THE PEOPLE'S FORUM
. . . THE PEOPLES FORUM . . . Conspiracy Dear Sirs: There seems to be a conspiracy afoot to deprive the American people of the opportunity to express themselves on an important issue at the...
...He refused offers from film, radio, and lecture promoters as well as six honorary degrees from colleges and universities...
...By the demand for "free enterprise...
...in which Mr...
...AAF Base Unit Hobbs, N. M. * * * Labor In Politics Dear Sirs: I have read your paper for several years and enjoy it very much although fewer articles by Frank Hanighen and William Henry Chamberlin would be an improvement...
...Clifton Fadiman dragged in a like exhortation in an introduction to The Three Readers, an anthology sponsored by The Readers' Club...
...This seems paradoxical...
...Simply to criticize the manner in which the Democrats have carried out their policies, as Dewey did on June 23 and as other Republicans have been doing, is not to raise an issue...
...We are in for a lively Summer—you at home and we overseas...
...Prime Minister Churchill has stated that he did not become the King's First Minister to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire...
...How will the need of work for millions of men be met...
...They agree that the Government must create an atmosphere friendly to business so that the latter will be encouraged to expand itself on the old ground as well as to pioneer into brand new fields...
...Are we going to help the one opposition by fighting each other, or will we help ourselves— all ourselves—by combining against the common enemy...
...Dewey is not too observing...
...Millions of people can stand being abhorred by Elwood Brown when they reflect on the gigantic looting of the untold riches of India by the English pirates and freebooters...
...This is where the trouble originates...
...If it be argued that the Soviets are our allies, I cheerfully assent, but ask: Why do they not make war on our mortal enemy — the Japanese—who are just as menacing to the cause of freedom as the accursed Nazis ? James Baldwin Baltimore, Md...
...We liberals, radicals, progressives, and reformers all want about the same things—peace, security, and plenty...
...No, it's not a new movement we need...
...Stout made a vainglorious attempt to browbeat and shout down Mr...
...However, he does socially conscious war-resisters an injustice when he implies that they are sitting out the war...
...Americans should ponder how closely we have fastened our fortunes to those of the Soviet Union...
...He is decent, just, and unemotional...
...Most important of all...
...In spite of statements to the contrary he is rated as "a regular guy" among those who know him well...
...When a million or 10 million men say, "We will not fight," they make war a practical impossibility...
...That means, as the prophet said, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little...
...He is courageous and' well-balanced...
...have wholeheartedly supported Roosevelt's foreign policy and failed to oppose any specific domestic policy are not joining the Democratic ranks as they should but are subverting the Republican Party...
...You are doing a great job...
...No excess profits tax, no priorities, no regimentation, no planning, no anti-trust lawsuits, ample labor power at virtually your own figure, and a back-log of consumer demand piled up by four years of war which was to keep the wheels humming...
...Profit is the difference, or surplus of goods, between the cost of production and distribution and the selling price...
...Many prominent Republican leaders and newspapers who...
...There seems to be two fixed points —the one we want to reach and the one where we are...
...Sgt...
...I would appreciate a series of ar- , tides about organized labor's political activity in the past and at the present time, including the CIO's new Political Action Committee...
...Three, whether you vote for Dewey or for the New Deal, therefore, you are voting to sooner or later put your loved one into a uniform, to give him a gun, and to send him forth over the world to kill or be killed...
...Madeline C. Church Point Loma, Calif...
...If the light of freedom which still burns so brightly in the frozen North should be finally quenched, it might well herald a return to the Dark Ages, when every vestige of human progress during 2,000 years would be engulfed...
...Stout's mind, nor however he may exploit his ideas, but it is the duty of every intelligent person to protest their publication under the patronage of an official or semi-official governmental organization...
...This accomplishment alone gives him an edge on at least one of his political opponents...
...Pacifists at Danbury Federal Correctional Institute have been active in promoting better race relations and have succeeded in removing-many of the prison's arbitrary rules on segregation...
...No issue is bona fide unless one party openly takes one side and the other party openly accepts the opposite...
...Defends War-Resisters Dear Sirs: I enjoyed reading McAlister Coleman's June 12 article entitled "Attack The Dominant Heights," and I heartily endorse his plea for a doubling of efforts in the fight against exploitation and oppression and for democracy, decency, self-respect, and brotherly love...
...It is the outgrowth of an industrial order that is based primarily upon a profit management and an economy of scarcity to insure its profits...
...The people of India had their own government, under which they prospered for ages and ages, yet they prospered so well that England some 200 years ago began the most gigantic plundering of their wealth and resources that the world has ever known...
