DON'T SHOOTCONSERVATIVES!

A Plea for To/eranee

Our Principal Ally:Superior Air Power

General Bonner Fellers

Our Pink-Tinted ClergyJulian Maxwell

TAPPING THE NEW OPEN HEARTHS AT J&L's PITTSBURGH WORKS. The molten steel flowing intotwo giant-size ladles symbolizes J&L's capacity for modern, scientific methods of mass-producing steel.

To satisfy a giant's thirst... huge draughts of steel are IItapped"

INDUSTRY'S thirst for steel is a giant'sthirst. It's a perpetual thirst ...

the thirst of machine shops . . . thethirst of huge stamping press lines ...the thirst that prevails wherever steelis being worked and shaped.

In order to fulfill America's de­mand for automobiles and appliances,

toys and office equipment, cans andbuilding materials, steel-making hasto keep pace ... quantity-wise andquality-wise.

Steel-making at J&L is geared tothis fast-moving pace. The expansionof open hearth capacity typifies J&L'spolicy of development and moderni-

zation of equipment. And, behindJ&L's manpower stands a greatteacher ... 100 years of steel-makingexperience ... 100 years of producingthe steels of today . . . 100 years ofpreparing for the steels of the future.

J&L stands ready to meet the chal­lenge of tomorrow!

dONES & LAUGHLIN STEEL CORPORATIDNPITTSBURGH

Poem

Highway : WITTER BYNNER 782

This Is What They Said. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 769

Worth Hearing Again 778

From ()ur Iteaders 760

Editorials

The Fortnight...................................... 761One-Man Government?............................. 762Don't Shoot Conservatives!.......................... 763The Glory of Berlin................................. 764What Treaties Can Lead To. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 765

BONNER FELLERS, as a Brigadier General in theU.S. ArnlY, was the official United States ob­server of combat with the British Forces inthe Middle East, 1940-42. He is author of abook on national defense, Wings of Peace,published this spring by Henry Regnery.

GLENN HOOVER is professor of sociology atMills College in California. His report on theeconomic situation of Denmark, entitled "Learn­ing from the Danes," appeared in the Sep­tember 8, 1952, issue of the FREEMAN.

JULIAN MAXWELL'S "Our Pink-Tinted Clergy,"was written at our special request so thatFREEMAN readers might have a clear presenta­tion of the issues involved in this' currentlycontroversial subject.

LEO WOLMAN, a professor of economics atColumbia University in New York, has writtenextensively on trade unions in America, and isnow working on a forthcoming volume to beentitled Half Century of Union Membership.

ALLEN CHURCHILL is widely known in magazineand publishing circles as an editor and writer.His ar,ticles have appeared in the nation'sleading periodicals, including Collier's,Cosmo­politan, This Week, American Mercury, Esquire,and others.

R. G. WALDECK, known to her friends as"Countess Rosie," came to this country in 1931from her native Gernlany. In addition to herjournalistic activities, she has since written anumber of historical novels and political· books,among them Athene Palace and Europe Be­tween the Acts. She is now on an extendedtour of the maj or capitals of Europe, fromwhere she will send regular "Letters" to theFREEMAN.

Our Contributors

In Forthcoming Issues

ROCK FERRIS, for many years a distinguishedconcert pianist, has recently returned fromItaly to continue in his native land the careerof music columnist he began while living inFlorence after the war.

JEROME MELLQUIST has sent us another of hislively reports on art in Paris, this time onthe Americans exhibiting there this season.

Before Congress adjourns this summer a votemay be taken on the Bricker Amendment to theConstitution, which would make it impossiblefor any treaty with a foreign government tointerfere with domestic legislation-or lack ofit-affecting the life and liberty of the Amer­ican people. The FREEMAN has asked Frank E.Holman, former president of the American BarAssociation, to state the case for this Amend­nlent from the point of view of law as well asof individual freedom. His article will appearin Ollr August 10 issue.

JULY 27, 1953

..4 Fortnightly

For

Individualists

HENRY IlAZLITr

FLORENCE NORTON

VOL. 3, No. 22

Editor

Managiq Editor

THE

reeman

Contents

Books and the Arts

An Example of Integrity MAX EASTMAN 783Billionaire Corporations ASHER BRYNES 784With Fear of Truth WILLIAM HENRY CHAMBERLIN 785Eloquent But Erroneous ANTHONY HARRIGAN 786Hagiolatry R. A. PARKER 786Theory Versus Fact FREDA UTLEY 787Life Among the Peasants RAY PALMER 788Wagner FestivaL ROCK FERRIS 789Americans in Paris JEROME MELLQUIST 789

Articles

Our Principal Ally:Superior Air Power BONNER FELLERS 767

What's Left of the "Single Tax"? GLENN HOOVER 770Our Pink-Tinted Clergy JULIAN MAXWELL 773The Wonderful World of Books JAMES BURNHAM 776Two Sides to a Strike LEO WOLMAN 777Men's Magazines ALLEN CHURCHILL 779Government by Crisis R. G. WALDECK 781

THE FREEMAN is published fortnightly. Publication Office, Orange, Conn. Editorial andGeneral officeS1 240 Madison Avenue, New York 16, N. Y. Copyrighted in the UnitedStates, 1953, 'by the Freeman Magazine, Inc. Henry Hazlitt, President; LawrenceFertig, Vice President; Claude Robinson, Secretary; Kurt Lassen, Treasurer.Entered as second class matter at the Post Office at Orange, Conn. Rates: Twenty-fivecents the eopy; five dollars a year in the United States; nine dollars for two years;six dollars a year elsewhere.The editors cannot be responsible for unsolicited manuscripts unless return postage or,better, a stamped, seif-addressed envelope is enclosed. Manuscripts must be typeddouble-spaced.Articles signed with a name, pseudonym, or initials do not necessarily represent theopinion of the editors, either as to substance or style.~. 11 Printed in U.S.A., by Wilson H. Lee Co., Orange, Connecticut

II FROM OUR READERS IITwo. Presbyterian GroupsMay I call your attention to an errorin the article "Dr. Mackay's StrangeScales" [July 13]? In the first para­graph is the statement that Dr.Mackay is the "newly elected Modera­tor of the Presbyterian Church in theUnited States." The PresbyterianChurch in the United States is thatbranch of Presbyterianism commonlyknown as "Southern Presbyterian."The Church of which Dr. Mackay waselected Moderator is the PresbyterianChurch in the United States of Amer­ica, commonly known as "NorthernPresbyterian."

The names are so similar that suchan error is quite excusahle... Thearticle otherwise is excellent. . . .

JAMES FRANCIS MILLER

Pikeville, Ky.

Senator Taft's SpeechYou went down the line for SenatorTaft's Cincinnati speech [June 15]with .hundreds of unvocal Taft sup­porters among your subscribers ap­plauding. You will have to pardon agreat many of these if they thought

that the Senator was less than crystalclear in the contested "go it alone"portion of that speech. At a guess,many of them regret that he has sincehedged on what they hoped he ,actuallymeant....

If General Ridgway's bitter analysisof what we have thrown away in Koreais truth, then perhaps U.N. influenceis no more to blame than ,the Presi­dent's and the senile Pentagon's deter­mination to follow the Truman policies.Still taking orders from London?

I agree completely with your "NoMore U.N. Wars" [June 29]. If this isnot what Taft meant.... then mymental processes are disintegrating.Athens, Ga. DUNCAN BURNET

Air StrategyThe review of Bonner Fellers' Wingsfor Peace, June 29th issue, seems tounderestimate Russi'an strategy. Russiawill not strike until she can measur­ably counter our air attack, which sheis doing by dispersion of industry, con­centrating on air defense, and aboveall by such vast reserves of muni­tions that she can conquer Europe, andhold it without home production untilthe industry of Europe is working inher behalf.

Weare playing into her hands towreck our economy to damage an in-

dustry she can do without, incidentallykilling millions of civilians who mightotherwise be on our side. . . . Sheseems to be building sufficient long­range aircraft to keep us diverted, aswe should also do to worry her, butwhy assume the real attack against uswill be made so expensively and haz­ardously instead of by guided missilesfrom her great fleet of submarines,which only a Navy can stop?

Just where will we be if we startthe next war with a great s,trategicAir Force, which the enemy has dis­counted in advance, a Navy inadequateto control the seas, and an Army toosmall to expand into what may beneeded? Only if and when a rearmedGermany can hold Russia on theground, will 'a major air attack onRussia payoff.

Thank God the National SecurityCouncil under the direction of thePresident seems to be realistically re­evaluating our military needs.Washington, D. C. LUCIAN B. MOODY

TopsThe FREEMAN is tops in my estimation.I don't know how I ever got alongwithout it.

FLORENCE D. WATKINS

Cockeysville, Md.(Cont'inued on p. 791)

WHAT MADE

Ever since the landing of the Pilgrimfathers, one golden thread has been wovenunmistakably through the fabric of Ameri­can life. Without it, we could not havethe America of today. Nor the Americaof tomorrow. It is the spirit of courageand achievement. And we must neverlose sight of it.

Here, guided by the fundamental truth that/lall men are created equal/' exists a con­cept of freedom wh ich goes far beyondwhat one may find in other lands. Itknows no barriers of caste or class-or raceor color or creed. It is ready to reward

AMERICA?

individual initiative wherever it is found.It is summed up in the word 1I0pportunity,"which springs from our system of free enter­prise.

Because we have reached the limit of ourland frontiers, let no one think that weshall cease to grow. This is not the kindof thinking that built America. Progresscomes on the frontiers of mind and spirit­the; frontiers of imaginafi.on, inve,ntio'n,courage-and work. Thatls what it takesto turn dreams into realities.

That is what will make the America of to­morrow.

HARNISCH.EGERMilwGuke.e 46. Wiscons,in

CORPORATlrOIi

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The Fortnight

THE

reemanMONDAY, JULY 27, 1953

still hope for the world in the mutual treacheryof the present Kremlin survivors.

Is the removal of Beria likely to mean an increaseor a decrease in repression in Russia itself andin the occupied countries? Is it likely to mean anintensification, or a relaxation, in the cold war orin armed aggression against the free world? Theastonishingly wide range of answers, on the partof the supposed Western experts on Russia, oncemore illustrates how well the Kremlin has so farkept its secrets. We hear on one side that it wasBeria who took the lead in releasing politicalprisoners in Russia after Stalin's death, in ex­onerating the Jewish doctors from the "murder"charges, and in the "soft" policy in East Germany.It is pointed out on the other side that since June27, the presumed day of Beria's arrest, evidencesof the "soft" policy have continued in Hungary,Rumania, Czechoslovakia, East Berlin, and evenin the Korean truce negotiations.

The same lack of agreement surrounds the ques­tion whether the purging of Beria has strength­ened or weakened the internal power of the Krem­lin leaders who remain. That purge has of coursemade it plain even to the dullest intellect thatthere was a struggle for power within the Moscowtriumvirate. But though everyone now knows whothe loser was, no one seems quite sure about thereal victor. Was it Malenkov, Molotov, Bulganin,or Comrade X?

Yet certain conclusions are reasonably safe. In amonolithic state like Russia, built on lies, espio­nage, and terror, no one can trust anyone else.Shared leadership and distributed power repre­sent a condition of highly unstable equilibrium.Absolute power must tend to gravitate into oneman's hands. The elimination of Beria is bad newsinsofar as it reduces the possibility of an inter­necine war which would split the Communistworld into factions or fragments under competingTitos. In this possibility lies the chief immediatehope of liberty inside the present Iron Curtainand of peace outside. But the purging of Beria,we may be sure, is only the beginning of a greatnew purge. Until a single victor emerges, there is

The American experts who failed to guess thatBeria was about to be liquidated should not feeltoo badly about it. After all, if anyone was sup­posed to know what was going on in the Kremlinit was Beria-but even he slipped up.

There is more than one question at issue betweenSyngman Rhee and President Eisenhower concern­ing the Korean truce terms, and we certainly donot maintain that Dr. Rhee's position should beaccepted as against that of the American negotia­tors in every case. But Senator Knowland, the act­ing Republican leader in the upper house, seems tous to have put his finger on the chief reason whythe rift between Rhee and the American negotia­tors developed. "I think," he said, "that Mr. Rheewas not sufficiently consulted [on truce terms]during the Truman Administration and I don'tthink he was sufficiently consulted during theEisenhower Administration." What is incredibleis that the British, who have suffered 1 per centof the casualties of the Allies in Korea, have hadso much to say about the truce terms, while theSouth Koreans, who have suffered 63 per cent ofthe casualties and are still holding 65 per cent ofthe line, were allowed so little to say on the truceterms until they refused to acquiesce in themafter they were made public.

"A United Nations with responsible and adequateauthority could apprehend Syngman Rhee and holdhim in contempt of world law." Thus spake NormanCousins, President of the Un1ited World Federalists,according to the New York Times. One wonderswhy Mr. Cousins did not go a little farther backand envisage his United Nations serving writs onNam II for leading the North Korean army acrossthe 38th Parallel, on Mao Tse-tung for sending aninvading army across the Yalu R1iver, and onJoseph Stalin for starting the whole business. Onemay also wonder why such statesmen as SirWinston Churchill, Prime Minister Nehru of India,and Mr. Lester Pearson of Canada and the UnitedNations have referred to the leader of a hard­pressed and much suffering ally in terms of

JULY 27, 1953 761

truculence and bitterness which they never em­ployed toward the aggressor enemy. The ghost ofPoland is beginning to walk in South Korea.

With the sole exception of the hysteria over thefake "book-burning" issue, nothing better illus­trates the present strength and determination ofthe anti-anti-Communists in this country than thefuror over J. B. Matthews, whom Senator McCarthyhad appointed only a few weeks ago as executivedirector of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee onInvestigations. Before his appointment Mr. Mat­thews had written an article for the July issueof the American Mercury, which had appearedafter his appointment was announced, entitled"Reds and Our Churches." It opened with thestatement: "'The largest single group supportingthe Communist apparatus in the United Statestoday is composed of Protestant clergymen." Itthen went on to name names and supporting evi­dence, and concluded by declaring: "It hardly needsto be said that the vast majority of AmericanProtestant clergymen are loyal to the free institu­tions of this country, as well as loyal to theirsolemn trust as ministers of the 'Gospel."

Then the storm broke. The Democratic membersof the subcommittee demanded Mr. Matthews' res­ignation; so did a Republican member, SenatorPotter. There w,ere screams from the press andfrom an articulate minority of clergymen. Prac­tically all of them quoted only the first paragraphof Mr. Matthews' piece, acted as if he had ,indictedthe whole clergy, and seemed in effect to take theposition that any Communist should be immunefrom investigation or even the mention of a doubtif he bears the title of Reverend.

A telegram of protest to President Eisenhowerfrom the three national co-chairmen of the Com­mission on Religious Organizations of the N'ationalConference of Christians and Jews had the senseand the fairness to declare: "We fully recognizethe right of Congress to investigate the loyalty ofany citizen regardless of the office he may occupy,ecclesiastical or otherwise." But Mr. Eisenhower, inthe face of Mr. Matthews' careful exemption ofthe overwhelming majority of clergymen fromhis charge, replied by denouncing "generalized andirresponsible attacks that sweepingly condemn thewhole of any group of citizens."

The upshot of the affair was that Mr. Matthewswas forced to resign. In view of this, we do notsee how what's left of the Senatorial committeecan in fairness deny him the opportunity, forwhich he has asked, to document and verify hischarges before it. The FREEMAN does not pretendto know in advance that his charges are all trueany more than those who denounced him can knowthat they are false. But we publish in this issue an

762 THE FREEMAN

article by Julian Maxwell on "Our Pink~Tinted

Clergy" which was ordered and written before theMatthews article appeared, and independent 01. anyknowledge of that article. The subject seems morethan ripe for further investigation and exploration.

In some cases the proper retort to the indignantquery, "Who called that clergyman a Communist1"might well be, "Who called that Communist aclergyman 1"

One-Man Government?The Brothers Alsop on June 29 devoted a columnto the fact that Republican Congressman NoahMason of Illinois is opposed to many Eisenhowermeasures. Mason has been in .congress for manyyears; the Brothers do not dispute the assump­tion that he represents the views of his con­stituency. But the Alsops would deny him thatright. Eisenhower is the leader of the RepublicanParty. Every Republican should take orders froma Republican President. The Alsops conclude: "Thequestion remains-and it is a pressing quest,ion­whose party is it, Noah Mason's or Dwight D.Eisenhower's 1"

We had the notion (incomprehensible to thosewho believe in one-man government) that the Re­publican Party belonged to the people who voteRepublican and that each iCongressman is expectedto follow his judgment and conscience, subject tothe verdict of his constituency. If the Alsops areright, why go to the expense of a Congress? Letthe President write and promulgate the laws, andforget that Article 1, Sec. 1 says: "All legislativepowers herein granted shall be vested in a Con­gress of the United States which shall consist ofa Senate and a House of Representatives."

How New Dealers think the Pre5ident shouldassert his leadership is described in the New YorkPost by its Washington correspondent, William V.Shannon:

General Eisenhower has a,bandoned to Congress,the traditional Presidential responsibility of writ­ing and planning legislation... It is due in partto the President's quaint antique view that it is hisduty to recommend but not to see that recommenda­tion is carried out. . .

During the Democratic administrations all im­portant bills were written downtown in the variousagencies and cleared through the White House. Ifthe committee chairman would not sponsor the bill,some sympathetic Congressman was found to puthis name on it.

The measure then became known as "an admin­istration bilL" All the resources of the Presidentand executive departments were put behind it.Those Congressmen who did not fall in line whenthey were needed did not receive a friendly hearingwhen they came looking fora hometown dam or anappointment for a friend. This system was not fool­proof but no better one had been devised.

Don't Shoot Conservatives!Don't shoot conservatives! Don't hang anti-Com­munists! Don't slaughter whole populations justbecause they dare to disagree with EleanorRoosevelt. Don't burn the FREEMAN. Remember, thefreedom to read is essential to our democracy.People have a right to read even the AmericanConstitution, in order to learn both sides of thequestion. We know that everybody lives in mortalterror of what Senator Lehman is going to saynext. But we must take our courage in 'both handsand say "booh."

Surely you don't disagree with any of this! Areyou lin favor of shooting conservatives? Are youagainst the freedom to read?

Except for a change of sides and names, theforegoing paragraphs represent exactly the typeof argument being seriously and systematicallyput forward by the Eleanor Roosevelts and theHerbert Lehmans and the American Library As­sociation and the American Book Publishers Counciland other groups that ought to know better.

