THE PEOPLE'S FORUM
. . . THE PEOPLE'S FORUM . . . A Soldier Replies Dear Sirs: How touching and naive is Mr. Lindberg's supposedly noble letter (Peoples Forum, Sept. 3) patting the Editors' backs for their "noble...
...So great it is, that as regards the foreigner every rule of morality ceases to hold good...
...Nor does Military Government appear to be taking any steps to su pervise their welfare or even to keep in touch with them...
...What I did put down was that this book written about him and his life is "unexciting, not to say dull, to read...
...Now they and their families and children will starve and freeze unless I and other friends are allowed to help them...
...E. S. Brown Alhambra, Calif...
...La Follette really meant, namely, that Vansittart always hated Hitler...
...Whether Mr...
...These sacrifices were made by the American people in the belief that the monies thus collected would be used to free the world from fascism, to minister to the military needs of our fighting men who were to do the freeing, and to provide them with necessary medical and nursing services...
...Frankly, Russia has taken over too much already...
...President Truman, whose integrity and directness down to now have won him the confidence of the American people, has felt impelled to follow this precedent of doubtful legality by making a similar gift to Gen...
...It is of course possible that I am guilty of misinterpreting Mrs...
...How do we build friendship with the people of a particular country when an individual gift is made to its head...
...The editor of this fact-finding and truth-telling little paper sees this as a decisive moment, on the outcome of which will depend the future of peace, and of mankind...
...Criticism Of Oct...
...Is there anything that would be less likely to build friendship...
...About the only criticism I have heard is the fact that some of your readers have come down pretty hard on Norman Thomas because he denounced (and justly) some of the policies presented by Russia...
...What about the heads of other states and cabinet officers and ministers, all of whom must sometimes use discretion in matters where our country is involved...
...Else Heymann Ojai, Calif...
...A. E. Gauthier Redding, Calif...
...I still feel I am entitled to the name, progressive, and I believe you are progressive in some things, among them your fairness in printing adverse opinions...
...3. Authorities like Hanson Baldwin, Alexander DeSeversky, and Josephus Daniels hold that present military methods are obsolete and that all that is necessary for our defense with our new weapon is a small army of aviators and technical experts...
...But in Manchuria, China, New Guinea, Tarawa, Okinawa, the Netherlands, the Philippines, the Solomons and Pearl Harbor, many more of the earth's good people of varied races and creeds were ruthlessly killed by these same kind of Japs...
...A number of the books The Progressive received were also received by these publications...
...After having gone to war twice in 25 years to save the British Empire, it is about time Americans learned what it was all about, otherwise we'll soon be in World War III for British benefit...
...In passing, let me say I have long been a supporter of union labor, but only when labor has been the underdog...
...As a good progressive, I don't, for the great majority of Congressmen are reacting to the demands of their constituents at home, as they should, and the whole country believes the reconversion program is menaced by labor...
...Truman has stated that he felt empowered to make his gift under the provision of the War Powers Act...
...Regardless of Mr...
...7. Having the atomic bomb we should insist on universal disarmament...
...On the other hand, we had an Army of several million men well trained and a Navy which Secretary Knox said was the best in the world, yet we were attacked at Pearl Harbor...
...de Gaulle, bringing the total expenditure to one million dollars...
...It is you who are "monsters of cruelty," because quite obviously you both believed the lesser of two evils was the invasion of Japan, which would have killed off 500,000 Americans and British, and many more Japs than did the atomic bomb...
...The fact that it ended in failure proved it...
...Their bank accounts blocked by the Nazis, remain blocked blocked by Military Government...
...As Mr...
...And what would we gain...
...7, con cerning present condition of "Ger mans released from concentration camps, and in particular those who were condemned on conscientious political, philosophical, or religious grounds: "Some disturbing facts about the treatment of these Germans are giv en in the September issue of the Chatham House Review, The World Today, from a recent survey made by the Friends' Ambulance Unit...
...The proper thing to consider is to dispossess the gangs that control all the powerful governments in the world and place those governments in the hands of the people...
...The President set forth his foreign policy clearly a few days ago and most people thought well of it...
...Wolfe's book...
