THE PEOPLE'S FORUM
. . . THE PEOPLE'S FORUM . . . Wartime Advertising Dear Sirs: Could you give space to the following letter which I wrote to some • of the big advertisers? The most objectionable, I believe, was...
...To keep informed, I can't do without it...
...J. W. Brinkmann Baldwin Park, Calif...
...The Bill of Rights begins and ends with corporations and big dough...
...Its ignominious failure should be a sufficient warning against trying to reproduce the experiment on a world scale...
...Just keep on giving us the facts and let the mental processes continue to analyze the events passing before us...
...Why don't we do something about it now...
...Harvey discovered the circulation of the blood, any physician 40 years of age or over would not accept the fact...
...If we did that, we could have valuable allies in the common people of all the world, and shorten the war...
...Arthur Halsted -Arlington, Va...
...Christ taught the truth and was crucified...
...E. R. Long La Porte, Ind...
...It's not clear...
...Amazing Integrity Dear Sirs: The Progressive's integrity is* amazing—for heaven's sake, don't lose it after keeping it thus far...
...Of course, the figures are not available, but the chances are that the president of the company earns at least $1,000 a day...
...Well, if Mr...
...Clara Stocker Duluth, Minn...
...Personally, I should like to read more from Profs...
...Unless we recognize this fact and organize our Government on a basis of united action of all resources and purposes for peace, the same as we do for war, we need never hope to have an orderly and civilized world to live in...
...May I add that a few of the "millions and millions of Europeans" who are as afraid of Stalin as of Hitler, live in Finland, but according to Mr...
...Only in a united humanity is there ever to be found peace on earth and real Christian civilization...
...G. A. Conroy Jacksonville, Fla...
...Of course, it isn't true...
...He should be solicited as a weekly contributor to your magazine, for it does not reach the high stature of a liberal magazine when he is absent...
...Note cartoon on Page 8, May 22 issue...
...Eventually something worthwhile will crystallize out of the mess...
...Free Enterprise' Dear Sirs: The American people are the most generous, most just, and best intentioned people on earth — and the dumbest...
...Your writers are all so broad minded and fair...
...Isabel B. La Follette's reasoning is sometimes something she seems to be stuck with, but at least it's reasoning...
...TVA And Congress Dear Sirs: You seem to object to action by Congress making TVA responsible and accountable to Congress...
...Luce was an extremely active supporter of what she now terms "the greatest foreign policy failure in our history to date...
...Seely.do not deserve "any help, sympathy or consideration from us" because they accepted the only help available to them in stemming the second onslaught of the Russian colossus...
...Chester Wafford Santa Ana, Calif...
...Defends Finland Dear Sirs: I was glad to see, in the May 22 issue of The Progressive, an answer by Patricia Dadanie to Charles Seely's criticism of the Waldeck article on "How To Keep Our Friends and Influence Our Enemies...
...Healthy Criticism Dear Sirs: The many-sided and mostly healthy criticism in The Progressive is most to my liking...
...Mayer thinks such an infusion would improve his family tree, he has my permission to experiment, but please do not include us...
...A. H. Meyer Edgewood, la...
...Samuel Menn New York, N. Y. * * * Priceless Dear Sirs: Such reading matter as your paper contains is priceless...
...Man first requires shelter, food, fuel, and a government that is sane...
...Second, I have a son in naval Service, on dangerous duty...
...Whereas, accountable re-" sponsibility makes the achievement of duties the primary objective...
...They do not, as Prof...
...The Finns might have believed that we in America would have had the imagination to understand their position and the generosity to exert our influence in their behalf at the peace table when our victory would have extricated them from their dilemma in regard to the German troops in their territory...
...Clare Booth Luce in the May 22 Progressive I think you should have" made it clear that Mrs...
...Only a narrow-minded "reformer" or "revolutionist" will decry it and holler, "Stop the paper forthwith...
...They opened the safety deposit boxes of Big Bill Thompson, former Mayor of Chicago who died recently, and found two million dollars...