In an Associated Press dispatch from Athens ofJuly 6, for example, Mrs. Roosevelt is quoted asdeclaring that Senator McCarthy has done "agreat deal of harm to my country... He hasmade the great mass of people ,blindly afraid ...People in the United States today are afraid tobe different, to disagree with neighbors becauseof the possible consequences." This picture of theAmerican people does not even deserve to becalled a caricature; it is an irresponsible slander.The Americans who at present are doing most harmto our country are precisely those who are givingEuropeans (many of whom are only too eager, intheir present mood, to think the worst of us) thispicture of their fellow-Americans.

Mrs. Roosevelt is no worse than those whoframed and signed the "manifesto" put out onJune 25 by the Am~rican Library Association inconcert with the American Book Publishers Council.This manifesto pretended that there has sud­denly developed in thi.s country a tremendousthreat to "the freedom to read":

It is under attack. Private groups and publicauthorities... are working to remove books fromsale, to censor textbooks. . . to purge libraries.. . Weare deeply concerned about these attemptsat suppression... Such pressure toward conform­ity is perhaps natural to a time of ... pervadingfear... We have been dismayed by the confusedand fearful response of the State Department torecent attacks... We are therefore enormouslyheartened by the President's recent vigorous at­tack on book burning. We support this positionfully...

And so on and on. By their perfervid rhetoricthe authors of this hysterical statement are giving

Europeans the impression that there is now goingon in America the equivalent of the ceremonialbook burning that occurred in Germany under theNazis.

The concerted campaign of these misguided "lib­erals" is a deliberate effort to divert attentionfrom the real issues by raising and waving a manof straw. Who are the book burners in this coun­try? Where are they? Let the people who arethrowing around these irresponsible charges pre­sent names, dates, and evidence. And let a Con­gress1ional committee examine that evidence.

The real issue that ha.s been so obscured andperverted is this: What books ought a governmentlibrary to select? By what standards ought it toselect them?

Our government libraries overseas are special­purpose libraries. They came into being a.s theresult of an act of Congress-the United StatesInformation and Educational Act of 1948. Thepurpose of the information serv,ice so set up isdeclared in the law itself to be the "disseminationabroad of information about the United States, itspeople, and its policies." More specifically, the StateDepartment has declared that the purpose of theinformation centers lis "to reflect American ob­jectives, values, the nature of American institu­tions and life, and to utilize the book and relatedmaterials to advance ideas of America in thestruggle against Communi.sm."

It follows from this that any 'book that gives afalse picture of the United States, its people, orits policies, or any book that actually tends topromote Communism, does not belong on thelibrary shelves.

There is another point, of central importance,that has been consistently ignored in discussionof this problem. There are about twelve thousandnew titles published in this country each year.Of these, the American government libraries abroadhave been taking about a thousand new titles ayear. This means that only one new book in twelvehas been selected for acquisition; the other elevenhave been ignored. The books favored for selection,therefore, implicitly carry some kind of governmentapproval. The real question to be raised, then, aboutbooks by Owen Lattimore, Howard Fast, andDashiell Hammett is not why they were eventuallydiscarded but why they were chosen in the- firstplace. Yet the whole hullabaloo of the self-styledliberals has been raised about a handful of booksfirst taken and then discarded~with not a wordsaid about the eleven out of twelve books that werenever chosen at all. The dishonest claim is be­ing repeatedly made that a book discarded by the

JULY 27, 1953 7&3

libraries is being "suppressed." Anybody whowishes, of course, still has an undisputed right tobuy and read it. The only real question that shouldhave been raised about it is whether it should havebeen acquired with taxpayers' money >in the firstplace and given the implied endorsement of theAmerican government libraries that stocked it.

We do not see why, ,finally, any distinction shouldbe made between the standards applied in acquiringor not acquiring new books and the standards ap­plied in discarding old ones. There is no reasonwhy a book should be treated as if it had acquiredsome sort of sacred s'quatter's rights by the merefact of being already on the shelves. The locallibrarians should be authorized to dispose of pre­viously acquired books which in their judgment donot conform to the purposes of the libraries orhave outlived their usefulness. The best way todispose of them, ordinarily, would be throughsecond-hand channels to the best bidder, in accord­ance with private library practice. This procedurewould cut the ground from under the nonsensicalcharges that these books were being "suppressed,""censored," "burned," etc.

When the present wave of hysteria has passed,it is ,even conceivable that the whole issue will betreated with a little common sense.

The Glory of BerlinEven though the tanks and machine guns of theRed Army have temporarily crushed the movement,the uprising in Berlin and other cities of theSoviet zone remains one of the most important, aswell as one of the finest and bravest events ofrecent times. Things can never be the same againin East IGermany. The men in the Kremlin maywell remember the wise and witty remark ofTalleyrand-that one can do anything with bay­onets, except sit on them.

The entire Soviet position in Germany was irre­trievably undermined on those June days whenthe workers rose against the "dictatorship of theproletariat," burned Soviet flags, stormed railwaystations and public buildings, and made life veryunpleasant for members of the Red Quislingregime. The very calling in of Soviet troops wasa confession of political defeat, a recognition thatthe East 'German military and police forces, huiltup under Soviet tutelage, are completely unreliableand would, in all probability, desert en masse tothe West at the first opportunity. It is significantthat the Russians executed eighteen of their ownsoldiers who refused to fire on the rioters.

Facts, as Lenin liked to say, are stubborn things.And no amount of propaganda can obscure theimpact of this first big mass outbreak againstCommunism.

Much of the sinister power of Communism lies

764 THE FREEMAN

in the illusion of invincibility which it carefullycultivates. The peoples under its control are brain­washed (to use an appropriate new expression fromChina) with propaganda and terrorized by a hostof spies and by ruthless police methods. Only thosewho have lived under this kind of regime canrealize how dia'bolically strong this type of tyrannyis, how weak and helpless the individual feels inthe grip of a leviathan more formidable thanHobbes ever dreamed of.

I t is the glory and the significance of the work­ers of East Berlin and of Magdeburg, Chemnitz,Halle, and other industr,ial towns in East Germanythat they broke this evil spell more clearly anddecisively than it has ever been broken before.There are several significant political lessons to bedrawn from what happened in the Soviet zone.

First, a united Germany, based on free electionsand free institutions and provided with adequatearmed force for self defense, is a "safe" Germanyfrom the standpoint of theWest. The pictures ofBerlin .crowds throwing stones at Soviet tanks,and burning 'Soviet flags, should put an end to thesilly idea that Germans have an affinity with Com­munismand are eager to throw in their lot withthe Soviet Union.

It would indeed be strange if this were true whenone looks back to the unparalleled outrages ofmurder, wholesale rape, and looting that markedthe Soviet invasion of Germany in 1945 and to themerciless ,systematic exploitation that followedthese original excesses. The spark that at lasttouched off the outbreak was a final turn of theSoviet economic thumbscrew, requiring the build­ing workers in the East zone to work harder forless pay. One can confidently expect that if andwhen Soviet troops are withdrawn the pitiful pup­pets who have been governing the area underorders from Moscow will vanish from the sceneand the clumsy war monuments set up to honor theunknown Sov,iet soldier (popularly referred to byGermans as the unknown rapist or the unknownlooter) will be demolished with lightning speed.

Second, a tyranny .in retreat is most vulnerable.H. L. Mencken put a political truth in his famHiarflamboyant language when he wrote once that thetsars got along excellently so long as they ruledRussia "like a house of correcHon, a SouthernBaptist 'university' or the D.A.'R." It was noaccident 'that the outbreak in the East zone startedafter some concessions had been made by the gov­ernment and there were s.jgns of weakness andvacHlation at the top.

Third, while the outbreak was spontaneous, theproximity of free ,West Berlin was very helpful.An appeal of the West 'German trade unions broad­cast at a timely moment by R'IAS, the Americanradio station in West Berlin, helped to touch offthe general strike; and broadcasts from RIASwere an aid in keeping the strikers informed ofwhat was going on elsewhere.

What occurred in East Berlin, what occurredearI.ier in Czechoslovakia, shows that, despite thefellow-travelers, the pedantic legalists, and thefaint hearts there is a strong case for keeping upmaximum psychological warfare in all the IronCurtain countries.

Fourth, the uprising in East Germany and thedemonstrations in Czechoslovakia indicated a severecris,is in the Soviet satellite area. Economic ex­ploitation is beginning to yield dim,inishing politicalreturns. The Kremlin and the Gauleiters it has putin charge of the countr,ies behind the Iron Curtainface a difficult dilem'ma. They cannot improve theintolerahle daily living conditions of the peoplewithout scrapping a considerable part of theirschemes formilitarizaHon and intensive industrialdevelopment. To do this is contrary to every Com­munist instinct. The one development which mightget the Kremlin off the hook of this dilemma issome ill-timed, overeager gesture of appeasementfrom the West.

Berlin has twice proved itself a brave city. West

Berlin five years ago stood up without flinching orwavering to the Soviet blockade, frustrated by thelarge-scale airlift inaugurated by ,General LuciusClay. Now East Berlin has given impressive proofthat, although its body may still be under Sov,ietcontrol, its spirit is with the West.

Some day a united Berl,in may be the capital ofa free, united Germany, cleared of the last hatefultraces of Soviet rule. Then the memory of all theBerliners who lost their lives in the struggleagainst Nazi and Communist tyranny will be heldin honor. And, as the prisoners of the June 1953revolt are released, the lines of the Russian poet,Pushkin, addressed to the early Russian martyrsof freedom, the Decabr,is,ti, will apply to them, andto all the 18,000,000 Germans who are still livingin the vast prison of the Soviet zone:

~rhe heavy hanging cha,ins shall fall~rhe walls shall crumble at the word..And freedom greet you with the light.And brothers give you back the sword.

What Treaties Can Lead ToDoes our membership in the United Nations annulin any way the limitations placed by our Constitu­tion on the prerogatives of our Chief Executive?In otheT words, does the fact that we belong to theUnited Nations give our President rights he doesnot have under our Constitution? If it does, whateffect does such a situation have upon our sov­eTeignty as a nation and our liber.ty as individualcitizens? And what effect would our ratification ofthe United Nations Covenant on Human Rightshave upon us?

In an address before a meeting of the LosAngeles Legion Luncheon Club on December 16,1952, Clarence Manion, former Dean of NotreDame Law School, declared:

"Today ... the Bill of Rights is seriously threat­ened with complete destruction, not by a militaryconquest of the United States, but through theprocesses of a well-managed deception upon thepeople of this country engineered by enemies ofAmerican freedom and American independence ...

"Through the influence of our st·ar-gazers we arebeing urged to believe that since the world is notready or willing to adopt our Bill of Rights weshould adopt another which the rest of the worldwill accept.

"We are urged to do this in the interest of worldunity and through the mechanism of multilateralinternational treaties. If any such treaties violateour time-honored Bill of Rights or any other provi­sion of our precious Constitution, then to that ex­tent our Constitution and our Bill of Rights is re-

pealed. Much of our Constitution has already beensuperseded in this way, and the remainder of it isscheduled for repeal by the Senatorial ratificationof tt score of treaties now in process of preparationand. submission to the United States Senate ...

"Our complete transformation from Constitu­tional Government into Statism would be climaxedby the ratification of the so-called Genocide Pactand the United Nations Covenant on Civil andPolitical Rights. Both of these are now in theworks."

Frank E. Holman, Past President of the Ameri­can Bar Association, in an address at Yakima,Washington, on July 10, 1952, observed:

"Prior to the adoption of the United States Con­stitution over 164 years ago (September 17, 1787),never before in the course of history had any gov­ern:ment anywhere been organized on the principlethat the people, as individuals, are endowed bytheir Creator with certain inalienable rights as tolife, liberty, and property, including the right ofloeal self-government, and on the principle thatthese rights are inherent in the people as indivi­duals and are not something that their governmenthas graciously conferred upon them and may there­fore at any time retake from them.

"Theretofore, in the history of the world, govern­ments had granted freedom to the individualciti~~ens and local self-government to the people,only if forced to do so or if the sovereign for thetime being felt so inclined. The previous concept

JULY 27, 1953 765

of the scope and power of a national governmentw'as that it had inherent powers of its own andmight grant or withhold rights to the individualcitizen as it saw fit. Such is the totalitarian theoryof government.

"But by the Americ'an Constitution and Bill ofRights this concept was reversed. Only certainspecific and limited functions and powers were con­ferred upon the officials of our national govern­ment. It was to be 'a government of delegated andlimited powers only, and the people, by the Consti­tution, forbade and intended to forbid the federalgovernment doing anything not authorized by theConstitution, nor permitted under the prohibitionsof the Bill of Rjghts. There w,as no intention thatthe national.government should have a reservoir ofimplied powers to change basic state and individualrights as fixed by the Constitution and' the Bill ofRights or to embark upon a collectivist or a policestate program or a World State Program, eitherthrough federal legislation or through internationaltreaties or otherwise . . .

"Our wise forefathers knew that the mind andspirit could not be controlled and regimented bygovernment or by the officers of government so longas freedom of speech and of press were preserved.Accordingly, the first provision of our Bill ofRights provided that, 'Congress shall make no l,aw. . . abridging freedom of speech or of press' . . .

"But under Article 2 of the proposed UnitedNations Covenant on Human Rights it is providedthat 'in case of a state of emergency officially pro­claimed by the authorities, a state may t'ake meas­ures de'rogating from its obligations' to preservefreedom of speech and of press 'and other freedomswhich under our Bill of Rights are not subject tosuspension. In other words, the whole right offreedom of speech and of press may be suspendedwhen a 'state of emergency' is officially declared bythe authorities in power. Well, we have lived in astate of officially declared emergencies frequentlyduring the last twenty years, and 'are still doing so.If this Covenant on Human Rights is ratified byour Senate, a President, by declaring a 'state ofemergency' as provided in the Covenant, couldclose all the newspapers in the United States, orsuch of those and in such places as he may think itwise to close.

"Look at the scheme the 'treaty makers' in theUnited Nations have for completely socializing ourgovernment and our economy without the Congressor our State Legislatures having anything to sayabout the matter. How do the 'treaty makers' pro­pose to do this? The progr,am is spelled out in theDeclaration on Human 'Rights which, under UnitedNations propaganda, has been celebrated through­out the land as a 'great charter of human liberty.'Article 22 of the Declaration provides that every­one has the right to 'just and favorable conditions ofwork and to protection against unemployment' andthat everyone has the right to 'just and favorable

766 THE FREEMAN

remuneration.' ... Article 24 provides that every­one has 'the right to rest and leisure' and 'periodicholidays with pay.' Article 25 provides that every­one has 'the right to food, clothing, housing andmedical care and necessary social services and the'right to security in the event of unemployment,sickness, disability, widowhood, old age' withoutany provision that he shall work for it or helpestablish a fund to pay for it. Put these or similarpronouncements in treaty form, ratified only by theSenate, and you will by a few pages of 'Treaty Law'transform the government of the United Statesfrom a Republic into a soci'alistic state ...

"The outstanding and most alarming exampleof the effect of 'treaties' on our domestic law andon our own United States Constitution 'and uponthe thinking of our judges is to be found in theOpinion of the Chief Justice of the United Statesin the recent decision dealing with the President'sseizure of private property in the steel case.Lawyers had generally recognized that because ofthe peculiar provisions of Article VI of our Consti­tution ratified treaties of the United States are theSupreme Law of the Land overriding state lawsand constitutions and even existing laws of Con­gress. This of itself constitutes a dangerous threatto American rights which needs corre'ction by ,anappropriate Constitutional amendment. But nowthe Chief Justice of the United States advances theshocking doctrine in his dissent in the steel seizurecase that the United Nations Charter gives thePresident of the United States authority to seizeprivate property nowhere granted to him either bythe Constitution or by the laws of the country ...

"In other words, ,acting under the Charter, thePresident has powers not granted to him by theConstitution but moreover even denied to him bythe Constitution ..•

"The' Chief Justice succeeded in getting twoother members of the Supreme Court to join himin this extraordinary doctrine whereby the UnitedNations CHarter would be superior to the Constitu­tion of the United States. If he could have suc­ceeded in getting two additional members of theSupreme Court to side with him the United Stateswould in effect then and the're have ceased to be anindependent Republic and we would have beencommitted and bound by whatever the UnitedNations does or directs us to do. We would havehad a full-fledged world government overnight, ,andthis is exactly what may happen under so-calle~

'Treaty Law' unless a constitutional amendment ispassed protecting American rights and Americ~n

law and American independence against the effectof United Nations' treaties."

To sum up, no proposed amendment to the Con­stitution has ever been more urgent than theBricker Amendment, which would make it ,clearbeyond debate that treaties cannot impair or super­sede our Constitutional rights.

Our Principal Ally:Superior Air Power

By BONNER FELLERSBrig. Gen. U.S. Army, Ret.

From the maze of conflicting Anglo-American rela­tions an issue of great moment is coming to light.It is this: how can the free world best be defended?

The British propose that the present plan forlarge NATO ground forces be abandoned, andthat we rely principally on air power to defend us.Our State and Defense Department leaders, on theother hand, have rejected any such proposal. Theycontinue to insist on a ground force containmentagainst Red encroachment.

Britain has always been reluctant to go alongwith the N,ATO program for the ground defense ofEurope. A study of the manpower and resources ofNATO, as compared to those of Moscow-dominatedcountries, convinced the British that it is impossi­ble to build an adequate defense of western Europearound a large standing army. As a consequence,in late 1951, the British announced a policy ofnon-participation in the European Defense Army.Soon afterward they placed before top-level Amer­ican officials their new concept for the defense ofthe free world. In late July 1952, Sir Oliver Franks,then British Ambassador in Washington, presenteda carefully prepared Staff Study to our Joint Chiefsof Staff and Department of State representatives.There followed a long and detailed discussion ata conference in Washington attended by repre­sentatives of the two countries.

A Substitute for Containment

The Staff Study, or Appreciation as the Britishcall it, was comprehensive and compelling. Signedby the three ,British Chiefs---General Slim for theArmy, Admiral Mc:Grigor for the Royal Navy, andAir Marshall Slessor for the Royal Air Force-itproposed daringly new and revolutionary defenseconcepts.

