THE PEOPLE'S FORUM
THE PEOPLE'S FORUM . . . A Black Day Dear Sirs: As Aug. 22 approaches I have poignant memories of that black day in 1927 when Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were executed by the...
...The magician, sensing our reaction, a lot of it due to our present full tummies, money jingling in our pockets, and resentment at wartime restrictions, would have us believe by his gestures, that not he, but his assistant New Deal, was to blame for the poor performance...
...E. Rodebaugh Craigsville, W. Va: * * * Better Than A Daily Dear Sirs: I couldn't possibly get along and know what is going on in this troubled world without The Progressive...
...The conditions in Europe today speak for themselves as to how far this brought Europe nearer socialism...
...He doesn't like the policy of "Unconditional Surrender" and tries to prove such a policy as insane by whitewashing the guilt of the Germans...
...In 1932, we, the people, had the opportunity to put a new party into office...
...Coleman's ideas and wish he would soft pedal the smart alec accents...
...Then there is a type who seemingly have no opinions of their own, but interpret according to their sponsors viewpoint: the Sokolskys and Fulton Lewis, Jr...
...Jeanette Kaufman Garwood, N. J. The 'Unethical' Journalists Dear Sirs: I wish to enter a plea in behalf of a certain type of news reporter anil columnist, the "keyhole and transom-peeping" backstairs journalist, who has often been raked over the coals in your own and other publications...
...On the contrary, Roosevelt has swung sharply to the right and is doing everything possible to conciliate the big interests and all those opposed to real economic freedom...
...Out of 130 million Americans no man is indispensable...
...Fuller gave the decision .that sent them to the electric chair...
...For this nation, reforms advocated by the Socialist Party after it split from the Socialist Labor Party in 1899, or about that time, have largely been adopted by the old-line capitalist parties, which are in a much better position to put them into effect...
...Germany's Guilt Dear Sirs: I read with interest the article by Prince Hubertus Zu Loewen-stein, "Weimar—The Hope Of European Peace...
...It exchanges the services of one person, say, a coal miner, with the services of many other persons...
...We are throwing away our vote when we vote for men or measures which we do not conscientiously want...
...I read a metropolitan paper seven days a week, but get more dependable information in the once-a-week edition of The Progressive than in the seven editions of the daily paper...
...I like Mr...
...whether or not labor is "spoiled" and should speak up for itself at a time when soldiers and sailors freely sacrifice their lives—at this time, unostentatiously and as a matter of routine, miners work long days underground, never seeing the sun, facing horrible death...
...Galen M. Harvey Elkton, Oreg...
...Labor unions speak for them...
...Eileen Walker South Pasadena, Calif...
...There are things about the Republican or Democratic parties, their platforms, or their candidates, which we do not like, but we go back to the polls at every election and vote for them again...
...Fred Rodell's articles, however, could well be eliminated...
...We hear that if Dewey is elected the country will revert to big business, et cetera...
...For those who build his shelter, raise his beefsteak, make his automobile, his shoes, his newspaper...
...Such are the Kaltenborns, Thompsons, Lipp-manns, and Carters...
...Stood The Test Dear Sirs: Like most of our reSl friends, you'ye stood the test and strain of these times...
...That bad boy having been in the closet for 12 years, should have learned a lesson...
...His method of presentation reminds one so much of a child who is trying his utmost to prove something but who has no evidence upon which to base his statements...
...Riggers way up in the air in shipyards furnish high quotas of fatal accidents...
...The monied men, the trusts, et al, with their $l-a-year-men posted in key positions, their factories producing war material...
...However, although it's waste of space, I'd say that few of the best of us are very good at letting others have what we would like...
...22 approaches I have poignant memories of that black day in 1927 when Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were executed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts...
...and for those who provide his community stores, schooling, medical, recreational, and governmental services...
...I recommend his Faltsjarn's Berattlse, an absorbing historical romance which has all the tang of Walter Scott, and more historical accuracy...
