THE PEOPLE'S FORUM
. . . THE PEOPLE'S FORUM . . . 'A Million Falsehoods' Dear Sirs: The Rev. John Haynes Holmes, •who is an undisputed authority on Christian ethics, refers to the lands liberated by the Red Army,...
...Peace is promoted by reforming our own country and letting the example have its effect abroad...
...C. Tooke Portland, Ore...
...These new bombs will make the current heavy, crude, aimless robots as out of date as a Civil War cannon would be against a B-29...
...We may need badly the solidarity not long hence, if we hope not to perish...
...This week's issue (June 25) contains an extra proportion of this controversy...
...B. U. Hiester Ottawa, 111...
...However, anyone who wished to develop such sub-surface resources must first pay the owner of the surface for so much of it as he might need and be responsible for any damage that might result to the surface as a result of sub-surface developments...
...One of these events will occur, for in the rapidly accelerating development, with its world organization and integration, the small nations will disappear as is disappearing the little man in modern industrial life...
...Rather than defense keeping pace with offense, it is more accurate to say that all offensive weapons are adopted by both sides...
...Our country owes this solemn obligation and responsibility to its people...
...Conscription Stand Dear Sirs: Your stand against peacetime conscription merits the support of people wanting to defend and extend their liberty...
...What these cultured gentlemen of the cloth bemoan, as well as their counterparts in the laity, who make up the Soviet smear brigade for the columns of the unprogres-sive Progressive, is the fact that the Drang Nach Osten has been crushed and the Socialist world saved and consolidated...
...Dewey's political leadership...
...If so, one can only conclude that they are determined to keep the hatred pot boiling until another war is the issue...
...Some would rather accept foreign isms instead of the American way...
...John Gabriel Soltis Minneapolis, Minn...
...More Of The Truth Dear Sirs: I have been silent for a long time but have been admiring your articles by Mayer, Chamberlin, Villard, Seely, Mrs...
...But you and Sen...
...But the world is weaker after every war and we now have enough devices, given time, to commit more suicide...
...Allow liberal exemptions to start with and very moderate taxes in the lower brackets, making rates high enough on individual holdings above $100,000 worth to furnish needed revenue...
...The national women's organizations like the Parent-Teacher Association (mostly women), the Business and Professional Women and others have exerted a great influence and it has not been mainly in support of war...
...In World War I, Allied tanks soon followed German tanks...
...Roosevelt because they felt that with his re-election they would be better secured in their present employments...
...Kapleau's June 11 letter The Progressive, his animadver-m on Fred Rodell's blistering re-iew of Morris Ernst's book was lit only in bad order, but the wrong pe of criticism...
...As long as we feel ourselves secure at home, or to put it more bluntly, as long as we still continue to enjoy the questionable comforts of a war economy while our finest manhood continues to bleed itself to death on foreign battlefields we are blind...
...Forward, to the offensive...
...Is Russia so rotten within, or are we so evil and untrustworthy, that we are excluded from within her borders or the countries she now controls...
...Under Henry George's plan such persons would have to pay full rental value as taxes on the land in their homes or farms but would not be relieved of any part of the debt against such property...
...Women have contributed the virtues that have made civilization...
...Most Socialists believe that he x-uns for President on Republican money to defeat the Democrats and takes money from Wall Street to fight Russia...
...While cognizant of the viewpoints and philosophy of those who contributed to the glory that was Greece, and who in the horse and buggy days of American life maintained the old Grecian viewpoint and philosophy, at the same time he recognizes and proclaims that the world moves, that conditions change, and that philosophy and viewpoints change with changed conditions...
...J. Goss Larkspur, Calif...
...Harry Elmer Barnes is talking about the lower half of womankind...
...As a parent with a son in the armed service, it is my well-reasoned conviction that we, the fathers and mothers of boys all over the world, are solely responsible for wars and their recurrence...
...You list Norman Thomas as the Socialist leader...
...L. C. Jauncey San Diego, Calif...
