THE PEOPLE'S FORUM
¦ ¦ ¦ THE PEOPLE'S FORUM ¦ ¦ ¦ A Russian's View Dear Sirs: As an assiduous reader of The Progressive, I am just as much interested in the comments of your subscribers as I am in the...
...See if you can't break this ban on fraternization...
...Whereas in former times those who went against the stream enjoyed consideration and prestige even in the eyes of those who differed with them, nowadays character assassination follows immediately, almost mechanically, every assertion which denotes an individual approach to problems or events...
...History graphically tells about the Tweed Ring, Whiskey Ring, Star Route Frauds, Credit Mobil-ier, shinplasters, "bloated bondholders," Black Friday, the Business Panic of 1873, the "Crime of 73", Scalawags, Carpetbaggers, the Ku KIux Klan, the Force Act, martial law, the "bloody shirt", and the Tilden-Hayes Fraud or "stolen election...
...The other 12 men were placed in solitary confinement on charges of violating a prison rule which makes eating in the mess hall compulsory...
...By the veto, no aggression of powers most able and likely to prove aggressor nations can be prevented...
...I know Mr...
...In their internal affairs, however, they were free and independent...
...This introduction is necessary, I am sorry to say, because we live in a time—a shameful time—in which ulterior motives are ascribed to any one who disagrees with the general trend of thought...
...And that role demands of us that we refer these disputes not to our interests, which seem to be allied with those of Great Britain in the Near and Middle East, but to the principles for which tens of thousands of young Americans have given their lives...
...1. The whole world is or ought to be sick of war...
...Rehearsing more of the dead past, the quavering victims of Robin Hood, Dick Turpin, Captain Kidd, and Simon Legree were ruthlessly "pushed around...
...At the Federal Correctional Institution in Ashland, Ky., 14 men have refused to continue eating in the prison mess hall as long as the existing Jim Crow seating arrangement is in effeet...
...Roscoe S. Conkling, retired, throws the white light of truth upon the influence behind the great push for permanent military training now going on while the people are still at fever heat over conquest...
...These conditions are a stable population, sufficient food supply, and above all, correct education...
...So, on the United Labor Party ticket for 1948,1 nominate Norman Thomas for President and John L. Lewis for Vice President...
...von Hayek's book, The Road To Serfdom...
...Labor organizations should be opposed to it because it has been used against labor, as the record shows...
...Two of the Negroes were promptly transferred to other prisons...
...Reply To Plath Dear Sirs: A. J. Plath, in his letter of July 2, criticized Joseph McCabe...
...La Follette point out in his excellent article "America Must Raise a Standard", in the June 11 issue that it was not the absence of America from the League of Nations, but absence of good faith in the leading members of it, that wrecked the hope of peace after World War I. Of that absence of good faith, we have again had a sad illustration in the Anglo-French dispute over Lebanon and Syria, the responsibility for which cannot be put solely on the French, as the English attempted to do...
...dignity, the Russians are only grateful to those who do not treat them simply as cannon fodder and inferior slavish beings, but as people not afraid of truth...
...This report can be found in Isaiah, Chapter 59...
...Answering Barnes Dear Sirs: I read with interest the article by Harry Elmer Barnes and answer by Milton Mayer in your June 11 issue...
...Markham's rejoinder...
...for brightness, but we walk in darkness...
...Give A Friend The Truth Send Him The Progressive Today Bob's 'Must' Articles Dear Sirs: Bob La Follette's 3 articles on American foreign policy must rank with the ablest pronouncements of our time...
...However, I feel that there is one report' you overlooked...
...This nation owes much to Russia...
...I may be dense, but I can see no way by which articles like Mr...
...We could not have endured life unless it was dedicated to the realization of this idea', of ours...
...3—Your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity...
...J. Paul Cotton Cleveland, O. * * * Send A Gift Subscription Today Brass Hats And The Drive For The Draft Dear Sirs: Lt...
...The way the former are reacting to William Henry Chamberlin's articles are symptomatic, and interest me particularly...
...O. Ratilloy Orlando, Fla...
...Sen...
...Col...
...But let us further probe the moral and intellectual horizon of the "good old days...
...How utterly absurd...
...Hutchins and by John Dewey, or by their disciples, on "The Future of American Education," and how Mr...
