THE PEOPLE'S FORUM
. . . THE PEOPLE'S FORUM ¦ ¦ ¦ Atrocities For Little Boys Dear Sirs: A few issues back Milton Mayer wrote an article depicting the atrocity committed by Admiral Halsey against little Julie in a...
...Others have said the same thing but none of them offer any evidence to support it...
...Mr...
...What, may I ask...
...Militarism In America Dear Sirs: I read with pleasure the article by Max C. Otto, "Peacetime Militarism: Good-by Democracy" and hope The Progressive feels the same way and will work to stop this militarism in America...
...even if we had no American Congressmen viewing and verifying these atrocity stories, we would still know that they were true...
...We have soiled our womanhood, our motherhood with too much nonsense...
...that these atrocities were actually committed by your "poor German people...
...What they did in a small measure can be done in a larger measure if we are a united people and do not allow ourselves to become a nation of serfs...
...I have shielded him from all war and horror pictures...
...When a criminal commits a terrible crime and is forced to choose between being caught by the sheriff or the person against whom the crime is committed, he will choose the sheriff every time...
...Likes Movie Reviews Dear Sirs: Your movie reviews are getting better all the time...
...That seems to me like burning down the barn to get roast pork...
...Is the spirit of the dead boys to be saddened as it must have been after the first World War, seeing the futility of their sacrifice...
...We would know all this because we have the proof from the Germans themselves...
...The analogy between the public school system and the so-called health insurance system is not a good one...
...My Jimmy has not seen any war pictures...
...Here tenants in low-cost housing projects are provided with all sorts of health and social services, the cost of which is included in the monthly rent...
...I agree absolutely with Mr...
...Many have done everything in their power to bring India's plight to the attention of the Allies so that justice might be done...
...Dorothy Corsentino Los Angeles, Calif...
...But how many of them are...
...But neither our Government, nor the English Government has done anything constructive to solve the problem...
...Animals will fight each other, but among the lower animals there is not one specie that sends out its immature offspring to do the fighting for the adults...
...There is no evidence to the effect that preparedness for war makes for peace...
...W. C. Mueller Buffalo, N. Y. * * * The Villard Articles Dear Sirs: I have read F. B. Kulp's letter from Battle Creek, Mich, in your May 7 issue, wherein Mr...
...To quote his own words, "for this very reason, for being progressive, for being an industrial asset to the British empire without peer in that part of the world, for that reason and no other, Jewish Palestine must now die...
...I've seen plenty of asthma specialists wheezing with asthma and heart specialists dying of heart trouble and pediatricians with sickly kids...
...Margaret Kubica Colstrip, Mont...
...That they cannot trust us...
...Pearl Harbor was fortified with thousands of men, air fields, and half the fleet...
...The Argentine National Low Cost Housing Commission has recently been authorized to provide members of its Tenants Association with various medical and social services including survivor's benefits, in case of the death of the bread winner, services of a medical clinic with doctor, dentist, and visiting nurses and recreation centers and playgrounds...
...All historic evidence supports the contention that preparedness for war makes for war...
...Don't blame the mirror...
...The above services are financed by monthly membership fees, by gifts, subsidies, and by an initial appropriation of 5,000 pesos...
...George Frey's letter in the May 7 issue, I should like to say, for the benefit of Mid-westerners, that there are 2 different organizations in the field of American civil liberties—the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Chicago Civil Liberties Committee (CCLC...
...He says he was particularly moved by the letters that were sent by servicemen from the various camps in this country...
...I wonder why a few are trying to get control of this country in every way and wrest the natural resources which God gave us with such lavish hand...
...It seems absurd to talk about ending militarism in Germany and starting to cultivate it in this war-hating, freedom-loving America...
...They also tell us that military training makes for discipline...
...They were all from women and, with 1 exception, they were favorable and commendatory...
...Frey when he calls upon Progressive readers to support the fight for civil liberties, but I feel that Progressive readers who live in the Middle West should support the Middle West organization, rather than the New York one...
...I tried to explain that Mussolini was considered a bad man and therefore he was killed...
...I am not sure that we can avoid the next war, whether we adopt peacetime military conscription or not...
...Note how desperately the Germans try to surrender to the Americans rather than be caught by the people of the countries they overran...
...Since most of her communication has no relevance to what I wrote and since the small portion which does touch upon my article possesses neither fact nor logic, I see little reason to reply to her specifically...