...It surely is explicit and proves how easily democracy can be liquidated under wartime emergency through bureaucratic control and a lot of hot air propaganda, because so many folks are apathetic and indifferent as long as they worship Mammon...
...Its adoption would only bring ruin, and destruction to any country...
...Editor's Note: We direct Read-er Lind's attention to the editorial in the July 9 issue pointing out that when the same people were given an alternative to conscription 56 per cent voted against the conscription program...
...When privileged and un derprivileged people are held by a central government to a set of arbitrary laws which are all in favor of the privileged, the relationship between peoples is not one of freedom...
...The statement should be accompanied with a sardonic laugh...
...Science Of Killing Dear Sirs: One of the much used military axioms is: "Defense always keeps pace with offense...
...Uranium 235 is said to be 35,000 times more powerful than TNT...
...If they had been the fathers and mothers would have voted, instead, for Mr...
...Barnes as to his particular purpose in signalling out our charming woman folk as being in any way especially addicted to warmongering, since, as he puts it, "women have always urged their male relatives on to war, have aided in wars, and have lauded and eulogized war heroes...
...If the fault lies here at home, it is a serious and grave need that our people now take stock and eradicate the evil that is besetting the U. S. I don't parade up and down the street, waving the Stars and Stripes and shouting what a super-patriot I am, but I do hold allegiance to these United States of America, ready and willing to admit and atone for any wrongs we are responsible for...
...In this the contest is between reaction and progress...
...Shoot From The Hip...
...In view of the times, I believe in a great and strong military force for this country, but the personnel should be comprised of volunteers...
...They voted for Mr...
...At the cost of seeming cynical, I have to own that for counftess thousands of our people throughout the country, this war has simply not existed, or if it has existed, it is merely for the opportunity it affords for a temporary fling at high living...
...And as for Mayer's indignation over the lost Charter, I can't make out whether he is a fool or a hypocrite, or maybe he thinks, like the rest of the liberals, that he can shame the big shots into following through with their promises...
...liberty for the little man to own and run his own store free from sanitary or other government or social inspection...
...Johnson are behind the times because the people have already decided in favor of universal peacetime conscription for all youths of 18 for one year...
...Your chief propagandists for trouble with Russia seem so concerned about votes for the landlord class of Poland and Yugoslavia...
...So please write...
...Send A Gift Subscription Today i Wants More Rodells ar Sirs: In Mr...
...Furthermore Barnes should know there is no such phenomena as "in ternational anarchy...
...John B. Taylor Oklahoma City, Okla...
...Moreover, as far as the working class in concerned, it knows that the book called the Brass Check, written by Upton Sinclair, gives a real picture of the freedom of speech and press as they relate to the masses in our country...
...A person who may have spent the best part of his life paying for a farm or home would lose all value of the land and be reduced to the status of a mere renter or tenant on that which he has spent so many years to attain...
...Just to cite 2 polls, one just released today, June 17, by The National Opinion Research Center, University of Denver: This poll shows 72 per cent in favor, 20 per cent opposed and 8 per cent undecided, while last year's poll showed 79 per cent in favor, 17 per cent opposed, and 4 per cent undecided...
...Praise For Sen...
...Roosevelt and rejected Mr...
...Russia And The South Dear Sirs: All wide-awake liberals knew this flood of vilification of Russia was coming as soon as Soviet troops were no longer needed to hold Hitler off of us...
...Doris Luli Los Angeles, Calif...
...Pass The Progressive Along Guilty Parents Dear Sirs: In your May 21 issue, I read with considerable interest the excellent letter, "A Protest to Barnes," by June Hennessey in reply to Harry Elmer Barnes' rather caustic indictment of feminine "bellicosity" in his article, "Feminism and War," appearing in your April 16 issue...
...His place in history as a thinker and social scientist is secure...
...Renew Your Subscription Today The Logic Of Liberals Dear Sirs: The June 11 contribution of Harry Elmer Barnes to The Progressive would have been amusing if it weren't so disappointing...
...Ross so highly in the June 11 issue...
