THE PEOPLE'S FORUM
¦ ¦ ¦ THE PEOPLE'S FORUM ¦ ¦ ¦ Third Party Needed Dear Sirs: Compliments to Mr. Villard on his article, "Wanted: A Left-Wing Party for America," in the July 24 Progressive. I have thought for a...
...Washington, Jefferson, and their associates wiped out this goal and replaced it with one based on "man's inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," that would not glorify but condemn imperialism and be a beacon light to a world in darkness...
...The fact that this section has been discriminated against in the matter of freight rates and tariffs and has received no aid from the Democratic Party to handle equitably and solve this problem, has made no real impression on the average Southerner, nor has it changed his thinking in the least...
...Facts Wanted Dear Sirs: Congratulations on such articles as that in the issue of July 17 by Thurman Arnold, "The Coming Economic Conflict...
...They all want a candidate ivho will carry out their desires for a world of peace and abundance...
...Knowing that similar ideas are held in every country—even in Holland !—we may hope and work that someday we can get together and build a better world...
...It is private control of money, made possible by a vicious act of Congress and state legislatures in permitting private banks to print the money that they loan...
...Can we allow millions of Jews to be slaughtered without raising a voice of protest...
...All of them make use of a technique of deliberate perversion of truth and fact, to poison the public channels of information...
...The standard reasons are: 1. The family has always voted the Democratic ticket...
...E. E. Cassel St...
...All of them put money and power ahead of human beings...
...Gertrude W. Irwin Los Angeles, Calif...
...So after all, he asked for it...
...But does he believe for a minute that this liberal victory can be won by disregarding the machine...
...It's a shining example of how public opinion can be educated and controlled by misrepresentation and lies, how a great leader of a great organization of workers can be crucified and held up to the public as a criminal and a traitor, how the President of the United States through his various boards and bureaus can stoop so low as to cooperate with the scoundrels in carrying out this un-American, unjust, and almost inhuman crusade against this great underground army of 600,000 coal miners and their leader who ask only a living wage and a square deal...
...That is as it should be...
...Sxirely each could make some concessions in order to work together...
...I decided to find out just whom he does dislike, so I re-read a number of the notable speeches which he has made during the past year...
...Likes Health Column Dear Sirs: As one who has been a spectator during more than four-fifths of a century of what has gone on in our whirling world and has recently discovered your interesting magazine, I am taking the liberty of saying that, although some of the views presented and advocated in its various departments are deemed by me to be visionary, impractical, and unwise, I like very much and commend, because of the excellence of the information and advice which it contains, the department called, "Your Health: Here's How...
...The Battle Ahead Dear Sirs: We readers of The Progressive are evidently men (and, of course, women) of many minds...
...And boy, what a punt...
...The assertion smacks of the Hearst editors who periodically say: "No one ever told me what to write...
...A Real Party' Dear Sirs: There are so many good writers with their valuable messages in The Progressive each week, I consider it the most valuable visitor which comes to my desk...
...They set what they considered fair prices, and pretty soon Sun, a comparatively little outfit, was leading the field...
...In the year 1928 (probably the banner year of American prosperity) the average per capita income for the U. S. was $749...
...came into New England, and they decided to follow nobody...
...Petersburg, Fla...
...It is soft-hearted treatment of inferiors, like the freeing of slaves, that lead men with overgrown skulls like Browder and Vice President Wallace to believe that humanity is in a state of evolution with a continual upward trend marked by revolutionary readjustments...
...Back in 1900 when Theodore Roosevelt was "promoted" from the New York governorship to the Vice-Presidency there were people who believed the shift was engineered to put Roosevelt where he would cease troubling the big New York corporations...
...They include principally monopolists, cartelists, fomenters of racial and religious prejudice, and promoters of Anglo-Saxon imperialism...
...It Will Make New Friends...
...That is what military training is intended to accomplish—simplicity...
...Come, McAlister...
...Wallace dislikes...
...In general, prices were pretty high...
...Socialists, Progressives, Consumer Coopcratiyes, Technocrats, church people, college professors, stand for abundance for all, although they differ on methods for bringing this about...
...I am sending the article to one of my -Congressmen...
...It Will Make New Friends...
...The People Wallace Dislikes Dear Sirs: In quoting the expression, "A fascist is anyone whom Vice President Wallace doesn't like," Mr...
...B. N., Lowry Field, Colo., under "Service Men Speak," July 3rd, objects to Milton Mayer's article, "We Must Lick Churchill Too...
...The Truman Nomination Dear Sirs: Sen...