The logic of its conclusions was inescapable.After assessing Communist milita'ry might, theBritish contended that the free world is physicallyincapable of containing the vast frontiers of China,Russia, and the European satellites. Instead, theyproposed to substitute for the containment conceptthe use of superior weapons-which the free worldis better able to produce than Russi'a ,and her sat­p.llites. With intercontinental strategic bombers car-

On the b,asis of a careful s,tudy, hithertoun@~bllished, there is no longer any doubtthat air supremacy is our only defense.

rying atomic or hydrogen bombs and backed bydefensive fighter-interceptors, they proposed to off­set the Communist numerical superiority in man­power.

The British study held, moreover, that it was im­possible to r,aise or maintain the NAT'O forcesat present contemplated. The maximum NAT,Ostrength envisaged by the February 1952 LisbonConference was 100 divisions and 9,000 combataircraft. (Even these inadequate strength goalshave since been repudiated.) A surface defense ofwestern Europe, it was argued, even if successful,could not save Europe and America from atomic

. attacks launched by the Red Air Force from Euro­pean and Arctic bases. Nor could a surface defensesucceed unles,s NATO controlled the air over west­ern Europe. Yet, as the British pointed out, theNA'TO powers ·are not even planning to build airsupremacy! Without this, the Red Air Force couldparalyze shipping to the United Kingdom, andcould likewise keep American supplies and rein­forcements from reaching N'AT'O ground forcesfighting in Europe. Deprived of these, Europe couldnot possibly defend herself, even if sufficientground troops were available. The armies wouldhave little to fight with, and Br1itaoin's populationwould face starvation.

Since only air supremacy could avert these dis­asters, the British are now planning to triple theirown bomber strength, with special emphasis onlong-range bombers. They are also building towarda goal of 1,000 first-line fighter,s for the defenseof England. Britain's Army and ,Navy, since theycan neither defend Englandaga1nst air attack noreffectively strike against Russia, have been assignedsecondary roles in the over-all strategy.

Intercontinental Bombers

The essence of the British concept lies in thefull exploitation of air power and atomic or hy­drogen bombs, first as a war deterrent, and secondas the only means of striking at Russia's war po­tential deep in the interior if war is forced upon us.

The British are tremendously impressed with thedeterrent power of America's new intercontinentalbomber-the B-52-armed with atomic or hydrogen

JULY 27. 1953 767

bombs. They agree with our own Air Force chiefsthat Russia cannot defend herself successfullyagainst this kind of attack, despite more than 3,000modern Red fighter-interceptors now assigned tothis mission. (Incidentally, only a few hundredfighter-interceptors are now available for the de­fense of the entire United States, and these are notall modern.) The ,ability of our new high-altitudejet bombers to penetrate air defense systems makesintercontinental bombers our preeminent armagainst Russia. Strategic air power, therefore, insufficient numbers for sustained attack is, accord­ing to the Br1itish, the primary war-winning factor.

The British Staff Study did not directly attackour naval super-carrier program, except to commentthat our carriers are fine if we can afford suchan expensive form of air power when its effective­ness is doubtful. The British consider the role ofthe fleet to be one of safeguarding sea lanes, andnot of providing carrier bases for air attacksagainst enemy land targets and supply centers­which in the case of Russia are often deep in theinterior. ,Carrier-based air support of ground troopsthey ,also regard as undependable and prohibitivein cost. Land-based aircraft are both more effectiveand less costly. The super-carr,ier, in their view, istoo expensive to build and operate, and too vulner­able to enemy air and submarine attack.

British experience with anti-aircraft guns hasshown that they are not very effective at high al­titudes. Britain is therefore reducing the strengthof her anti-aircraft ground units and placing morereliance on guided missiles, and particularly onthose which can be launched from fighter-intercep­tors in flight. These missiles have the ability toseek the target at which they are fired. Their usein fighters, in the place of conventional machine­gun or cannon projectiles, will enormously increasefighter-interceptor effectiveness. .

Unequal Burden of Costs

Of vital concern, both to us and the British, isthe prohibitive cost of maintaining N'ATO armiesunder the present plan. Only the United States­and then only by contributing considerably morethan in the past-could meet the initial and contin­uing costs. But such unequal American contributionscannot be extended indefinitely. Meanwhile, theseexpenditures, plus those for the regular U. S. Armyand N'avy, make it impossible for Americans toshoulder the additional burden of financing andbuilding global air supremacy-of the utmost neces­sity in case of war.

To~ achieve this ,air supremacy will be so costlyan undertaking, and will make such heavy demandson industry, that our currently planned Army andNavy expenditures will have to be reduced. Only

, af,ter this reduction can sufficient funds and indus­trial effort be directed toward the necess,ary in­creased air effort. The employment of the Army

768 THE FREEMAN

and Navy in supporting roles would enable us tocreate air supremacy and at the same time effectmaterial over-all savings.

There was general accord at the conference thaton foreign soil air forces are generally less un­welcome to the local population than are groundforces.

Inanswer to the arguments of the British, Amer­ican military chiefs endorsed air power as thedominant element in war but-except for the AirForce representative-they were not convinced thatstrategic bombing could be decisive. Our Army andNavy representatives made no objection to givingpriority to air power-so long as there was no de­crease of emphasis on the traditional roles of theirrespective services! However, our Army leaders ar­gued that ground troops are less costly than airpower and just as great a w'ar deterrent. (Onerepresentative was actually disturbed lest adoptionof the strategy proposed by Britain would be takenas an indication tha't the views of ex-PresidentHerbert Hoover had prevailed.) Further, thoughAmerican Army leaders ,agreed that a new strategymust be developed eventually, they contended thatthe British might not be up-to-date on the possi­bilities of atomic weapons in ground combat. Inreply, Air Marshal Sle,ssor reminded our representa­tives that Britain had already produced atomic ex­plosions and that her knowledge of the atom wascertainly adequate for planning purposes.

Under Lock and Key

Having failed utterly at the conference to breakdown British arguments, Ameriean military leadershave since kept extremely quiet about British views.They have also continued the antiquated and im­possible NAT,O program of ground defense. Though'our troops would always be hopelessly outnumbered,our chiefs maintain that this numerical inferioritywould be offset by atomic cannon, demolitions, andvarious other new defensive techniques.

While our Joint Chiefs of Staff have placed theBritish proposals under lock and key, the Britishrepresentatives have not considered that their planshould be denied the public. The fact that Britainhopes to continue as a heavy recipient of militaryand financial aid from the United States m,ay havecaused her not to argue publicly after her plan re­ceived our official cold shoulder. But graduallythe principal lines of thought have been disclosedthrough the implementation of the new British de­fense program.

It is certain, however, that the reduction in our1954 Air Force appropriations is a disappointment,to the British. This proposed budget marks. a dis­tinct departure from British defense concepts. TheAir Force cut of $5,OOO,000~OOO could well be adeath blow to hope of global air supremacy for thefree world. The increase in ground force appro­priations, together with Secretary Wilson's strange

and conflicting testimony, discloses our trend towardthe employment of mass armies and universal serv­ice for American youth. As a consequence, we maynow expect increased emphasis on carrier-based air­craft, and more fissionable materials devoted toatomic cannon and other battlefield weapons. It islikely that, more and more, strategic bomber strat­egy will be superimposed on, and tied to, tradi­tional surface strategy.

If Atomic War Comes

These trends are sinister.The Red Air Force .is at this moment capable of

launching a full-scale atomic assault ag,ainst bothEurope and America. It is a grim reality that wehave neither adequate fighter-interceptors to de­fend ourselves against such an attack nor sufficientintercontinental' bombers for sustained attack onRussia's war potential. Present NAT'O plans pro­pose to hold the vast Red Army at hay with nu­merically inferior ground forces, which are depend­ent for support on a NATO air force much tooweak to meet the Red Air Force.

If atomic war comes, the enemy doubtless willstrike first. Our Air Force (or what is left afterthe first enemy attack) must be able to knock outhis ability to strike us immediately after this initialattack; otherwise our Air Force will be rapidlyconsumed. Meanwhile, the enemy Air Force wouldbe free to continue to inflict terrific damage andto destroy our war industries, including our air­craft industry. It would be years before we wouldbe able to create a new ,and effeetive Air Force, ifindeed we ever could.

The Red Army is the most powerful peacetimeground force the world has ever produced. If warcomes, to engage its full weight will lead to ghastlyslaughter and eventual disaster.

Does America dare let the Kremlin add air su­premacy to its obvious advantage in ground forces?

Through force of ,circumstance, the British-morethan we-have had to face the facts and realitiesof modern warfare. They cannot afford the luxuryof pretending that the three main elements of de­fense-air, land, and sea-can each play an equalrole. They are compelled to rely on new conceptsand new weapons rather than on standing armieswhich can never match the Red Army. Althoughtraditionally a sea power, the British have acceptedthe fact that Russia cannot be blockaded and havetherefore drastically curtailed naval expenditures.Their Air Force has become the "first line of de­fense" in the ocean of the sky.

The British, wisely, have given up the effort oftrying to satisfy all their 'generals and admiralsand the loyal alumni of the two original sisterservices. How long can, we in the United Statesafford to base our defense plan and stake our des­tiny on service loyalties rather than on strategicrealities?

II THIS IS WHAT. THEY SAID IIIt can, of course, be argued that Chinese fear ofgerm warfare and American fear of Communistspying represent opposite sides of the same medal.

THE ECONOMIST, London, April 4, 1953

And on my part I ask you very simply to assign tome the task of reducing the annual operating ex­penses of your national government. We must movewith a direct and resolute purpose now. The mem­bers of Congress and I are pledged to immediateeconomy.

FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, Message to Con­gress, March 10, 1933

Anti-Semitism and other forms of racial prejudiceand discrimination have almost entirely disap­peared in Soviet Russia.

CORLISS LAMONT, Soviet Civilization, 1952

There was Menuhin. He used to talk about his artand his God and his fiddle. Then one day when hewas supposed to play in Philly, we told the musi­cians he didn't hold a union card and they walkedout. So now him and his God and his fiddle, they'rein the San Francisco local.

JAMES C. PETRILLO, quoted by the New YorkTimes, June 10, 1953

What Proposal, What Panic?The peace proposal of the People's China and Koreacreated a panic on the New York Stock Exchange.

GLOS PRACY (Warsaw), April 16, 1953, quotedin News from Behind the Iron Curtain.

Handouts UnHmitedvVould we be in "this present crisis" if we had ...given both Britain and Russia five billion each atthe close of the war; if we had presented to Russiafour or five large dams, one of the things they lovemost, with the compliments and gratitude of theAmerican people ... if hundreds of American citie'Shad "adopted" British and Russian devastated citiesof similar size ... if we had invited Russianand native Communists to speak on all college cam­puses ... if we had given UNESCO 300 million ayear instead of a· niggardly three million?

READ BAIN, Professor of Sociology, MiamiUniversity, Ohio, address of April 25, 1951

The Freeman invites contributions to this column, and willpay $2 for each quotation published. If an item is sent in bymor~ than one person, the one from whom it is first receivedwill be paid. To facilitate verification, the sender should givethe title of the periodical or book from which the item istaken, with the exact date if the source is a periodical andthe publication year and page num,ber if it is a book.Quotations should be brief. They can not he returned oracknowledged. THE EDITORS

JULY 27, 1953 769

What's Left of the "Single Tax"?

By GLENN H'OOVER

The movement Henry George began seventy-fiveyears (tgo is describled by a professor of ,sociology.In our next issue the distinguished economis,t, FrankH. K~ight, will present a different .point of view.

The crusade for the "Single Tax," under the lead­ership of Henry George, was probably the mostspectacular crusade in our history. George wasforty years old when his Progress and Poverty waspublished in 1879. Before he died, some eighteenyears later, this im:pecunious, unschooled, and ob­scure printer from San Francisco had become oneof the most noted figures of his age.

His Progress and Poverty had been translatedinto all the important languages of his time, andmillions of copies of it had been sold. He hadlectured to enthusiastic audiences in Australia,New Zealand, and the British Isles, and it is saidthat in England only Gladstone was better known.He had twice been a candidate for mayor of NewYork City, and in his first campaign he receivedmore votes than the young but redoubtable Theo­dore Roosevelt. He died (1897) just before the endof his second campaign, and as his body lay instate in the Grand Central Palace, one hundredthousand mourners filed by his bier, and anotherhundred thousand prayed or meditated outside.

What happened to the Georgist movement? Didit collapse because it dealt with petty or transitoryissues as did the Populists, the Grangers, the FreeSilverites, or the California advocates of "'ThirtyDollars Every Thursday"? Has George's economiclogic been refuted and rejected by professionaleconomists? Is the world no longer interested inland reform? How much of the economic rent ofland is already taken for public purposes by meansof the' general property tax? These and similarquestions must occur to anyone interested in thehistory of reform movements. And they are. ofparticular interest to those who believe. that theearth, together with the waters upon it and the airaround it, are, of right, the common property ofmankind.

The term "Single Tax" as applied to HenryGeorge's program, isa very inadequate descriptionof it. The program was based on the simple propo­sition that land is a free gift of Nature and thatall persons have equal claim to it. However, theearth cannot be equally shared by "dividing it up."What can be shared is not the earth itself, butthe value of it-its economic rent. If landownerswere compelled to pay as a tax the annual va]ue oftheir land, this revenue could be used for publicpurposes. In this way the common right of all to

7'70 THE FREEMAN

the earth would be recognized, and each person'sshare of the annual value of the earth would gointo the public treasury rather than to those whoclaim the· earth as their own. '

Paradoxically enough, Single Taxers are notprimarily interested in taxes at all, not even thetax on land, except as a means of siphoning theeconomic rent of land into the public treasury.Some Single Taxers-though not all-have believedthat the economic rent of land would provide gov­ernments with enough revenue to meet their legit­imate needs. If so, no other taxes need be levied.They therefore called themselves,and were calledby others, "Single Taxers."

It must be evident, however, that whether or notthe annual value of land would provide govern­ments with enough revenue to enable them to abol­ish all other taxes is merely a "fringe" issue. Theright of each to an equal share of the annual valueof the earth does not at all depend on whether thissum would be large enough to support our govern­ments. If it should-which now seems highly im­probable-governments could reduce their debts, oreven declare a "dividend"! If the sum proved in­adequate, governments would of course, have toimpose other taxes, even if the single tax on landwere adopted.

E:thics plus Economics

The notion that, as Jefferson put it, "the earthbelongs in usufruct to the living" is the very coreof the Single Tax doctrine. It is not, strictly speak­ing, an economic notion at all but an ethical one.Nevertheless, it is based on certain economic prem­ises which should be re-examined so that we maysee if they have withstood the ravages of time andthe criticism of economists.

'The economic premises which are per.tinent to theethical claim of the Single Taxers are:

1. The earth is not the product of labor, but afree gift of Nature or of Nature's God.

2. Its value-apart from improvements-iscre­ated by the increase in the population it serves.

3. The supply of land-unlike the products oflabor-cannot be decreased by any tax that can beimposed upon it. For example, windows could be"taxed out of existence," but not land:

4. Taxes imposed on the site value of landcannot

be shifted. When a tax is imposed on a producedgoods, the tax enters into the cost of production andmust be recovered in its price. However, a tax onland values will not decrease the supply of land orincrease the demand for it. Nor will it increase theprice of land, of farm crops, or the rent of urbanproperty.

5. The rent received by landowners is not a pay­ment for any service they render to society.

Doeconomis,ts reject the foregoing premises? Onthe contrary, everyone of them is accepted as trueby economists-almost without exception. They arenot propositions which Henry George, or any ofhis followers, ever claimed as their own. Most ofthem must always have been accepted as true bythinking men. For example, all primitive tribesagree that the portion of the earth over which theyroam as collectors, hunters, or fishermen is thecommon property of all. It was only when agricul­ture was introduced that society recognized anyprivate right to any given part of the commonearth-and then only for such periods as theoriginal claimant cultivated it.

George frankly based his program on the Ricard­ian explanation of rent. He insisted that it had"the self-evident character of a geometric axiom,"and he never professed to add anything to the Ric­ardian analysis. Instead, he confined himself todrawing the ethical conclusion that if, as Ricardodemonstrated, rent is an unearned income whichgrows with the increase in population, then justicerequires that it be devoted to public purposes.

The objections to the Single Tax, as recorded inmost texts on economics, are adequately summa­rized in Economic Principles, Problems, and Pol­icies (fourth edition) by Professor William H.K!iekhofer. He lis,ts all objections under three head­ings-ethic-al, political, and economic. There is firstthe ethical objection that by adopting such a pro­gram society would fail to "keep faith" with thosewho had bought land with the expecta'tion that theland values "created by themselves and theirneighbors" would go to the landowners.

On political grounds, the objection is madethat if adequate public revenue could be raised byappropriating the socially created economic rent,many citizens would lack any incentive to partic­ipate in government. Others argue that a largegroup of landowners is essential to the stability andprogress of political society. On economic groundsthe objection is made that the private appropriationof the economic rent of land is essential in order tosecure "the best care and management of the land."

Professor Kiekhofer does not disclose his ownopinions, and it might not be proper for him to doso in an introductory text. My own view is thatthere is some merit in the objection that the fulleconomic rent should not be taken without somecompens'ation to the landowners. But the notionthat citizens, if relieved from taxation, would haveno interest in their government, is quite unreal-

istic. Problems related to the cold war, Communism,inflation, trade unions, crime, tariffs, education,etc., are of as much public interest as an increase ordecrease in taxes And the notion that a sort of"landed gentry" is essential to the stability of so­ciety in this urban age borders on the fantastic.

Em.otional Appeal Lacking

As a crusade, the Single Tax movement did notlong survive the death of its leader. Without HenryGeorge's unusual abilities as an orator and awriter, the movement could make but little emotion­al appeal to the masses, and those who respond toappeals to reason are seldom the stuff of whichcrusades are made. Even those who favored thepublic appropriation of the economic rent shiedaway from the movement because it had attractedso many eccentric5 who persisted in presentingGeorge's program ,as a panacea. Thoughtful menwill hesitate to identify themselves with even themost sensible program if they find it is being of­fered to the public as a miracle-working cure-all.

Most American farmers who owned their farmswould not support the program because they wereinterested in profiting from a rise in land values.They reacted to it more as l,and speculators thanas land-hungry peasants, and showed little interestin sharing equally the value of God's footstool. Thegrain farmers of the Middle West joined theGranger movement and tried to obtain lower freightrates for wheat and corn. Those farmers who hadmortgaged their farms reacted primarily as debtorsand supported the Greenback Party, the Populists,or followed Bryan in his efforts to obtain "cheapmoney" with which they hoped to payoff theirdebts. George, as he himself put it, "stood formen," but most of the agrarians preferred someonewho stood more specifically for farmers.