...Here is a running criticism: The leading article, "America Adrift Without a Compass"—about the first severe criticism I have read of the Truman Administration...
...This is a clear indication that the British Foreign Office is now thinking in terms of a British-American Alliance to meet Russian power and policy which would be a big step toward the third world war with Russia as the enemy...
...Theirs made nonsense...
...Great Work Bear Sirs: You are doing great work...
...The same goes for Carleton Beals and Fred Rodell...
...Lindberg obviously knows from nothing about the facts...
...Not that I am anti-British, nor do I suppose Mr...
...Indeed, I recently talked with a person who knew the Lord in his school days, and he told me that Vansittart was a German-baiter away back at that time...
...But Mr...
...6: "We (Britain and the U. S. A.) are faced with a problem that Russia's military power and her determination to ensure her security threaten to destroy that respect for individual conscience which we regard as the core of democracy...
...At what point and when do we stop making personal gifts to particular individuals, in order to win the cooperation of their governments...
...I am more than pleased to see the Editors of The Progressive give space to the so-called "Radio Plug-uglies," at which I have long wanted to get a crack...
...You speak for yourself and a shameful minority...
...Of the two, the British attitude seems to me to be safer, more practical, even more noble...
...Pass The Progressive Along It's American, Alert, Accurate Eight Arguments Dear Sirs: Here are eight arguments-against conscription: 1. Of what value is military training if a few atomic bombs can-annihilate millions of soldiers...
...Unfortunately, I could not say, and still can not say, that the job turned out to be a distinguished biography...
...England has taken a terrific beating in World War II and is now hanging on the ropes...
...Non-Germans, as is known, are sent home as soon as their condition and other circumstances permit...
...Under the insistent prodding of reporters, Pres...
...29 issue, taking me to task for my review of Mrs...
...That is surely true...
...I wish to quote a report from the Manchester Guardian, Sept...
...Complete, Sincere Dear Sirs: I came from France in 1942 after I had served with the French Army and have witnessed the catastrophic collapse of my country...
...The Germans, on the other hand, are turned out with a certificate that they have been in this or that concentration camp and are left on the whole to fend for themselves...
...The greatness of a country lies in the active part of its people...
...If I wished to resort to the argument ad hominen I could modestly assert that I am probably more at home in diplomatic history than the Colonel, just as he is far superior to me in his knowledge of public affairs, constitutional law, and the Pacific campaigns in the late war...
...But why now, of all times...
...If the feeling of brotherhood has no meaning or place in a factual and practical age, then the fact that in this day and age of scientific achievement no country can afford to isolate itself in war or peace without serious consequences, should mean something...
...Gangs And Atoms Dear Sirs: Why all the talk about the atomic bomb and what to do with it...
...I dislike to engage in any controversy with the Colonel, for whose courage and statecraft I have high admiration...
...But many others with friends or relatives abroad still reside at their old addresses and could receive packages...
...Even if for some reason a large Army should be required, we can get all the volunteers needed if they are adequately compensated...
...Millions of Germans cannot be reached because they are dead, refugees somewhere on the roads or in the fields, or simply lost...
...Unless Americans are completely allergic to common sense, it would seem that they ought soon to find themselves standing with him...
...There is not an English statesman who does not consider as perfectly legitimate, in his conduct towards other peoples, acts which would provoke the deepest and most unanimous indignation if they were practiced where his countrymen were concerned...
...Lindberg, ignore the facts...
...I am happy, as an American, to have and to use your paper...
...M. C. Otto Madison, Wis...
...By no stretch of the imagination can the American sinning ever be compared to that brand of brutality dished out by the depraved Japanese and Germans...
...It looks, then, as if Agnes Chase had misunderstood, at least to some extent, what I was trying to say...
...Are you right, or am I? I have just read your issue of Oct...
...Does anyone doubt that the general public is sick of this deliberate irritation technique, this bellowing, crooning, jingling, repetitious insult to public intelligence...
...Good Writers Dear Sirs: I will not be without your paper for all in the world...
...clothing coupons are rarely issued...
...Wolfe's book, Son of the Wilderness...
