NOVEMBER 2,1953 25¢

Europe's Self-Made HandcuffsHenry Hazlitt

T'he Delinquent Liberals Max Eastman

The Rights and Wrongs of LaborDonald Richberg

Our Highest Court John Hanna

Somber Present, Gay Past James Burnham

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Poems

The Quiet Bird LOUISE TOWNSEND NICHOLL 98Hart Crane WITTER BYNNER 101

This Is What They Said 86

Worth Hearing Again 96

From Our Readers , 76

Books and the Arts

Somber Present, Gay Pas1t JAMES BURNHAM 99Eternal Search GUNTHER STUHLMANN 101Professional Prince MABEL TRAVIS WOOD 102Briefer Mention 102Adolescents on Broadway SERGE FLIEGERS 104TV Drama Grows Up FLORA RHETA SCHREIBER 105

Our ContributorsM. K. ARGUS, a Russian by birth, a journalistby trade, devotes his major literary effortsto being satirically critical of the tyrantsthat have taken over his native land and oftheir American proteges and apologists. Inwhat time is left over he writes with warm,yet barbed humor of his fellow Russians inAmerica, of which his recent book, A Roguewith Ease, published in September, is an ex­ample.

JOHN HANNA has had a distinguished career asa practicing lawyer and as an author andteacher. He was special assistant to the U.S.Attorney General in 1919. Since 1931 he hasbeen professor of law at Columbia University.

DONALD R. RICHBERG'S name is practically syn­onymous with labor legislation in America. Hewas co-author of the Railway Labor Act passedby Congress in 1926 and of the National In­dustrial Recovery Act of 1933. From 1933 to1935 he served as General Counsel of NRAand as its Chairman in the latter year. Hispresent article, "The Rights and Wrongs ofLabor" (p. 89), includes the substance of arecent address delivered to the IndustrialResearch Institute.

JO HINDMAN, in answer to our request forbiographical material, reports from Inglewood,California, a variety of activities as communityworker, editor, writer, publicist (including a$3,000,000 school bond election). "My currentinterest in school subjects," she writes, "stemsfrom the fact that lily three children are nowgoing through grade school." She is a regularcontributor of both fiction and non-fiction toa number of national magazines.

GUNTHER STUHLMANN, formerly on the editorialstaff of Der Monat in Berlin, has been AssociateEditor of the Am~erican Mercury and Editorof Magazine Digest.

MABEL TRAVIS WOOD, Production Editor of theFreeman, was previously Managing Editor ofPlain Talk and Associate Editor of Encore.

CORRECTION: In our last issue Helmut Schoeckwas mistakenly described as a professor atYale University. He is a Visiting ResearchFellow.

Among Ourselves

NOVEMBER 2, 1953

A llortnightly

For

Individualists

HENRY HAZLITIFLORENCE NORTON

VOL. 4, NO.3

THE

Edt..ManaKin. Editor

reeman

ContentsEditorials

The Fortnight 77Nonaggression Bear Traps 79ComradeTito as Ally 80A "Stronger" U.N.? 81Too M1any Laws, Anyway 81U.IS.-Financed Competitors 82Profitable "Martyrs" 82The FTC Talks Sense 82

Articles

Europe's Self-:Made Handcuffs HENRY HAZLITT 83Post-Facto Justice M. K. ARGUS 85Our Highest Court JOHN HANNA 87The Righ'ts and \Vrongs of Labor .. DONALD R. RICHBERG 89The Delinquent Liberals MAX EASTMAN 93Gag Rule in P.T.A JO HINDMAN 97

THE FREEMAN is published fortnightly. Publication Office, Orange, Conn. Editorial andGeneral Offices, 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 copy; 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 orbetter, a stamped, self-addressed envelope is enclosed. Manuscripts must be tYJleddouble-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 Wilscm. H. Lee Co., Orange. Connecticut.

True to our promise in our September 21 issue,we are publishing herein Mr. Hazlitt's reporton his recent European trip. Our readersmight be interested to know just how up-to­the-minute it really is. Almost before he haddeplaned on An1erican soil and long before hehad become "reconditioned" (as he put it)to American time, Mr. Hazlitt was faced witha deadline and a typewriter and that promiseto fulfill. For the result, see "Europe's Self­Made Handcuffs," on page 83.

From an Economics ProfessorEmil Reeve, chairman of the C. 1. O.policy committee, told the Senate Bank­ing and Currency Committee that theraising of interest rates on govern­ment debt is just another action "tomake life more pleasant for the na­tion's private bankers."

This seems to represent about theultimate limit in political mudslinging.C. 1. O. leaders cannot be so ignor­ant or stupid, or even so blinded byself-interest and prejudice, as not toknow what is self-evident. The "privatebankers" have opposed this change.They will lose more or less heavilyby it through depreciation of theirbond holdings. Further, a primary ob­jective in bringing the rates closer tothose of the open capital market-the.only "honest" rates-has been to get

(Continued on p. 106)

STATEMENT OF THE OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT AND

CIRCULATION RE,lUIRED BY THE ACT OF CONGRESS

OF AUGUST 24, 1912, AS AMENDED BY THE ACTS OF

MARCH 3, 1933, AND JULY 2, 1946 of the Free­man Magazine with which is combined the ma­gazine Plain Talk, published fortnightly atOrange, Connecticut, for October 1, 1953. l.The names and addresses of the publisher, editor,managing editor, and business manager are:Publisher, The Freeman Magazine, Inc., 240Madison Avenue, New York 16, N.Y,:; Editor,Henry Hazlitt, 240 Madison Avenue; ManagingEditor, Florence Norton, 240 Madison Avenue;Business Manager, John W. Day, 240 MadisonAvenue. 2. The owners are: The FreemanMagazine, Inc., 240 Madison Avenue, New York16, N.Y.: Henry Hazlitt, 37 Washington Square':Vest, New York 11, N.Y.; Dr. Ludwig vonMises, 777 West End Avenue, New York 25,N.Y.; Leonard Read, Foundation for EconomicEducation, Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y.; Dr. Don­ald J. Cowling, 926 Northwestern Bank Bldg.,Minneapolis 2, Minn.; Dr. Stewart M. Robinson,Second Presbyterian Church, Elizabeth, N.J.;Henning W. Prentis, Jr., Chairman of the Board,Armstrong Cork Company, Inc., Lancaster, Pa.;Dr. Leo Wolman, Professor of Economics, Colum­bia University, New York 27, N.Y.; W.F.Peter, Vice President and General Counsel, Chi­cago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad, Chicago3, Ill.; Dean Roscoe Pound, Harvard LawSchool, Cambridge, Mass.; Lawrence Fertig, 149Madison Avenue, New York 16, N.Y.; Dr.Claude Robinson, President, Opinion ResearchCorporation, 44 Nassau St., Princeton, N.J.;John Hill, Hill & Knowlton, Empire State Bldg.,New York 1, N.Y.; Alex Hillman, HillmanPeriodicals, Inc. 535 Fifth Avenue, N.Y. 17,N.Y.; Kurt Lassen, Young & Rubicam, 285Madison Ave., New York 17, N.Y. The knownbondholders, mortgagees, and other security hold­ers, owning or holding 1 per cent or more oftotal amount of bonds, mortgages, or other se­curities are: None. 4. Paragraphs 2 and 3include, in cases where the stockholder or se­curity holder appears upon the books of thecompany as trustee or in any other fiduciaryrelation, the name of the person or corporationfor whom such trustee is acting: also the state­ments in the two paragraphs shows the affiant'sfull knowledge and belief as to the circumstancesand conditions under which stockholders and se­curity holders who do not appear upon the booksof the company as trustees, hold stock and se­curities in a capacity other than that of a bonafide owner.John W. Day, Circulation Manager, Sworn toand subscribed before me this 25th day ofSeptember, 1953. Pasquale J. Fenico, NotaryPublic. (My commission expires March 30, 1954),

II FROM OUR READERS II

helped to keep prices within reach.But it is not enough.

To stop inflation, control of the pub"lic purse must be returned to the peo..pIe. The Gold Coin Standard* - theright to -convert paper money intogold coin-acts as an automatic brakeon government spending, prevents in­discriminate government use of itsown liabilities as collateral for the is­suance of printing press money.

The President, and leading membersof the Congress and Senate have pub­licly recognized the inherent need ofa return to the Gold Coin Standard.*Why, then, delay in taking legislativeaction?

The Gold Coin Standard will againgive the people sovereignty over gov­ernment - will be evidence that theFederal administration has as muchfaith in the people as the people ex­pressed in it when they voted againstthe old regime. And •.. with the fearof further inflation removed ... in­dustry, in which Kennar.l1etal Inc. is akey enterprise, will be able to con­tribute ever-increasing benefits toall our people.

We must resume without devalua­tion or delay.

Why Don'tYouStop

FurtherInflation

One of a series of advertisements published in the publicinterest by

WORLD'S LARGEST Independent Manufacturer Whose Facilities areDevoted Exclusively to Processing and Application of CEMENTED CARBIDES

_"c----ouraim . . . a dollar on ~,,­- ••• fully convertible gold basIS =::

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Excerpt from Republican"Monetary Policy" Plank

"Inflation is a sharp increase in thesupply of money as compared togoods produced" - dictionary defini­tion.

In 1933 the government made it il­legal for an American citizen to owngold, and arbitrarily raised gold'sprice.

When this right to redeem currencyfor gold coin was taken from the peo­ple-public control over governmentspending was lost. Since then billionsof "printing press dollars" have beenissued ... and this monetary inflationhas 'reduced the purchasing power ofthe dollar up to 60% ••• forcing pricesever-upward.

American industry has done wondersto increase efficiently the supply ofgoods. As an example - Kennametal,as a tool material, has tripled the out­put potential of the metal-workingindustries. This productivity h~s

*-The right to redeemcurrency for gold willhelp keep Americafree ••. ask your Sen­ators and Congress­man to work and voteto restore the GoldCoin Standard. Writeto The Gold Stand­ard League, Latrobe,Pa., for further infor­mation. The League ison association of po·triotic citizens joinedin the common causeof restoring a soundmonetary system.

TUB

reemanMONDAY, NOVEMBER 2,1953

The FortnightWhat was fil0st surprIsIng about the Republicandefeat in the Congressional race in the NinthWisconsin District was the apparent eagernessof the losers to put the worst interpretation onit. "The results show very clearly," said ArthurPadrutt, the losing Republican, "that the farmerand laboring man do not like the present Ad­ministration's policies and took this opportunityto show their displeasure." Certainly at firstglance the results seem to warrant this pes­simism. The Ninth Wisconsin Congressional Dis­trict has never before elected a Democrat. In1950 Representative· Hull defeated his Democraticopponent by 81,258 to 43,437. This time the suc­cessful Democrat got 57 per cent of the votes.But if the election must be called a resoundingRepublican defeat, it can hardly be called muchof a Democratic triumph. The outcome vvas chieflythe result of apathy and indifference. Less than40 per cent of the registered voters went to thepolls. The Democratic victor, Lester Johnson,got only about 28,000 votes compared with 81,000for the victor of 1950. And judging by his cam­paign, Mr. Johnson may turn out to be as much amaverick to the Democrats as the laite Represent­ative Hull was to the Republicans.

What creates most misgivinge about the Wisconsinelection is the interpretation being placed uponit, by both Republicans and Democrats, as regardsfuture policy. It is being assumed that the votersare unhappy about the Eisenhower Administrationnot because of its lack of direction and firmprinciples, its flaccidity in negotiating with theCommunists in Korea, or its weakening on itsbudget promises, but simply because the farmersare not getting big enough handouts from thegovernment. President Eisenhower's speech atKansas City on October 15 was on the wholeguarded, but he did assure his audience that"'the price support principle must be a part ofany future farm program."

Yet it is precisely the price support principle thatis the cause of half the economic mischief in theworld. Price supports for producers must be at

the expense either of taxpayers or of consumers,and usually of both. Price supports for farmproducts mean higher food prices for city workers.And politically you cannot grant price supportsto A without eventually being forced to grantthem also to B, C, and D. You cannot have farmprice supports without further demands for wageincreases and further pressure for protectivetariffs. For once price subsidies, protection, orsupports are granted to one set of producers,there is no economic or moral ground on whichthey can be refused to other producers. And wecome at last to the reductio ad absurdum whereeverybody thinks he ought to be subsidized atthe expense of everybody else.

The choice of a new Secretary of Labor has be­come the occasion for apprehension and prayer.As Thorstein Veblen used to say, when con­fronted with a promising proposal: "I hope andpray it will succeed; but I pray more than Ihope." Something of this mood has greeted thedesignation of James P. 1vIitchell to succeedlVIartin Durkin as head of the troubled Depart­ment of Labor. The new Secretary comes intooffice unfettered by formal affiliation to either alabor union or an employer's association. He hasbeen for many years a professional administratorof labor relations and personnel management. Histraining and interes1ts qualify him to administerthe department with common sense and efficiency.But if he yields to the pressure of special in­terests, such as have proved a source of turmoiland confusion in the department for many years,runs to Congress with ill-conceived proposalsfor legisliation, and forgets there is such a thingas the public interest, it will be too bad for ItheAdministration, for labor, and for the country.

The cruel and unnecessary ordeal to which 22,500Chinese and North Korean anti-Communistprisoners are being subjected is a new proof thatthe fruits of appeasement are always sour. A"neutral" repatriation commission in which pro­Communist India holds the deciding vote hasdecided almost every disputed point regardingthe interrogation of the prisoners according toCommunist wishes. The prisoners must attendthe "explanations" of the CommuHist "persuad-

NOVEMBER 2, 1953 77

ers." They may not protest or demonstrate. tfhey"may apply for repatriation at any time and a,tany place"; any unguarded moment' of weaknesswill be exploited. There is a preposterous as­sumption that these men, who resisted every sug­gestion of repatriation, really want to go home.This whole sorry business of putting new pressureon men who have certainly suffered enoughmerely confirms the point that these prisonersshould have been released unconditionally longago and given every opportunity to circulatetheir anti-Communist mess1age in South Korea,Formosa, and the overseas Chinese communities.

Seven distinguished Americans, Herbert Hoover,Senator H. Alexander Smith, Joseph C. Grew,Charles Edison, Walter H. Judd, John J. Spark­man, and John W. McCormack, have launched apetition to the President against the admissionof Red China to the United Nations. The petitionlists eight sound reasons, anyone of which \vouldbe sufficient for opposing this step. The recentnews item that thirty-three out of the hundredAmericans stupid or unlucky enough to be inRed China are in prison reinforces the statementin the petition: "The so-called Chinese People'sRepublic has shown its unwillingness to carryout the obligations of the Charter by systemat­ically disregarding every human right and violat­inge'Very freedom." The petition should receivea mass response; the Administration needs allthe stiffening it can get against appeasementpressure from abroad.

The United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Work­ers Union recently completed a week's conven­tion in Chicago. This is the union that was thrownout of the C.I.O. because of its pro~Communist

leadership and consistently pro-Communist policJ·.Proceedings under the Smith Act or the McCar­ran-Walter Act are now pending against a dozenor so of its officials. Nevertheless, PresidentAlbert J. Fitzgerald and Secretary-TreasurerJulius Emspak were able to report to the con­vention that their union now has bargainingrights in f,039 plants covering 316,150 workers.Many of these plants are doing secret work ofthe highest importance in the fields <:>f electronicsor special instruments. This is an incrediblesituation-like handing a burglar the combinationto the safe. Business management is partly re­sponsible for it. In some cases, management hasjumped at "favorable" settlements offered by theV.E. as bait, in order to head off its non-Com­munist C.I.O. rival union. But under the existinglaw, management is often helpless. The ButlerBill has been introduced into Congress in orderto correct this preposterous state of affairs. Itsintent is to prohibit contracts with Communist­led unions. Needress to say, this bill was targetNo. 1 at the D.E. convention.

78 TIlE FREEMAN

The past month has provided rude lessons forthose who still believe that the threat of Com­munism exists only in far-off spots on the otherside of the globe. Right under our eyes, acrossthe waters of our strategic threshold, an at­tempted squeeze play has come into the open.Moving behind electoral fronts on the model ofNew York's American Labor Party, the Communistleaders of Guatemala and British Guiana havebeen advancing along the road toward the seizureof all power. Their aim is the conquest of afixed base (a Yenan) from which they can destroyour strategic position in the Caribbean, andguide the subversion of central and northernSouth America. The British government, showinga resoluteness that has been so conspicuouslylacking in its Asian policy, has moved to smashthe conspiracy in Guiana. It has suspended thepremature and misguided new Constitution, underwhich the Communists have been using the maskof the "People's Progressive Party" to camouflagetheir own operations. Troops have been sent in,and martial law declared. If the British govern­ment is able to protect itself against LaborParty criticism at home, it should in this instancebe able to carry through its announced deter­nlination that no Communist state shall arisewithin the Commonweal/tho

Meanwhile, in support of their Guiana comrades,the Communists of Guatemala staged one morestrike and thereby pressured the Popular FrontGuatemalan government into one more expro­priation of American property. It remains amystery why Washington has taken no practicalsanctions, even of the most elementary sort,against a government that is so grave a threatto our security, and that has so grossly violatedits contractual and international obligations.This seems to be one occasion, at least, when wemight take a lesson from Whitehall with con­siderable profit to ourselves.

Prime Minister Nehru of India seems to be aspir­ing to the role of world preceptor. One day hegives Secretary Dulles a stern lecture on "im­maturity." On other occasions he assumes therole of a volunteer Voice of Asia, although hiscredentials to speak for Asians who are preparedto fight Communism are certainly questionable.Granting that India has an old culture and civil­ization, it is young as an independent country.And there is something immature in Mr. Nehru'sbland assumption that he can have his cake andeat it too, that he is· entitled to influence the settle­ment of a war to which he did not contributea man or a gun, or that India can count for muchpolitically in Asia or anywhere else so long asits government has nothing but passivity andappeasement to offer in the face of the threat ofCommunist imperialism.

