for the Soviet Union, one is obligated to recognize that it took a long stride forward in th^ October 1917 Revolution when industry, agriculture, and other forms of national wealth were socialized...
...And, incidentally, I find it hard to believe that Prof...
...But, writing to express oneself to such papers is waste of time and effort, for they are never printed, while these hysterical, vengeful ones occupy valuable space every day...
...University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis...
...He also demanded, "Why call me Lord, and do not the things that I say ?" About the treatment of our enemies for instance...
...Or do we again parade 10,000,000 unemployed and doles and hand-outs for them and beggars by the thousands ? Let these critics of Russia wake up...
...The Council has cause to lament...
...The soldier, who is a working man in khaki, asks that both sides be given an even break before going off half-cocked with misleading hate-producing articles...
...Rodell asserts were alone of interest to Prof...
...Children are the nation's most sacred possession, deserving first consideration above man and all his re-sources...
...Frankfurter's teaching, long before the collapse of job opportunities for young law school graduates, and we are grateful to him for his help, just as informed and thoughtful people are grateful to John R. Commons...
...neither for nor against, but certainly apprehensive...
...Pvt...
...J. B. Fenner Pittsburgh, Penna...
...A. H. A. P. O. 500 San Francisco, Calif...
...I wish every man in service could know that fact...
...Strange that there are still readers of The Progressive who are retarding prog ress by their incomprehensible non sense charging Russia with enmity to Mr...
...We love Mrs...
...Frankfurter is on record...
...Much of the talk you hear is to the-effect that both sides, the Republicans and the Democrats, were playing politics with the issue, and that is probably the truth...
...Of course, this is a small matter when we consider production in billions of bushels and is not anything to be alarmed about...
...Opposition I don't see how you people expect your subscribers to renew their subscriptions when you work tooth and nail against the most progressive President this country ever had...
...Willkie, antagonism toward Poland, and the story of a British-German separate peace, which later was evidently published as a hoax to sn%>ke out the truth or stupidity in it...
...Phil For President' Dear Sirs: Referring to The Progressive of Feb...
...Labor Conscription Dear Sirs: So far as I can see, the reaction of soldier opinion (which is expressly disorganized) to the Presidential demand for labor conscription is one of shock...
...Nor does he even purport to counter my emphasis on the personal angle...
...At Yale, too, he welcomed government students into his course along with law students...
...He is kind enough to recognize that I could not crowd into two short paragraphs the whole story of Felix Frankfurter's life and his teaching...
...Mars is god and the soldier is his symbol, churches and schools have given their all, and the hapless youngsters reason, why shouldn't they...
...Either for lack of clear insight into the significance and implications of the socialism established as the main outcome of the Revolution, or f-r the maintenance of its own prestige and power, the present leadership of Russia has consistently suppressed the establishment of people's revolutions for socialism in other nations—as witnessed in China, in Spain during the Civil War, and in its reflected policy in the Communist Party in the United States...
...Frankfurter's career that has to do with the public service...
...Gaus, regardless of his technical field, was not one of the abler men in Frankfurter's class...
...For instead of insisting that their leadership, their teachings, and their methods were adequate to guide humanity in dire distress, church and school tacitly confessed themselves bereft of the ability to contribute any important guidance for stormy weather, and were simply Summer guides...
...The Farmer Takes The Rap Dear Sirs: Since 1909 we have had one World War and the second is now in progress...
...I am opposed to corporation or chain farms as tending to make slaves of the laborers...
...F. G. Hoefel Jacksonville, Fla...
...As a result in part, some of the finest college men of my own undergraduate days went there...
...Seely has given us an honest picture of the difficulties of winning out in the Pacific...
...And for one who did not come to the United States till 1923, it is also refreshing to read views of American born people, who are alarmed at the antics of present-day Administration tactics, launch-ng us unprepared into such a major war as this one and already doing things abroad that obviously will bring on a far worse World War III...
...D. W. Lawson Canton, N. Y. * * * Defends Soviet Regime Dear Sirs: I would like to reply to "The So viet Puzzle" by P. Stockton Stevens in the Forum for Jan...
...Let's elect Bob La Follette President...
...We could pick no better man than Bob La Follette...
...Is it not a fact that through shortsightedness or lack of real unselfishness, we could allow our world constitution to- permit the practice of economic special privilege which would make ineffective the real democratic arrangement you propose...
...Note must be taken of the way certain periodicals reaching soldiers have begun a campaign against labor...
...The rent in general is so high that the renter is lucky to get by at all...
...Nelson Bros...
...So we see, agricultural America is furnishing more than her just share...
