THE PEOPLE'S FORUM
. . . the people's forum . . . A Swift For Our Time Dear Sirs: I have been delving lately into the works of Dean Jonathan Swift, famous satirist and political pamphleteer, who lived in the days...
...Jesus, who was a crusading socialist, taught it in these simple words: "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you...
...Johnson, "who had been amused with bonfires and triumphal processions and looked with idolatry on the general and his friends, who, as they thought, had made England the arbitress of nations, were confounded between shame and rage when they found that 'mines had been exhausted and millions destroyed,' to secure the Dutch, or aggrandize the Emperor, without any advantage to ourselves...
...schools, churches, lodges, patriotic orders, newspapers, magazines, radio, and the politicians, keeping the people who supply their sons for cannon-fodder in the same abysmal ignorance as to the cause of war as were our ancestors through the ages...
...Samuel Johnson, in his Life of Swift, "was to persuade the nation to a peace...
...As William Allen White said in his Out And Around, "It is as though all the powers of evil in all their predatory organizations had formed a wolf pack...
...I want to hear from some source I can have confidence in, so go to it...
...I didn't think that party-liners would be interested in your magazine, but it appears that it is only in order to undermine The Progressive's influence and foully wreck the reputations and prestige of those who dare expose, in the quest for truth, the motives and plans of the brigand in the Kremlin...
...Mary A. Black Omaha, Nebr...
...The Dawes' Payments Dear Sirs: In The Progressive of Feb...
...I feel lost without The Progressive...
...I trust I shall be pardoned for expressing the wish there might arise among us some American Swift who could write equally as inspiringly and unflinchingly...
...Scrap iron sent to Japan, used now to kill our boys...
...clara beck helland Dickinson, N. D. * * * Praise For Shuck Dear Sirs: I have been a subscriber of The Progressive for about 3 years, and consider it about as reliable a source of information as I know of...
...19, J. B. Sager says the Dawes' bank of Chicago repaid the Government loan to it in full, with interest...
...All this keeps the masses well doped and duped...
...The people give up all rights to freedom for glowing promises of security...
...Consolidated power without moral restraint or civic responsibility...
...But I say his remarks apply with even more force today than they did when the colonies definitely broke away from the "old rotten state", England...
...At times though, I weary of letters to the Forum trying to intimidate the Editor with cancellation of their subscriptions, if contributions by Chamberlin, Howard, and Thomas are not discontinued...
...Many of them are the cheapest kind of literature which can be handed out to our unsuspecting, gullible public...
...I would like to see The Progressive ask the American people to make this the condition on which United States will be a member of this world union...
...Interesting reading for William Chamberlin and Editor Rubin...
...and in short a war of the general and the ministry and not the prince and the people...
...mrs...
...I am an underground guerrilla...
...Reply To Paine Dear Sirs: This is in reply to Sam J. Paine, Mar...
...Taking a good crack at the hard peace advocates of his day, who, like our present adherents of "Unconditional Surrender," were needlessly prolonging the war, he asks why they callously insisted "upon conditions, which they were certain would never be granted...
...If Russia comes nearest fulfilling that hope, I for one am willing to boost instead of knock their attempt...
...They can't take it...
...Justice demands that the Germans restore, insofar as may be possible, everything that they have stolen or destroyed in the nations which they have overrun...
...Instead of the theory of surplus value, the foundation stone of socialist economic principles, "socialist" leaders began telling us that Soviet Russia is state capitalism, "totalitarianism", or some other vague system, contrary to what the theory of surplus value teaches...
...Several missionaries, accompanied by a brass band if possible (for the people love to be entertained and they love a big noise) and armed with a huge blackboard on which some artist has drawn the map of the nation, proving that every citizen who buys a thing, helps to support the whole national economy and also helps to support the profiteer who rules over him...
...Sam Harms Salem, Oreg...
...A 'Just' Peace Dear Sirs: The only peace which should be imposed upon our enemies after their defeat is a just peace...
...As for those socialists who believe in scientific socialism, they also have a job ahead to revitalize and unify the socialist movement in the tradition of Eugene V. Debs, but with the political clarity and modern organization demanded by present-day conditions...