Nonaggression Bear TrapsThe question of whether and in what form theUnited States and other Western powers shouldoffer a nonaggression pact to the Soviet Unionis in the forefront of international diplomaticdiscussion. This idea was first suggested by theCommunist side. A nonaggression pact among the"Big Five" (the United States, the Soviet Union,Great Britain, France, and Red China) has beenan international Communist propaganda slogan forye,ars.

'The suggestion that a nonaggression pact alongthe lines of the Locarno Treaty of 1925 mightreconcile the Soviet Union to the reunification andrearming of Germany was voiced by Sir WinstonChurchill in his speech of May 11, in which healso urged a private meeting of leading statesmenof the Soviet Union and the Western Powers:

I do not believe that the immense problem ofreconciling the security of Russia with the freedomand safety of western Europe is insoluble.... Ihave a feeling that the master thought whichanimated Locarno might well play its part betweenGermany and Russia in the minds of those whoseprime ambition it is to consolidate the peace ofEurope as the key to the peace of mankind.

Returning to the same theme in his speech atthe recent Conservative P,arty conference, SirWinston spoke of "the plan of everybody goingagainst the aggressor, whoever it may be, andhelping the victim, large or small."

West German Chancellor Adenauer subsequentlyintimated that the European Defense Communitymight conclude a pact of mutual nonaggressionwith the Sovie't Union. But Dr. Adenauer has madeit clear that he looks to the reunion of Germanyon a basis of freedom and also to some modificationof the Oder-Neisse frontier line, arbitrarily fixedby the Sov,iet Union and assigning to Poland andto the Soviet Union territory where millions ofGerm,ans have lived for centuries.

The French Deputy Foreign Minister, MauriceSchuman, suggested at the United Nations that,if the Soviet Union would accept the EuropeanDefense Community, some arrangement promisingnot to change existing boundaries by force couldbe m,ade. This statement wa1s vague as to whatboundaries should be guaranteed. Finally, Mr.Dulles intimated at a recent press conference that"the general problem of giving reassurance againsta possible resurgence of German ,aggression isbeing studied in concert," although he felt thatit would be difficult to add much to the obligationswhich the United States and the Soviet Union havealready assumed not to resort to foree or the threatof force under the terms of the U.:N. Charter.

Now if it were possible to induce the Sovietgovernment to evacuate :Germany and the sub-

jugated countries of eastern Europe, to pull itstroops back within its frontiers of 1939, by givinga new assurance that the United States and itsassociates do not propose to engage' in an aggres­sive w,ar, the g.ain would be cheap at the price.Unfortunately, the giving up of substance forshadow is an American, not a Soviet, characteristic,as the Yalta experience shows.

There is not the slightest indication that theSoviet government would regard with favor abargain on these terms. And there is much evidence--the tightening up of the satellite regime inEast Germany, the intensified persecution of theCatholic Church in Poland, for instance~that

its face is firmly set against any concessions exceptcheap verbal ones. It would seem that the talkabout a new Locarno or a nonaggression pact isnot only putting the cart of such an agreementbefore the horse of solid Soviet concessions, butputting the cart before a horse that has not evenemerged from the stable.

The Locarno formula seems entirely inapplicableto the present European situation. Under theLoearno Treaty of 1925 Great Britain and Italyundertook to aid France or Belgium, if attackedby Germany, or Germany, if attacked by Franceor Belgium. Under the circumstances of the timethis seemed to be a reasonable means of assuringpeace and stability. But the arrangement crumbledwhen in 1936 Hitler remilitarized the Rhineland,in violation of the Treaty of Versailles, withoutcausing any positive action by Britain or France.

The arrangement at Locarno was plausible be­cause neither Great Britain nor Italy was com­mitted to an alliance either with France or withGe'rmany. But any plan of German rearmamentis based on the closest association of Germanywith the Western powers, either through the pro­posed E.D.C. or through NA'TO. How it is possiblefor Great Britain simultaneously to back Germanrearmament, as Sir Winston, to his credit, didin his recent speech and yet pose as a "neutral"guarantor of the Soviet Union against the mostimprobable contingency of a German attack? Abetter argument about guaranteeing Soviet securityis .one which is often used in Bonn. This is thatthe proposed merging of German with French,Italian, and Benelux military contingents in aEuropean Army is the best guarantee againstoffensive war, since it is inconceivable that countrieswith no territorial claims against the Soviet Unionwould allow the troops of the common Europeanarmy to be used in an offensive war.

Any nonaggression pact not preceded by a sweep­ing Soviet retreat from its empire in easternEurope would be the worst kind of bear trap into

NOVEMBER 2, 1953 79

which we could fall. It would start from the pre­posterous premise that the word of the Sovietgovernment is worthy of any trust or credence.Shades of the' nonaggression pacts which the Krem­lin concluded with Poland, Finland, Latvia, Lithua­nia, Estonia, Japan, Turkey, everyone violatedor denounced at the first opportunity!

'The signature of such a pact would have noeffect on Soviet public opinion, which is nonexistent,for all practical purposes. It would have a relaxingand most demoralizing effect on Western publicopinion. It would extinguish the last hope of free­dom among the oppr,essed and exploited peoplesof eastern Europe. It would s,anctify the spoils ofruthless and treacherous aggression.

In short, American public opinion should beset against the nonaggression pact trap, whichwould impair, not strengthen our national security,exce'pt in the most improbable contingency that theSoviet government would get out of Germany,Austria, Hungary, Poland, Rumania, Bulgaria,Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. The sensible courseis to leave off day-dreaming and press on with thebuild-up of the equal or superior military, political,diplom,atic, and economic force in which lies theonly hope of preventing future Soviet aggressionand redressing past Soviet aggression. Above all,our official statements should stress that thereis no point in concluding any new pact of non­aggression with Moscow while the Soviet Unioncontinues to enjoy the spoils of so many formerpacts which it has unilaterally violated.

Comrade Tito as Ally'London and Washington have finally gra'sped theTrieste nettle, and it is to be hoped that theywill hold firm. If there is any loosening now, thesting will be sharp and lasting.

There is no "ideal" way of solving the Trieslteproblem. The Trieste region is usually taken toinclude the city of Trieste and its environs, theIstrian Peninsula, and the city of Fiume (nowcalled Rijeka). Iitaly claims it all by virtue ofan ethnic majority of Italians. Yugoslavia claimsit all as the successor state in that area of theAustro-;Hungarian Empire.

At the end of the war, most of the lstrianPeninsula together with Fiume were turned overoutright to Yugoslavia. The rest was divided intwo. Zone A, which included the city of Trieste,has been under Anglo-American occupation; thesmaller Zone B, under Yugoslav.

Under the Italian Treaty, the combined zoneswere to be internationalized, and to become a FreeCity under an internationally selected gove'rnor.The cold war made the necessary internationalagreement impossible. Then, in an effort to in­fluence' the 1948 Italian elections, Washington

80 rrHE FREEMAN

promised, or seemed to promise, both zones toItaly. A little'later, as part of the process of warm­ing up to THo, Washington tried to forget thispromise, and allowed Yugoslav hopes to inflate.

The record is not one to be proud of. There isno possibility of fulfilling all obligations-sincethey are mutually contradictory-or of satisfyingthe directly conflicting aspirations of both Romeand Belgrade. The situation had reached an irritat­ing stalemate that could be broken only by action.

London and Washington announced the one activemove that makes positive sense at this stage inthe unhappy development. Zone A will be turnedover .to Italian jurisdiction. The Anglo-Americanoccupying troops will withdraw and be replaced byItalian troops.

It is the response of Tito, the "good" Communist,white-haired boy of the old Acheson wing of theState Depar1tment, that should most interest us. Im­mediately his red saber started rattling. His mobs inBelgrade stoned the American Embassy and injuredan American diplomat. His soldiers and tanksstarted moving into Zone B, and he loudly threat­ened to begin shooting if Italian forces enteredZone A. On his airfields, planes were ordered tostand ready to take off.

The planes, tanks, and many of the guns wHhwhich he defies us and threatens to shoot our allies,perhaps also our own soldiers, have been supplied,let us rec1all, by us. Under the policy of aid "withoutstrings" we have been building up Tito as Balkanbulwark of the West. But Tito, when he startsaiming the guns, seelns to get his directions mixed.

W,e are lucky to be having this little test runon Tito's reliability. What if the crisis were in­volving the Red instead of the Italian army? Itwould be wise to be reasonably sure where Tito'sguns would then be pointed. But we shall neverbe sure if we continue the policy of the past threeyears: namely, granting all the material, financial,and military aid that Tito asks for, without get­ting any return in concessions or guarantees.

The repercussions of whalt happens now in Triestewill sound long and far. Washington and Londonmust show that they mean business if they expectto be taken seriously by the smaller nations. Ifthey allow themselves to be pushed around andblackmailed by a small-time Communist demagogue',they should not be surprised if the example provescwtching.

Tito is of course bluffing. He may carry hisbluff very far, even to the point of a few roundsof gunfire. But there is not the smallest doubtthat if he meets firmness-real firmness, of course,not just an indignant memorandum-then he willback down. Firmness, moreover, far from "thrust­ing him into the arms of Malenkov," is the oneattitude that might transform him into an effectivemilitary ally of the West. Like all Communists,Tito respects strength and despises weakness. Heaims to l'and on the winning side.

A "~ " UN:>utronger . ..A resounding phrase, no matter how empty ofpractical content, has for a certain type of mind astrangely hypnotic fascination. "World governmentunder world law enforceiable against individuals"is one such phrase. With some audiences it isguaranteed to bring down the house, although onemight suppose that anyone with reasonable knowl­edge of international aff,airs and an average sup­ply of judgment would realize that in the presentage there is no commonly accepted standard oflaw, no conceivable agency powerful enough toenforce "world law" and no means of bringing tobook an individual for the kind of action whichmight endanger world peace. Imagine, for instance,the practi.cal difficulties in the way of serving thewrit of some international tribunal on the managerof a Soviet atomic bomb plant tucked away in aremote corner of Siberia.

"A strengthened United N'ations" is anotherphrase which is apt to be endorsed by some well­meaning individuals and organizations as auto­matically and unthinkingly as Pavlov's conditioned­refle'x dogs were supposed to exhibit signs ofappetite after they had become accustomed to beingfed under certain conditions. The cry for a strength­ened U.N. as the way out of all our internationaltrouble'S is often heard today. It may well be heardmore frequently as the time approaches when aconference may be held to discuss revision of theU.N. Charter.

Behind this cry are two obvious illusions. It isassumed that by some institutional sleight-of-handa situation may be created in which the Communistpart of the world could be voted into good behavior.That anyone could believe this after the systematicSoviet policy of barring U.N. commissions fromall its imperial provinces, from North Korea, fromBulgaria, Albania, and East Germany is amazing.But illusions die hard.

'The second illusion is that U.N. majorities willalways be on our side. But this has been disprovedtime and again. Strategies that could have wonthe ill-starred war in Korea we're crippled, ham­strung, and made impossible by pressure fromother U.N. members which contributed little tothe fighting, but much to every move for weaknessand appe'asement. There was a U.N. majority forthe admission of India to the Korean conference­a move that would have placed the curse of Munichand Yalta on that gathering before it even started.

Late last year a vote in the economic committeeof the General Assembly endorsed the principle ofnationalization of foreign property without com­pensation. How would we feel if, after rashlydiscarding our U.N. veto, we found ourselves con­fronted with votes in favor of abandoning ChiangKai-shek, giving up German rearmament, paying

out huge sums every year for the support of"underprivileged" nations? We would feel that ourleaders had very stupidly let us be cornered. Ourproper policy with regard to the U.N. is to makeit as harmless as possible and to entrust ournational security to the more secure foundationof our own strength combined with alliances basedon equality of risk and sacrifice. A strengthenedU.N. might well mean a weakened U.S.

Too Many Laws, AnywayA line of criticism beloved of leftist commen­tators and publications is that the present Con­gress is derelict in its duty because it has notpassed enough laws. A good many dud shells werefired by a railroad captain of Artillery against theexcellent record of the Eightieth Congress on thissame assumption: that it is the first business ofCongress to pass as many laws as possible restrict­ing, regulating, and directing the conduct of theindividual.

This is a naively mistaken conception of theproper function of a legislative body. Somethingmight be learned from the traditional practiceof the Chinese, paying the doctor so long as theyare well. The ideal Congress might well be onethat enacted the feweslt new laws and repealed themost obnoxious existing statutes.

It has long been an American weakness to believethat, if something is wrong, it can be quickly setright by passing a law. In many cases "Thereought not to be a law" would be a truer andsounder philosophy than "There ought to be alaw."

It is certainly arguable that a simple repealthe Wagner Act would have been a better means

of curbing excesses of trade-union power than thepiling on top of the left-wing New Deal WagnerAClt the moderately conservative Taft-Hartley Act.And a more hopeful approach to the thorny sub­ject of strikes affecting national welfare thantrying to spell out in detail what action shouldbe taken in such emergencies would be to repeallegislation giving labor organizations special legalexemptions. lit is easy to imagine, for instance,what would happen if a group of employers shouldconspire among themselves to stop the railways,the coal mines, the steel mills, or the operationsof shipping.

Part of the' mischief of overlegislation is rootedin the tradition that party platforms should becumbersome, unwieldy documents, filling at leasteight columns of the New York Times. There maywell be a bright political future' for a party thatwill try the' experiment of offering its case in ashort statement of principles, pointing clearly inthe direction of striking off old controls on humanfreedom, rather than imposing new ones.

NOVEMBER 2, 1953 81

The American people are already conspicuouslyovertaxed, overlegislated, overregulated. It is add­ing insult to injury vvhen the theory is seriouslyadvanced that Congress should be an instrumentfor grinding out new laws on a piecework basis,to be praised if its output is high and censuredif it is low.

A Congress that would deliberately selt out torepeal as ..many harmful, obsolete, conflicting, andredundant laws as possible would deserve well ofthe American people.

US-Financed CompetitorsAll the current talk about reducing the nationaldebt is not going to do the country 'any good aslong as we keep on paying big sums into all kindsof foreign investments that eventually turn out tobe competitors of our own industrial undertakings.We: were reminded of this by a speech which Secre­tary of the Treasury 'George M. Humphrey made inWashington recently. Mr. Humphrey was frank inadmitting that we are financing enterprises abroadthat are actually competing with our own industries.Just what we were up to when we sent the moneyover there to build up competitors for ourselveshe did not tell his audience. But he made no bonesabout his own disagreement with a policy that hitsitself over the head with a sledge-hammer, anddoesn't even say ouch.

Secretary Humphrey s'aid: "The government mustquestion both its right and its financial ability tocontinue to use ,'taxpayers' money to finance invest­ments abroad on a large scale in the developnlentof competitive enterprise." We welcome ,these frankwords, but remain puzzled by the mysterious waysof our foreign policy planners, who seem to haveforgotten that our own business community de­serves as least as much 'Considera1tion as any, how­ever worthy, foreign enterprise.

Profitable "Martyrs"Ethel and Julius Rosenberg will find no peace inthe grave, so long as their erstwhile comrades haveanything to say about it. With their brutal cyni­cism, the Communists aim to squeeze the last dropof political juice from the corpses of this pair ofstupefied fanatics and from the two wretchedchildren whom, by their refusal to tell the truth,they abandoned. The Death House Letters of Etheland Julius Rosenberg is being serialized in a num­ber of European newspapers, and is scheduledfor early publication in a dozen or more countries.England, Argentina, Japan, Holland, Italy, Israelare among the nations on the list. According tothe Daily Worker, the French translation will be

~2 THE FREEMAN

published by Gallimard, probably France's best­known publishing house. A little gesture by Galli­mard, no doubt, to show us how to promote betterFranco-,American understanding.

The Daily Worker informs us with a smirk that"all profits from the book . . . are going into atrust fund for Michael and Robbie." What trustfund, by the way? Established where, and underwhat individuals as trustees? Come to think of it,a lot of money has poured down the Rosenbergdrain during the past several years. Just howmuch? Where has it all come from and-mostinteresting question-where has it all gone? Howmuch actually went into expenses of the case, andwhat portion was detou.red into the byways of theCommunist apparatus? The National Committee toSecure Justice in the Rosenberg case seems to besailing merrily along. Has the FB:I or the TreasuryDepartment given a thought or two to some ofthese questions?

The FTC Talks SenseIn recent weeks a new mood has entered the re­lations between government and business. It isa refreshing thing to observe, and one of the mostencouraging developments of the period since theEisenhower Administration came into office.

The most recent concrete example of this moodcan be found in the decision of the Federal TradeCommission to reduce friction between governmentand business by developing a new system of clear­ing up misunderstandings that ,tend to obscurethe realities of day-to-day business practices. TheF:TC has stated that. it wishes to cut down on thenumber of cases actually reaching the courts. Ithas decided to replace conflict in the courts withthe type of negotiation that tends to solve dis­agreements before they reach the point of noreturn. It is to be hoped and expected thatbusiness will be ready to meet the FTC halfway,and make it easy for its officials to perfect thesystem which they have developed, but which stillhas to prove itself in actual operations.

Meanwhile, it would be wise to practice restraintin every direction, and to reduce the area of irrita­tion and conflict that can only alienate businessand government from each other and aggravateold wounds. It is not an easy thing to translatea new mood into the day-to-day rough and tumbleof legal and economic affairs. But the effor1t isworth making, and should bear its own reward.

In any event, we most certainly welcome theFTC's new attitude, and its intention to let by­gones be bygones. Whatever the final outcome ofits new policy, it certainly represents a new eraof good will toward the hard-pressed and oftenmisunderstood men who run our large businessenterpris:es.

Europe's Self-Made Handcuffs

By HENRY HAZLITTFirsthand examination oj the econolnies oj Italy,Fra,nce, and England shows that failure to remove

controls is now the chiej cause of their ailments.

Every once in a while someone brags that he couldlick someone else with one hand tied behind hisback. Whether or not the boast is warranted, theboaster at least admits by implication that havingone hand tied behind his back would place him ata certain disadvantage. Yet what would we thinkof a fellow who insisted that having one hand tiedbehind his back, or wearing handcuffs, actuallyincreased his effectivene'Ss and competitive strength?This is pretty much the position of most countriestoday.

