AMERICA FIRST' BECOMES 'RESPECTABLE'
Hanighen, Frank C.
'America First' Becomes 'Respectable' By FRANK C HANIGHEN ONE of the amusing phenomena these days appearing in the Administration press is the sudden concern about the Polish-Americans: The New...
...America First' Becomes 'Respectable' By FRANK C HANIGHEN ONE of the amusing phenomena these days appearing in the Administration press is the sudden concern about the Polish-Americans: The New York Times on May 30 editorially warned Americans of Polish birth and descent that the rest of the country "is entitled to expect gatherings of this kind to put the broad American interest uppermost...
...when the Laborites were in office, neither the Conservative nor Labor party press (the latter through party loyalty) exposed these evils...
...The Times' Lofty Attitude This year, it is a different picture...
...The Times for many years has followed the polizy of its late owner, Adolph Ochs, who wrote: "I had always felt the peace and welfare of the world rested with the English-speaking nations, and particularly with the United States and the British Empire, and that I regarded it as my patriotic duty to promote that as far as lay within my power...
...The reason: When the Tories were in power, the labor press threw a little light, as a matter of party politics, on the abuses in India...
...In addition, this new imperialistic urge has a new angle: "Realization of economic benefits to be derived from a more enlightened and more progressive colonial policy . . . has now become one of the dominant forces in Britain's highest economic and political strategy...
...But perhaps a reexamination of what Woodrow Wilson hypocritically called "hyphenatism" is in order...
...One of the interesting aspects of- this new drive is the participation of the Labor party...
...Over a year ago, British trade union delegates visiting America began to spread the new gospel...
...British financiers and industrialists "have begun to regard the Empire as the means for solving Britain's very serious economic problems...
...A social welfare committee has been established to review social service policies...
...Ye"-, they even picketed my home and place of business —a mob of several hundred Communist sympathizers stormed my office in Dearborn and denounced me because I was supporting President Roosevelt...
...If I'm not mistaken, we'll hear much more of it in the future...
...It is clear that the really preponderant influence is exerted by what can most conveniently be called the "Anglophile" group—who hold sway among our intelligentsia, colleges (particularly the great Eastern universities), and generally the Eastern, upper-class, social, and business groups...
...A number of the papers and commentators, notably Lowell Mellett, late of the White House staff and now a columnist expressing the Administration viewpoint, shake their fingers at the Polish-Americans...
...Groups which advocate policies of foreign governments ought to have no place in our political picture...
...Consequently, when Administration speakers addressed the voters of Buffalo, a large Polish-American center, or Ham-tramck, Mich, (about 95 per cent Polish), they had a throb in their voices about the Polish victims of Axis brutality...
...It is no use laboring the point that politicians will be politicians, in an election year...
...Viton...
...It was also about that time that so-called Americans—taking their orders from Moscow—were picketing the White House objecting to Lend-Lease...
...And if the Communist Association (or whatever it's now called) can spread its propaganda for one ally, why shouldn't the Polish-American Congress do so for another...
...John Lesinski, Congressman from Michigan, has pointedly reminded the Communist pressure group of some facts which should not be forgotten : "Talk about being in collusion with Germany—it was Germany and Russia that attacked Poland and divided the territory of Poland and during the Battle of Britain, Polish pilots were dying in the sky over London while Mr...
...Which pressure group exerts the most decisive influence in our affairs...
...Mellett that he lecture another group towards whom he shows un-usual delicacy...
...As he describes it, there is appearing a new and fresh formulation of the British imperial point of view which, I fancy, will prove attractive to many liberals in this country...
...In such unhappy circumstances, the Administration must put the emphasis on "America First...
...But the Times isn't alone in this sweet endeavor...
...The Administration was courting the Polish vote...
...that the New York Times was dedicated to that policy...
...The Democrats, on the other hand, wriggle uncomfortably...
...Lest one forget...
...A labor advisory committee, which contains two union representatives, has been appointed to consider labor problems and to suggest colonial labor legislation...
...It is, as the English put it, "pretty thick" for the Anglophile Times to take a holier-than-thou attitude towards the Polish-Americans...
