THE PEOPLE'S FORUM
¦ ¦ ¦ THE PEOPLE'S FORUM ¦ ¦ ¦ Russian View Dear Sirs: As a reader of The Progressive for 10 years, including over 2 of them in the Air Forces, I wish to put in my bit to the controversy over...
...With courage, with inspiring words, and with action, he met the challenge...
...Send A Gift Subscription Today Analysis Of Conscription Dear Sirs: Compulsory peacetime military training has been advocated for postwar America and 2 bills have been introduced in Congress outlining it...
...Every reader of The Progressive owes it to himself and to the cause of liberty to become better informed about the American Civil Liberties Union and to join if possible...
...Well, it doesn't even cost 5 cents a copy...
...We all want to know what to do to help solve the world problems...
...What kind of peace does the world give...
...Let us analyze what effect this would have upon our nation...
...Ah, Doctor...
...In this article I see nothing of conscience, nor of understanding, but only the Doctor's flare for rhetoric...
...Inez F. Colby Berkeley, Calif...
...The Yalta conference could very easily have ended in discord with immediate disastrous results...
...That, he writes, "was the great age of our brave, new democracy...
...Mayer has the touch of brilliance as a craftsman...
...For an organization so large in character and influence its membership is much too small — only 6,000...
...Yet Dr...
...They have given me more instruction, enlightenment, and pleasure than I ever could pick out in the library...
...What then shall be said of our victorious political leadership...
...Not one in 4 had any say about the adoption of the Constitution...
...First of all, it would indoctrinate our boys in the ways of violence and destruction...
...Arthur C. Smith Washington, D. C. * * * Hate Dear Sirs: In this world torn by hatreds, the Roosevelt haters are taking a very certain satisfaction in the death of the late President, even as they hypocritically try to cover it...
...and construes it to mean that everyone must agree with every one of Roosevelt's proposals, and you publish such an outrageous, twisted conclusion, you are becoming very much like the Chicago Tribune...
...E. Haldeman-Julius to say that I have read over 200 of his Little Blue Books...
...Villard's article, "Decline Of The Roose-relts," in the Apr...
...The truth will be out in time and more face will be lost trying to hide it now rather than let it be known...
...It is shot through and through with fallacies that insult intelligence...
...May we not well reason that the true test of world political leadership is to preserve the peace...
...The Church was persecuted, large parts of the middle classes who objected to the changes were ruthlessly dealt with, suffering either liquidation or forced labor...
...16 issue went to press fully 48 hours before the Pres-dent's deaih...
...Churchill in a constructive way, but there was nothing constructive about those articles...
...Did they even allow any minutes or notes to be published...
...The dominant note was that Roosevelt surrendered everything to Stalin...
...THE PEOPLE'S FORUM ¦ ¦ ¦ Russian View Dear Sirs: As a reader of The Progressive for 10 years, including over 2 of them in the Air Forces, I wish to put in my bit to the controversy over Soviet Russia...
...But, to us, the spirit of Franklin Delano Roosevelt will live on to meet the challenge of tomorrow...
...Many of your readers get quite vehement over some of the articles in which some of your writers expose the more obvious villainies of the Soviet regime...
...Britain in dealing with her colonies...
...The Founding Fathers were acting for one people, a small group of colonies in a very limited territory...
...The great Nazarene didn't live in hate...
...Holmes knows that that is a personal injunction, definitely so...
...That was the most important issue at stake...
...Holmes makes their intention an argument for perfectionism...
...They set out avowedly to form a more perfect union...
...16th, it is time for me to sign off...
...Robert T. Kerlin Cumberland, Md...
...It ended in the spirit of unity and an exact program for winding up Germany's defeat...
...I read Markoosha Fischer's review in your Apr...
...You do not progress enough...
...America's Need Dear Sirs: May your popularity increase...
...Mayer's Articles Dangerous Dear Sirs: I note many of your readers rate Milton Mayer as one of your top writers...
...The A. C. L. U. may not be perfect, but it is the one national organization which is truly interested in liberty and through its day-today work has contributed more to its protection than any other group...
...Mayer cannot sell that type of article to publications of large circulation, hence limiting his sphere of destructive activity...
