AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY
Holmes, John Haynes
An American Tragedy By JOHN HAYNES HOLMES THE growing bitterness in this country weighs upon my soul. It bodes no good for the nation, or anybody in the nation. On the contrary, it bodes such ill...
...The result is that the whole nation is being sown with bitterness, the atmosphere poisoned with hate, and our citizenry divided in mutual suspicion and intolerance...
...Well, that "party line" in a political organization has now become a patriotic or loyalist line in the country at large, and if we fail to toe it, we are ruined...
...There are newspapers and radio commentators who do little else but stir up misunderstanding and hatred against persons who will not agrfe^ to follow the exact dictation of their will...
...The temper in America today is more like the temper I saw in Germany in 1931 than I dare now to think about...
...Toe that line, shift instantly when its direction is changed, or else be exiled, tortured, or shot...
...What are we going to do to restore our sanity and preserve our liberty ? What can save us from the loss of everything that is really precious to our American democracy...
...America is not a territory, or a government...
...This is an American tragedy to-match the European tragedy...
...It is the spirit of freedom and fellowship as Whitman sang it and Lincoln practiced it...
...If there is a man with whom you disagree, do not argue with him or talk things over, but "smear" him, call him a Communist or a pro-Nazi, take away his reputation, rob him of his good name—that is the way to do it...
...Of course this is the direct transference to our own land of the Nazi method and technique...
...And here is this spirit being spoiled before our face and eyes...
...And all the while the prejudice against Jews, Negroes, and Roman Catholics mounts like a raging fever...
...While our soldiers win the war abroad, we are losing it hereat home...
...Smearing" has become the great sport of the hour...
...America is a spirit—a spirit of good will, and cooperation, and brotherhood...
...It is not armies, or navies—or victories, however heroic, on the field of battle...
...These purely private individuals presume to set up a standard of what is and is not patriotic devotion to the nation's cause...
...It is not cities, or plains, or manufactures, or wealth...
...and anybody who does not scrupulously conform is straightway brought under the charge of sedition and treason...
...We have heard much of the so-called "party line" in Communism...
...On the contrary, it bodes such ill as this country has not seen since the days __ _ of the Civil War...
Vol. 8 • October 1944 • No. 44
