THE PEOPLE'S FORUM
. . . THE PEOPLE'S FORUM . . . A Voice From Dachau Dear Sirs: I enclose an extract from a "Letter to the Editor" whose author is my friend, Alfred Mayer, who has lived since 1939 in Caernarvon,...
...Many of us are conscious of the enormity of the crime being committed, but as Felix Morley has recently said, we are but the helpless tools of an all powerful government using the newly perfected technique of radio psychology to further the aims and wishes of a mere handful of men...
...3. Refuse to protect citizens' investments in foreign countries...
...Now t-hey find it easy to look up old boundary lines, evidently to give Stalin the edge...
...Throughout history, every age has been established and sustained by a most powerful group...
...We do not always agree with you, but certainly need the stimulus of The Progressive's viewpoint...
...Not many congressmen would vote if this were the case...
...These men, to my mind, are clearly war criminals and as such should be branded...
...I'd rather be an isolationist than a war criminal...
...Sounds real democratic...
...Give A Friend The Truth Send Him The Progressive Today Barnes' Courage Dear Sirs: Congratulations to my old colleague, Harry Elmer Barnes, for his courage and honesty in speaking up for Petain...
...In the future, were war declared, let the nation as a whole go on a strictly war basis...
...20 Milton Mayer accuses me of torturing the Cazenovia Institute faculty by urging them to rise at the un-urban hour of 6:50 A. M. and take a pre-breakfast swim in a lovely lake...
...Franco showed that European Royalist Catholics were eager to turn their countries over to Fascism rather than to tolerate Democracy, which they call Bolshevism, Petain's position stands revealed...
...A. E. Campbell Winfield Tex...
...It worked well for Dei-Fuehrer as long as it lasted...
...Since Gen...
...His wife remained in Wiesbaden (Germany) and up to his latest letter, it was impossible to find out yet if she is dead or alive...
...These good citizens ignore the unwarranted action of Commodore Perry back in 1853 when he presented to Tokyo, at the point of the cannon, the alternative of being shot up or of opening the country to the westerners...
...It's highly interesting...
...Mrs...
...Next he teams up with Townsend and old-age pensions become his cloak...
...Fantastic, you'll say...
...He's got "respectable" people following, too...
...I can tell you that we are going to seize the Government...
...This secretarial group should he known as the Citizens' Deliberative Body...
...Just a tea party, I suppose...
...4. Prohibit the manufacture of all munitions of war by private industry...
...Rankin for what he is, deserves favorable comment—but the rest of the article...
...Can anyone imagine our Congressmen agreeing to a war which they must perforce fight themselves...
...all go off to the nut house together...
...We are all screaming for peace...
...Do you think, if this were made a law, we would ever have wars...
...Possibly to make sure that no country except the United States will in the future have a chance to supply Japan with scrap iron and gasoline...
...Now the United States, which defied every rule of basic justice in making a part of one nation a minority of another nation, crowns the first injustice by removing the people from the land which we put on the wrong side of a boundary...
...This money group is the natural ruling power in this era...
...And we fought for the self-determination of peoples in the last war...
...Mayer At Dawn Dear Sirs: May I rise to a point of personal privilege...
...Ex Sen...
...It seems to me that the forthright, factual, and far-sighted substance of The Progressive is prescribed reading these days, when it is generally recognized that the only alternative to ultimate universal de struction and chaos is sound action based upon clear thinking, honest, open discussion, and the widest pos sible dissemination of knowledge...
...Every article, book, and movement designed to improve our conditions which ignores this power group, is wittingly or unwittingly a camouflage which hides basic truth from the people...
...The above sounds like a speech I know, but if you'd stop to realize how angry and disgusted I get at times in this Army upon hearing an underestimation of a dangerous enemy, you'd understand my personal feeling...
...I say if one could avoid calling these things to mind, one might feel differently...
...On an enlisted man's salary, that is no idle gesture...
...R. R. Reynolds...
...How one Col...