...Mayer and writers of his type is he blinds himself to alternatives...
...Rooseuelt...
...Mayer nor anyone else can answer that question, unless he is implying a break with Russia...
...Now, he is gone...
...I have long thought of the minister of the Community Church, New York City, as a man who at any cost would obey his conscience...
...As for freedom of discussion relative to the various declarations and agreements put forth by the Big 3, upon whom the responsibility of winning the war and making the peace mainly lies, Dr...
...Herbert Cadbury Merion, Pa...
...Soviet Russia made enormous gains during the years before Adolf Hitler got too big for his britches and sent his legions hurtling into the Soviet Union...
...La Follette, Milton Mayer, Lt...
...However, when you stoop so low as to publish such an unfair, biased, misrepresenting article as the one by Oswald Garrison Villard in your issue of Apr...
...It holds such a human quality and things we all share in common...
...Stalin has some 15 million soldiers at his back and the dictator complex...
...My only son, age 19, is reported missing in action since Nov...
...Again, he ignores utterly the differences between the Constitution makers in Philadelphia and the planners at Yalta...
...Holmes does, that a denouncer of any of these settlements "will have his head cut off as neatly as by a Hitler axeman," is to cut off one's own headpiece—and let his tongue wag...
...However, the fact that Stalin unwillingly found himself on the side of the western democracies does not automatically put wings on the man...
...If he will turn through the Congressional Record...
...Mrs...
...Suddenly he was stricken with infantile paralysis...
...Lame Reviews Dear Sirs: I read W. S. White's book and the lame criticism of the book in the New York Times...
...They were not so absurd...
...A peace of hate and selfishness, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and perhaps 2 eyes for an eye, or 2 teeth for a tooth...
...Sound Off' Section Dear Sirs: What I like about The Progressive is that you present the greatest variety of personalities and points of view in your contributors and all of them worth listening to...
...From the propaganda that has been circulated in this country most people seem to have the idea that Germany has been responsible for starting most wars...
...And the hard fight put up by little Finland showed that the Finns wanted no part of the blessings of Communism...
...Mayer to the contrary, we didn't surrender anything we didn't have to, to accomplish the primary objective...
...La Follette's Picture Dear Sirs: I'm sure Isabel B. La Follette is not as stern looking as her picture in The Progressive...
...Nevertheless, we can be thankful that Adolf Hitler, having decided that he was big enough to break his partnership for loot and thievery, made the fatal mistake of attacking Russia...
...Robert C. Tveting Columbus, 0. * * * 'Coonskin Democracy' Dear Sirs: I commend you for your fight for liberalism and coonskin democracy in America...
...The opposition comes from some organizations which are not interested in enlightenment of the masses by low priced literature...
...Edgar Snow (read his People on Our Side), a Saturday Evening Post writer, gives us more progressive news about Russia than your writers do...
...The President got the best results he or anyone else could have...
...F. B. Kulp Battle Creek, Mich...
...What Kind Of Peace...
...And I don't think he is that foolish...
...America needs you terribly at this time...
...The Most Truth' Dear Sirs: We are not in entire agreement with The Progressive, but find it gives us the most truth...
...But that, too, may belong to the "age of superstition...
...Dear Sirs: He was a young man of brilliant promise...
...I also can not see in your article any resemblance to the Sermon on the Mount...
...So I took a pencil and paper and started to figure...
...The trouble with Mr...
...It was the Russian fighting man and worker who bled the Nazis white and made their destruction possible...
...Much of our fleet was sunk...
...I do not see anything here but fancy and rhetoric...
...Presumably Mayer is not a member of the A. C. L. U., although he should be...
...To most men this would have been an insurmountable task...
...As plausible as this contention seems, it is, I believe, somewhat misleading, for the apparent conception is conveyed that wars can only be lost on the field of battle and in a purely military sense...
...This is the most important issue that has arisen in our nation since the inception of the war and it is imperative that the people of the United States unite and lend their efforts to the eventual defeat of this diabolical proposal which would establish a military hierarchy in America...
...There is too much talk about World War III when World War II hasn't been won yet...
...Great Britain ..................................78 France ............................................71 Spain ................................................54 Russia ..............................................61 Austria ............................................52 Turkey ............................................43 Sweden ............................................26 Italy ................................................25 Holland ............................................23 Germany..........................................23 Denmark..........................................20 China ................................................11 Japan...
