THE PEOPLE'S FORUM
. . . THE PEOPLE'S FORUM . . . Medical Monopoly Dear Sirs: I lead Wendell Berge's article, "Bust the Drug Monopoly," in the Sept. 4 issue with a great deal of interest. It shouldn't have special...
...18 issue, I am surprised The Progressive would print it...
...amelia h. walker Baltimore, Md...
...Countless, long-forgotten generations ago, when man was primitive, the old jungle law of blood-dripping tooth and fang presumably inevitably prevailed...
...Stimulus For Dewey Dear Sirs: Please send Gov...
...H. E. webster i Spokane, Wash...
...Thus we underwrite and perpetuate with our own blood and treasure the imperialism of a foreign power...
...I recommend that book to you and if you find anything false in it, I would like very much to know about it...
...Then they sell the finished product at an exorbitant profit...
...We have Progressives represented by the New Republic and the Nation who swallow hook, line, and sinker the fourth term, the slot machine bosses control, and the Hillman PAC control...
...Instead of allowing it to rush off and wash away the soil and flood the valleys, we impound it and use it to develop electric current...
...Esperanto was made by Dr...
...Our prosperity in the future will be determined by a liquid purchasing power based on a rapid cash turnover...
...If Mr...
...It's time for the people of America to wake up and face the facts...
...Isn't it time to seek a better way of life...
...Burma, Malaya, and India are to go back under the British yoke...
...It Will Make New Friends...
...This same doctrine has no partialities...
...Many times I have seen a salesman from one of the big drug companies come to a doctor's office and peddle some new miracle remedy...
...It cannot be denied that Germany willy-nilly has become the breeding place and scapegoat for wars...
...Welles errs, fend by that I mean merely presumes, in saying that a Germany left whole is committed to a future resurgence in war, while a Germany partitioned could not kindle another war...
...Must we wait for another world wai^ before its value will be recognized...
...Save Headaches Dear Sirs: It is deplorable that every rank and file American does not read The Progressive...
...Service Men Speak One True Liberal Dear Sirs: To me The Progressive is the one true liberal periodical left in a country strewn with the corpses of PM, the New Republic, etc...
...Kimberly is not a believer in and apologist for our now disintegrating social order, he is at least a good imitation...
...The devil when sick a saint would be...
...If it ever gets to court the physician who knows the operation was all wrong is bound by this code of ethics to testify that the first doctor made no mistakes...
...I get my information on Yugoslavia from Louis Adamic's My Native Land...
...When you have heard it you will want to vote for it...
...Emery D. Cox San Diego, Calif...
...Competition destroys, cooperation builds...
...Both the Republicans and Democrats oppose such a policy and seek to lead the nation along the path to imperialism...
...Questions Howard Dear Sirs: In regard to Harry Paxton Howard's article, "Shall We Ever Know Peace Again...
...State examining and licensing boards, boards of health, medical schools, hospitals, and so on are all subject to the power of the AMA...
...30, 1940, that "no boys will be sent overseas to fight in foreign wars," or rather a statement to that effect, and no exception was attached...
...What matter she paid her debts, the only nation ever to do so...
...It has been done and is being done...
...Berge, or The Progressive, or somebody do something along "that line...
...When this is done in any country it will force the people to live for one another...
...They have acquired much of the natural resources which should have remained in the possession of the Government for all the people...
...Now, this is something way in advance of our former attitude, but it is strange that our high command should not recognize the existence of an already well-established international language, that is, Esperanto...
...It does not appear to be so...
...now she must be lifted again without armor to her rightful and eminent place among nations...
...But man has evolved since those old days...
...Both the Progressives and Socialists advocate a peace offensive to end the war on the basis of fair treatment for the people of the defeated Axis nations, instead of forcing them to fight to the bitter end to impose "unconditional surrender...
...More Information Dear Sirs: I want less "viewing with alarm" and "aren't we better than other people" and more information that will help me take intelligent action...
...Doctors do not claim to be infallible in general, of course...