...I wish it might be published in your paper...
...Or are we still cherishing the goal set for us by those who set the young nation on the march of progress by their sufferings and sacrifices in the Revolution...
...The Miners' Side Dear Sirs: We wonder how many readers of The Progressive have read the article in Collier's of July 15, subject "Not Guilty," by John L. Lewis...
...By supporting them you will be consistent in your struggle against the decadence of the two old parties and the economic system they help keep alive...
...Coloutes asserts that we, supporters of American isolationist plutocracy - democracy, completely repudiate Communist imperialism...
...As further evidence, Dewey should demand that the Government answer the charges made against officials by Jeanette Rankin in the Congressional Record leading up to the Pearl Harbor affair...
...Denver, Colo...
...Dr...
...The Red Menace Dear Sirs: Please permit me to indorse Leon Coloutes' repudiation of Communist tactics, which appeared in your issue of July 10, and add an important remark thereto...
...2. The race issue...
...Civilians fight the peace...
...Something like the articles on Japan...
...Can you tolerate such policies as being domestic ones which don't concern us...
...A "New Deal" has not, and never can, remedy the conditions prevailing in this section without a reshuffle...
...And if that front is lost, the soldier has fought in vain—as he did in the last war...
...Hoover's Wealth Dear Sirs: Now that Herbert Hoover refuses to stay put and is again in the public eye because of an election year, at which time he always spouts about his love of labor and political office, let's investigate...
...Hoover tells us that he has always worked with his hands...
...Then Sun Oil (yes, Sun, the Pew Company...
...From the standpoint of our national welfare, industrialization of the South would be a safeguard for the future...
...The banks hoard the legal money and call their loans...
...Congratulations For Chase Dear Sirs: Congratulations to Stuart Chase for his "Balance What Budget...
...Let's see what Hoover did with his hands: According to In Fact (June 10, 1944), "all the evidence shows that Herbert Hoover made his millions in a more vicious manner than any of the U. S. industrialists . . . Every cent he has made comes from the blood and sweat and tears of Chinese (coolie labor at 10 to 15 cents a day), Burmese, Russian (as a partner of the Czar in exploiting the Russian resources, where he stood to become a billionaire), Nigerian Negroes, Mexican...
...We commonsense members of the community repudiate such a silly, scientific notion...
...in all this array he did not answer Mr: Barnes' crucial point, "the freedom of the few to exploit the many...
...The answer is simple and the remedy will be applied some day, if not by the election of 1948, then in 10 or 50 years...
...In any event, I fear that, whatever may lie hidden behind the conflicting reports about events and about the persons involved and their personal and political motives, the complete absence of any message of encouragement or sympathy, however limited, from America may bring about a situation which, once it is unalterable, will create new and difficult problems for all of Europe...
...When they raised gasoline prices, everybody else followed...
...Olive Armstrong Laramie, Wyo...
...Incidentally, the speeches reveal what kind of persons and practices Mr...
...Now, more than ever, we need the truth...
...All Congressmen should read it...
...Walter F. Burrell Santa Barbara, Calif...
...A Better World Dear Sirs: Would it seem a good idea to you if sometime The Progressive could carry articles on German and Russian attempts at democracy and reasons why they failed...
...No ranting or innuendoes...
...When powerful groups are preaching a gospel of despair of reaching that goal Henry Kaiser's testimonial of faith in the institutions of our fathers should strengthen the determination of all progressives to fight on...
...The record discloses that in 1943 the total accidents and deaths in coal mines were 73,492...
...And I discovered that the facetious definition quoted above is a very good one to take seriously...
...He says that for many years Socony was the unquestioned leader in this territory...
...Pass This Paper On...
...Louis castigates Harry Elmer Barnes' article in the issue of June 26 by giving a formidable array of statistics on the freedoms of America, and the fruits thereof...
...We had a much greater enemy here in our midst than the "superman" or the "son of heaven" before we took them on...
...The delegates, at both conventions, approved a platform in exact harmony .respecting all major issues, thus placing the Messrs...
...That one small competitor broke up the whole rigged market, and it has never returned since...
...They tell what America's future can be, if her productive energies are released in peacetime as they have been released in wartime...
...F. S. Kinder 103 So...
...I see as well as you that a military dictatorship is not the type of i government wanted for Germany, neither by Americans nor by most Germans themselves...
...Had Dewey been interested in the general welfare of the people of this nation and of all other nations, he would have demanded centralized farming on a basis of mass production of subsistance and goods, building of more power dams, a modern house for every family, additional railroads, and four-lane highways, plus equality and barter exchange with all foreign nations, thus removing the cause of war, poverty, and crime...