...If we have intelligence enough not to take that first step now, there is at least reasonable hope that we will have intelligence enough to take the further steps necessary to assure peace...
...While living at the house of a great wealthy German family, two small boys, 6 and 8, came in dressed in uniforms with small swords at their sides and military caps...
...William Rybarczyk Hawkins, Wis...
...This is the "real McCoy" on the subject...
...Van Paassen effectively exposes by quoting the charge of Miss Dannewig, the member from Norway to the Permanent Mandates Commission meeting in Geneva in 1938, that not the Arabs, but Britain herself was betraying the Jews, The real purpose for the Churchill government's support of an Arab federation, Mr...
...I quoted one of his gentler paragraphs in the manuscript of my article, but the editors of The Progressive saw fit to delete it in the printed version, presumably to spare the feelings of ladies like Miss Hennessey...
...When told to speak to the guest, they saluted...
...So, Mayer, my friend, don't let Julie go to the movies for a long time...
...I wanted to give him a few ideals to build his character on and a faith in the divine nature in human beings...
...S. Dept...
...But none of the health insurance plans I have seen do anything but pay the doctor's bill...
...My son was a conscientious objector to war from childhood on, but when he dared to stand by his sincere convictions after the war broke out, the girls among his former schoolmates gave him the cold shoulder, the boys, even though they did not agree with him, at least, conceded to him the right of his opinion...
...Even a superficial study of Selective Service figures shows that the "Squalid South" had a smaller percentage of 4-Fs than any other part of the country...
...Dear Sirs: It is surprising to realize the number of commentators, writers, and other influencers of public opinion who advocate the theory that all Germans are brutal and depraved...
...They could be "morale builders" just as well for those who are opposed to war...
...Of course, we have some enlightened women, who have the courage of their convictions but as a whole, I am afraid Barnes' description fits us but too well...
...McAlister Coleman Martha's Vineyard, Mass...
...He but held a mirror up to bur souls and the reflection we saw there was not beautiful...
...Kulp retaliates upon the Villard article in your Apr...
...All I have to say is this: Those moral dwarfs who put anything like that on the screen and murder the spirit in my son, who cripple his sweet nature, who mutilate his faith in the divine nature of man, who destroy his faith in human justice, who torture his emotions, are just as bad if not worse than the ones who were pictured on the screen...
...As a matter of fact, I did go very lightly on the bellicose ladies...
...I have been a member of this Committee for a long time and know that it is doing a great work protecting Tivil liberty and the rights of minorities in the Middle West...
...It was so awful, mother...
...This tangible evidence of consciousness of guilt cannot be hidden or brushed aside by your mealy-mouthed conglomeration of muddle-h e a d e d writers...
...Barnes wrote nothing but the truth...
...The big cities of the North and East where people can afford "adequate" care and where free clinics and various methods of compulsory patronage of physicians are more in evidence came up with a large percentage of rejectees...
...The first time anyone learns about the process of banking lending, he is not unlikely to feel that there is something not only paradoxical but even unlawful about the operation...
...But mother, did they kill her too...
...Stirring Support Dear Sirs: I want to thank all those Progressive readers who contributed so generously to the Longo Defense Fund in reply to an appeal with which I ended my recent article on the Longo ease in this paper...
...16, 1945 issue, by cancelling his subscription even though it has more than a year to run...
...The address of the Chicago Civil Liberties Committe is 410 So...
...In 1893 my husband, my brother, and I were in Europe...
...I wish I hadn't gone," he said, "they showed those awful things that happened in Germany...
...The medicos still operate as private individuals and have a monopoly on the business and are just as free from responsibility for their mistakes as ever...
...So off goes the boy to the movies for an afternoon of enjoyment...
...Are we, too, so stupid that we can find no better way to improve the national health than by way of the evil of military training...
...I feel desolate to think that my son and millions of other sons have no better than we to look to for guidance...
...Is it therefore logical that as the German people, we too, should be classed as brutal ? Ellen Berry Chicago, 111...
...I don't think Mr...
...Kulp's...
...Give A Friend The Truth Send Him The Progressive Today Reply To June Hennessey Dear Sirs: I have "read June Hennessey's elaborate squawk in the May 21 issue of The Progressive...
...It may therefore be worthwhile to add that a full discussion of the legal aspects of the matter is con-ained in the first volume of Theory and Practice of Banking, by Henry Dunning MacLeod (6th edition, Longmans, Green and Co...