...Joseph A. Lageman Carnegie, Pa...
...I should like to write an article for The Progressive giving the philosophy of the Soviet people...
...G. edward lind Downey, 111...
...Then we have those represented by The Progressive who follow the lead of the reactionary McCormick-Brooks-Green-Day-Lyons axis for a reactionary isolationist "foreign policy...
...I simply couldn't do it...
...These faults make English very difficult for foreigners to understand and to speak...
...They would charge us for the air that we breathe if they could, and they would have as good a moral right to do that as that which they do., Kimberly says that is all nature and we would be foolish to change if we could...
...It is also unethical to let the victim or his family suspect the job was bungled...
...La Follette in Washington during March and was greatly impressed both by him personally and by his voting record in the Senate...
...Well, if they get it, then our boys' fight to free Burma will be in vain...
...If it be true that this world financial institution be modeled on our banking system, with an absolute monopoly of the money and credit of the world, then one can use his imagination...
...Smith, I made a mistake...
...Olaf Peterson Minneapolis, Minn...
...Berge or anybody else ever know a doctor to tell a patient, "Mr...
...We take fertilizer from the air and enrich the land that we have reclaimed, so that we can till it with assurance...
...for a fourth term...
...Gag A Progressive Dear Sirs: I find The Progressive well worth the price of the subscription, as it is very informing on the worthwhile news, and your staff on the whole is one of the best...
...Instead of that, British scholars are advocating something called Basic English, for international use...
...How any progressive can follow either course and call himself a progressive is beyond me...
...Our borrowing-spending program as a means to promote national prosperity is driving us into an economic collapse that will be so sudden we won't know what it is all about...
...Now, with our approval and consent, the Soviets slap a $300,000,000 indemnity on her, the penalty for losing the struggle which in 1939 we called "honorable and soul-stirring," according to Churchill...
...Yes, we can change human nature, even for those who do not want it changed...
...W. e. amon Baltimore, Md...
...has caused morale to reach a new low here in China...
...The American Medical Association is also the outfit which promulgated the code of professional ethics which Mr...
...But it also produced Florence Nightingale, Abraham Lincoln, and George Washington Carver...
...While Matthew Arnold advocated establishing "touchstones" of the purest types of writing as a criterion of literary criticism, his system can be applicable to politics...
...But I feel, to be consistent, that you should now give support to Norman Thomas and Darlington Hoopes on the Socialist ticket...
...and tries it out on his unsuspecting patients...
...I, and many others like me, do hope that you will give this "return to college for all who wish" your support and the widest publicity...
...Germany After Defeat Dear Sirs: I have just read the condensation of a chapter by Sumner Welles in which he champions the partition of Germany...
...Its influence is directed, not so much to the survival of the fittest, as to the fitting of as many as possible to survive...
...In spite of our reactionary tendencies today, something is going to happen some fine day to wake us up and start us to build a really cooperative commonwealth in an American way...
...Are we going to continue to take back the so-called British possessions with the use of our money and the blood of America so that the British ruling class can remain parasites ? I think Milton Mayer could handle these subjects...
...This is unfair discrimination...
...Nothing...
...Carlisle can verify that statement it will refute the general belief that exceptions were made...
...George E. Farmer Sunnyvale, Calif...
...E. H. shadwell Paris, Mo...
...If they remain, we shall be proved to think that our war was not won, that we did not fully defeat our enemies, and therefore must suppose that there is a danger these nations will rise again immediately or some time after the war to repeat the harm they have already done...
...Are we exacting any promises from either Stalin or Churchill in return for our men and supplies and money...
...With the Communist Party deserting the "good fight" of domestic reform, the Socialist Party ineffective because of an anemia caused by lack of "color," and the New Deal having ended where we knew it was going—where can we turn in a political sense...
...In the bleak Winter of 1939-40, the Administration wept crocodile tears over the "terrible Soviet aggression," but what do we hear now about it...
...Strange bedfellows for Progressives...
...Is it...
