MAY :I. 1 9 5 4 25¢

Investigation andCivil Libertyc. Dickerman Williams

Soviet Trade: Who Gains?Leo Dudin

Articles and Book Reviews by Wilhelm Roepke, Max Eastman,

Harold Lord Varney, John T. Flynn, Fletcher Pratt,

Eugene Lyons, William Henry Chamberlin

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Articles

·Investigation and Civil Liberty .. C. DICKERMAN WILLIAMS 551Exchange Controls IVlust Go WILHELM ROEPKE 554The Risk in Hawaiian Statehood .. HAROLD LORD VARNEY 557Will the South Secede? GEORGE S. SCHUYLER 560Soviet Trade: Who Gains? LEO DUDIN 561More Rope for Our Hanging EUGENE LYONS 564

Editorials

The Fortnight 545The Test of Geneva· 547Hydrogen Hysteria 548The Unoffi'cia1 Plebiscites 549Adlai Sounds Retreat 549Catcher in the Eye 550Just Print Enough Money 550

Books and the Arts

Fear's False Faces '" WILLIAM HENRY CHAMBERLIN 565A IGeneral's Presidency FLETCHER PRATT 566America's "Day of Infamy" JOHN T. FLYNN 566Cuba's Dictator KARL HESS 567Crime vs. America PAUL HARVEY 568The Age of the Borgias HUBERT MARTIN 568A Brief for Bravery RICHARD M. PALMER 569

;·"James Joyce's Friend ANN F. WOLFE 570Gift and Gush HELEN WOODWARD 570Non-Communicative Art MAX EASTMAN 571

We had just put on our agenda the item: inquireinto Communisln in Hawaii and its effect onstatehood, when HAROLD LORD VARNEY telephonedand proposed a piece on that very subject.Mr. Varney's acquaintance with the problemgoes back to 1938 when he went to Hawaiifor a two-year study of Communist penetrationinto the labor unions and other vital institu­tions. Since then he has remained in con­stant and close touch with developlnents there,and it is from firsthand information that hepresents (p. 557) the drawbacks to Hawaiianstatehood at this time.

The revelations of Igor Gouzenko in 1946 con­cerning an espionage ring operating in Canadagave rise to an investigation that has beenuniversally regarded and lnuch-lauded asthorough, effective, and just. In connectionwith the present heated debate in this countryover the procedures of our own investigationsinto Communist activities, c. DICKERMAN

WILLIAMS re-examined the report of the RoyalCommission. What he found (p. 551) shouldgive pause to those both here and in Canadaand Britain who are denouncing the effortsof our congressional committees as a flagrantviolation of civil Uberties. Mr. Williams bringsto the debate the knowledge of years as alegal expert, and as a careful student of con­stitutional law and the processes of govern­ment. FREEMAN readers will remember his pre­vious discussion on another aspect of con­gressional investigations ("The Duty toInvestigate," September 21, 1953).

Amid all the agitation about the EuropeanDefense COllllnunity many observers ignore theequal urgency of a successful European eco­nomic community of free nations. WILHELM

ROEPKE in his article on p. 554 tells us why theEuropean Payments Union is failing to achievethis and what steps are necessary to bringit about.

Among Ourselves

MAY 3, 1954

A. Fortnightly

For

Individualists

KURT LASSENFLORENCE NORTON

VOL. I!, NO. 16

Executive DirectorManaging Editor

THE

reeman

Contents

Poem

The State of Poetry, 1954 WITTER BYNNER 574

This Is What They Said 563

From Our Readers 544

THE FREEMAN is published :f.ortnightly. Publication Office, Orange, Conn. Editorial andGeneral Offices 240 Madison Avenue, New York 16, N. Y. Copyrighted in the UnitedStates, 1954, by the Freeman Magazine, Inc. I-~enry .Hazlitt, .Chairman of the ~oard;Leo Wolman, President; Kurt Lassen, Executive VIce PreSIdent; Claude Robmson,Secretary; Lawrence Fertig, 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 returll postage or,better, a stamped, self,·addressed envelope is enclosed. Manuscripts must be typedd0uble-spaced.Articles signed with a name, pseudonym, or initials do not necessarily represent theopinion of the editors. either as to substance or style.~ 11 Printed in U.S.A., by Wilson H. Lee Co., Orange, Connecticut

LEO DUDIN, analyst of Soviet affairs, and ourregular contributor, EUGENE LYONS, have unitedtheir points of focus in dealing with the eco­nomic, practical, and political questions in­volved in trade with Soviet Russia and thearea under its control. Mr. Dudin gives thefacts and figures of such trade (p. 561) andon the basis of these shows how it is used forpolitical ends. Mr. Lyons' words (p. 564) aredirected to the American businessman and arein the nature of advice as well as warning.

Since 1929 MAX EASTMAN has headed the cru­sade against "the Cult of Unintelligibility" inpoetry. He now takes up the cudgels in favor ofthe communication of clear values in art(p. 571). To illustrate his thesis we reproduceon the inside back cover a famous picture byPicasso discussed in his article.

