THE PEOPLE'S FORUM
¦ ¦ ¦ THE PEOPLE'S FORUM ¦ ¦ ¦ Lend-Lease Legerdemain Dear Sirs: In the May 29 issue of The Progressive Edna Lonigan has presented an acute analysis of the Lend-Lease program as reflected in...
...Some whites will marry them...
...How...
...O. T. Rockford, 111...
...You will think me transported with enthusiasm, but I am not...
...Alfred Kiefer Lackawana, N. T. Irresponsible Jabbing Dear Sirs: As a subscriber and a constant reader of The Progressive I have noted that your utterances are mostly those of complaint...
...Credit must be found for tottering industrialists to tide them over the crisis, until purchasing power could be started flowing along business channels...
...Cpl...
...Miss Lonigan says that "reverse Lend-Lease is paid into the Lend-Lease account and spent again by American Government departments without new Congressional approval...
...Roberto Haberman Kintnersville, Pa...
...Stettinius, the inference is plain from his book that while we were being told that Lend-Lease would keep us out of war, American military authorities were collaborating with the British in building air and naval bases in various parts of the globe to permit Britain to fight the Nazis more effectively, and incidentally facilitate our own military operations the moment we became openly involved...
...Furthermore, though it is not openly stated by Mr...
...I am well aware of the toil and blood and treasure that it will cost us to maintain this Declaration . . . Yet through all the gloom, I can see the ray of ravishing light and glory...
...So that the question of a Government department spending the same money twice can never come up...
...They always have, and always will, segregation to the contrary notwithstanding...
...I was present at a wonderful speech that Phil La Follette gave against war at Stamford, Conn., before Pearl Harbor...
...And finally, their high priest, Browder, demands protection for the British Empire against free competitive resources and manufacturing capacities of America...
...I have been trying to do that for over 40 years with but little success...
...The one aspect of the Lend-Lease Act that must continually astonish students of American Government is that Congress entirely relinquished its control of the purse strings by leaving it to the President to determuje who shall and shall not be eligible for Lend-Lease aid, and also how the money snail be dispensed...
...And it is only a mattSr 6*-4jme before we have to do away wittTftrlSB^tewjo make the people understand that is'TnS^j rub...
...its flippancy is devoid of cleverness...
...The objective is to kill all social security, insurance, and federal pension legislation which will require an additional tax, by cutting down the source of potential revenue—in other words, to shift the burden of taxation from those best able to pay to those least able to pay...
...H. W. J. San Francisco, Calif...
...J. H. P. U. S. N. R. England * * * Sick Of Ink Dear Sirs: Perhaps this sounds like sour grapes, but I for one am getting a little sick of the ink given individual fliers in the newspapers...
...The letter from J. L. McCallum, Estelline, Tex., in which he criticizes Milton Mayer for "slandering the South and Texas in particular," needs comment, as he seems to take the view that in giving the Negro equal political rights we are automatically committed to intermarriage...
...When reaction set in and the Administration became more and more conservative the Communists began to support FDR until today they are all out for him...
...They are misled by those Whose lust for power and belief that might makes right have made them blind leaders of the blind...
...When Mr...
...Something had to be done to stimulate business, or the profit system would have passed away as other obsolete social systems had done before...
...Markets must be found, or created, for the farmers...
...Justice Brandeis first called attention to it...
...Reverse Lend-Lease consists almost entirely of goods and services conveyed by our allies to our military forces abroad...
...11, 1941, when it passed the Lend-Lease Act by a spectacular vote of 82 to 0 in the Senate and 407 to 6 in the House...
...You have done a lot to show us what is possible if we will put our shoulders to the wheel and make America the land of opportunity once more...
...They expect us and our country to hold aloft the torch of liberty that must illumine the way of life...
...Nothing could be further from the truth...
...The guys deserve it, of course, but I'm willing to bet that the good ones hate it...
...President Roosevelt's first move after his inauguration was to rush to the rescue of the distressed bankers of the country by giving them a "holiday" in which to thaw out their frozen assets...
...John McWilliams Sheridan, Wyo...