...One would reason that the more society advanced, and with improvements of methods of production, both unemployment and want would be eradicated once and for all from human society...
...Elwood Brown says that if the people of India were given their freedom tomorrow, they would have chaos...
...Americans who put their own country first and who believe that the so-called middle class, as distinct from labor and big business, is now due for some consideration are dubbed National Socialists, are scorned by all the big-wigs, conservative and progressive, and their party, which alone raises an issue, is considered too seditious to be accorded a place on the ballot...
...Cpl...
...Yet when workers in Europe act on the same principle of non-cooperation with evil and refuse to work for Hitler, he justly commends them...
...I believe that readers of The Progressive will applaud the courageous journalism that forced the cryptic statement by members of the Writers' War Board, the semi-repudiation by Mr...
...If they fall for that bunk, they will deserve the misery that is in store for them...
...Must we wait until we are beaten into the dust and driven underground to learn the same lesson...
...The clue is easy to find if one but looks in the right direction...
...As an encouragement to business, the air-conditioning that was maintained by the Government for those 10 memorable years was simply beyond all compare...
...The enemy we face is agreed, united, consolidated...
...The message of war-resisters is namely that wars will cease when men refuse to fight...
...We cannot tell what the fate of Finland may be, but no more mournful spectacle could be presented to what is left of civilized mankind than that this splendid Northern race should be at last torn down and reduced to servitude worse than death by the dull, brutish force of overwhelming numbers...
...If it were, it would certainly be a dilemma for mankind...
...Several of the leading old party writers, even including Walter Lippmann, have commented on the indifference and lack of enthusiasm for the GOP nominees...
...We must conquer Germany at tremendous cost in human lives and billions upon billions of dollars to free the people of Europe but not an acre of the brutal conquests of England can be returned to their rightful owners...
...Britain And India Dear Sirs: Elwood Brown of Alhambra, Calif., states in the June 19 Forum that he utterly abhors those persons who hate England for the 200 years of tyranny and plundering of the people of India...
...Plea For Unity Dear Sirs: Man is truly a mass of contradictions...
...don't grow weary of keeping your finger in the hole in the dike when it would be easier to step back and let the waters have their way...
...I wonder if sometimes men like yourselves and other true liberals, Norman Thomas, etc...
...George Washington's foreign policy is considered out-of-date, narrow, unpatriotic, and subversive, and no candidate will adopt it...
...made it quite clear that "spluttering" Mr...
...He scoffs at a reform that is not perfect in every detail...
...What a human mockery...
...It helps keep me sane these awful days...
...The renomination of Mr...
...Yet we fool ourselves with thinking that multimillionaires are compatible with popular government...
...To think that the same outfit that let the country go to hell with Hoover is today asking the American people to trust them again is enough to make any self-respecting citizen see red...
...It has allied itself with another dictatorship (Germany) and it has invaded a neighbor so infinitesimal-ly small that it could do no conceivable, possible harm to the Soviet Union, a small nation that seeks only to live at peace as a democracy and a liberal, forward-looking democracy at that...
...The greater the productiveness of the industries through newer and better methods, the greater the profits and also the greater the unemployment...
...This is especially true of liberals, of which there are many shades...
...It seems as human society advances to a higher order and our industrial economy develops to greater endeavor the more we are beset with that disquieting anticipation of that terrible evil, mass industrial idleness...
...of movements (none of which is moving very fast) all striving for the Holy Grail, but each determined to go its own trail...
...Of course the longer we wait the longer steps and jumps we'll have to make to keep ahead (or get ahead) of the hounds of reaction...
...On his father's side he is related to the hero of Manila Bay — Admiral George Dewey...
...Thomas E. Dewey in the middle of his speech of acceptance at the close of the Republican National Convention...
...How often we have heard of "cutthroat competition" in business...
...Pass This Paper On...
...Well, I was a potential Republi can this year, but that farce pulled off at Chicago sure cured me of any desire to jump from the frying pan into the fire with Republican Wall Street-controlled leadership...
...This alone will provide ample employment . . . we must have a reserve of labor power to draw upon...
...Tom Dewey gave up a $50,000 a year private practice to become district attorney...
...Two, unemployment can never become a problem under a cooperative system of production for use wherein all the people would naturally employ themselves...
...Much greater will be the need of a strong government to control these would-be free enterprises...
...Granville Hicks, states, "Month after month writers are urged to preach hatred of the German people not only in their books and articles but also in anonymous paragraphs, to be distributed by the board and in speeches that are to be ghost-written for delivery by persons of influence...