The present report, the product of a month inEurope, is necessarily sketchy. I visited only fourcountries--Switzerland, Italy, France, and Eng­land---land learned only at secondhand of whatseveral writers have begun to call the "miracle"of German recovery. The reports I heard, however,came from persons in the best position to know,and did not differ on the basic facts.

In Switzerland I attended a conference at Seel­isberg of the Mont Pelerin Society, where eminenteconomists from half a dozen different nationswere present, including a large contingent fromGermany. 'The German contingent included Dr.Ludwig Erhard, 'Germany's economic minister, andother economists both inside and outside the gov­ernment. And despite individual differences, theburden of what they and economists of othernationalities had to report was that, as a resultof ,the monetary reform of June 21, 1948, and ofthe dropping of price controIs, there has been aneconomic revival in Germany not paralleled inany other country of Europe.

Germany does not have, even today, a completely"free" economy. It still retains rent control, in­vestment control, and above all exchange control.But comparatively it has a freer economy than anymajor country in Europe that was involved in theSecond World War. And the timing, pace, andextent of its recovery come as near to an inductivedemonstration of the superiority of a free economyas our age is likely to witness.

Yet officialdom in the rest of Europe still seems£0 draw from the German experience every lessonbut this. It is true that nearly everywhere therehas been some relaxation of the postwar controls:general price-ifixing and general rationing are nowextremely rare. It is also true that in practicallyevery country where people are still free to ex­press themselves orthodox socialism-government

ownership of the means of production-has beenrapidly losing its prestige. It is true, furthermore,that everywhere there has been widespread dis­appointment and disillusion with the particulargovernment plans and controls that are now ineffeet. But it would be too much to say that therehas been any marked disillusion with "planning"or controlism itself.

On the contrary, what principally strikes oneis the stranglehold that controls get once they areestablished, the almost impregnable strength of thevested intere'Sts they build up, and the tenacity ofthe habits of thinking to which they give rise. Asa result, no matter how badly planning and social­ism work, from the standpoint of the general na­tional interest, nothing is done to mitigate or getrid of them except in the most violent kind of crisis.

Suppose we look at what has happened in thisrespect in Italy, France, and England. It is im­possible to describe here in detail all the com­plicated controls that remain in each of thesecountries, but we may choose a few controls ineach for purposes of illustration.

Union Coercion in Italy

The case of Italy reminds us that not all economiccontrols are imposed by government-at least notdirectly. One of the most harmful economic con­trols in Italy consists of the nation-wide union con­tracts under which an employer cannot drop work­ers without giving them terminal pay, which mayrun a month for every year of service. In practicethe requirement is usually even HlOre onerous, foran employer can seldom drop a substantial numberof workers without being forced to pay all of themfour or five months' separation allowance.

The effect of this is to force employers tokeep unneeded men. This reduces the efficiency efthe working force by reducing its mobility, andkeeping part of it 'working on the wrong things.It reduces its efficiency still more by encour­aging featherbedding practices, in which two orthree men do the work of one. And of course theheavy penalities on firing discourage new hiring.

This union coercion is made possible by a gov­ernmental agency, the Istituto per la RiconstruzioneIndustriale', popularly known as I.R.I. (pronouncedErie). This organization owns stock in most ofthe large Italian industrial companies. It uses the

NOVEMBER 2,1953 83

earnings of the profitable cOl"poratlons to helpmeet the losses of the unprofitable ones, and thegove'fnment treasury ITlakes up the net deficit thatremains after the operation.

The theory behind all this appears to be thatno corporation must be allowed to shut down, be­cause that would create unemployment. Yet theore isno reason to suppose that in the long run thiselaborate system has prevented or will preventune'mployment. At present registered unemploy­ment in Italy is about 2,000,000 out of a workingforce of 19,400,000. (There are reasons for think­ing that this figure is not too reliable; but if itoverstates the number of totally unemployed, itdoes not allow for the large number of partiallyemployed, or "underemployed.")

Nor is there any good reason even in theoryto believe that these' devices can in the long runeither cure or alleviate unemployment. For bydiverting the earnings of the profitable corpora­tions to support the unprofitable, they prevent theprofitable corporations from expanding and increas­ing employment to the extent that they otherwisewould. At best they substitute less productive em­ploy,ment for more productive. Their net effectis to reduce the incentives to efficiency and to theproduction of the things that are really needed.

,Still anothe'r fa'ctor making for inefficiency andlowered production is the way in which wagesare fixed. About once a year the representativesof the Confindustria, a sort of super-N.A.M., sitaround a table with the repre'Sentatives of both theCommunist and non-Communist unions and draft acollective bargaining agreement which covers pract­ically the whole of Italian industry. This not onlyputs a floor under the wages of the poor workers,but indirectly puts a ceiling over the wages of thegood workers. Wages are not fixed primarily onthe basis of individual skill and productivity, butare heavily determined by the family status ofthe individual and the number of his children.The differential between the pay of skilled andunskilled workers has narrowed considerably.

I need hardly point out that the whole resultof trying to turn the wage system into a hugesocial security scheme is to undermine the in­centives to production and to make the averageof real wages and living standards far lower thanit would otherwise be.

;Many of these schemes were put into effect byMussolini, yet the vested interests they have setup have successfully prevented all efforts to ter­minate' them.

France's Wage System

I have not space to go at length into the mazeof controls that constitute the present economicsystem of France, but so far as the wage systemis concerned, it is strikingly like that of Italy.Here again wages are determined primarily by the

84 THE FREEMAN

family status and the number of children of theindividual worker. In April of this year, for ex­ample, the average wage of unmarried v;orkerswas 5,780 francs a week, whereas the averagewage of a worker with a dependent wife and twochildren was 8,410 francs a week.

Under such a system the incentive to repro­duction is greater than the incentive to production.And the great body of workers, ofcours'e" are nothelped, but hurt by it.

The original theory behind all these plans wasthat the employers were being forced to pay allthese social security benefits to the workers. AFrench employer, in fact, must payout socialsecurity taxes of one sort or another that total43 per cent of his entire payroll. Yet in the longrun workers must pay for their own social security;and there could hardly be a clearer demonstrationof the working of this economic principle than inFrance. For while the cost of living is abouttwenty-three times as high as in 1938, Frenchwages, not including the social benefits, are onlyabout fifteen times as high.

'The system, moreover, provides a perfect illus­tration of the power of such schemes to perpetuatethemselves, no matter how harmful they are fromthe' standpoint of the general welfare. By theirvery discriminations they build up powerful vestedinterests in favor of their continuance--individ­uals who are better off, or believe themselves tobe better off, than they would be without thescheme. One need merely imagine the fate of aFrench premier who would propose the abolition ofthis terrific tax on employment and of the' benefitpayments that went with it-even if he were todecree that the employers must pay the formertaxe'S out as wages.

British lE!xchange 'Control

'But it is not merely, as I have indicated, thegrowth of vested individual or group intereststhat preserves "planning" and controls, but themental habits that are also built up under them.This is nowhere better illustrated than in the waythat the British now think of their exchange con­trol.

Exchange control is in origin a totalitariandevice. It was first fully elaborated in its "modern"form in Hitler's Germany under Dr. Schacht. Itconsists first of all in the government's fixing afiat rate for a country's inconvertible paper cur­rency and then forbidding any of its citizens tobuy or sell that currency except at this "official"rate. In order to enforce such a control, the gov­ernment is usually obliged to go on to control thecountry's whole fore'ign trade-the export andimport of its own currency, and the export andimport of other currencies, particularly the "scarce"currencies (which are "scarce" chiefly because theyare undervalued by the compulsory official ex-

change rate which overvalues the home currency).Further, the government must go on to control

all exports and imports. It does not allow its ownexporters to keep or seH freely the dollars theyearn. It does not allow its own industries to buytheir raw materials freely from abroad, but onlyspecified amounts from specified areas, and usuallyonly through special import licenses. It not onlyforbids its own citizens to import "luxuries" fromabroad, but does its own "bulk buying" of food­stuffs, thereby not allowing its own citizens todecide freely the quantity, quality, and natureeven of their own food. If the authorities wantto continue butter rationing, for example, in orderto impose their own notion of "austerity," theyneed merely anow insufficient import or home pro­duction of butter, whereupon the world is informedthat "England" still has a "shortage" of butterbecause "England" still lacks the "dollar exchange"to buy butter.

A few of the more fantastic restrictions of ex­change control in Britain have now been relaxed.But a freeborn Englishman is still not allowed morethan £40 ($112) a year for foreign travel for hisown pleasure. Above all, the machinery of exchangeis kept intact, and the British citizen is made tofeel that any freedom he does have to buy anythingis the re'Sult ofa special favor from a kindlybureaucracy.

Exhange control is so obviously a totalitarianmeasure that without the emergency of total warnobody in Briitain would have dared to suggestimposing it in the first place. But totalitariancontrols, like vice, though at first monsters offrightful mien, are, if too long endured, finallyembraced. What most struck me in talks withotherwise intelligent Englishmen was the way inwhich they have accepted such controls as a nor­mal and permanent way of life. They are now sounaccustomed to free markets and a free economythat they have come to fear and distrust them.It is not the advocate of continued exchange con­trol, but the advocate of a return to the inter­national gold standard and to the centuries-oldsystem of free foreign exchanges who is treatedas the "theorist," the experimentalist, and thereckless doctrinaire.

This becomes clear vvhen you ask most officialsor bankers or even most economists when theythink the pound sterling can or should be madeconvertible. Their first reaction to the problemis one of indifference. They talk as if things aregoing along pretty well as it is. And they seethe problem of convertibility as a very formidableone. They point to the quick breakdown of the con­vertibility experiment in the summer of 1947;and they blame the convertibility itself for thatbreakdown, and not the utterly unrealistic con­version rate of $4.03 for the pound. A man whostarted with a Inillion dollar bills, and offered toexchange each of them for three quarters, would

hardly be entitled to astonishment if he soon foundhimself with $750,000 in quarters and entirely bail­ed out of dollar bills. Yet this was precisely, inprinciple, what Britain did. But the outcome provesnothing at all about conversion at a realistic ratefor the pound or at a free market rate.

I will not pursue futher all the false reasonsand needless timidities which prevent the Britishfrom going back to free exchanges, free markets,and free enterprise to solve their economic problems.It is my own conclusion that three-fourths ofBritain's present economic problems are caused bythe very controls set up to cure them. And this istrue, it seems to me, of most of the rest of Europe.

The world is dying of its remedies, and the realproblem is how to save it from its saviors.

Post-Facto JusticeBy M.. K. ARGUS

Molotov smiled sourly and said: "I have the latestre'port on Beria, Comrade Malenkov."

"Well, well," exclaimed the Premier cheerfullyand began to rub his pudgy hands. "What is it?"

"There is a rumor that a man who resemblesBeria and claims he is Beria is somewhere in Spain.He is being questioned by the American imperial­ists."

"The American imperialists are wonderfulpeople," said Malenkov. "Marx bless the Americanimperialists. When they question someone theylearn nothing and we learn everything. Who isthat man, anyway?"

"We don't know yet, Comrade Malenkov, butwe'll find out soon enough."

"It doesn't really matter," observed Malenkov."What I can't understand, though, is why anyoneshould want to impersonate Beria. What kind ofan ambition is it?"

"We Russians," Molotov said diffidently, "havestrange ambitions."

"Very true," Malenkov said and smiled withbenign malice at Molotov. "However, we must allbe grateful to that new Beria, whoever he is. Hewill save us a great deal of trouble."

"Naturally, Comrade Malenkov. But how?""Very simple. I am beginning to think that our

late Comrade Stalin was right when he called youa nincompoopski. Don't you know how the courseof Soviet justice runs?"

"IOf course I know. When we apprehend andunmask an enemy of the people we liquidate him,then try him, then sentence him to death, and thenpublish an announcement about his arrest. LongIive Soviet justice, Comrade Malenkov!"

"Long live Soviet justice, Comrade Molotov.Now then. Beria has been liquidated already. Nowwe have to try him. We've already announced pub-

NOVEMBER 2, ] 95~ 85

licly that he' will be tried by the Supreme Tribunalof the Soviet Union. What would, under normalcircumstances, be our next step?"

"Our next step, under normal circumstances,would be to have Beria, after his liquidation, dieof pneumonia in jail, or in an automobile accidenton the way to the tribunal."

"Exactly. But now all this trouble has beeneliminated. I am not worried about our own people.They are well aware of the procedure. But someidiots abroad, especially those soft-hearted intel­lectuals who sympathize with our great movement,may begin to ask que'Stions. They may start won­dering when Beria's trial will be held. Now,thanks to the Wall Street capitalists, we have aready answer."

"What is the answer, Comrade Malenkov?""'The answer is that we cannot try someone whom

we do not have. Beria,we will say, has fled tothe enemy camp. We can only try him in absentia.Considering the fact that Beria has been liquidatedalready it would only be proper for us to try himin absentia, don't you think?"

"'A remarkable idea, Comrade Malenkov.""Yes, it's quite remarkable," Malenkov agreed

modestly. "We 'could even demand his extraditionand have some fun with the Americans. And Vishin­sky could deliver a speech in the United Nationscondemning the American government for harbor­ing a dangerous criminal against internationalpeace."

"You are a genius, Comrade Malenkov!"Malenkov nodded in silent agreement and resumed

rubbing his pudgy hands. "That was Beria's maintrouble," he observed philosophically. "Beria "wantedto be a genius, too, and he was in too much of ahurry. It takes time to become a genius in Russia.Besides, under our glorious Communist system therecan only be one genius at a time in the SovietUnion. You don't want to become a genius, Com­rade Molotov, do you?

"Never I" Molotov exclaimed emphatically.Malenkov suddenly began to laugh: "Ho-ho-ho I""He-he-he," Molotov echoed. "Would you mind

telling me, Comrade Malenkov, what I am laughingabout so hilariously?"

"An idea just struck me," Malenkov said. "Avery interesting thought occurred to me while Iwas looking at you. 'There surely must be someoneoutside the Soviet Union,' I said to myself, 'whoresembles our dear Comr1ade' Molotov.'"

"Who resembles me?" Molotov asked. "Whyshould you be intere'Sted in someone who resemblesme?"

"You never can tell," Malenkov replied. "TheAmericans may want to question him, too."

"Oh no, no," Molotov cried. "You can't do thatto me, Comrade Malenkov!"

The Minister of Foreign Affairs jumped up fromhis chair, threw an imploring look at the Premier,and flopped to the floor in a dead faint.

86 THE FREEMAN

II THIS IS WHAT THEY SAID IIThe fact that Durkin has not blown up and goneback to his nice quiet job at the union is a reflec­tion of his mature, stable character and his con­viction that he can be much more useful to laborat work within the Administration than he wouldbe carping on the side lines. And Democrat or not,he" has acquired a profound loyalty to PresidentEisenhower and the success of his Administration.

HUGH AND ELISE MORROW, Saturday Eve­ning Post, September 5, 1953

Indeed, the argument that India is either for usor against us-that unless she agrees with us onthe interpretation of every regulation she isoriented toward the Communists-is basically atotalitarian line.

WASHINGTON POST, October 6, 1953

I find myself nervous when I see such frequentreference to the world being divided into twosharply differentiated halves, the capitalist-demo­cratic and the collectivist-socialist.... We needmixed orders and societies growing up in orderto diminish the friction between the most differentsystems.... I think that in Europe we may lookto Poland, for instance, for creative and valuablethinking in the realm of political theory and toexcellent methods and techniques in politicalprac1tice.

OWEN LATTIMORE, Annals of the AmericanAcademy of Political and Social Science,July 1946

The current facts are such that we cannot "liberate"Eastern Europeans or Russians or Chinese fromthe slavery of Communis,m, and Communists can­not emancipate Western ,Europeans or Africans orAmericans from the thralldom of "capitalism," saveat a cost equivalent to the suicide of civilization.

THE NATION, June 20, 1953

Understatement of the Year

More American workers have automobiles than isthe case in the Soviet Union.... There are moretelevision sets in the U.S. than in the Soviet Unionand the screen on most of our sets is larger.

DAILY WORKER, September 13, 1953

The Freeman invites contributions to this column, and willpay $2 for each quotation published. If an item is sent in bymore 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 number if it is a book.Quotations should be brief. They can not be returned oracknowledired. THE EDITORS

Our Highest Court

By JOHN HANNASome revealing and rather unexpected facts andobservations about the ChieJ Justiceship and the

man from California who has been named to fill it

Earl W,arren, Republican, sixty-two, six feet tall,two hundred pounds in weight, native Californian,extrovert, popular politician, devoted family man,has 'become the fourteenth Chief Justice of theUnited States. (The appointment is still subject toSenate confirmation, but this is taken for granted.)

'The new Chief Justice had an average collegeand law school record at the University of Cali­fornia in Berkeley, brief military experience inWorld War lOne, short and unimportant privatepractice in ,San Francisco, nearly twenty years asdeputy and district attorney in Alameda, where hewas courageous and efficient in the prosecution ofracketeers (including labor racketeers), four yearsas Attorney General and ten years as Governor ofCalifornia. His administration of the two latteroffices was marked by nonpartisanship and thepromotion of public welfare measures that dis­integrated the supporters of the Townsend andother radical security proposals. State patronageunder 'Governor Warren recognized his Democraticand independent backing. No hint of scandal evermarred his career. The Governor was a candidatefor the Republican nomination for President in1948 and 1952 and was the nominee for Vice Pres­ident with Gove'rnor Dewey in 1948.