No CoddlingOne of your editorial writers suggestedthe .slogan, "Eggheads of the wor,ldunite-you have nothing to lose butyour yokes." But what would we haveif they did unite? Scrambled eggheads!

No. We must sma,sh them. They havebeen coddled long enough.

Delta, Utah DICK MORRISON

"'Tops"Your April 19 issue is tops. The MaxEa,stman review of McCarthy and HisEnemies is the best one I've read sofar, and I think it deserves to be re­printed by itse'lf. I also liked FredaUtley's article on Berlin-Geneva andArgus' satire, "Rules for Red-baiting."

Brooklyn, N.Y. ABRAHAM GLICKSMAN

Floral Park, N.Y.

Recognition of Red ChinaThe past few issues of the FREEMAN

have caused us to reaHze that notonly is there a deliberate move underway to minimize the dangers of Com­munist infiltration in our government,but that the admittance of Red Chinainto the U.N. is possible.

While many people are seeminglylethargic about the dangers of com­ITIunism, there are many such as wewho do not know what course to fol­low to impress upon our governmentthat Red China-as ,an aggressor-isnot to supplant our ally NationalistChina in the U.N. Definite leadershipof some kind is sorely needed.

BARBARA WARNOCK andDOROTHY SERAVALLI

On CensorshipI have been an avid FREEMAN re,aderfor about two years now and, as acollege student, find your magazinevery useful in my political science andeconomics courses. The FREEMAN ismore than a collection of opinions, how­ever. It is one of the few cons1istentlyconservative, anti-regimentation pub­lications around today. Thus, while Irarely agree with your views, I cancertainly respect them as the mosthonest espousal of today's conserva­tive viewpoint.

Most right-of-center journals ofopinion tend, as do their left-wingcounterparts, to adopt the vie·ws ofthose who would curb many of ourbasic freedoms. These attitudes can be

synthesized into one, which is a basicpremise of all "isms": a deep-seateddistrust of the people.... The politicalsnobs seem to think that the people. . .

Radical Commentators are so hopelessly inadequate that someI was interested in Eugene Lyons' sort of Big Brother is needed to plan"The New Heroism" (April 5), point- out every phase of existence.ing up the misuse of press and radio One of the most common manifesta­by radical commentators. It seems to tions of this tendency is the recurring

craze for various boards of censor­me an important, group must as,sumeits share of guilt for this misuse- ship~a mania which afflicts conserVR-the editors and radio sponsors who buy tives as well as left-wingers. Thosethe radical commentators. . . . . who advocate censorship of the books

A weird situation has developed in we read, movies we see, etc. seem tothis era. Private enterprisers now seenl me just this side of authoritarianwilling to support the advocates of statism.... I am therefore very happytheir own destruction.... Many news- to see Serge Fliegel'S ("Codes andpapers buy and publish radical writings Morals," February 22) take the censorswhich tend to nullify the healthy in- to task in a lonely stand for the freefiuence of responsible editorials. dissemination of ideas....

This is not to say radicals should Syracuse, N.Y. M. ROBERT HECHT

be silenced. In this country, radicals There's only one blemish in theas well as conservatives are free tofinance their own mediums of informa- FREEMAN. That's Mr. Fliegel'S. All the

, rest of the paper is for freedom.tion. MABEL G. BLISS Fl·Iegers is for license. . . . His answerFort Lauderdale, Fla. to the Breen office (April 5) sounded

The Case of Clarence Malnion like childish prattle. . . .. Port Orange, Fla. SOUTHERN OBSERVER

M'l'. Eisenhower's call for "fair play"in congressional dealings was most ad­mirable. It's just a pity that he didn'tremember his own dictum of "fairplay" when hi,s assistant, ShermanAdams, called to the White House andin the rudest fashion, without the leastprior notice, summarily fired the bril­liant constitutional expert and cou­rageous patriot, Clarence Manion.

The Administration has also pouredforth many fine words about the rightof every American to freedom ofthought and freedom of expression.Why was Mr. Manion fired? What washis fault? He openly dis;agreed withthe Administration on the BrickerAmendment. Clarence Manion was tak­ing the Administration at its word. Hewas practicing freedom of thought andfreedom of expression!

San Francisco, Cal. ELIZABETH LIPPITT

IeFROM OUR READERS II

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544 THE FREEMAN

THE

reemanM 0 N DAY, MAY 3, 1 9 5 4

The FortnightIt is surpising that the chief reaction to VicePresident Nixon's off-the-record statement on Indo­China is rather about the propriety of the mannerin which he made it than in what he said. That ourgovernment is in fact considering sending groundtroops to fight in Indo...JChina is serious indeed.That our newspapers and many legislators alreadyare 'Considering Indo-China in terms of "anotherKorea" is even more seTious. To think in thoseterms, in effect, is to think in terms of stalemate, toavoid any concept of victory, and to accede to thedreary prospect of a world in which compromisehas replaced forthrightness and hope.