...This has been particularly true regarding Russia...
...Sen...
...9—Therefore is peace far from us, neither does justice overtake us: we wait for light and behold oh^ scurity...
...But on honest men, who are bound by principles which they have enunciated or to which they have subscribed, this sacrifice imposes a sacred obligation to live for the things for which those dearest to them have died...
...You can get all the facts on that line by reading "Mac" Coleman's great book, Men and Coal and the able defense of John L. by the Call, the Reading Labor Advocate, and by writers in The Progressive...
...With the coming of peace, the armed forces will be reduced, the pay decreased, the officer caste will lose importance, their authority will be contracted, and their social position receive a jolting set-back...
...I would like to inquire why Mr...
...more, I think, than she owes us...
...The Ashland protest is one of the major actions in an anti-Jim Crow campaign in federal jails which has been in progress for the last few years...
...Chamberlin's can improve it in any manner...
...Plath, you will no doubt discontinue using electricity which Edison made possible and stop eating certain kinds of fruits and potatoes for which we can thank Luther Burbank...
...Learn the real truth about John L. Lewis and the splendid fight made by him and the great union he leads, the coal miners, and how he has whipped to a standstill the super-capitalist mine owners in every contest with them...
...Conkling explains that the determination to perpetuate compulsory military training was initiated by professional militarists to expand and increase the importance of their calling and to safeguard their own positions and economic security, and that they have long been busily engaged in developing plans and propaganda for the introduction of legislation to start compulsory training as soon as demobilization begins...
...This is one of the most horrifying products of the 2 global wars and of Fascism and Bolshevism...
...Chamberlin, whose conclusions as to Russian conditions are quite different from those constantly presented by Mr...
...How sad is the situation that this opulent nation has so few great and fearless men to face the facts and tell the truth of things as they really are...
...we are in desolate places...
...But in this plan, when once our President's representative on the Security Council, along with other members of the Council, vote for war "on its call . . . armed forces, facilities and assistance necessary" in amounts previously agreed upon are made available, so that the Council can then draft men and supplies from our nation in a war in which the people through their Congress have had no voice...
...While it can be improved, let us devote our efforts to improving it...
...Garden, and Mr...
...There is a man that is the worst hated, and perhaps the most lied about by the big capitalist dail ies and the old-party politicians, than any other labor leader in America...
...They had a common foreign policy, and a common army...
...10—We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes...
...and there is no judgment in their goings: they have made them crooked paths: whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace...
...One would think he might find a plethora of illustration right here...
...Charles H. Aspinwaix El Monte, Calif...
...Hesseltine said...
...I have 2 boys overseas in Europe and I want them to meet and know the people they are with...
...Unless by pro-Russian and anti-Russian is meant an attitude toward the "one man" ruling Russia, * such as interpretation represents an insult to the Russian people, i. e., if not to the 160.000.000 inhabitants of the 1G Soviet Republics, at least to the articulate minority of Russians...
...5. The ideal of training our boys how to kill each other is un-American and inhuman...
...As a father, a grandfather, and a great-grandfather, may I have space for,a few reasons why I am opposed to this...
...your lips have spoken lies, your tongue hath muttered perverse-ness...
...We are too easily drawn into future wars, for the plan voids the constitutional right of Congress to declare war...
...Paul Raemer Detroit, Mich...
...He seems somewhat anti-Russia at times, but his facts are indisputable...
...James Peck 140 'Claremont Ave...
...Standard Of Liberty Dear Sirs: I was glad to see Sen...
...I like to call these verses: "Isaiah Reports on San Francisco...
...2. Armaments and arms have never stopped wars and never will...
...America must raise a standard around which all men and women of principle in all lands can repair -—the standard of liberty for all people, of special privilege for none...
...Like all thinking humans who still retain a minimum of courage arc...
...He explains that the human trait of self-interest urges extension and perpetuation of one's own calling and that these militarists play upon the people's fears of future wars and the necessity of being "prepared" in a military way...
...During this orgy of putridity, something akin to freebooting enterprise also implicated the itching palms of the "shoddy aristocracy...
...The most important step to peace right now is the universal abolition of military conscription here and throughout the world...