...Families that originally lived in a miserable shack and prepared their meals on a camp fire, now live in modern homes with modern conveniences...
...Your writers, particularly Milton Mayer, provide me with the most satisfactory intellectual and ethical stimulation that I am able to find among current periodicals...
...However, the article goes so far and no further...
...This factor alone will affect many who wish to return for more train* ing, to complete a course, or to orient for a new career, yet who' might not be able to finance it, particularly if they are married...
...No doubt these areas will be wrested from Jap control by American effort for the most part, Quebec or no Quebec...
...It Will Make New Friends...
...I conclude by calling to the witness stand one of the 19th Century's greatest scientists, Thomas Henry Huxley...
...The trial of the AMA for trying to block group hospitalization didn't amount to much...
...However, the thing that surprises me most is the failure of The Progressive itself to come out openly for the Socialist candidate, especially since the Progressives and Socialists have so much in common...
...George A. Zichgraf San Diego, Calif...
...Then why should I vote for a "dispensable man...
...Dewey a copy of The Progressive beginning with Mr...
...Why then should not Progressives vote for the national candidate of the Socialist Party...
...Dewey's only chance to win this election is to wake up and take a more progressive attitude...
...Here's your money back...
...Finland is a "dirty little fascist country...
...Query For Carlisle Dear Sirs: I read the letter in The People's Forum recently by John F. Carlisle relative to a statement made by President Roosevelt on Oct...
...Lawrence J. Vair Pinecliffe^ Colo...
...Let us have an article on India, or on the bases that have been built by our money...
...Bretton Woods Dear Sirs: • It is strange that not one of your writers has contributed a line about the Bretton Woods Conference...
...The intellectuals gre more or less liberal, but each takes a different slant and each neutralizes the other's efforts...
...It will make men of all men and a cooperative society instead of a parasitic and competitive one...
...In fact, many European languages are being taught them...
...Overlooking Esperanto Dear Sirs: It is interesting to note the difference in our attitude toward enemy languages as between the last war and the present one...
...As he uses that term I really believe that it is a misnomer...
...his scheme has the impunity of research and careful thought...
...28 issue...
...Women comprise one half of our population, but we do not have the protection of our Constitutional rights as men have, so we have been asking Congress to pass an amendment saying, "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged in the United States or any state subject to its jurisdiction on account of sex...
...Then we use the current for power, light, and heat...
...J. Hegarty Akron, O. Underwriting Imperialism Dear Sirs: The closer the Allies approach ¦victory over Germany, the more arrogant and imperialistic Churchill becomes...
...Berge puts so much store by...
...The very broad-minded views, presented through your efforts, are invaluable to all Americans...
...But Mr...
...to G.I...
...it will make new friends...
...we want anyway...
...If Mr...
...But did Mr...
...It never speaks Up for the Soviet Union, where if there is any democracy on this earth, it is there...
...That is why they do not "progress...
...Berge was limited by space, but from what he writes you would never suspect that the drug trust, like the rest of big business, also foists a lot of junk on the public, including the medical profession...
...E. H. forby Onaka, S. Dak...
...Socialists and Progressives condemn the growth of statism, the freezing of wages, manpower drafts, peacetime conscription, and racial discrimination in and out of the armed services, to name only a few of the many points of agreement in which they differ from the Repubocratic Party...
...Though her resistance to the Germans in 1939 provided the moral basis for this war, the British choose to forget about this entirely...
...11 issue of The Progressive in the People's Forum, appears the letter, "Survival of the Fittest," by Lewis R. Kimberly, The trouble is that those who are fitted to survive are not fit to survive...
...Perhaps The Progressive will provide the stimulus...
...This I say because it is generic, and hence more or less meaningless unless specifically tied-in and identified with important related circumstances or conditions...
...W. R. LaCaille Vista, Calif...
...If you think it is, then listen to, the message of hope which the Socialist candidate is bringing to the people of America...
...The Soviet Union abolished exploitation...