...And if my few words help to avert a return to complacency, isolationism, and disregard for responsibility, I'm very happy...
...We are so universally wise to this fact that more than half of us sometimes fail to vote...
...Memories Dear Sirs: Friends of those of us who have lost husbands or sons in this war sometimes tell us that we should be proud to think they have patriotically given their lives in defense of their country...
...If our own tragedy should have taught us anything more than self-pity it should be to understand the tragedy of a great people, infected with the most dangerous, the most deadly germ of hatred, driven by a clique of criminals from one act of madness to another, and driving blindly through all the horrors of war, torture, and concentration camps...
...Sounds like a "petty hoodlum...
...Father Coughlin was the next partner—now don't dismiss Coughlin—he had millions of followers...
...Rubin in the Aug...
...En route to the conference, various problems were discussed, and Mr...
...How many more millionaires were made in this war than in the last...
...in your Aug...
...Right is Might...
...Use it wisely, please...
...You can be answered in two words, Radio Propaganda...
...Wilson said: "Strange...
...Then he joined Huey Long, the KKK, and Eugene Talmadge and said, "We're going to drive that cripple out of the White House...
...It is generally understood that the Constitution of Czechoslovakia was written in the United States and that the boundaries were determined here in 1917...
...W. L. Ruckenbrod Salt Lake City, Utah Factual And Far-Sighted Dear Sirs: The writer's opinion of The Progressive was clearly expressed some weeks ago, when, from a well-stretched budget, he took out ejiough to renew his subscription f p r three years...
...It isn't perfect now, but we have to work for perfection...
...One of the sad things about war is that it perverts the minds of the people back home until they are ready to believe all wrongs in the enemy and all worthiness in our own people, even to the point of refusing to see war guilt on our own side...
...So Hollywood democrats "pretend" that Gerald L. K. Smith is a clear and present danger to the safety of the state...
...In short, our great majority of right thinking people has allowed the more cunning power group to nominate their own kind of men to the Presidency in both our parties...
...You take money, power, and politics out of war, and war will die a noble death...
...Scott Nearing Jamaica, Vt...
...Hannah M. Reiter St...
...God or Mammon" was one of the edicts...
...Democracy is an ideal—we live in reality and strive toward an ideal...
...Ann Homan Longmeadow, Mass...
...Sam Houston, Texas...
...I'm sure the good people of America are willing to make any sacrifice to further that end and save our boys of the futwe...
...6 issue...
...If such materials are needed let the government make them...
...The Nazis were no boobs in such matters...
...Every argument used for Petain could be applied to Gen...
...Mayer, if you think of saving democracy by saving Free Speech (and Smith) you're locking yourself in with your worst enemy...
...It must be, because nearly 2,000 years ago we were told how to make and keep peace...
...As time goes on there has developed increasing doubt as to the destination toward which The Progressive is progressing...
...the long line of indignities against the Japanese in this country—first brought here for cheap labor—and more recently, embargoes on foods and goods that threatened their economic life...
...Few do...
...THE PEOPLE'S FORUM . . . A Voice From Dachau Dear Sirs: I enclose an extract from a "Letter to the Editor" whose author is my friend, Alfred Mayer, who has lived since 1939 in Caernarvon, Wales...
...Madeline W. Garvey Corona, Calif...
...Louis, Mo...
...Therefore, there must have been a treasonable motive...
...Bullitt's trip to the Versailles Conference with Woodrow Wilson...
...William Aylott Orton Smith College Northampton, Mass...
...This fact must have been obvious to a person of Petain's intelligence...
...Barnes ignores the basic fact that Marshal Petain was not on trial for treason to Royalist Catholic Fiance, but for treason to the French Third Republic...
...All right—we don't want war...
...Now we know Poland was -merely an emotional excuse...
...Upon being assured that there were, Mr...
...Now let's laugh off a daily pro-fascist circulation of a couple of million and...
...Mayer had better do more than "gander" at the record...
...I believe that you will find my explanation basic in character...