The industrial workers, although often warmedby George's eloquence, proved to be more interestedin improving their lot as wage earners than inassuring to each man his equal share in the sociallycreated v,alue of land. They preferred to organizethemselves into unions. Having learned that, withthe monopoly power thus obtained, they could exacthigher wages than they could get by selling theirservices in a free m'arket, they were not muchinterested in economic justice. Thenceforth theyshowed but little interest in proposals for improve­ing the lot of the entire "working class," and theywere even less attracted to any movement seekingjustice for all m,ankind.

The Single Tax movement, once a crusade, hasnow sobered up and settled down to the more prosa­ic but fruitful task of adult education. There isno Single Tax Party, no national organization, andno hierarchy empowered to expel heretics who de­part from the orthodox faith. Single Taxers arepronounced individualists, and any man may claimto be a Bingle Taxer or a Georgist-and any other

JULY 27, 1958 7,71

man may just as vehemently deny this claim!One of the more stable organizations is the

Robert Schalkenbach Foundation (New York)which publishes and circulates Georgist literature,both in English and in foreign languages. It alsogives financial support to the American Journal ofEconomics and Sociology, and is now awardinggrants-in-aid to graduate students who are doingresearch in some phase of the land problem.

Another organization, now in its twenty-thirdyear, is the Henry George School of Social Science,which publishes the Henry George News and offersclass instruction in fundamental economics in itsbranches in many of the leading cities throughoutthe United States and Canada. The effort concen­trated on these schools is further evidence thatthe advocates of land-value taxation have definitelyabandoned the more spectacular political cam­paigns for various "single tax" measures, and areresting. their hopes on the slower processes of ed­ucation.

Single Taxers are also supporting every effortto have personal property and improvements ex­empted from taxation. This normally results inincreasing the share of local revenue derived fromtaxes on the site value of land. Taxes on personalproperty, both tangible and intangible, are alreadyin such disrepute that they have been abandoned inmany places, and are levied at lower rates in others.

Single Taxers have also consistently opposed thelevying of taxes on improvements because suchtaxes obviously discourage the construction ofbuildings and the proper maintenance of them.These efforts are having results, as is shown by therecent action of the State of Pennsylvania in per­mitting all third-class cities to tax improvementsat lower rates than those imposed on land. Thisprivilege had previously been accorded only to thetwo second-class cities of Pittsburgh and Scranton.

Sales Tax Opposed

Single Taxers are also entitled to considerablecredit for opposing any additional use of the salestax device by state and local governments. Ascompared with the tax on self-assessed incomes, asales tax is easy to collect, and those who pay itneed not devote two or three week ends each yearto the baffling and wearying task of computingtheir sales tax liability. For example, taxes on thesale of gasoline would be much less popular if eachauto owner had to report the number of gallons hehad purchased in the preceding tax period andthen make the required payment-whether at onceor in four equal installments!

Each man pays his sales tax when he buys, andhe gets some comfort from believing that everyother man does the same. This is not true of taxeson income. Insofar as they are based on self-assess­ment, a premium is placed on dishonesty. An in­come tax payer must be naive indeed if he can be-

772 THE FREEMAN

lieve that all who are in the same boat with himare paying the same tax. But the simplicity andeven-handed justice of sales taxes should not blindus to the fact that they are regressive in character ~

If that illogical celebrity-the man-in-the-street­could only think straight, he would not argue thattaxes should be levied in accordance with ability topay, and at the same time defend taxes on sales.Single Taxers do not so argue.

An increased use of taxes on sales and income bystate and local governments does not always resultin lowering the taxes on the site value of land. Butin some regions it has meant just that. Landownersare frequently the most vociferous and influentialof all taxpayers, and they favor the shifting of localgovernment costs to the state governments. Thelocal governments derive much of their revenuefrom taxes on land, while state governments derivemost of their revenue from taxes paid-directly orindirectlY-'by the landless. If landowners canpersuade the states, or the national government, tobear an increased share of the cost of supportingschools, building and maintaining roads and streets,caring for the poor, etc., they can keep more oftheir rents while the landless will pay more taxes.This program has been aptly described as "SingleTax in revers,e."

But the landowners themselves seldom haveenough votes to make "thegreat tax shift" fromland to sales and income. To gain their ends theyhave encouraged their neighbors to believe that itwould be well to transfer more and more of thecosts of local government to the states-or betteryet to the national government. Many of thosewithout land-or any understanding of economics---:have been easily seduced by the arguments ofthe landowners. Why should they pay for the sup­port of the traditional functions of local govern­ments if they can get their state or the nationalgovernment to support them? The argument issimple and the simpletons who are persuaded byit may get what they deserve; but the landownersget what they do not deserve-additional revenuefrom the socially created value of land~

If the term "Single Tax" is used to include aUof Henry George's economic notions, then the "truebelievers" are not very numerous. He was con­vinced that "in spite of the incre,ase of productivepower, wages constantly tend to a minimum whichwill give but a bare living." Both George and hiscontemporary, Karl Marx, predicted that realwages would never rise appreciably unless theirreforms were adopted. In their abilities to foretellthe future, time has proved both of them to be, atbest, but very minor prophets.

It must be admitted too that George's attack onMaUhus and his unconvincing explanation of therate of interest have added nothing to his reputa­tion among modern scholars. But his notions onthese matters are almost quite irrelevant to theprogram which he advocated-the socialization of

the economic rent of land. Men can, and do, sup­port this program while disagreeing violently onsuch questions as the inevitability of poverty· orthe merits of the Malthusian doctrine. The impor­tant thing is that the economic principles on whichGeorge's program is based have won general accept­ance. The opposition to his program is based almostexclusively on ethical grounds, and on this issuereasonable men may reasonably differ.

Space limitations make it impossible to discussthe Single Tax movement in foreign countries.Suffice it to say that in Australia, New Zealand,South Africa, and particularly in Denmark, theadvocates of land value taxation are very active.At the local level they have made considerableprogress toward exempting personal property andimprovements from taxation. In Britain no tangibleresults have yet been achieved in the field of legis­lation, but London is the center of a very effectiveeducational campaign, and Land and Liberty is awell edited London journal which serves the SingleTax movement throughout the world.

And finally, a word of caution. No one, to myknowledge, has any authority to speak for all whocall themselves Single Taxers, and certainly I donot presume to do so. I do not even enjoy beingcalled one, unless the term is limited to mean onewho believes in the governmental appropriation ofthe socially created value of land-with or withoutsome compensation to its present owners. As webecome more disillusioned with our existing taxeson personal property, improvements, sales, and in­come, it seems probable that much more of theeconomic rent of land will be taken for publicpurposes.

That reform may prove to be the only enduringlegacy of the Single Tax movement. It will notsatisfy those who yearn for utopia, but the prac­tical idealists throughout the world who are work­ing for it will be content. To have the earth recog­nized as the common heritage of mankind-rich andpoor alike-would show the skeptics that the self­ishness of individuals and of classes cannot foreverprevail against appeals to reason and justice.

Our Pink-Tinted ClergyBy JULIAN MAXWELL

In their Isponsorship (Of Comm1tnist causes ja growingnumber of pur churchmen are furthering the aim ofa secret core in their m,idst to destroy' religion.

It was a rainy Sunday morning in Brooklyn. Istepped out of the protective cover of the subwayand turned left, down Montague Street. Ahead ofme was the Holy Trinity Church, its spire partlyobscured by the mist. I was on my way to its Sun­day morning service conducted by the ReverendWilliam Howard Melish, formerly Chairman of theNational Council of American-8ovietFrienrlshipand, according to Louis Budenz, a card-carryingmember of the Communist Party.

An elderly woman smiled as I walked throughthe large paneled door and handed me a smallpamphlet outlining the service and giving churchnews. The sermon was entitled, "Though One RoseFrom the Dead."

The organ began to play, and Mr. Melish, asandy-haired man with close-set eyes and rimlessglassels, appeared dressed in an ornate white robe.After the first hymn, "Fairest Lord Jesus," hebegan his sermon, in the mechanical yet full­throated tones of an uninspired actor. He told thestory of Lazarus, the poor beggar who got intoheaven, and of Dives, the rich man who didn't. "Ifmore people in this world would worry les,s abouttheir money and more about sharing it, it wouldbe a better world," he said. As he spoke my eyes,

fixed on the gleaming communion altar, moved tothe ' great chancery window where the ascension ofChrist was pictured in vivid colors, then traveledslowly up the gothic arches to the high-vaultedclerestory. Was it really possible, I asked myself,that all this was only so much stone and glass­a new front for' Communism?

This question has troubled congregations in agood many churches in recent years. Mr. Melish i,sonly one of a number of clergymen who are accusedeither of being out-and-out Communists or of tak­ing part in pro~Communist activities. In the NewYork area alone there are at least a dozen Red orpink-tinted clergymen. These include the ReverendJ. Henry Carpenter of Brooklyn, who was recentlyrefused a passport by the 8tate Department, theReverend 'George A. Buttrick of the PresbyterianChurch on Madi,son Avenue, the Reverend AllanKnight Chalmers of the Broadway Tabernacle Con­gregational Church, the Reverend Jack R.McMichael, Director of the Methodist Federationfor Social Action, the Reverend MarkA. ,Dawber,Secretary of the Home Missions Council, and Dr.Harry F. Ward, Professor Emeritus of ChristianEthics at Union Theological Seminary.

Just about two months ago Dr. Ward was the

JULY 27, 1953 773

honor 'guest at a "peace and friendship" dinner atthe Hotel Mc,Alpin. in N'ew York. Nearly fourhundred per,sqns attended. Dr. Ward was beinghonored for his "signal contribution to the causeof American-Soviet understanding and worldpeace." 'The featured speakers included Paul Robe­son, Corliss Lamont, and that millionaire championof Red China, Frederick Vanderbilt Field. Thespeeches, of course, sang the praises of Russia anddamned the "warmongering" of the United States.

Of the above-mentioned clergymen, McMichaelis probably the most powerful. His Social Federa­tion, which has been labeled subversive by theHouse Committee on Un-American Activities,claims to represent twenty Methodist bishops andsome four thousand clerics. McMichael himself, whohas been associated with more than twenty Redfront organizations, is a dynamic and personableman who runs his outfit like a high-powered publicrelations firm. From his offices in the official Meth­odist building on Fifth Avenue, which he occupiesdespite strenuous church opposition, he dissemin­ates a veritable flood of pro-Communist propaganda.

Surprising Frankness

Of the several other Red-front religious groups,Harry Ward's Methodist-iEpiscopal Federation andthe 'Institute of Applied Religion are probably thebest known. The head of the Institute, the ,ReverendClaude C. Williams of ,Detroit, undoubtedly hasprovided us with the frankest statement on recordof a Red churchman's philosophy. "Denomination­ally," said Williams not long ago, "I am a Pres­byterian; religiously a Unitarian; and politically,I'm a Communist. I'm not preaching to make peoplegood or anything of the 'Sort. I'm in the churchbecause I can reach people easier that way and getthem organized for Communism."

However, the party probably gets its greatestsupport from clergymen actually working insidechurches or official church organizations, writingand editing articles for the church magazines, andmaking important policy decisions. For instance,Dr. Ward had a direct hand in writing the SocialCreed for the churches of the National Council-acreed which advocates "social planning and controlof the credit and monetary systems and the eco­nomic processes for the common good."

The articles that sometimes pop up in the churchmagazines are surprising. For example, an articlein the Methodist publication, Adult Student, forApril 1950, contained the following strange descrip­tion of our economic system: "Our chief rulers are'the descendants (and their satellites) of the houseof Morgan (the head of the world's greatest com­bination of finance), the Rockefellers (head of theworld's greatest oil supply), the Mellons (alumi­num and oil), the Du Ponts (chemical products andallied industries), and the Ford Empire."

Another piece in the January-March issue of

774 TH:E1 FREEMAN

Crossroads, a Presbyterian Sunday School quar­terly,' discussed the position of the working man:"As the world became more industrialized socialproblems became more complicated and acute. Withinsufficient protection by law industrial workers­including children-endured severe privation andwere often unscrupulously exploited. In the midstof this situation a prophetic voice was heard-avoice that was to be heard yet more loudly in theyears to come. It was the Voice of Karl Marx... "

In Praise of Stalin

The Reverend Jerome Davis, a former professorat the Yale Divinity School, often expresses thepro-Communist clergyman's opinion of foreignaffairs. In the July 1947 issue of Classmate, aMethodist publication, he sang the praises of oneJoseph Stalin. "It would be an error," said Davis,"to consider the Soviet leader a wilful man whobelieves in forcing his ideas upon others. Every­thing he does reflects the desires and hopes of themasses to a large degree."

In his recently published book, Behint$ SovietPower, Davis made some interesting comments onreligion and Communism. He wrote:

Bolshevism is commonly pictured as the antithesisof Christianity. Yet Hewlett Johnson, Dean .... ofCanterbury [the Red Dean] declares, "the Commun­ist puts the Christian to shame in the thoroughnessof his quest for a harmonious society. Here heproves himself to be the heir of the Christian inten­tion ... the Communist struggle for community con­tains an element of true religion and as >such de­mands Christian recognition." The former UnitedStates Ambassador to Russia, Joseph E. Davies,says, "the Christian religion could be imposed uponRussian Communism without violating the 'economicand political purposes of Communism, which arebased after all on the .same principle of the; brother­hood of man which Jesus preached."This paragraph explains the essence of the· fal­

lacious reasoning which often leads some of ourmuddleheaded ministers into the ranks of Com­munism. Forgetting that Communism presupposesatheism and amorality, they take the bait labeledSocial Welfare which the Reds dangle so enticinglybefore them and are hooked in short order. Thisbasic naivete of outlook crops up continually in thepersonality of the pink-tinted clergyman-he fol­lows the track of Communism but never managesto catch up with the vehicle; and if he ever doescatch up with it, he is crushed under its wheels.

Methodist BishopG. Bromley Oxnam of Mary­land is typical of this g,roup. A former. presidentof the National Council of Churches,which claimsto speak for 35,000,000 Americans, and currentpresident of the World Council of Churches, hestands at the top of the clerical "world. Yet he iscompletely oblivious to the Communist threat tothat world. He has visited Rus'sia three times andhe often expresses sympathy for Red doctrines. Hedenies he is a Communist, but his sayings have a

peculiar ring, like the statement he once madeabout basic Marxist theory: "From each accordingto his ability to each according to his need has itsroots in the teachings of Jesus."

Another clergyman whose frock is probably adarker Red is the Reverend Stephen H. Fritchmanof Los Angeles. Tagged by many as the "Red IDeanof America," he worked for years putting out pro­Communist propaganda in the Christian Register,a Presbyterian publication. Eventually churchofficials forced him out of his job, along with hisassistant, Martha Fletcher, who fled to Paris whereher lawyers advised her to stay if she wanted tokeep out of jail. But the officials couldn't stopFritchman from finding a new pulpit, and he istoday pastor of one of the largest Unitarianchurches on the West Coast.

In general it is extremely difficult to force sus­pected ministers out of their jobs and preventthem from getting new ones. 'Thi!s is partly due tothe complex structure of most church regulationsand partly because of the traditional respect 'ac­corded a "man of the cloth." The case of theReverend Melish in Brooklyn is an example. Whenmembers of his Episcopal .congregation found outabout his connections with Red-f.ront organizations,a group got together and demanded he be removed.At the time he was serving as assistant rector tohis father, the Reverend J. Howard Melish, at theHoly Trinity Church. The father refused to removehis son, and the younger Melish vehemently deniedhe wasra Communist.

Irate;churchgoers immediately brought pressureto bear 'on the Vestry, and it voted to request thefather'sremoval so that hi,s son could be forced outof the church. Bishop James Pernette Wolf re­moved Melish senior as re,quested, but in the mean­time a new Vestry had been elected and had decidednot to request the removal of his son. Under churchregulations, Wolf was powerles,s to act without ago-ahead from the Vestry and, as a result, youngMelish stepped into his father's place as actingrector, a position he still holds. Melish seniorfought his case for reinstatement up to the UnitedStates ,supreme Court without success.

How~ver, the greatest threat to the churchestoday does not come from fellow-travelers or evensuspected ICommunists. 'They are out in the open.Most of their affiliations or pinkish leanings areknown, and it is possible to be on guard. The real

, danger comes from the dyed-in-the-wool Reds inthe clergy whose names are known to none perhapsexcept 'the ., most inner Party councils. ThoroughlyGodless,and·specially trained for their task, theyhave none of the worries of their more scrupulousand foggy-headed sympathizers. 'They do not 'haveto reconcile Communism with faith or build elab­orate rationalizations to explain Communism's lackof Christian morality. They see the Communistgoal clearly, which is the total obliteration ofreligion from the face of the earth, and they act

with concentrated purpose to achieve this end.The Communists began to infiltrate the clergy

in Russia shortly -after the revolution. Their aimwas to kill two birds with one stone. First, theywanted to hear confessions of compatriots suspectedof defection and get evidence to send them toSiberia. Second, they hoped to use their positionsinside the church to influence laymen and otherclergymen to support Communism, in the long runundermining the whole structure of organizedreligion.

A similar program was begun in the UnitedState,s in the early 1930s. Earl Browder, formerboss of the party, defined the purpose of the pro­gram. "By going to the religious masses," he said,"we are for the first time able to bring our anti­religious ideas to them." To serve this goal severalReds were Ispecifically trained for subversive serv­ice in the clergy. Later on, rank-and-file party mem­bers were ordered to join churches and formorganizations Which would attract fellow-travelerswith religious interests. Herbert Philbrick, whojoined the party to work for the FBI, gives thefollowing account of his own experience:

"In 1942 I was ordered by the party to maintainstrong ties with the Baptist Church, the denomina­tion with which I had been affiliated since earlyyouth. I did this, joining the First Baptist Churchof Wakefield, Massachusetts, becoming a memberof the administration committee, chairman of thepublic relations committee, 'Sunday iSchool teacher,and head of the young married people's club. Noneof thechurch members had any knowledge of myaffiliation with the Communist Party."

Philbrick recently told a congressional commit­tee in W,ashington the names of five ministers inand around Boston who are Communist Partymembers but whose connections are still completelyunknown to members of their cong,regations.