...Has it dawned on the fertile brain of Mr...
...The Supreme Question' Dear Sirs: Millions of thoughtful people today are fearfully hoping "that these dead shall not have died in vain...
...Mayer doesn't like it, well, that is just too bad...
...His suggestion could have but one result...
...I think H. E. B. should clear' up this point...
...If Mr...
...You can also become mis-allied...
...Otherwise, why do we carry on our backs a lot of fat millionaries who fill their safe deposit boxes with wealth that should and does belong to our children...
...Our Constitution is the greatest document drafted by man for the guidance of a free people and is used as if in a sealed' glass case—to be eulogized at historical events only...
...Out Of Sympathy Dear Sirs: I am out of sympathy with your policy, for as I see it, labor can do no wrong, in your opinion, although many unions are dominated by rascals...
...If this barbarous business of killing and destroying is for freedom for all, why do we and our Allies not declare the world free and then act accordingly...
...The tolerance displayed by the editors in allowing various beliefs and opinions in its columns on the politico - economic - social fields is unique in American journalism...
...give us both or many sides of our troubles and our hopes...
...we were attacked because we were already in, on the sides of Great Britain and China...
...Does he think so...
...It means freedom from want and war...
...I've read Robert Maynard Hutchins' books, and underneath his sassiness it seems to me he's fighting for the same end that Prof...
...From inequality of income and excessive prices came the so-called depression...
...Not by "dividin' up" the world for exploiters to exploit the masses for private profits, but by uniting all the people in a real democratic power of government, to produce abundance for all to use, is our only hope of ever having peace for any considerable length of time...
...Otto is: better human beings...
...It tests one's spirit of democracy and opinion of those that we do not quite agree with...
...When this war is over and the service folks come home, we wonder if they will be offered nothing better than the privilege of competing against each other, for the privilege of serving some master...
...Is man to be the master of the destructive energies he has created, or is he to be their victim...
...Rubin's "Isolationist" front page article of May 8 to the editor of the New York Post...
...Congress is the essence of our nation...
...This is my letter protesting such advertising: "I come repeatedly against your page-wide advertisements in journals, and I wish to protest against them...
...The Bill of Rights is being passed around as a life saver...
...I am enjoying those postwar articles...
...I hope the others will be as good as the first, "What's The World Coming To...
...The metropolitan newspapers do not publish anything of this kind, as they will not publish anything favorable to farmers or labor, but give every strike or threat of strike a big headline, never mentioning the fact that it is nearly always the employer who is to blame...
...At the annual meeting of one of the Big-4 packers recently, the company spokesman admitted that they made four million dollars out of the subsidies...
...I am very sure that he, or any other soldier or sailor on dangerous duty, dislikes the Republic Steel Corpor-tion, or any other big corporation that makes huge profits out of war orders, to presume to tell them what they should think about the war and war aims and postwar aims...
...If he thinks a white man is as good as a Negro, all right...
...Mayer says that he has a right to change his mind...
...It all boils down, not in keeping with the Biblical phrase, to "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," but- to "do the other fellow before he does you...
...Thomas And War Aims Dear Sirs: In the May 15 issue you quote Norman Thomas as denying he is an "isolationist," which shows that he at least thinks he knows what an isolationist means...
...As I understand it, Mr...
...Nevertheless, and all the same, and notwithstanding, there's a darkness in this paragraph: "Fascism has provided the classic attempt to preserve the old and to bring in the new...
...It is the voice of big business under capitalism, and the President, who is surrounded by big business moguls, tells us we are fighting for a free world, while his pal—whom he says he understands well—Churchill, says we are not...
...More power to you...
...Luce belatedly acknowledges now: "We were not in because we were attacked...
...Mayer's fine...
...That is true...
...Maverick is still in love with that obsolete price system, with its scheme of scarcity in this age of modern technology and our ability to produce an abundance of all our needs...