...H. Shea Bronx, N. Y. * * * Helpless Tools Dear Sirs: You have recently asked "What Is The Matter With America...
...I hate fascism in all its forms...
...F. M. Steadman Banning, Calif...
...Lloyd George, as late as May 10, 1940, speaking before the House of Commons, said that these Germans should have been granted autonomy, and that he had frequently predicted to Benes at Paris that they would be the cause of a war if they were not granted autonomy...
...Wilson asked: "Are there 3,-000,000 Germans in Czechoslovakia...
...Moreover, the life of no one back home, man or woman, young nor old, is worth the life of the man or boy who thinks he is fighting for protection of home and country...
...Before" the world can have peace the people must want peace and their leaders must stop double talk and be ready to do the things which they know will prevent war...
...Then we will be practicing the Christianity they tell us has never been tried...
...I am reminded of verses written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman: No fledgling feeds the father bird, No chicken feeds the hen, No kitten mouses for the cat, This glory is for men...
...When the men we elect to our government, our servants, think they are pleasing us by advocating death and destruction to all peoples, women and children of Germany and Japan, my blood runs cold to think we of America, the favored, are taking up the cudgels of Hitler, yes, and of Stalin...
...We want peace...
...The excuse is, of course, that these things bring a quick end to war...
...Extract from a "Letter to the Editor," sent to the Editor of the Spectator, and published in The Spectator, issue of June 8, 1045...
...His article gives the impression that the faculty members were compelled to submit to this outrage...
...Divide and conquer was Hitler's policy...
...And the followers of Huey, Talmadge, and the KKK don't total to a small number either, do they...
...Today we are living in the capitalistic age and the group which sustains it is that of the financiers behind the Bank of England and Wall Street...
...It is high time decent Americans were made aware of the quality and motives of his traducers, not one of whom had the guts to stick it out the way he did...
...On behalf of the faculty I wish to state that the swim was voluntary...
...R. R. Reynolds is the big shot and he's backed by no less than the Chicago Tribune and the New York Daily News, to mention the more prominent ones...
...He was kicked out and called a fascist right to his face— but he must have made some friends there too...
...If this is true, surely the inventors rate the Nobel Prize as benefactors to society...
...No, they are secure in their comfort and can send the boys out into the hideous hell of war—all unknowing what they are going into...
...Pass The Progressive Along It's American, Alert, Accurate Six-Point Program Dear Sirs: In the event that the world should ever really want to end war, why wouldn't these following points, if adopted and faithfully observed by all nations, accomplish that blessed objective...
...Our trouble is that our great majority in 1932 who objected to foreign entanglements, and in 1941, who wished to stay out of this war —this majority lacked the party organization which would have enabled us to nominate and elect our own kind as President and in our Congress, and carry through our own ideas of peace successfully...
...And if you want to know what is going to happen...
...Bretton Woods and the proposed world bank are the signs of its victorious march over the earth, and our Congress has speeded them on their way...
...War's Perversions Dear Sirs: One must wonder at the moral* obliquity which permits a man to produce such engines of destruction as the new death bombs which burn and destroy both human life and the life of the land they fall upon...
...But read down through the pages of history and see the practical uses of today that in the beginning were called absurd...
...5. No country to declare war until the question has been submitted to a vote of its citizens...
...Masaryk did not mention that...
...13 issue...
...It could stretch for pages, Christian Fronters, Bundists, America Firsters, National Workers League, etc...
...All this is strongly reminiscent of the Trotskyite line, and is also a favorite propaganda trick of the willing servants of Big Business...
...but the Hitler line cannot be tolerated here in America...
...Each of us who has escaped this hell has seen dozens of cases of friendship and sympathy...
...Wilson what he planned to do about the 3,000,000 Germans in Czechoslovakia...
...We are the finest, bravest race, Loud may our praise be sung— We are the only animal Who lives upon its young...
...J. B. Reus San Jose, Calif...
...He's in close cooperation with Ex Sen...