...Ben Franklin had been colonial agent for the col-"' onies in London from 1766 to 1775 to adjust the controversy over the Stamp Acts...
...A little more, and Ben Franklin, in disgust and desperation, would be ready for independence...
...I do not imply that the liberals ought to be Marxists, but is it not at least possible for them to be liberal...
...Cedar St., S. Tacoma 9, Wash...
...Answer: The formula for permanent peace has been known for more than 20 centuries...
...Edward M. Ten Broeck Springfield Evening Union Springfield, Mass...
...These threats are evidently by the same type of person who goes into ecstasy whenever Stalin's name is mentioned or picture is flashed on the screen...
...Praise For Chamberlin Dear Sirs: The last article by William Henry Chamberlin in your March 5 issue alone is worth the price of admission...
...The American people owe it to their ideals, to their sons who have given their lives for those ideals, to demand that any world union of which the United States is a member, be one that reflects American ideals of liberty and security, not one that furthers the imperialistic designs of any power, British, Russian, or American...
...Starvation must be terrible, but life in filthy tenements is living death, physically and morally and mentally...
...and their wide-wasting prodigality and profusion is a gulf that will swallow up every aid we may distress ourselves to afford them...
...It would help them to become national-minded instead of putting the importance on what they have been taught to think is their own individual affair...
...Surely they can accomplish more for peace...
...Their keen wit and fine philosophy are refreshing...
...Let them go, you don't lose much...
...That, together with the fact that every child, as soon as he starts to school, is moulded right into the capitalistic state, certainly leaves no stone unturned that will serve to keep parasites in control...
...Real Reading Dear Sirs: I can truthfully say that I get more real reading in The Progressive than from any other publication...
...If I were in uniform and met this gentleman, it would be more than just the uniform that I would tender military courtesy to...
...What narrowmindedness...
...Johnson, of course, was referring to the very unpopular British coalition war of the Spanish Succession (1701-1713), in which England was allied with Austria and Holland as principals against France and Spain, and in which the Duke of Marlborough played > so prominent a part...
...Here numberless and needless places (offices), enormous salaries, pensions, perquisites, bribes, groundless quarrels, foolish expeditions, false accounts or no accounts, contracts, and jobs devour all revenue and produce continual necessity in the midst of natural plenty...
...I fear they may drag us after them in all the plundering wars which their desperate circumstances, injustice, and rapacity may prompt them to undertake...
...Let us not live with the placidity of contented cows...
...Another clean-cut and clear-minded man, and also a fighter, was that venerable champion of humanity, "Fighting Bob" La Follette, Sr...
...America can, in time, raise thoroughbred men and women...
...Stalin must have played the game right in order to attain that position...
...Neither England nor America have been invaded by the German savages...
...When governments fail to solve the basic problem of unemployment and security in the midst of potential plenty, dictators see their chance...
...L. S. Shuck, Jr...
...La Follette on Wallace's appointment...
...Greed is very subtle...
...With a real desire to improve living conditions it can be done as quickly as we prepared for war...
...savings exchanged for mere scraps of paper, homes lost, unemployment, and men thrown in the scrap heap to rust...
...The Conduct of the Allies is also interesting as a revelation to those who have been so bitterly attacked in the past for their so-called "isolationist" sentiments...
...For Stickers Dear Sirs: I heartily agree with Dwight L. Bolinger in the Mar...
...D. Bahnsen Watsonville, Calif...
...I apprehend, therefore, that to unite us intimately will only be to corrupt and poison us also . . . However, I would try anything, and bear anything that can be borne with safety to our just liberties, rather than engage in a war with such near relations, unless compelled to it by dire necessity in our own defense...
...Fred D. Flisher Battle Creek, Mich...
...12th issue of The Progressive in regard to marketing of stickers in objection to peacetime military training, should you be able to accomplish anything of the sort...
...This is something for liberals to think about—the possibility of a positive program...
...The repaying seems to have been fought by the bank at every step...
...It is a mournful sight to see the wrecks of humanity in this land of abundance...
...In fact they have not only never been encouraged to think, they have been always encouraged not to think, but to accept...
...If that proves to be impossible, their extermination seems to be the only remedy...
...First: allow an ex-service man of World War I to salute Lt...