...If his friends would vote for Dewey because the President looks tired, and the Republicans and Socialists would also vote for Dewey, he would surely win...
...Magician's Promises Dear Sirs: Why the weeping and wailing on the part of Progressive r eaders over derogatory remarks about either the Democrat or Republican Party or its favorite son...
...The echoes of Mr...
...Who is running this country today...
...W. A. Harrison Bloomington, 111...
...It is supposed to be the voice of democratically-minded Germans, "good Germans...
...If people had willingly faced facts, they'd have known that, due to technological progress, the "good ole days" philosophy and a decent standard of living were no longer compatible...
...The War Party will not bring us permanent peace...
...of the liberties that our boys are supposed to be giving their lives to preserve...
...Here for example is a little German paper published in New York City and called Neue Volks-Zeitung...
...7, an elegy in prose by William Henry Chamberlin says: "It is now night in Finland...
...And lastly, there is the journalist and commentator who specializes in exposes and sensation, usually via the keyhole...
...He is, despite the insinuations of being a political sap as currently dealt out by the Dewey boys, too fully aware of the true Roosevelt political angle prior to, and during, convention sessions, and he is far too generous and courageous morally to become affected by those deceit-packed barrages loosed in the President's direction...
...The exchange value would be out of balance...
...And when our Government (which is all of us), requests the services of pilots, seamen, and infantrymen, and the services of builders of factories, planes, ships, and guns—our Government, (which is all of us) can request taxes, (our collective exchange power) with which to pay for those services...
...How do we know he will not use the same delay tactics in the postwar period, giving as an excuse the statement that it might delay recovery...
...And in view of that fact, Mayer was wrong when he said, "I give you the Republican Party, as I am unable to find any use for it...
...Yet in dealing with our ally Russia they are as hysterical as Hitler —and these are the kind of Germans we will probably have to deal with after the war...
...Chamberlin refers to Finland as "a democracy...
...All hope for rescue of 63 entombed miners abandoned today .. . " In the midst of so much wrangling as to whether or not labor unions are "terrible" and their existence useful...
...For proof of this one may look to Europe where the Social Democrats have for years not only advocated similar reforms, but actually collaborated with the ruling class of their respective countries...
...John Buchanan Berwick, Nova Scotia • * • * Liked Lilienthal Article Dear Sirs: You are to be complimented on the wonderful article by David Lilienthal in your issue of July 10...
...Does he think the rest of the draftees entered the Army of their own free will...
...S. Nordin Mitchell Mount Vernon, N. Y. 'Deceitful Barrages' Dear Sirs: "Blame the bosses' boss—Henry Wallace is dead," dolefully reports Milton Mayer...
...By cashing in bonds for gold, it is possible for them to move gold out of the United States whenever they find it profitable to deflate the value of our dollar...
...Vote for Dewey...
...indeed, no one in their party has reasonable excuse to attach blame, not even the Negro whose assurance of continued friendly regard for his interests by Roosevelt can well remain static, a specific platform plank in his favor or none at all...
...The theme, as we understand it, of this sweetly sad composition, seems to be that the Russian Communists will set up their economic-industrial ideology in Finland after the war, thus causing a pall of darkness to descend over postwar Finland...
...During the wars of the Swedish Carls, heroes were rewarded with a hunk of Finnish farm country, including the workers on it, and a title, the least being "Baron...
...Rose Pesotta New York, N. Y. * * * Chamberlin On Finland Dear Sirs: In your issue of Aug...
...I do not read or listen to all or *ven many of the newspaper columnists or radio commentators, but it seems to me they can be classified into five general kinds...
...Another practical plan, for our Socialist friends, would be to vota for Dewey instead of Thomas...
...It's going to take a number of years to show the Germans what democracy really means...
...Wallace isn't...
...There is neither rhyme nor reason for borrowing money into circulation, and hoarding it out of circulation...
