NOTES FROM THE HEART OF AMERICA

...Watch this talk about 'the American Century.' These would have America do what Hitler tried to do—dominate the earth...

...First, as to the elements of uniformity...

...No man is entitled to the luxuries of life while any man is denied the necessities of life.., "Japan has 2,853 people per arable square mile...

...Some loudmouthed, stay-at-home, self-styled patriots started a movement to have them run out of town...

...This was a rather extreme example- of informality in relation to royalty...

...Two thirds of the people of the world went to bed hungry last night...

...After observing that there was fighting work to be done in the world the editorial concluded about as follows: "Never mind, George, go ahead and think...

...We can preach peace and pray for peace until doomsday, but there will be no peace until these inequities are corrected...

...I did not hear of any mob outrages against persons accused of pacifist or pro-German sentiments, and hysterical snooping and amateur spy-huntin*g seemed to be pretty much out of the picture...

...Unless it is livened up the election may go to Roosevelt almost by default...

...Our treatment of the Japanese-Americans, of the Mexicans, of the Negroes and other minority groups is shamefully un-American and un-Christian...

...An amusing expression of this quality appeared in an editorial in a Topeka newspaper about George Santayana's retirement in a monastery...

...Perhaps the most important consideration in this connection is the unmistakable turning away of the farm vote from the Administration...

...He realizes instinctively that this is not the road to peace...

...But as one travels westward one feels a shifting of interest, as regards the course of the war, from Europe to the Pacific...

...But the type of colonial mentality in relation to Great Britain which is sometimes found among members of the well-to-do classes in the East is not characteristic of the Middle West...

...But objections to the subsidy system, to the unequal application of controls, to the constant element of change and uncertainty in the policies that emanate from Washington bulk large in the farmer's conversation when he discusses politics...

...And so much is certain to happen in the world before November that forecasts in July may well seem obsolete and silly in November...

...Republican political strategy up to the present time has been cautious to the point of pussyfooting...

...the United States, 221...

...This whole problem of effective price regulation is immensely complicated...

...Looking back to the time of the last war, I found a distinct improvement in the public mood as regards sanity and fair play...

...We must believe in brotherhood enough to practice it...

...If they fail in the Middle West, the Fourth Term is a certainty...

...It is possible that, as the campaign increases in heat- and vehemence, the Republicans, by the logic of struggle, may find themselves impelled to make more use of two issues which have remained in the background up to the present time...

...And the difficulties of getting laundry done and Summer suits cleaned in any short period of time make the lot of the traveler who must move from place to place equally difficult on either side of the Alleghen-ies...

...It would gladly follow any lead that would point convincingly in that direction...

...If they sweep the area between the Rockies and the Alleghenies and north of the Mason and Dixon Line there will be a close election, with Republican victory a strong possibility and the issue depending on the outcome of the voting in the larger states on the two coasts, New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, California...

...It is probably a unique situation in American history when a party which has consistently framed and shifted its policies in line with the desires of a foreign dictatorship holds such a potential key position...

...There was nothing inspiring about the Republican convention and its catch-all platform...

...Yet there was something of hearty unaffected social democracy in this method of crashing the gate and presenting oneself to a monarch, as also in the naive goodwill of the Des Moines citizen's subsequent comment: "I could not go back to Des Moines without shaking hands with a man so universally respected in England as the King is...

...There are as many service stars, as many war casualties, as many military heroes in the Middle West as in any other part of the country...

...The Methodist Report There appears to be just as much serious thinking about means to avert future wars in the Middle West as anywhere else in America...

...There is an instinctive dislike of the dubious deals, the compromises of principle that are a part of the gigantic game of world power politics into which America was apparently launched at Teheran...

...might determine the issue...

...There is a more intense feeling a-gainst Japan, perhaps a livelier interest in beating Japan than in beating Germany...

...But the university stood firm and a delegation representing various churches and civic organizations called on the municipal council and gave its members a reminder of the implications of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights...

...While I was in Des Moines my attention was called to a recent report of the Iowa Des Moines Methodist Conference, which included the following very enlightened declarations on international affairs and on race relations within our own borders: "Watch those super-patriots who are now clamoring for universal military training and for air bases all over the world...

...This, in a general way, sums up my impressions from a trip of several weeks in the Middle West, which took me into Kansas, Iowa, Illinois, and Ohio...

...At the same time it throws into relief some elements of regional diversity...

...Middle West Not Isolationist As regards the shape of the peace to come there is a good deal of the Missouri "Show me" attitude...