Chief Justice Warren's speeohes and writingsdo not characterize him as an abstract thinkereither in government or law. His opinions andpolicies show him to be an empiricist, who acceptsthe inevitability and even the desirability of con­siderable change in the direction of increased publicresponsibility for social welfare. On the other hand,his opposition to President Truman's assertion ofpower to seize the steel industry in peacetime andhis stout support of state ownership of submergedlands indicate a belief in constitutional limitationson the power of the federal executive and a distastefor concentration of federal authority at the expenseof the states. Where the new Chief Justice standson the great constitutional issues of freedom ofspeech and other private liberties in relation tonational security is anyone's guess. Prophesyinga judge's opinions from his political ,affiliations hasoften in the past proved hazardous. This wasparticularly so in respect to some of the membersof the present Supreme Court, whose New Dealassociations have. furnished slight guide to theirjudicial attitudes.

The nomination of a Chief Justice is one of

the major responsibilities that can come toa Pres­ident. Since John Adams selected John Marshall in1801, only one in three of our Presidents has beenfaced with this responsibility. The influence uponour national life and institutions of Chief JusticeJohn Marshall ,and Roger B. Taney is commonknowledge. Lawyers would assign almost equalsignificance to the services of Charles EvansHughes and Harlan Fiske Stone. Several associatejustices, ,among others Oliver Wendell Holmes andLouis D. Brandeis, had perhaps a greater influenceupon the development of law> than certain of thechief justices. The Chief Justice has importantduties in the assignment of cases for opinion, inadministering the business of the Court, and insupervising lower federal courts. For the re'St heis one among equals. His weight depends upon hispersonality as a negotiator and conciliator, hischaracter, legal knowledge, and intellectual stature.

~rbe Olympian Hughes

Were the new Chief Justice to seek a modelin his great office, most lawyers would suggestthat he choose Charles Evans Hughes. If any manwas properly cast in the role of Chief Justice itwas Hughes. He brought to the Court the Olympianpresence of a major prophet as well as a profoundknowledge of law and history. He had charm andcourtesy beneath his dignified exterior. He wasa humanitarian whose righteous character was builton deep religious conviction. He' had the conserv­ative's respect for principle without the reaction­ary's blind aversion to change. I-Ie was immuneto any sort of pressures except those that reachedhis intelligence. He had great practical sense inmatters of law administration, and energy andpatience in working for reforms he deemed essen­tial. He' ~Nas a great lawyer and a great man.

N'o serious complaint can be made against Pres­ident Eisenhower because of the geographical com­position of the present Court. The Court is a na­tional, not a representative body. It is probablymore important to have the principal fields of lawrepresented than the various sections of the coun­try. It may be noted, however, that the MiddleWest and Mountain states now have no memberwhile the South has three. The Chief Justice' andJustice Douglas 'are from the Pacific Coast, JusticesFrankfurter and Jackson from the Northeast,

NOVEMBER 2, 1953 87

Justices Burton and Minton from the North Cen­tral, ,and Justices Black, Re'ed, and Clark from theSouth, although perhaps the section of the last­named might more 'accurately be called Southwest.

'The age of the new Chief Justice, sixty-two,should occasion no criticism. More' years are littleindex of a man's durability, capacity for growth,or fitness for exacting duties. Something may besaid for compulsory retirement policies where phys­ical powers and the utility of the promotion ofjunior executives 'are paramount considerations.Even in political life, where onerous administrativeburdens and social obligations bear heavily onmental and physical powers, the argument for youthis significant. An appellate judge, although heshould have unimpaired mental vigor to meet thelong hours of research and writing, is almost en­tirely free from the strains that break down abusiness or government executive. There are fewpublic demands on his personal social life. He isprotected almost entirely from the annoyancesfrom which others can scarcely shield themselves.His work is done in the most favorable surround­ings. 'The actual hours of court sittings are few.Many judges have done from fifteen to thirty yearsof distinguished legal work after the age of ChiefJustice Warren, among them Marshall, Taney,Holmes, Brandeis, Hughes, and Augustus andLearned Hand. John W. Davis and George WhartonPepper are contemporary lawyers over eighty inactive practice. Roscoe Pound (eighty-three) andSamuel Williston (ninety-two) are law teacherswho make the usual retirement rule'S' ridiculous.

Political Considerations

President Eisenhower, in announcing the ap­pointment of Chief Justice Warren, stated he wasinfluenced in part by the political philosophy ofhis nominee. Adverse comment has come from somewho believe that the President should, have con­sidered only legal and judicial qualifications. ThePresident may fairly seek intelligent conservativerepresentation in a coordinate branch of govern­ment. He may expect the Republicans to have along lease of power, but he cannot be sure.

If the President believes in the philosophyof the Republican Party, he is justified in placingon the Court a man who accepts that philosophy.Chief Justice Warren and Justice Burton are theonly Republicans on the court. The federal judiciaryis still overwhelmingly Democratic.

President Roosevelt frankly sought judges whowere sympathetic to the New Deal, although, ashas been stated, the professional principles of thenew judges rather than their political alliancesdetermine their judicial opinions. Whatever theNew Deal political philosophy, many of the writ­ings of its more articulate members showed an in­tolerance for what they called "bill-of-rights"democracy, a belief that the liberty of the citizen

88 THE FREEMAN

should yield to the superior wisdom of social andeconomic planners, a sympathy for a materialisticinterpretation of history, and an acceptance of theidea that individual enterprise and the independenceof local and state governments produced wastesand inconsistencies that should be corrected by aconcentration of power in the' central government.The Republican Party, while admitting no lesserconcern for humanitarian legislation or social wel­fare, retained its faith in individual enterprise,personal freedom, the integrity of local government.

A prevalent delusion is that the chief dangerto liberty is from the conservatives. This is hardto understand in view of the intolerance commonlyexhibited by radicals and self-styled liberals. Theconservative is both rational and skeptical. Herecognizes that most institutions have grown outof the needs and conveniences of human beings.In the pattern of history he sees little evidencethat abrupt changes in institutions greatly affecthuman behavior. The conservative, rejecting mate­ialistic determinism, believe'S in a moral order fromwhich is derived standards of political conduct.With his historical perspective the conservativeinsists upon limitation of governmental power. Heprotects the minority from majority tyranny. Atthe same time the conservative knows that societyis dynamic, not static. He is not committed againstchange. The conservative frequently is a non­conformist because' he looks behind and beyondcurrent myths. In practical administration the con­servative with rational notions of the origin andnature of institutions may introduce more innova­tions than the radical, who is more likely to becommitted toa single panacea.

Chief Justice' W,arren is an untried judge. HeInay find comfort in the knowledge that other menwhose experience has been primarily political havebecome eminent judges because they have appre­ciated the soundness of Justice Cardozo's admonitionthat nothing can take the place of rigorous andaccurate and profound study of the law as alreadydeveloped from the wisdom of the past. It was:

The judicial process comes to this and little more;logic, and history, and custom, and utility, and theaccepted standards of right conduct, are the forceswhich singly or in combination shape the progressof the law. Which of these forces shall dominate inany case must be dependent largely on the com­parative importance or value of the social intereststhat will be thereby promoted or impaired. One ofthe most fundamental social interests is that lawshall be uniform, and impartial. . . Therefore, inthe main, there shall be adherence to precedent...But symmetrical development may be bought attoo high a price... The social interests served bysymmetry or certainty must then be balanced bythe social interests served by equity and fairnessor other elements of social welfare. These may enjoinupon the judge the duty of drawing the line atanother angle, of staking the path along new courses,of marking a new point of departure from whichothers who come after him will set out upon theirjourney.

The Rights and Wrongs of Labor

By DONALD R. RICHBERGIndustrial peace in this country is impossibleso long as the leaders of organized labor areunchecked in their war on private enterprise.

I have fought with and against labor organiza­tions, with and against employers, and with andagainst government. Probably no one will accuseme of any timid pacifism-or even of any excessivepartisanship! But let me claim one consistency inthis motley record. I have' consistently opposedtyranny and oppression. To me employers, laborleaders, or public officials who think they havebeen divinely appointed to rule over their fellow­men are equally absurd and pestiferous.

Labor battles have brought suffering and hard­ship to millions of people. They have wasted un­told wealth and energy that might have been betterused to advance the' general welfare. But in ourcrude human struggles toward a higher civilizationwe seem fated to do a lot of fighting against oneanother in the process of learning how to worktogether for our common gain.

In such fighting I have swung an axe, zestfuland battle-scarred, for nearly half a century. Butrecently I have become fearsom·e and battle-scared.Recently I have come to fear that, as with atomicweapons in international warfare, we have devel­oped such weapons in industrial warfare that weare facing a choice between disarmament andsuicide.

Our international efforts to achieve a peace ofreconciliation of conflicting interests seem doomedto failure. The'ruling classes in too many nationsare possessed of an irreconcilable desire for worlddominion. The question we should ask ourselvestoday is whether, for a similar reason, our domesticefforts to achierve a peace of reconciliation of con­flictingeconomic interests are also doomed. Theanswer to this question may be found throughstudy and research into the moving causes of in­dustria,} strife and into the prevailing policies ofoutstanding labor leader,s.

'There are three classes in our supposedly class­less society whose theories, aims, and activitiesare irreconcilable with industrial peace'. In oneclass are obviously the Communists, whose pro­claimed objective is the destruction of privateproperty, private management, and private enter­prise. In the second, less obvious, but larger andmore dangerous, class are the bipartisan soci.alizerswho, through the miraculous conception of a"welfare state," expect to produce Siamese twinsof social security and individual libertY0 They arealso working for the gradual destruction of private

property, private management, and private enter­prise. In the third, and most powerful, class arethe leaders of organized labor, who persistentlywage industrial warfare which, if unchecked, willeventually destroy private property, private man­agement, and private enterprise.

Pro-Socialist Leadership

The menace of this labor leadership is incred­ibly great just because most of the conspicuousheads of labor unions either actually believe ormake other people believe that they are ardentapostles of our constitutional liberties and theAmerican way of life. In reality, most of themare genuinely opposed to Communism. They sin­cerely think they are opposed to its gentler brother,national socialism-particularly if you call it "fasc­ism."

Unfortunately, when a Socialist dresses up inoveralls, a flannel shirt, and muddy shoes, and rantsabout democracy and exploited workers, theselabor leaders take him to their bosom. They repeatall his stock denunciations of profits, which arethe lifeblood of private property. They attack andundermine management authority, which is essen­tial to maintaining private management. Theydamn investment banking (called "Wall 8tre'et"),vvhich is essential to sustaining private enterprise.rrhus they educate millions of misguided followersto help bring about the eventual destruction ofprivate property, private management, and privateenterprise.

This labor leadership isa menace not becauseit may become Communist, but because it is anti­capitalist and pro-socialist. The weakness of theopposition to it lies in miseducation of the Amer­ican people in the last fifty years. A large ma­jority have apparently been persuaded that capital­ism is much worse than socialism. They have beentaught that socialism can be made democratic­just as though a wolf, forced to wear a sheepskin,can be made harmless. But capitalism is reputedto be so naturally predatory that it cannot bereformed.

Yet it is capitalism that has heen the economicfoundation of individual libe'rty in America. Onlyon that foundation can the structure of our freeinstitutions be maintained. Any man who wantsto engage in private enterprise, to support him-

NOVEMBER 2, 1953 89

self, and to own his own home, any man whowants to be free from excessive taxation anddetailed controls of his living and working condi­tions by government, should know that the rightsof private property which are the e'Ssence ofcapitalism are essential to his enjoyment of in­dividual liberty.

When these rights of private property are takenaway, or even when they are so modified that hecan no longer use them freely, then the Constitu­tion of the United States will no longer protectthose precious freedoms that are 'written into theBill of Rights. They are all dependent on eco­nomic freedom; and economic freedom is protected,not by granting powers to government to regulatethe acquisition and use of property, but by deny­ing, or at least severely limiting, such powers ofgovernment. Free men may call upon government toprotect them from the violence or fraud of othermen. But if men would remain free they mustinsist that government leave them free from anycompulsion to work, or to use their property, inthe service of other men.

This right of the individual to control the em­ployment of his own labor, and the use of propertygained by his labor, was once a fundamentalprinciple in American labor organizations. To pro­tect the liberty and dignity of the individual wasthe major objective of unionism. The workers werenot organized to get rid of one set of industrialmasters, called employers, in order to substitute anew set of masters, called labor leaders. They werenot urged to substitute for a class of hereditarymasters of politics a new class of elected masters.They were organized in order to set themselve'Sfree from all masters, to end the ancient conceptof master and servant, and to establish a societyof self-governing, self-supporting, self-respectingpeople, voluntarily cooperating to advance the com­mon good.

The long struggle to establish the right of theworkers to have a voice and a powerful influencein the direction of industrial progress has beendefinitely won in the United States. There is todayno effective opposition here to the right of theworkers to organize for self-protection and self­advancement and to participate in the regulationof wages and working conditions through collectivebargaining between representatives of their ownchoosing and representatives of employers. There isno effective opposition to the right of the workersto obtain the protection of writtcen and enforceabletrade agreements. There is no effective oppositionto the intervention of government to safeguard thefree exercise of the right of collective bargainingso that it may not be de'Stroyed by any brutalexercis'e of property power to compel the workersto choose between accepting intolerable conditionsor being deprived of employment e'Ssential to theearning of a livelihood.

This was the vision of future industrial reflations

90 THE FREEMAN

which inspired hopeful students, such as myself,to believe that the way to peaceful industrial co­operation lay just ahead, if we could only establishthe right of the workers to organize and be repre­sented in negotiations with employers by repre­sentatives of their own choosing who would faith­fully protect and advance their interests.

Unfortunately, it became necessary to bringgovernment aid to the support of the workers intheir struggle to build up and maintain repre­sentative organizations. In retrospect it is clearthat, if far-sighted counsels had prevailed amongbig and little employers in the period when labororganizations were fighting for the mere right toexist, the employers would not have' opposed thefree and independent organization of workers.However, early labor organizations, having to fightfor the right to exist, developed a leadership ofmilitant and often fanatical men vvhose activitieswere countered by the militant opposition of em­ployers. Thus the labor movement grew in a philo­sophy of hostility to property owners which trendedinevitably toward a hostility to the entire systemof private property. This tendency was held incheck for many decades by the fact that the over­whelming majority of the American people wascomposed of farmers and small businessmen andtheir employees, who either owned their homes andmanaged their own businesses or anticipated that,through thrift and hard work, they would becomehome owners and business managers.

Law's Supporting Labor Unions

Probably the earliest effective legislation forgovernment support of organized labor was theRailway Labor Act of 1926. This was foHowed in1932 by the Norris-LaGuardia Act. As a co-authorof both these acts, I venture to point out that theywere designed to protect the organization andfunctioning of labor unions; but neither gave tolabor unions any power beyond that which wouldlie in the capacity of the workers for self-organiza­tion and in their relief from oppressive uses of thepower of employers, or of government, againstthem.

In 1933 came the National Industrial RecoveryAct, which, in its historic Section 7-A (which Idrafted) again extended the protection but not themilitant aid of government to the self-organizationof the workers. Unfortunately, to my mind, therapid growth of labor organizations during thefirst two years of the Roosevelt Administrationaroused deep-seated hostility among managers ofboth big and little business. This became a fund­amental reason for their antagonism to the' con­tinuance of the' NRA, which resulted not only inits nullification by the Supreme Court (which mayor may not have been fortunate for the country),but in the failure of the Congress to enact legisla­tion which would carry forward some of the good

Intentions of the' NRA while eliminating some ofits obvious errors.

Out of the death of the NRA came the birth ofthe Wagner Act. Now, for the first time in ourhistory, the great and rapidly expanding powersof the federal government were brought into apartisan support of organized labor, largely des­troying the balance of economic powers under whichgenuine collective bargaining could be carried on.

Perhaps the' most evil effect of the Wagner Actwas that it helped to convert many leaders of or­ganized labor from strong supporters of a capital­ist system into often unconscious advocates of asocialist system. More and more they called upongovernment to lend its powerful aid to compel thecreation and maintenance of an industrial systemin which the interests of industrial wage earnerswould be constantly advanced, with inadequateregard for the interests of property owners andmanagers in agriculture and in big and littlebusiness.

The enactment of a law fixing minirnum wagesand rn,.~ximum hours might have been only a pro­tectiv£tmeasure, to avoid the imposition of starva­tion wages or exhausting hours of work uponnecessitous employees unable to protect themselvesthrough labor organization. But, under pressureof labor organizations, which should have beenand generally were able to defend their membersagainst starvation wages and exhausting hours ofwork, the Congress was induced to elevate graduallythe standard of minimum wages into a sort of basicwage. On this legalized foundation all other wagescould he more easily raised. Instead of merely pre­venting excessive hours of work, the federal lawestablished a low standard of forty hours, withincreased hours permitted when accompanied byincreased wages. Thereby, the fundamental prin­ciple of a maximum hour law was violated, andthe law became another wage-fixing law, a potentgovernment aid to one side in collective bargaining.

Union labor has been invoking government aidin a great variety of measures to favor employeeinterests in the negotiation or revision of tradeagreements. There has been, for example, a notori­ous use of government boards committed, or strong­ly influenced, to decide disputes in favor of labor.This political favoritism persisted even in timeof war, when an impartial government shouldhave tried to enforce an equality of sacrifice be­tween those protected in the enjoyment of peacefuloccupations and those who were protecting themby suffering the loss of personal freedom, therigorous discipline, the hardships and perils of3ervice in the armed forces of the nation.

. The authoritarian control of working and livingconditions in war time should have taught freemen and women to hate the continuance and exten­sion of such controls in peace time. But that les­son was not taught to the favored class of organ­ized labor. Nor was it taught to the socialistic

reformers who saw how easily an all-powerfulgovernment could compel a people to live and workaccording to paternal standards of economic justiceand social morality. But a wicked lesson wastaught to Communists. They learned that hosts ofunfortunate, frustrated, inefficient, weak-mindedpersons could be: persuaded to demand, and even tofight for, a tyranny that would promise to lift themup and to level all others down to an equalitarianstandard of living.