...The article by Stuart Chase on the front page of the Apr...
...Roosevelt's statement, "Compromise means that everybody gives way a little...
...All copies were in the mail and enroute to subscribers more than a full day before the tragic death of Mr...
...Harry Gambichler Canajoharie, N. Y. Defends A.C.L.U...
...It must be admitted that democratic means were not used in achieving these great gains...
...Holmes quotes our one-time belief that "the voice of the people is the voice of God...
...Second, it would solve unemployment, as Hitler solved it, through coercion and goose stepping...
...Neither can we...
...Our nation was founded upon the fundamental principle of a minimum of governmental restrictions and control over the governed...
...Certainly Stalin had no interest in democracy when he made his pact with Hitler for the partition of Poland...
...Although my subscription has a little more than a year to run, I wish you would cancel it forthwith...
...To say as Dr...
...Commander Seely and others who write for your magazine...
...As for many of your other articles, after one finishes them, one's mind is full of confusion...
...Hits Villard Article Dear Sirs: I have been a subscriber to The Progressive ever since the American Guardian ceased publication and am a great admirer of Sen...
...We'll look for it...
...They could hardly aim at perfection for such disparate conditions, aspirations, and demands as the various nations and peoples of earth present...
...The kind the world gives, or the kind offered by Jesus Christ of Nazareth, Who said, "Not as the world giveth give I unto you...
...We particularly enjoy those articles and letters offering specific suggestions...
...More perfect," not, definitely not, a perfect union...
...9 issue is worth a whole year's subscription, to say nothing of the rest...
...Matt Phillips New Richmond, Wis...
...George Frey New York, N. Y. * * * Mrs...
...Quincy Wright's book, A Study of War, covering the years from 1480-1941, there is a list of the wars fought during this period and the different nations participating in the wars...
...John D. Lawson Los Angeles, Calif...
...The Founding Fathers put forth a constitution for a nation...
...Are the Allied nations selfish...
...The challenge of the future is not for him...
...The best feature in it is The People's Forum and many letters from subscribers show more intelligent understanding of what is taking place in the world' and what should be done than your paid writers do...
...Write to them at 170 Fifth Avenue, New York 10, N. Y. Don't just sit back and let Mayer give you the wrong impression...
...Yet today there is hardly any aspect of our lives which has not been encroached upon or curtailed by a governmental order under the guise of an exigency of war...
...L. L. H. General Supply, 281st AAFBU Brownsville, Tex...
...Perhaps some of us expect really progressive news from a progressive paper...
...We are attempting, through the fighting of the present holocaust, to improve our society and to quell those with destructive or rapacious ideas...
...War Criminals Dear Sirs: I have been observing with a great deal of interest the contentions of those who believe that we should make it an open and shut rule of war from now on that those leaders of nations who are the losers should be hanged as a deterrent to future wars...
...In Prof...
...Surely not...
...Mayer came out with an attack on the Yalta conference...
...Likes Forum Dear Sirs: We are delighted with The Progressive, especially your constructive articles on specific problems of today...
...A. Hewlett Chicago, 111...
...Mrs...
...Anyone who has an idea should write it in to his Congressman, columnist, pastor, editor, or The Progressive...
...The Yalta conference was a big step forward, and, Mr...
...he will find a large portion of its many pages daily has speeches, editorials, resolutions, etc...
...Why not let her smile a bit...
...The Yalta planners put forth only a declaration, a mere statement of general intentions and policies...
...In my opinion you do have one excellent writer, that is McAlister Coleman, and 1 have enjoyed his articles...
...With powerful deeds, he met the challenge...
...I especially like "A Room Of Our Own...
...His work stands out...
...Will it not be indicted by an impartial posterity as equally criminal and responsible for all this needless spilling of blood as are our vanquished enemies...
...And some of the writers seem to be unwilling to give even Stalin his just and due credit where it is deserved...
...With almost empty hands, we faced a world-enveloping war...
...Let's take a look at the record...
...Our statesmen, newspaper men, and intellectuals are doing the cause of world peace a disservice by trying to ignore and keep under cover the defections from our supposedly noble war aims...