...Now, how can the South's problem be solved...
...Eloise Tudor Las Cruces, N. Mex...
...Why was the latter nominated...
...Truman has shown himself an able and useful statesman, and not a few people would have been glad if he had been nominated for President instead of Mr...
...Facts are what we want...
...In short, they are misguided rather than naturally evil...
...And if he throws down his hat, w\ry shouldn't Mayer or anyone else who feels competent, kick it...
...Their product was superior, and the big companies were soon having to cut to meet Sun's prices...
...Jesse T. Kennedy Chicago, 111...
...Truman as head of the Senate Committee to Investigate War Conditions has done notable work in exposing graft inwar contracts...
...I believe that farmers are the chief sufferers from the activities of American fascists...
...Every postoffice throughout the civilized world a bank of issue through which all government obligations are to be paid with postal bank checks, made acceptable by law at face value in all payments— it's just as simple as that...
...Dewey may be, he would be helpless as "poor Mr...
...The second line of reasoning is a fallacy insofar as the method of solving the problem is concerned...
...Wallace dislikes are people whom we Progressive readers have learned to dislike...
...Skipped Screech Dear Sirs: At a show in Chicago recently, the jester in his raillery about cooling with Coolidge and hungering with Hoover, somehow seemed to skip some screeches in his sketch...
...I think Oswald Garrison Villard's call for a left-wing party in this United States is the paramount necessity for perpetuity of the Four Freedoms of America...
...F. W. Richter St...
...for the benefit of a few corporations n Ned Mauston Los Angeles, Calif...
...Being a Dutch subject, "stranded" here, I am happy to learn about the progressive movement in this country...
...James D. Mahoney Torrington, Conn...
...To my mind, the subjects discussed in the last mentioned department are of outstanding and vital importance to everyone...
...Does he think it will be aided by reading traditionally "great books" regardless of whether their bearing on the machine age is or is not sensed by the reader...
...All of which leads me to the conclusion that anti-trust legislation is most effective when it seeks to make competition possible—to permit the smaller enterprise to function without hindrance from the big fellows—rather than by punitive action to try to force competition...
...Let's have a real party and a new Congress which will not bow to the 15,000 agents of the big boys who now infest Washington...
...As long as we continue to give eupport to major parties we will be no nearer a solution...
...Perry St...
...Cracking Monopoly Dear Sirs: I was very much interested in Thurman Arnold's article in your issue of July 17, and thought you might be interested in another incident revealing lack of true competition in business...
...A friend of mine has been in the oil business in New England for some years...
...That's the type of reading I like...
...World Finance Dear Sirs: The Bretton Woods "world monetary conference" (banker conference) is all over now...
...Why can't our Foreign Affairs Committee persuade our State Department to declare civilians of occupied countries, and especially Jews, as prisoners of war and demand that Germany recognize them as such on pain of punishing the captured German soldiers of those cities in which massacres have been perpetrated by the Nazi armies...
...NeedsThe Truth Dear Sirs: Surely you are doinjj a splendid work...
...The people cannot locate the Government cash and the mortgages are foreclosed...
...I am a farm woman...
...But we got one of them via telepathy—racing to ruin and revolution with Roosevelt...
...Wallace's speeches are entirely constructive...
...Pass This Paper On...
...I feel that propaganda can effect a most peaceful people and cause them to become cruel and vicious...
...No doubt Mayer had the ultimate "interests of America first" in mind when he booted Winston's bowler...
...All the South need do is form a third party, taking the good policies of both the Republican and Democratic Parties and adding a few of its own for good measure...
...Wallace obviously had the support of liberal Democrats and there was no apparent reason for conservatives being attracted to Truman...
...When I cast my ballot this Fall, therefore, I shall take great care to vote for no candidate who seems to be a puppet of the people whom Mr...
...in the July 3 issue...
...Nearly always there will be a Sun Oil to break up the monopolistic restraints if given half a chance...
...If he should be elected Vice President, the conservatives who secured his nomination can congratulate themselves on having put Mr...
...Horace S. Fries Madison, Wis...
...My friend's concern, one of the smaller outfits here, once was faced with too little fuel oil to meet the spot demand...
...Endorse Thomas Dear Sirs: I am waiting to see The Progressive follow up its campaign for a people's peace, and a world with security and freedom for all, by endorsing the only two national candidates with these principles as their objectives, Norman Thomas and Darlington Hoopes...