...None of their citizens have been forced to witness German brutality toward members of their families, as have the people of Poland and Russia...
...This, if it could be done, would help the people to an understanding of their great national corporation to which all belong...
...The people," writes Dr...
...J. G. B. c/o P. O., New York 'Charity Swats' Dear Sirs: When will it come...
...No matter how unjust or unfair it may be, the fact is that a large body of American public opinion identifies bitter anti-Soviet attacks, anti-Communist attacks, and negative criticism with fascism...
...julius H. weideman Washington, N. j. An American Part Dear Sirs: I would like to see The Progressive take a stand for the incorporation into the constitution of any world union, a bill of rights for countries, regardless of size, that will serve the same purpose for them that the Bill of Rights in the Constitution serves for citizens of the United States...
...Does American liberalism have nothing more to offer in this critical stage of world history than negative criticism and vitriolic anti-communism...
...Hearty Congratulations Dear Sirs: I'd like to express hearty congratulations for your excellent, readable, penetrating, independent, well balanced magazine...
...Can anyone show that all the bad names and epithets of the past years have advanced the cause of either liberalism or socialism one iota...
...Certainly, after reading this masterly political work, we would come to the conclusion that there has been quite a little "isolationist" feeling among the British from time to time, especially when vital British nationalist interests were affected...
...Great pride is taken in improving the animal kingdom but man is left to the world's mercy and the alphabet at Washington...
...If this country enters into a world union unconditionally, as those who are keeping secrets from the American people are asking us to do, there is no assurance whatsoever that the part our Government takes in a world union will be an American part...
...that we had been bribing our neighbors to fight their own quarrel...
...Rubin and staff are doing a splendid job...
...Ever since reading Bellamy, I have hoped to see his vision put into practice...
...Charity swats the mosquito...
...Churchill's illustrious ancestor, John Churchill, better known as the Duke of Marlborough...
...Because the capitalists control the means of education and information...
...So while all truly great progressive writers are winning a few converts, generally speaking the duped and love-entertainment folks will never read anything that tries to help them understand...
...Marxian socialism is based on, materialism, but the Socialist Party leaders substituted "idealism"—which, in the scientific sense of the term, is the opposite of scientific method...
...Said Ben Franklin: "When I consider the extreme corruption prevalent among all orders of men in this old rotten state (England), and the glorious public virtue so predominant in our rising country, I cannot but apprehend more mischief than benefit from a closer union...
...Only the incorporation into its constitution of a bill of rights, protecting the rights of each people to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, according to the diverse ways each people finds its happiness, can assure the American people that the part its Government takes in a world union is an American part...
...hugo p. schumacher Madison, Wis...
...Frank Pitchkites Clinton, Ind...
...Instead of forthright socialist leadership we got anti-Communism...
...charles P. taylor Universal, Ind...
...If the German people are forced to pay adequately, and to the greatest extent possible, for their folly in following false leaders this time, they may think twice before permitting themselves to be led into a third debacle by some future Kaiser or Hitler...
...12 issue: Albert T. Kaiser's condemnation of the Haldeman-Julius books has my heartiest approval and I'm sure he would have Carlyle's (were he around today...
...Justice is the finest word in the English language and the least practiced...
...Poverty must be ended...
...I also want you to know there are many of us common people, not residents of Wisconsin, that appreciate your continuous progressive efforts in our national affairs at Washington...
...Today such men of genius as Wells, Haldane, Priestley of England, the Curies of France, Stalin, and such Americans as Kent, Davidson, Sinclair, and many others point to socialism as the only cure for war...
...C. Willing, of Philadelphia, Pa., writes, cancelling his subscription because of the vote of Sen...
...Seeing, war inevitable he returned to the colonies in 1775 and arrived just after the Battles of Lexington and Concord had been fought...
...Wisconsin's Contribution Dear Sirs: I think Mr...
...These conditions place upon American liberalism the necessity that unless it wants to pay the penalty of being identified with what it regards as its opposite, it must learn to express its policies in an unmistakably anti-fascist way...
...But being a correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor, he may have attempted to judge the nation according to Christian ethics...
...Cooperation and production have done much for war...