Authoritarian Trends in Labor

So, as we emerged from the Second World War,a kindred interest in spreading and increasing thepowers of government inspired such diverse ele­ments as the Communists, the bipartisan socializers,and the militant trade: unionists. All three classescould envisage the triumph of their differing am­bitions in the creation of what could be persua­sively called a "welfare state." The very wordsthat had inspired the' American people to gaina national strength, a spiritual freedom, and ma­terial comforts never before attained by so manymillions were now perverted to support the destruc­tion of the political foundations of our glory.

"Democracy," instead of meaning self-govern­ment, was perverted to mean an unrestricted ruleof the majority.

"'Equality," instead of meaning equality of op­portunity, was pe'rverted to mean equal enjoymentof the rewards of unequal contributions to thewelfare or weaUh of the nation.

"Security," instead of meaning assurance ofprotection from violence and fraud, was pervertedto Inean an e'scape from the hazards of self-relianceand self-support, and relief from suffering theconsequences of one's own improvidence or folly.

"Freedom," instead of meaning a right to belet alone and to take' care of one's self, wasperverted into a "freedom from want" which meansa right to be cared for by others, to the extentand in the manner determined by politicians.

There is another strong evidence of the auth­oritarian trend in the thinking and activities oflabor leaders. That evidence is found in the com­pulsory unionism which is now one of the prin­cipal goals of the labor movement in America.

In former times weak labor organizations ad­vocated a closed shop as a necessary aid in re­sisting the disintegration of their unions byhostile employers. As long as there' were someemployers who agreed to employ only union laborand many other employers who would employ non­union labor, the establishment of many closed shopsdid not make membership in a union an absolutenecessity in order to earn a livelihood. But asthe unions grew in strength of numbers andthrough industry-wide and nation-wide bargainingbe'came able practically to monopolize opportunitiesfor employment, they became ardent to establish

NOVEMBER 2, 1953 91

complete monopolies by compelling everyone whowanted to earn a living in any important industryto become a member of the dominant union. Thismakes workers subject not only to the paymentof union dues and assessments but also to uniondiscipline, to rigid limitations upon their freeUOlllof labor, and particularly to an imperative com­mand that they abandon work and cease to earna living whenever it suits the strategy of a laborbas,s to call ,a strike'.

The demand for the closed shop, now sugar­coated with the union shop formula, is a rawdemand that every worker be compelled to join oneof the elite national labor organizations in orderto earn a living. There is no pretense that thisis not the objective of the present labor move­ment. Our outstanding labor leaders Hatly asserton platforms, in writings, and in arguments inthe courts that there should be "no competi tionbetween workers." They argue that all workersshould be organized in unions which should workin concert for the objective of establishing anirresistible power in labor organizations to dictatethe terms and conditions under which all wageearners will be permitted to earn a living. Theydemand a monopoly power in industry which theyrightly denounce whenever and wherever such apower is sought by business managers.

The truth is that today our outstanding laborleaders are not only greedy for monopoly powerswhich should never be permitted to anyone, but,also greedy for conscriptive and disciplinary powerswhich, if exercised by any government, would bedenounced as political tyranny.

The drive for compulsory unionism is more clear~

ly menacing to the welfare of the American peoplewhen it is seen that, as labor monopolies havegrown in power, irresponsible and vicious uses ofthe strike weapon have steadily increased. Thisunrestricted power to inj ure not only large com­munities, but all the American people, cannot bepermitted to remain available to any class orsegment of our free society.

A strike against one employer, or a group ofemployers, may be tolerated as a crude but effec­tive way of inflicting a competitive injury. It neednot be always regarded as an assault against thepublic welfare. But an industry-wide strike isnothing less than the inflicting of a deliberateinjury upon the nation for the purpose of forcingthe suffering public to compel the managers ofindustry to accede to the strikers' demands, regard­less of how unreasonable or harmful to public orprivate interests these demands m1ay be.

Many a strike which the public could not endurefor more than a few days has been called orthreatened against transportation agencies andother public utilities. Such conduct has no morejustification than other forms of blackmail andextortion.

It is time' for the people generally to recognize

92 THE F:RJiJEMAN

that extortion is extortion, no matter whether itis practiced by a racketeer for his personal gainor by a labor organization to make private gainsfor its members. It is the method that is criminal,regardless of the' objective, just as assaults andmayhem and murder are crimes even when com­mitted by striking workers or their allies.

The need to curb an unrestricted powe'r to strikehas been proved, not merely by the vast injuriesdone by nation-wide strikes, but also by the re­peated use of a costly strike to enforce some pettydemand or to rectify some petty wrong. N'ot longago the press reported a strike of 1,500 trainmenwhich deprived about 50,000 other workers oftheir employment-all because of a ten-day sus­pension imposed by railroad managers on two con­ductors who had been accused of a slowdown!Obviously the union, the employer, or the com­muni ty would have gained heavily by paying thesuspended men five times the amount of their lostwages. Or the dispute could have been settled bya quick arbitration at a trifling expenditure oftime and money compared with the enormous costto the workers alone of the idling of 50,000 menfor even a day.

A Suggested Program

Over and over again we have seen such examplesof arrogance and stupidity in the use of the greatpowers now in the hands of labor organizations. Therecord of the last fifty years proves conclusivelythat labor unions should be compelled to acceptpublic ,responsibilities C01111nensurate with theirpowers to do harm, or else such powers should betaken away from them.

To summarize the conclusions of half a centuryof active research, I would offer a practical programof obvious remedie'S for intolerable abuses oflabor's powers of collective action-powers whichin general should be preserved, but in particularuses must be restrained:

1. The creation and exercise of monopoly powersby labor unions should be made unlawful.

2. Compulsory unionism, a form of involuntaryservitude, should be abolished by law. This is aduty of Congress under the Thirteenth Amendment.

3. 'The right to strike should be qualified andlimited by defining the lawful obj ects, the lawfulmethods, and the lawful occasions for strikes.Strikes should be held unlawful which are : (1)against the public health, safety, and welfare;(2) to compel political action; (3) without a pre­ceding reasonable effort to avoid a strike; (4) con­ducted with the aid or toleration of criminalviolence.

All our efforts to avoid international warfare,or to strengthen our resistance to internationalaggression, will be seriously weakened so long aswe tolerate civil warfare as the means of decidingeonflicts of economic interest within our borders.

The Delinquent Liberals

By MAX EASTMANSome answers to the puzzling question of whyfree minds in our midst continue to promotethe interests 0/ a regime 0/ absolute tyranny.

Those who cling to socialism often say that wewho have let go are suffering from shock at themurderous outcome of Lenin's seizure of power ina backward country. It is true that ,the horrendousresults of Lenin's experiment in state control-andno less Hitler's-have influenced our judgment.They have reminded us of certain hard facts ofhuman history that in our infatuation with an idealwe had forgotten. And who wBl deny that thereminder has caused painful emotion? Who willpretend that, having journeyed to the cradle of a"society of the free and equal," and seen riseout of it the most absolute and bloody tyrannythat. history has known, he did not experience adevastatingly sad surprise? I mus,t testify, howe'ver,that I was more surprised and saddened by thereaction to that tyranny of liberal and free mindsin other countries than by the tyranny itself.

I had never looked for purposive intelligence toour American liberals and humanitarian reformers.Kidding the New Republic of Herbert Croly andWalter Lippmann from a class-struggle point ofview was one of my pleasant pastimes as a Socialisteditor. The Survey and the Nation I liked better,but I thought of them, too, as theoretical opponents.I caned ,the editors and adherents of these papers"soft-headed idealists," by which I meant peoplewho use their minds to mitigate the subjectiveimpact of unpleasant facts instead of defining factswith a view to drastic action.

There occurred no change in my feeling on thissubject when I abandoned the idea of proletarianrevolution. I still think the worst enemy of humanhope is not brute facts, but men of brains who willnot face them., For that reason I had no high ex­pectations of the liberal inteUigentsia when it cameto acknowledging that the "revolution of ourtimes," as so far conceived, has been, and will bea failure. I never dreamed, however, that they couldsink to the depths of maudlin self-deception andabject treason to truth, freedom, justice, and mercythat many of them have reached in regard to theRussian debacle. That has indeed profoundly, andmore than any otheT shock, whether emotional orinteHectual, disabused me of the dream of libertyunder a socialist 'state. If these supposedly elevatedand detached minds, free of any dread, of anypressure, of any compulsion to choose exceptbetween truth and their own mental comfort, cannotrecognize ahsolute horror, the absolute degradation

of man, the end of science, art, law, human aspira­tion, and civilized morals, when these arrive in afar country, what will they be worth when thepressure is put upon ,them here at home? They willbe worth nothing except to the dark powers thatwill most certainly undertake to convert state­owned property into an instrument of exploitationbeside which the reign of private capital will seemto have been, in truth, a golden age of freedom andequality for alL

To that much emotional shock I plead guilty.But I do not want to leave it there. Many of thesedelinquent liberals were my friends in past yearsdespite our differences, and I find myself continuallypuzzling over the problem of their motivation. Whyhave they betrayed themselves? Why do they pro­mote the interests of a regime under which eventhey, traitors to democracy though they are, wouldbe shot for half-heartedness, or permitted to die ofstarvation in a slave camp for having in the pastbelieved, or thought they believed, in freedom?

D'ecline of an Ideal

Up to 1917 it is not hard to understand whathappened to them. The old liberal movement grewout of the struggle against absolutism and feudaloppression. The freedom fought for in that struggleincluded free trade as a matter of course. But freetrade and the industrial revolution soon raised thegeneral wealth so high that idealists began to worryabout the living conditions of the poor. It is perhapsnot too much to say, as the canny Norwegian,Trygve' Hoff, does, that a social conscience wasborn of this great rise in wealth production. Thefirst sagacious step toward bettering the conditionof the poor would obviously have been to increasestill more the production of wealth. Then if the'pangs of the social conscience had kept pace withthis increase, all might have been well. What it didvvas to run way ahead of the increase in wealth.People were attacking the businessman and de­manding a better distribution of profits long beforetheir distribution would have made any appreciabledifference in the general condition of the poor. AsweaUh production increased, this state of painedconscience among liberals-themselves businessmenoften enough-increased much faster. So fast thattheir zeal for liberty was gradually replaced by azeal for social justice. Their liberalism became al-

NOVEM:BER 2~ 1

mo~t indistinguishable' from humanitariani'sm. Norwas this change of mind and mood among liberalsretarded by Marx's doctrinaire announcement thattheir interest in freedom had been a fake all along:capitalist profits, not human rights, had been thegoal of their struggle .againstabsolutism; theirgreat revolution had been "bourgeois," not dem­ocratic.

'They still t,alked the language of liberty-soalso did Marx-but their dominant drive wastoward a juster distribution of the unheard-ofwealth that under a regime dominated by the ideaof liberty had been piling up. The culmination ofthis change was, in England, the decline of theLiberal Party, the seeping away of its membershipinto the Labor Party with its promise to expropriatethe capitalists, and in the United States the trans­formation of the old liberal pre'Ss into organs oftbe New Deal-a government of settlement workersbecome militant, not in the cause of freedom, but inthe battle against "economic royalists." The wholedevelopment is ,summed up in the contrast betweenBenjamin Franklin's: "'Those who would give upessential liberty to purchase a little temporarysafety deserve neither liberty nor safety," andHarold Laski's: "Those who know the normal lifeof the poor ... will realize well enouwh that, withouteconomic security, liberty is not worth having."

This much, then, must be said in defense of thedelinque'nt liberals. The edge of their passion forfreedom had been growing blunter for decadesbefore the rise of totalitarianism put their loyal­ties to a test. It is not only freedom that theybetray, however, in apologizing for the Soviet tyr­anny, or pussyfooting about it, or blackeningAmerica so savagely that Russia shines in unspokencontrast. They are betraying civiliz,ation itself.They are lending a hand in the destruction of itsbasic values, promoting a return march in everyphase of human progress. Reinstitution of slavery,revival of torture, star chamber proceedings,execution without trial, disruption of families,deportation of nations, ·massacre of communities,corruption of science, art, philosophy, history,tearing down of the standards of truth, justice,mercy, the dignity and the right,s of man-evenhis right to martyrdom-everything that had beenwon in the long struggle up from savagery and bar­barism. How shall I account for this depravedbe'havior-for that is how it appears to me-onthe part of friends and colleagues who were oncededicated to an effort to make society more justand merciful, more truth-perceiving, more "freednd equal" than it was?

They shield themgelves from facts, I suppose,by choosing what books and newspapers to read.M,any violent conflicts of opinion come down toa difference in reading matter. And this isespecially so in the case of Soviet Communism,for it has been put over with a campaign ofAll-Union and International Lying whose extent,

94 THE FREEMAN

skill, efficiency, ,and consecration i~ almost hard6rto believe in than the truth it conceals. Indeed thedistinction between truth and ,the exact fabricationshanded down for propagation by the heads of theworld party in the Kremlin has disappeared verylargely from the minds of its members. Until onehas grasped this phenomenon in its full proportions,and learned to distinguish the sincere truth-tellerfrom the sincere lie-teller, it is not easy to behard-headed about Russian Communism. This toomay be advanced in defense of the delinquent lib­erals-they are the victims of a swindle whichnothing in past history had prepared them to detect.

Harold Laski's Conflict

A great many of them, howeveT, are not de­ceived, but are swallowing the horrors of life underthe Soviets with open eyes and a kind of st,aringgulp that is more like madne'Ss than a mistake. Inthe effort with their soft heads to be hard, theyhave gone out of the world of reasoned discussionaltogether. Again I will take the late H'arold Laskias an example. No anti-Communist has more can­didly ,and crushingly described the blotting out ofcivilized values and all free ways of life by theRussian Soviet state than he did; and yet no pro­Communi-sit has more vigorously defended thatstate, or brought more intellectual authority to itssupport. There must be, I suppose, in all the delin­quent liberals, a repressed conflict between the im­pulse to speak those truths that are important toman's civilized survival and the more compellingthirst for a comfortable opinion. In Laski, becauseof some strange and perhaps bumptious quirk inhis nature, this conflict was not repressed, but wasnaively or insolently blared forth. I met him forthe last time in a debate on the "Town Meeting ofthe Air" September 19, 1946. Knowing about thisconflict in his soul, I brought with me to the debatethe pass:age from his Reflections on the Revolutionof Our Time in which he most eloquently describesthe horrors of life under the Soviet Communist re­gime. In the course of the debate, I mentioned someof Stalin's cri/mes and Laski replied: "It's no partof my case that Russia hasn't committed crime andbeen guilty of grave blunders and committed in­conceivable follie'S: so has the United States, andso has Great Britain."

In answer, I said: "I'm going to read fromLaski's own book some of the crimes that have beencommitted in the Soviet Union, and you see if anyof them have been committed in the United Statesor Englland." I then read this passage fromReflections on the Revolution of Our Time, or asmuch of it as I could crowd into the time grantedme:

Despite the pledges of the Constitution of 1936,there is no freedom of speech, except for Stalin'sadherents, no freedom of the press or assembly.Everyone knows that the elections are a farce: no

candidatures are possible which reject the partyline, and even the ballot-papers for them read likea hymn to Stalin. Freedom of movement is gravelyrestricted. Contact with foreigners is looked uponwith suspicion. There is arbitrary arrest; there islong imprisonment, and execution without trial.Citizens cannot travel abroad without the pernlissionof the government. Most political offences are triedin secret; there is no writ of habeas corpus, no rightto subpoena witnesses, no right to a professionaldefence. The death penalty may be imposed forinjury to, or theft of, collective property; and even"teasing, mocking, or persecuting" a shock-workermay, under Article 58 of the Criminal Code, become"wrecking," and so punishable with death.

The moderator interrupted me and asked Laski:"Do you care to comment 1" And Laski, spreadinghis hands in a gesture which my friends in theaudience described as sickly, answered: "No."

Laski did have, of course, a schenle for convincinghimself that in a nation thus chained and trampledby power-lustful and unbridled masters of thestate, the Revolution of Our Time is bringing tobirth a new age of freedom and humane reform. Heaccomplished it by opposing the words "economic"and "political" as though they designated thingshappening on different planets. While the abovelisted horrors filled the sphere called "politics," thesphere called "economics," he asked us to believe,w,as brimming with sweetness and light. I quote,also with condensation, from the same book:

In the narrow economic sphere, there is a moregenuine basis for economic freedom for the massesin the Soviet Union than they have elsewhere pre­viously enjoyed. . . . Millions, in every field andfactory, help to make the conditions under whichthey live. There are the effective beginnings of con­stitutional government in industry. Care for tbehealth, sanitation, and safety of the workers in fieldand factory has been established at a pace whichwould have been unthinkable in any capitalist society.The administration of justice (political offencesapart) is on a level superior to that of most othercountries.

It is obvious that no man thinking about concretefacts could put these two passages into the samebook and chapter. How can it be that in a countrywhere "there is no right of habeas corpus, no rightto subpoena witnesses, no right to a professionaldefense," nevertheless "the administration of justice(political offence'S apart) is on a level superior tothat of most other countries"? What jocular Deitybrings it about that while death m,ay be the penaltyfor teasing another worker, nevertheless "care forthe health, safety, and sanitation of the workers"outruns all previous norms? How does it come to)lass that where "elections are ,a farce, freedom ofmovement is restricted, there is arbitrary arrest,imprisonment, and execution without trial," never­theless "there are the effective beginnings of con­stitutional government in industry ... and millionshelp to make the conditions under which they live"?Would these millions not be more likely, in a realworld, to establish the beginnings of constitutional

gQvernment by making the rules under which theycan be dragged out and shot?

That this artificial division of society into twohalves, political and economic, in which oppositethings are taking place, should have been put beforeus with obeisances to "Marxism," was a prodigy ofintellectual gymnastics. But Marx or no Marx, anyman of hard sense knows that the Russian peopleare not being subjected to these hideous politicalrepressions for their own good. It is not to bringin the Kingdom of Heaven that the' masters of thestate have locked the population in this toothed vi£e.

I dwell upon this unreal notion of Laski's becauseI think it exposes in a raw and yet elaborated formwhat has happened in the minds of many of thepro-Soviet liberals. They are not tot,ally blind tothe monstrous things that have happened in Russia,but they have reasoned their way to a point oftranquil acquiescence by means of this nonsenseabout political ve'rsus economic.