...If anyone doubts this, let me refer them to pages 192-194 of Philip Wy-lie's Generation of Vipers (Farrar and Rinehart), dealing with the "Moms" and war...
...Van Paassen attributes openly to the British "determination to stabilize Jewish enterprise in Palestine on the present basis of accomplishment—in other words, to wreck and ruin and frustrate the movement to normalize the life and condition of the Jewish people of the world...
...Van Paassen directly charges that the real reason in back of the British White Paper forbidding further Jewish immigration into Palestine, is the British fear of Palestine's industrialization by the Jew...
...This truly great liberal cries from the depths of his humanitarian soul against what he aptly calls the "lack of interest in high places, both in Britain and America, in providing the terrorized remnants of European Jewry with the means of escape or even with a ray of hope for survival...
...Are All Germans Brutal...
...D. K. Albert Washington, D. C. EDITOR'S NOTE: Here are several excerpts from the release of the Department of Labor: Tenants in the new, low-cost housing projects in the city of Buenos Aires are surrounded by all sorts of safeguards and protective provisions...
...If we are stupid enough to adopt peacetime military conscription now, the next war is assured...
...Pandit has been "a voice crying in the wilderness" at the San Francisco Conference...
...There is no evidence to indicate that doctors' families are any better off physically than anybody else...
...Such a thesis could be advocated by those who would class all Americans as gangsters and murderers because they read the cases on the police docket...
...Renew Your Subscription Today Palestine And The British Dear Sirs: Many of us feel that the question of reopening Palestine to future Jewish immigration, which has been barred by the British White Paper as of March, 1944, was by-passed at Yalta...
...Having read nearly all of Vil-lard's articles, I am convinced that this author's statements contain reliable information and bear repeating even though his personal opinion and views may differ in some measure from others, as do the writer's or Mr...
...Conscripting the teen-age boys of one country and training them to fight the conscripted youth of another country is a fiendish thing to do...
...A well-known novelist on the Pacific Coast sent Johnny words of cheer and a check as well...
...James G. Pontefract Sewickley, Pa...
...He speaks as though this might be a dream of the future...
...Kansas Farmers Lead Dear Sirs: It was with profound thanks to the farmers of Kansas that I read in The Progressive, Apr...
...16, H. C. Dekker remarks that "every bank loan and every purchase by a bank creates a deposit, and every repayment of a bank loan or sale by a bank destroys one...
...If you want more details see the Monthly Labor Review (U...
...Apparently this gentle gesture was futile...
...of Labor) page 57, issue of Sept., 1943...
...God bless them...
...I think we are too stupid to do the things we have to do to avoid war...
...Housing And Health Dear Sirs: In your number of May 21 you have a fine piece by Henry J. Kaiser in which he expresses the hope or dream that the cost of health service and medical care might be incorporated in the rent the worker pays for his house...
...The CCLC operates mainly in Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, and the Middle West generally...
...It is a proud privilege to be associated with a paper whose readers are willing to render more than lip service to the cause of democracy...
...When the last shot is fired in the Far East, would that we could all get together in some sort of political and economic organization to make" this country a fit place for those grand kids to live in...
...William Plampin Washington, D. C. * * * Digging For Facts Dear Sirs: It is easy for us to get the ordinary news...
...No matter what I do or anyone else does or says, it will never mend what that picture has done to the inside of my boy...
...Augusta U. Cortez South Milwaukee, Wis...
...Burning The Barn Dear Sirs: They tell us that one of the byproducts of military training will be a better national health...
...The boys are getting it just as badly as the girls...
...We are not bellicose by nature but we are too susceptible to flattery, to high sounding words, and to false ideas on patriotism ! Instead of worrying about "the demoralizing influence such an opinion as Mr...
...Yes, son," I answered...
...To say that all Germans sanctioned the policies of the Nazis, is the same as to state that all Americans or Englishmen sanction the injustices of England in India...
...A short time ago, my young son, age 11, picked up the evening paper on whose front page appeared a picture of the Italian people kicking, spitting at, and mutilating the corpses of Mussolini and his mistress...
...What good has it done any one who saw that picture...
...The Kansas farmers have shown us the way...
...The supposed strong Arab opposition to further Jewish immigration, Mr...
...I want to relate the atrocity committed by the American people against my little Jimmie and thousands of other Jimmies — not for what the people have done, but for what they haven't done...
...Nils Anderson East Stanwood, Wash...