...Benes of Eastern Slovakia has promised in his latest speech to do the same...
...Angelica Balabanoff New York...
...4—None calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth: they trust in vanity and speak lies...
...Did it prevent H itler from making war on the French in 1939, or attacking Russia in 1941...
...Slovenia, and the other parts of Yugoslavia (with the exception of Serbia) were a part of old Hungary for many centuries...
...Chamberlin...
...If you and millions of others like you had done as much and suffered as much as McCabe in trying to make a civilized man out of a barbarous brute, it is very unlikely that Hitlers and their kind would ever come to power at all...
...M. S. Alderton Palo Alto, Calif...
...3. The power to take a boy from his home and subject him to complete government discipline is the most severe limitation on freedom...
...If we are to be a force for peace, our role must be that of mediator in disputes ¦ between our war Allies...
...Now if you don't like atheists, Mr...
...Earl Nygren Taylors Falls, Minn...
...Mayer makes always refreshing reading and is right of cdurse, but Barnes' article could be answered much more quickly and simply by saying: "If what Stalin is doing is right (by unifying Europe) then why did we kill millions of people and spend 300 hillions to fight this war, as it is just what Hitler was doing and almost finished doing...
...6. Is this Americanism, democracy, and Christianity in action...
...Hesseltine on non-fraternization...
...This prevents, as in the old League, any peaceful change of unjust peace treaties made in the heat of war that only lead to new wars...
...Before the first World War...
...I have lived in and studied the situation in these Balkan countries for 18 years...
...I have never found it to be a good way to make or keep friends...
...Upheaval In The Balkans Dear Sirs: I read Mr...
...This grasping for plunder, which Sumner dubbed, "gift enterprise," was reduced to almost an exact science...
...but has it saved Europe...
...She is to all appearances inclined to be friendly with us...
...The Russians are sick and tired of the servile atmosphere in which they must live in their own country, and since silence and impassivity are imposed on them, they doubly despise those who flatter without being compelled to do so...
...Markham's article, "Time Bomb In the Balkans," in your May 7 issue, the attack on him by Mr...
...4. The fact that the so-called civilized (and shall I say "Christian...
...Sherman, who supposedly coined, "War is hell," said "I would rather go to hell than to Washington...
...Suppose we examine our Constitution and see how far we have wandered from the free American way laid down by the forefathers...
...to be pointing at what you think are their faults...
...Hitlerism (or whatever bad name we may give it) certainly, like an insidious cancer, is beginning to permeate the whole American social structure...
...One of the most evident proofs of the moral and political degradation of contemporary "public opinion" lies in the fact that too many persons take for granted that success justifies everything, that might is right, etc...
...Chamberlin and Mr...
...No government has a moral, legal, or human right, to impose upon a people such legislation as this in peace time...
...for instance, I see that the attitude of Mr...
...Certainly this cannot be called democracy...
...I am strongly in favor fef conscripting the money which has been made by war profiteers, which runs not into millions, but billions...
...It is natural that the high ranking regular officers should grasp at any plan to continue their importance in society and their high pay with the emoluments of active service...
...not personify power...
...Their king and political heads were of German stock...
...Reviewing this book in the Nation, Stviart Chase, under the heading, "Back to Grandfather", has done a masterly job of debunking it...
...I am all out for John L. for anything he wants...
...I am Russian, and to indicate my attitude toward the Russian Revolution, I am one of those Prussians (fortunately we were not few) to whom the emancipation of the toiling masses and the eradication of injustice and inequality were an aspiration of every hour, the guiding star of our activities as well as of our intimate existence...
...He said, in effect, that all of MeCabe's 50 years of work in spreading the light of science throughout the world is of no more use than Hitler's reactionary, and unreasoning greed inspired Nazi Germany...
...Vandenberg went to San Francisco resolved that the Assembly must have the power to revise unjust peace treaties, but he is emerging from the conference having secured only the right of this body to have a pious talk about disturbing world conditions and without the power to do anything about it...
...Oscae Fields Decatur, ILL Hutchins' Superb Article Dear Sirs: Congratulations upon that splendid, brilliant article by President Hutchins in your July 2 issue...
...This being true, why ceaseless fault-finding...