'This too, then, must be slaid in behalf of thedelinquent liberals: they had a rationalization, acerebral alibi, so to speak, for their crime of treasonagainst civilization. They managed to draw thewhole thing up into their heads where it did notseem so bad.

Economic Freedom

It is significant that while pro-Communist lib­erals apologize for the political enslaven1ent of theRussian people on the ground that they are econom­ically free, the· pro-Socialist liberals make an op­posite use of the same artificial distinction. Theytell us that economic enslavement will not depriveus of our real freedom, which is political. PhilipRahv in the Partisan Review, defending the BritishSocialist regime against the assertion of Dos Passosthat "personal liberty has been contracted in GreatBritain," said: "The evidence' cited by Dos Passosshows that the contraction he speaks of has occur­red solely in the economic sphere. Socialists, how­ever, do not consider the right to buy and sell as on€'ple'ases to be a significant part of the heritage offreedom." Stuart Chase took the same line in de­fending a 'state-planned society, and to them bothFriedrich Hayek made the obvious and conclusiveanswer: ",Economic control is not merely controlof a sector of human life which can be separatedfrom the rest; it is the 'control of the means forall our ends."

It hardly requires a Marx or a Hayek, however, toreveal the unreality of this dichotomy. It is clearto all who possess "the faculty to imagine thatwhich they know." And I often think that the lackof this faculty or habit, so justly praised by Shelleyin his "Defense of Poetry," is one of the maincauses of the delinquency of the liberals. They arepredominantly intellectual-and are not intellectualsin general, even when originally moved by sym­pathy,strangely heartless and conscience'less

NOVEMBER 2, 1953 95

through the very fact that they make a hahit ofabstract thinking.? A phrase like "workers andpeasants," or "kulaks," or "prison camps," or"execution 'without trial," becomes a bloodless pawnwhich they move around on the cerebr'al blueprintof a schemed-out world with as little sense of thehuman hearts and bodies designated by it as thoughthey were playing a game of chess. This enable'sthem to go on calling themselves "left" and "liber,al"after all the original meaning except to their ownself-esteem has been dragged out of those terms.

Another and cruder motive undoubtedly swungmany once refined liberals into the camp of thebrutalitarian tyrants. That is an underlying irre­sistible wish to associate thenlselves with power.Their early ideals had made spiritual rebels of themin their own country. They were commonly notonly against the government and the "vested in­terests," but in a state at least of mild demuragainst the whole established hierarchy of personsand values. To the thinking mind this was validand exciting, but to mere organic tissue it was ahard attitude to keep up for a lifetime.

All human history testifies to the strength andgenerality of what may be called the hierarchicalinstinct. Students of comparative psychology havefound it to prevail rigidly even in so pre-human asociety as is to be found in the henyard. The castesystem in a colony of jackdaws, as described byKonrad Lorentz in his recent book, King Solomon'sRing, throws astonishing light on several traits andinstitutions that we think of as peculiarly human.Particularly the disposition to recognize the elite,to fall in line comfortably under those having theprestige of superior power. Its roots seem to be asdeep, almost, as the impulse to form a society.Surely this trait cannot be ignored in trying toassess the causes of the cultural disaster that I amdiscussing.

Dwight MacDonald, speaking of a liberal whosedelinquency was transitory and need not be adver­tised here, says: "The spell of Communism forpeople like [him] seems to have been that at lastthey could identify themselves vvith power withoutfeeling guilty. [His] political language, in Americaa despised minority dialect, was now spokenthroughout a sixth of the globe. A vast internationalInovement backed by a powerful government wasgoing his way--or seemed to be."

Whatever may be the inner truth about the in­dividual in question, the acuteness of this commenton the great wave of enthusiasm for "the pro­letariat" that struck our liberal intelligentsia inthe early thirties cannot be denied.

Still I do not think this trait, or all the abovetraits together, explain the permanent and unre­lenting treachery to civilization of so many dis­tinguished minds in this crisis of man's history.They had not all lost their passion for freedom;they do not all fall for the lie campaign, or swallowthe politics-versus-economics moonshine; they are

96 THE FR1~EMAN

not all excessively cerebral, or swayed by a prim­itive adoration of power. I think probably the mostgeneral explanation lies in a kind of spiritualcowardice. Life is a battle; it is a battle withoutany victory, and these aspiring idealists lack thepluck to go down fighting it. Bereaved of God andheavenly blessedness, they have to find some home,some cert,ainty, some Absolute on earth, if it is onlythe absolute parody of their dreams. And that isabout all there is left of the Soviet heave'll afterthey get through listing the qualifications in theiradoration of it. The extent of these qualificationsmakes plain the selfishness of their mental condi­tion. With all their brains they cannot draw theinference that any casual man who cares aboutother people even a little bit must draw from thecontinuing horrors suffered by millions of simple­hearted, honest folk under the Kremlin's lash. Theycannot do it, because it would cause a pain in theirown safe bosoms. They would have to know, then,that the world is just as bad as it is, and just asfluid, too. There' is no end-term in the fight tobetter it.

I11....o__W_O_R_T_H_H_E_A_R_I_N_G_A_G_A_I_N__1I... the basic idea of America-the motivationof its free enterprise system-is this : that thedynamics of individual men (the engine) should beset free, except temporarily on dangerous curves,from the statics of the State (the brake on thewheels) .

The themesong of the most extreme and charac­teristic collectivists proves that their society is notdynamic but static: "'Tis the final conflict.' " Noradical conservative envis'ages a society (this sideJudgment Day!) where a "final conflict" is pos­sible-or desirable. To him life is an endless dramaof risk and adventure-a dynamic growth towardinfinite ,aspiration which we forever approach butwhich we can never exhaust. Goethe is the greatmodern conservative (as well as one of the mosttruly liberal minds of all time); and such is hisphilosophy in Faust. I,t is the collectivist who saysto the State: "Stay, thou art so fair!"; it is ther,adical conservative who forever sees, beyond theshabby years, the alabaster cities gleam.

It is also false that, to be libe'ral, we must seegovernment as the sole agent of advance. Has notthe initiative and genius of one man-GeorgeWashington Carver-done at least as much for the"progress and reform" of the South as the govern­ment's ballyhooed TVA? Do we disbelieve in"progress and reform" simply because we trustthe spontaneous energies of free men, and distrustWashington?

E. MERRILL ROOT, "Are the 'Liberals' Lib­eral?", Human Events, Septem,ber 23, 1953

Gag RuleBy JO HINDMAN

•In P.T.A.How nearly 8,000,000 parents and teachers are muzzledand indoctrinated by a small, powerful national group.

The efforts of state parent-teacher associations torid themselves of gag rule on the part of theNational Congress of Parents and Teachers(N.C.P.T.) met with varying degrees of successand failure during state conventions this summer.But, taken as a whole, the grassroots rebellionwhich for a time showed hopeful greenery hasonce again lapsed into dormancy. Vital policy foralmost eight million P.T.A. members continues tobe dictated by a small, powerful group, who arebusymuffiing some and indoctrinating others amongthe parents.

The Indiana incident isa classic example of gagrule. Local P.T.A. units in that state' objectedto their board of managers' decision which com­mitted them to support federal aid to education.In 1952 aroused local units forced a reversal oftheir legislative machinery, removing policy-makingfrom the' hands of a few and returning it tothe vote of the many. As soon as the new policywas adopted at the Indiana state convention, localP.T.A. groups began voting against the federalaid policy. Now, under the new plan, any legis­lative program must be' submitted to the localunits andean be adopted as a state P.T.A. policyonly if it is approved by a majority of the localunits voting on it.

A similar revolt in California failed to matchIndiana's gain. Proposition No.2 on last NovelU,.,ber's ballot asked California voters to tax them­selves another notch for school upkeep. The' Califor­nia Congress of Parents and Teachers (C.C.P.T.)and the California Teachers' Association lobbiedfeverishly. Free discussion of the' issue was silencedon P.T.A. platforms 'where only speakers favoringthe tax increase were entertained. The C.C.P.T.board of managers had approved the tax measure,and local P.T.A. units were required to go alongwith that decision. Several units rebelled againstthe muzzling, and as a result, legislative policywas re'written at the annual C.e.p.T. convention inLong Beach this year, favoring freedom of speech.P .'T.A. people in California can now hear bothsides of a question, but only before the state boardhas taken its stand. As a concession, the boardpromises to attempt more polling of units beforeestablishing policy.

Elsewhere in P.T.A., where action originates onupper levels, the picture is gloomier. This storyis illustrative: the N.e.p.T., through its executivecommitte'e, recommended support of the United

Nations and started a flow of material through thestate and local groups, praising the work of theUnited Nations Social and Economic Council(UNESCO). Shocked by the instructions to singthe praises of UNESCO, many P.T.A. members re­jected the literature'.

An article by Eleanor Roosevelt in the June 1953issue of the National Parent-Teacher, official organof the N.G.P.T., emphasizes the need for parent­teacher groups to help "strengthen" the UnitedNations. Mrs. Roosevelt admi ts: "True, the breachhas widened between us and the Soviets," andnaively adds, "but the breach might have broadenedinto a war if there hadn't been a place where wehad to meet and where we were able to talk." Inconclusion she repeats the current line of theOne Worlders about "hysteria" and "thought con­trol": "... parents and teachers today must havecourage enough to stand up against waves of publicopinion. At present we are going through a periodof what I call unreasonable fears, fears that causegreat suspicion among us. IVlany people are afraidto say what they thinl{ because it rnight by chancebe sonlething that somebody else might think sub­versive."

l{ey P.T.A. members throughout the UnitedStates were electrified by an advertisement appear­ing on the back cover of the February 1953 issueof the National Parent-Teache'r. It is a matter ofpride with P.T .A. people that strict measures havealways been taken to keep their organization freefrom commercial strings. The national handbookrules that the name of the association or the namesof its officers in their official capacity must not beused in any connection with a cornmercial enter­prise or publication. Yet this advertiseluen t calledattention to "an important current book" issuedby a commercial publisher-The Many Lives ofModern W on~an by Sidonie M. Gruenberg and I-lildaSidney Krech-which it announced would be con­densed in the next issue of the magazine. The nameof the publisher was not mentioned in the advertise­ment, but did appear in a footnote with the furtherpromotion of the book through the condensation inthe March issue. P.T.A. members whose interest insecuring the book had th us been aroused foundthat the condensation had softened the communal­istic theme of the authors, who advocate cooperativenurseries, sewing rooms, restaurants, and cookedfood services for American families today.

Meanwhile in California, letters protesting the

NOVElVIBER 2, 1953 97

· blunder reached the state board of managers. OneP.'T.A. chairman introduced her objection to theinfringement of the rules hefore a district officers'meeting. Her story portray,s the grip of gag ruleon P.T.A. "Of course," she said, "Any action hasto be take'll at the national level. I did all I couldwhen I brought it to the att'ention of the district.Frankly, I feel frustrated. Our district presidentalso discussed the matter before the state boardof managers. I know that an inquiry has gone' tonational from our state board, but we haven'theard a thing-and all that happened months ago,long before the end of school."

Joint Committee with the N.E.A,.

High among the unscalable pinnacles of thenational organization lies another busily tilled field-the joint committee. Comprised of officials fromthe N.C.iP.:T. and the National Education Asso­ciation (N'.E.,A.), this committee works to promote"joint projects of vital concern to schools andchildren." The N.E.A. has a membership of 490,000school te'achers, the majority of whom believe intheir handbook's statement (page 54 of the 1952­53 edition): "The profession must know what thepublic expects of the schools and carry out thesewi,shes as well as possible." But there' is a segmentin· the N.E.A. which tells the public what sort ofschools it should have. The interlocking joint com­mittee is this minority"s most useful tool.

Activities of the committee during 1951-52 in­cluded "the cutting of competitive athletics downto size in terms of the physical capacities anddevelopment of all pupils." Simultaneous ratificationby P .'T.A. appeared in the California Parents andTeachers magazine during those years. Overdrawn,f'ear-charged articles a'ttempted to show how freecompetitive play injures cartilege and causes faultybone growth. These features implied that banish­ment of score sheets will eliminate the injuriesthat children sometimes do suffer in play.

In July 1953 P.T.A. became involved in the LittleLeague bas'eball controversy with the Los AngelesCity Recreation and Parks Department. Sponsorsof Little League, a nation-wide organization locallysupported by seorvice clubs or merchants, maintainthat the competition develops leadership, sportsman­ship, and appreciation of team effort in the boys.National P.T.A. spokesmen claim it disturbs emo­tions and breeds neurotics. In Los Angeles a vicepresident of the N.e.p.T. quoted from a sportsplanning conference report which criticized theLittle League's system of county, state, and nationaltournaments as "improper for the age group in­volved." The cue for this attitude had been struckthree months earlier at the California conventionwhen delegates were exposed to a wire recordingthat included criticism of competitive baseball.Delegates shrugged it off as more of "that leveling~

off process" that they are bombarded with, but

98 THE FREEMAN

the truth stands that P.T.A. is advancing as gosp~l

a view that has not been freely discussed or votedupon by its card-holding membership.

Competition is likewise soft-pedaled in someP.T.A. drives for collecting paper, in which norecognition prize is awarded to the eager youngsterwho has outstripped his classmates in collectingzeal. Whether or not the average P.T.A father andmother approve of their child's urge to excel,P.T.A. is encouraging attitudes against this, im­plemented by policies executed dictatorially andwithout regard for parent opinion.

Working in its field, the N.E.A. side of the jointcommittee is fulfilling its terms of the pact, key­not'ed as far back as its Cleveland convention in1934, by urging the elimination of badges andcertificate'S of excellence in spelling, penmanship,and other scholastic achievement. Graded reportcards, setting forth scholarship rating in percent­ages, or the traditional A-'B-C-D-F scale, have takena vigorous drubbing.

The attempt to turn parent attitudes against thegraded report has long been a pet project of so­called "progressive" educators. Through P.T .A.channels, parents hear that the graded report isoutmoded because it injures the child's emotionaldevelopment. Parents also read this fear-inspiringdogma in articles prepared for P.T .A. magazines.Nowhere is mentioned the fact that the incentive­graded report card is still widely used throughoutthe United States, Hawaii, and Alaska, nor thatseveral school districts which junked the incentive­grading system are swinging back to scientificmeasurement,s after the chastening experience ofusing meaningless check marks to evaluate pupilprogress.

Investigation discloses that gag rule and itscompanion, indoctrination, have less hold oversome local parent-teacher associations than other,s.The groups most loyal to principles established bythe founders of P.T .A. are most apt to question theideologies foisted, on them. Winning back freedomof speech and majority rule have been given tre­mendous uplift by the Indiana and California re­bellions, but these victories extend only to stateboards. Beyond lies the national organization.

The Quiet BirdMemory is specialized and spare,Showing a thrush upon the lawnAnd ecstasy to see him there,White satin with the heart-shaped markSplashed lavish on.

Memory's alert without a sound,Still as the thrush upon the ground,And stamped with dark.

LOUISE TOWNSEND NICHOLL

Somber Present, Gay PastBy JAMES BURNHAM I

How Russia is Ruled is a competent book in itskind. (How Russia is Ruled, by Merle Fainsod,575 pp., Harvard University Press, $7.50.) It con­tains a vast amount of information. Its document­ation, most of it from original Soviet sources, isthorough. Its author is a professor of governmentat Harvard, and director of political studiesat Harvard's Russian Research Center. He hasabandoned the typical illusions that beset well­meaning professors in decades past. He is no SidneyWebb or Harold Laski. He knows that in theKremlin's system of rule the secret police' are moreimportant than the Stalin Constitution. Neverthe­less, his book fails somehow to produce a convictionof reality. There is something dead about it.

Perhaps it is only a question of style. AlthoughProfessor Fainsod's prose is relatively free fromacademic overloading with technical jargon, hewrites with what might be called an academicsyntax. There is never any verbal surprise from theordering of his sentences. They are unconcrete,corre0t, and dull.

The complexity of the problem of political loyaltyand disloyalty is emphasized by the fact that SOUlepolicies of the Soviet leadership c01umand widespreadapproval even among those hostile to the regime,while other policies or institutional characteristicsmeet widespread disapproval even among those whohave identified their fate with the regime's sur­vival. .. Despite the fact that identification with theSoviet system usually takes the form of passiveaccommodation rather than positive enthusiasms, theability of the regime to command the loyalty of itssubjects should not be minimized.

Perhaps, also, I want too much. Professor Fainsodserves his readers, it cannot be denied, a largemeal. There are heaping plates of statistics. Withnearly every chapter there is a side dish of Organ­izational Charts. There is abundant sauce' ofauthentic quotations. For appetizer, there is a con­centrated review of the Bolsheviks' pursuit andconquest of power.

Much nourishment is here, however stretched outwith filler. The five charts of the successive re­organizations of the Central Committee Secretariatmay not be enough to rouse' a jaded appetite. ButChapter 8, with its statistical analysis of theshifting social composition of the party member­ship, is something worth sinking the teeth in. Thereis additional solid food in Part Ill's survey ofconstitutional changes and its discussion of terroras a system of power.

The portrait remains stubbornly lifeless, hardas it is to say exactly why, when nearly everyjudgment of materials and draftsmanship must befavorable. It is all of one tone, without highlight,emphasis, or focus. A banal fact about some formaldocument holds equal place alongside an observa­tion of potential profundity. When the "TransportOtdel" changes its place in an organizational chart,this is made to seem as significant as when afew million persons are purged. Professor Fainsodknows that there is more myth than reality in theconstitutions. Nevertheless, he spends more spaceon the easier job of listing the formal constitutionalchanges than on the hard creative task of interpret­ing their meaning.

More generally, it seems to me that ProfessorFainsod, in a kind of passion for "original sources,"grants them more credit than is their due. Everystatement from a Soviet source, even the' mostminor and seemingly unimportant, must be heldsuspect. Professor Fainsod knows this in theabstract, but he cannot resist filling his pages withthousands of items that he has laboriously dredgedfrom the Soviet press. He is thereby drawn towardimportant errors, as, for example, in his over­estimation of the role of the soviets.