...Gratifying To Hitler' Dear Sirs: Why do you not ask Hitler to subscribe for your paper...
...Bob For President Dear Sirs: I am a shop worker and I know that what we workers need is a President who is for labor...
...They are all of a piece—a concerted, highly organized program which has one main objective—fascism...
...La Follette," which was written by A. E. Gauthier of Corona Del Mar, Calif...
...Pass this Paper On...
...Work for all the people all the time...
...To see it reach epidemic proportions on the outside is another thing...
...When I became an instructor at Amherst a year later, and organized my first—and an early—course in the relatively new field in Public Administration, I sent him a copy of my outline, and received a helpful and heartening response...
...The Progressive is great, but its influence would be vastly greater if it were given a certain permanence and made convenient for reading and reference...
...Can you possibly believe the American people and organized labor so dumb they can be fooled by the mixture of truths, half truths, and misrepresentations in your paper or that these can justify to the mind of the American people the subversive and treasonable actions of Congress ? Congress has never failed to pass every bit of anti-labor legislation possible...
...But the good teacher does not necessarily become the good judge...
...Awake To The Dawn' Dear Sirs: Discrimination and persecution of Jews and Negroes, the fostering and maintenance of international monopolies and the cartel system, and vicious attacks on organized labor's attempts to better its economic position are all woven into the same cloth...
...He has no way of knowing the candidate personally...
...He ascribes football as the chief cause of this "colossal" frivolity...
...The "soak the poor" tax bill, while excusing the rich, the failure to pass an adequate tax bill, the failure to repeal the poll tax, the failure to support measures necessary to adjust ourselves to war conditions, must all be gratifying to Hitler...
...Yours for unconditional surrender of the Axis...
...Let us assume what remains to be proven, namely that the average serviceman is anti-labor...
...Deceptive and genuinely false information dished out to the American public by our daily newspapers is becoming nothing short of a national scandal...
...Gaus Dear Sirs: There is almost nothing in Prof...
...Pvt...
...The first and last are addressed to the challenging new problem of government and the need of developing our civil service...
...Probably when we start realizing that we are more than two-legged animals...
...When faced with evil rampant they abdicated leadership under the aegis and teachings of Jesus, the Prince of Peace—not of war-evacuated their institutions and with abject obsequiousness invited Mars to enter and occupy...
...But . on the farm anyone under 75 is considered to be a full hand and able to handle 20 to 30 units as laid out by the New Deal lawyers...
...Rodell of the Yale Law School makes some statements concerning the conduct of Justice Frankfurter as a member of the Harvard Law School faculty which I know from my own experience to be untrue, and by omitting important and relevant facts he is in my opinion unjust...
...I was a member of Prof...
...He has followed the British precedent with its independent colonies, and will still further give all these Russian republics more independence and self-government after peace has been won...
...Perhaps your readers might be interested in the following excerpts from the mid-Pacific Army newspaper in Hawaii...
...Science teaches that like produces like, and the greatest Scientist, the fount of all wisdom, taught that men would struggle vainly to make figs proceed from thistles or grapes from thorns...
...The military says he can't take it...
...The personal relationship with students which helps make the good teacher—a relationship in which the teacher, for all his friendliness, remains constantly and subtly the boss, the master—cannot be carried over into dealings with men who are at least his peers...
...But are Britain and other parts of Europe ? August Ruedy Cleveland, O. * * * Hits F.D.R...
...Frankfurter has unsuccessfully tried to carry it over, and that — plus his resentment at his failure-is one big reason why he has proved a liability rather than an asset to the Court as an institution...
...What good will appeals by the church, school, or forum do at this late hour...
...B. M. Camp Croft, S. C. * * * Soldier Vote Politicians Dear Sirs: We like The Progressive better than any other magazine we get...
...I Carl P. Cummins ' Clio, Mich...
...Until the church repents and brings to pass a time visioned by the prophet, "Yet shall not thy teachers be moved into a corner any more— and thy ears shall hear a word behind thee saying, 'this is the way, walk ye in it,' " until then the power of the church to make friends and influence youth will be nil...
...Why ? Because so many of our graduates hold responsible posts and wield influence in these fields—one has only to mention Alt-meyer, Witte, or Raushenbush...
...Missed Us Dear Sirs: During the recent holiday rush I missed two of your issues through non-delivery by the postman, which brought home to me how much this interesting paper has grown on us...
...It begins to appear evident now that its program of confusion and distortion of the truth in matters relating immediately to the inter ests of the party officialdom will not and cannot dupe much longer the rank and file of labor and the eco nomically and politically enlighten ed members of the middle and up per classes...