...Susan Clark Washington, D. C. * * * Isaiah On Frisco Dear Sirs: I have read, with great interest, the many articles and commentaries that you have published about the San Francisco Conference...
...There are people in this country fully as conversant with Russian conditions as Mr...
...We might recall that trite, but still true, saying that eternal vigilance is the price of continued liberty under any ,gov-ernment...
...G. D. Brickner Buffalo, N. Y...
...7—Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity, and wasting and destruction are in their paths...
...THE PEOPLE'S FORUM ¦ ¦ ¦ A Russian's View Dear Sirs: As an assiduous reader of The Progressive, I am just as much interested in the comments of your subscribers as I am in the articles of your contributors...
...Chamberlin and of Mr...
...It is said the United States can be safe only with universal military conscription...
...Chamberlin in his dissertation on "The Age of the Lie" has to go to Russia for his illustration of his subject...
...And no greater mistake, in my opinion, could our Government make, than that of being a partisan of either...
...If not, we are finished, just as other species of animals far more powerful than ourselves have gone down in eternal defeat...
...And perhaps we will find that we have plenty to do in order to retrieve the people's consciousness from the condition into which it has fallen...
...8--The way of peace they know not...
...Case Against Conscription Dear Sirs: The militarists and war-mongers are now busily circulating propaganda for compulsory military training in peacetime...
...As for Plath's so-called cold logic, I understand that in court, evidence is given for and against a thing with the verdict going to the side that has the facts...
...I Returned service men and women cannot be expected to express themselves with honesty since, under recently revised Army regulations, any efforts by any person in active service to procure or oppose legislation affecting the Army are forbidden...
...It just bears out what Prof...
...The Golden Rule, beautiful as it undoubtedly is, will never create a real civilization...
...James Montgomery Washington, D. C. CO's And Jim Crow Dear Sirs: With the fight to save FEPC in the forefront, Progressive readers will be interested to know that the anti-Jim Crow campaign by conscientious objectors in federal prisons has hit the South...
...Hutchins' and Mr...
...I admire your- magazine, in many ways...
...From these sacrifices they take no worldly advantage, but increased devotion to the principles for which our finest fellow Americans have given the last full measure of devotion...
...I cannot see how that can be a progressive policy in any way...
...If we call in the great men of science, men such as Einstein, Stein-metz, Burbank, Edison, etc., we shall find that one and all, as we know through their writings, have found in Nature no reason for believing in God...
...Any smaller nation also can commit aggression with impunity provided it can obtain the veto cooperation of one of the Big 5. Further, can any aggressor nation such as Russia, Great Britain, and France honestly condemn the aggression of any other nation...
...Johnson, member of the Military Affairs Committee states: "I dare the militarists to let the people decide this question by ballot...
...they conceive mischief and bring forth' iniquity...
...I don't think anyone can deny that the masses of the people of Russia now have remarkably improved conditions in which to live, over what they had under the rule of the Czars...
...John Friday Luke, Md...
...After this war is over, after our sons are gone, after so-called victory is ours, what have the American people won ? C. B. Ballard Appleton, Wis...
...D. C. Gibson Memphis, Tenn...
...To retain friends and friendships, it would seem to be the better way not...
...During this regime, conditions were so nauseous that Gen...
...As I see it, this can be done only by using science to create conditions where men can no longer be impelled to mass murder each other for the power and glory and profit of a few...
...N. Y. * * * Non-Fraternization Dear Sirs: Thanks for the recent article by • Prof...
...So the plan becomes just a league of victor nations to enforce injustice, and the causes of war cannot be remedied...
...The latest report for Europe is that venereal disease among the V. S. troops has increased 300 per cevt since hostilities ceased...
...I have made it "must" reading among my friends, and I only wish it could be placed in the hands of all peoples of all countries as the finest expression of American thinking...
...Madame Pandit in "Town Meeting of the Air" recently quoted the explanation of a British official as to why they did not stop Japan's aggression of Manchuria: " 'If we condemn Japan, our whole policy in Egypt and India stands condemned.' " 2. This power of veto is extended so that any one of the Big 5 can block any amendment or change in the plan, so that this unfair arrangement will be forever frozen as it is, and will then stand in the way of a just federation being established...