...Those who charge him with having once been a "leftist" are all wrong...
...He was never a "leftist...
...Mayer's blast at Churchill as a violation of War Pamphlet 203 in that it tends to promote disunity between us and our Allies...
...According to the daily statement of the United States Treasury of March 21, 1944, our assets in gold were $21,600,000,032.62...
...Wake Up, America' Dear Sirs: If we, the liberal and progressive elements, are to defeat the enemies of the people, we must know who they are, their objectives, and methods...
...Roosevelt has not swung to the "right...
...Perhaps when this blood bath is over and we find 30 or more millions unemployed, they will come to the realization that something drastic will have to be done, that only a fundamental change in the economic system will solve our problems...
...Surely it will be some chore for the poor old capitalist system to furnish jobs for all those millions...
...If I was handing out the medals, I'd see that you fellows got the works...
...Factories were closed for lack of markets, some 14 to 18 million workers unemployed...
...Raps Newby Article Dear Sirs: Permit me to raise my voice in complete unison with that of Mr...
...Business was on the verge of bankruptcy...
...They particularly stress their oppressive taxation against Montana because they know that there is such a strong alliance in the government of Montana of the great corporations here that the people are powerless to protect themselves by law against their unjust rates...
...I should like to point out an important error in her article and add some impressions gleaned from reading the work...
...It was helping the British Purchasing Missions, as Mr...
...I still remember the hungry '30s which Hoover called a temporary depression...
...Churchill of his promise to come to the aid of America in the Pacific as soon as American men and supplies have cleaned up Europe for the British...
...As I understand it, this underlying theme is all-out production, with jobs for every able-bodied person who wants to work...
...Or, he can take the opposite stand and demand a pound of flesh...
...This is one of the greatest steps forward toward regulating this racket that has occurred in the history of the United States...
...Al Johnson San Francisco, Calif...
...Very little in the way of tangible goods has come under reverse Lend-Lease in this country—a few barrage balloons, some chemicals, and a paltry amount of other items...
...Until the fall of France, you may remember, the British overlords imagined that they could fight a cheap war, hence hesitated to place extensive orders for planes, tanks, etc...
...No, Mr...
...they skim along the surface, irresponsibly jabbing away with their intellectually blunt pens, manifestly under the impression that they are pointing the way in which mankind should walk...
...To save the system of profits, purchasing power must be placed in the hands of the common people— the industrial workers and the farmers...
...No network builds itself up on war...
...And, after all, that was the main objective of'the New Deal program...
...That right they must have if we are to have a government of the people, instead of a rule by demagogues...
...In short, never in the history of the United States has the chief executive received such a sweeping delegation of financial power—and never did a sycophantic Congress more meekly bow its head to a dictatorial President than on Mar...
...His words have proved prophetic...
...Have the American people the intelligence to stop them...
...Stettinius' book, namely, that while the idea of Lend-Lease as a way of keeping us out of war was being vigorously sold to Congress and the people by the Administration, with the help of powerful stooges of Great Britain (influential business men, Wall Street lawyers, journalists, and so-called educators), our Government was working quietly to make neutrality untenable...
...Stettinius brags, to place belated orders for decently equipping the British armies to fight this colossal war...
...This, in my humble opinion, is a charge not supported by the obtainable facts of his record of the past 11 years...
...Illustrative of the foregoing is Fred Rodell's article on Tom Dewey in your issue of June 12th...
...B. N. Lowry Field, Colo...
...Churchill Dear Sirs: There is too much stuff going on where I am to gripe about without reading the domestic griping in The Progressive...
...Was Never 'Left' Dear Sirs: Much controversy is being heard and read these days over the question of whether or not President Roosevelt has swung from the "left" to the "right...
...I hope you of The Progressive will always place the interests of America first...
...These writers do not form judgments worthy of sober consideration...
...Obviously, if the man who sits in the Presidential chair after the war is the same individual who pushed the Lend-Lease bill through a rubber-stamp Congress, we will have little chance of getting any tangible benefits from our vast expenditures on Lend-Lease...