...Padmore warns us of the pitfalls of the new terminology for the same old imperial things: "Just as 'regionalism' is to replace 'mandates,' so 'partnership' will oust 'trusteeship.' " Labor Party And Imperialism I think Mr...
...Actually, whatever may be said of the Labor party policy within Britain, its policy in the Empire in practice has been indistinguishable from that of the Conservatives...
...But, one should realize, one of our national misfortunes is the existence of multiple and complex responses—racial, religious, and cultural—to what goes on abroad...
...Wood, head of the America First Committee...
...If the Times gives Anglo-American unity the patriotic priority, why shouldn't, with as much justice, the Polish groups claim precedence for self-determination...
...Molotov was wining and dining with Hitler and Von Ribbentrop in Berlin...
...A British subject, Mr...
...Until these "colonials" in our midst conduct their own examination of conscience, confess their sins, and act thereafter from purely American motives, let us hear no more sermons from them about "hyphenates...
...The use of this adjective, indeed, is so unexpectedly profuse for a Times' editorial, that one wonders if the writer had drawn his material from some of the pre-Pearl Harbor speeches of Gen...
...Padmore says that these new committees "while erecting a fine democratic front are actually time-stalling machines...
...An epithet, "hyphenate," employed in the last war to lynch the German-American community, pops up to give the Times' prose the necessary ugly punch...
...Despite its paper declarations, the Labor party in practice differs very little from the Tories on the fundamental principle of imperialism...
...A study of past and present policy will reveal that fundamentally the Labor leadership acts upon the same principles as the older parties, and that the only difference to be found has its roots in two styles of demagogy adapted to the two principal classes of the British electorate...
...For the New York Times to lecture Polish-Americans on such a question is, to say the least, Pecksnif-flan...
...Note the word "American...
...ALBERT VITON, expert on British imperial af-' airs, writes in the Christian Century about "Britain's New Imperialism...
...If we sanction international pressure groups, we should not practice partiality among them...
...The British Labor party (beloved by American clubwomen who hate all American labor organizations) can be used to sell quite a bill of goods to this country...
...It is only fair, therefore, to recognize that the Polish-Americans are by no means the only "hyphenates...
...There were no editorials in the Times in those days reminding Polish-American voters to be pro-American above all...
...One might go on through the whole gamut of international pressure groups in this country...
...They glow with a lustrous ardor for the freedom of Poland...
...Hardly...
...Trade union and labor legislation has been enacted in many colonies and British trade union officials have been sent to some areas to direct trade union organization," says Mr...
...This should be no surprise after the startling emergence of Mr...
...It's a bad business, but one line of thought may temporarily clear the air...
...Did the Times and Mr...
...Padmore's warnings should be heeded...
...It should be obvious that the real decision is not in the hands of the Poles, Irish, Norwegians, Jews, Catholics, Communists, etc...
...In fact, many critics of the party on this subject in Britain have often pointed out that when the Labor party was in power, the cause of Indian independence received less of a chance in Britain than during a Conservative regime...
...Reginald Reynolds, an English student of Indian and colonial affairs, admirably sums up the situation in his book The White Sahibs in India: "The position of the Labor party with regard to imperialism is the most important thing to understand in considering the future of India, the colonies, and Great Britain...
...Meat Influential Group Also, one might well suggest to Mr...
...Nor is that all...
...Viton says that the British press, daily and' periodical, has devoted more space to imperial affairs since 1940 than in the whole previous decade...
...Oh, how the picture changed over night when Hitler attacked Russia...
...For their Chief is having friendly relations with Stalin, and, to quote Father Bojanowski, seems to be "lend-leasing the Polish Republic to Russia...
...Emmanuel Shinwell, one of the most radical of the left-wingers of the Labor .party, as a lyricist of the British Empire in recent debates (see The Progressive of May 29...
...He describes the labor colonial program as a "humane colonialism, which envisages self-government of some of the colonies at a hazily distant future...
...George Padmore, writing this month in Politics, takes a rather jaundiced view of the chances of any real reform of imperialism even under this new banner...
...The Republicans are shooting some dirty pool on this contentious matter...
...Mellett's Administration take this tack the year 1940...
Vol. 8 • June 1944 • No. 25