A Natural Sanctuary

At first the Red infiltration of religion was animportant but secondary maneuver. Before WorldWar Two the main Communist effort was directedtoward labor. The Reds were interested in convert­ing workers to the cause and installing Reds inkey jobs in unions. After 1945, however, cold wartension began to mount and Communist labor or­ganjzers and other members of the movement wererorced to take to the underground. In a search fora new mask for their activities, they turned auto­matically to the church. It was a natural sanctuary.The Red hunters might scour the country, the Redsthought, but surely they would not invade thesacred confines of religion. The Communists beganplanning a new campaign.

It was not long in coming. The names of min­isters soon began to appear by the hundreds on theStockholm Appeal and other Moscow-inspired pe­ti tions calling for "peace." Later on, ministers

JULY 27, 1953 775

were to provide the greatest bulk of support forthe appeal to save the Rosenbergsand their namesalso were to turn up on germ warfare chargesagainst the allies in Korea. There was the famousletter from Dryden L. Phelps, American Bapti,stMissionary in Chengtu, Saechwen, China. SaidPhelps: "N'inety-five per cent of the U.S. press onthe Far East is absolutely false. Believe the op­posite and you will be close to the facts. The SouthKorean government first attacked North Korea. Itseems that only Soviet Russia Today [a pro-Redmagazine to which the letter was addressed] andHarry Ward's Social Action bulletin of the M. E.Federation are about the only trustworthy papersin the U.,s. now."

Not all the ministers who serve Communism areReds or pink-tinted. A large number -are actuallytricked into giving their names to support Com­munist causes. For example, last Christmas theReds sent out copies of a petition to President Tru­man from the mailing address of a fictitious minis­ter in N'ew York. The petition began: "As theChristmas season approaches, its message of God'sgrace to all men of good will rings out...." Itcontinued in this vein for several paragraphs andfinally at the very bottom turned into an appeal tothe President to grant amnesty to the eleven Com­munist leaders convicted of plotting to overthrowthe government. Many a clergyman, overflowingwith Yuletide spirit, signed the petition withoutreading down to the vital paragraphs. The DailyWorker quoted the names of 161 prominent church­men as appearing on the petitions, which weremailed to the White House.

Only a few months ago, one hundred ministersattended a conference in Washington only to dis­cover too late that the main speaker was the Legis­lative Secretary of the Communist Party. The Redspulled a ,similar trick in New York in January.The National Committee to Defend Negro Leader­ship invited several clergymen to attend a dinnerwhere awards were to be passed out to Negro menand women who had contributed to the fight for"democracy." As it turned out, the fighters fordemocracy were Communists, and the after-dinnerspeechmaking period was devoted to a long diatribeagainst America by Red leaders.

'The problem of investigating Communist infiltra­tion and influence in the churches presents manydifficulties. In the first place, New Deal and con­servative factions of the Protestant movement havebeen involved in a political ,civil war for the pastten years, which has tended to obscure the realdanger· in clouds of propaganda. Second, there isthe dilemma of ultimate faith to be considered.The vast majority of our churchmen are loyal,God-fearing men. If an investigation of suspectedReds were undertaken in -a mood of hysteria, itwould undermine the very religious beliefs we aretry,ing· to preserve.

However, something must be done: Recently a

776 THE FREEMAN

secret operative inside the Communist Partyre­ported that orders had been received for anewstep-up in efforts to takeover religion in thiscountry. So we must follow the advice ·of John, inthe .New Testament, "Beloved, believe not everyspirit, but try the spirits which they are of God :because many false prophets are gone out intothe world."

The Wonderful World of BooksOn May 1, two persons who identified themselves asEdward J. Fitzgerald and Harry Magdoff, testifiedunder oath ata public session of the Senate's In­ternal Security Subcommittee'. It was a routine per­formance, except that these two seemed rather moreimportant than the usual run. They had ente'red thegovernment in 1936 or '3'7, and left in 1947. TheNational Research Project, under David Weintraub,had funneled them into the broad goveTnment ap­paratus. After gathering their honey from a vari­ety of wartime agencies, they had shifted into the

, Department of Commerce where, at the time oftheir leave-taking, ;they were flexibly located at the$10,000 level.

They were both, so they testified, economists,· andindeed they were marvelously placed for the exer­cise of an economic sort of talent. During the war,for example, one was in charge of a continuoussurvey of ten thousand metal working. plants. Bothwere apparently demons at devising census andstatistical projects covering key sections of Ameri­can industry.

In the standard formula, the two witnesses de­clined to answer all questions relating to Commu­nism, Communists, espionage, classified documents,and a long list of individuals. (In a 1945 swornmemorandum, secret but available to their govern­mental superiors, both had been identified as mem­bers of a Soviet espionage ring.)

Mr. Magdoff declined to answer, also, all ques­tions dealing with his current business. Mr. Fitz­gerald was, on this point, more open. He confessedthat he was a "free lance writer." His main genreis, it seems, book reviews, particularly published.he testified, in the book sections of the New YorkTimes and Herald Tribune, and the Saturday Re­view. In these hospitable organs-together consti­tuting the principal screening membrane for thebooks that filter through to· the American public­he has done well for one whose active acquaintancewith the delights of literature began so short awhile ago. According to the testimony, during thefirst four months of this year 53 reviews of his(some signed by such other names as "MartinRice") appeared in the Saturday Review alone,thirty-odd in the Herald Tribune, and six to twelvein the more austere atmosphere of the· Times.

JAMES BURNHAM

Two Sides toa Strike

By LEO WOLMANThe recent Southern California Edison strikeshow.s how a c,onjlict of .ri.ghts can be settledjustly land without government intervention.

The voluminous and ever-growing literature on thelabor problem, org'anized labor, labor relations, andcollective bargaining has very little that is useful tosay about strikes, the leading weapon of union laborin its succession of conflicts with employers. Dis­cussionsof the right to strike rarely deal with theissues that cause strikes, the methods by whichthey are called, and the manner in which they areconducted.

Neither during nor after the two great steelstrikes of 1949 and 1952 was any investigationmade by responsible public agencies of 'the degreeto which these costly stoppages reflected the willof the. members of the steel union. N'othing avail­able in the extensive writing on this subject de­scribes authoritatively the union's adminis,trativemachinery which prepared the way for the strikes,made the decisions to call them, and decided whenand how they were to terminate. Although thePresident's emergency board of 1949 dealt brieflyand critically with the failure of the union to bar­gain with large segments of the steel industry, thematter was promptly dropped, and no report wasever made of the consequences of the union'sunwillingness to exhaust the processes of collec­tive bargaining before engaging in industrialwarfare.

Yet all of these questions are matters of deeppublic concern. Accurate knowledge of them wouldseem to be indispensable to Congress in makingpublic policy and drafting federal labor legisla­tion. They are surely not answered by reiteratingthat there is an inalienableright to strike and topicket and that denial of these rights, however andfor what purpose they are exercised, is a clearviolation of American law.

Protection of Citizens

For, as everyone knows, there are many rights,some superior to others. When these numerousrights come into conflict with one another, it is thefunction of public policy to decide which gives way.Certainly no one would claim that the right toorganize and to act and bargain collectively wipesout all other rights, though many behave today asif this were so. It cannot, however, have been theintent of Congress, in drafting the Wagner Act,or the Taft~HartleyAct,to sacrifice the right of allcitizens to protection aga'inst violence, force, and

intimidation, to require employers to enter intocompulsory membership arrangements with unions,or to subordinate the public to any private interest.

What these issues mean in practice, and howthey can be disposed of in such a way as to clarifythe goals of public policy, is illustrated by thehis,tory of a strike against the Southern CaliforniaEdison Company, called las,t March by a local unionof the A.F .L. Electrical Workers' Union. The strikelasted two months. In its course, the company,thanks to the loyalty of many of its employees andthe courage and competence of its management,continued to supply electrical service to its cus­tomers. The company's position, explained in aseries of public statements during the strike, andthe terms of settlement show how'a conflict of thisna'ture raises most of the ques1tions of public policywhich again and again plague Congress in itsefforts to write and rewrite our federal labor law.If 'Congress S'tudied the events of this encounter,it would see more clearly than ever before whatkind of labor legislation this country really needsin order to secure the legitimate interes'ts of thepublic and of labor, union or non-union.

A Public ·Disaster Averted

ISouthern California Edison fought, first of all,against the power and right of a private organiza­tion to shut down a vi·tal public service. The areaserved by the company includes some 3,000,000people. Every type of economic life and activity­farming, industry, public and social services-isrepresented. If the union had been successful inits purpose to cut off the supply of electricity, theeffects would have been devastating. As the com­panyput it: "If the officials of Local 47 of IBEW­A.F.L. had the power to cause a major disaster suchas an earthquake in this territory ... and theyexercised that power, such a condition could neitherbe tolerated nor condoned. Yet we are today con­fronted with a strike which could cause damagefar in excess of any damage from all the earth­quakes which we have experienced in our historyin this are'a . . ."

In this, as in most labor disputes, there wasoriginally nothing in the union"s demands thatcould not have been accommodated by peaceful andreasonable negotiation. The union must have knownthat i,ts wage demands were unreasonable, for they

JULY 27, 1953 '.1'11

were far in excess of concessions the company hadalready made to a C.I.O. union of its employees.The second major demand, for a union shop, orcompulsory membership, was nothing more thana demand for more power by a private organizationwhich showed by its behavior that it had greaterpower than it could safely be entrusted with.

'There is every evidence in this episode that theunion's demands were not economic, but political­a condition which has become increasingly commonto all relations between organized labor and em­ployers in this country. When, therefore, colleC'tivebargaining is turned into a process in which theprestige of one labor leader, national or local, i,spitted against the prestige of a fellow-leader, theoutlook for harmonious and sound labor settle­ments becomes dark indeed.

The Right Not to Join a Union

On the issue of compulsory membership the com­pany remained adamant from beginning to end,and it won its point, as it should have. CaliforniaEdison consistently held that it had nei,ther thelegal nor the moral right to force anyone into aunion. By taking this posiUon, the company hasshown more strength and foresight than ourfederal government. For in the Wagner and Taft­Hartley Acts, as well as in the recently amendedRailway Labor AC't, Congress yielded to unionpolitical pressure and conferred governmental sanc­tion on union demands for compulsory membership.By doing so the Congress for all prac,tical purposesnullified the fundamental objective of both theWagner and Taft-Hartley Acts, which was tosecure to individuals the right of self-organization,that is, the right to determine, freely and withoutcoercion, whether to join or refrain from joininga union. Thus, Congres,s first granted a workmanan indispensable right and then took it away. Tothis surrender, the Edison Company refused to bea party.

As in the great majority of strikes, this strikealso was featured by violence, including dynamit­ing, and by what in the long run has proved to bemost damaging to peaceful labor relations, persis­tent efforts of the leader.s of the unions to blaC'kenthe reputation of the company and to destroy em­ployees' loyalty to it. Anyone familiar with theevolution, of union behavior in the past twentyyears knows how harmful to good relations betweenemployers and employees the policy of driving awedge between management and labor has been.It is by all odds the foremost of all of the problemsassociated with the growth of organized labor, andpersisting in it is bound to injure the interests ofboth workingmen and business.

The seriousnes's of this problem was recognizedby the company. A letter from the company toemployees .on April 3 says: "Through the year.s,the leaders of the [union] have been indoctrinating

778', THE FREEMAN

their members with the idea that loyalty to theunion in many respects prevents loyalty to thecompany; that as a member [of the union] youowe everything to the union and nothing to thecompany except that which the union leadershipapproves and dictates with reference to your per­formance on the job." Accordingly, the agreementof May 11, which settled the strike, states that itis the obligation of members of the union to pre­serve "the good name and good will and the. prop­erty of the company" and "to cooperate and assistin the performance of the duty and obligation ofthe company to the public."

On the surface this strike against the EdisonCompany seems indistinguishable from the numer­ous outbreaks of labor warfare to which all Ameri­can industry is today exposed. But, in fact, thiss'trike and the way it was handled by the com­pany's management were unique in the recenthistory of this type of episode. There was, first,the refusal by the company to evade the issueswhich the strike, in its origin and conduct, created.The company might, as many enterprises havedone, have compromised the issues and brought theconflict to a· quick end. It refused to pay the priceof surrendering underlying principles of humanconduct and piling up grea'ter trouble in the futurefor the vast community it serves, the welf'are ofits employees, and its own prosperity. The strikewas unique, also, in that it was settled withoutgovernment intervention, which, allowed to oper­ate here as it has elsewhere, would have producedthe typical political settlement, full of potentialdisorder calculated to break out as soon as themen returned to work.

III-__W_O_R_T_H_H_EA_R_I_N_G_A_G_AI_N__IIThe Workers Decided

The most gratifying thing, to me' at least, thatgrew out of the recent election in November wasthe forthright attitude expressed, or implied, byA.merican working men and women. . .. They letit be known, in no uncertain terms, that they pre­ferred a free economy to a controlled economy.They turned their backs upon paternalism, regi­mentation, and spe:cial privilege. They also madeit clear that they favored a "Uve-and-Iet-live" pol­icy for business, along with a decent respect for"the profit-moti've in business. Obviously, it was notAmerioan business or American managementwhich decided the recent election.... It was therank and file of American workers who,with theAmerican farmers, decided that it was "time for achange."

BENJAMIN H. NAMM, in a speech before theRichmond Retail Merchants Association, Rich­mond, Va., February 26, 1953

Men's Magazines.

By ALLEN CHURCHILLMagazines exclusively for the America·n male nowhave a circulation of eleven million, but are slante,d inlarge part to the mentality of a "delayed adolescent."

Not long ago, 'an English author lecturing herehad to sprint for a train, and left the books hewas reading behind in the taxi. Faced with a longride at the mercy of the nation's newsstands, hedetermined to make the most of it, and reportedone of his conclusions at the end.

"You know," he said, "there are no m'agazinesfor men."

Hearing this, friends in the business reactedviolently. Men's magazines, they pointed out, arethe high-power trend in publishing today. Wherefour yearis ago there were only Esquire, Argosy,and True, there ,are now more than thirty, withnames like Man's, Cavalier, Real, Sir, and His.Together,' with the three pioneers, they add up toan aggregate monthly circulation of eleven million.

To all of which the Englishman had a readyanswer. "They're not magazines for men," hestated flatly. "They're for grown-up boys."

Anyone examining the more-than-thirty maga­zines put out to catch the male eye can't help think­ing that the foreign visitor had something. Circu­lation leaders in the field are True (2,000,000)and Argosy (1,500,000). In recent is,sues these twofeatured such articles as "How I Won the MexicanRoad Race," "The ,Mob Said They'd Kill Me," "IJumped into a erownfire," and "The StrangestHunt of My Life." A smaller competitor, Man's,boasted "I Ate a Man." It seems to be a sad fact-anyone picking up a mass-circul'ation men's mag­azine today would do just about as well with Boy'sLife.

This despite the fact that of the more than 70,­000,000 males in this country, some 50,000,000 areover forty and presumably have outgrown anylingering youth. Further, a good percent'age ofAmerican males have attended college and shouldbe willing, if not eager, to entertain maturethoughts. But from men's magazines it would ap­pear that all today's man wants to do about life isescape from it. In male-magazine pagels you neverfind what editorial offices call a "think" piece. In­stead, you are more likely to find articles beginninglike this: "As long as Julius stuck to the kind ofpanthers that make good eating for a man, he wasall right. But when he let himself be deviled intogoing after that skinny one.... "

Despite the numerous competitors that havesprung up in their wake, Esquire, True, and Argosyremain the most successful magazines in the field.

(Esquire's 800,000 circulation is presumably "bet­ter," because the magazine costs fifty cents, ortwice as much as the others.) Naturally each has anoffice-conception of its average reader, from whichit should be possible to decide whether the fellowthe magazines are aiming 'at is a real man.

The Typical Fan

Esquire considers its average reader a man ofnot more than thirty-eight. He is an executive withan income of $8-10,000, a home owner, collegegraduate, and club joiner. So far, so good, butwhat of his opinions? Esquire doesn't care. Moreimportant is the fact that he buys the best liquorand clothes in town.

True visualizes an equally shadowy male. Itseditor, Ken Purdy, is under forty himself and editsthe magazine for men of that age and younger. Anauto addict, Purdy drives 'a 1912 Mercer and treatshis readers to regular stories on this, together withtales of less civilized adventure.

Until recently the editor of Argosy was JerryMason, hut now he lis Howard Lewis, a man youngerthan Purdy. "My man," Lewis tells you, "is be­tween thirty-two and four. He's had a high schooleducation and his income is $4-5,000. He either hasbeen in the war or in the army since, and it's theexperience of his life. He still wants to read aboutit. He's married, has a .couple of kids, and whetherhe lives in the ,country or city he is interested inhunting, fishing, and outdoor things."

In short, it would seem that, to the magazineeditors who cater to him, the American male islittle more than an extrovert with a pocketbook­a description some might consider unflattering.Especially as there i,s on the record an indicationthat American males can cope with mature readingfodder.

It's to be found in the success of Esquire, thedaddy of all the magazines. Esquire has made noless than $100,000,000 in twenty years of existence.But that i,s only part of the story. Originally themagazine was conceived by David A. Smart to besold over the counters of haberdashery stores. Atthe last moment, for reasons of prestige, a fewthousand' were put on newsstands. 'This wa,s De­cember 1933, a time of bank holidays and bleakdepression. On all sides Smart was warned thatpublishing a fifty-cent magazine was a form of

JULY 27, 1953 779

madness. What happened on publication dayamazed him as well as everyone else. Newsstandcopies vanished as if blitzed. Dealers clamored soloudly for more that the haberdashery stores weretold to turn their copies back for sale. In all,100,000 copies were sold, and Esquire became theonly magazine in history to sell out its first issueat a profit. (Later Life's first issue sold out, butat an advertising loss.)

Smart had intended to edit Esquire himself, inodd moments. Now, holding a fortune by the tail,he became publisher and appointed a young mannamed Arnold Gingrich editor. In the annals ofmale magazine,s, Gingrich occupies a special niche.He's the only editor in the field who ever gaveAmerican men credit for brains. With a successfulmagazine behind him, Gingrich was peculiarly ableto do this. At a time when most publications werefloundering financially, he could approach writerslike Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Theo­dore Dreiser, and John Dos Passos, amazing themby promptly writing out a check.

"Now what'll you write for us?" he would ask,handing over the irresistible lure.