No matter what decisions we reach on Indo-China,it is to be hoped that they will be arrived at onsome more honest basis of discussion than thatof "another Korea." Beyond that problem, re­action to Nixon's statement has posed another.Russia now knows how unsure is our policy.France now knows that there is at least the hopeof shoving the whole fight off onto other shoul­ders. It is against this troubled background, withall its political overtones, that our representativeswill sit down with the Reds at Geneva. And, asthough to make sure that no advantage of dissen­sion is overlooked, the Communists have loosed anew propaganda barrage telling the French thatthere still is a chance for "a settlement" in Indo­China. It is obvious that the Russians realize thevalue, to them, of "another Korea."

The suspension of Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer as asecurity risk, pending a thorough investigation ofsome curious circumstances in his record, wasa well warranted, if somewhat belated step. Whileprotesting his entire loyalty, the distinguishedscientist admits that over a period of years heassociated with Communists, made no check onthe Communist affiliations of persons whom heemployed in the atomic bomb project, contributedto Communist causes. "Because of these associ­ations. . .and contributions," he says, "I mightwell have appeared at the time as quite close tothe Communist Party-perhaps even, to somepeople, as belonging to it." In such a vital field

as atomic and hydrogen research the Americanpeople have a right to be protected against polit­ical naivete well as against treason.

Forty years ago it might have been plau~ibly

argued that the Communist sympathies of a dis­tinguished scientist were a matter of no publicconcern. At that time there was no powerfulforeign state to which a Communist sympathizercould have handed over security secrets, even ifhe had been so minded. The line of distinctionbetween Communism as a legitimate heresy andan illegitimate conspiracy is fragile when mattersof primary security are involved. For ideas haveconsequences, and in too many authenticated casesheresy has opened the door to conspiracy. Theaction in the Oppenheimer case and AttorneyGeneral Brownell's recommendations for strongeranti-Communist legislation are welcome indica­tions of a new spirit of vigilance in high places.This might never have developed if it had notbeen for the much abused delving of congressionalinvestigating committees.

The expected howls have gone up in the expectedquarters over Senator Knowland's report of senti­ment in Congress in favor of delaying until afterthe Geneva Conference action on appropriationsfor North Atlantic Treaty countries, "particularlythose that have dragged their feet so far as theEuropean Defense Community is concerned." Butthe longest merry-go-round ride mllst come to anend some time. Alliances must be two-way streets.A country cannot have it both ways, playing therole of a lukewarm neutral and collecting thesubsidies w,hich could reasonably be allotted to awholehearted ally. So long as France continuesits four-year sit-down stall on German rearm­ament, so long as Great Britain and France main­tain an ambiguous attitude toward cooperationin resisting Communist aggression in Asia, Con­gress is entitled to take a long look at appropri­ations earmarked for these two countries.

When hard ch.,ices must be made, a nation needsa spokesman whose moral force is unimpeachableand whose wisdom is undeniable. On the matterof choosing high taxes to deficit governmentspending there have, by and large, been more

MA Y 3, 1954 545

voices of dissension than agreement. Now, fromformer President Herbert Hoover, has come thestrong, sure voi~e we have needed. Speaking toa meeting of editors in Washington, he said: "Thetax question which stands out today is whetherbearing the pains of holding up taxes is worsethan the greater pain of the undermining of oureconomic health from Government borrowing."Mr. Hoover's answer was clear: our first duty,painful perhaps, is to meet our deficit.

The State of Texas has just enacted a law out­lawing the Communist Party and providing penal­ties up to twenty years in prison for violations.Similar legislation has been in effect in Massa­chusetts, where a leading local Communist, OtisArcher Hood, has been indicted under the statelaw. In logic and common sense there is no rea­son why the Communist Party, a criminal andseditious conspiracy devoted to furthering theaims of a foreign power, should not be outlawed.It would simplify many necessary security reg­ulations and do away with the familiar excuse:"But the Communist Party is legal." There havebeen two main objections to proposals for na­tional legislation outlawing the Communist Party.The first, which possesses little validity, is thatsuch a move would drive the party underground.But the conspiratorial segment of the party hasbeen underground for a long time, as we know fromthe testimony of reformed ex-Communists like Whit­taker Chambers, Elizabeth Bentley, Louis Budenz,and Benjamin Gitlo"\v.

The second objection, which is purely one of ex­pediency, is more serious. This is that the Com­munist Party could lead the authorities a merrychase through the courts by the simple device ofchanging its name. It could reappear as the J ef­fersonian Democracy Party, with the same actorsreciting the same lines. As soon as the courtscaught up with the new name, another innocuoussounding camouflage would be substituted. It willbe interesting to watch the results of outlawingthe party in 'Texas, Massachusetts, and perhapsin other states. There is also a strong case forputting through the specific additional legisla­tion requested by the Attorney General, author­izing wiretapping in cases of subversion, providingthe death penalty for treason in peace time, ex­tending the statute of limitations in disloyaltycases, and plugging other loopholes in a legalsystem that was framed before the Communistconspiracy reached its present dangerous state.