...Tom Lloyd Salt Lake City, Utah Mental Malnutrition Dear Sirs: Does the Editor in his Last Column, issue of May 15, show a trace of perturbation at the moronic criticism of some of your mentally emaciated subscribers, or is he trying to show "what fools some mortals be...
...Barnes, Commander Seely, McAlister Coleman, and Milton Mayer form a formidable nucleus for an outstanding staff for any liberal magazine...
...Milliken voted against limiting debate on the poll tax bill...
...This is how it worked: In the last 10 days I have shipped in two lots of 32 hogs each and in both instances the packers purchasing the hogs paid the guaranteed price of $13.75 for 23 hogs and paid one time $12 and the other time $12.50 for nine hogs which they said were oyerweight...
...Typical GOP Policy' Dear Sirs: I've mailed Mr...
...They are asking themselves, and each other, what are we fighting for...
...August Ruedy Cleveland, O. Question For Barnes Dear Sirs: The new articles by Harry Elmer Barnes promise to be good...
...Why did not this country get some agreement from England and Russia that we would have had raw materials in return for Lend-Lease and not just plain give it away...
...And, some good work of the TVA may be delayed by responsibility to Congress...
...This situation is very outrageous, very discouraging to the farmers, and is not helping the war effort of the United States...
...In a few generations we would have no Negroes and no whites, but a race of half-breeds and mongrels...
...I read both the Post and The Progressive and can observe the excesses of each...
...He has a sense of values...
...Of course, few, or more likely none, want to fight for such ridiculous objectives...
...I am glad to see that a few writers like William Henry Chamberlin perceive the menace of Russia's growing impei-ilistic policy...
...Louis, Mo...
...We seem to.be living in a world in which the easiest and quickest way to abolish one wrong thing — unemployment and want — is to practice on a grand scale another wrong thing—war...
...Thomas hasn't the least idea of what the war is about...
...These wars are deciding how that economy will operate...
...First, because I am of necessity occasionally a buyer of some steel product or other, and the high price I pay for them out of my very small means has to cover—among 'all the unnecessary overheadj charged to us consumers—also the j cost of these very expensive adver-' tisements...
...Our great cities were built largely by gypping labor, farmers, and bond buyers...
...Chamberlin and Miss Waldeck's...
...Mrs...
...Will we, the people, stay united for peace and prosperity for all of us after the war has been won on the battle fronts, or will we allow the exploiters for private profits to divide up the world amongst themselves, and plunge us into the next world war as soon as we have pro duced a new army of young soldiers...
...Prof...
...Responsibility is always a handicap to the personal actions of men...
...H. J. Shea New York, N. Y. * * * Praises Herridge Article Dear Sirs: I have read "The Time Is Now," by William D. Herridge in the May 15 issue, and I can't help but want to raise my voice in approval...
...S. L. Bishop Edinburg, T,ex...
...Many of us are thankful He is not on earth today...
...Cover To Cover Dear Sirs: I read everything in The Progressive from cover to cover...
...He says that they are receiving $125 a week...
...Britain's Power System Dear Sirs: Thanks to Editor Rubin, Mr...
...If Mr...
...Anyway, hurry and send it — I have to read something besides Thoreau, or I'll retire to the woods...
...That is the Republican Party's ideal President — one who would do or say nothing without orders from Wall Street headquarters...
...Thomas thinks that is what we are at war about...
...I am grateful to The Progressive for the Opportunity to read such clearsighted articles as those of Mr...
...But we know the old saying that "it's the truth that hurts...
...P. W. Miller Chicago, 111...
...Otto's Chip Dear Sirs: Max Otto makes, a really serious charge against Mark Van Doren's educational ideas...
...S. W. Rogers Westwego, La...
...Hutchins and his traveling assistant Mortimer Adler, think that the great books are the major part of a liberal education...
...Luce On Foreign Policy Dear Sirs: In quoting Rep...
...The most objectionable, I believe, was the huge advertisement by Nash-Kelvi-nator, picturing a haggard sailor floating on his rubber raft and telling us what he—that is, what Nash-Kelvinator—thinks he has been fighting for...