So, sandwiched between the sexy Esquire car­toonsand such famous non-fiction as "Latins AreLousy Lovers," there appeared some of the bestwriting of the decade. Esquire pubHshed what isprobably Hemingway's finest short story-"Snowsof Killimanjaro." But in addition to establishedwriters, Gingrich used new ones. William ·Saroyan,Louis Paul, Michael Fessier, J eSlse Stuart, andothers found 'a first market in the ~Magazine forMen.

Not Too Highbrow

Yet nowhere on the record is there any sign thatEsquire's readers objected to such comparativelyhighbrow fare. 'On the contrary-though many firstbought Esquire because of the pin-ups and cartoons(which, looking back, are of an unbelievable raw-ness), they also enjoyed the stories. Writers likeSaroyan actually preferred Esquire a,s a market,since readers who liked, or didn't like, their storieswrote in to say so. Esquire readers even turnedout to be remarkably literate. When Gingrich pub­lished a plagiarized version of "The DamnedThing," by Ambrose Biercel all hell broke loose.Gingrich, the literary man, had failed to spot theplagiarism. Hi,s readers caught it in droves.

Still, this evidence that American m'ales-andmany females as well-appreciated the best in fic­tion started no trends. It even failed to convinceEsquire, for eventually Smart took over the editor­ship with a quick lessening of literary standards.(Smart died in 1952 and Gingrich is now hack a'spublisher, which should have interesting conse­quences.)

But where Esquire should have been convinced,there was not the same opportunity for True and

780 THE FREEMAN

Argosy, which after the war hurled themselvesinto the men's field with spectacular sllccess. Bothare published by firms that have made millionspublishing blood-and-thunder shockers.

As one of the sixty magazines (and Gold MedalBooks) published by Fawcett Publications, Truehas rubbed office-elbows with Daring Detective,Rocky Lane Western, and Captain Marvel Adven­ture. Argosy, one of forty magazines put out byPopular Publications, shares attention with FamousFantastic Mysteries, Ace High Western, and DimeDetective, which today costs fifteen' cents.

RedCorpu8cle Stimulation

Both Argosy and True may be the proudest pos­sessions of the firms that own them. Nevertheless,it is impossible not to think that they are governedby precisely the same sort of thinking that goesinto Captain Marvel and Dime Detective. Some­times this is apparent in the writing. "The slovenlylandlady of the third-rate boarding house alongNorth Boyleston Street in Los Angeles said I'dprobably find ex-Lt. Red R. Carmack, a hell of aman back in the days when he was flying the Hump,upstairs in his room," is the beginning of onearticle in True.

N'ot to be outdone, Argosy thus describes thereactions of an Indianapolis speed racer: "He feltthe piled-up tension socking in his guts."

For the most part, though, the writing in thetwo magazines is straightforward, as befits prosewritten by some of the country's top commercialwriters-Philip Wylie, Corey Ford, and Alan Hynd, 'among them. True sometimes pays more than theSaturday Evening Post for articles. Argosy, whichuses fiction (True does not), pays more for it thanEsquire.

But, if the writing in the two magazines andtheir more than twenty-five imitators is often im­mature, the conception of material is almost whollyso. Both magazines embrace heartily the magazineshibboleth of reader-identification, which is cal­culated to take the reader out of himself l makinghim identify with men leading a less responsible,more colorful existence than his. Though such ,read­ing may stimulate the red corpuscles, it does notprovoke thought. Indeed, when represented in True,Argosy, et al., thinking is more likely to be shock.

Ken Purdy most successfully shocked his readerswith an article caned "Flying Saucers Are Real,"in which it was maintained that the saucers flewhere from another planet. With this article, Truesnared as much publicity as any magazine in re­cent years. CIrculation soared and copies sold outin two days. Two footnotes to this feat deserverecording. One is that the success of True unwit­tingly helped Argosy, for many who found Truesold out bought its competitor. Second is that Purdygot in. so .much hot water over the article that per­force he became an expert in the saucer field. He

has come to believe that flying saucers are a gim­mick of our own.

Galloping along the highroad of circulation suc-.cess, men's magazines have failed to heed one sign­post. They have not followed the establishedwomen's magazines-Ladies Home Journal, Mc­Call's, Woman's Home Companion-in stressingservice, or self-help, features. Only Esquire, whichfor twenty years has been showing American maleshow to dress, has done so. By their own specialstandards-and for their own special male-True,Argosy, and the others do have service features.But where women's magazines try to help allwomen, even telling them how to wash dishesbetter, the men's magazines advise only the few.

Thus Argosy has an article on "The FanciestIIand Gun," aimed to catch the attention of thosewho collect guns. True has one called "How ToShoot a Fish from a Tree," aimed at an even morespecialized group. Argosy has matched Ken Purdy'sinterest in cars by discovering Ralph Stein, anartist with a passion for Alfa...Romeos. Next tocars the two magazines stress guns. True has aregular series on them by veteran Lucian Carey.Argosy counters with a huntin'-and-fishin' sectionwritten by Byron Dalrymple.

He-Man Stuff

But look for features that might stimulate themind or satisfy the intellect and you find-nothing.Even sex, the standby when women's magazineswant to stimulate controversy, is missing. In thecarbon-copy imitations it is more prominent, butTrue and Argosy offer a one-sided male existencein which women are only an occasional irritant.

Yes, the rule is rugged, he-man reading, thelineal descendant of Boy's Life. This is at its bestin True in the book-length features, sometimescondensations of books, sometimes not. In Argosy,it is a feature called the "Court of Last Resort,"the purpose of which is to free men unjustly sentto prison, usually on charges of murder.

The record of the Court is impressive. It hassaved several men and is working on the cases ofothers. By every standard the Court should makegripping reading, especially as its activities arechronicled by ErIe Stanley Gardner, whose detec­tive stories have sold more copies than any otherliving writer's. Yet when writing on the Court,Gardner seems to lose his touch, as if he had beensold on the idea of writing down to the Americanmale. Perhaps he has been, for the whole fieldseems to operate on the theory that contemporaryman is a delayed adolescent who would rather beout hunting than home reading a newspaper.

It's a sorry situation that may have a sorrierresult. Next time an outsider is asked to commenton the American scene he may not say that thereare no men's magazines. He may say there areno men.

Letter troln Paris

Government by CrisisBy R. G. WALDE!CK

After six weeks and five attempts France at lasthas a premier who seems fairly certain of remain­ing in office more than a few days. Some say atleast till autumn. At best, however, it is likely tobe but a brief respite in what has become a stateof recurring ministerial crisis. Already threespeakers have attacked the government of M.Joseph Laniel as doomed at the outset to a periodof inaction. Since all three are extreme leftists,they have of course their own reasons for wishingthe new premier-who is conservative center­nothing but the worst. But they are unfortunatelyright. For the Constitution of 1946 makes it im­possible for France to have a government worthyof the name.

Here in Paris that fact is regarded as elemen­tary. You hear it expressed in the bistros, thesubway, at the Jockey Club. You read it in news­paper editorials and pronouncements of all politicalparties, left, right, and center. What you rarelysee in print or hear discussed is the simple ques­tion-Why? Why is the Constitution of 1946 afailure?

The Constitution of 1946 was the creation of acoalition that included the Communists. And theseCommunists deliberately and methodically set outto make it unworkable-to alienate the electedfrom the electors, to prevent the installation ofa sufficiently strong executive, to confuse and de­moralize the people and disgust then1 with theparliamentary regime altogether. They succeeded.With superior political cunning they put over onGeneral Charles de Gaulle, who was then in power,a proportionate electoral system which is fine forthe party machines but eliminates the nominationof any candidate outside the parties, no matterhow talented, popular, and desirable he might be.The result is that the deputies feel themselves re­sponsible not to their constituents, but to theirseparate parties. This condition exists to someextent, of course, in all free countries. But herein France it is so exaggerated that there is practi­cally no bond at all between the deputies and thepublic. Hence the people consider quite rightlythat their duly elected representatives do notrepresent them but are rather agents imposedupon them by the various party organizations.

Worse still, the Communists put over the ideaof a single chamber-the National Assem'bly ofDeputies-possessing the full legislative powersof the Republic. By assuming executive functionswhich it cannot fulfill, the Assembly actually de­stroys all governmental authority. In short, theFrench Constitution of 1946 is essentially similar

JULY 27, 1953 781

to that of the Weimar Republic-and nothingworse could be said of any Constitution!

But few Frenchmen knew or remembered in1946 the lesson of the Weimar Republic. Also, theproportionate electoral system had a certain ap­peal for the new men of the center and right whohad been catapulted into politics by the Resistance.Most of them' were unknown to the public, andthey feared they had no chance of election toparliament unless presented to the electorate bythe parties.

Thus Communist cunning, aided by De Gaulle'spolitical naivete and the selfishness and corruptionof all parties, has saddled France with an absurdConstitution and an Assembly of a distressinglylow moral and intellectual level.

The Communists have every reason to congratu­late themselves. They have accomplished exactlywhat they set out to accomplish seven y.ears ago:a parliament that can agree only on doing nothing;a regime of such instability as to make France arather dubious partner in the Western alliance;almost universal popular disgust with the wholeunhappy situation.

I got the feel and sound of that situation at anight session of the Assembly. Georges Bidault,who had been Foreign Minister in the governmentof Rene M'ayer, was supposed to assume the pre­miership. Earlier that day he had demanded ex­tended, if not full, powers for at least a year.In this period, he· declared, he would pledge him­self to work out solutions to France's three mostpressing problems: that of establishing an eco­nomic and financial equilibrium; that of "makingEurope without unmaking France"; that of endingthe war in Indo-China while keeping faith withFrance's friends and her own past glories.

Bidault's program had been received withoutany particular enthusiasm, but the general con­sensus was that he was in again. And why not?He had been premier twice and minister eleventimes since the Liberation. Everybody knew whatto expect of him. Anyway, there had to be an endof the crisis. In the ensuing debate only the So­cialists and Communists had voiced any criticismof his program. There was nothing unusual inthat. The hundred Communists always votedagainst everything and everybody. The Socialistscould not be counted on· to vote for Bidault. Hismajority hinged on the Radical-Socialists, and thefact that they remained silent during the debatewas a favorable sign.

But 10, when the ballot was finally taken, Bidault'received only twenty-seven Radical votes, andfailed by 'a single vote to become premier for thethird time in his recent career. Bidault's friendswere very bitter. They said Bidault didn't knowwhat the Radicals were up to because they tookno part in the debate. They claimed also that theparties were in cahoots to turn him down. Actually,

782 THE FREEMAN

there was a good deal of conferring among thebenches before the balloting started. It would seemthat one party agreed to cutdown its votes asanother increased its-and for no special reasonbut the sheer fun of calculating to the finest pointhow to hold back just the one winning vote.

But even if Bidault had obtained that one vote,would he have succeeded in retaining the supportof the Radical-Socialists for all the measures heproposed? This is the crucial question at theheart of any ministerial crisis in France, nowor in the future: Is there a m'ajority in the Assem­bly upon which a government can rely? In spiteof the final acceptance of M. Laniel, the long-termanswer is no. The present Assembly can producenothing but caretaker governments. Nor couldanything be gained by the dis'solutionof this bodyas now constituted. Under the existing electoralsystem, .the incoming Assembly would prove asunmanageable as the outgoing. Only a revision ofthe Constitution and a change of the electoralsystem would bring order to what is today chaos.

Does this mean that the end of the Fourth Re­public is likely? A number of informed FrenchmenI asked believe it is. General Alphonse Juin, it isrumored, is convinced that only a strong man canlead France out of chaos and 'that he is thatman. There is also recurrent talk of De Gaulle.Nowithstanding the failure of his RassemblementPopulaire, he continues a figure to be reckonedwith. Moreover, when he saw how his Cons,titutionworked in practice, he came out for revising itwith a view to strengthening the executive.

Oddly enough, there are also reports of a pos­sible monarchist restoration. This is by no meanslimited to the traditionalist monarchist circles ofthe Faubourg St. Germain. Quite a few left-of­center Frenchmen have told me they prefer a con­stitutional monarchy to the strong-man-on-horse­back type of dictator a la Juin or a la De Gaulle.I t is possible that the British Coronation arousedsuch notions, and they are ephemeral. In addition,the pretender, the Comte de Paris, has made some­thing of an impression with his idea of a "socialmonarchy." In my own opinion, the monarchistsolution is unlikely-although nothing is impos­sible in a country whose governmental m'achinehas stopped working.

HighwayOn, on with Fate and all her struggling train,She rides superbly and her name is Pain.On, on with Fate till she has circled earth,She canters madly and her name is Mirth.On, on with Fate whose hand is like a dove,She rides in mercy and her name is Love.

WITTER BYNNER

An Example of IntegrityBy MAX EASTMAN

There's a sadness for me in reading SherwoodAnderson's letters. (Letters of Sherwood Anderson,selected and edited by Howard Mumford Jones inassociation with Walter B. Rideout, 479 pp., Little,Brown & Company, $6.00.) They confirm a feelingI had reached only during his last years, that wemight have been deeply communicative friends forall our lives. It would have been so simple, only amotion on one side or the other in the early dayswhen I published his famously shocking story"Hands" in the old Masses, and when to him-ashe says in one of these letters-the magazine wasof "tremendous signHicance . . . I can rememberwith what eagerness I used to watch for its ap­pearance out in Chicago."

The motion was never made, until a year or twobefore he died when I stopped for dinner with himin Marion, Virginia, on my way motoring south,and then later he and his loved Eleanor came up tomy house in Croton for a week end. Once afterthat, and for the last time, I had dinner with hinIat Mrs. Burton Emmet's picture-'filled house onW'ashington Mews. Tom Wolfe was there, and EllaWinter, the brazenly bright-minded pro~Communist

wife, formerly of Lincoln Steffens, then of DonaldOgden Stewart. Who else I don't remember, butthe mixture was politically undiscriminating, andthat was true, I think, of Sherwood's entourage ingeneral. It accounts for the impropriety of havinghis letters edited by an unabashed sponsor ofvarious Communist traps for suckers, including thewelcome to that balefully asinine old scalawag, theRed Dean of Canterbury. I must add that Pro­fessor Jones is conscientious in telling us ofSherwood that "not once but many times he re­pudiated the Communists," and to include letterscontaining such deeply directional remarks as this:"Words like 'the people,' 'the masses,' 'the prole­tariat,' 'the capitalist,' so happily and freely thrownabout, everyone so grouped. 'There are times whenI devoutly wish Karl Marx had never lived. A manhas to work hard to pull himself away from thisindulgence."

I remember at that dinner Sherwood's remarkinghe was never at ease-never was himself-exceptwith women, and Tom's having a violent, almosthysterical reaction to that. It was a hectic dinner,and Sherwood's genial great quietness of spirit,

Ihis firm, broad-shouldered, smiling receptivity tothe whole experience was impressive. He seemed tocontain it all though he was also in it. He was apoet, a rejoicer in experience, perpetually experi­menting with life's values, perpetually, zealously,and yet at a slow mental pace, meditating aboutthem. The fruits are to be found in these lettersalmost as ripe and abundant as in his books.

"It takes strength to be tender, and these menhaven't strength," he says' of Henry Mencken andSinclair Lewis. And he writes to Waldo Frank:"I do think you are terribly young... I havewanted life and the sun of days to put you in agreat cradle and swing all your false wearinessaway." What a beautiful thing to say! What astirring and fructifying friend he must have been!

Professor Jones thinks it "at least possible" that"out of his voluminous publications ... only Wines­burg, Ohio and a handful of the short stories willsurv,ive, marvelous as some pages in Tar, for ex­ample, and Dark Laughter may be." Upon that Ihave no opinion, for I have not read enough of hisbooks, but I have a hunch that these letters willsurvive. The record they contain of a literaryartist, a very American one, struggling in the com­petitive, racy, and rather glib and phony streamof American writing at that time, and our timetoo-artistic excellence being here more than else­where confused with celebrity and what Veblencalled "pecuniary beauty"-struggling in this roar­ing stream of skilled journalism to master thepure art of writing, to live the life of it, to main­tain the absolute integrity of it, will not be for­gotten. As men find less rest in the supernatural,they will be more drawn to these efforts to makesomething pure, and so-to-speak supernal, out ofthis earthly life. Not in art only-that is but onephase of such endeavor-but it is the one whichcommunicates itself.

As I wrote you, I went to Washington in the falland wrote a new novel. The publisher had it an­nounced. It was another novel about men and womenand the tangle of their love for each other. I wasabout to send it in to be published, but first went outto Chi'Ciago to see my little daughter. One night whileI was there, I suddenly threw the novel out of thehotel window. I did this because I had become con­vinced that I had only written it in order to getsome money t,o do something else I wanted to do.The whole impulse suddenly seemed to me corrupt.

JULY 27, 1953 783

Had the turn been made, that might have been de­scribed as a turning point in American literature,its discovery of the very profound difference be­tween business, and most particularly perhaps thehighly skilled business of journalism, and creativeart. Sherwood Anderson was aware of the inwardtaste of this difference because he had been a busi­nessman, part of the time a writer of advertisingcopy, up to the age of forty, when that mysterious"nervous breakdown" occurred which caused him toclose up his office and become what his deep hearttold him to be, a literary artist. .

There is a vast collection of these letters in theNewberry Library in Chicago, enough to makeanother volume, the editors say. But the basis uponwhich these have been chosen is so wise as to seem-except for the absence of his love letters-con­clusive. The selection was of letters which "relatedsignificantly to at least one of several major con­cerns ... : (1) Anderson's own methods and pur­poses as a writer and his struggle to become one;(2) his special sense of the place (or lack of place)of the writer in America; (3) the nature andpsychology of art, with particular reference towriting; (4) his relationships with other writersand artists. Included also are a number of lettersshowing his response to various social, economic,and political issues of the day."

To these last I could have added a significant ex­ample, if I had not been so forgetful. 1 thoughtwhen the editors wrote me that I had nothing inmy files from Sherwood but brief notes or postalcards, but subsequently there turned up his replyto some request of mine to take a stand in regardto a thing that was happening among the revolu­tionaries, whether in Soviet Russia or at home. Itmay well have had to do with the position of theliterary artist, for I was then writing my book,Artists in Uniform, in which I described the partydictatorship over literature that had been set up inMoscow and was kowtowed to by some of ourfriends on the old Masses. H,is answer was charac­teristic-it was, perhaps, in the circumstances,wise:

Dear Max:lam in receipt of your letter and wish it were

possible for you .or anyone else to clear my mindabout all this matter of the v'arious revolutionaryforces. It seems a shame they should have to spendso much energy hurting one another and being cruel,but, Max, here I am a provincial, absorbed reallyin storytelling. How am I to know what is black andwhat is white? The whole thing leaves me terriblyconfused.