...I am sure we have no monopoly of thought and production that should make it necessary for all publishing in the interest of a more progressive America and a better world to remain in the East...
...But, since he has given me the lie, direct, I have no other alternative...
...How simple to sit in the serenity of Milwaukee and cry in his beer that our "monstrous evil" is worse than the- sinning of the Japanese...
...The writer has examined the First War Powers Act of 1041, and the second War Powers Act of 1942, but her research has failed to disclose any power or authority given to our President, or any other individual in our Government, to make the gifts in question...
...But I did not rest my case on my own knowledge...
...They are uniformly exciting and anything but dull...
...True, many good Japs were probably killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki...
...Carried to its logical conclusion, this precedent of personal gifts will cause more mischief and create more havoc than the now discredited appeasement policy has done...
...Where they were lavish in praise, yours were sharp in criticism of author and viewpoint and implication...
...The domestic policy, particularly the management-labor crisis, was inherited from Roosevelt and is a hard nut to crack...
...If that is true it will be a miracle, for nothing like it has happened before...
...Rodell is either...
...I hope that immediate steps will be taken to lift measures that for bid the sending of packages and mail to friends and relatives in Germany...
...Villard thinks the Socialist candidate, Joseph Gloss, is too unimportant and "doesn't stand a chance" is beside the point...
...In apprising us of these gifts at this late date, we are told that these gifts were made to build friendship...
...It is the Upper Dog now...
...I, too, enjoy re-reading them...
...This contempt for the foreigner is doubtless a sentiment of very inferior order from a philosophic point of view...
...Lindberg, like all States-side Americans, does not know what real war is and has not seen the results...
...Stupid because Mr...
...As for the rest, I may have expressed myself awkwardly, so that I am myself partly to blame for being misread...
...You have some very good writers...
...Charles C. Lockwood Detroit, Mich...
...but from the point of view of the prosperity of a people it is extremely useful...
...But when Mr...
...La Follette denies my assertion that Lord Vansittart engineered the so-called policy of appeasement for Britain in the '30s...
...I for one, and there are thousands in my corner, am fed up to the ears with all this pacifist "holier than thou" preaching...
...No paper but The Progressive, however, has given me as complete and as sincere a picture of my new adopted country...
...Let's preserve American freedom...
...And your writers can really write...
...The London Conference was very clear about a major point: no more appeasement of Russia...
...But I speak for at least a million men who would have had to make that disastrous invasion of Japan...
...I myself have many German friends who were always anti-Nazi and some of whom were in concentration camps for years...
...Buicks, Booms, and Busts"—an article by a CIO propagandist, who attempts to prove that the big corporations can stand a 30 per cent increase in wages and still make a fair profit...
...We soldiers know the facts, but you, Mr...
...The capitalist press has always boycotted mention of any Socialist candidate in any election...
...Also between Communism and Feudalism in China, and quell uprisings elsewhere...
...But I'm for America first—and hence for the same kind of American "isolation" that England manifests...
...The German leaders are the real villains...
...Gen...
...THE PEOPLE'S FORUM . . . A Soldier Replies Dear Sirs: How touching and naive is Mr...
...Wolfe's story in its bearing on the conservation issue...
...And so do those who want us to repeat the blunder we made 25 years ago and again invade Russia to attack Communists...
...29: "There'll Always Be An England," by Fred Rodell...
...It seems to me entirely unjustified...
...I think I discern what Col...
...Aug...
...The critic goes on to say, "To me it was thrilling, and I shall read it, as I do all of Muir's books, again and again...
...Villard's preference among the candidates, mention should have been made of the fact that there is also a Socialist candidate...
...Villard should be aware that the Socialist Party is running a candidate for mayor...
...Blanche Watson St...
...The people do not want or make war— they want to tend to their own knitting...
...Apparently Agnes Chase thinks I said that Muir's life was "unexciting, not to say dull...
...There is little probability that Vansittart had any personal enthusiasm for the policy of collaboration and appeasement which he officially engineered...
...Marshall has now revealed the invasion plans for Japan...
...He would have spared the Japanese, the same kind of Japs who instigated this mess in 1931 with the war of aggression against Manchuria...