...Many persons would still owe large sums of money on their farms or homes...
...Villard praises Mr...
...26 issue...
...I would join him in opposing "interest-tribute" and hoarding permitted by our present system, but it seems to be an oversimplification to assume that abolishing these 2 evils would end all exploitation of labor and consumer and abolish poverty...
...If certain people would rather believe the propaganda they hear over the radio and press, let them believe it, but give us the truth and I know you will have a host of readers...
...To all of which, Miss Hennessey very appropriately counters by asking the simple question as to whether, indeed, women had any other alternative in a man made world...
...Allied robots will soon follow German robots in World War II...
...Why not use a graduated system of taxation on land values similar to our taxes on incomes and inheritances...
...Just in case" something should happen here, we would not be unprepared like the last 2 times...
...You should have said EX-Socialist leader...
...Henry Drummond pointed this out in his book, The Ascent of Man...
...Such a tax would not destroy or disturb land values, for the land would be worth just as much as ever to be held in small or reasonable amounts as it was before such a tax was adopted...
...Jo Cantine Woodstock, N. Y. * * * Villard On Ross Dear Sirs: I am particularly pleased, that Mr...
...Those nations that have delayed women suffrage have suffered in progress...
...Rodell should be riticized for his articles, but not jr the reasons Mr...
...Rodell has been pointing the real, if difficult, course ;o true vistas...
...So you see, the people have already decided that they want universal peacetime training...
...Tax all mineral, oil and gas resources where they have a market value whether they are being developed or not...
...You say you are working for peace, but are lined up with the Hearst press in this smear campaign that cannot lead to anything but war if carried to its limit...
...It's high time they started biting the hand that strangles them...
...His critics, however, appear not to have learned this fact...
...The defensive against improved .tools of carnage have been puny...
...When, however, the best representatives of the American writing craft stigmatize the work of this person White as an insult to the Russian people, whose great sacrifices in blood and treasure saved European civilization from the savagery of the master race, then our polite and polished Christian gentleman protests against these writers...
...La Follette, and others who are giving us the truth...
...Chase, Beard Books Dear Sirs: Thank you for that fine book of Stuart Chase's, Democracy Under Pressure...
...During the Peace Conference of World War I, the women exerted a great influence, and had the men not been so hide-bound, there would have been a different peace...
...1 feel that your publication fills an important place in our country, and I greatly appreciate what you are doing...
...Roy Lee Denver, Colo...
...The boys at the front, fighting desperately against a fanatical enemy, were not the primary consideration in the re-election of the Roosevelt New Deal Administration...
...John Haynes Holmes, •who is an undisputed authority on Christian ethics, refers to the lands liberated by the Red Army, as "conquered...
...I hope they will continue to do so regardless of criticism...
...It is only when individuals control undue amounts of natural resources that they should be made to pay rent to society for such privileges...
...A free press and a free educational system are the means of a decent, happy life...
...I have no objection to his cynicism about the Atlantic Charter...
...But let no one think that improvements in killing have stopped...
...Cpl...
...Johnson Dear Sirs: I hope everyone who read and agreed with Sen...
...Spare the precious pages of The Progressive to stand for and uphold the good things we proclaim...
...If he is that naive, I see no justification for his conscientious objector stand...
...Hill replies by providing a cure-all in the form of "dated money...
...Here lies the difference between Barnes and his critics...
...He should know that wars are not fought primarily for expansion...
...However, I find that I miss The Progressive toe much, so I am going to make it the one exception...
...Barnes, intellectually, keeps step with the social process...
...As Gov...
...The People Have Decided' Dear Sirs: Sen...
...Every public opinion poll that has been taken in the last 2 years has shown the people overwhelmingly in favor of it...
...Weakness Of The Single Tax Dear Sirs: I note that in the June 18 issue of The Progressive there are 2 letters from persons who advocate the...
...It is evident that these writers either know nothing' about the true conditions, or else they are a group of hate and war mongers...
...Or our war with Mexico...