International harmony quickly turned into discordat a recent government luncheon given for thepurpose of publicizing a new international airmail stamp. A rabbi injected a polemical note intothe proceedings by speaking of Israel as the onlydemocracy in the Near East and referring to

546 THE FREEMAN

"murders by Jordanians" and the alleged bias ofthe United Nations against Israel. Representa­tives of four Arab nations ostentatiously stalkedout in protest. The affair focused attention onthe difficulty of composing a troubled situation"\vhere few on either side of a harassed frontiercan see any justice in the other's point of view.I t also showed how the best meant plans for pro­moting international good will can shipwreck.

The rabbi is quoted as expressing surprise thathis extemporaneous remarks had given offense."1 merely spoke in what 1 considered to be thespirit of the stamp," he said. Which somehowrecalls the old-fashioned Irish nationalist oratorwho was in the habit of starting his addresses asfollows: "My friends, it's a matter of great pridethat in all my years of service to Old IrelandI've never uttered one unkind, uncharitable word,not even about Britons and Orangemen, tyrants,bigots, and reactionaries though they be."

Some weeks ago 'Anthony Eden was asked in theHouse of Commons how relations with Red Chinawere coming along. He replied that those relationswere far from satisfactory. To the unfortunatefellow in Peiping who went there as His BritannicMajesty's Ambassador Extraordinary and EnvoyPlenipotentiary to the "People's Government ofthe Republic of China," it must seem that Mr.Eden was putting it mildly. We have at our elbownow a little volume in English entitled A Guide toNew China. It is an official publication printed inPeiping by liThe Foreign' Language Press." Be­ginning on ,page 78, it lists the names, ranks, andaddresses of foreign diplomats accredited to the so­-called "People's Government." The British simplyare not included! Apologists in Hong Kong for theBritish recognition of Red China, as long ago asJanuary 6, 1950, ,say that the British set-up inPeiping is recognized as a "negotiating agency";but, according to this offieial list, it enjoys recogni­tion as nothing whatever. N'o wonder the Britishare so eager to have us esta,blish a "negotiatingagency" there, too. Misery loves company.

The cat who was fished out of the ocean in theharbor of Wellington, New Zealand, and givena round-the-world cruise as the ship's pet dis­played the traditional feline gift for recognizinghis home grounds. After resisting the allurementof a score of distant ports he deserted the shipwhere he had become a pet and mascot as soonas it docked at Wellington again, and went backto his war on the rats in the dock area. He fur­nished new proof of the adage that there is noplace like home. No doubt his reaction was thatof the returned soldier from a small town insouthern Illinois whose views were recorded inthe local newspaper under the headline: "PrefersCarmi to ·Paris."

The Test 0/ GenevaThere is every prospect that the conference atGeneva will represent a much more severe test ofAmerican diplomatic firmnes-s and skill than theearlier meeting of Foreign Ministers at Berlin.

Geneva opens under much more doubtful auspices.This meeting will place a severe strain on thedurability of the American-British-French alliance.For more than four years the United States andGreat Britain have been out of diplomatic stepin their attitude toward Red China. Great Britainhas recognized Mao 'Tse-tung's regime (althoughit has received no recognition in re'turn).

-Obsessed with the delusion that Red China(which has squeezed out the British firms thattried to continue business activities) representsa great potential market and concerned about thefate of Hong Kong, the British government did notmodify its position even after Chinese Communistsattacked British and other U. N. troops in Korea.Here is a made-to-order breach between the UnitedStates and Great Britain which Molotov, as advanceSoviet press comments indicate, will do every­thing in his power to widen and exploit.

Still more complicated is the position of Franceon what will proba'bly be the principal subject ofdiscussion at Geneva, the fate of Indo-JChina.Korea is also on the agenda. But here it will besuprising if the conference can reach any decisionexcept the maintenance of the status quo.

We consented to settle for a stalemate in Koreaand this stalemate is not likely to be affectedby any talk at Geneva. The situation in Indo-Chinais much more fluid and there is real danger thatCommunist imperialism may win in that country.F'or more than seven years the French and nativeforces opposed to Communism have been engagedin a frustrating guerrilla war with the CommunistVietn1inh movement, headed by Moscow-trainedHo Chi Minh.

Ho Chi Minh has been receIVIng increasing aidfrom Communist China, not as yet in organizedmilitary units, but in munitions, supplies, andtraining facilities for his troops. And since 1947the war, despite a stepping up of American aid,has not heen going favorably for the anti-Com­munist cause. This is not for lack of men andsupplies. It is because neither the French northe anti-Communist Indo-Chinese, for differingreasons, have matched Ho Chi Minh's followers infanatical determination and will to victory. Con­fronted with ingenious guerrilla resistance, un­certain of their future in a country where theircolonial rule was disliked, the French have beenfighting a static, defensive kind of war, holdingthe larger cities, 'building forts and blockhousesalong main lines of communication, trying with-

out much success, to seal off the more productiveareas, such as the delta of the Red River, againstguerrilla infiltration.