...29 Issue Dear Sirs: I have always believed myself to be reasonably progressive, but for some reason I disagree with most of your articles...
...But for the atomic bomb, hundreds of Milwaukee boys would never again have tasted their beloved beer...
...Theirs will fade...
...Shocking Situation Dear Sirs: Over six months after the ending of the war in Europe it is still forbidden to send a single package of food, medicine, or clothes to friends or relatives in Germany...
...If we can't get enough food to them because of commitments to the starving liberated peoples, who have every right of preference, it is unfortunate of course but is part of the retribution—not revenge—coming to them...
...It seems a shame that large publishing enterprises should be concentrated in the East...
...many camps have no Military Government officer in charge...
...5. The brass-hat lobby at Washington demands the conscription of our youth, so do the cartel interests who seek the exploitation of the oil, rubber, and tin regions...
...Rodell describes...
...So Mr...
...Relief organizations are not permitted to operate in Germany...
...They have no nationality papers, although the Nazi law which deprived them of their nationality is now revoked...
...If she doesn't, Russia will take over...
...James Loder Park Home, Pa...
...3) patting the Editors' backs for their "noble protest"—"What Is The Matter With America...
...the gifts were made by an individual, not to a country or the people of that country, for the benefit and use of all its people, but to another individual...
...Of late years, our own diplomats seem to have preferred to betray the interests of their country in the name of God...
...Certainly Mr...
...It always makes crys tal-clear the pernicious maneuvers of designing politicians in all lands and points the pathway to a brighter, and more enlightening influence, and is alike an aid and inspiration to saner, happier living...
...We warn the British people [this sentence appearing in capital letters in the New Leader] right at the beginning against this policy...
...Villard realizes that he is falling into that same position when he refuses to recognize the importance of the Socialist campaign...
...Now it appears that without the knowledge of his constituents and without the approval of Congress, $750,000 of these funds were used by the late President Roosevelt in making gifts of-a $250,000 transport plane to each of three private individuals, Winston Churchill, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, and King Ibn Saud...
...Wilbur Burton Baltimore, Md...
...Villard's opinion that "the longer I live the more I despise these compromising liberals who are always ready to strike hands with the enemy if they can thereby gain politically...
...6. True, your mutual admiration axis', Milwaukee-Madison, may have wide appeal to all the other pacifists in your dream-world of isolation, but it is damned nauseating to those •who had to do the fighting here on Okinawa arid who would have had to establish the beach-heads on Japan if the atomic bomb had not caused the sudden Japanese capitulation...
...Always happy to see The Progressive coming through the door...
...2. Indoctrination of youths with a military spirit would be a menace to democracy and freedom...
...It is you who are guilty of a "fiendish crime" — the crime of false words that incite unrest...
...The U. S. was for me the only remaining true democracy...
...Renew Your Subscription Today Vansittart And Germany Dear Sirs: I note that in your issue of Oct...
...Remember, please, it's "our way of life...
...Villard stoops to the same level in reporting on the campaign, it behooves one to question the author's knowledge of the facts or his misrepresentations...
...If Milton Mayer didn't get off on the wrong foot so often he could be one of the country's best...
...Max Wieczorek Pasadena, Calif...
...This simply boils down to something written fifty years ago by the pioneer and greatest social psychologist, Gustave Le Bon, in The Psychology of Peoples: "Contempt for the foreigner and his customs surpasses in England that formerly professed by the Romans and Barbarians at the time of their greatness...
...Agnes Chase intimates, moreover that I failed to get the significance of Mrs...
...Harry Elmer Barnes Cooperstown, N. Y. * * * Program For Congress Dear Sirs: I wish we had a Congress with guts enough to inform our Brass Hats that the war is over and our boys should come home...
...Your reviews in my opinion made sense...
...But I said explicitly that one gains from the book "a fresh appreciation of the struggle it cost to preserve for the American people some of the natural wonders of their country which commercially ambitious people would have ruined forever...
...It was made to be used and it will be used, perhaps incidentally in peaceable Ways, certainly in ways of war...
...By the way, you wouldn't stand for a strict government news broadcast about three times a day that you could sit and listen to without taking as much as a grain of salt, would you...