...The new world has arrived, albeit it still has to wash itself of the odor of capitalism, even against the opposition of the very distinguished and honest intellects who furnish The Progressive with a million falsehoods weekly, in relation to the liberation movements of the world...
...Why look so hard for the mote in the other fellow's eye and overlook the beam in our own eyes...
...My son in Indiana wrote me how pleased he was with the Beards' History for a new subscription...
...J. B. I. San Antonio, Tex...
...When it is made safe to handle, a 10-ton robot of this stuff will subject any city to annihilation from any spot in the world...
...E. B. Hill's letter in the People's Forum of Apr...
...It is imperative for world peace that the small nations be absorbed...
...But the decisive battle of Stalingrad settled their hash forever...
...Eleven of them fought with every ounce of their energy to get free and were subdued...
...Shoot from the hip—all honest minded Americans are for you and your paper...
...Bernard G. Waring Philadelphia, Pa...
...Pass The Progressive Along It's American, Alert, Accurate...
...Women have been leaders long before the suffrage movement and their influence on civilization has been very great...
...It is, we know, rather a bitter pill for the imperialists and their stooges, to accept the new and democratic world, steeped rather sharply toward socialism, now arising in the liberated countries of Europe...
...Dewey, who so promptly and vigorously denounced the Mor-genthau declaration for Germany's partition with all its dire postwar implications and its direct bearing on the now revealed needless prolongation of the European contest...
...All countries are working on it...
...Holmes, when he lauds that notorious defamer of the Soviet people, W. L. White...
...DuBois, Pa...
...Wall Street will spend millions now for this, as they know that capitalism is on trial and only a war with Russia will save us when the big depression strikes...
...In other words, anarchy can not exist while nations and rulers exist...
...B. Wentworth Wilton, Me...
...Almost any day we may expect the radio controlled flying bomb...
...He knows that individualism, as it relates to commodity production and distribution, which prevailed everywhere centuries ago, is no longer practical in this age of organization and integration...
...You and I should insist on good Americanism and solidarity here at home...
...No, they voted for Mr...
...On the other hand, I stand fast to defend our country...
...Nor is the relationship between one set of rulers and an other any more cordial than the situation demands...
...Scott Kirkpatrick Washington, D. C. * * * Challenge Dear Sirs: I do not believe that Mr...
...You weep about the little Baltic states, but if Russia is holding them against their will it is the same policy that we use in holding the states of our union...
...This line is, of course, in conformity to that of the oily William Henry Chamberlin, the politically spotty Rev...
...Emphasizing ancestral "liberty" and "democracy," they oppose government or social regulation and control...
...I have been a Socialist for 40 years and know as many of the old timers as the next one and I know of not one who follows the lead of Thomas today...
...It has often served as an excuse, of course, for leaders with a "Bona-partist" complex, but then an excuse can always be found when nations are prepared for war...
...single tax as a remedy for all ouri social ills...
...Indeed some of you appear to be far more interested in the welfare of Russia than in the country within whose borders you claim your home and obtain your livelihood...
...Everyone with a scrap of political awareness should know that treaties, pacts, or charters are merely window dressings to sell some particular bill of goods, and that when the sale has been effected, the dressing is discarded whether it meets with the liberals' approval or not...
...Sot...
...The tremendous propaganda in favor of permanent conscription now deluging the country will certainly influence our representatives to vote for it unless their constituents convince them they do not want it...
...Ross...
...The value of The Progressive can't be measured in dollars and cents for anyone who wants to see our government follow the best course...
...I, too, would like to join the Duke of Bedford in challenging anyone by honest argument to prove that a snag exists in his plan as a means of abolishing poverty, and as a citadel for establishing a just economic society...
...Edwin Johnson in an article in the June 11 issue and your editorial in the June 18 issue said, "Let The People Decide...
...However, it is in the field of explosives that advancement in the science of obliteration is really being made...
...He could have even picked nice rewards writing articles favoring military conscription, instead of punching holes in the compulsory plan that would send us merrily down our bloody way to imperialism...