And why the "Russia" in his title-How Russiais Ruled? His book in fact deals with the rule notof Russia merely, but of the Soviet Union, withinwhich Russians are a minority. The slip here isnot a Iittle one, and cannot be traced to carelessnessonly. The Russian Research Center at Harvard isdominated by a "Great Russian" point of view whichsystematically obscures the truth about the nation­ality structure of the Soviet Union. On this prob­lem, with all the practical consequences for anti­Soviet policy which are bound up with it, ProfessorFainsod sheds no light.

Franz Borkenau is no less meticulous a scholarthan Professor Fainsod. He shares the devotionto original sources, among which, in his field, heis able to turn frequently to direct personal ex­perience and personal acquaintance. But he is atall times the master, not the servant, of his data.(European Communism, by Franz Borkenau, 564pp., Harper and Brothers, $6.00.)

Dr. Borkenau's book on the Communist Inter­national, published in 1938, was the first serioushistory of non-Russian Communism. Because thishas been out of print for some years, he begins

NOVEMlilER 2, 1953 99

his work with a review of the earlier book's con­tents. He e'xplains the fumbling origins of theComintern, and traces its early history through1933, during which time "Germany was the hubof Communist 'world policy." He then continuesthe story (for Europe only-Asia and the Amer­icas are outside his scope) for the Hitler period,the time of the Spanish Civil War, the PopularFront, the Nazi Pact, the War and postwar years.In this new book, he has especially "concentratedon Fl'ance, which ever since 1934 has been thestronghold of European Communism."

European Communism is creative history of thefirst rank. Its materials are fresh, little known,and sifted with a sharp sense of relevance as wellas of a~CUl'acy. The facts are ordered not by meremechanical devices of gralnmar, but with an in­tegral feeling for organic form. The book exists~s a whole, and grasps the mind of the reader. Wedo not merely look at successive and separable pages,sections, and chapters. We become aware as itwere of a living person developing through time,and we are enlightened.

The uniqueness of the Communist enterprise hasnot been sufficiently stressed. This uniqueness, andthe fact that it is right before us in the living,baffling present, is what makes it so hard to under­stand Communism by the usual academic nlethods.The conventional approach almost always reducesthe unique wholeness of the enterprise to one ofits partial aspects. Communism is treated like "aphilosophy" comparable to other philosophies; like"a political party" or an expanding "imperialiststate." Such redu~tions are not altogether false,but each of them is by itself distorting anddeadening.

Borkenau understands the Communist enterprise,and with his help every reader can, if he allowshimself, begin to understand it at least a little.I do not mean that we are to accept as finallyproved everything that Borkenau says. He doesnot timidly shrink behind a permanent screen ofqualifications, a constant "on this side" and "onthe other." He risks many big and controversialjudgments (one source of the intellectual excite­ment of his book), and he can hardly be right onall of them. IIis personal comments, malicious andoften amusing, on Comintern figures whom he kneware hardly subject to exact proof. But when he iswrong, he is wrong about the right issues. He iswriting about the real thing.

In Borkenau's account, the Comintern is muchmore than an abstract extension of the dominantfaction of the Russian Politburo. It is continuouslychanging, shifting, evolving under the pressure ofmyriad forces which range from great historiccrises to small individual foibles. Borkenau is alittle too scornful, I think, of the abilities of someof the leaders-he is perhaps settling a few per­sonal scores. It is easy to convict them of intel­lectual errors, but intellect is after all not very

100 THE FREEMAN

irnportant in political struggles. What Borkenaucalls Lenin's "subjective voluntarism" may havebeen philosophically jejune, but this is only anothername for the mighty political will which carriedhilll to power against obstacles that would haveplunged mere intellect into passivity.

One general conclusion is time and again sug­ges ted by this history. The leaders of the Com­mUlli.~t enterprise have, on the most flatteringillterpl"etation, made frequent, repeated, and majormis takes. They have' made their astounding advancetoward their goal of world domination not so muchby their own positive talents as by the ignorance,timidity, miscalculation, and lethargy of their op­ponents. This generalization applies from the verybegilluing, from the timer of the seizure of powerin Hussia, right through to the present day. Fromit we ought to be able to take hope, were it notfur the reflection that so many "lost chances" seemahno.::;t to suggest an even more basic law of theinauility of the West to take advantage of Com­nluuist failure. "The unteachable insistence uponcOlluuitting, over and over again, one and the samemi.::;take, reveals, not so much an error of judgmentbut a moral disease."

In his last pages Borkenau formulates with nohedging a major conclusion. He believes that therise and fall of Zhdanov completes the proof thatthe Soviet leadership does not feel the SovietUnion to be at present even "remotely strongenough to start World W;ar ITL ... There is there­fore no reason to think in the least in terms ofan imminent World War IlL" He hastens to add:"There is as little reason to be satisfied with theposition. I confess that I find few things moreexasperating than the almost universal belief that,once AmeTican rearmament has made some prog­ress, we shall be over the worst." Our intelligenceservices might find it profitable to take a week'srecess from their flood of "Se'cret" dispatches andinter-office memos in order to study this bookenough to estimate the validity of this conclusion.

We may turn with relief from these somber prob­lems of the present to the" delights of the past. Itis not that the' past did not have its own troubles.But its troubles were not ours; they cannot pierceour bodies and they need not pain our souls. Theycan become part of a pageant for us to contemplateand delight in. ...~nd this, by and large, is whatWill Durant happily make'S of the Renaissance.(The Renaissance, by Will Durant, 776 pp., il­lustrated, Simon & Schuster, $7.50.)

Will Durant is the most remarkable of popular­izers. I still remember when during my schooldays his The Story of Philosophy was published,and began to sell like cokes in Atlanta. The' soberteachers and students of philosophy (among whomI then was) were automatically scornful, and forseveral years could not be brought to read thebook. They then found that it was inde'Qd easy

to read, as it must have been, but by no means sovulgar as their envy demanded. More space thanin the school texts was spent on the personalitie'sof the philosophers, and "epistemology" was firmlypushed aside. But from it a reader could learna surprising amount about philosophy, its historyand its problems, and could enjoy the learning,

The Renaissance is the fifth volume in Durant'sThe Story of Civilization, which he started in 1927,and plans, with two more volumes, to bring to anend in 1963-his own seventy-eighth year. It isrestricted pretty much to Italy in the period 1304­1576, and I do not see why it is not the best singlevolume history in its field, be1tter, for example,than Burckhardt or Symonds. At any rate, if some­one who did not know the Renaissance asked mewhat to read, this new book of Will Durant's isthe first one that I would name.

Durant is very much pro-Renaissance, and this isa good thing for the pleasure of the reading. It isthe wonderful overflow of pictures, buildings, andother objects, above all of persons that theRenaissance means to him, that he loves, and thathe tells so warmly about. He does not neglect thefinancial and business underpinning. In theoreticalstatements he comes rather close to an economicdeterminism, which he doesn't, however, seem totake too seriously in detail. He has also things tosay about the religious and political changes, butit is always the individual persons through whom,about whom, and by whom. he writes his history.This has always been his way, and it becomese'specially appropriate in telling the story of theRenaissance, so much the age of individuals.

Durant does not share in any degree the con·­ception of the Renaissance, become prominent dur,­ing the last generation, as the source of the evilsof our age and the prelude to the breakdown ofWestern civilization. This absence deprives his bookof depth, and makes it seem a bit old-fashioned.But it is not necessary to do all things at once.He has constructed in words an analogue of agiant movie, a first-rate' technicolor chronicle, andit is worth looking at.

Hart CraneI see your eyes. I listen to you stillLurching and laughing down a Taxco hill.

I see you clasp a burro whom you meetAnd kiss his nose and mingle with his feet.

I hear you half suggesting that a friendAnd you arrange a sudden end.

I see you face horizons all alone:I helar you hit the water like a stone.

WITTER BYNNER

Eternal SearchThe Quest, by Elisabeth Langgasser. Translated

from the German by Jane Bannard Greene. 370pp. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. $4.00

Elisabeth Langgasser was perhaps one of the mostgifted as well as most controversial figures of

contemporary German lite'rature. Her particularpoetic talent, which drew heavily on the imagesof ancient mythology and received much of itsstrength from the romantically mystic landscapeof her native Rhine-Hesse, was first recognizedin the early 1930s, when she received the Litera­ture Prize for German Women. But her own brandof mystical Catholicism and the dreamlike, irra­tional quality of her writing made access to herwork extremely difficult.

Never a popular write'!, she was soon forgottenwhen Nazi censorship clamped down on her be­cause she was partly Jewish, and for almost adecade Elisabeth Langgasser remained in theshadow. Then, in 1946, she came into sharp focusagain with the publication of a powerful andstrangely remarkable book, Das UnausloeschlicheSiegel (The Inextinguishable Seal), which told themystifying story of a German Jew who became"a prisoner of God" by his conversion to Catholi­cism. Barely four years later, in 1950, she diedat the age of fifty-one. She left behind six volumesof prose and several books of poetry. The Quest(originally published as Maerkische Argonauten­fahrt) was her last book. It is also the first of herworks to appear in America.

The Quest is not a novel in the true sense ofthe word. It is a free-floating, dreamy legend ofman's efforts to find a personal peace in a turbulent,chaotic world. Miss Langgasser once described itin her mystic way as "an icon transformed intoa fable." Seven confused, guilt-ridden, and be­wildered persons-an architect and his sister; anactor; a Jewish couple who escaped from the gas­chambers; a young, demoralized girl; and a dis­illusioned former soldier-have left the war-tornruins of Berlin and embarked on a mysteriouspilgrimage to Anastasiendorf (the village of resur­rection), a convent in southern Brandenburg.There, under the guidance of the Abbess Demetria,they hope to rid themselves of their "melancholy"(i.e., the spirit of nihilism that has poisoned thesoil of Europe) and find "joy" in the indefinablestate of "grace" that Catholicism affords to thosewho deliver themselves into the hands of God. But,as it turns out, Demetria never receives thepilgrims. The meandering story switches abruptlyto the fate of two little children who vegetate inthe ruins of a bombed-out building, and MissLanggasser never mentions the pilgrims again.Whether they ever reached their goal is no longerher concern; apparently her only interest was inpointing the way.

NOVEMBER 2, 1953 101

The characters in The Quest---..symbols ratherthan figures of flesh and blood-move around withthe magic disre'gard for time, place, and logicalsequence that one finds in the medieval mysteryplay. They meet casually, part again, become en­gag'ed in sexual complications (which seem oddlycontrived in the context of Miss Langgasser's nar­rative), and their endless dialogues, conducted ina stylized, imaginative language, ultimately resolvearound the question of their individual resurrec­tion.

In spite of its-----perhaps purposeful-disorgan­ization, its shallow passages, and its discomfortingwealth of mythological, religious, and mystic in­nuendo, Elisabeth Langgasser's book is a powerfulsymbol of man's eternal search for the indefinable,yet unavoidable goal and center of all human life.That she herself found it in Catholicism is perhapsMiss Langgasser's greates1t iachievement.

GUNTHER STUHLMANN

Professional PrinceA Rogue with Ease, by M. K. Argus. 211 pp. New

York: Harper and BrotheTS. $2.75

A sprightly first novel by the author of Moscow­on-the-Hudson relates the adventures of a bogusRussian prince in the New York and Hollywoodof the 1920s. Prince Saratov is actually Russian­unlike his friend Count Simsky, born Sims inLiverpool, Ohio, and some other members of theirprotective 'org,anization ARNIA (Association ofRussian Noblemen in America). The plot hasamusing twists, but its chief virtue is that itserves as a thread to hold together the sparklingasides which the author dispenses on nearly everypage. For Mr. Argus' comment on human foibleshas both wit and warmth.

Russians in America, the subject of Mr. Argus'earlier book of real-life sketches, are featured againin his fictional portraits of the residents of MadameZubov's rooming house, where Saratov lived beforehe rose to more princely surroundings. Among themare Ivan, self-centered inventor of the self-windingtelescope; the 'efficient Mademoiselle Kurochkin,who t,akes Ivan in hand, and the lovely Olga,who acts Chekhov heroines in group theatricals.

The novel's satire is extended to Americans ofthe 1920s. There are shrewd thrusts at the littlegroup of avant garde thinkers headed by j.j. o'sul­livan, who is trying to live down his family's moneyby becoming a poet of the proletariat and eliminat­ing all capitalle'tters from his name. "... it wouldbe easier to equalize the letters of the alphabetthan the members of the human race," the authorremarks. "One could, of course', ask why it wasnecessary to lower the upper cases instead ofelevating the lower cases. But in all processes ofequalization the tendency is, apparently, not so

102 THE FREEMAN

much toward uplifting the underprivileged as de­flating the privileged." Though o'sullivan marriesOlga, he can never quite forgive her for desertingthe Great Experiment in the Soviet utopia. Thesociety ladies who swoon over the "prince" alsocome in for spoofing. In his chapters on zanydoings .in Los Angeles and Hollywood, Mr. Argusis as perceptive as Evelyn Waugh, but there ismore good humor in his barbs.

Having come to the United States at about thesame time as his hero Saratov, Mr. Argus can nowbe amusing- in two languages. He has brought outtwo books in English in three years. But hisRussian-speaking readers can chuckle six days; aweek over his column in the anti-Communist news­paper Novoye Russkoye Slovo. We wonder whatwe're missing. MABEL TRAVIS WOOD

Briefer MentionIdeas and Places, by Cyril Connolly. 280 pp. New

York: Harper and Brothers. $3.50

Cyril Connolly has assembled here a bookfnl ofthe articles, reviews, and editorials that he wrotefor the magazine Horizon, which he edited duringthe ten years of its existence (1939-49). Thereis also included a score of the replies that Horizonreceived to a questionnaire on the livelihood ofwriters which it circulated widely arflong Britishauthors. These replies hold both interest and pi­quancy for their American colleagues. What ismost pleasing about Connolly's own pieces is theirexpression of his pleasure and concern in literature,his regard for its standards, his lament at itsdebasement. When he tries too hard to be witty ina neo-nineties manner,or to mourn a little toofashionably over the death of culture, he is lessagreeable. "During the eight years I have editedHorizon we have witnessed a continuous declinein all the arts" sounds less grandiose when putdirectly beside : "Horizon has become aware of thedecline of literature through the increasing difficultyof obtaining contributions." Could it be that itwas theeditor who became tired, or bored?

The World Between the Wars, by Quincy Howe.784 pp. New York: Simon & Schuster. $7.50

This is the second of the projected three-volume"World History of Our Own Times." Ostensiblyits thesis is the following: "From the UnitedStates the voice of Wilson promised peace forall through world democracy. From Russia thevoice of Lenin promised plenty for all throughworld revolution. The history of the next twodecades of the twentieth century is the historyof the world's search for the goals that Wilsonand Lenin defined." However oversimplified, thismight have provided Mr. Howe with an organizingprinciple. He does not really follow it through.

His book is a giant grab bag, stuffed to the lip"with quotations selected on no apparent basisexcept that they are contemporary, with miscel··laneous dates, and half-digested facts. Its proseis an alternation of straightforward narrative withjournalese.

For the old and middle-aged this volume hassome of the uses of a family picture album. Leaf­

ing through it, the past revives in recollection.Nearly everything is there, in one mode or another.Still, such a purpose is served by novels and thepersonal memoir better than by these filing cab­inet histories.

The Great Peace, by Raja Hutheesing. 246 pp. NewYork: Harper and Brothers. $3.50

Raja Hutheesing is Prime Iv.rinister :Nehru's broth­er-in-Iaw and a successful, 'well traveled journalistin his own right. He knows America and is notvery fond of it. He is an Asian ideologically aswell as by birth, and condemns with the typicalscorn of the well-bred Asian the grievous sins ofthe West. He has been most sympathetic to theChinese "anti-imperialist revolution." This back­ground makes all the more impressive his accountof two journeys to Mao's China, one as a news­paperman and one as member of the India-ChinaFriendship Association. He found China shut inlike a prison, vvith a "dictator who rules in thename of the people."

No freedom of speech or association is possible...Literature is subordinated to politics and so are art,cinema and drama There is no freedom of move-ment or' domicile There is a growing separationbetween the people and the Party.

Montesquieu's "'Great Peace" of autocratic govern­ment holds the nation enthralled. "China offerslittle hope for the future."

'There are many interesting reports of directobservation, among them a description of the GermWarfare exhibit.

The Adventures of Augie March, by Saul Bellow.536 pp. New York: The Viking Press. $4.50

Saul Bellow has made a declassed, rootless, metro­politan lumpen-inteUectual the hero of a hugepicaresque novel. At its best it is fine: witty,sharp, mercilessly observed, with Augie a kind ofJack-in-the-Box Figaro. There are lots of women,and plenty of racing city talk. There is no pretenseat an organized formal plot, and no reason whythere should be.

Saul Bellow may know too much for the genrewhich he has chosen. The traditional picaresque'is presented from the outside, without comment,explicit or implied. Things just happen to happenthe way they do. There is not even any casual orpsychological explanation for what goes on. Mr.Bellow and his protagonist, however, are period­ically stymied by the pale cast of rather sophisticat-

ed thought, and Mr. Bellow cannot altogether resistoccasional proof that he "understands" what isgoing on. "I got to grinning again," Augie saysto himself at the end. "'That's the animal ridensin me, the laughing creature, forever rising up.What's so laughable, that a Jacqueline, for instance,as hard used as that by rough forces, will stillrefuse to lead a disappointed life? Or is the laughat nature-including eternity-that it thinks itcan win over us and the power of hope ?" Very well,no doubt, but he shouldn't have to say it.