...After stating that "we began this war contrary to reason," and that "we have made weak and foolish bargains with our allies," and allowed them "to treat us with in-* solence and contempt at the very instant when we were gaining * towns, provinces, and kingdoms for them, at the price of our ruin, and without any prospect of interest to ourselves," Swift pertinently inquires: "By what motives and what management are we thus become the dupes and bubbles of Europe...
...and that among our enemies we might number our allies...
...Written in the lucid and usually vigorous style of Swift, the purpose of this sensational tract, according to Dr...
...The fact that they have, in spite of their "superiority," been defeated in a senseless war, must be brought home to all the German people, as forcibly as may be possible...
...I would like to make a few observations and one request...
...Your staff of writers is hard to beat, although I do not agree with all of them, especially Chamberlin and his views on Russia...
...Poverty is the horrible example of "man's inhumanity to man...
...William Henry Chamberlin appears to me to be a clean-cut and clear-minded young man...
...I was particularly attracted by a piece entitled The Conduct of the Allies...
...They are not used to thinking and reasoning...
...Just to counterbalance the loss of Mr...
...It seems to me most people in these parts seem to think that is great stuff...
...It is not a pretty picture...
...I believe that Bob, Jr., is just like his father...
...frank D. slocum New York, N. Y. * * * Franklin's Judgment Dear Sirs: The following quotation of Benjamin Franklin is taken from Carl Van Doren's book, Benjamin Franklin, page 517...
...Give A Friend The Truth Send A Sift Subscription Today Revitalizing Socialism Dear Sirs: It is sometimes said that Roosevelt adopted parts of the Socialist Party program and abstracted its following, but is it not more possible that thousands who came to the Socialist Party were looking for Marxian socialism and, not finding it, transferred to the Communist Party...
...Halsey's braggadocio that concurred with my opinion...
...Renew Your Subscription Today Cure For War Dear Sirs: , j Why have not the scientists and statesmen of our time (we have been so prolific in the production of the means of destruction) given us a formula for permanent peace...
...The senseless notion that Germany is a super-nation, inhabited by a super race of super men, must be eradicated from German skulls...
...These problems will stay solved when the people unite and work hard for a real democracy and freedom...
...L. t. zeisler Milwaukee, Wis...
...The war's deliberate extension was attributed to the "mutual indulgence between our general and allies, wherein they both so well fdund their accounts...
...A plan for conciliation had been drawn up providing for an imperial legislature and a written constitution...
...instead, it made attacks on the basic principles of socialism as they are defined in the classic socialist literature of the past century...
...Laws are like cobwebs which may catch small flies but let wasps and hornets break through," Dean Swift said...
...Dean Swift in this work, lays the origin and needless prolongation of the war directly to the Marlborough family...
...No doubt the Union Now crowd would stigmatize Ben Franklin as an isolationist and an appeaser and so would the "totalitarian liberals...
...Crying "smear" will not help at all...
...and never had any writer more success...
...Not a "hard" peace, not a "soft" peace, but a just peace...
...to the fear of the money-changers lest their tables should be overthrown...
...Russia will attend to that detail herself...
...The leadership of the Socialist Party was not content merely to abandon scientific socialism for idealistic liberalism...
...Willing's subscription, here are two new subscribers and my renewal...
...the people's forum . . . A Swift For Our Time Dear Sirs: I have been delving lately into the works of Dean Jonathan Swift, famous satirist and political pamphleteer, who lived in the days of the present Mr...
...We will surely be disturbed and bellowing will be a waste of energy in a wasted world...
...to the designs of the Whigs, who apprehended the loss of their credit...
...Understandably, the liberals are indignant when accused of such sympathies and when identified with that section of American isolationism which is known to be fascist-minded...
...george F. curry Martins Ferry, O. * * * The Underground Dear Sirs: I have no confidence in what the press tells us...
...Give A Friend The Truth Send Him The Progressive Today Patriots In Doghouse Dear Sirs: An observer from the outside listening in on public discussions and reading articles and letters in The Progressive and other publications might well come to the conclusion that in order to be considered a patriot one must be either a Russo-phile or an Anglophile...
...Begin now when war is at top-speed...
...deliberate falsehoods another...
...Maybe it salves a wounded ego now and then, but successful political movements are not constructed out of such material...
