A ROOM OF OUR OWN
Follette, Isabel B. La
A Room Of Our Own By Isabel B. La follette DEAREST BOB (I wrote to our boy in the Pacific) : "In a letter that came this week you write, 'Phil, was interested in your comments on Hutchins...
...But when same "high thinker" is being supported by the taxpayers it is another story...
...But politics as a life work is not at all the same thing as a citizen's duty in a democracy...
...Any guy who fought his political way almost alone through the public school system and even took on his superior officer in Basic Training, doesn't sound to me like a candidate for a cave or an ivory tower...
...Right now it is my opinion that you are reacting against the pressure of your early background when Phil and I were up to the neck in practical politics struggling for 'the right' as we saw it...
...RIGHT now in our own country you would see a terrific struggle for power going on among various groups...
...Poor Gen...
...If you followed the press here you would be deeply depressed by the situation in Europe where power politics maintain the center of the stage...
...We spent the evening recently with a well-known historical writer whose speciality is the Civil War period and its strategy...
...I 3on't think anybody owes society anything...
...You are bitter that you can't see the fruits of all that effort, and your emotional reaction is to wash your hands of the whole business and go off on your own...
...MacArthur punctured their plans with his statement that Japan could be 'policed' with 200,000 men...
...7ELL, all you boys write your wives and mothers W that the only wish you have is to come home, and do we all ever long for that day...
...It will be very provocative to you, I know...
...We all dream of the 'good life' whether in a canoe in the North Woods or 'security' in one form or another, but (fortunately, really) there ain't no sich thing as the good life without continuing effort...
...OF course, I think you very much over-simplify the issue...
...To my utter amazement he was completely ignorant of what any moderately-informed individual knows is one of the greatest military feats in history— the war of the Pacific...
...I realize that you boys are handicapped, no matter what 'theatre' you serve in, by lack of adequate reading matter and that even in your individual experience it is hard to see the forest for the trees...
...What happens to the brass hats...
...Most 'liberals' and intellectuals were too tired and confused to mark a course for themselves, so they simply evaded the issue and took your position that they owed nothing to society as such, but would live their own lives...
...You should have heard the howl of rage that went up from practically all quarters, except from the folks whose men are involved, when Gen...
...When Hitler came along with his spurious but welcome appeal to thousands who had been 'ill fed, ill clothed, and ill housed' these well-meaning but tired liberals willingly or unwillingly were swept along with the rest of Germany in the great wave of hope which Hitler whipped up...
...Of course the sad part is that the popular reaction against the power of the brass hats, augmented by the columnists and commentators who did a huge war business and can't bear to go back to their peacetime status, is blinding many usually thoughtful people to the_amaz-ing job being done by MacArthur in Japan...
...The Army, for instance, is obviously fighting to retain its wartime power...
...He queried Phil in great detail, obviously deeply interested in what Philliad to say and urging him to get out and write and speak...
...Special pressure groups continue to harangue the American public on behalf of this and that element in Europe, but it is obvious to anyone looking underneath that the Communists are the one group ruthlessly pushing ahead...
...We are 'selling' democracy and the American way of life to the teeming millions of Asia—which appears to be the only real attempt at following the principles of the Atlantic Charter...
...However, I tell you honestly, that when you achieve that aim you still cannot rest on your oars...
...The United States for the first time during this war period has, through General Mac-Arthur, a program which it is following in the Orient...
...I hope Veblen's Theory of the Leisure Class which I sent you recently arrives...
...The people who pay for his bread and cheese have a right to know, and question if they like just what that brain is turning out.' "You raise some very complex problems in the above...
...My position lies in between yours and his as you explained it...
...If a guy wants to retire to a cave or an island or some such place and do "high thinking" or writing or such and only communicates with those he feels like, I think it's his privilege to do so...
...What disturbs me so deeply today is that I think I see a general attitude which we observed in Germany after the last war...
...MacArthur wilj have to take the brick-bats from all sides while he lives, I fear, and get his reward in heaven and the history books...
...A Room Of Our Own By Isabel B. La follette DEAREST BOB (I wrote to our boy in the Pacific) : "In a letter that came this week you write, 'Phil, was interested in your comments on Hutchins (President of the University of Chicago) and the ivory tower stuff...
...Their resulting cynicism is a curdling influence on the body politic...
...Except for personal debts such as children to parents etc...
...In other words, when you remove yourself either to the North Woods or to an ivory tower you leave the field to those who use it for their own particular will-to-power...
...He admitted during the evening that he doesn't even read a daily paper with any regularity—he is so deep in the past...
...And although, as I say, I would be the last to urge you to take up politics as a career, your temporary rebellion against social responsibility doesn't bother me much...
...This has happened all through history where selfish groups get the upper hand...
...v "The Soviet government has a program which it is following in Europe...
...I would be the last to urge you to go into politics as a life work unless you have a strong 'call.' I've seen too many young enthusiasts here in Wisconsin and political immigrants here from other states start out with burning enthusiasm to save the world, but when they came up against the bitterness and drudgery of day to day work in the political vineyard, they couldn't 'take' it...
Vol. 9 • October 1945 • No. 42