...Villard left many things unsaid which he might have included in the article, such as England and her empire being almost as guilty as Germany...
...7 issue and "The Week in Review" in the July 24...
...I had the pleasure of meeting Sen...
...Some of the article regarding the undeclared wars and secret treaties appeals to me as being very good...
...harold flincker 59 Lake St...
...Invaluable Dear Sirs: As long as you continue publishing The Progressive, I never want to be without it...
...Why should I, as a progressive, independent liberal vote with or for Hannegan, Hague, Kelly, "Paving Blocks" Flynn, Crump, Sidney Hillman, Browder, Foster, and Minor...
...Our race, it is true, did produce the pious John D. Rockefeller, a remarkable tiger of finance, and it is even now producing more of his kind than we really need...
...We've got to get back to the traditional and Constitutional principles upon which our country was founded, or we are hopelessly lost and will drift into a mobocracy, where life and property will not be secure anywhere...
...Why, I wouldn't vote for Washington, Lincoln, or La Follette, Sr...
...Howard's defense of Mikhailo-vitch is decidedly questionable...
...But even a superficial observation of the facts will prove otherwise...
...Stalin's designs on Poland are to be excused, overlooked, condoned...
...College-Return Program .Dear Sirs: Time Magazine of June 26, page 24, entitled I.O.XJ...
...Losing Punch Dear Sirs: It seems to me your paper is losing its punch...
...Our foot is on beaten Germany-very well, that is what we wanted...
...They accept the myth that the doctor is something apart from the rest of the human race,, that putting M.D...
...To make for simplicity of understanding, the root words are taken from those words most in use in modern tongues and the different parts of speech are formed by prefixes and suffixes to these root words...
...it applies to all defeated nations...
...William Plampin Washington, D. C. * * * Misses Fred Rodell Dear Sirs: Where is Fred Rodell...
...430 New York, N. Y. * * * pass this paper on...
...No one hears PM blasting these Churchillian schemes...
...It would surely save a lot of future headaches...
...How about it...
...Passing over all of his material except one part which has long been familiar as an attempted "argument," I shall deal briefly with his remarks about "survival of the fittest...
...Nobody's testimony is considered competent except that of another physician whose code of ethics doesn't allow him to tell in public that the other physician was wrong...
...Almost 100 years of the capitalist system administered by the Republican and Democratic Parties have brought only war, unemployment, and industrial strife...
...Maybe Mr...
...It will purify the life of any man when he can't live off the labor of another...
...first lt...
...I do object to the editorial reprinted from Labor, "Hearst Takes Over A Nasty Job...
...T/5 L. R. S. APO 27 San Francisco, Calif...
...Roosevelt is a colossal spendthrift and has set up the most wasteful and corrupt system of government in our history...
...The American Medical Association has an iron bound control over the business from start to finish...
...The republic will then fall and radical elements will take hold of the Government, set up a dictatorship, and wipe out all debt and wealth...
...Pass This Paper On...
...Will you not actively support it...
...Any doctor who bucks the organization can get himself in a lot of trouble...
...As yet, I have never understood the policy of The Progressive...
...In this war, the enemy languages are being taught to those of our armed forces who are sent abroad that they may deal more intelligently with the enemy...
...M. F. Stimson Field San Antonio, Tex...
...Poland, to all intents and purposes, has been ditched...
...our police forces in their areas should be nothing more than supplements to the organizations fashioned by those countries...
...I.'s" naturally do not want to go back to old jobs (funny how that fact was so surprising) but want new and better futures,with a return to college for more training...
...Rubin's article, "The Progressive Path to Peace," in the Aug...
...And, despite all his too-painful limitations and even his most colossal errors, including capitalistic war, he has acquired at least a fair-sized germ of social consciousness, and another of Social conscience...
...after his name automatically makes him noble and altruistic...
...They survive by buying the new product, much of the time, at a price below the actual cost of production...
...e. D. collins Hartford, Conn...
...If it ever happened it was a rare occurrence...