...Forward...
...It is, of course, merely a confirmation of good Christian ethics, on the part of the Rev...
...Henry George's plan was to tax all land up to its full rental value and then abolish all other forms of taxation...
...I suggest that you make application for a homestead in Siberia or some of the captured countries now under the domination of this Russia...
...Because I absolutely believe there are parents among us who are no longer cognizant or capable of conceiving the hellish suffering and agonies our own children go through in this infernal struggle...
...Frances Schwartz Pasadena, Calif...
...The clear implication of such a reference- to the freed peoples from under the bloody heel of the master race, is that the Soviets started the war or that it is some kind of a tragedy to the liberated peoples, to have been freed from the murderous reign of the ueber mensch, by the Red armies...
...If they don't like criticism of Russia why don't they go there and live...
...If so, it is high time that we know...
...A farmer or other user of land surface would not have to pay taxes on mineral, oil, or gas resources connected with his land if he did not wish to do so, but in that case these resources would be considered to belong to the public and be available to anyone who would develop them...
...16 issue, "Feminism and War", is not up to his usual standard...
...J. L. Haines Middletown, Conn...
...I have gone to the Library of Congress and looked through the various publications, and I found no other that has as regular contributors the excellent and penetratingly-thinking group of men that The Progressive has...
...Roosevelt, not because they felt he could bring about a speedier end of the war in Europe, which they knew was well-nigh impossible by his adherence to Unconditional Surrender...
...Barnes' well supported argument — Miss Hen-nessy, nevertheless, must be credited for making a very strong case in behalf of her besmirched sex, prompts me to inquire of Mr...
...Plain mathematics is the best answer to those who ridicule the idea that a species can disappear when the offensive against it becomes too great...
...International gangsterism is a far more descrip tive term...
...Dear Sirs: For many weeks I have read pro-Russian and anti-Russian articles in The People's Forum...
...Mrs...
...Each war becomes more destructive...
...If they are sincere in their interest in democracy they would have made the discovery that we have a whole race in the solid South who have never been allowed to even see a ballot box...
...Shall the small nations be taken over by British imperialism and American capitalism exploited by industrial and financial freebooters, or shall they become integral units of the Soviet Union where they will join working-class ownership and rule...
...We have survived improvements in the art of killing, it is true...
...He would have these libels on our heroic Ally go unquestioned...
...Edwin Johnson's excellent article in the June 11 issue on peacetime conscription wrote and expressed his appreciation to him...
...Instead of throwing his strong voice and pen against the "eleventy-million" charters to make a new world, Rodell should have been a Brain in Washington, pinning reference points on world maps, designating future spots at which the world leaders might save the world...
...Your writers, exploding at each other, answer this...
...His ungracious remark, if I may be permitted to use this cultured word, about all newspaper men being "free to tell the real story at San Francisco," with the exception "of the Russians" would make a cat laugh...
...30 is really an answer to the Duke of Bedford's incisive challenge in the Mar...
...Th^Merchants of Death are improving their destructive goods so rapidly that we had better realize that we must abolish war or war will abolish us...
...They demand liberty for the little man to work his own farm with hand tools...
...Offensive weapons are outdoing defensive devices at a terrifying rate...
...And let us not forget that, with all the disgraceful implication of utter complacency and indifference for the privations of their own sons and with every plain insinuation thrown in their faces to shame them of this senseless obsession that to enjoy even a minimum of economic security we should perpetuate a war of extermination, they, the people, the fathers and mothers of this country, voted again for Mr...
...Dear Sirs: Keep up the good work and don't let the fascist-minded pressure boys bulldoze your excellent writers...
...And how can he say that the women of the Waves, Wacs, and-Spars are promoting war ? Many of them are doing a job that they don't like, and they would vote against war in good numbers...
...With them government or social ownership is anathema...
...Place all foreign owned land in the high bracket...
...Many years ago I made a study of this plan and I came to the conclusion that unless its advocates would adopt a graduated plan of taxing natural resources instead of a uniform rate as Henry George advocated, their remedy would be worse than the disease...
