A TIME FOR BRAVE MEN
Coleman, Mcalister
A Time For Brave Men By McALISTER COLEMAN THE Presidential campaign, "America's four year contribution towards the education of the masses," comes to a dignified close amid the barkings of Fala,...
...If it is hanging back, it is hanging back with the majority of the productive workers and farmers of this country who see no great gains for democracy whichever party wins...
...It is the specter of free democracy, whose introduction at this time would be revolutionary enough in all conscience...
...For them and the interests they represent the very implications of genuine democracy are so terrifying that they will talk about everything under the sun except that verboten subject...
...Roosevelt because of the Hull "multilateral trade agreement plan," and because Mr...
...Roosevelt, in the course of which the paper says that it has no sympathy with "all the major policies of the second New Deal," denounces all of Mr...
...Dewey would make it appear so...
...The only lesson that men of good will can draw from such a campaign as this one, is that it must not happen again...
...And as Emerson wrote, "The power of love as the basis of a state has never been tried...
...However, no one would guess from the tone of this dog and mustache fight that there is much more to the election than the question of throwing out one bunch of professional placemen to put in another bunch of the same...
...It's been a long time now since the Harold Laskis, Henry Wallaces, and others have mentioned the word "revolution" in connection with these parlous times...
...Churchill...
...In her brilliant study of the men and movements of Emerson's day, Alice Felt Tyler writes in Freedom's Ferment: "In that time, if ever in American history, the spirit of man seemed free and the individual could assert his independence of choice in matters of faith and theory...
...Dewey's mustache...
...The Sage of Concord was writing at a time which seems in retrospect to have been singularly filled with a genuine faith in the triumphs of democracy and love for one's fellowman...
...There is no reason to believe it will not do so again...
...Specter Of Democracy I trust all you boys and girls are duly edified and appreciate the blessings of living in a free country where you have the privilege of casting a vote, a privilege won for you by your forefathers tracing the snow with their blood at Valley Forge, grappling with the British at Cowpens, thrilling to the tune of "The World Turned Upside Down" at Yorktown...
...Roosevelt's somewhat amorphous plans for ending unemployment, and complains bitterly about the lack of Mr...
...In the course of it, the wayfaring man has been aroused to a white heat of apathy, a fine frenzy of boredom...
...Dewey, of course, has never even glimpsed it...
...We must begin by making a "hard peace"—the hardest sort of peace, one based on the Progressive Party principles as set forth in their platform—"A peace devoid of harsh indemnities and vengeance, whose settlement will strike at the causes of war, and encourage the democratic forces in all countries to join with us in the attaining of political democracy and economic security...
...Roosevelt's administrative ability...
...The militant democracy of the period was a declaration of faith in man and the perfectibility of his institutions...
...This about sums up the educational features of the campaign except for the dirty stories circulated among the station-wagon set about Mrs...
...Roosevelt is for Mr...
...But perhaps, as the late Calvin Coolidge and the Daughters of the American Revolution would agree, it is tactless to bring up such matters in view of the fact that, as Cal j>ut it, "We have had our revolution...
...At the outset of this war as you will recall it, we were all assured that we were again in a revolutionary age...
...if peace is to be maintained, it must be by brave men...
...Lesson Of The Campaign The Progressive has been accused by those who still persist in calling themselves "liberals" of "hanging back" in this campaign as it has supposedly "hung back" from giving its unqualified blessing to the conduct of the war...
...If that is indeed the truth, one might assume that so important an event as a national election in the midst of global war would have some reference to the fact...
...Both are devoted to the maintenance of the status quo at home, the pressing of military conquest abroad...
...A Time For Brave Men By McALISTER COLEMAN THE Presidential campaign, "America's four year contribution towards the education of the masses," comes to a dignified close amid the barkings of Fala, the breath-taking announcement of the discovery that Sidney Hillman was born in Kov-no, Lithuania, on Mar...
...23, 1887, and yells of "He's a liar...
...As soon as that is mentioned, both candidates take for cover like an Oklahoman in a dust storm...
...It is for Mr...
...For it so happens that the basis for genuine democracy, and the only basis upon which it can function is brotherly love...
...The militant democracy upon which peace surely rests has always found brave men for its support...
...And we must try it in a world where hate is enthroned, taught to our youth as a way of life in this country as well as our enemies', glorified even by professed believers in the teachings of Jesus Christ...
...Both are as remote from the America of decent men and women who still have faith in and love for their fellows, as are the speeches of their candidates from the realities of the present crisis...
...As Emerson also said, "The cause of peace is not the cause of cowardice...
...Let us make no bones about it, nor be frightened off by the sneers of traitors to the democratic faith...
...Just now the New York Times has come out with a ringing endorsement of Mr...
...We must try "the power of love" as the basis of our postwar state...
...Faith In A Great Tradition We have been shown, "again and again and again," that there is no hope for such a movement in either of the two old parties...
...Roosevelt had a glimpse of a genuinely democratic America, but that was 12 years ago and the curtains have been long since drawn upon that vision...
...If we try this, we are holding fast to the faith of our revolutionary tradition...
...Roosevelt and the dirty stories circulated among the Palace Guard about Mr...
...True, there was a time in his first Administration when Mr...
...Yet Emerson felt discouraged even then...
...We must be girding up our loins now to see to it that a militant democracy with faith in what Sam Adams called, "the virtues of the yeomanry" again is articulate in America...
...The specter that haunts both old parties in this campaign is not the specter of communism, though Mr...
Vol. 8 • November 1944 • No. 45