...What chance is there for my boy and millions of others to build and maintain a peaceful world when the soul flower within is withered and frozen with horror pictures as it starts to bud...
...THE PEOPLE'S FORUM ¦ ¦ ¦ Atrocities For Little Boys Dear Sirs: A few issues back Milton Mayer wrote an article depicting the atrocity committed by Admiral Halsey against little Julie in a darkened movie house as she and many other little girls munched karmelcorn...
...That we slither over pious platitudes and moralize and talk of peace with one side of our mouths and let hate drip out of the other...
...I inquired...
...Did you enjoy the picture...
...Indians are still being treated brutally, but those who deplore this situation can do nothing to stop it...
...16 issue to new propects.G. F. Fischer Centuria, Wis...
...Chicago Civil Liberties Dear Sirs: Referring to Mr...
...But like the mountain that labored and brought forth a mouse, your efforts will be just so much expended wind...
...Our support of The Progressive is based on the assumption you will dig deep for facts and hew to the line when presenting them...
...The ACLU is an East Coast organization with offices—as pointed out by Mr...
...Enclosed please find postage covering the cost of copies and mailing of the said Apr...
...If we saw a reflection of our face in the glass, and found a smudge on one cheek, we Would just apply the soap and water...
...A few days later my sonny boy came in the house and said, "Mom, can I go to the movies...
...Certainly a large peacetime army will not do it...
...Most of, them expressed the wish that I had laid on a little harder...
...Forum Is Great' Dear Sirs: Of all the reading we take I like The Progressive best...
...The American Legion conventions we all read about in the newspapers when they took place were not what you would call models of disciplined behavior...
...Books On Banks Dear Sirs: In the People's Forum of Apr...
...Officers and privates sent 5 and 10-dollar checks and one naval officer sent a check for $50...
...McMillin will claim that the poor folks of the South can afford better medical care than the rest of us or that the South is more adequately cared for...
...Longo, his lawyer, Ray Chasan, and the Rev...
...AMA Seeks Closed Shop Dear Sirs: Miles McMillin in his article, "The AMA Seeks A Closed Shop", in the May 14 issue, makes the statement that "Its (the present pay-as-you-go medical practice) inability to provide adequate^ medical care for the nation was glaringly illustrated by the shocking number of rejectees for military service . . . because of'the failure of our present system to provide proper medical care...
...Three hours later in comes a sad faced boy...
...The passages in question are part of chapter xii, written by Gardiner C. Means of Columbia University...
...A housing project recently inaugurated in Santiago, Chile, by the company which supplies gas (chiefly for heating and cooking) to this city also includes insurance provisions as well as health, including hospitalization, doctors, clinics, visiting nurses, etc...
...Habry Elmer Barnes Cooperstown, N. Y. * * * Barnes Tells The Truth Dear Sirs: This is a reply to June Hennessey's letter to the Forum of May 21, in which she protests to an article by Harry Elmer Barnes: "Feminism And War" in the Apr...
...Well," a whole mass of morons will shout, "it did happen, didn't it...
...Michigan Blvd., Chicago, 111., and membership is only $2 per year...
...I did not want him to become callous to murder by seeing it constantly on the screen...
...I hope their example will be a shining light to other states in like circumstances...
...Barnes holds has on our fighting men who are making such heroic sacrifices" all mothers should long since have debunked the appalling idea of sacrifice being made of the world's young manhood in an effort to right the world's wrongs...
...R. Calvert Jackson Heights, N. Y. * * * Fascist And Pro-Nazi Dear Sirs: The Progressive, with its galaxy of Fascist, pro-Nazi, and Trotsky-ite writers, is now trying and no doubt will continue trying to convince its readers and the world that the "poor German people" just did not commit any atrocities in this war at all...
...Women have seldom been "the instigators of war" but they have always been the "morale builders" for their fighting men on both sides of the firing line...
...Celler justly charged in an appeal to the late President Roosevelt, only a short time before the latter's death, the status of Palestine at Yalta was "lightly shunted aside", without as much as a "single word of encouragement" having been uttered in behalf of the "trapped Jews of Europe...
...Pearl Harbor was attacked...
...The boy looked up with a startled face and asked, "Mother, what did they do...
...Mrs...
...How can they have any faith in the divine nature of man when they have for example...
...A discussion of this important matter will be found on pages 352 onwards of The Internal Debts of the United States, edited by Evans Clark...