...It was entitled "Soldiers Are Workingmen Too...
...If the expressions of feelings, judging from letters to a certain San Francisco metropolitan daily, are Christian, then I prefer to be a pagan...
...Cpl...
...We can say more precisely that he is anti-army...
...Henry G. Newell Rome, Penna...
...Someone has said that the struggle in the world today is essentially one of fascism as opposed to communism...
...Because he can do it with the economy they put in practice there...
...True to some extent no doubt, but without football, there would be other means of being frivolous...
...La Follette so ably puts it, ". . . the Administration is playing with dynamite, when it outrages the well-springs of the human spirit...
...The appeal makes one "furiously to think" because months ago the Council formally endorsed the war with what amounted to its imprimatur on the ghastly business...
...The national hysteria from the late and delayed revelations of Japanese atrocities is nauseating...
...Our youth is weakening the moral and physical fiber of the nation, and youth is convinced that war, the destroyer of moral and physical well-being, dominates church, school, and forum...
...Talk of voting rights is a little alien, since most soldiers are young and undisciplined in parliamentary processes...
...La Follette's friendly, sensible contributions, Fred Rodell's forthright, and I fear, waning America firstism, Hanighen, Howard, Seely, and in fact the entire paper is interesting and inspiring...
...Why ? "Favoritism" ? "Acolytes...
...The manner of handling the soldier vote bill and the subsidy program which is vital to the war economy, is a disgrace to the nation...
...You see, the anti-democratic traditions of the militarism we know make us think that regimentation is natural and productive inside the military structure...
...At present the majority of farmers doing the actual farming are renters or hired help...
...It is imperative we who are vitally concerned with the progress and welfare of all men awake to the dawn of democratic socialism before the black night of fascist slavery engulfs us all...
...Pfc...
...That was my point...
...As long as drafting seems to be in order throughout the nation, why do not the American people exercise their God-given constitutional rights by drafting a man who has already proven himself to be an honest-to-God all around American of real leader ability...
...Elmer A. Arestad Aneta, N. Dak...
...and that same attitude and interest drew them to such teachers as Frankfurter...
...However, I would disagree if communism was identified with the attitude and actions of the present regime in Russia—a regime which has little but contempt for democratic progressivism...
...When I think of the relevant things Prof...
...he was one of the few law school teachers who conveyed to students the importance of government and the civil service, just as Harvard Law School was one of the few law schools — almost the only one — which 30 years ago recognized the obligation of university men to public service as well as private vocational success...
...John Farley Patagonia, Ariz...
...American youth has been largely brought up and fostered on beer, swing, juke boxes and irresponsible pursuit of excitement...
...but as I was engaged in graduate studies in government, and had been a civil servant, he admitted me...
...Question For Mayer Dear Sirs: I think Milton Mayer's article, "America Second," is a very clear statement of a very important principle on which peace in a future world must be based...
...quite the contrary...
...It is as if a group of men who are isolated victims of a scientific ordeal (regimentation) witness an epidemic of the disease they have been subjected to suddenly run rampant outside the laboratory...
...Over-production of hogs and nobody to absorb it on account of rationing...
...Rodell sees as a matter of "acolytes," we in public administration see as a long-time principle in Prof...
...We buy at ceiling prices and sell on a straw-floor market...
...Emancipate The Children Dear Sirs: Is this war, the greatest human slaughter of all time, going to emancipate the children of this world ? If it is the only way to free innocent children from future wars, panics, poverty, disease, and injustice, which have in the centuries past caused all the suffering and taken the lives of millions of children around the world, then this war will be a blessing in that respect, to all future humanity...
...Frankfurter, I was not*' enrolled in the Law School and had no legal training at all...
...Church and school languish today under the dreary sign of Icha-bod—the glory and prestige have departed — and the youngsters all sense the fact, and are giving frightful evidence they know it...
...So why is it important what soldier opinion (as interpreted by paid experts) means when directed toward civilian developments...
...There would be no limit to it...
...Dissenting View On Frankfurter Dear Sirs: Prof...
...And this is especially needed for libraries, reading rooms, study clubs, and camps...
...Childhood emancipation will give birth to greater nations and greater humanity...
...I have often asked thinking American friends, "What happened and when to these United States, to bring about such a state of affairs all over the country...
...It's not right that the farmers should take $2.00 a hundred less for their hogs than a year ago when feed and labor have nearly doubled since then...
...A Real Friend Dear Sirs: A friend of mine reminded me the other day that it was Sen...
...I have not seen him for many years, and I do not look to him for "jobs" or "influence...
Vol. 8 • March 1944 • No. 10