...His name was Milton Mayer and he made it only once...
...by Mr...
...You say "either democracy works or it doesn't...
...I had to spend November and December, 1938, in Dachau, and I had to suffer every kind of physical and mental degradation...
...Then he helps organize the Silver Shirts and screams, "When chaos comes, I'll be the leader...
...Refreshing Dear Sirs: It is certainly refreshing to read some of the fine articles you publish in your magazine...
...The fact that a person is a patriot in one war does not insure his loyalty in a later period...
...Ann Graham Charlotte, N. C. Mayer And Gerald Smith Dear Sirs: I read with interest (and mounting anger) Milton Mayer's article "The Hollywood Squeeze" in your issue of July 23...
...It will have many other duties which I propose to explain in my forthcoming book, "Friendship Incorporated...
...I, too, feel sad that the fine record of Marshal Petain had to be spoiled so late in life, but a fact is a fact...
...15, 1933 to W. P. Felley's Silver Shirt headquarters: "By the time you receive this letter I will be on the road with a uniformed squad of young men composing what I believe will be the first Silver Shirt storm troop in America...
...I most emphatically do not...
...In an article on the career of William C. Bullitt appearing in the Saturday Evening Post when the war began in 1939, the concluding item referred to Mr...
...Knowledge that Mayer recognizes the Hon...
...Do you mean it, 6r is this the most hypocritical and materialistic era the world has ever known...
...I mean, a GI Joe basis—$50 a month for all forms of work from the munitions manufacturer down, all — everybody — no profits, no distinctions—every man to the last penny for his country...
...Outstanding Dear Sirs: We need more editorials like "What's The Matter With America...
...Bullitt introduced the subject of the Sudeten Germans and asked Mr...
...I don't like being in the Army...
...Wake up, Mr...
...6. All nations to immediately disarm and retain only a sufficient force to maintain domestic peace and order...
...I have every reason to hate Nazism and the Nazis...
...The Money Power Dear Sirs: I want to comment on your searching article, "What's The Matter With America...
...J. M. Heiser, Jr., Brooke General Hospital, Ft...
...When we saw her becoming a 1 a r m i n g 1 y strong, we froze her assets and began to shed crocodile tears for China, When the Nazi war started, it wrung our hearts to sec Poland invaded...
...But I am just as convinced that no efficient justice can be done unless a strict line is drawn between the real criminals and those Germans who either have openly opposed Hitler's regime and have suffered for doing so in concentration camps and exile, or, not being strong enough to show their hands, have suffered, conscious of their weakness, almost as much as we have...
...This is not mentioning the significant fact that our government permitted the sale of scrap iron to Japan for many years—material for the munitions that have since been used against us...
...Thor R. Soderholm Maxwell Field, Ala...
...Our own Benedict Arnold was a Revolutionary hero before he betrayed Washington...
...Petain On Trial Dear Sirs: In his article on Petain, Prof...
...That means ousting Gerald L. K. Smith and I don't mean maybe...
...We must be practical...
...The latest catch-all-group in the native fascist field is the "Nationalist" Party...
...William Henry Chamberlin, Oswald Garrison Villard, Norman Thomas, and most of your featured writers all harmonize well in the same chorus: distrust and suspicion of Russia, a soft peace for those poor Germans, doubt of the success of that last hope on earth, the United Nations Charter...
...That pen of yours wields a thousandfold more power than my own humble instrument...
...I know that unless justice is done and the Nazi creed eradicated and outlawed there will be no hope of recovery for Germany...
...And as for that gallant old warrior, Oscar Ameringer, if he could wake from his well earned sleep long enough to scan a copy of The Progressive, we doubt if he would sleep as well thereafter...
...Rubbish...
...In a field covered by many able writers, it seems to me that he has been outstanding in his ability to express the liberal attitude towards those natural resources which are the source of our material power and much of our national spirit...
...The resistance forces show no great indignation and they are more entitled to judge this type of ease than Barnes...