...To prevent future wars the pacifists must utilize practical plans instead of their customary dreamy idealism...
...the Winchells and Pearsons of the profession...
...Function Of Money Dear Sirs: Since most professional talks on money have been about as clear as mud, I see no reason why I should not add to the confusion...
...We are so afraid that if we vote for the Socialist Party, which does have a candidate for President of real ability and a platform which says what it means, that we will be throwing away our vote...
...What Norman Thomas, and the Socialist Party advocate, is no more than liberal reforms which do not lead to socialism...
...But—and this is their justification—it is the last type, the "unethical" journalists, who can show up the scandals of government and its officials, scandals that may have ii most important bearing upon the welfare of the American people...
...not in ourselves, but in the magician , . . that he didn't put on a better show...
...They'd have known that a man who promised both was either ignorant or a rank "astute politician...
...Loy Vincent Hanford, Wash...
...a party of and for the people...
...For its proper function is that of exchanging human services, and only that...
...All give me an idea of what thinking U. S. A. has on its mind...
...For instance, if a worker receives $600 for a year's work, and his food, clothing, shelter, transportation, and taxes amount to $600, he wouldn't have anything left over for medical, recreational, and com-municational services, would he...
...Well, we, the people, haven't...
...If enough of us voted the Socialist ticket it would have a chance to become a major party and give the more conservative parties some competition...
...We Americans accuse the Germans of inflicting this terrible war on humanity and we intend to make them bear the consequences and convince them over a couple generations that German aggressiveness will be crushed by overwhelming force every time it raises its ugly head...
...I believe that if Phil La Follette were here, he would prove that he is the leader of a new left wing party we are so badly in need of...
...Money is the IOU which society recognizes as the medium for exchanging human services...
...Yet Mr...
...It would be a marvelous thing if such a plan could be put in operation for that great section...
...Both were aware of significant happenings in the outside world...
...I know of only one: Upton Close...
...John Peters Clinton, la...
...Let him try to soft-soap the charges found therein...
...Let's hope he'll start this party on his return, unless someone else starts it before then...
...The un-simple part is why one person's service is worth one million dollars annually, and another's is worth only $600...
...our influence to have another "chair" established in the Theological Seminaries to teach Christian ethics, since most people do not know Christ taught non-resistance...
...Keep up the good work, for we Americans need now more than ever the kind of citizen education you help to provide...
...I enjoy reading it immensely...
...The facts are that all of Germany's thinkers were so terrorized with the "mailed fist" bombast of her rulers that they had to leave the country...
...Simple, isn't it...
...Melville Kress Pittsburgh, Penna...
...I guess everyone understands what that Republican "reform" would mean to the South's colored people...
...Here in California we have a comparable problem in the great interior valley drained by the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers, a stretch of country over 500 miles long and averaging 60 miles wide...
...As for Germany's war guilt, I recommend for his edification a little booklet published by the Friends of Democracy, Inc., S. L. G. Knox's The Mailed Fist...
...F. A. High Los Angeles, Calif...
...How can we expect to have democracy or good government when we do that...
...Not destroying them will of course not only delay full recovery but will make recovery impossible...
...President Roosevelt may call Pearson a liar, but I have not seen any actual proof of Pearson's untruthfulness brought forward by him or his underlings...
...We had the opportunity to put that same plant facility into operation for the benefit of all the people...
...Keep up the good work...
...This act gives these bankers complete control of our gold reserves...
...So if any one wants to support the principles that will lead to socialism he can only support the Socialist Labor Party ticket...
...Hollywood, Calif...
...They knew, for instance, of the pretensions to power by the upstart Mussolini in their homeland before II Duce's name was in American newspaper headlines, and they saw him not only as a social menace in Italy, but as a danger to world peace...
...He would have us believe that Germany was a land of democratic splendor and that Kant, Fichte, and Hegel were protagonists of modern democracy...