I am back in nlY small town where I have a farmand this summer several men are coming here withtheir wives. They are all men who are up to somekind of work and we are going to try living togethercooperatively. Wish us luck.

With my love to your lady,Sherwood

784 THE FREEMAN

Billionaire CorporationsGiant Business: Threat to Democracy, by T. K.

Quinn. 321 pp. New York: Exposition Press.$3.75

It may seem a harsh thing to say bang at the be­ginning, but Mr. Quinn himself admires blunt­ness; consequently let the truth be told: his form­ula for cutting up the monster corporations ofAmerican industry is not new and has neverworked. If big business is a big evil, and Mr.Quinn makes out an attractive case for that sideof the question, then surely this is no way toestablish virtue. Suppose we had more legislationon the order of the Sherman and Clayton Acts,but better conceived and clearly worded so thatthere were no loopholes for corporation lawyersto crawl through and nibble, nibble, nibble suchlaws to death. Suppose we also had a Federal In­corporation Act limiting every corporate businessin interstate commerce, by the terms of itsFederal charter, to one kind of production or onetype of service or sales effort. Suppose, finally,that the Federal Government subsidized smallbusinessmen to step into the places vacated bythe shrunken giants-suppose all this to be pro­moted, voted, lawed, and executed in the name ofdemocracy, of equality, and you suppose somethingthat in the light of political history iis absurd.

There are few things in politics that one can bedogmatic. about, but this happens to be one ofthem. Democratic electorates have voted them­selves farms, jobs, pensions, medical care, and thelike; they have never voted anybody the capitalwith which to start or to expand the middle-sizetype of business which Mr. Quin'n has in mind.On the other hand there is indeed a case for thevery small business and something should bedone about the high rate of bankruptcies that hasprevailed in that· group since the end of the lastwar. Today a ne"v business, according to Depart­ment of Commerce statistics, has only a betterthan even chance to survive its first year; and athree out of four chance of surviving its secondyear. The somber background to this picture offailure is that the top 1 per cent of the solventbusinesses in this country control about 50 percent of our production facilities-and none of the"billionaire corporations," as Mr. Quinn says,ever fails. They cannot be allowed to fail, as amatter of public policy.

People who don't like to work for somebodyelse, who like to be their own boss even if it hurts-and such people have been the upsetters ofapple carts since the dawn of time-are findingfewer and fewer opportunities to make a livingoutside factory walls. Even our farms are soheavily mechanized today that it takes more ex­perience, land, and capital to run them than everbefore; in sum, agricultural overhead costs are

so high now that two-thirds of the farms are op­erated almost entirely by family labor. Except forthe field of medicine, the non-business professionssuch as architecture and the law are crowded tothe sticking point. Big business does what it can:decentralization has become almost as potent aword as productivity in managerial circles. Butthere is a limit to what can be done in devolvingresponsibility (and independence) to lesser super­visors way down the line of command. There isalso a limit to what can be done in the way offinding the executive talent on the factory floorand promoting everybody from the ranks.

What we need is a positive program to providefor all of our citizens who are willing to workharder, who have shown their stability by savingsome capital, and who possess the experience andknowledge required to run a business-what weneed is a program to assist them to the oppor­tunity of doing exactly that. ASHER BRYNES

With Fear of TruthForeign Policy Without Fear, by Vera Micheles

Dean. 220 pp. Ne'w York: McGraw-Hill Company.$3.75

Vera Micheles Dean's collected writings deserve aplace on the shelf with Owen Lattimore's. Both areclassical examples of what Arthur Koestler calls"anti-anti...Communism."

'There is a subtle technique in anti-anti-Commu­nist writing, whiich any student of comparative po­litical thought will find in the' present work by theresearch director of the Foreign PoHcy Associationas weB as in La'ttimore's books on the Far East.The first principle is to omit any specific reasonswhy the ,Soviet empire, with the 800,000,000 peopleit controls, its enormous international fifth column,and its huge military establishment represents apermanent, constant threat to the security of theUnited States and other free na'tions.

Then it is easy to proceed to the assumption,suggested rather than openly stated, that anyonewho sounds an alarm about Communism is an un­sophisticated, uncivilized lout, and a hystericalwitch-hunter into the bargain. Add a few insinua­tions that the United States and the Soviet Unionare just two strong nations engaged in an ordinarytussle of power politics in which there is much tobe said on both sides. Never miss an opportunityto blacken as a benighted reactionary the men whoare linked with the anti-iCommunist struggle, likeChiang Kai-shek, Syngman Rhee, and Bao Dai.Bring into the pi'cture as witnesses anonymousEurope'ans and Asiati'cs (Mrs. Dean is especiallyfond of the device of referring to these unnamedindividuals as "our friends") who somehow alwaysturn out to be strong opponents of any policy ofeffectively resisting Communism. Shake weU, and

the anti-anti...Communist cocktail is prepared.One can read this book from cover to cover with­

out finding one clear-cut statement of a documentedact of Soviet aggression; the blockade of WestBerlin, the coup d'etat in Czechoslovakia, the inva­sion of South Korea, might never have happenedso far as Mrs. Dean's thinking is concerned. Andsuch individuals as Alger Hiss, Harry DexterWhite, Nathan Gregory Silvermaster, Harry Gold,the Rosenbergs, land the' long parade of individualswho "for fear of self-incrimination" have refusedto answer when asked whether they had committedespionage' against the United States-these are"unpersons" in Mrs. Dean's sche1me of things.

So it is easy for her to deprecate preparednessagainst the Soviet military and political threatwith such phrase's as "If the Republicans can avoidsuccumbing to the fear of Russia and Communism". . . "Before the Republicans can liberate othernations they must liberate themselves from thefear not merely of Russia and Communism, whichhad also come to dominate the Democrats, but fromfear of the changes the t'wentieth century haswrought within our own borders."

Mrs. Dean is a thoroughgoing collectivist. "Forpeople abroad"-those convenient anonymous au­thorities-"TVA has become the most significantsymbol of what is best in modern America." TheNew Deal, to her, is the transition to a promisedland; and she never seems to consider the possi­bility that America's relative wealth among nationsis more attributable to the survival of old indi­vidualist economic values than to the tinkering andexperimentation which went on under Rooseveltand Truman.

Loftily and scornfully indifferent to the veryreal and very present Soviet danger, Mrs. Dean isquiek to see danger where Communists like to seeit: in West Germany, where there is not a regularsoldier under arms, and in Japan, where there is asmall, lightly-armed, skeleton army. Incredible as itmay seem, the author speaks of a Russian "legiti­mate fear ... of new German threats to Moscowand Stalingrad" and of "the need of China andRussia for safeguards against the revival of amilitant Japan."

The consistent pattern of distortion in this bookis easier to understand if one looks balCk to Mrs.Dean's prolific writings in the war and postwaryears. She was ready with an apology and "ex­planation" for every Soviet act of violence andterror, from the denial of all liberty within theSoviet Union to the annexation of the Baltic re­publics and Eastern Poland. Her interpretation ofthe ferocious purges of the thirties was that a"fifth column" was being destroyed. This is scarcelyborne out by the fact that half a million Sovietcitizens fought in the German armed forces duringthe war-much the biggest a'ctive "fifth column"'which appeared in any country invaded by theNazis.

JULY 27, 1953 785

· Mrs. Dean's new book is a very old and shop­worn bill of goods. She se'ems to have learned noth­ing and forgotten nothing as a result of the coldwar. WILLIAM HENRY CHAMBERLIN

Eloquent But ErroneousMajor Campaign Speeches of Adlai Stevenson,

1952. 320 pp. New York: Random House. $3.50

Ours is a political age. Parties, administrations,state poliicy, fiscal theory, etc., are what we con­tinually dwell on, and therefore' everything we readand write is colored by political convictions. Thereis little,. that we can do about this situation. Anindependent literary judgment of a book involvingpolitics is almost impossible nowadays. This truthcomes home with great force in a reading ofStevenson's speeches.

One's reaction to this volume is determined bywhether or not one voted for Stevenson. The bigbump in this book, for those who did not vote forhim, is Adlai Stevenson's endorsement of the NewDeal-Fair Deal era. Time and again in this volumeof fifty speeches the Democratic Party is depictedas the force that saved the nation and inauguratedan era of prosperity. But neither "deal" solved theproblem of depression. It was the inflationaryspending of World War Two that produced ourpresent economy of "full employment." iThe pump­priming Hnd assorted measures to regulate produc­tion (such as dyeing potatoes blue, or the experi­ment with paying farmers to slaughter pigs) con­stituted failure.

'The whole libe'ral, dreamy, and utopian ideologydominating Adlai Stevenson is embodied in thefarm policy address he delivered at Kasson, Minne­sota, with its key statement: "Facilities must beadequate to meet the constantly growing demandfor power on the farm, at prices the farmer canafford to pay" [italics added]. Here, in the pro­verbial nutshell, is the utopian thinking that brandsStevenson as woefully weak in economics. For inthe event that the government supplies farmerswith power at a price below the cost of producingit, the inescapable fact is that the city-dweller paysthe difference out of his pocket. Indeed, this is aprime example of favoring a special interest.Despite this and other curious assertions of gov­ernmental beneficence, the' 1952 leader of the Demo­cratic Party states in the address, "The AmericanFuture," that "we will not abandon our free-enter­prise system. We will oppose all attempts to limitits freedom whether by centralized gove'rnment orby private monopoly." In the light of this speciesof economic thinking, it is not especially startlingthat the American states and people rejected Ste­venson's offer of leadership.

Well, then, do we have to conclude that the MajorCampaign Speeches of Adlai Stevenson are com-

786 THE FREEMAN

pletely without merit? Certainly not! In any casethere is the question of stylistic quality. If we drawa sharp distinction between political and stylisticqualities, it is possible to offer positive praise.

Indeed, to suggest that Adlai Stevenson is notan ingratiating orator i.s almost impertinent. ThatStevenson makes the classic failure to discriminatebetween necessary reform and dubious inno­vation does not prevent numerous conservativesfrom recognizing his personal gifts. Indeed, a studyof this book shows that despite the staff work ofMessrs. Schlesinger, De Voto, Mac-Leish, et al., themark of the man is on the' speeches-the cut andtrim of the literary style is Stevenson's and not thework of professorial ghostwriters.

Clearly, Stevenson of Illinois is neither devil nordupe. He is not a rude courthouse politician likeHarry Trum,an. Neither is he a mystic daydreameron the order of Henry Wallace. Strange to say,Stevenson's greatest resemblance is to another Mid­west gentleman, Robert Taft of Ohio. Inheritedwealth, Ivy League education, study of law, and afamily tradition of statecraft marks both me'll­men at opposite ends of the political spectrum. Onecan but regret that Stevenson was not influencedIn his formative years by the noble vision of Ameri­can conservatism, the vision embodied in the workof Fisher Ames, Hamilton Fish, and John Hay.

ANTHONY HARRIGAN

HagiolatryHenry James: The Untried Years: 1843-1870, by

Leon Edel. 350 pp. Philadelphia: J. B. LippincottCompany, $5.90

Some years ago, when The Complete Plays ofHenry James appeared, edited with an introductoryessay by ,Leon 'Edel, some of us were' more im­pressed by E del the editor than by James thedramatist. Here Iwas a literary dete'ctive who couldtell us just what his hero Henry was doing everyminute of the day and night. Especially memorablewas his reconstruction of the disastrous openingnight of Guy Domville at the St. James Theatre inLondon-when Bernard Shaw, Arnold Bennett, andH. G. Wells sat in the stalls as critics, and poorHenry was crucified by the catcalls of the gallery.Here was the perfect, the complete Jamesian, hence­forth to be acclaimed as "the foremost authorityon Henry James."

Now appears the first volume of Leon Edel'slong-awaited "de1finitive" biography of James­with two more promised. Here"'again is ample evi­dence of Edel's indefatigable sleuthing. No clue istoo faint or faraway to escape his bloodhound nos­trils, no legwork too fatiguing. Edel has searchedthe New York Hall of Records for correct addressesand· dates; he has examined the will of grandfatherWilliam of Albany, and the records of the litigation

that followed the breaking of that will; his opera­tives have trekked through the files of dustycrumbling newspapers; he has corresponded withthe descendants of the friends of the J ameses, evenunto the third generation; he has perused hundredsof unpublished letters. You will find it difficult totrip Mr. Edel on addresses and dates. Nor does allthis biographical data weigh his narraNve down,for Leon Edel has perfected a sort of "throw­away" technique, more familiar on the stage thanin print.

Yet the seed of a doubt is implanted in thereader's mind. You begin to ask yourself: "Is HenryJames so supremely important as to warrant thissingl~-minded, almost fanatical devotion?" Thenyou discover that the whole structure is based uponthe dogma that Henry James is the supreme geniusof the modern novel. To support this major premise,certain evidence must be omitted or played down,other theories enunciated and elaborated. One ofthese concerns Henry's reported stammer and im­pediment in speech-surely worth investigation,but brushed aside Iby Leon Edel as merely 'tapocry­phal." Then IMr.. Edel develops an elaborate theoryof the rivalry between William and Henry, proffer­ing a J acob-'Esau conflict, served up with saucefreudienne. Surely if in future volume's he hopes tocanonize his hero Henry at the expense of William,he willibe lost in the realms of fantasy and fallacy.William's keen and penetrating criticism of Henrycannot be dismissed as 'mere juvenile jealousy. Con­trasting their literary ideals, William once wroteto Henry:

... mine being to say a thing in one sentence asstraight and explicit as it can be Inade, and then todrop it forever; yours being to avoid naming itstraight, but by dint of breathing and sighing allround and round it, to arouse in the reader whomayhave had a similar perception already (Reavenhelp him if he hasn't!) the illusion of a solid object,made (like the "ghost" at the Polytechnic) whollyout of impalpable materials, air, and the prismaticinterference of light, ingeniously focused by mirrorsupon empty space.

Despite all of Edel's conspicuous gifts and energyin research, one is reluctantly driven to the con­clusion that this opening volume must be charac­terized as hagiography rather than critical biog­raphy. Its reasoning is deductive rather than in­ductive. Legitimately Leon Edel may be called thehero-worshipper-in-chief of the James cult, whichfor more than half a century has been so assidu­ously cultivated and propagated. With the youngergeneration "appreciation of James" has becomealmost standard equipment in the cultural bag ofthe "liberal" Left Wing intellectual.

Surely the time is ripe for an impartial, rigorousinvestigation of the role of the literary cult in con­temporary society. We have witnessed the rise ofany number of these-the Rimbaud cult, the Gidecult, the Joyce cult, the Kafka cult, to name but afew. Etiemble, a great French scholar, has recently

been performing a deft surgical operation on theRimbaud myth. We need a sort of Mass Observationsurvey of the James myth, undertaken with rigor­ous, impartial, nonliterary honesty, without theincense, the genuflections, and the esoteric ritualsof the bigh priests. R. A. PARKER

Theory Versus FactThe World and the West, by' Arnold J. Toynbee.

99 pp. New York: Oxford University Press. $2.00

I got to know Professor Toynbee nearly thirtyyears ago, when I was his only student at a seriesof lectures at King's College, London University.The emptiness of his classroom was not due to hisbeing a then virtually unknown young professor;it was because his course on Greece offered no"credits."

Now, looking back on those distant days when Isat listening to his accounts of a walking tour, orinformally discussing the modern world with himacross the table, I think I understand why he writesthe curious books which he chooses to call histori­cal studies. He is the perpetually retarded cleveradolescent who has never been awakened to realitythrough contact with the actual, as distinct fromthe academic world.

It would be an exaggeration to say that to Toyn­bee Communism appears to offer fulfiUment ofmankind's age-old longing for the Kingdom ofHeaven on earth. In spite of his sheltered life, somedoubts are aroused in his mind as to whether allis as right as it should be in Soviet Russia. Henever gives his millions of readers any inkling ofthe brutish, hungry, and fear-ridden existence ofthe subjects of the Communist empire. One wouldnever know from reading his books that there areconcentration camps in Russia, or that Moscowpractices genocide. Nevertheless he is not alto­gether ignorant of Soviet realities; in The Worldand the West Toynbee admits that Soviet Russiais detested by the Western world because of hertyranny. However, in his view this is the result notof Communist theory and practice, but of "theRussian attitude of resignation toward an auto­cratic regime ... whether this calls itself Czarismor Communism." In a word, like Crankshaw, Pro­fessor Toynbee has adopted the racist theory thatit is not Communism per se but the Russian char­acter itself which is responsible for the illiberalnature of the !Soviet state. Hence Toynbee not onlycomforts our former Communist sympathizers andpresent anti-anti-Communists who rely on 'Tito,or possibly Mao Tse-tung, to take Communismaway from the Russians. He also caters to the deep­seated American belief that all is for the best inthe best possible of worlds.

In this book Toynbee carries farther than in hisA Study of History the thesis that Communism is

JULY 27, 1953 787

not a negation of the values upon which Westerncivilization·· is founded, but a "heresy" born of ourfailure to live up to our pr-inciples. It has to be ad­mitted that there was originally some substance tothis theory. But there comes a point where heresybecomes negation, when anti-Christ succeeds toChrist. This is what Toynbee refuses to see. In­stead of recogniz,ing the fact that the strength andsuccess of Communism today are due to its utterruthlessness and the fear it instills, even beyondthe borders of the Soviet empire, he persists in at­tributing its influence to its "spiritual" appeal. Hetells us that "in the encounter between Russia andthe West, the spiritual initiative, though not thetechnological lead, has now passed, at any rate forthe moment, from the Western to the Russianside." However, he offers us a "measure of reas­surance." If we listen to Uncle Arnold we may yetsucceed in taking "the spiritual leadership" of theworld away from Uncle Joe's successors and fol­lowers. Moreover, even if we fail, we can consoleourselves with the Toynbee dictum that Commun­ism is an "exotic" Western doctrine "the adoptionof which by Russia, so far from signifying thatWestern culture is in jeopardy, really shows howpotent its ascendancy .has become." Could anySoviet dialectician do better?