...Why certainly...
...Barnes On Women Dear Sirs: I have read some of the writings of Harry Elmer Barnes with appreciation, but I must say that his article in the Apr...
...But then it is futile to try to figure out the logic of liberals...
...The Exception Dear Sirs: Because I am doing research tc ward a master's degree, in additic to my full-time job, I decided not t renew subscriptions to the 5 publi cations that I have been taking-because of lack of time...
...They prayed and hoped for an altogether different outcome, together with their spiritual brethren in the trusts and cartels...
...His critics, to learn the same thing will probably have to have it driven into their heads with clubs...
...R. Calvert Jackson Heights, N. Y. Barnes And His Critics Dear Sirs: Harry Elmer Barnes needs defense from no one...
...This controversy, in which—with all due respect for Mr...
...Who's At Fault...
...But for Barnes to imply that large nations are less apt to go to war than small ones (presumably because they are "self sufficient") does not speak well for him as a historian...
...As with industry, so with nations...
...Putting 2 and 2 together and reasoning things out in the light of his historical background Harry Elmer Barnes has arrived at correct intellectual conclusions...
...The Duke of Bedford pointed out that "an abundant supply of raw materials and labor are the only 2 thing's really necessary to give the people of a country a permanent high standard of living," that the purpose of industry is to provide goods and services not work, that the important fact in maintaining a high standard of living is a continued high purchasing power by all of the people in the nation, that if money is supplied to those "unemployed through no fault of their own," creative leisure can be of considerable use to society, that if the money supplied to these "unemployed" is not created in the form of interest-bearing debt there will be no additional burden on the "taxpayers," and that the use of anti-inflation taxation—when needed—would prevent inflation and approach equal distribution...
...I know they would at last see the light and be real Americans...
...G. Edward Lind Downey, 111...
...A Garand rifle is forty times as efficient as a Civil War rifle, but a modern pill-box is little better than the ancient walls of Tyre for protective purposes...
...In view of all the controversy, pro and con, it is evident that something is wrong with either Russia or us...
...It is the fact that the Soviet citizen is exceptionally well informed about foreign affairs, that he knows how to protect himself against the Norman Thomases, the William Chamberlins and the Hitlers, who morally upset the well-bred gentlemen...
...While some former liberal lawyers are seldom worried these days over the Century of the Common Man, those who do worry about the century note of the common man are having a field day of it...
...While many a liberal has placed his conscience on the shelf, I say let's have more fighters like Rodell...
...It requires about 10 tons of TNT to devastate an area a mile in diameter...
...J. C. APO San Francisco, Calif...
...His thinking is abreast with the times...
...What about Russia's attack on Finland...
...K gives...
...For, while the so-called liberal in his country has been rolling the ;tone of Sisyphus uphill, and the ^eal direction of liberal democracy nas been temporarily lost in empty vodka bottles, Mr...
...Norman Thomas, who knows the Christian essence of that Biblical epithet "Ye generation of vipers," as every good God-fearing preacher does...
...So give us more of the real truth...
...Why do I say this...
...Of course there have always been women who supported war, but they do not represent the real leadership among women...
...Villard is looked upon as a critic rather than one who praises, and it is delightful that be has appeared with this praise of Mr...
...Dewey often repeated in the course of the late Presidential campaign, "We had to have a war in order to create jobs...
...No, instead of defending the un-ler-fed and overly forgotten coal-miners, lawyer Rodell should have been drawing down fast money representing the Southern coal operators...
...George H. Shoaf Costa Mesa, Calif...
...Dear Sirs: The main factor in sustaining the tyrannical dictatorship of industry over government is the mental and physical apathy of the people themselves...
...Did we let them take a vote to settle whether they should stay in the Union or not...
...If full rental value of land was taken every year as taxes, it would be complete confiscation of the value of all land by the government...
...Maurice E. Sherman, Sr...
...One of the new explosives is Uranium 234...
Vol. 9 • July 1945 • No. 29