...The "Polish Situation," by Anna Louise Strong, is also enlightening...
...Down through the years, the great thinkers and humanitarians, such as Mill, Paine, Jefferson, Marx, Lincoln, Veblen, Debs, Stein-metz, and Bellamy, tried in vain to lead suffering humanity away from horrible war...
...Stalin has said that Russia will not delegate to any other nation, or nations, the authority to mete out justice to the German butchers for their crimes against the peoples of the countries which they overran...
...At any rate, it is a fact that as the membership and influence of the Socialist Party declined during the '30's, the membership and influence of the Communists increased...
...Leon M. Merman Buffalo, N. Y. * * * More Of Howard Dear Sirs: Let's have more of Harry Paxton Howard's scholarly presentations of those analyses on peace and the intrigues of our domestic enemies...
...The idea is to keep the people's minds so busy with poured-out stuff — slanted news, left-out news, and plenty of entertainment — movies, radio programs, funnies, picture puzzles, fiction containing many "darlings" or very thrilling murders—something that appeals to all kinds of readers, so these people in their spare time may never think beyond their noses...
...But I must say, give that country time...
...These books contain mere shadows of the original works and most of the books are not worth buying...
...Doubtless reading The Progressive will make the daily chore of conservative journalism less pleasant, but it is well to be stirred by truthful reporting, even if one can't do it personally...
...The world is and has been an emotional mix-up and we realize it...
...I enjoy Meyer and Mayer...
...Dr...
...I get a kick out of those who ask that their names be dropped...
...Yours is the only place I have seen any expression of reaction about Adm...
...justice drains the swamp that breeds them...
...England and America were too far apart...
...Though there are things that I may differ with others about, from his manner of writing and from his picture in The Progressive, Mr...
...The old, smug, easy-going way of life must not return or a more hideous war will be bred...
...edith h. loucks Wheaton, 111...
...Franklin had shown it to Chatham and Camden, but he put no trust in England...
...R. A. Young Washington, D. C. Doped And Duped Dear Sirs: James H. Wright in a letter in the Mar...
...Justice and unselfishness are the cure for most ills...
...Broadcast over the radio is the "Contented Hour" telling the public that milk from contented cows is more nourishing than the average...
...This, in a nutshell, is the peace which Marshal Stalin has decreed for Nazi Germany...
...I pass my paper along to those I think are able to think and who have never read your paper...
...12 Forum makes the suggestion that "missionaries" be sent to the people...
...I voted solidly for his party in '24, with one exception—where there was not a Progressive candidate for a minor office...
...Why don't we try it...
...marguerite P. cain Berkeley, Calif...
...Some of us have been asking this same question since we entered the present war, and have been abused for our pains...
...paul A. hewitt 5309 So...
...harold olmstead Hesperia, Calif...
...May The Progressive grow and prosper—it deserves to...
...After a thorough exposition of the insufficiency of those causes which were popularly believed at first to have driven England to war, he writes: "Whether this war was prudently begun or no, it is plain that the true spring or motive of it was the aggrandizement of a particular family...
...Russia, and the countries which have been the victims of German bestiality, are the only nations which can possibly be competent judges of what constitutes justice...
...While anyone propounding the principles of America first is apt to be plastered with smear, trailed by hounds of the FBI, and conveyed to the doghouse...
...R. Calvert ' Jackson Heights Long Island, N. Y. Give Stalin Time Dear Sirs: Your paper is still the most progressive in the country...
...Interesting Reading Dear Sirs: Constructive criticism is one thing...
...The notice in print that I saw concerning this also stated that the Government had been put to an added expense of over 3 million dollars to compel the repayment through court processes...
...It must be started at once or the world will degenerate into even more misery for everyone on this planet...
...herbert bernstein Brooklyn, N. Y. * * * Hits Narrowmindedness Dear Sirs: It's amusing to me to read such letters as Mr...
...Russia is one of the 3 powerful nations on earth today...
...If you will take the trouble to get a copy of the March edition of Soviet Russia Today, you will find for one thing, a reply to W. L. White's diatribe on Russia as condensed in the Reader's Digest recently...
Vol. 9 • April 1945 • No. 15