...It is for the best interests of all to have England hang on to her Mediterranean Sea domination...
...Without its illuminating pages, one is in dense darkness regarding many of the complicated and momentous issues of our time...
...Radio plug-uglies sell goods and services and are interesting news to about 3 per cent of radio listeners...
...I've enjoyed life in England and in many parts of the British Empire, and I'm an ardent admirer of the English both because of their urbanity and their "isolationist" attitude that Mr...
...Arnold D. Kates New York, N. Y. * * * Villard's Omission Dear Sirs: Those of us who have come to regard The Progressive as one of the very few papers which comes close to giving an unbiased and true picture of current affairs, should have been surprised and disappointed at Mr...
...There'll Always Be An England...
...But I think everything should be aired, the good as well as the bad policies of all countries...
...Hundreds of thousands would never again have walked with their loved ones in their native states, to lift their voices for a proper and permanent peace...
...The Full Employment Bill can't be very effective with the country riddled with strikes...
...To find a writer of The Progressive following suit is extremely disheartening I concur with Mr...
...Patient as we are, maybe you can help to stir us to some sort of effective united protest...
...And how stupid...
...Yes sir, gentlemen, you just keep on publishing your "noble protests" about the inhuman American military, and you, Mr...
...The Progressive reviews will stand the test of time...
...guenter reimann New York, N. Y. Aid And Inspiration Dear Sirs: The Progressive is the one indis pensable publication...
...In "Washington Calling": "The present Congress is dominated by reactionaries, etc...
...All of this was carefully suppressed from the American people who were footing the bill...
...Villard's Oct...
...What surprised me was that Van Gelder of the Times, Doren of the Tribune, and Spectorsky of the Chicago Sun had done the selections...
...Praise For Rodeli Dear Sirs: I write this to commend—and add a footnote to—the extraordinarily excellent article in your issue of Oct...
...Those in hospitals and camps are forbidden 'by express Military Gov eminent order' the comforts enjoyed by their fellows of other na tionalities...
...Clark Dennis 27th Special Service Co., Inf...
...They were to be stupendous, involving whole Armies and Navies of over a million men on several different beach-heads...
...Lindberg would not have used the atomic bomb...
...It seems to be a habit with your talented writers—and Fred Rodell is very talented—when hard up for a subject, to take a crack at England...
...Samuel A. Carlson Mayor Emeritus Jamestown, N. Y. * * * Need The Truth Dear Sirs: Your able writers handle their subjects so efficiently...
...I suspect that he knew far more about the doings of Lord Vansittart than the Colonel and myself combined...
...8. Hanson Baldwin says that "our schools, not military camps, can best promote physical betterment...
...More than that, he hated the Germans as a nation, not only in the '30s but from the days of his youth...
...Alf Abel Craig, Alaska Radio Hogs Dear Sirs: Splendid...
...Loot and empire is what they are working for—all they are working for—and the means to gain those ends will be used...
...But believe me, neither of you, with this kind of writing, is aiding the peaceful civilian-soldier association we all hope for, nor are you aiding the Jap-American association—the Japs having already taken up your cry of "fiendish inhumanity...
...6. If we conscript millions of our youth, they might be forced to fight long years to settle conflicts between Moslems and Jews...
...The same result can be achieved—on a greater scale—by creating conditions in which millions must die of cold and hunger, whil~ millions more will be invalided or crippled for a lifetime...
...I wish also that we had a Congress with guts enough to inform the President and our Brass Hats that we are not going to adopt peacetime conscription and engage in an armament race that can only lead us into World War III...
...That is the only way we can get at the truth, and heaven knows we need the truth and can't get it in the kept press...
...Emma Mayer Santa Monica, Calif...
...29 article on the New York mayoralty campaign...
...I have previously sent you two gift subscriptions, this time two more, with best wishes they will read your paper...
...Petersburg, Fla...
...The editor calls attention to the fact that the paper has never withheld criticism of Russia, especially for its suppression of opinion, but protests that the New Leader cannot ally itself with capitalistic imperialism, and calls upon British Labor to declare its own international policy and to identify itself with the great new rising forces of the world...