...J. F. Frank of St...
...I also appreciate your humanitarian attitude towards the German people as such and your opposition to branding a nation as being of a murderous, innate, cruel disposition...
...Jean Beauchamp Chula Vista, Calif...
...Now what is this "crook" in finance...
...The findings have.been made just as plain as mud...
...I've been reading your magazine for over a year now and with great pleasure...
...F. Ermarth Chicago, 111...
...Frederick B. Taylor Lincoln, Mass...
...I wonder if a little clarification of the term "progressive" as the writer understands it would be in order...
...Take the "crook" out of finance and it becomes so simple that a child will understand...
...Norman Tubeash Gardner, Mass...
...In all the laudable and enjoyable things possessed by us Americans, he fails to tell how many million and billionaires have arrived by the road of exploitation...
...Obviously he doesn't go about disliking people indiscriminately...
...One amusing incident is revealing...
...Roosevelt...
...Sigmund Cohn Magnolia, Ark...
...in the July 31 issue of The Progressive...
...Of course I don't agree with all these writers...
...Licking Churchill, Too Dear Sirs: Lt...
...William A. Sturcken New Orleans, La...
...It would be simpler and easier if both fronts were the same as they are in Russia, which explains why the Russians fight so well...
...Knock out that one section and you have a helpless nation, wide open for attack and invasion...
...Summing up the official evidence, Dewey holds all the cards necessary for election...
...W. H. Chamberlin meant to be amusing...
...And I understand it was Churchill who said, "You have to lick me, too...
...What is needed by the South is not a "New Deal" but rather a reshuffle...
...When a man goes down into a mine, he take's his life in his hands...
...There was progress in the colonies even though one race was exterminated and another enslaved in the process, but the goal was not the great nation we have become, but the increase of the power and prestige of the British Empire on her way to world .domination...
...C. B. Ballard Appleton, Wis...
...Walter Reece Ashland, Oreg...
...No matter how well intentioned Mr...
...Today, very little difference can be distinguished between the policies of the Republican and Democratic Parties on this issue, and the South can no longer look to the Democratic Party to'solve this problem which does exist...
...In summary Mr...
...Aristotle -wrote some great books, they say...
...Rabbi Milton A. Dershowitz La Crosse, Wis...
...No Choice Dea- Sirs: Letters by Ray S...
...Roosevelt and Dewey as exact equals, leaving absolutely no choice for the voter...
...Soldiers fight wars...
...Politicians make wars...
...That's what the big boys mean ¦when they are boosting for "free enterprise" to be returned after the war is won...
...And in that year of prosperity, four out of five Americans were members of families whose incomes ranged from $750 to $2,000...
...Every ounce of manpower would be used under production for use instead of for profit, and then, for the first time, labor leaders, great and small, would have to do their share -of work with the common man...
...The South, with misguided intelligence, has been thinking along the wrong lines or hasn't been thinking at all...
...Another quarter cent increase brought the same result...
...Truman where he can do little to trouble the profiteers...
...where is your Aristotelian logic...
...Or does he suffer the illusion that the "Ilutchins School" is concerned to create spiritual values out of a critical consideration of speci.'c contemporary political and economic difficulties...
...But Henry Wallace is a person of singularly candid and friendly demeanor...
...Who hasn't...
...It was their likeness here at home...
...The basic points each liberal group stands for are similar, so it should not be difficult for them to anite on one platform without sacrificing anything very essential in each one...
...that's what The Progressive is like...
...Certainly "in the liberal scheme of things," as he says, "the machine will be the servant, not the master, of the spirit of man...
...Only concerted support of a third party which has a sincere intention of working for these things, will do any good...
...I fully realize that army generals and Junkers are not particularly to the liking of most Americans, but I always felt that they alone have the practical means, i. e., the weapons, at their disposal to form the spearhead of an organized revolt against the Nazi regime, short of complete chaos in Europe...
...Mea Coops Culver City, Calif...
...Kellogg and A. J. Meir in your July 17 issue are based on official records and the truth essential for freedom...
...The people Mr...
...These groups plus peace organizations desire a world in which peace, freedom, justice, and security from fear are carried out in the practical world situation...
...Our wealth and manpower have been placed at the disposal of British imperialism, which still uses race supremacy, starvation, and imprisonment as she holds hundreds of millions of peoples in political, cultural, and economic slavery...
...If World War II has taught us anything, it has shown that the safety of our country as a whole cannot be secure if industry is to be located in only one section of it...
...Progress along what road, towards what goal, and from what position...