The Indo-Chinese anti-Communist nationalistshave been lukewarm because they distrust Frenchassurances of ultimate liberation. In contrast toKorea, where the United States had no past,present, or future desire to rule the country, theissue of colonialism has compromised the strugglein Indo-China. For some time there has been astrong mood in France in favor of getting outof Indo-,China on any terms that could be rep­resented as honorable. The war has already costFrance far more than any conceivable benefitsfrom a preferred trade and investment positionin what is an economically retarded country.

There is grave danger of the war being com­pletely lost if the French should pull out beforestrong, well-equipped native forces, with suitabletraining and leadership, could be organized totake up the fight. That is why Indo-China hasbeen occupying so much of the attention of theNational Security Council, why President Eisen­hower has spoken with increasing gravity of theconsequences of defeat, why Secretary Dulles istrying to create some machine for united inter­national action against Communist -seizure of thecountry.

What is America's stake in this distant partof Asia? By this time we should know that everytime any area anywhere falls under Communistrule, so much manpower, so many natural resourcesare automatically deployed against us. A policy ofpassivity, of folded hands in the face of thissteady build-up of an empire that already controlsone third of the population of the world would belike postponing a necessary operation until itbecomes extremely dangerous, perhaps fatal.

And Indo-China is not an isolated area. Theprestige of a Communist victory there would haveswift repercussions in neigh1boring Siam and Burmaand Malaya. Should the whole of Southeast Asiago, the economic Iposition of Japan, already pre­carious, would become almo'St hopeless be'cause ofJapanese dependence on the raw materials andexport markets of this region. Failure to act effec­tively now to save Indo-China means, almost ascertainly as anything can be foreseen, the neces­sity to act later, against greater odds and lessfavorable conditions.

President Eisenhower seemed to recognize thiscrisis and apparently sent Mr. Dulle'S to Englandprimed to prepare the way for a forceful and un­yielding position on the part of the United States,Britain, and France at Geneva. Judging from whathas bee'll reported of that brief preparatory visit,

MAY 3, 1954 547

it was not reassuring. Mr. Dulles had scarcelygot off the plane before he w:as talked out of hisproposal to issue a stern pre-conference warningto Peiping against further aggression. In itsplace he agreed to a suggestion by Mr. Eden toexamine the possibility of a Southeast Asian NATO-furthermore, one excluding N,ationalist China andthe Republic of Korea, both of which have avital interest in opposing Communism in Asia.

'This and other minor concessions by Mr. Dullesmay be wise, in spite of our dim view of whathas transpired these last few days. He may haveextracted promises of which we cannot yet haveknowledge. It seems more likely, however, thathe has suc,cumbed, as so many of his predecessorsin the diplomatic field have, to the blandishmentsand maneuvers of the adroit and experiencedBritish and French. Compromise is not possible at'Geneva. Once more, peThaps for the last time, wehave the opportunity to state our position, standfirm, leave the conference if our elementary de­mands for an uncompromising policy in Indo-Chinaand an acceptable peace in Korea are not adheredto promptly. We see no reason ,for Mr. Dulles towaste his time in futile talk in foreign cities.

Hydrogen HysteriaThere is an awesome quality about the unprece­dented destructive power unleashed by the hydrogenbomb explosions in the Pacific. Here is a formid­able new link in the long chain of violence thatstarted with World War One forty years ago.Out of this tremendous slaughter emerged notWilson's dream of universal democracy and aninternational association of nations capable ofpreventing war, but an infernal cycle of violentrevolutions and totalitarian governments. This, inturn, produced a second world war, more terriblethan the first, and waged with methods of un­precedented ferocity by both sides.

'Out of World War Two came the atomic bomb.Out of the arms race that was an inevitable partof the eold war has come the hydrogen bomb. Howand when this infernal cycle will or can be brokenis not clear, especially when one third of thepopulation and one fifth of the resources of theglobe are at the service of a ruthless and expand­ing totalitarian empire.

However, there is no excuse for' the hydrogenhysteria that broke out in the House of Commons,so often recommended as a model to the AmericanCongress, and that finds occasional individual ex­pression in this country. A good example of thelatter was a long letter published by Mr. LewisMumford in a recent issue of the Sunday New YorkTimes, calling for "Love Malenkov" as a substitutefor further experiments with atomic wea,pons.

A very brief examination shows that the courses

548 THE FREEMAN

of action recommended by people who have let thehydrogen bomb drive them into a state of panicare worse than futile. Is there the slighest pos­sibility, on the basis of the known record, thatunilaterial stoppage of research by the UnitedStates would cause similar aetion by the SovietUnion? There is not.

'The British Parliament, although there is asmall Conservative majority, passed a Laboriteresolution calling for "top-level" talks on the sub­ject of the bomb between Eisenhower, Malenkov,and Churchill. Is there the slighest possibility,on the basis of the known reeord, that such talkswould or could lead to anything 'except surrender,as at Yalta and Potsdam, or deadlock, as at themore recent Berlin Conference ?There is not.