...The CCC, WPA, and other like measures gave work and wages of a kind to the unemployed...
...In other words, there is employment when the profit-makers make profits—less profits, less employment...
...And there is no place in America for any of the foreign "isms" for which the Axis nations stand...
...17 issue regarding Edith O. Newby's attack on Carlson, Winchell, etc...
...The author apparently imagines himself a courageous warrior with a lethal weapon, but that is not what he appears on the field of battle...
...Thousands of Americans have died upon our own soil, to uphold that "chart of liberty...
...The greatest advocate of such freedom was he who said: "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free...
...Otherwise men and nations lose their way and go down to defeat and destruction...
...Constructive Service Dear Sirs: You have done a great, constructive service in giving us your series of articles on postwar possibilities...
...Liberty And Truth Dear Sirs: The noblest thoughts and deeds of men and nations have been those that were inspired by the love of freedom—freedom for all men...
...So far as the fat boys are concerned, they intend to go back and do business at the same old stand...
...Among the liabilities to the aforementioned amount of gold which adds up to the same amount, the Federal Reserve system alone holds a lien on this gold in the form of $16,335,880,886.13 worth of gold certificates...
...Parades And Promises Dear Sirs: I hope you and many of your readers saw the story in the New York Times on the report of two Army Air Force psychiatrists, who warn that the mental maladjustments of soldiers may last for a long time after the war ends, or may break out years after the guns are silent...
...By working for a petition to Congress to restrict all Federal taxes to 25 per cent and repealing the 16th Amendment...
...February, 1934, the Federal Reserve l5ar&3 had induced the President of the United Sfetf«s to order every living soul in the nation to surrender all his or her gold —coins and bullion—to the Federal Reserve Banks, in return for Federal Reserve Bank paper money that is not redeemable in gold...
...Roosevelt took charge in 1933, the Hoover Administration laid in his lap a very sick social system...
...It is too much...
...Wake up, America...
...All races seem to prefer the society of their own kind, including the Negroes...
...They howl to high heaven about liberty and freedom of speech whenever anyone suggests banning their publications or clapping them in jail, yet they in turn try to prevent Norman Thomas (of all people) from delivering an "isolationist" address at the University of Minnesota...
...There is an unbridgable chasm between the American way of life and the Axis way...
...The monies paid out for this, worse than wasteful activities of the workers, was borrowed from the bankers, thus stimulating business for them...
...Whatever bill is proposed by these racketeers and their agents in either House of the Congress should be met by a discussion of the people of the United States for at least six months before any action be taken on it...
...They disband as a political "party" and come back as a political "organization...
...There is no such thing as a beat...
...But in the aggregate it was sufficient to prime the profiTpump of business enough to save the profit system for its beneficiaries...
...and that posterity will triumph in that day's transaction...
...It is an attempt to prevent the enactment into law of the Wagner-Murray-Dingle bill, the Townsend federal pension and insurance bill, and all other bills for total social security on a "pay as you go" basis...
...A. Mote R. 3, Box 371 Bellingham, Wash...
...that this gluts the markets...
...F. W. APO 885 New York, N. Y. * * * Alive Dear Sirs: The Progressive has any publication I know of licked a mile...
...It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty...
...A lack of the substantial appears in their social and political promotions...
...President Roosevelt pointed out in his address over the radio June 12 that "To march from Naples to Rome cost us $6,700,000,000.1 leave it to you to imagine what it will cost to march from Rome to Berlin...
...Quite a few of my buddies have read them also, and you can just bet that with that kind of factual ammunition, we aren't going to let anybody push us around and tell us there's no work when the war is over...
...On this Fourth of July, 1944, which marks the 168th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, it is interesting to turn back the pages of history and read the following, from a prophetic letter written by John Adams to his wife on the day after the signing of that immortal document: "Yesterday the greatest question was decided which ever was debated in America, and a greater perhaps, never was nor will be decided among men...
...That is something which could best be combatted by adequate social education and more opportunity to travel...
...Lowndes Maury Butte, Mont...
