AMERICA'S CONSCIENCE PRICKS THE WAR LIBERALS
Rodell, Fred
Americas Conscience Pricks The War Liberals By FRED RODELL THE long arm of coincidence sometimes brings strange and wonderful things to pass. Consider •what happened a fortnight ago: New York's...
...The Kindest Interpretation Of course, the idea of a world of free peoples as the basis, the foundation, of a lasting peace is far too simple and sense-making to appeal to those who like to titillate themselves with elaborate outlines of police forces, spheres of influence, and all the other trappings in which a more polite form of power politics can be decked...
...British imperialism and Russian Communism are so much more dynamic—and demanding.] "/ do not say that it is impossible to make out a case against British policy in India, Russian policy in Poland, our policy in Italy...
...Bob La Follette's warning, published in The Progressive, that "America Must Speak Up Now" if there is to be a decent, enforceable peace and a decent, livable postwar world...
...attacks American policy in Italy and Poland...
...Moreover, Max is an old friend of mine who used to be able to think clean and think for himself before he took up with the Roosevelt-Can-Do-No-Wrong crowd and the cult that cackles Peace by Police at Any Price, Any Old Peace Will Do...
...None of these statements was quoted anywhere in PM...
...We're winning the war, all right all right, but it looks like we're going to lose the peace" has become a cliche...
...errcept as a sop to conventional newspaper makeup, the story and the editorial might better have been printed seriatim, with nary a break between...
...La Follette's statement is aimed to strengthen Wisconsin for the isolationists and Dewey...
...He has no specific program for keepingthe peace . . ." At which point I begin to forget that Max Lerner is an old friend who simply needs to be set straight...
...They are frightened into such excesses as the distorted and deliberately dishonest treatment that Sen...
...As for Poland, didn't the whole war start over something about the territorial integrity of Poland...
...McCormick's Chicago Tribune and Cissy Patterson's Washington Times-Herald, PM led the rest of the nation's press for the dubious honor of being rated the "newspaper . . . most flagrant in angling or weighting the news to suit its own editorial opinions...
...La Follette has done has been again to dress up the deathly skeleton of the isolationist position in the raiment of liberal concepts like anti-imperialism and democracy...
...imperialism, communism—or chaos . . ." "The people know that there is an American way, a democratic way to deal with the worldwide problems which confront us...
...That's what I call being big and broad-minded.] "But it is tragic to see these partial truths" [partial?—like 2 plus 2 equal 4?] "which have validity for those who want a truer and more militant internationalism, used to strengthen isolationism...
...What Sen...
...For as Max Lerner puts it, with perhaps unconscious candor, "the internationalism of tomorrow . . . understands that power counts for more than words...
...Simultaneously, Life named Sen...
...PM printed a "news" story which quoted some carefully selected bits of the La Follette article, out of context...
...Perfectly clear, isn't it, Max, that the Senator—in his terrific desire to toss Wisconsin to the Republicans—heaped praise on Dewey, in striking contrast to his condemnation of F.D.R.?] "Sen...
...Max Lerner, the PM gun that goes off with the biggest pop, is at least entitled to a small salute in return...
...Who cares about the exploitation of Asiatics or Africans so long as there are seven—or eleven—seats in the Council of the United Nations ? Who cares about liberty or democracy or the Four Freedoms so long as there is an international bombing force ready to blow to bits any people or any nation that dares try to imitate what the United States did in 1776 ? And who cares what questions are raised by carping critics like Sen...
...McCormick's editorials except for the gloss," and wiped his mouth with the pro-nunciamsnto that "the old liberal tradition of the La Follettss has gone to seed...
...Max Lerner and PM and the clique for whom and to whom they speak are not quite so blind or so deaf that they cannot read the portents and hear the rumble...
...In order to do so, I am going to quote at length from the Lerner editorial in italics and add, in brackets,-pertinent—or perhaps impertinent—comments of my own: "Sen...
...I suppose it must sound silly and insincere—or, at any rate, old hat—to talk of applying democracy to the terms of the peace and to the postwar world...
...Here—with no apology for repeating them to readers of The Progressive—are a few of the things that Bob La Follette said: "It is time to speak up—to speak up with an American peace program which could capture the imagination and win the hearts of people everywhere...
...Even Life Magazine, which can scarcely be dismissed as an isolationist sheet, proclaimed not so long ago that the power which the war victors will wield in shaping the peace must be tempered by American idealism...
