WENDELLYN AND THE DRAGONS
Wendellyn And The Dragons WILLIAM HENRY CHAMBERLIN was unable to get into Wisconsin on his recent lecture swing through the Middle West, but his analysis of the walloping Wisconsin gave Wendell...
...An indication of the bitterness which this rule-or-ruin attitude is creating was apparent in a letter last week from an American Negro staff sergeant stationed in England: "We are Negro Americans fighting for the cause to let each man, regardless of race or color, have his freedom...
...See "The Last Column...
...We will continue to fight even if we have to shed blood in America...
...I'll take it over war any old time...
...The Government could even create some medals for Distinguished Conduct in the Face of Peace...
...Pessimism Over Peace' (H...
...They want their America to join with other nations in a forward-looking effort to preserve peace by mutual agreement to strike at the causes of war—territorial aggrandizement, imperialism, competitive armaments, cartel controls, economic inequalities, harsh indemnities, and an unequal distribution of the wealth and resources of the earth...
...Here is a grim reminder that lynch law can work both ways, that violence begets violence and intolerance breeds intolerance...
...The thought of going back to a quiet, orderly world of brotherly love throws them into depths of pessimism...
...Maybe Washington should begin now to do something to build up peace morale...
...Maybank's insistence that "the white people of the South will not accept interference" is nothing less than a challenge to Federal authority as represented by Congress and the courts...
...The most shocking development of all, however, is the announcement in advance that the Southern Tories will defy the law of the land if the anti-poll tax bill becomes law...
...The only purpose of Ihe amendments is to engage the Senate in endless haggling so a final vote becomes impossible...
...it's the folks far behind the lines with none of their loved ones at the front...
...Tory Defiance Of Law AN irresponsible minority of the United States Senate, composed largely of Southern Tories, seems to have decided that there is no price too high to pay to perpetuate the un-American system of disenfranchising Negroes and poor whites through state poll tax laws...
...Spokesmen for the Southern bloc have announced that they are preparing 1,000 amendments—-most of them meaningless, of course—to prevent the Senate from reaching a vote on the anti-poll tax bill itself if the majority succeeds in smashing the threatened filibuster...
...Willkie himself was more honest...
...B. R. Maybank, South Carolina Democrat, served notice that "regardless of any Supreme Court decision and any laws that may be passed by Congress, we of the South will maintain our political and social institutions as we believe to be in the best interest of the people...
...Why," he exclaimed, "we Easterners have been under the false impression that the Middle West could not countenance cooperation with other nations after the war...
...Sen...
...Maybe there should be an office of OPI (Office of Peace Information) created immediately to keep the fidgety folks fully informed of the dangers ahead...
...I. Phillips in the New York Sun) TO HEAR some people talk you would think Sherman had said "Peace is hell...
...The kind of isolationism which refuses to recognize the existence of a world beyond our borders has never existed, of course, except in the minds of those who fight best when they are fighting straw men of their own creation...
...International cooperation for any other purpose would merely make America a pawn, if not a partner, in the games of power politics and imperialism which end in war—every time...
...Of course, the men and women who are doing the fighting don't feel that way...
...The less danger they're in the more they're nervous about waking up some morning and finding peace staring them in the face...
...After a swing through Wisconsin last Fall, when he set the stage for his subsequent bid for GOP convention delegates, Willkie expressed amazement at the lack of head-in-the-sand isolationism...
...Referring last week to the Supreme Court's recent decision giving Negroes the right to vote in Texas primaries and to the House-approved anti-poll tax bill now before the Senate, Sen...
...While they realistically refuse to commit the United States now to enforce a treaty whose provisions haven't been written, thinking Americans do believe whole-heartedly in international cooperation to achieve democratic objectives...
...to condition people for struggling on through peacetimes...
...Perhaps the most ironic phase of the whole situation is the fact that the Southern Tory bloc now fighting against freedom at home was unanimous in its pre-war support of a foreign policy designed to embark us on a struggle to carry the Four Freedoms to the rest of the world...
...They know now that it was not American "isolationism" after World War I, but the refusal of the victorious powers to deal with the causes of war that led to World War II...
...Wendellyn And The Dragons WILLIAM HENRY CHAMBERLIN was unable to get into Wisconsin on his recent lecture swing through the Middle West, but his analysis of the walloping Wisconsin gave Wendell Willkie is infinitely more accurate than the stupid drivel palmed off by some of the Washington correspondents who galloped through the state looking for isolationists under every bed...
...With special ribbons for the fellow with nerve enough to hear a peace rumor and say, "Fine...
...Thfe people of Wisconsin, and we suspect the same holds true for the people of the rest of the Middle West, and for that matter, the whole country, oppose writing a blank check for the restoration of a Tory, imperial status quo...
...This reckless and lawless defiance of legal authority by a man who has taken his oath to support and defend the Constitution and the laws of the United States is a sobering reminder that the poll tax clique is prepared to stop at nothing to prevent Negroes and poor whites from voting...
...Senate failure to act and act affirmatively on the anti-poll tax bill would not only make a further mockery of our professed war aims, but would strengthen the power of the Tory bloc which is now shaping domestic policy on the home front...
...It's just too bad...
...We are in the armed forces to fight for the rights of all men—not to destroy the rights...
...It can't come too soon to suit me...
...They had dreamt about the isolationist dragons in Wisconsin, and what could be more natural for them than to sit in their hotel rooms and pound out the throbbing drama of Wendellyn and the Wisconsin Dragons...
...These "experts" were caught in a trap created by their own tortured imaginations...
Vol. 8 • April 1944 • No. 17