...They, all the way from anarchists to Christian Socialists, are getting their minds and hearts together— in order to keep their heads and bodies together...
...He sets up ideals, then says they cannot be attained at one jump—then tries to jump...
...Camp Claiborne, La...
...Norman H. Wilson East Chatham, N. Y. * * * Production For Use Dear Sirs: There is so much talking and writing and fear going on about postwar unemployment...
...They want no "competing" with free enterprise...
...The GOP 'Farce' Dear Sirs: ,The great Wall Street GOP puppet show is over and out of those great (?) deliberations was hatched the slogan, "We want our country as was...
...It's a consolidation of many movements and a concentration of all efforts (disregarding beautiful details) to the one objective we are all agreed upon...
...Is it actually an unsolvable problem...
...History only too well substantiates the fact...
...His accomplishments in public life have been outstanding and it should be noted especially that he was graduated from law school at Columbia University...
...Actually there is a tremendous value in non-cooperation with evil...
...They have the effective means of controlling the government, despite the most fair minded and well-intentioned President...
...Harsh On Finland Dear Sirs: Many Americans have been shocked beyond words by our Government's harsh attitude toward Finland...
...Praise For Reuther / Dear Sirs: Walter Reuther's article, "The Freedom From Fear Of Abundance," in your June 19 issue was excellent...
...B. H. AAF, ORD Greensboro, N. C. Bulwark Dear Sirs: Your paper should be named The Bulwark or the La Follette Line as it is one of the few fortifications that hasn't fallen under the terrific onslaught of power politics and war hysteria...
...Tom Dewey knows a capable assistant when he sees one...
...j. M. V. APO 430 New York, N. Y. * * * Pass This Paper On...
...The lesson to learn from the Dewey speech is clear: One, unemployment is a "problem" only under the private profit system where it will always remain one...
...I also want extra clippings of "The Last Column" on Oliver Lyttleton's comment...
...Is it necessary to remind the reader about October,, 1929...
...Prime Minister Churchill in a speech in 1942 stated that the people of India supported two out of every 10 Englishmen, and they support them not in poverty but in riches...
...Thomas Dewey can be classed as a smear article, I ask you, in fairness to Mr...
...He snorts at Bacon's Atlantis, praises Plato's Republic, smiles at More's Utopia, and sighs over Bellamy's Looking Backward...
...We choose sides, line up, blaze away, and strive with might and main, subterfuge and sophistry to see how far apart we can fly instead of how close together we can get...
...No other source of information, or group of sources, gives so much condensed understanding of the times...
...Roosevelt for a fourth term, on a vague, meaningless platform is sure to meet with another frost...
...Paul Hagen who was trying to bring some reasoned and constructive thoughts into the debate, I have been looking out for material sponsored by the Writers' War Board...
...Because these two worthies speak with one voice on the need for full employment after peace breaks out, also on the best way to obtain it...
...He is not a "Messiah" come to save the world...
...Present Tom Dewey was born in Owosso, Mich., whence he moved to New York...
...The answer, of course, is "Yes...
...THE PEOPLES FORUM . . . Conspiracy Dear Sirs: There seems to be a conspiracy afoot to deprive the American people of the opportunity to express themselves on an important issue at the polls...
...Although war-resisters do not have the well-deserved recognition and acclaim that McAlister Coleman has, they have been in there pitching with him on every issue of civil liberties...
...Does it not mean that "The Invisible Congress," as she calls these 10,000 or more Congressional besiegers, must pay good dividends to those who hire them...
...Richard Lazarus e. P. C. Camp 135 Gernrfask, Mich...
...There are two means by which we can go forward—evolution and revolution...
...This difference or surplus goes to the owners or investors of the industries and businesses...
...Otherwise, we will go head over heels into the greatest depression and unemployment we have ever experienced, which will head us straight into world revolution or war...
...Some of the people in some parts of Europe are learning this...
...R. H. Knapp Saginaw, Mich...
...Government must get out of business at once...
...He is not affected by flattery from those in high places...
...What more can you ask...
...It is to be found in the embodiment of our industrial society itself...
...First ancestor in America was Thomas Dewey in 1630, family located in New Hampshire for 272 years...
...W. M...
...He appears to believe that one should not exploit a public office for private gain or glory...
...It Will Make New Friends...
...When The Progressive circulation exceeds that of the New York Times maybe there will be an awakening in this land...
...When one man says, "I will not fight," he lessens the possibility of war an iota...
