HOW TO WIN THE WAR
Mayer, Milton
How To Win The War By MILTON MAYER CONGRESS has asked me to advise it on the conduct of the war, and I have accepted the invitation. I do not believe my acceptance of this high post, and even...
...Congress has called for Mayer...
...Who among our elder statesmen, or Geisha, has shown more stability and steadfastness, more selfless devotion, more consuming consecration, more wisdom, far-sightedness, and humility...
...All I promised you was the grand strategy, and there it is...
...We have thrown off our chains, in England, America, China, and Russia...
...With justice...
...You, our brothers, still under the rule of the tooth and the claw, we beg you to throw off your chains and join us in the brotherhood of man, where no man goes hungry while another man gorges, where no man works while another man idles, where no man, because he is brown, or black, or weak, or unlucky, is dependent upon any other man for bitter bread...
...Until yesterday we had nothing to lose but our chains, and we were welding them in every munitions plant...
...The following day the war will end in a glorious Allied victory without the loss of a single American life...
...Emancipation is life...
...We await you not with uticoyiditional surrender, not with reparations, not with victory blockades, starvation, humiliation, and military government...
...How To Bomb Germany-Let us send every plane we've got over Germany tomorrow night, loaded to the gun'les, or whatever they have on planes, with a one-sheet leaflet...
...The question is, I take it, "Mayer, the people of America, through their representatives, want to know how to win the war...
...We address you not as Germans, or Nazis, or enemies, but as free citizens of the world who recognize no master anywhere on earth...
...Join us, brothers...
...We can not help emancipate you because we hold only the power of death over you...
...Patton, the Chicago Tribune, and Clifton P. Fadiman...
...OUR FELLOW-MEN IN GERMANY: Emancipate yourselves and join us...
...The Question Of The Hour The choice of Mayer for the policy-making post in this dark and critical hour is a singularly happy one...
...As I read the invitation, it seems to suggest that I should come to Washington to appear before an historic, unprecedented joint session of the two houses, but I am not much of a public speaker and I dare say I will be permitted to assemble right here in The Progressive and present my views, like the scribbler I am, on paper...
...Rise, as we have risen, and shine, as we are shining...
...We await you...
...Rise, brethren...
...They are willing to leave the ileiails to Gen...
...Oh, yes—the wording of the leaflet...
...For years I have sounded off, in rapidly emptying auditoriums, on how to save the nation or, for a free meal before the lecture, on how to save mankind...
...This dodge may always be counted upon to convert the meeting into a lynching, and at that point I leap to my feet, with my collar up to my ears, and scream, "There he is," pointing at some unpopular local character in the audience, who is promptly strung to the nearest sycamore amid cries of "robber," "hoax," and "fraud...
...Have I left anything out...
...We can only bomb you to death...
...Here you are, then...
...On this auspicious occasion, however, I am ready with the answer...
...You, whom we call our brothers, must make yourselves free...
...What they want from you is the winning grand strategy...
...The power of free life is yours alone...
...We are your partners in the struggle for peace and freedom for all.men everywhere, in India as well at Germany, in Mobile as well as Berlin...
...Not only happy, but natural...
...But I seem always to speak through a glass darkly, mumbling something about the necessity of changing the hearts of men before we can change the face of the world, and then reaching hurriedly for my hat...
...The leaflet is to read as follows: TO OUR FELLOW-MEN IN GERMANY...
...That, my friends, is the leaflet that will win the war tomorrow...
...Every one of us is free, free to work, free to eat, free to vote, free to live in decency and dignity, free to die in comfort, in love, and in peace...
...And if the call is a happy one for America, it is no less happy for me...
...Give...
...We cannot emancipate you by bombing you...
...But we can not help emancipate you...
...We, whom you call your enemies, have made ourselves free...
...And if any heckler hollers, as I try to slip out of the hall, "But we would have to have the Four Freedoms here first before we could promise them to the Germans," I can only reply, as I grab hold of the hind step of a passing street-car, "But that's a detail for Patton, McCormick, and Fadiman to handle...
...God is good and gives us enough for all of us, if only we all will live as brothers and none like master and slave...
...You have only to overthrow yours and share with us,—all you want, all you can use, all you can work for, the boundless riches of the earth that God gave to you and us, His children and each other's brother...
...I do not believe my acceptance of this high post, and even higher honor, will necessitate a severance of my connection with The Progressive, as the invitation simply reads, "The Congress shall not abridge the right of citizens peaceably to assemble and petition for the redress of their grievances...
...With bread...
...And in the midst of the ensuing hubbub I make my getaway, suffering nothing worse than minor contusions and abrasions, or occasionally a bad cold...
...Our masters betrayed you and us at Versailles, at Vienna, at Westphalia, and at every peace conference ever held...
...But we have overthrown our masters...
...We can only enslave ourselves...
...And let all Germany be covered knee-deep with these leaflets so that the efforts of the Gestapo to keep them out of the hands of the people will be futile...
...If I'm stopped in my tracks and pressed, usually by a knee, for further details, I say, "If I were President Roosevelt, I would not have stolen Texas from Mexico, the Philippines from the Spaniards, or Nicaragua from the Nicaraguans...
...We await you with peace...
...Join us, brothers, in the boundless garden of FREEDOM AND PEACE...
...For I am ready, at long last, to answer the question of the hour, "How can we win the war...
...With human brotherhood...
...Congress has delib<?i arted and flung its decision like (as Mi.jT Ralph Ingersoll would say, in one of his phrase-making moments) a gauntlet in the teeth of a protesting nation...
...Congress has come to the right party...
...And as I slither out of the hall, somebody stops me with the invariable question, "Yes, that is all very well, you fake Jeremiah, but we are not living in a vacuum, and the question is, 'What would you do if you were President Roosevelt?' " Mayer Answers The Tough Ones To which my answer, just as invariable, is, "I wouldn't be President Roosevelt—not for all the uncounted votes in Jersey City or the uncounted voters in Alabama...
...for where Harry Hopkins has failed, to whom else should the country turn but Mayer...
...We are your partners in what Heinrich Heine called • "the war for human emancipation...
Vol. 8 • January 1944 • No. 2