Finally, there has been the proposal, put for­ward in the Disarmam'ent Commission of the U.N.by Great Britain with the support of the UnitedStates and France, for private disarmament dis­cussions with the Soviet government. All suchdiscussions in the past have foundered on Sovietobjection to the essential principle of mutualthorough inspection. But is it not time to facethe hard truth-that there is no such thing asfoolproof inspection, that any disarmament agree­ment, given bad faith and bad will on one side,can be evaded?

~Only recently Secretary Dulles charged that therehave already been more than forty violations ofthe Korean armistice, which is supposed to beunder international supervision. Would the Amer­ican people 'ever trust their national security,perhaps their national existence, to Malenkov's orMolotov's signature on an international armslimitation convention, even if this did offer somereassuring phrase about mutual inspection? Not'unless they had lost their wits.

The logic of the situation is to perfect our ownstrength and knowledge in the use of these fear­ful weapons, in the certainty that the enemy isdoing the same, to concentrate on defense as wellas offensive preparations-and to be thankful thatthe latest demonstrations of the hydrogen bomb'sdestructive power have been in the Pacific, not inSiberia.

Struggle and conflict between the vast Com­munist empire and the peoples that wish toremain free are inevitable. Mutually suicidalmethods of waging war are not. Perhaps WinstonChurchill had a prophetic hunch when he recentlyremarked: "It may be that when the advance ofdestructive weapons enables everyone to kill every­body else, no one will want to kill anybody at alL"

Meanwhile, the safest position for the UnitedStates in the atomie arms race is to remain inthe lead. Sentimental pleas to stop further re­search or to take the Soviet word at its face' valueon schemes of limitation and prohibition only makea grim situation worse.

The Unofficial PlebiscitesAmerica, one continually hears, must ride with thetide of history, change its ways, and begin to com­pete "progressively" in the market place of ideasif it is to win "the 'battle for men's minds" againstSoviet Russia. Thus, it sometimes is said, we arelosing the propaganda war because we simplycannot compete with the Utopian baits held outby the Communists. If we do not set everythingstraight here at home, the argument goes, we justcannot win friends abroad. It has not, apparently,been convenient for the backers of that positionto relate the position to facts. If they did, theywould observe one of the most compelling truthsof our time-that AmeTica, and America just the1)Jay she is, remains overwhelmingly the favoredland of hope and opportunity for all who wish tostrike out and begin a new life, and that there isa tremendous and uniform movement of people,often at great hardship and even at the risk oftheir lives, away from countries which are ruledby Communists.

These massive facts often are obscured by head­lines that deal only with details, such as theindividual defections which recently have broughtto the sanctuary of the free world Soviet diplo­mat,s from Japan and Australia. 'These individualdefections are impressive and valuable, but theyare not the whole story. That may be betterconveyed if we consider eight major tests of thedrawing power of the Communist countries versusAmerica.

Test Number ,One occurred after the Soviet­Finnish War of 1939-40. The Soviet governmentannexed Finnish territory inhabited by about 400,­000 people. They were given the option of remain­ing as Soviet citizens or departing as pennilessemigrants to Finland. Practically all the 400,000opted for Finland.

Test Number 'Two was provided by the refugeesituation after the Second World War. There werein U'NRRA camps in 1946 about 800,000 "DPs"­uprooted, homeless people, who stubbornly refusedto go home. There were no representatives of freecountries in that army of refugees; the Frenchand Belgians and Dutch and Danes and Norwegianswho were brought to Germany for war labor hadgone home as fast as transportation was provided.Everyone of these 800,000 registered refugees(and there were probably as many more hiding outon false papers) was a fugitive from Communism.They were Poles, Russians, and Ukrainians, Letts,Lithuanians and Estonians and Yugoslavs.

Test Number Three was the ability of the Ger­mans during the war to raise the equivalent oftwenty divisions for their army out of Soviet warprisoners and inhabitants of occupied areas.

Test Number Four was the movement of refugeesin Korea. Before the war and during the war this

movement was invariably away from, not toward,the Communist area'S.

Test Num'ber Five was the refusal of almost fiftythousand North Korean and Chinese war prisonersto return to Communist rule.

Test Number Six was the steady flow of fugitives,on foot, by boat, on commandeered trains and air­planes from the Iron Curtain countries, from Polandand Hungary and Czechoslovakia to the West.

Test Number ISeven was the overwhelming east­west movement of Germans. During the first twomonths of 1953 about 70,000 East Germans, leavingbehind their homes and jobs and almost all theirproperty, crowded into West Berlin.

Side by side with this plebiscite goes another:a pathetic, desperate effort to reach the UnitedStates at any cost. The Mexican laborer in theAmerican .southwest has not drawn one of thericher prizes of American life. But it baffles theresources of the authorities of the two countriesto check the enormous influx of "wetbacks," ofillegal migrants who sometimes risk their livesswimmiug the Rio Grande.

If immigration is the sincerest form of flattery,America remains well at the top as a country inwhich people, given a choice, want to live and work.

On this tremendous and undeniable contrast be­tween the universal flight from Communism andthe equally general flight toward America theUnited States might well be content to rest itscase in the great debate that rages back and forthacross the Iron Curtain.