...William Kasso New York, N. Y. Only Hope For Peace Dear Sirs: It is absolutely essential in waging successful war that the nations engaging in it adopt a system of government planning...
...I am familiar, of course, with the argument that advertising is not paid for by consumers, but will not waste time on arguing against it, for you know better than anybody else that this reason is false and is just another part of the advertising ballyhoo...
...But, taken by and large, our nation will be best safeguarded only when every Federal agency is immediately under the control of Congress...
...So few people realize that in spite of the big pay offered to defense workers, the owners of defense plants are becoming millionaires...
...The newspapers say that the packers are reducing working hours to eight...
...Coleman and Howard are indispensable to one who'd be informed, and Meyer is swell...
...My dear Mr...
...It is all to the advantage of the packers...
...We know for a fact that at the close of the last war there were over twice as many millionaires in this country as when it started...
...R. N. Jacobi Milwaukee, Wis...
...Our country is made up of many organizations, political, business, labor, and social, not for the purpose of cooperation, but like a house divided between itself...
...20 issue, slandering the South and Texas in particular...
...On the last lot they said that the overweight hogs averaged 271 pounds...
...Mayer is such a dear friend of the Negro, why doesn't he get a project to shift populations to different sections of our country—encourage Negroes to come to Wisconsin and send us white people...
...The Government has been paying a subsidy of between $1 and $2 per 100 pounds on hogs...
...Luce and her fellow-interventionists...
...When Dr...
...Every one of your contributors helps to make it so...
...Business Bulletin a little over a year ago...
...But, Mr...
...Important Dear Sirs: It's not necessary to tell you that you have one of the important newspapers- in this country...
...Mrs...
...A. W. Reiter St...
...It is inevitable that it should be so...
...Keep up the good work...
...Those kinds of reformers can't take it...
...It would help to eliminate war and much other foolishness from the face of the earth...
...In principle your objection is transitory...
...Harry A. Galke Riverside, Calif...
...What has failed, state socialism or Fascism...
...Last night over the radio two Republican Representatives cried for the Bill of Rights for the Montgomery Ward Company, while other Republicans were denying the Bill of Rights to American citizens...
...This was the essence of it, in contrast to Russian state-socialism...
...My platform is, "Win this war and make it the last one...
...These contradictions make one think of Marx's statement that capitalism has everything standing on its head, and under capitalism there is wailing and gnashing of teeth over surpluses of the good things of life...
...The very definition of the menacing bureaucracy now in power in Washington is that each and all component agencies have created machinery to evade accountable responsibility for achievement...
...Mayer's business how we run our affairs...
...Wants More Barnes Dear Sirs: Your weekly interests me deeply because of its varied and talented writers, but I wish to comment upon the scarcity of articles by Harry Elmer Barnes in particular, a man of high intellect and a realistic outlook on the world's economic and social problems...
...How much money is Montgomery Ward making to have men work for them...
...God made them different...
...The fundamental fact about these wars is that they are being waged to decide who is going to control business in the future, and how it is going to be done...
...Thanks for a swell publication, and the best of luck to you...
...Han-ighen, F. A. Voigt, and William C. Bullitt, I have been able to form an opinion as to the nature of the British balance of power system, and I value this knowledge very highly...
...Nations that waste nature's resources (oil, gas, vital metals) in wars should be put in chains...
...I would like to add that it is none of Mr...
...Forward Looking Dear Sirs: The Progressive is conspicuously different from other papers—forward looking and aggressive...
...R. J. Middleton Schenectady, N. Y. * * * Cancels Dear Sirs: Please do not send me The Progressive any more...
...Intervention" was an accurate and appropriate word to use in describing the President's pre-Pearl Harbor foreign policy but it was not then so acknowledged by Mrs...
...Upton Close refer to the British Empire as a corporation directed by Parliament—and I wish I might see in a few succinct words the ultimate purpose of the balance of power...
