A NEW RECORD NEEDED
A New Record Needed PRESIDENT Roosevelt has asked for an additional $25,000,000 for the overseas division of the Office of War Information. The money will be used, he said, for "the extension of...
...Observed the Washington Star in this connection recently: "Fear of national ruin from .defeat has been effectively instilled by Dr...
...Known as the Lynch Bill, it provides that the Postmaster General shall have authority to bar from the mails "all papers, pamphlets, books, etc., containing any defamatory and false statements which tend to expose persons characterized by race or religion to hatred, contempt, ridicule, etc...
...This would be great news—this proposal to step up our psychological warfare to the tune of $25,-000,000—if at the same time we had a story to tell, if we could formulate and proclaim to the world an American foreign policy which would fortify and encourage democratic forces in the "enemy and enemy-occupied territories" mentioned by the President...
...Assured the financial backing of the Julius Rosenwald Fund and the Field Foundation, the 75 authorities who assembled in Chicago adopted the following program : IThe new agency will help local and state ? groups set up official or unofficial inter-racial committees through advice and information...
...A Patent Medicine 'Cure' ARECENT ACT of courage by Rhode Island's Gov...
...The Clearing House will be exactly just what its name implies—and not just another well-meaning society to pass resolutions which "view with alarm" and let it go at that...
...Louis Cappelli has set a valuable precedent for Congress in its consideration of the Lynch Bill—a measure which would vest extraordinary powers of censorship with the Postmaster General in an effort to abolish bigotry and intolerance by law...
...Similar legislation, designed to accomplish for the whole nation what the Rhode Island bill sought to achieve for that state, is now pending in Congress...
...Commonweal, the liberal Catholic journal of opinion, summed it up best recently when it said: "The only sound and decent way to combat group feelings of animosity is on the level of frank and open discussion, and if in the course of this discussion it is necessary to tolerate utterances inspired by prejudice and characterized by falsehood, that is the price we must pay for the manly effort at a real cure...
...Cappelli rightly refused to be intimidated by intolerant promoters of tolerance...
...Included in this phase of the campaign will be a popular education program to help break down race prejudices and discriminatory practices through the use of the press, radio, employe and employer groups, movies, schools, and churches...
...The creation of such an agency fills a long felt need...
...2 The organization will conduct research into •j* the most effective methods of putting across inter-racjal unity programs in public schools and other institutions...
...It will provide us with a valuable pool of expert information and counsel based on the actual experiences of American communities in dealing with race tension...
...Instead, we continue to play into Nazi hands by clinging to our demand for Unconditional Surrender, by creating the impression that we intend to dismember Germany, and by abandoning even the anemic promises of the Atlantic Charter...
...Properly utilized by leaders who practice the tolerance they preach, this program could become one of our most effective weapons in the never-ending campaign for tolerance and understanding...
...American correspondents recently released from Nazi internment camps are unanimous in emphasizing the fact that Dr...
...Certainly it is a far more American and democratic approach than is envisioned by those who think they can force men to be tolerant by passing a law...
...Instead, he followed the counsel of citizens long active in the fight for civil and religious liberty, and vetoed the measure...
...German morale seems to have hardened rather than softened in recent months...
...Gov...
...Educating For Tolerance AFAR more heartening and realistic attempt to check the rising tide of intolerance than the Lynch Bill discussed above was the establishment in Chicago a fortnight ago of a National Clearing House of Information on Race Problems...
...It is an undisputed fact, we repeat, that thus far in this war we have succeeded only in strengthening enemy morale...
...Goebbels' propaganda, which emphasizes the Allies' 'Unconditional Surrender' formula, Churchill's recent reinterpreta-tion of the Atlantic Charter, and dire threats voiced by what may be termed the 'Vansittart' group in Britain and America...
...But this our leaders will not do...
...An appropriation 10 times what President Roosevelt has asked for psychological warfare would be a modest enough price to pay if we had a message, a policy, a program with which to appeal to decent elements in all countries to%oin with us in a true war of liberation...
...2The Clearing House will collect and distribute ? on a nationwide scale facts about race problems...
...To pass the Lynch Bill will merely be to yield to the spell of escapism...
...Both houses of the Rhode Island legislature, yielding to the pressure of jittery, misguided spokesmen for minority groups, had unanimously passed a bill under which anyone publishing false and malicious statements intended to cause hatred of any group of persons on account of race or religion would be adjudged guilty of libel...
...The money will be used, he said, for "the extension of psychological warfare [and] intensive propaganda to enemy ttnd enemy-occupied territories...
...This type of legislation is not only a serious abridgement of the basic American guarantee of freedom of speech, but it constitutes.a dangerous device to drive intolerance' underground, and by presenting an easy, patent medicine-like "cure" for religious and racial bigotry, weakens the drive for basic treatment through education and honest grappling with the causes of intolerance...
...Goebbels has used Allied statements of war aims in a successful effort to strengthen German morale...
...It will keep in touch with activities in various communities, evaluating the successes and weaknesses of existing programs...
...Roosevelt's demand for an additional $25,-000,000 for OWI strikes us as being somewhat similar to the man who spent a fortune buying the most expensive phonograph on the market in order to play over and over again, an old, cracked record which nobody could understand...
Vol. 8 • April 1944 • No. 15