As his English critics have pointed out, Toynbeeis a master of the art of making facts fit precon­ceived theory. In The World and the West he dis­plays a truly amazing capacity to twist history orignore the record in order to prove his thesis thatwhat we are now experiencing is a revolt of thegreater part of humanity, led by Russia, againstWestern domination. Soviet Russia is representedto us as the big worm which has turned" and whichis encouraging all the little worms to do likewise.Toynbee presents her as a victim of Western ag­gression "from the thirteenth century to 1945."Not only does he omit all mention of the long recordof Russian aggression east, west, and south; hetells us also that it is our fault that the Russianpeople are inured to tyranny. "The Russian attitudetoward autocratic regimes," he writes, is due to thefeeling that "it is a lesser evil than the alternativefate of being conquered by aggressive neighbors."If he had confined himself to the accusation thatthe West's treatment of China, India, and otherAsian and African peoples negated professedWestern principles and has led to revolt against ustoday, his book would have had some value. But byplacing Russia among the oppressed nations in­stead of among the aggressors, he makes his wholethesis ridiculous.

Toynbee 'Suggests that Communism, like Christi­anity in the Roman Empire, offers men an "ideal ofhuman fraternity that will overcome the clash of~ultures." I am sure the learned professor isneither a Communist nor a Soviet propagandist.But by clouding our minds and feeding the foolish '

788 THE FREEMAN

optimism of those who, like himself, have neverfaced up to the terrible reality of the Communistmenace, he is helping to destroy our civilization.

FREDA UTLEY

Life Among the PeasantsKingfishers Catch Fire, by Rumer Godden. 282 pp.

New York: Viking Press. $3.50

"Sophie is like a kingfisher," her long-suffering,stuffy British admirer Toby says with atypicalsubtlety, "choosing some strange, unthought-ofplace for her ne'St, diving relentlessly for her privatefish, then flashing out of sight."

The unthought-of place that Sophie BarringtonWard, widowed in India with two children and nomoneY,chose for her "nest" was a house in theVale of Kashmir, out beyond the English colonyof the town and among the Indians. To her daughterand younger son she explained that they were poornow, and were to be peasants. But Sophie putwindows in the house that she rented, and stoves inthe kitchen and upstairs; to the Indians she wasrich. She promptly drove the neighborhood crazywith her waywardness. 'The situation deterioratesrapidly and excitingly as Sophie trie'S to unravelthe sorry episodes that befall her, her children, andher Indian neighbors. ,she goes through hen andhigh water of her own making, yet comes outundismayed, or at least unregenerate'. "Sophie neversees effects," says an English aunt, and indeed whatappear to the English missionarie'S and doctors tobe theft, attempted murder, and rape Sophie comesto see from the Indian point of view as somethingquite other. Good for Sophie, but what havoc!

At the book's end Sophie gathers up her oddpossessions and her offspring and marche'S away tobuild another nest, this time in Lebanon. Toby,who has come half way around the globe to saveher from herself and from furthe'r messing up thebeautiful Vale of Kashmir, is asleep in the houseboat. He proudly expects to take her back to Eng­land with him the following day. "It isn't verypolite to go without saying good-bye to Toby,"remonstrates Teresa, Sophie's daughter. Polite, yet!We are asked to admire, to be· amused and charmedby Sophie, and in the end she is revealed as a first­class heel. This is a betrayal of the reader; it isbad .art.

Unfortunately Miss Godden's story lacks thirddimension. Her heroine flashes her green wings"collects her "private fish," be they rugs or people,and slums around, but charm arises from some­thing deeper than bright feathers. A more limitedobjective, a drop of milk in Sophie's soul, mighthave made her redeemable to us, and to her creator.Miss Godden is too sensitive a writer and too livelya storyteller for us not to regret that she failed tomake her heroine, whole. RAY PALMER

I'I_M_US I_C-----.l/lWagner FestivalFor those who love Wagner, Bay­reuth is the place to be between July23 and August 23 this year. Nextyear there isn't going to be a Festi­val. And without a Festival, Bay­reuth is a pretty sober town.

It's to be a gala affair, openingwith a performance of Lohengrin.On the second night Parsifal will begiven. Parsifal has an historicrecord at Bayreuth. Wagner settledthere in 1872 to build his dreamtheater and present the Ring. To hisamazement the Ring didn't proveenough of an attraction. Althougha thousand. patrons paid the equiva­lent of over two hundred dollarsapiece, and the Ring was given twice,it rang up a nice deficit of more than$39,000.

After this inauspicious beginning,Wagner went to London to conductconcerts, trying to raise money forhis Festspielhau8. There were nofurther performances at Bayreuthuntil Parsifal was presented therefor the first time in 1882. In themeantime Wagner had been forcedfor financial reasons to let otheropera houses perform the Ring; butParsifal, which had been writtenwith the Bayreuth stage in mind,was presented only there.

Wagner died in 1883, but his wifeCosima carried on the Bayreuthfestivals. At long last, twenty-sixyears after the original failure, theRing-the main reason that theFest.spielhaus was built-joined therepertoire.

This year there is to be a com­plete performance of the Ring, witha day out between Sieg fried andGotterdammerung. Cynics have saidthis is so that the British will havetime to change into evening clothes.Actually, it's not quite as bad asthat, for most of the operas startat four in the afternoon, and havea long intermission after the firstact.

Of course all the visiting VIP'sare invited to Wahnfried, which wasWagner's villa. Hitler frequently in­vited himself there. He rebuilt theBachelor House, and generally madesuch a nuisance of himself thatFriedlinde, Wagner's granddaughter,finally left Germany-although she

owns a quarter interest in the· Festi­val.. She is going back this year. Itwill be her first trip to Germanysince before the war, and she re­turns as an American citizen.

The Festspielhaus seats 1,800people. As originally built to Wag­ner's specifications it seated fewer,but when Winifred Williams~Klind­

wirth, Richard's daughter-in-law andFriedlinde's mother, came intopower, she added more seats. Thestage is one of the largest in theworld, and acoustically perfect. Dur­ing the war the Festspielhaus suf­fered no damage, so that when theAmerican occupation troops movedin, it was a natural for us-a shows.Of course the stage was too large,so a smaller one was built over it.This was fine for the troops but notfor the Aquacade of the Rhine­maidens. So when the festivalsstarted again, the small stag,e wasremoved.

Because of the U'SO shows, cer­tain American vaudeville artistsare now billing themselve.s as "ofthe opera of Bayreuth." The singersthis year include such top names asRegina Resnik, Eleanor Steber,Astrid Varnay, George London,Ramon Vinay, "and others," as thebrochure says. It is safe to assumethat the "others" will not be mem­bers of the USO. ROCK FERRIS

II ART__IIAmericans in ParisWhile western Germany confrontsan exhibition of American paintingsof the more placid nineteenth cen­tury, Paris has lately been inspect­ing at the Musee de l'Art Modernethe explosive effects of "Twelve Con­temporary American Painters andSculptors" who incorporate the dis­order of the present. It had beenhoped-particularly in view of theimpressive auspices of the show,both American and French, and dip­lomatic no less than cultural-thathere at last confusion would be sup­erseded by clarity and that somerecognizable artistic silhouette wouldemerge from the United States.What is the evidence?

Guided by the catalogue, the vis­itor will learn that he is to beholdnot a panorama, but rather a series

IIA work which reaches to thevery core of the Chinese p'fob.lem as few books 'have succeededin doing befo're.II

-Springfield Republican

CALVARYIN CHINA

By Rev. Robert WI Greene, M.M.

This personal record of a Mary­knoll Missioner's ordeal at thehands of the Communists is "atestimony of courage and faithwritten by a gentle man. . . .Here revealed is the mind of theCommunist officials, trained bythe Soviets; and the effect ofpropaganda upon the Chinesepeople. It will serve to teach uswhat to expect in dealing withthe new Chinese converts to thisvicious gospel." - Los AngelesTimes

At all bookstores $3.50

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONSNew York 16

of provocative panels. Open-minded­ness, one has been told, is one of theAmerican virtues, and here, presum­ably, it would be exemplified. Un­fortunately, a loose-meshed sieve hasbeen employed, the consequence be­ing that while a few live coals aresifted out, plenty of slag, cinders,and even long-dead ashes have alsodropped in.

Occupying the initial alcove isthat so-called "primitive" John Kane,who as an immigrant settled inPittsburgh and, inspired by its in­dustrial pipes and; telephone poles,set down a homespun account ofsuch felicities. Yet somehow histreatment does not reveal the gran­ite strength one associates withsimple folk: already the pigmentcracks and soon will be peeling,while the molasses tint of the colorhardly endears it to the eye seekingbeyond the standardized passivity ofits subject matter. Dangling abovethese limp and unkindled canvases isJacaranda, an Alexander Calder thatmight have been imported from ajungle, high and airy and almostfeathery.

Another enclosure brackets to-

JUL"Y 27, 1953 789

Controversy Rages Anew

Social Thinker Ys. Land Communist

has provided a comparison to thelasso, does, however, bespeak theardors of a more· youthful republic.Perhaps the pigment splatters andeven fights itSJelf, yet he has flungoff old trammels. Also sprung fromthe realist category is Stuart Davis,whose sharply cut and abbreviatedforms relate more to advertisingposters than to painting. Even so,they are greatly preferable to thefunereal odes-to-decomposition byIvan Le Lorraine Albright.

As for sculpture, apart fromCalder, long praised and justly re­spected in Europe,and his two con­freres, David Smith, who shapes iniron, and Theodore Roszak, who con­trives horned and beaked and prick­ing effigies in metal and other mal­leable material, here again sometraces of bolder and braver energiesare apparent. Nevertheless, the en­semble blurs more than it clarifies.One peers through to certain brightvistas in Marin, to troubled ones inPollock, to electrifying possibilitiesin the sculpture, yet the generaleffect attains no harmony. In short,Europe still awaits a satisfactoryAmerican silhouette in art.

JEROME MELLQUIST

GEORGE

The Science of Society Foundatiron,11 Waverly Place, Ne,w York 3,N. Y.

Please send me the book PROGRESS AND POVERTY, Anniversary Edition,571 pages, cloth bound, with free gift of Spencer Heath's booklet PROGRESSAND POVERTY REVIEWED and Its Fallacies Exposed. I enclose $1.50.

NAME ADDRESS .

CITy '" ZONE STATE .

Was Henry George the founder of "Agrarian Communism" in America? Has thetotal ,communism inherent in his great masterpiece escaped until now even thekeenest of minds? Socionomisf Spencer Heath says: "Tax-slaves forfeit freedom forservitude; the future free-man will pay only the market-gauged site-rent value ofwhatever public services he receives." Tax-Lords versus Landlords! Judge for yourself!

Read Henry George's PROGRIESS AND POV;ERTY for the Land Communistargument and point of view. Then read the -ANSWER-in 26 pages of criticalreview and darification, showing Landlords and private property in land as Society'sfirst and last-its only ultimate defense-against total enslavement by the State.

John Dewey says of Henry George: "No man, no graduate of a higher educationalinstitution, has a right to regard himself as an educated man in social thought unlesshe has some first-hand acquaintance with the theoretical 'contribution of this greatAmerican thinker." Tolstoi, Helen Keller, Nicholas Murray Butler-all have writtenin similar and even stronger vein.

Yes, PROGRESS AND POVERTY is an appealing book. Grossly fallacious inits economic· argument and inevitably totalitarian in its proposed application, it isyet idealistic, rhetorical, poetical, beautiful-thus subtly deceptive-in its world-widerenown. Order your copy now at the special low price of $1.50 and you will receive,in addition, a free copy of its definitive expose. PROGRESS AND POVERTYREVIEWED and Its Fallacies Exposed, a 26-page booklet by Spencer Heath, DL.B.,LL.M.

gether Morris Graves, a PacificCoast painter who closes his eyeswhen he thinks about birds (andsometimes almost seems to close hiseyes when painting them, too), andJohn Marin, that water-color masterwho still awaits his proper introduc­tion to Europe. Certainly he did notsecure it on this occasion; his quick­silver washes, high-strung composi-

, tions, and elusive atmosphere sufferby exposure to a too-obtrusive light.After all, chamber music rather losesitself in a major concert hall. Thenthere is Ben Shahn, who, howevertouching his democratic sympathywith the crippled and needy of thecities, simply does not house them,so to speak, in a sufficiently protec­tive habitation. He combines tem­pera with cut-outs (perhaps photos)and inky drawing, until only anabrasiveness is left.

Elsewhere, visitors confront thedeadened streets and gleaming office­interiors of Edward Hopper, whosupposedly is the bard of Americanunderstatement. Glimpsed here, alas,his subdued speech seems rather toderive from a parched and needyorgan of articulation. Jackson Pol­lock whose drifting line sometimes

COASTFEDERALSAVINGS

.JOE CRAIL, PRESIDENT

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790 THE FREEMAN

II FROM OUR READERS II(ContLnued from p. 760)

The "Book Burners"

Thank you for your editorial [June29] criticizing President Eisenhower'sspeech at Dartmouth. There was cer­tainly something missing in that speech.How could he warn the students,"Don't join the book burners," withoutmentioning the many books by anti­Communist authors which have beenkilled in more subtle ways by Com­munist and leftist infiltration of thebook reviews, the magazine and bookpublishers, and even the book shops?. . . There are other ways of destroyinga book than by burning it.New York City MARY REISNER

Strikes me the FREEMAN is guilty of an"unfortunate lack of balance" similarto that it attributed to President Eisen­hower's Dartmouth speech. In yourcaptious expository you permit yourreaders to weigh the President's pos­ition by reporting five words of hisspeech.San Francisco, Cal. WILLIAM BROWN

Book Reviewer Replies

In your issue of June 1, violent ex­ception is taken [page 637] to my re­view in the New York Times of JohnFlynn's latest book. Rather thananswer the unwarranted charges in thearticle itself, I wish to call your at­tention to a letter I received a fewdays after the review appeared. Itreads, in part, as follows:

A note of appreciation for thatreview... I got the impression thatyou disagreed thoroughly with everysentiment in the book, but it wasvery evident that you tried to befair. For that, many thanks-andforget the brickbats that are sureto come your way.

This letter is signed by Devin A.Garrity, President of The Devin-AdairCompany and publisher of Mr. Flynn'sbook. I have Mr. Garrity's permissionto quote it to you.New York City JOHN B. OAKES

This supplies no answer to the specificcriticisms that Mr. Garrett made ofMr. Oakes' review. THE EIDITOR

Education for LegislatorsO. Glenn Saxon's article "DecentralizeElectric Power" in the issue of June29 should be placed on the desk ofevery Republican in Congress. I thinkmany of the Democrats such as SenatorByrd would go along with the article'sreasoning.Arlington, N. J. HARVEY H . .JONES

"~u don't make milk

by stinting on the feed"

Thus simply, Secretary of Commerce Weeks stated in a recentaddress a profound business truth which is frequently over­looked.

"If the regulated industries are to render their full services tothe nation," the Secretary said, "it is my judgment that theregulatory bodies must allow earnings adequate to attract andsupport the equity capital they can use effectively for economies,improvement and growth." And he observed further that "thecourage and inventiveness that risks great sums for improve­ments and economies in the future does not naturally emergefrom men who have not the credit to raise the money nor theassurance that they would be allowed a return on it when theirdreams come true."

That has been the situation of the railroads. Earning a returnon their investment which over the years has averaged less than4 per cent, the railroads have not found it possible to attractthe equity capital they could "use effectively for economies,improvement and growth."

Nevertheless, by drawing heavily on their reserves and bysharply increasing their obligations for the purchase of equip­ment on the installment plan, the railroads have put into servicesince the end of World War II more than 500,000 freight carsand almost 18,000 new diesel-electric locomotive units. Forthese and other improvements they have spent more than abillion dollars a year.

Such improvements mean not only better service to the publicbut also more efficient railroad operation, with costs and rateslower than would otherwise have been necessary. And as re­search opens up other possibilities, there will be other oppor­tunities for railroads to make improvements which will meanstill better service at the lowest possible cost.

To take advantage of these opportunities, the railroads will neednot only "the courage and inventiveness that risks great sumsfor improvements and economies in the future," as SecretaryWeeks said, but also the cash and the credit which, in the longrun, can come only from "not stinting on the feed."

ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN RAILROADS.)t~ You'll enjoy THE ;A~:;~::;:u;'e:~r:'MondaY evening on NBC.

fifth;'

"OUl!,

WltyDon't,You Defeat

Communismwith

Sound Moneyby returning to the

GOLD COIN STANDARD?

ship and democracy. We must be proud of it ..•display it fearlessly to the world ... make itthe principle that will persist for free men .•and keep them free!

For twenty years the recently deposed federaladministration pooh-poohed this principle. Ourcitizens suffered-became more and more theeconomic slaves of government. The value oftheir earnings and savings shrank-up to 60%.

Fortunately, technological advancements, suchas Kennametal, increased industrial productivityduring this period-and helped partially to off­set the evil effects of irredeemable currency.

The President, important Cabinet members,Senators, and Congressmen are aware of theinherent relationship between the Gold CoinStandard and individual freedom. Why, then,should legislative action on it be delayed?

The tremendous impact on all other nations ofsound money in the United States will lead theway to international economic stability ... im­pel a new high level in human relationships, andpr-ovide a healthful domestic atmosphere inwhich American industry, of which KennametalInc. is a key enterprise, will provide ever-increas­ing benefits for all our people.

We must resume without devaluation or delay.

WORLD'S LARGEST Independent Manufacturer Whose Facilities are Devoted Exclusivelyto Processing and Application of CEMENTED CARBIDES

tt,.I he surest way to overturn an existing social

order is to debauch the currency." These por­tentous words, credited to Lenin, point the wayto defeat Communism, at home and abroad.Make monetary strength the weapon-and soundmoney the ammunition.

The only sound money system that has everbeen successful is the Gold Coin Standard.* Itstabilizes the value of money-prevents issu­ance of fiat currency ... gives the individualclose control over government policy since hecan redeem hiscurrericy for gold coin wheneversuch policy is inimical to preservation of indi­vidual rights and liberty.

This· sovereignty of the Gitizen over· govern~ment is the great difference between dictator-

Excerpt from Republican"Monetary Pol'icy" Plank

!* The right to redeem currency forgold will help keep Americafree ••• ask your Senatorsand Congressman to work andvote to restore the Gold Coi nStandard. Write to The GoldStandard League, Latrobe,Pa. , for further information.The League is an associationof patriotic citizens ioined inthe common cause of restoringa sound monetary system.