Adlai Sounds RetreatAdlai Stevenson is the recognized idol of the egg­heads. His Godkin lectures at Harvard were de­livered to capacity audiences. In some intellectualcircles his critical quips are accepted as a sub­stitute for a policy. And a few philosophical obser­vations, cribbed from Toynbee and other ratherobvious sources, pass for profound original wisdom.

But, although Stevenson may blow a silvertrumpet of eloquence, that trumpet always soundsone call in foreign affairs: Retreat. The 1952Democratic candidate has taken over the neutralistNehru-Bevan view that the world's troubles arelargely due to American "inflexibility," that wemust be prepared to negotiate and compromise.As he put it in a typical passage in his Harvardspeeches: "Compromise is not immoral or treason­able. When we negotiate we have to have somethingto negotiate with as well as for."

Of course negotiation and 'Compromise have theirplace in international affairs. But time and cir­cumstances are all-important in determining whennegotiation is fruitful and when compromise isdistinguishable from retreat and appeasement.There would not have been much advantage in

MAY 3, 1954 549

Hnegotiation" and "compromise" with the Axis atthe height of its power, in the summer of 1942.Unfortunately, the Moscow-Peiping Axis is in thatposition today.

Mr. Stevenson has been industriously cultivatingthe fallacy that there is some mystical virtue inmerely sitting down around a conference ta'ble withthe Soviet or Chinese Reds. But neither he noranyone else can cite a single example when suchconferences led to any result e'xcept deadlock orsurrender on the non-Communist side.

Amid all his negative sniping at the foreignpolicy of the Eisenhower Administration, Steven­son never comes clean with a frank statement ofwhat he would "negotiate with" at the conferencetable. He says that he does not advocate the admis­sion of Red China to the United Nations or diplo­matic recognition of the Peiping regime. What,then, would he give up? The nationalist govern­ment on Formosa? The independence of SouthKorea? German rearmament? On this very im­portant subject the trumpet quavers off. Theoracle is silent.

What is most disturbing in Stevenson's speechesis the emphasis on negative notes, the absence ofany will to win the cold war. The best he can offeron this point-after constant warnings not to betoo rough and to take careful account of the feel­ings of our most neutralist "allies"-is emptygeneralities, of which the following is a goodspecimen: "'Encourage, aid, and inspire the aspira­tions of half of mankind for a better life...guidethese aspirations into paths that lead to freedom."

Which is not of much practical help in savingIndo~China from Communist conquest. The moreAdlai Stevenson speaks as a private citizen, themore reason there is for satisfaction that he is notin the White House.

Catcher in the EyePresident Eisenhower's performance at theopening-day baseball game was not only dexterous,it was significant. When the President broke prece­dent to toss and then catch the first ball, it set alot of people to thinking. In the first place, acable from Peiping informed us, the razzle-dazzlewas to divert attention to the fact that the fansfrom the Chinese People's Republic couldn't getpast the bleachers. Prime Minister Nehru's specialdelivery came in next. Something about an Almost­All-Asia conference on seating conditions. Nehruhimself was observed sitting on a shooting stickmidway between the box seats and the boards. Chapfrom the A.D.A. spotted the play immediately, too:Eisenhower "caught" the ball, didn't he? McCarthy"catches" innocent Communist spies, doesn't he?See! And if the Yankees win again, we hope Mr.Brownell will prefer anti-trust charges.

550 rrHE FREEMAN

Just Print Enough Money"Once upon ,a time there lived in the congenialatmos,phere of California a good hearted, mushy­m,jnded lady of great we,alth named Kate CraneGartz. Sihe had an assorted variety of ill-di,gestedextreme left-wing ideas and an irrepressible urgefor self-expression. Her favorite divers,ion waswriting what she was pleased to call "letters ofprotest" to everyone, from the' President of theUnited States to the local politicos of California,who had incurred her displeasure by some actionor inaction.

Ultimately, these letters were published in bookform at the author's e~pense,anddistributed a1monga Iimi,ted audience of Mrs. Gartz's friends andadmirers. The gist of one of Mrs. Gar,tz's numerousepistles to Herbert Hoover (it was a strictly one­way correspondence) was:

Dear Mr. President:There is such an easy way out of this depression.Just print enough money so that everyone wouldhave ten thousand dollars. Then there would be nodepression.

One suspects that neither m,athematics nor eco­nomics was a strong point in the author's educa­tional background. Otherwise even suchan ardentcrusader as Mrs. Gartz might have balked at theconsequences of injecting $1,500,000,000 of newcurrency into the national financial bloodstream.

This artless venture in amateur economics isworth recalling because a period of recess!ion alwaysbrings a spate of crackpot aHeiged remedies whichwould aggravate the disease rather than cure it.One such proposal is to force up wages in the f.aceof declining consumer demand, notably by rais'ingthe minimum wage. This h'as the support of theA.F.L. and the C.I.O.