The Betrayers, by Ruth Chatterton. 310 pp.Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. $3.50

The Betrayers, a novel by Ruth Chatterton, is anattack upon the senatorial committees that in­vestigate subversives. Its message is simply this:it is cruelly anti-liberal to ask men who are work­ing on such projects as atomic defense whetherthey are agents of the' Kremlin. The story involvesa nuclear physicist who is smuggling atomic secretsto Russia because he believes that America is fullyas evil as her enemy and that only by equalizing,and hence nullifying, the destructive powers ofthe two countries can war be averted. The othercharacters do not quite approve of his stand, buttheir treatment of him is revoltingly like thesympathy one might grant to an idealistic thoughimpractical saint. He does not receive one-twentiethof the damnation poured on the senator who wantshim investigated-and even after the physicist isfound guilty, the book continues to damn inve'Stiga­tions. Although they are perfunctorily condemned,it is not the Communists or espionage agents whoare the villians of this novel: the villians are themen who want to bring Communism and espionageinto the open and do something about them. Des­cribed in a style of pseudo-New Yorker sophistica­tion, the characters alternate between pouringdrinks for one another and tossing off irresponsiblenonsense on such life-and-death issues as treasonand the atomic bomb. It is this mixture of cocktailsand blood that gives the book its peculiar air ofmoral indecency.

The Bold Women, by Helen Beal Woodward. 373pp. New York: Farrar, Straus and Young.$3.75

If proof were needed that women are irrepressible,Ithis book supplies it in abundance. Some fifteenof them parade through its pages indulging in avariety of vagaries and capers and quirks ofthought and dress and deed that are apt to seemrather high-flown even now, let alone in thenineteenth-century American setting that wit­nessed their determined antics. They are severallyadmirable, pitiful, engaging, moving-and all ofthem thoroughly individual. The historical detailis as colorful and fascinating as the ladies them­selves. The style is pleasingly conversational.

NOVEMBER 2, 1953 103

Adolescents on BroadwayBy SERGE FLIEIGERS

If the past Broadway season with its The Children'sHour and the innumerable offspring in The Kingand I could be called "The Children's Season," theupcoming dramatic cycle might well be known as"The Semester of the Adolescents." With only afew weeks of that semester under way we alreadyhave two plays dealing with the trials and tribu­lations of the immediate post-puberty period.

Tea and Sympathy, which we shall examine moreclosely in a future issue, concerns the problemsof an "off-horse" boy in a typical Eastern prepschool. It came to Broadway with the usual fan­fare that precedes a hit: the snare drums of high­powered publicity men, banners proclaiming thename of Deborah Kerr, and in the background thereassuring rumble of wealthy backers. End as aMan, which describes life in a Southern militaryacademy as seen by Calder Willingham, himself aSoutherner, came to Broadway in a somewhat dif­ferent manner. The story of how it happened isalmost more interesting than that of the play.

Mr. Willingham's work was singled out someeight months ago for production at the Actor'sStudio, a remarkable organization where aspiringyoung thespians can acquire theater experiencewithin the very shadow of Broadway and under thetutelage of such luminaries as Elia Kazan andCheryl Crawford. For work in the .. Studio End asa Man was perfect. It required little scenery, calledfor a youthful cast, provided spectacular, drama­packed scenes wherein each actor could emote tohis heart's content. Not averse to turning practiceinto profit, the cast decided to give three publicperformances before moving on to another play.Top Broadway producers were invited to backthese appearances, including such astute gentlemenas Lee Strassburg and Paul Vroom, but they wouldhave none of these "semi-amateurs." That wouldhave been the last performance on End as a Manhad not a pretty, twenty-four year old actressfrom San Francisco named Claire Heller happenedto be in the audience. She stepped forward enthu­siastically when it was over to announce: "I thoughtyour play was wonderful. Do you mind if I tryto produce it?"

Nobody said No, so Miss Heller went ahead. Shetook all her savings-$5,OOO-and hired the Theaterde Lys, a side-street place in Greenwich Village. Asdirector she retained the Studio's Jack Garfein,a wonder boy who escaped from a Czech concentra­tion when he was nineteen and arrived in Americaknowing just five words of English. Within eighteenmonths he was teaching speech, and a year later

directing End as a Man. The actors included BenGazzara from New York's lower East Side, AlbertSalmi from the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn,and Arthur Storch, who has attended dramaticschools in Germany and England. Somehow, in theintimate and hopeful atmosphere of GreenwichVillage, this varied combination of talent workedlike a charm. They put on a taut, fast-paced dramaand-to the unending wonder of this spectator­never wavered once in their Southern accent. Theydid the whole thing so weB, in fact, that End as aMan received a unanimous verdict of approval fromNew York's jaded critics. And Miss Heller seta special mark of some kind by making back herinvestment wi,thin four weeks-a feat even themost optimistic producers dare not dream about.

Encouraged by her artistic and financial successMiss Heller decided to move her production uptown,a geographic undertaking involving approximatelythirty...fivecity blocks and $35,000. Latest reportsindicate a busy box-office.

End as OJ Man is not a formula play and isnotably lacking in many of the ingredients whichare supposed to assure success. There is no bigname in the cast or producing end, not a singlewoman among the characters. End as a Man is awell-written, impressive drama about the hazingsystem, an institution some people believe makesa man out of a boy. Mr. Willingham shows quiteeffectively how this system can also work inreverse. His main charac1ter, pl'aye'd by Gazzara,portrays a vicious upper classman who takes outhis sadism on the freshmen in his platoon, especiallya flabby, spineless newcomer whose part is handledwith magnificent repulsiveness by Albert Storch.Gazzara's antics, which include beatings with abroom and a wire coat-hanger, are interruptedwhen he roughs up the academy's prize footballplayer, a half-witted bully acted to perfection byAlbert Salmi.

Nemesis comes in the form of the general incharge of the school-played by Frank M. Thomas,the only member of the· entire production who hasseen more than thirty summers. During the lastscene of the court-martial most of the boys getexpelled for being either too tough or not toughenough. Dramatically this is a somewhat unsatis­factory ending. Mr. Willingham tends to tear downhis major characters almost before building themup so that in the end we are left with no hero­neither the general nor the school nor the system.Still, as a change from the bland fare of the past

few years End as a lV/an is definitely worth seeing,and it comes mighty close to beIng a really fineplay.

'The question remains whether any play can besuccessfully transplanted from Greenwich V111ageto the dour soil of Broadway. And another questionis whether a play without a star name and withlittle money behind it can flourish.

TV Drama Grows UpBy FLORA RHETA SCHREIBER

One of the major political novels of our time,1984 by the late George Orwell, found its way tothe television screen as the initial offering ofStudio One's sixth season. It was a bold choice,for 1984 is both fantasy and satire, two forlnswhich popular audiences find uncongenial. Yet anaudience of 23,000,000 saw it, and many expressedenthusiasm. For here was a production on a planeof high seriousness and artistic integrity, far re­moved in conception and execution from the run-of­the-mill television drama. Credit belongs to FelixJackson, the producer; Paul l~ickell, the director,William Templeton, the script writer; Henry May,the designer; Eddie Albert, who played WinstonSmith, Orwell's hero; Norma Crane, a ne\VCOn1er totelevision, as Winston's partner in love-crime;Lorna Greene as Winston's merciless, omniscientinterrogator.

The television play succeeded in conveying thegrim atmosphere of a future state controlled by acollectivist society, in which truth is legislated,the past is obliterated, and thought police persuadepeople that ignorance is strength and war is peace.This glimpse into the future went deeper than theusual romantic vision of space cadets and "Vveek-endexcursions to the moon. It was a future connectednot with gadgets, but with the spirit of man, afuture that seemed not merely a nightmarishprognosis of things to come, but also a soberdiagnosis of things that are. Viewed in the quietof one's living room, with a mind free to observeand react-in contrast to the fictional minds onthe screen-television's 1984, like the book beforeit, became an allegory representing the past createdby Hitler, the present created Stalin andMalenkov. It was an allegory, too, of the totalitarianelements within our own country and of the verytendencies within ourselves that make automatismand rote thinking possible.

But the play was not didaCttic. On the contrary,it told its political story in highly personal terms.When I talked with hi.m, Felix Jackson put it thisway: "We concentrated on the person-to-personstory, on how the individual suffers under thiskind of regime." The world created on the televisionscreen was a world of a dream image. Yet the image,

to be completely convincing, must be sustained with­out interruptIon. Two such interruptions did occur,and they wel'e enormously distracting. One wasthe music, which was neither unfamiliar enough,nor harsh and barren enough, to suggest 1984.The other was Betty Furness' appearance betweenthe acts to sell the products of Westinghouse. Thatgood company had made this production possible,and we were duly grateful. But to be reminded ofa 1953 refrigerator while we were concentratingon 1984 was disruptive of mood and pleasure.Wouldn't it have been better business to have thesales talk only at the beginning and the end?

The sets, however, did preserve the dreanl image."Don't build us rooms. Build us 1984," Felix Jack­son told the scene designers. And this is whatthey did. They constructed a set abstract in themain, but with two scenes significantly realistic­the glade and the room above the junk shop wherethe lovers met in what they thought was privacy.In these realistic sets the illusion of the humancould be preserved in the surrounding climate ofabstraction and hallucination.

And it was against this background that PaulNickell strove to teU a very human story. Heavoided the remote, the stylized, the depersonalizeddirectorial techniques that the theme inherentlysuggested. The result was the emergence of alove-against-the-world motif, a very ancient themethat seemed the more tragic in a world whichhad abolished not only love, but all human feelingand thought. Just as the lovers as a pair seemedill-starred, so did Winston hinlself seem a tragichero. His fall from individual to robot seemed thefall of Everyman, and his nobility seemed greaterby his juxtaposition to those who had early madetheir peace with the unrelenting automatism ofthe super-state.

Successful in its own terms, this productionnevertheless raises certain questions concerningtelevision's suitability as a medium for literature.Values are lost inevitably by the need of cuttingto fifty minutes of acting time. Video's Winston,for instance, could not indulge in the luxury ofInemory, as he did in the first chapter of the novel.Similarly, the mysteries and complications ofOrwell's "doublethink" just did not exist on tele­vision. And the horror of individual scenes wasminimized. Video's Winston enters the tortureroom only for a moment, and the audience neversees what is behind the door. In comparison withthe cumulative terror of the original, this versionof the famous scene was clearly made palatable.This was unfortunate. For 1984 as a whole showsthat though television imposes limitations on theextent to which character, mood, and thought canbe elaborated, it does remain a viable vehicle forliterature's less palatable forms-fantasy, satire,and tragedy. But if television is to develop thesegenres, it must not be guilty of protecting itsaudiences from the pain implicit in a play.

NOVElv.IBER 2" 1953 105

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Soviet agents could steal-andprobably have stolen-parts neces­sary for assembling and explodingatomic bombs inside the UnitedStates. This is the conclusionreached by Medford Evans, an of­ficial of the Atomic Energy Com­mission for eight years and, for acertain period, in charge of its se­curity program, who resigned hisposition in order to give the Amer­ican people this dramatic report.Medford Evans has contributedarticles on this subject to theFreeman."On the political, social and moralphases of the atomic energy project,this book of Medford Evans' seems tome not merely the best but alone in itsclass."-from the Introduction by JamesBurnham. At all bookstores

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II FROM OUR READERS ]1(Continued from p. 76)

public debt out of conlmercial banks in­to the hands of "real lenders" fromsavings. This is the only alternative toinflation.

Public ignorance and prejudice inrnatters of elementary economics makea program of plunder easy for inter­ested groups in a position to extortmoney from the rest of society throughcurrency depreciation. One such class­ification consists of all-powerful labormonopolies in key industries. Inflationbrings ahout unreal paper "profits"for business enterprises because of thelag in cost-values behind product prices.These "profits" can then be "expro­priated" by aggressive labor monopo­lies, or by government through taxa­tion. The loot really comes out of thenation's capital, its provision for thefuture.

This is not "theory." I have myselfsuffered a capital loss of a substantialfraction of the annual pension of a~etired professor-already reduced tohalf its value by inflation-throughthe fall in value of a small block ofstock in a local well-managed bank,whose investment in government se­curities has been conservative. But itsuits the purposes of the C. 1. O.propaganda to assume that all bank­stock owners, like security-holders gen­erally and especially all landlords, arerich capitalist exploiters. My commit­ment of savings to this use was alsoconservative. Incidentally, the bank was~ounded after the collapse of the 30'sas a cOlnmunity necessity, with only:a modest hope of ultimate yield. Itpaid no return' for years, and hasgradually worked up to about the min­imum considered necessary on riskcapital in any going concern.'Chicago, Illinois FRANK H. KNIGHT

CollectivismI never expected to live to see the daywhen saving and thrift and accumula­tion of money by investment and hardwork would be spat at and decried bylarge segments of our population whohave been infected with collectivisnl,in other words, state ownership ofassets that have been privately ac­cumulated. State ownership can workonly by force and leads directly tocommunism and slavery.

It is deplorable that this movementtoward collectivism and slavery hasbeen helped by politicians who havetraded political funds for office. Afterchanging the Constitution so as topermit varying rates of income taxon citizens, they have gone so far as

to get this rate up to 92 per cent ofan individual's income. This wouldbe robbery if done by any but thegovernment, and when done by themajority group of people called gov­ernment, it still is theft on a grandscale.

The sound Americans either mustrecapture control of one of the majorparties or form a new party...Davenport, Iowa JOSEPH S. KIMMEL

Praise for VerseeI feel obliged to you for printing thecharming verses, "On a Hilltop" byK. Wharton Sturges, in the issue ofSeptember 7. Here is what my daugh­ter wrote me about them: "The poemis a little jewel. To combine suchsimple words in a simple form andachieve something fresh and beautifultakes the wisdom of a Confucius orthe blessing of inspiration ...."Adamstown, Md. D. B. PHILLIPS

Editorial on the U.N.I consider the FREEMAN one of thebest and most informative publicationsin existence today. "The Absurdityof the V.N" [Septenlber 21] was ex­cellent throughout. Twenty-two of thetwenty-three states that adopted res­olutions to take us into a One Worldgovernment have revoked this; onlyUtah has not....San Francisco, Cal. WILLIAM BURKLE

Answer,ing a ,CriticDoris Brushaber in her criticism [Octo­ber 5] of Mr. James Burnham's re­view of Eleanor Roosevelt's book over­looks the fact that Mrs. Rooseveltchose to stand alongside her latehusband in being committed, so theysaid, "to do those things which mustbe done." ... And while the Roose­velts' thinking, or lack of thinking,can not be charged with all the world'spolitical ills, the brilliance they figuredthey would give did not aid, but rathergreatly weakened the outlook for asaner future. Considering that theRoosevelts' fuzzy ideas have been sovery expensive to all of us. . . Ifeel Mr. Burnham was too kind tolVII'S. Roosevelt.

GEORGE "V. MACAULEY

Grand Rapids, Mich.

American IndiansI regard A. L. Tandy Jemison's article"Neither Free nor Equal" [October19] as the most revealing and astound­ing expose of the tragic plight of ourred brothers yet to be presented tothe American people. The Constitutionl1ULSt be amended so that the IndiansInay be made secure in their rights­in courts of law-as is guaranteed toall other citizens.Topeka, Kans. PHIL E. ZIMMERMAN

How Far Will $1 Go ?

In 1909, $1 would buy 4.25 pounds of round steak

In 1939, $1 would buy 2.7 pounds of round steak

In 195~1, $1 will buy one pound of round steali

Our American dollar has certainly been nibbled away! But ... there is still one way you can

make $1 do 0 dollar's worth of work. With a trial subscription to the FREEMANl

you can

• Help make a student aware of the fallacies of collectivism, or

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One year ago, a Midwest friend of the FREEMAN sent out a dozen such gift subscriptions.

One of the recipients, an Illinois manufacturer, has sent out 600. He decided that Christmas

cards cost 30¢ apiece and were hardly noticed. Why not send a $1 FREEMAN subscription andreceive some appreciation? He nome on request) now writes us:

1I0ur salesmen have received favorable comments from ourcustomers. It is my belief that I cC':Jld not receive a greateramount of advertising and good will for the same expenditure."

How for will the $1 go that paid for the original gift subscription that started this chain re­

action? Who can tell?

Send $1 (3-month) gift subscriptions to the FREEMAN to your friends; ask them to keep the boll

rolling by sending $1 gift subscriptions to thei~ friends. To start a snowballing movement to

build the FREEMAN'S audience and influence, give FREEMAN subscriptions to men and women

you believe would like to get into the battle for freedom.

SEND IN YOUR ORDER TODAY FOR THREE MONTHS' SUBSCRIPT'I'ONS($1 EACH) OR ONE YEAR SUBSCRIPTIONS (SEE BACK COVER FORSPECIAL CHRIST'MAS GIFT RATES ON 'ONE YEAR SUBSCRIPTIONS)

The FREEMAN, 240 Madison Avenue, New York 16, N. Y.

The special gift rates in effect now until

December 31 offer you a practical and

easy solution to the problem of gifts for

friends, associates, relatives and employ~

ees. A gift card bearing your name win

be mailed in December early enough t

arrive before Christmas. The subscrip~

ticn wilf-'start with the Christmas issue of

Jhe FREEMAN f

IMPORTANT! Save on Your Own Renewal ~

Check here if you wish to indude your own renewal

(Clt the $ped(Cl1 low gJft rates Do

A gift subscription to the FREEMAN is not

only flattering, but serves throughout the

year as a reminder of holiday wishes and

friendship! And since the FREEMAN is the

strongest, most respected voke fighting

for traditional American freedoms, you

are actually contributing your strength

to the growing fight to keep America

freeo

\

* I +~t,~ift of FREEDO~ is jf}tb~f jforgotttll

l!

IThe FREEMAN240 Madison AvenueNew York 16 0 N, y,

Please enter gift 5ybscription~ for each name I have!~sted below:

CHRISTMAS GifT RATES

City ~_~__~

first one year subscription "Two one year subscriptions"Each additional one year subscriptionSpecial 3 month trial subscription .

For Canadian and foreign, add $1.00

$4.50$8800$3.50$1.00

Zone __ State _

/Please Bill me 0