...It is my impression that the Middle West yields to no section of the country in its desire for permanent peace...

...One of these is the silent abandonment by the Administration of the principles of the Atlantic Charter...

...Wichita, Kan., with its large airplane plants, faces the same kind of housing shortage, the same uncertainties of postwar demobilization as Hartford, Conn...

...Christians can hardly be expected to fare sumptuously with an easy conscience in a starving world...

...So, while the military services of Great Britain and Russia to the common cause are fully recognized, there is not much disposition in the Mississipppi Valley to adopt a "Britain First" or "Russia First" slant in foreign affairs...

...I am far from posing as a political prophet or the son of a prophet...

...Communism and the fellow-traveler organizations that sprout from communism are distinctly weaker in the Middle West than they are in New York and some other Eastern centers...

...One could make the same observation about the crowding of trains...

...One suspects that the same comment will also be applicable to the Democratic convention...

...The Farmers Swing Away Turning to the domestic scene, I got the impression that the Middle West is the principal base from which the Republicans hope to launch a successful political offensive in November...

...But it is my impression that if the election had been held four months ahead of the regular time the Middle West would, in the main, have gone Republican...

...That is the shortest route to the next war...

...The campus of Iowa State or Drake, like the campus of Harvard or Yale, resounds to the march of men in uniform...

...Two Japanese-American students had entered Friends University at Wichita...

...And the farmer is not in a mood to give the urban bureaucrat the benefit of the doubt when mistakes and miscalculations are made...

...It is heartening to report two minor victories for civil liberty which I personally discovered...

...The Methodist Church is quite strong throughout the Middle West...

...I don't know enough about agricultural economics to pronounce a competent judgment on the questions in dispute...

...Gain For Civil Liberties The other is the possibility that, in the event of a close election, perhaps depending on the issue of the voting in the state of New York, the Communists, now transformed from hot gospellers of world proletarian revolution into enthusiastic cheerleaders for Roosevelt and Teheran (one might almost think that "Teheran" was a candidate for Vice President...

...In the far-off peaceful twenties a citizen of Des Moines achieved temporary notoriety by rushing up to the astonished King George V and saying: "Say, King, shake hands...

...Individuals and groups differ in the Middle West along much the same lines as in other parts of the United States...

...A familiar cause of complaint is that the price of feed was left unregulated while the price of poultry was controlled, that the price of cattle on the range was uncontrolled, while there was a ceiling on the price of beef...

...At its best the Middle West has a broad tolerance that stems from Lincoln and Mark Twain and William Allen White...

...One finds the same eagerness to bring the war to a victorious end and bring the men back home...

...And the report which was cited certainly seems to be on the right track in attacking the fundamental causes of war, instead of wasting time on relatively less important details of world organization...

...Here again the forum leaders stood firm and Mayer spoke and there was no violence and everyone felt happier about this outcome of a challenge to freedom of speech...

...As the election of 1940 was a phony election on the issue of involvement in the war, with the two candidates often saying one thing and meaning another, so, one fears, the coming election will be a piece of shadow boxing on the peace, with neither candidate coming to grips with realities or committing himself to the kind of program that would offer much assurance of enduring peace...

...But the Midwest-erner does not wax enthusiastic over the idea of secret alliances or deals pointing to the division of the world into spheres of influence...

...there has been the same almost complete draining away of civilian students...

...India, 639...

...The students are still there and the agitation, which proceeded from a very small number of persons, died down, as intolerant mob agitation usually does, if it meets courageous and intelligent opposition...

...It is both unfair and inaccurate to represent the Middle West as anti-foreign or encircled by a wall of self-imposed isolation...

...The other incident which occurs to me was an effort to prevent Milton Mayer from speaking at a small town forum because of the clamor which an allegedly liberal newspaper in Chicago raised against him as a result of his stand on the war...

...This situation could conceivably produce a boomerang effect in the minds of Americans, not necessarily reactionaries or "fascists," who are not admirers of communism...

...Blind trust in the Administration is not so prevalent as it is in some circles in the East...

...Now as to the points of regional diversity...

...Here one is dealing in generalities, and generalities are always dangerous...

...While in the Middle West, incidentally, I overheard an amusing definition of a fascist...

...It was: anyone whom Vice President Wallace doesn't like...

...I have more than once taken part in discussions of international affairs in this part of the country, and foreign speakers who took part in these discussions always received a fair and respectful hearing...