...Truth Hurts Dear Sirs: We have passed the magazine on to others a great many times, and an honest, fair-minded person could hardly reject its truthfulness...
...Indeed, we should be asking them what they think about it all— and we should all be very busy trying to make it possible for them to realize their American birthright of voting in the elections, so that at least in that indirect way they should be able to tell us what they think...
...Oscar C Miller Chicago, 111...
...Edwin Johnson, Colorado Democrat, voted to limit debate...
...Any Federal agency that sue ceeds in evading accountable re sponsibility to the nation through Congress, no matter how laudable is a menace, to our American Republic...
...Is Russia going in for imperialism, or Germany for Communism...
...Nothing is politically right which is morally wrong...
...Not So Hot Dear Sirs: Frankly, I am not so so hot about some of your regular contributors, but that is your business...
...The great leaders of these organizations continue to orate about our greatness, namely, our so-called "free enterprise," which means government help for the millionaires to pile up more millions out of the toil and suffering of the farmer and the working man...
...I believe I have heard Mr...
...As a result, their activity is measured in terms of perpetuation of power...
...Isn't capitalist imperialism the cause of this war, as well as the reason why our capitalist leaders will not clear the issue, or really stand for a free world...
...Isolation" on the other hand was a smear word devised by the interventionists to discredit the motives and intellects of all those who foresaw then what Mrs...
...The supreme question which confronts us today would seem to be whether our technology can be brought under control...
...Daniel M. Kelly Brooklyn, N. Y. * * * War Profiteers Dear Sirs: I have just finished reading Milton Mayer's article, "Is Diss a System...
...The Progressive and the world can get along without them...
...Please offer him space to tell us— and why...
...The farmers were asked to raise heavy hogs and did so, and then the Government clamped down and reduced the guaranteed price on hogs over 270 pounds...
...The average American and several of our commentators have apparently never studied the map of the Baltic, and therefore have no idea of what the possession of the fortress of Hango by Russia meant to Finland...
...How much money does a $l-a-year man make over his dollar...
...Beard and Barnes and less from W. H. Chamberlin and Frank Hanighen, for instance...
...The Progressive is growing in stature every day...
...Each of the Big-4 packers averaged between $25,000,-000 or $30,000,000 in profits the past year...
...He doesn't seem to know we are on a one-way street and there is no turning around...
...It is apparent that these critics know nothing of world trade and finance, imperialism, and world politics, the foreign policy of nations, public relations work, or history...
...Instead of that, we have robbed them of that American birthright, and we purchase space in magazines to tell them what you big business magnates think they should think...
...Globaloney must have a final ultimate personal goal for its promoters, and I should like to see that goal summarized in your words, whenever you are not too busy summarizing 1,000 other vital issues...
...Without it I would not know what was going on in these United States...
...The adverse comment that appears in The People's Forum is also stimulating...
...Subsidies And Hog Profits Dear Sirs: The reason farmers are disgruntled with the Administration and with the way things are going generally is that they are getting the worst of it in practically every respect...
...This country always was only nominally democratic and for 40 years that I know we have had a de facto and de jure government...
...Mrs...
...War planning is always government planning for the purpose of winning the war...
...Mamie F. Yoder Sumner, Wash...
...Eugene D. Milli-ken, Colorado Republican, does not at all mind that it requires about a million Colorado votes to accomplish what 79,000 Georgia votes can —namely, elect 10 Representatives —for Sen...
...The trade which now flows across all national frontiers is essential to the maintenance of an industrial economy...
...Mayer's 'Slander' Dear Sirs: This letter is in reply to Milton Mayer's article in the Mar...
...It is doubtful if He would make any concessions to popularity, and we would hate to witness the crucifixion of 1944...
...He may be as good, and even better, but he is different...
...We shall see...
...Anna B. Roat Berkeley, Calif...
...It will lead to the next world war just as soon as our babies of today are old enough to handle the machines of slaughter...
...Under capitalism things that the common people would regard as unmitigated evils are "blessings in disguise"—to the banker, the industrialist, and others of the tribe of labor-skinners...