...But of course, that takes us into high finance, which lets me out...
...Mary Harvey Fontana, Calif...
...That education article by McAl-ister Coleman was difficult to read...
...Roosevelt, the master magician of the Democrat Party...
...Friends and enemies of the Administration could join in this program...
...Chamberlin should come out here on Puget Sound and talk with some of our best and soundest Americans who are of Finnish blood and birth...
...Less Of Rodell Dear Sirs: The Progressive as a whole is a very fine publication, full of facts and truths well presented...
...Certainly neither of the candidates for the Democratic or Republican Parties has given any assurance of maintaining any...
...The democratically-minded Germans like those behind the Neue Volks-Zeitung might screech that the war was caused by Russia's plotting with Hitler to divide Poland, that Russia will be the bad egg to watch at the war's end, but it will get them nowhere...
...Win-the-War is not needed there...
...Our Chief has stated he prefers to retire...
...rather they are a bulwark for capitalism against socialism...
...A. Mote R. No...
...Reelect the present clique and go on with what they are afraid Dewey will give them...
...When one reads other papers and magazines and hears the ravings and rantings of politicos over the air, it seems as if all the good things the boys are supposed to be fighting for, and all the principles and ideas for which we've taken our stand, are thrown into a cocked hat and lost in the rush to see who'll get their hands on world power first...
...M. Jensen Winlock, Wash...
...Moreover, the Democrats generally are doing no blaming...
...It is only by true cooperation under an unselfish leader that the people will ever obtain true economic liberty...
...If I hear snickers and see knowing winks from the wiseacres, then there is a job, an important job, for the "back-stairs" journalists to do...
...If the ministers were taught this, and would pass it on to the people, wars could not be started...
...Walter Winchell and Drew Pearson have their faults, to be sure, and may sanction ideologies with which I cannot agree, but nevertheless they are doing a public service when they, regardless of their methods, uncover facts about public officials and their actions and policies which the more "ethical" journalists cannot discover...
...The record of either will show that neither supports socialist ideals, as only Marx and the students of Marx have ever been true exponents of socialism according to the Marxian analysis of capitalist economics...
...It is very seldom that voices of these workers themselves are heard or their words printed...
...These points of merit are, to my mind, steady and reliable, and in addition you have often presented splendid special articles, such as, for instance, the recent article of Henry Kaiser's...
...Labor unions have their shortcomings and vices, as has every human organization under the sun...
...I'm at a loss to understand what the good Prince really wants...
...John McWilliams Sheridan, Wyo...
...Then why should we need a draft law...
...Count Tolstoy said...
...What is money...
...Reid Allenby Laramie, Wyo...
...Samuel Butler answered that question three hundred years ago...
...We had the opportunity to purchase legally at a fair price, the entire plant facility of an almost defunct economy...
...What these democratically-minded Germans, including Prince Loewen-stein, want is a good bourgeois republic governed by people whose understanding of democracy is to permit another Hitler to raise a powerful private army with the cry, "I fight for peace...
...Edward A. Teichert for President and Aria A. Albaugh for Vice President...
...How to do...
...For as a fly that goes to bed Rests with his tail above his head, So, in this mongrel state of ours The rabble are the supreme powers...
...A. D. Reynolds, Sr...
...I say, there is the man who should be our next President...
...Villard in his article in the July 24 issue called, "Wanted: A Left-Wing Party for America...
...The Rabble' Dear Sirs: In your issue of July 24th, Mr...
...Sometimes we merely vote for one party in order to get the opposite one out of office...
...Progressive Democracy Dear Sirs: There is something stable and secure about The Progressive that makes a fellow feel certain that progressive democracy will win out after all...
...Continue your splendid policy of telling the truth even though it may hurt someone, and we'll all be better for having read your paper...
...And I remember talks with the two in jail and prison, correspondence with them, speaking tours of industrial cities in their behalf, and picketing the State House in Boston with many others in the last days before Gov...