...Those articulate minorities are deeply thankful for any interval in the repugnant flattery and adulation of a man who was despised so h>ng as he did...
...in other words, it is making killing people an honorable profession...
...There is more democracy, humanity, and real Christianity in this short article than all the sermons and preachings combined for the last century...
...Grant's Administration was called the "Nadir of national disgrace...
...The report I refer to was written hundreds of years ago by the Old Testament prophet Isaiah...
...6—Their webs shall not become garments, neither shall they cover themselves with their works: their works are works of iniquity, and the acts of violence are in their hands...
...That sacrifice appears to be considered a small price by those who regard principles as expedient—to be discarded when they no longer serve their secret selfish ends...
...More Of Markham » Dear Sirs: . ' As one who has spent a lifetime living and studying in the Balkans, [ urge you to give us more of R. H. Markham...
...Thomas— their endeavor to reveal what others try to hide, and their warnings against new catastrophes which menace Russia as well as all humanity—is more than welcome to Russians...
...We have our own way of life here...
...Markham knows what he is talking about, and every word he says is true...
...So, like young gaping jaybirds, they, quite naturally, are inveigled by the alluring morsels of Dr...
...nations standing up for 6 years slaughtering each other, and for such ends, is hard to understand...
...Criticism by free citizens like Mr...
...Yet there are times when I do not quite understand your policy...
...Such is a bit of history's sordid story...
...Yet the Secretaries of War and of the Navy and "ether members of the general staff are free to promote and propagandize at will, often at Government expense, for enactment of the permanent conscription law...
...In the fall of 1943 Jim Crow seating was eliminated at the Fed-eral Correctional Institution in Danbury, Conn., as a result of a strike in which 23 conscientious objectors were locked in solitary for 4! z months...
...Included among the 14 are 3 Negroes and a Japanese-American...
...we stumble in noon day as in the night...
...New York 27, N. Y. * * * John L. Lewis' Fight Dear Sirs: I wish to indorse heartily the timely letter in your issue of June 25, captioned "We Need A Leader," by James H. Wright, Henderson, N. C. Friend Wright is certainly right in 'his suggestion that we make a real man, like John L. Lewis, one of our leaders—if not the leader...
...Norman Thomas is called "anti-Russian" because they express opinions and quote facts which do not coincide with the formulas people are supposed to use when * dealing with militarily victorious big powers...
...Frank D. Slocum New York, N. Y. * * * 'Back To Grandfather' De;,r Sirs: The whiskey-swilling Bourbons and the economic royalists have utterly failed to seduce the American people by yammering for another "free enterprise" spree...
...Perhaps there may be a few lies connected with their present concepts...
...This will affect some 10 million men and women who may be expected to have opinions against war activities...
...So instead of emulating the grandfather technique, why not a crusade for Stuart Chase's "Full Employment's Chil-lun," and thereby foil the "man on horseback...
...Now, the Slovenians and the other highly cultured Yugoslavs are forced to live under the intellectually backward and numerically much smaller Serbian nation...
...A large standing army is not only expensive but unnecessary...
...3. This plan does commit us to a permanent unholy alliance with the present victor powers, although we cannot possibly foretell what the situation may be 25 or 50 years from now...
...The Charter's Weakness Dear Sirs: The new league of nations should be definitely opposed for these reasons : 1. Its doctrine of "might makes right" places all the power in the hands of a few big nations, any one of which can veto any decision^ whether peaceful or involving war —the rest of the world makes...
...George Bachur Lansing, Mich...
...Those German and Hungarian speaking citizens who had lived within this present Yugoslav territory were deprived of their property and citizenship and expelled from that country...
...Lies Here Too Dear Sirs: I became a subscriber to The Progressive several years ago...
...Our personal life was the smallest contribution that we were ready and eager to make for the achievement of freedom for all...
...And we see military men addressing students of public schools, trying to instill into their minds the importance of permanent conscription—"since the world is never free of war...
...I would like very much to see an article by Mr...
...verses 3 through'" 10...
...This sort of thing was the ruin of Germany as we know full well...
...Dewey's philosophies of education differ...
...And the Army will come to rule this country just as surely as the German Army ruled Germany...
...They became as highly cultured and advanced a people as the Germans and the French...
Vol. 9 • July 1945 • No. 30