...I miss his shrewd judgment and tart wit...
...Second, many "G...
...All he has to do is sign the death certificate, put anything he likes down as the cause of death, and there is nobody to ask any embarrassing questions...
...Said he, 51 years ago, in one of his Romanes lectures: "Social progress means a checking of the cosmic process at every step and the substitution for it of another, which may be called the ethical process, the end of which is not the survival of those who may happen to be the fittest in respect to the whole of the conditions which may obtain, but of those who are ethically the best...
...This is pure justice...
...We can even change the nature of water...
...The story is simple enough...
...It is against my principles and convictions...
...It retains Chamberlin and Barnes on its staff, each with opposite views on the Soviets...
...We could only get that by sound, sensible regulation...
...I see nothing like the dark ages overshadowing TVA districts...
...La Follette is your most sensible editor...
...The Soviet Union I Dear Sirs: I have come to think that the liberal movement in this country is an obstacle to real progress...
...If, by these words of mine, some monetary economist amongst them gives your readers more information about the result of that important meeting, I believe he or she will perform a great service...
...They fight to the last ditch any movement like the TVA...
...It shouldn't have special privileges any more than any other trust...
...It's an old gag that a doctor buries his mistakes, but it is also true...
...Well, they are divided, of course...
...We had thought the criteria should be the ability to do college work rather than mere age limitation...
...But Germany has begun wars because the fundamental causes of war have lain upon the whole world...
...Witness Churchill's statement regarding the Atlantic Charter, that he did not become the King's Minister to dissolve the British Empire...
...The latest "line" toward Finland is likewise disgusting...
...We have and will continue to change nature, Kimberly to the contrary notwithstanding...
...Esperanto, on the contrary, is entirely regular in all particulars...
...A large part of the article seems to try to build up hostility toward Russia...
...Cooperstown, N. Y. * * * Equal Rights Dear Sirs: I am more than puzzled that you never support the Equal Rights Amendment to our Constitution...
...This is undoubtedly true, but to be fair, the language chosen should be one not native to any one people since that would give unfair advantage to the nation to whom the language belongs...
...If we insist on playing power politics on an international scale, we should learn the rules of the game, and play it like the veterans on the other side of the water—or keep out altogether...
...I read West-brook Pegler's column daily...
...It keeps me informed who the real enemies of labor are — labor organizer-racketeers and the New Deal, including Sidney Hillman's PAC...
...It is not an economy of scarcity or abundance we want, but a balanced economy with the supply controlled to meet the demand...
...It will also guarantee private loans made with permission of the bank, and regulate the exchange currency of every member nation...
...As it is quite obvious that The Progressive has no enthusiasm for either the candidates or platforms of the two old parties—why the hesitation to take a bold stand for Thomas...
...Our overseership must terminate when we fulfill our duty of supplying immediate material aid and protection...
...M. S. Alderton Palo Alto, Calif...
...Such unchecked power in the hands of any other group is intolerable but nobody ever does anything about it...
...The objectionable feature is that the college-return program is limited to 25-year-olds...
...Can Change Nature Dear Sirs: In the Sept...
...That means ruin for many...
...This is an absurdity, not only in trying to make a workable language of 850 simple words, but because the English language is un-suited for any such purpose by reason of its irregularities in construction, in spelling, and in pronunciation...
...11 issue was the most sensible as well as the most Christian article on what to do with Germany...
...In the divisions he has made, I don't doubt that each of the three separate nations which he advocates would be economically sufficient to itself...
...We can prevent them from doing damage to their fellow men and it will be bettfr for all parties...
...Mik-hailovitch was a traitor and collaborated with Hitler,, and when anyone defends Mikhailovitch, his views on Poland, China, and Russia can immediately be questioned...
...After all, many who were over 27 when they received the neighborhood "greetings" card will be barred from returning to school on the age provision alone...
...The set-up of the bank appears to be very simple—a private banking corporation with a capital of 10 billion dollars, and with power to lend 10 times that amount, or perhaps more...