...Let's have less and less of him...
...Arrested at the height of the A. Mitchell Palmer "red" hysteria, and tried in an open-top cage before a hostile judge and a hand-picked jury, Sacco and Vanzetti were convicted in 1921 of a payroll holdup and double murder...
...Bell-aire, Ohio...
...In Defense Of Unions Dear Sirs: This recent item in a newspaper is, I think, a reminder to us all that there is one debt we all owe and must not forget: "Abandon all hope for entombed miners...
...Wheeler For President Dear Sirs: Let me congratulate you on securing the wonderful article, "The Road To Enduring Peace," by Burton K. Wheeler in the July 24 issue...
...Over here, I'd say we look forward to your paper, not with delight, but like a pup to a whipping...
...Elena Varneck Moss Beach, Calif...
...Melvin Sutton Shelton, Wash...
...Or do they...
...More power to you...
...All prosecution of cartels has been postponed for the "duration" because it might delay the "war effort...
...I am anxious to read Chamberlin's next article, entitled, "Democracy In Japan...
...Hampered by their ethical code, the others cannot or will not do this...
...They are too busy, too tired when they come from work, many of them have not had the educational advantages that make it easier for a person to speak up and be heard...
...Marie Russell Phoenix, Ariz...
...George F. Curry wants to know who "the rabble" is...
...Never was the chance to step forward into a bright, new future, into more abundant living, greater for us...
...Tail-Wagging Dear Sirs: Here is how a far east Nova Sco-tian sees The Progressive...
...There is—rarest of all!—the commentator who attempts to interpret the news from a broad historical and worldly background...
...None ever was harmful to capitalism . No part of the platform of the Socialist Labor Party has ever or can ever be supported by any reform capitalist political party for the simple reason the platform as a whole aims to abolish capitalism, not reform or prolong it...
...Roosevelt has, on several occasions, highly praised our largest and most dangerous cartel of them all, the Federal Reserve System...
...In this welter of selfish nationalities, I find angles and facts which are not so visible in any Nova Scotian paper or even Harper's, the Nation, New York Herald-Tribune, or Christian Science Monitor...
...These talks with "the poor fish peddler and the good shoemaker" were rich treasure to me...
...Anyhow, Roosevelt hasn't yet pledged himself to "restoring local self-government...
...When they cannot we can feel sure that the exchange system (money) is not being efficiently managed...
...They continue to draw interest on these bonds until date of maturity, even after they have been redeemed...
...They found him in Mr...
...He will hear that the workers (no other class should be considered) of Finland have never been free since they lost "Klubbekriget" against the nobles back in the 16th or early 17th Century...
...But what the quantity and the quality of those services shall be, are decided for him in the amount of money he receives (wages, salaries, fees, or profits), and in that money's value in relationship to the prices he pays for other persons' services...
...We would like to continue to believe in the promises of the magician, he just might have another rabbit in the hat, but just in case . . . no harm done in dusting off the old Republican Party...
...Vote For Dewey' Dear Sirs: May I comment on a letter in your July 24 Forum from Arthur G. Cromwell, Rochester, N. Y., in which he described the influx of students into Theological Seminaries to avoid the draft...
...Big Business Rules Dear Sirs: We hear a lot of squabbling about what Dewey said, what he didn't say, what the Republicans did or did not do...
...It would bring issues out into the open and give the people some choice on them...
...Wars will end when men refuse to serve in the armed forces...
...The fact remains that 95 per cent of the people favor big business...
...That situation has changed but slightly...
...One of the beautiful things about a democracy is that the public officials and administrators are at all times responsible to the electorate for their actions, says the text of my old high school civics book...
...Each has, I suppose, his respective merits...
...Why do not we progressives use...
...Coldwell of Canada, head of this Cooperative Commonwealth Federation...
...Each human service can be exchanged for all other human services at the time they are being employed...