...We share our news...
...This decision arose from an indictment against the Southern Board of Fire Underwriters, I think...
...He never was...
...Miss Lonigan in her excellent review fails to point out one of the major revelations of Mr...
...Philip J. Kapleau of New Haven, Conn., who complained in the People's Forum of your Apr...
...in this country...
...Joseph C. O'Ma-honey of Wyoming is leading the same kind of a fight against the insurance racket...
...One of the first and foremost credos of Communism is the rights and privileges of the working class, yet the Party attacks as "subver-s i v e Trotsky-ites" Montgomery Ward strikers who only ask their elementary rights under the law...
...It might be a good idea to remind Mr...
...The inflow of profits to the owning class was almost at a standstill...
...Not only was the Newby article all he says it was, but it had all the earmarks of hasty writing, making it not entirely coherent...
...And this brings to my mind the farmer who used to feed his horses lots of oats so that the sparrows would get enough to eat...
...The Great Emancipator realized that important fact when he declared: "Its march cannot fail to be on and on, till every son of earth shall drink in rich fruition the sorrow-quenching drafts of perfect liberty . . . Glorious consummation...
...Farmers were suffering for the necessities of life because they had worked too hard and produced too much...
...No tinkering with the rotten old system will prevent them from doing so...
...Perhaps it was temporary to Mr...
...H. H. S. APO 500 San Francisco, Calif...
...He doubtless has among his files a copy of an analysis that I make annually of the insurance racket of Montana, showing that for the last 20 years the insurance companies have taken, in premiums in Montana, more than twice as much as they have ever paid back in losses to the people of this state...
...It is alive with common sense, clear thinking, and fair play...
...One other suggestion...
...that no sales, no profits, and the profit-seekers shut down and cause unemployment...
...Karl Liepolo Atkinson, Kans...
...Furthermore—and this is going to be of paramount importance — after the war—the act declares that "the terms and conditions upon which any foreign government receives any aid . . . shall be those which the President deems satisfactory, and the benefit to the United States may be payment or repayment in kind or property, or any other direct or indirect benefit which the President deems satisfactory...
...Your staff of writers does not impress one as capable...
...Profits, Employment Dear Sirs: In the People's Forum of June 12, Lawrence J. Vair and Walter Reece answer Neera Gokhale very correctly that under our present economic set-up the workers as producers do not get enough wages to purchase back their own products...
...I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival...
...Dear Sirs: In the first four years of Roosevelt's Administration the Communist Party opposed and abused almost all of his really social New Deal legislation...
...The most important point, how-, ever, is to give all the poor people of the South of both races the opportunity to vote freely and without being influenced...
...It ought to be solemnized . . . from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward, forevermore...
...Yet as a recent graduate of the School for Special and Morale Services at Lexington, Va., I must protest Mr...
...Nothing can sweep back the on-rushing tide of freedom in a country whose people have learned to love both liberty and truth...
...Parades and promises won't do anything but hasten many soldier breakdowns, but action based on the underlying theme of your postwar series will help soldiers build sane lives...
...His birth, education, and business connections have tended to keep him true to his class, the profit-takers, and all of his acts have proven it...
...He wrote an essay 25 or 28 years ago in which he gave the figures and announced that the life insurance reserves were the greatest menace to the people of America...
...There is much in the fearlessness of the New York Post, PM, and Walter Winchell that stems from the same tradition and aspirations that brought The Progressive into being...
...The farmers were paid to destroy cotton, cattle, hogs, goats, and other food stuff, and were also paid to curtail future production...
...Already 17 states have approved and now they are trying to get two-thirds of the states to call a constitutional convention...
...To do this, jobs must be found, or made, for the unemployed...
...But now our boys are fighting and dying on blood-soaked foreign battlefields, that we and our children might continue to enjoy the blessings of liberty in this land of the free...
...I notice that the insurance racketeers will make an effort to have Congress destroy the effect of this decision, and in the usual language of racketeers they say that because they are made to obey the laws that other men obey, chaos will result...