...The gullible doctor takes it along with instructions on how to use it from the salesman, who is just a salesman, mind you, and not an M.D...
...Praise For Villard Dear Sirs: The front page article, "Shall We Carve Up Germany...
...To support Roosevelt or Dewey, it seems to me, would more than gag a Progressive...
...Robert Nichols Rockville, Conn...
...I do not for one minute believe Pegler is fighting the union man, and it behooves the union man to listen to him and find out who his real enemies are...
...Our short-lived imposition upon them should be only for the purpose of securing them quietude in their confusion...
...Any other motive than to outfit Germany as an effective and healthy friend to the world is morally and practicably wrong...
...Zam-inoff, a Pole, who felt strongly that to be able to understand each other's language would mean more friendliness among the nations...
...This same code of ethics prohibits one physician from "telling" on a colleague...
...We shall be fascistic in victory if we require only the sense of having unconditionally won the war, or of having got something for our pains, and if we ignore by our action the fact that we have already suppressed those factual existences of tyranny which we set out to destroy...
...Survival Of The Unfit Dear Sirs: This is a reply to Lewis R. Kim-berly's letter in the Forum of Sept...
...Pass This Paper On...
...From the scant information given to us by the press, one gathers that the new World Bank is to be modeled on the plan of our Federal Reserve banking system...
...The American people are set for a dreadful awakening in cold realities in the aftermath of this war...
...Why is it, do you suppose, that this ready-prepared, universal language is overlooked by ourselves and the British...
...J. M. V. A.P.O...
...Newspapers like PM are busy justifying this naked power grab...
...and in expressing that quaint morality among us which treats our enemies —who are no enemies after defeat —as certain transgressors of the future peace...
...Time To Wake Up' Dear Sirs: It is an encouraging sign to see so many letters in The Progressive endorsing the candidacy of Norman Thomas for President...
...It seems incredible, indeed, that they should not be aware of this tongue, since it is in use all over Europe in travel, in science, and in literature...
...by Oswald Garrison Villard in the Sept...
...The age-old British game is being played out anew...
...Our only salvation is a redistribution of wealth and income, based on a sound, practical program...
...Berge also fails to mention that the medical profession is a monopoly also...
...We use the streams and lakes for transportation...
...Any school that bucks the organization is removed from the "accredited list" and since graduating from an "accredited" school is one of the requirements to getting a license to practice, no students will attend that school...
...First, it is not an I.O.U...
...That would be creating "disunity" which seems a. catch phrase to throw at anyone who disagrees with you on the question of imperialistic war aims...
...It should be printed in every newspaper...
...He has also developed ability to build progress by conduct on a higher ethical plane than that of the saber-tooth tiger...
...For instance, if a physician is witnessing an operation by another and knows that he is bungling the job, it is unethical to interfere...
...I'd like to see Mr...
...I have come to feel that The Progressive is afraid to tell the story...
...The Amendment will be acted upon by Congress this Fall...
...They must have Burma back...
...Something which is fittest, when measured by one test or standard may be quite unfit when measured by another...
...P. J. Reilly West Nyack, N. Y. EDITOR'S NOTE: See "What They Did at Bretton Woods" by Walter Morton in the Aug...
...You may recall the abhorrence most people felt, during that former time, toward anything German even to names of common things...
...When one knows, as I know and Barnes knows (and the Editor of The Progressive knows) that Soviet Russia has saved the world, it's time for some magazine like The Progressive to tell the people of our country how it was done...
...she cannot be held singly accountable...
...Oh, no, that wouldn't do...
...Against His Principles Dear Sirs: Who are the Progressives...
...Unfortunately, he failed to define "the fittest...
...We are fighting for more than that...
...Physicians are responsible to nobody but themselves, and being just plain humans subject to the same pressures and motives as the rest of us, it is no wonder that they stick together to protect their monopoly...
...Talk about cartels, monopolies, super government, and world power, the new World Bank will be tops...
Vol. 8 • October 1944 • No. 40