...In some ways I agree with them, in others decidedly not...
...Philip Francis Jackson Heights, N. Y. * * * Defends Blue Books Dear Sirs: I ask for the sake of justice to Mr...
...Frank J. SchmiDt Abbotsford, Wis...
...We like her articles very much and her character...
...9 C. B. Ballard Appleton, Wis...
...This is a bona fide emulation of German and Japanese tactics...
...Forums should be held to determine causes and cures of war, society's worst disease...
...2 issue, fills me with astonishment...
...Holmes evidently knows nothing of the debates in Congress...
...Banks were failing, money was insecure, millions were jobless, and families were hungry...
...He is-, furthermore, a humorist on occasion, and I only wish he would stick to this field...
...What was Yalta but another Munich, with only a change of scenery and personalities and with Poland being sacrificed this time instead of Czechoslovakia to the will and might of a ruthless dictator...
...He can write more understandingiy and intelligently in a few words than William Henry Chamberlin, who can think only in terms of hate for Russia, can write in a whole page...
...Further, when he takes Mrs...
...Where can you get news like that for less than 5 cents...
...Sinai of "the age of superstition...
...Fair criticism is all right but when he takes our late President to task for replacing Jesse Jones with Henry Wallace and you publish it I doubt your real adherence to the liberal cause...
...Elwood Brown Alhambra, Calif...
...That is most unfair but it is typical of continental Europe...
...Henry G. Newell Troy, Pa...
...He suspects plotting against all we are fighting for and for all that we are fighting against...
...There is no prescription for getting a nation to understand and will perfection...
...15 issue, which is more lame, I would say worthless, since the reviewer set her status when she wrote, "he sees what he had decided to see before he crossed the Soviet border...
...He wants, and rightly, to see small countries given their full rights...
...Mary Hajkowicz Iron River, Mich...
...pro and con, on the Atlantic Charter, B r e tt o n Woods, Dumbarton Oaks, Yalta...
...An individual can be what he wills to be...
...Prefers Other Avenues Dear Sirs: Frankly I can't find anything constructive or progressive about your paper...
...2 article on conscientious objectors, left the impression that the American Civil Liberties Union was not interested in their case...
...Our leaders could at least speak up for free elections to give the peoples of Eastern Europe and the Balkans an opportunity to decide their own destiny without benefit of force...
...Certainly we could at least speak up for right and justice while millions of people are forced to exchange the tyrannies that they knew before the war for the ways of Russian Communism without having any say in the matter whatever...
...The United State of America, is it not controlled by selfish people...
...Mayer did not attempt to state how Russia could be compelled to give Poland all she is entitled to...
...Those who cannot compromise should be looked down upon by their neighbors and constituents...
...The most attractive feature is your 2 pages of letters by your readers...
...Coleman ever edits a truly progressive paper written for the common people, expressing the ideals of a planned economy for the good of all mankind, I wish he would let me know...
...America was in the depths of despair when he moved into the White House in 1933...
...Dear Sirs: Peace...
...You tell the people what is wrong but do not say bow to remedy it...
...30, so I know the agony and heartaches this war has caused...
...It is obvious there cannot be 60 million jobs without compulsory peacetime conscription and the invasion of other classes of our society...
...The Yalta conference worked out better than I expected...
...It is different with a nation...
...He was ready for the challenge of peace when death struck quickly to end his mortal struggles...
...EDITOR'S NOTE: Mr...
...Our brave, new democracy...
...The reason is that neither Mr...
...However, many a hard won victory on the battlefield has been lost on the diplomatic front, if those high objectives for which a people have been urged to take up arms have been flagrantly and cold-bloodedly ignored and discarded as they were in the last and promise to be in the present war...
...The Founding Fathers at Philadelphia are held up as a model for the councillors at Yalta...
...However, his radical articles are dangerous...
...Third, there would be no freedom of conscience because this proposal would give the state control over the personal conscience...
...Looking Dear Sirs: Now that Franklin D. Roosevelt is out of the way I hope The Progressive can go ahead and do something else besides find fault with him...
...As a matter of fact the A. C. L. U. has consistently worked for a decent policy toward conscientious objectors...