...Do the defects of Butler prove the virtues of Hutchins...
...Aid Jews Of Europe Dear Sirs: I have been a reader of your magazine since moving to Wisconsin two years ago...
...The re-election of Roosevelt means the reconversion of business will be for the benefit of the cartels end the big boys financially...
...He might have added that we sincerely regret the abolition of chattel slavery...
...They never will have very much influence until they do join forces in some such party as the Cooperative Commonwealth Party of Canada...
...The South wants industries and should have them, but the Democratic Party has never found the way to make this possible...
...I have thought for a long time that what we need desper*-ately is for all liberal-minded people in this country to join forces to support one political candidate and platform...
...For every income above that level, there must be one below it...
...The South's Need Dear Sirs: Ask the average Southerner why he is a Democrat and you will get a variety of answers, none of which makes sense...
...Wallace would like to see shorn of their prestige in American life, for the reason that they stand in the way of the achievement of the goal of the people, the goal of "maximum use of all our resources in the service of the general welfare...
...When they cut, the others all cut, just like a bunch of sheep...
...What other name, then, fits them as well as that of "fascist...
...I have enjoyed the liberal outlook of your paper on domestic issues and agree with you whole-heartedly^on most of your stands regarding economic justice...
...In your July 24 issue, Mr...
...B. N. says that he has been so well conditioned that he can sse only from the military point of view...
...This was all pre-war, of course...
...I have wondered why you haven't lifted your voice for the Jews of Europe...
...Anyone who cares to make a study of the farcical Republican and Democratic National Conventions, must decide that truth was wholly disregarded by all delegates...
...A soldier fights on the battle-front, but the civilian fights on the political front, on the home front...
...A helpful divergence of views is well illustrated by the series of articles by outstanding Americans that just closed in The Progressive...
...I want to quote an extract from the Cliristia?i Science Monitor: "There are nearly 40,000 Americans rated as millionaires in the sense that their incomes exceed the amount that one million dollars will earn at 5 per cent per annum...
...The sooner the South wakes up to this fact, the sooner it will start on the road to progress...
...Until the Government answers the charges, they must be accepted as true, which will mean heavy indictments against all officials implicated...
...Thurman Arnold's article showing the growing power of business imperialism, blood brother of political imperialism, was a timely warning of the battle ahead...
...So to discourage spot purchasers they raised the fuel oil price one-half cent (contract customers, of course, were not affected), when lo and behold, all the others in the business promptly followed suit...
...The first line of reasoning is like advocating the use of footpower for irrigation rather than an electric pump, or a horse-drawn vehicle instead of one driven by a gasoline engine—this, merely because our forefathers got along without electricity or the automobile and we can do the same...
...When all realize that selfishness and greed in economic life ere the primary cause of war, it will become apparent that we must fill tackle this problem together...
...They are satisfied that they know for what they fight...
...I wish everyone would read the miners' side of this case and get the truth...
...Query About Germany Dear Sirs: As an admiring reader of The Progressive, whose wisdom concerning postwar European, and especially German, problems was a constant encouragement to me for many months past, I would like to ask you one question: Why it it that no American, official or unofficial, will utter some words of encouragement to those men in Germany who undertook the recent coup against the dastardly Nazi crowd...
...Louis, Mo...
...Rebuke For Coleman Dear Sirs: It is sad to relate that McAlistcr Coleman went off the deep end in "Education for What...
...Roy Shinaman Los Angeles, Calif...
...Divided as they are now into little groups, they are powerless before the two major parties backed big business interests...
...Harding" was in 1920...
...Is this to be the goal of progressives...
...Differences of opinion up to a certain point are helpful in determining the policy of the progressive movement and the part it is to play in the great events the war and the peace that is to follow...
...Twice now in 25 years we have forgotten that goal set for us by the "founding fathers" and rededieated by the martyred Lincoln, and replaced it with the goal of the Tory colonists...
...But would not this solution offer the only means toward an orderly transition from Hitler to an acceptable and more democratic regime...
...Should Dewey be elected, the thought of the old gang that will come to the trough makes one shudder...
...During the entire period of the Town Hall and Round Table meetings, one half of the speakers have refused to accept the official records as a basis for the formation of their opinion, and thus disregarded the truth...
...And if the South is smart, it will invite the West to join in the founding of this new party, for the West has many of the same problems to solve, notably freight rates and tariffs...
...But the postwar problem is not so simple...
...Edward E. Phipps Portland, Oreg...
Vol. 8 • August 1944 • No. 33