...Already the specter of unemployment is raising its head...
...Most of us prefer the former method...
...Our two-party system has now arrived at such an absurd extremity that we find men of such diverse views as Reynolds, Wheeler, and Byrd in the Democratic Party and their counterparts, Vandenberg, Nye, and Austin in the Republican...
...If I am ever able to contribute any support, however little, to The Progressive and the principles for which it stands, then my tenure on this earth will not have been entirely wasted...
...John Sommerlatee Lakewood, O. * * * Indispensable Dear Sirs: The Progressive is indispensable reading...
...I quote a fragment: "The Soviet Union, as a matter of practical fact, as everybody knows who has got the courage to face the fact, the practical fact known to all the world, is run by a dictatorship, a dictatorship as absolute as any other dictatorship in the world...
...Others, particularly at Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary, have been working for removal of censorship regulations and a general betterment of prison conditions...
...For this is not an ordinary but an ideological war —a war between those having too little and those having too much, and the latter should be forced to disgorge...
...And this bloody war in Europe and Asia: What does it portend but calamity when our war-worn soldiers return...
...In striking contrast to the old parties' campaign on sham issues, note the enthusiasm with which the Socialist nominees, Thomas and Hoopes, are received in nearly all parts of the nation...
...Elmer Davis, and brought out statements which we shall do well to remember in the future when we bestow the accolade of "A Liberal...
...Ray S. Kellogg Norwalk, O. * * * GOP Frost Dear Sirs: I hope The Progressive and its readers have noticed the almost complete frost with which not only the big blowout at Chicago, but even the rank and file of both the old parties have received the nomination of the Dewey-Bricker Republican ticket...
...It is said that "the pressure boys" who besiege Congress for legislation favorable to their wealthy hirers have increased immensely in number — according to Helen Fuller in th% New Republic, from 145 20 years ago to somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000 now...
...Frances Gunther's Revolution in India could not have met with a more intelligent and capable reviewer...
...Albert J. Meier St...
...Milton L. Babin Washkish, Minn...
...Particularly and emphatically yes, if the Grand Old Party is returned to power in November with Tom and John at the helm...
...But in these days, when competition becomes too much like war, the parties form a corporation and the war between them turns into a war against the people, by way of dispensing with some of their labor through improved methods of production and even charging higher prices when they have no competitors...
...H. W. Rice Detroit, Mich...
...Condensed Understanding Dear Sirs: No American desiring political intelligence can afford to be without The Progressive...
...Anyway, he is such a boy, that he wouldn't know about history...
...But the contrary actually takes place...
...P. T. A. Neumann Brooklyn, N. Y. In Defense Of Dewey Dear Sirs: Because Fred Rodell's piece on Gov...
...The Dewey Speech Dear Sirs: "Do we have to have a war in order to get jobs...
...Hull did not like the statement that we declared economic war against Japan in order to terminate our neutrality and get into the European conflict "where our sympathies lay," as Lyttleton put it...
...She was a member of the Corrigan family which originated in Cork, Ireland...
...We hold open forums, people's platforms, town meetings...
...Since coming in the Army, I have learned that you were the leader in the effort to increase the soldiers' pay which proves that the forgotten man is not completely forgotten so long as a La Follette is around...
...Cpl...
...I think his inheritance is broad enough so that he can be classed as an all-round typical American citizen of the best quality...
...A. H. Meyer and S. L. Bishop voice their objection to what the former calls "capitalistic imperialism" and the latter "free enterprise" on the ground that they lead to war...
...K. Smith Davidson Springfield, Mass...
...And yet men of learning and even economists seem to be perplexed about the solution...
...He is intensely interested in the problems of juvenile delinquency...
...Such exhortations from their warped ideology 1 found in a paragraph in an advertising magazine put out by the Greyhound Bus Co., signed Rex Stout, U. S. Writers' War Board...
...Then will be the time to mull over the Four Freedoms plus a few dozen more...
...Rex Stout the chief mouthpiece...
...Private enterprise is, especially in its corporate form, only a softer expression for plunder of the public, through low wages, high prices, and inferior goods—particularly in times like the present, when consumers can be soaked with impunity...
...Keep up the good work...
...It is true that the modern social, industrial, and economic order presents a number of perplexing problems, but we are also more enlightened and possess a greater amount of liberal education than ever before...
...It is pleasant to note for those who do not believe that the world revolves" around New York City that two out-country editors, Miami and Memphis, so clearly discerned the dross in the Stout outpourings in which so eminent a product of oxir urban culture as Mark Van Doren can find no evil...