...The people of the Baltic States did not have the Four Freedoms forced upon them when the Red Army took over...
...Holmes' Rhetoric Dear Sirs: Dr...
...The alternative, as it happens to be in the case of Poland, is that Poland will get only part of its rights...
...To most men this would have been the final, crushing blow...
...In the meantime, there are a great many avenues to get better news than I feel you give, more constructively expressed, and more intelligently written...
...How can we hope to accomplish this end by teaching our young men and boys to destroy, kill, and maim...
...Those who opposed military tactics and warfare due to training and beliefs, and rightly so, would be compelled to serve.in the ranks...
...Finally, when a war has started and we have become involved in it, it should seem the height of truly enlightened statesmanship to bring about as speedily as possible and with the least loss of our precious manpower, a just and durable peace...
...You know very well that in the "great age of our brave, new democracy" not one man in 4 had any say whatever in the government over him...
...And if I sometimes indulge in a quiet snicker over the pages of letters from subscribers, I rejoice that even the most visionary among us are given a chance to "sound off" there...
...The Doctor is proud of being a perfectionist, and he quotes Scripture to support his creed: "Be ye perfect...
...The Soviets inherited a country in which illiteracy totaled 80 per cent of the population...
...Does the Doctor think that the Founding Fathers at Philadelphia let the people in on their discussions...
...What kind of peace...
...William V. Cowan Renton, Wash...
...Fortunately Mr...
...Any moron can start a war or get us into a war, while it takes genuine leadership to prevent one...
...It is perfectly proper to criticize Mr...
...Following the Revolution illiteracy was abolished, enormous industries were set up, agriculture was mechanized, all this with the hostile outside world at all times maintaining a more or less rigid quarantine against the land of the Soviets...
...Dear Sirs: Although he may not have intended to do so, "Milton-the-Just" Mayer, in his Apr...
...The majority of the people were exploited without mercy by a parasite ruling class aided by a corrupt church...
...Those entitled "We Must Lick Churchill, Too," were as damaging to the war effort as anything I have read...
...Of all the heinous invasions upon our lives the most nefarious is the proposal to subject America to a military despot through peacetime conscription...
...It is clear that nobody could tell Stalin what course to pursue in Stalin's own field of operations...
...Surely not...
...If Mr...
...To Franklin Delano Roosevelt this was a challenge...
...Math Thelen Sebeka, Minn...
...Josephine Kirpal Flushing, L. I., N. Y. Less Than 5 Cents Dear Sirs: Seven dollars for three years for The Progressive looked like a lot of money to me...
...Among our so-called war criminals, should we not include that callous and egotistical world leadership which still persists in solving the recurrent economic problems of their peoples by continually plunging them in periodic total wars...
...Holmes chooses to disregard such an obvious difficulty...
...Holmes' article titled "Let the People in on the Peace," Apr...
...Mayer's article that if Roosevelt had stood his ground on the Polish question, Stalin would have given way...
...I think such a paper would have a large following...
...There is the inference in Mr...
...With an indomitable will, he met the challenge...
...Recently Mr...
...how could you...
...The Yalta planners were acting for 40-odd nations and the population of the globe...
...To most men, this would have been the end...
...Sgt...
...T. c. coultrup Encilia Palm Springs, Calif...
...Perhaps we will have to wait for a really progressive paper...
...Why do not the professed followers of Jesus Christ advocate and insist on a peace negotiated by the spirit of love, justice, and mercy...
...It might be interesting to know what the record shows in regard to this...
...Yalta, in your mind, Doctor, is a repetition of Mt...
...Again, he sees nothing but conspiracy in the secrecy of the Yalta agreements...
...Peace Loving' Nations Dear Sirs: Since the Dumbarton Oaks conference, we have heard a good deal regarding the "peace-loving people" of the different nations...
...One last fallacy—and insult to intelligence...
...Tribute To F.D.R...
...Little did our fathers think that such a deluge of regimentation as that which burdens us today, would rule or could ever exist in this country...
...Pearl Harbor was an overwhelming disaster...
...Membership in this organization is one of the most effective ways of making one's weight felt in the continuous battle for civil liberties...
...Now Dr...
Vol. 9 • May 1945 • No. 19