...He also says, "It is quite true that I do not wish my sons to fight to maintain the French, Dutch, or English Empires of the Far East, or to invade Europe merely to enable Moscow and London to Bal-kanize it4" This seems to mean that Mr...
...Such criticism discloses all the symptoms of intellectual malnutrition...
...Padriac Logan Philadelphia...
...Socialism means a world in •which machinery will become a blessing to multiply the workers' output and give to the producers leisure in which to study, travel, and enjoy the product of their labor...
...It is also difficult to believe that Mr...
...Your contributors, though liberal in name, are playing into the hands of the reactionaries...
...Is this war really being waged for freedom for all, regardless of race or color...
...Planning for peace is of more importance than planning for war, and it should be the business of the Government to plan the conditions of peace, even more than to plan those of war...
...Now, since military and political necessity makes us the ally of Russia against the other totalitarian power, the voice of Finland is silenced in this country...
...Now that history has again vindicated the "isolationists" it is not surprising that "interventionists," who on the record were either extremely stupid or utterly dishonest, should like both words to be forgotten...
...in The Progressive for May 8. With this I disagree...
...That is not benefiting the consumer, and it is not benefiting the farmer...
...Is the worker, then, not entitled to more pay...
...I think, though, that Prof...
...It makes for consideration of the other fellow and broadens one's views and opinions...
...Alice Park Palo Alto, Calif...
...The only way a governmental agency can be accountable to the nation for achievement is by being accountably responsible to Congress...
...Our only hope for peace and prosperity for all of us is to unite and all pull together for peace, as we have done to wage a successful war...
...Farmers will be forced to hold on to their hogs and more will go to heavier weights, and the result will be that on all hogs under and over the guaranteed weight the packers will make an extra profit of 1 cent or 1 1/2 cents, and in addition will save the overtime pay that the workers at the stockyards would get for time in excess of eight hours...
...No nation would be so foolish as to leave the planning to "free enterprise," for the purpose of making private profits...
...This from the Cleveland Trust Co...
...Keep hewing to the line...
...J. L. McCallum Estelline, Tex...
...This is typical Republican Party policy...
...Mrs...
...Otto has a chip on his shoulder...
...I often wish that every person everywhere could get The Progressive...
...Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom...
...That article is so much different than the one written a few weeks before by Maury Maverick...
...Editor Rubin should write more...
...That, of course, will prolong the glut of hogs on the market...
...I know of a Republican Presidential candidate who would win unanimously on the first ballot—Charlie McCarthy...
...Obviously, Sen...
...With that I do agree, but he does not give full details for his new damnation of the sit-down striker...
...They are getting enough for a fine livelihood...
...If two of the hogs weighed 275 pounds, then in all probability the other seven weighed under 270 and should have brought the guaranteed price...
...August Maurin Coraopolis, Pa...
...Rep...
...A. F. Bassett Sanger, Calif...
...Elena Varneck Moss Beach, Calif...
...That is a most remarkable thing, and it is absolutely incredible that nine hogs should each of them weigh one pound overweight...
...Mayer, I wish to go a step further than you...
...Negligent Nations Dear Sirs: I cannot see where you and the La Pollette family think we are morally obligated to European nations that were negligent of their own welfare, viz, England and France...
...Otto implies, think they are the whole of an education...
...It is a shame and disgrace and revolting reading...
...To surrender our planning to private profiteers, for the purpose of parceling out our resources among "free enterprising" exploiters, to make profits for themselves to hoard and take out of use, is to commit industrial suicide...
...It makes plenty for all and the good life for all, which should be considered our greatest blessings, a curse, to which war is preferred...
...Mayer that the proud descendants of northern Europe need to improve their basic stock and could proceed to get this new infusion of blood from Timbuctoo, the Congo country, and the land of the Hottentots...
...As a special inducement he might suggest that he and his neighbors of like mind would provide white wives for these colored gentlemen...
Vol. 8 • June 1944 • No. 23