...Secondly, McAlister Coleman implies that saying, "No, I will not cooperate," has no value in meeting the evil of war...
...In the meantime reading your paper out here in the desert is like taking a big drink of cold water in the noonday sun, so keep it coming...
...Anyone who has observed the history of the last 30 years should not have to ask that question...
...Hardly...
...There you have honesty, courage, realism, and executive ability...
...Essentially their objection is to private enterprise, in which, being competitive, war is implicit...
...The Thomas in his name comes from his mother's surname...
...The service rendered by Finland to mankind is magnificent...
...For seven years he fought Tammany where his inherited "New England conscience" helped him become district attorney of Manhattan...
...If civilization is ever to solve its self-imposed mass idleness it must change its present system of production for profit to one of production for use only...
...These two little men don't deny history . . . they just ignore it...
...Dewey, to submit the following facts to your readers...
...It has little to fear as long as we are split and divided, spending most of our time banging each other over the heads...
...Lauds Utley Review Dear Sirs: I want to order extra copies of The Progressive for July 3. It is for Freda Utley's excellent book review I am obtaining same...
...To create the proper atmosphere, taxes on industry must be lowered, restrictive legislation must be repealed...
...Will anyone say this is without significance...
...Service Men Speak Stout's Hymns Of Hate Dear Sirs: Common Sense in its June issue has published a remarkable symposium, "Must We Hate Them?," posed by the vicious propaganda put out by a machine called the Writer's War Board, Mr...
...Then there is Winston Churchill's great eulogy of the Finns: "Only Finland—superb, nay sublime, in the jaws of peril—Finland shows what free men can do...
...all they can see is a return to the good old days of plunder for the money and big business monopolists, and a reserve list of mil lions of unemployed to hamstring the labor unions with...
...Common sense demands a Federal old-age retirement pension for all citizens along with monetary reform if we, the people, wish to partake of the abundance technology has paved the way for, only to have the road blocked by the money power and industrial monopolists, which system the Republicans now wish to preserve...
...These are among the tricks of the trade by means of which the more cunning and unscrupulous grow rich beyond the dreams of avarice, and become a danger to "government of the people, by the people, and for the people...
...I'm no admirer of FDR—Churchill's "save the British Empire," even if the rest of the world is destroyed in doing it, and hoped that the Republicans would adopt a constructive program based on distribution of abundance to ALL of our people instead of making individual enterprise for monopolies the keynote of their bid for the votes of the American people...
...There is a world of meaning in these quotations...
...Plunder Of The Public Dear Sirs: In your issue of June 5 both Mrs...
...After chancing to hear a "Wake Up America Program," entitled, "What Should Be Done With Defeated Germany...
...Louis, Mo...
...If the Democratic convention to meet at Chicago July 19 does no better than its twin-Tory brother, the GOP, both the old parties had just as well sing their Doxology and fold up...
...He will never install a "Palace Guard...
...In short, these two babes in the woods are dead set on taking this nation with its 130 millions of eager and restless people right straight back to the decade immediately preceding the eventful October of 1929...
...This then is your choice: a saner system or annihilation...
...Nothing ever like it before, nothing quite like it since...
...In order to absorb this gigantic exaction there exists in India the most appalling poverty on the face of the earth...
...O. M. Thomason Willernie, Minn...
...shouted Gov...
...As one of the symposium writers, Mr...
...War-resisters in CPS camps through the mediums of work strikes, fasts, and letter writing campaigns have been focusing publicity towards freeing India, lifting the food blockade on Europe, and opposing conscription, to mention a few of the issues that conscientious objectors have been working on...
...Down with one man rule...
...J. j. Marshall Miami, Fla...
...As a result we have a dozen (or is it dozens...
...Note From China Dear Sirs: It is splendid to get The Progressive out here in China...
...Perhaps Gov...
...It is, of course, no concern of mine, nor yours, what curious perversions exist in Mr...
...D. E. Gibson Memphis, Tenn...
...M.H.R...
...The writer, along with many thousands of others, had hoped that since their tragic Hoover collapse, that the leadership of the Republican Party had absorbed a little of Abraham Lincoln's liberal thought, but no...
...Many of us still remember what President Roosevelt said about the 1939 invasion of Finland...
...India's brutal masters in England said they had no ships to haul food to these starving people, yet at the same time they had ships to haul gold from South Africa to sell to the United States at $35 an ounce...
...He is not easily turned away from his purposes...
...Last year over a million of the people of India died of starvation...
Vol. 8 • July 1944 • No. 29