...They aren't all "crackpot" pro-Nazi groups either...
...I rate The Progresive the really outstanding liberal paper in the U. S. today...
...While the professional party politicians never cease their activities, we voters, while attending to our private affairs, take a long vacation between elections, and forget the important national issues...
...When Japan was fighting poor China alone, we sold her everything she needed to make war...
...Incidentally only one faculty member made the early swim during the entire Institute...
...M. S. Alder ton Palo Alto, Calif...
...If the idea of a world community is to be more than a dream or a lie it will be necessary to look at the debris of that nation without sentimental-ism but also without senseless bias...
...God knows America needs to know the truth...
...Because of outdoor hobbies and life-long interest in conservation, I have liked especially the writings of Richard L. Neuberger...
...It seems to me that the convicting fact is that the moral aid weapon which Petain's cooperation with the Nazis gave France's enemy a dozen times outweighed any shyster leniency he acquired from them...
...These things have been said forcefully by women to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Senate in recent hearings...
...So when certain evil forces with ulterior motives advance the Hitlers and help to the tune of billions and billions of dollars, learn to know the signs...
...Wyman was sent to Pearl Harbor to make certain important defense installations and then was given the distinguished service medal for not making them...
...There's the rub—it's got to be, remember, "God or Mammon...
...2. Renounce compulsory military service at all times...
...How our present financial-economic system demands wars...
...He who owns the radio, movies and press, owns the mass mind and conscience of any nation...
...What we need is to elect one member from each state and possession, and establish a secretarial group in Washington, outside of government itself, which will act as our "eyes, ears, and voice," and be in touch with us with unprejudiced national and world news, and with quarter hour radio talks, for and against any well backed reform movement, with a "town meeting" discussion to follow...
...Having spent many years outside of our country, I now observe our conditions without prejudice, as might the "man from Mars...
...Dale Barnard Pinehurst, N. C Trotskyite Line Dear Sirs: When grand old Oscar Ameringer of the American Guardian handed the torch which he had carried so long and so valiantly over to The Progressive, we gave The Progressive our first subscription...
...If one could avoid calling to mind: How we supplied Japan with the wherewithal to make war on us even after we had full and positive knowledge that was what she was preparing to do...
...1. Abolish all international cartels and banking combines...
...Nor shall I ever forget the many anonymous telephone calls, voices known and unknown, who wanted to comfort me, nor the glorious crowd of political prisoners who, although themselves without hope of release, helped us and cheered us up, and faced punishment for our sake...
...I shall never forget my friends who taught their little girl to include me in her evening prayers while I was in Dachau, nor the old retired general who postponed his Christmas visit to his daughter because he did not want my wife to be alone during my internment, nor my old teacher who from his retirement wrote to me spontaneously, and asked me to open my heart to him, and who never betrayed my confidence...
...The common saying is: "The money people have nominated their own candidates on both tickets and it makes no difference which one is elected...
...If his articles could be assembled and made available in pamphlet form, it would be a valuable contribution to the proper consideration of this vitally important subject...
...No, I certainly do not want a war with Russia, but an honest courage will strengthen our stand, not weaken it...
...Probably wars will not cease until the people who want war—or who agree to it, shall have to do the actual fighting and suffering rather than the youth who are ignorant of what war means and innocent of bringing it on...
...That the real purpose of our proposal to take permanent possession of islands around and bout Japan is for economic advantage (aggression...
...How To End War Dear Sirs: You and I and our children might have been born and living in Germany or Japan...
...In your issue of Aug...
...H. R. Hamburger Chicago, Ill...
...War Criminals Dear Sirs: As internationalists, we Americans appear to have started on a career of war criminals...
...A letter Aug...
...And to see the beginning of "crackpot" brush-off of Smith makes my blood boil...
...True, they aren't all still there, but the list is far from complete yet...
...Franco...
...It can't be both...
...We are living in a worldly world, you say...
Vol. 9 • October 1945 • No. 37