...The Administration Bank Act of '34 gives this privately owned money system the right to demand gold from the Treasury on presentation of U. S. Bonds...
...Citizen Education Dear Sirs : After two years of reading The Progressive what stands out in my mind are Milton Mayer's incisive challenges to mankind's sense of justice and many good news editorials on the back page...
...Chamberlin should read Zacharias Topelius, who loved Finland...
...Mostly it is just a suspicion of English altruism...
...Likewise, when in peacetime our Government requests the services of road builders, dam builders, forest-fire fighters, research scientists, teachers, and lawmakers—we can also request taxes with which to pay for those services...
...Chamberlin's voice bouncing against the Olympic hills, out here, seem to say: "And so what...
...But to any one knowing the flimsiness of the prosecution's evidence, they were doomed because of their social opinions...
...Haven't Progressive readers yet learned that both parties are but the alternately-wagged tails of the big dog, "Special Privilege...
...One of these blue-blooded old land and industrial lords is Baron Mannerheim, who has been and is, the real ruler of Finland...
...Irma Myers Arthur Vallejo, Calif...
...It does not exchange goods, but only appears to do so...
...Has he...
...There is the straight news reporter, who merely reads or writes official news releases giving them little or no analysis or interpretation of his own...
...Radical and reactionary alike, longing for the future-, but nostalgically clinging to the false security of the "good ole days," cast about for someone who would be "all things to all men...
...What are these squabblers going to do about it...
...Now, every human being requires those basic services...
...Men and women in the many unhealthy and injurious industrial occupations lose their health so that we may have the additional comfort of the products of those industries or use them for the war effort...
...As a result, when we feel we can spare a dollar, we send a trial subscription to one of our friends and hope it will win them with your honesty and decency as it has us...
...It seems to me that his articles are terribly out of place in such a fine magazine as The Progressive...
...Did we accept the opportunity...
...Dies and his committee...
...The workers don't have brains enough to vote for their own interests...
...Throwing Votes Away Dear Sirs: Why do we continue to vote for parties and candidates that we really do not want...
...Let's grant him his wish...
...3, Box 371 Bellingham, Wash...
...The war is nearly won...
...Yet we wag our tail over you, and what a tail...
...We need a change before the war ends...
...Winchell may descend to a sort of witch-hunting among the "vermin" fascists of the nation, but it must be remembered that the official Dies Committee could not see these people for the Communists until Winchell began his expose, and thus most painfully showed up Mr...
...He should have said, "Whichever you choose, Democrat or Republican, I give you the next four years to hang in and may the Lord have mercy upon your souls...
...Any one who speaks against labor unions, let him organize a better way of guarding the life, health, and daily bread of workers and their families—or else let him stop using coal, ships, and a million other things that he owes to those workers...
...There is the type that attempts honestly to interpret the news according to the official ideology of the war and his own viewpoint, though that may be liberal, conservative, or reactionary...
...And reading within the same hour a Scripps-Howard dirge obviously equal in lack of inspiration and also noticeably similar in the monotonously mournful tones that inhere, I'd like to post this question: Who's doing all the blaming—and why...
...They are going to vote for Dewey or Roosevelt—the front men in big business—this coming election...
...True Socialism Dear Sirs: Expressions have been noticed in The Progressive advocating Norman Thomas of the Socialist Party as a party that represented socialism...
...Then, Mr...
...Wants Left-Wing Party Dear Sirs: I heartily agree with Mr...
...whether or not laboring men and women should have the right to demand certain wages they consider right...
...I consider it a real tragedy that we haven't a national leader here in the United States on the order of Mr...
...Mr...
...So, looking back over the past 12 years, many of us are disappointed...
...Why work a willing horse to death...
...Thanks to Milton Babin for his enlightening letter in the July 17 issue on Britain and India, and to Al Williams for his article on "Robots...
Vol. 8 • August 1944 • No. 35