...Can you blame Congress...
...William H. Hughes Fayetteville, Ark...
...Are they to be slighted...
...No government will fail to use it in war because of humane reasons...
...To be able to sell to 3 per cent of the radio audience anything under the sun is, in the name of private enterprise, a paying business...
...This foreshadows the possibility that the Allies will be incapable of unified action, leading to a world split into mutually exclusive zones of influence...
...Esther S. Frankel Paterson, N. J. Starvation In Europe Dear Sirs: As a subscriber to your paper, I come to ask you is there a possibility to reach those citizens of America who, out of a feeling or grateful-nets or obligation because of our victory, want to care for the starving men, women, and children all over Europe at the price of continued -rationing of scarce foods...
...Okinawa...
...Plane Gifts Dear Sirs: During the war, we were told to put our money into income taxes and War Bonds rather than consumers' goods...
...And those individuals who would like to mitigate the misery of anti-Nazi Germans and their families and children are forbidden to send any parcels at all...
...22, Col...
...And on the Editorial page, one would think the Allies were responsible because some Germans will starve this Winter...
...It would not only make for war, it would line up Britain on the wrong side...
...This cannot be explained simply by a shortage of mailing facilities, for in most areas in Germany there is a mailing service and certainly it should be possible to notify recipients of packages and have them call for them...
...Rodell says: "Britain is no more interested in democratic government, outside the British Isles, than is Russia...
...Now, you must not get mad at private enterprise...
...I based it mainly on the authority of Robert Dell, who probably knew more about British and continental diplomacy of the '30s than any other journalist and was a man of great probity and integrity...
...Of course, Russia seeks a sphere of influence in the Balkans just as we do in South America...
...But I was not talking about Muir's books...
...Leon Nosoff Brooklyn, N. Y. * * * Radio Plug-Uglfes Dear Sirs: I for one, can truthfully state that The Progressive has set itself upon a more progressive policy here of late, than I had hoped .for...
...As to those, I would agree...
...Sense And Nonsense Dear Sirs: Many of your readers must have been pleased by the announcement that The Progressive's book section had been picked as one of the outstanding book pages of the country...
...Three per cent of the radio listeners are the ones that buy after hearing the plug-ugly...
...Really, plug-uglies are welcome news to 3 per cent of the radio audience...
...4. Japan was conquered with bombs, not invading armies...
...In each instance, public funds went to finance the gift, without any appropriation having been made therefor...
...The cartoon, "The Air Hog," and your editorial, "Radio's Plug-Uglies," in the Oct...
...I get valuable facts from your publication I find in no other magazines...
...He needs to experience that hellish sorrow that rumbles in one's heart and stomach when standing before the thousands of white crosses in the Army cemeteries of Guadalcanal and Bougainville and Luzon...
...It is expected and it is the practice of the "kept" press to employ the artifice of omission to give a distorted and incomplete picture of vital issues...
...22 issue, are the first definite protest I have seen against the frightful cacophony injected into radio entertainment...
...Why not give credit for firmness...
...29, which I found very interesting all the way...
...The Progressive, by its original editorial and by publishing your hysterical letter, is an accomplice...
...C. E. Payne Usk, Wash...
...For the life of me, however, I can not see it that way...
...Rodell's article should be circulated by some genuine American, with the money and the facilities, to every citizen—not only to read now, but to paste in his hat as a sort of anti-World War III catechism...
...Pfc...
...Joel Mosko Topeka, Kan...
...That is what should happen when a reader believes a reviewer has been unfair, and too few people take the trouble to do this...
...I hope Mr...
...It is not necessary to construct death camps...
...Truman needs time and a lot of support to handle this one...
...Lindberg, you keep on screaming about our "fiendish savagery and predatory traits...
...Reply To Agnes Chase Dear Sirs: Thank you for printing Agnes Chase's letter in the Oct...
...Zones Of Influence Dear Sirs: One of the most significant comments on the London Conference comes from the London New Leader editorial of Oct...
...But, like any good professional British diplomat, he was willing to work with the Devil, if that would promote or serve what he conceived to be the interests of his country for the moment...
Vol. 9 • November 1945 • No. 46