...When my brother met us in Paris and expressed his disgust at the Germans teaching and encouraging the love of war and fighting in their young children, we felt it was something our America would never do...
...16 issue of The Progressive...
...So I feel it is time that the soul of womanhood got a thorough cleansing...
...It is a stirring thing to ^hink that readers of The Progressive in all walks of life, and especially men who are risking their very lives for the cause for which Longo is fighting, still stick to their democratic guns...
...It would be just as legitimate for the Government to pay my telephone bill as my doctor bill...
...Johnny Longo, the victim of the malicious persecution of Frank Hague, the Democratic boss of Jersey and easily the most corrupt figure in our public life, writes me that in response to The Progressive article he has received dozens, "literally dozens of letters that came from every part of the country, with checks and cash enclosed...
...She was lucky...
...My Jimmie had to look at it...
...It's a Walt Disney picture and should be funny...
...Frey—in New York City...
...I can't describe it...
...C. S. Seely Member, Board of Directors, CCLC...
...Please be advised that such is not the case...
...If we can't have faith in humanity, who can we have faith in...
...Chicago, 111...
...I do not agree with her, but find that Mr...
...The West Coast was not...
...9, of their rallying to the help of the cooperatives against that unjust tax...
...War is an uncivilized, brutal, stupid business...
...Membership in this Association is optional to those who purchase houses outright but is compulsory for those who rent houses from the Commission...
...Note too, how they especially try to avoid the Russians, Poles, Czechs, and Yugoslavs where most of their atrocities were committed...
...The money you sent will help pay the heavy costs of taking the trial of Longo to the highest court in New Jersey...
...Hol-lingshead, head of the Longo Defense Committee of Jersey City, N. J., join with me in thanking you all...
...Their behavior proves it...
...Lest, however, some may judge thoughtful American women unfairly and be led to believe that Miss Hennessey's communication is representative, I will state that I have received more communications relative to my article on "Feminism and War" than I have concerning any other article I ever wrote for The Progressive...
...Or, as Rep...
...There is no connection whatever between these organizations...
...Frederick Drew Bond Winstead, Conn...
...She only heard it said that it was fun to burn and drown human beings...
...Marion Richards Indianapolis, Ind...
...Mrs...
...The boy didn't say anything, he just sat there for a while with a look of desolation...
...Down at the other end of this Hemisphere in the Argentine Republic — which some people seem to think is not very progressive— they are a couple of jumps ahead of us in this particular field...
...I tried to explain that there is a power in man that is divine and capable of great love and understanding, but that there was also a power in him eapable of utter viciousness and bestiality and that man could choose between these 2 sides, but that the people chose to indulge in the lower side when this occurrence took place...
...has that got to do with my son...
...The People's Forum is great...
...What good will it do my boy to hate a whole nation of people...
...They have no more right to it than any of the rest of us...
...The West Coast was not fortified...
...My brother went to Germany on business...
...Back in 1943, Pierre Van Paassen wrote The Forgotten Ally, which is, in many respects, one of the most remarkable books of our times...
...Extend it if you can...
...Gus Hollander Enid, Okla...
...As a sick tenant cannot be expected to pay rent, the Argentine National Housing Commission provides medical service and visiting nurses to see that its tenants keep well, reports the weekly publication La Habitacion Popular (Popular Housing) of Buenos Aires...
...Even if we did not have photographs and eyewitness stories...
...This comes under the administration of the National Low Cost Housing Commission...
...I wonder when the boys come marching home to the country they have dreamed about and longed for, if they will be welcomed here as heroes or bums, if they will have to sell apples on street corners again, and if they try to get a little justice, which they have fought so hard for, will the guns be turned on them as they were at the close of the first war...
...He wasn't able to eat any karmelcorn...
...Why, mother, why did they kill her too...
...There must be something besides the magical formula of "adequate medical care" to account for it...
...I wanted to protect him from the awful doings of my generation and my parents' generation...
...my generation and my parents' generation...
...Each succeeding convention, however, has shown an improvement in behavior, that is, the» farther away they were from the military training of 27 years ago...
...The public schools are really public and subject to full control of the people—if they are alive to their responsibilities and see to it that the schools are what they want them to be...
...Of course, despicable criminals who are responsible for horrible outrages to humanity should be punished, but to label all Germans as innately brutal is a direct insult to men of German descent who are fighting in this war...
Vol. 9 • June 1945 • No. 23