...The Insurance 'Racket' Dear Sirs: I notice that the Supreme Court decided that the business of insurance was interstate commerce...
...I have saved them all — by Stuart Chase, Henry Kaiser, William Herridge, Walter Reuther, and Maury Maverick...
...It will be the means of avoiding wars which are too costly...
...The Peace Problem Dear Sirs: . The Progressive could do no greater service to our country than to settle the race problem amicably between the North and South through the People's Forum...
...If the Interstate Commerce Commission has not already power to regulate this nationwide racket, the Congress should forthwith give that Commission full power to regulate insurance as well as transportation...
...There is an undercover attempt to defeat the "expressed will" of the overwhelming majority of the people and to sabotage our whole postwar social security and social insurance program...
...Of course, some white people seem to enjoy immensely the jolly good humor of the Negroes...
...At present we have something like- 35 millions in the war effort, including those in the armed forces and those producing the goods...
...Frank Munson Washington, D. C. F.D.R...
...Next, after forcing the people so to give up their own private property to the privately operating and privately owned Federal Reserve Banks, the Government has made that same gold worth over half again as much as it was worth before by declaring the former 60 cents worth to be a dollar, and by backing it up as a dollar at the expense of the taxpayer and the producer of the nation...
...Protests Mayer's Blast Dear Sirs: I enjoy The Progressive greatly...
...Now wouldn't it be equally great for all the nations to get together in peacetime and share the wealth among all mankind...
...Stettinius' book...
...I believe Sen...
...Here is a prophecy that has proven to be remarkably true...
...G. H. Barrett Pelham Manor, N. Y. * * * Federal Reserve Money Dear Sirs: If...
...THE PEOPLE'S FORUM ¦ ¦ ¦ Lend-Lease Legerdemain Dear Sirs: In the May 29 issue of The Progressive Edna Lonigan has presented an acute analysis of the Lend-Lease program as reflected in Mr...
...M. G. Fort Dix, N. J. * * * Remind Mr...
...John G. King Walton, N. Y. Outworn Capitalism Dear Sirs: I am convinced that the capitalist system has long since outlived its usefulness...
...The worst bunch of racketeers, monopolists, and concerns which tax the people without any representation of the people is the Pacific Board of Fire Underwriters...
...J. C. Thompson Mooringsport, La...
...If you really want to be constructive, why don't you go all-out for increased supplies for the Pacific so that we can get this war over sooner...
...We don't remember that the common people who had interest-bearing notes in the banks were included in that holiday...
...High Cost Of War Dear Sirs: In the Buffalo Evening News of June 13 1 note Edgar Kobak, executive vice-president of the Blue Network, said to the Greater Buffalo Advertising Club, "No rivalry during war...
...Many of his former friends and supporters are now charging that he has forsaken labor and the common people and lined up with Big Business and what Secretary Iekes once called the "economic royalists" of the country...
...It is safe to say that the people of the North are not trying to abolish segregation and force the whites to associate with the Negroes more, but to give the Negroes more means and leisure to mix socially with their own race, and meet the same cultural advantages they find among the whites...
...Before we give England or Russia control of Europe, we ought to demand some actual reverse Lend-Lease from them through aid with supplies or men or both in the Pacific...
...We have done it in war, and we will want to know the reason why it can't be done in peacetime...
...This article lacks everything that makes for sober judgment...
...The President can declare that our Allies merely by fighting the Germans and Japs had rendered full payment for the vast amount of Lend-Lease goods they received...
...nothing is right in the world, and nobody is right—with one exception...
...The RFC afforded the credit to the industrialists...
...This is not so...
...G. Edward Lind Downey, 111...
...Hoover, but I can assure you it was far from temporary to millions of other Americans...
...There has been chaos in the United States springing from the insurance racket, and increasing steadily, for the last 50 years...
...The wages and prices paid the unemployed and the farmers were so dreadfully low that they barely enabled them to keep soul and body together...
...Communists And F.D.R...
...Work together like one big family...
...That has nothing to do with giving them equal political and economic rights arid privileges...
Vol. 8 • July 1944 • No. 27