...The American people believe that a free world, a world of free people, will be a world at peace . . ." "Give this faith a voice that can be heard throughout the world...
...PM received just one conspicuous mention in the poll...
...But he says these things always in the name of 'democracy' " [why the quotes, Max?] "—which puts him one cut above the McCormick cliches...
...La Follette...
...Of course, Max, you thoroughly approved our deal with that great Italian democrat, Ba-doglio...
...16 to belittle, condemn, and generally manhandle Sen...
...And they are frightened...
...the editorial referred ahead to the "news" story...
...Consider •what happened a fortnight ago: New York's neo-liberal and somewhat nervous newspaper, PM, undertook in its issue of Oct...
...In any barber-shop, in any PX, in any smoking-car or street-corner conversation, you can hear the rising tide of doubt...
...or was that too far back to matter any more ? ] "He attacks British imperialism in India" [which you would presumably defend, Max?] "and the foreign policy of the Kremlin" [and that, seriously, rates as close to treason, doesn't it, Max, regardless of how Russian foreign policy may flout the Atlantic Charter or fly in the face of American ideals or American self-interest?] "He says that President Roosevelt is allowing the British and the Russians to make all the decisions...
...What Bob La Follette Said So, even though Max purported to write his editorial with a copy of the La Follette statement right in front of him, I feel a slight sense of duty to try to set him straight as to what the Senator really said—along with an irresistible urge to ask Max a few questions...
...They know that in that distant outpost in the Pacific, the Philippine Islands, the American way proved itself to the hilt...
...La Follette's article...
...For this—and I think Max Lerner knows it when he lies awake at night—is something a little more slimy than mere misunderstanding...
...The PM "news" story referred back to the Lerner editorial...
...That seems to be a quite widely current misconception, Max...
...Putting Lerner Straight It happens that on the exact day when PM's attack against La Follette hit the news-stands, there appeared an issue of the Saturday Review of Literature which contained the results of a poll taken among Washington newspapermen...
...Said the Senator: "The leadership of both the Republican and Democratic parties should break their conspiracy of silence on these great issues .. ." Concluded the Senator: "It is time for President Roosevelt and Governor Dewey to speak up...
...And presumably, for more than ideals—which are commonly expressed in words...
...By the way, just to jog my memory, what are those decisions that have gone against the British or the Russians at our insistence?] "His statement sounds like a campaign speech against British imperialism and Russian Communism...
...When I was a boy, we used to call this sentiment Might Makes Right, but we rarely found it flaunted in the editorials of allegedly liberal newspapers...
...Bob La Follette about the terms of a peace that is being drawn up and a postwar world that is being planned in deepest secret, out of sight and sound of the people ? I'll tell you who cares...
...Topped only by its aixh-enemies, Col...
...Let America call upon the peoples of all countries to unite now behind an international program worth fighting for...
...found the La Follette arguments "indistinguishable from one of Col...
...So much for the long arm of coincidence—and for the reliability of the stuff that PM's neo-liberal and somewhat nervous addicts read in its columns...
...The American ideal of equality of political and economic opportunity should be held aloft now to the conquei-ed, occupied, neutral, and enemy peoples of the world as the most helpful and the most attainable alternative to fascism...
...Now that's really white of you, Max...
...When the American conscience reawakens, and power without 'ideology' turns out to be not good enough, we will be able to thank the Progressives for keeping alive and uncorrupted an American 'ideology'—belief in universal freedom...
...It printed an editorial by Max Lerner in which the Walter Lipp-mann of the Left mind-read the La Follette warning into "a bid for the leadership of the postwar isolationist forces...
...La Follette's calm and convincing plea for international sanity and justice received in the pages of PM...
...La Follette as the chief "spokesman" of our- national "conscience...
...It is time for American principles to take their place alongside American fighting power...
...But coincidence plus a Press Gallery poll can scarcely stand as a complete answer to PM's attack on Sen...
...Said the Senator: "But instead of speaking up, President Roosevelt and Governor Dewey seem to have entered into a conspiracy of silence on the vital issues of American foreign policy...
...The people care—and they care increasingly as the war gets won...
...And the kindest interpretation I can give to Max Lerner"s attack on Bob La Follette is that Max reacted, infantlike, with a sudden irrational scream when he was pricked by the conscience of America...
Vol. 8 • October 1944 • No. 44