This suggestion is not as fantastic as theprinting of unHmited amounts of money. But,despite its plausible appeal, it would almost cer­tainly have the effects of diminishing, not increas­ing purchasing power, of increasing, not reduc­ing unemployment. An artificially decreed rise inthe wage level in a time of tighter competitionwould be a sentence of death for marginal under­takings which are barely keeping their heads abovewater at present cost levels On which wages, ofcourse, are an important element). It would be asentence of dismiss,al for many marginal, "expend­able" workers.

The most hopeful antidotes to depression aretax reduction and elimination or alleviation of themany features of our fiscal legislation which tendto penalize and discourage pfiivate investment ofrisk capital. If one may par'a,phrase an old Scotchproverb, "Look out for the pennies and the poundswill look after the'mselves," it would be sound tosay: "Look out for the incentives and the jobswill look after themselves."

Investigation and Civil Liberty

By C. DICKERMAN WILLIAMS

In contrast 'with our much·critici~ed congressionalcOTnlnittees, the "Tnodel" Canadian Royal COJnTnission

on Espionage used procedures in its investigationthat completely disregarded the Bill of Rights.

The current hurly-iburly over the Army-McCarthyaffair has revived consideration of possible alterna­tives to congressional investigations into subversiveactivities. ,One such alternative, frequently ad­vanced, is a commission of eminent jurists andlawyers modeled on the Royal Commission whichso successfully investigated espionage in Canadaa few years ago.

It is certainly to be recognized that our methodsdo not create an atmosphere of dignity and decorum.The accusation most vigorously leveled againstcongressional committees, both here and abroad,is, however, that they deny civil liberty and havebrought 'about semi-fascist conditions in this coun­try. Before we discard our present institutions infavor of those of Canada it is appropriate toexamine the powers and procedures of the CanadianRoyal Commission with special reference to whatwe generally accept as principles of civil liberty.

What is a Royal Commission? According to theCommission on Espionage, it is

... a primary ,institution, though of a temporarykind, and... upon a formal equality with the otherinstitutions of the State such as the Courts, Housesof Parliament 'and Privy Council. .. It is independ­ent in every sense. It is not. suhject to, or underthe control of, the Courts. . . Its report is notsubject to review by any Court, and, as it is thesole judge of its own procedure, and may receiveevidence of any kind in :its discretion, it is some­times in a better poslition than a Court subject to,strict rules as to the ,admissibility of evidence, toascertain facts.

The Commission on Espionage was created by anOrder-in-Council of February 5, 1946. Its membeTswere two justices of the Supreme Court of Canada,Robert 'Taschereau and R. L. Kellock. The Com­mission was supplied with a staff including officersof the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and lawyers,as well as clerks, stenographers, etc. The Order­in-CouncU explained the need for the Commissionas follows:

It has been ascertained that agents of a ForeignPower have been engaged in a concerted effort toobtain from public officials and other persons inpositions of rtrustS'ecret land confidential information.

The Com'mission moved quickly. 'On February14, 1946, it arrested and imprisoned twelve suspects.One was a British national, and consent to her

arrest had been granted on the same day by theBritish High Commissioner to Canada. At thetime of their arrests no charges were made againstany of the sus,pects for the very ,good reason thatthe Commission lacked evidence sufficient to war­rant charges. The imprisonment was not for pur­poses of punishment, as they had been convictedof no crime, nor to assure presence at trial, asthey had not been accused of anything. As theCommission explained in its report, the objectivewas partly to prevent the suspects from committingcrimes in the future, and partly to make sure thattheir evidence was available for the Commission'sinvestigation. The Commission thought that ifthe suspects had been at large, "it would havehampered the work of the Commission."

No Privilege against Self-Incrimination

The imprisonment, or "detention," as it waseuphemistically characterized by the Commission,was originaUy incommunicado, although eventuallythose held were permitted limited access to legalcounsel. With the suspects thus continuously andreadily available the Commission examined themat length. 'The suspects were permitted no ,privilegeagainst self-incrimination. Nor did the Commissionbelieve it necessary to warn the suspects that whatthey said might be used against them. The Com­mission observed that the purpose of a warningis to enable the witness to remain silent if heso chooses; it reasoned that there was no pointin such a warning when the examiner proposed todisregard the privilege against self-incrimination.Although testimony of some of the suspects in­criminated other suspects, the latter were notallowed to cross-examine those who implicatedthem; in fact they were not even 'permitted to bepresent.

The Commission's way of obtaining documentaryevidence was also forceful. The Canadian MountedPolice searched the homes of the suspects landseized whatever evidence of espionage they found.Noone bothered about search warrants.

Under these circumstances-indefinite imprison­ment, prohibition of communication with friendsand counsel, denial of the privilege against self­incrimination and rights of cross-examination­most of the sus,pects confessed. Two did not, but

MAY 3, 1954 55'1

simply refused to testify. Since the recalcitrantswere already in jiail, the only thing the Commissioncould do about their refusals was to keep themthere. Enough confessed, however, to satisfy theCommission of the existence and nature of awidespread Comrnunist espionage network.

These procedures were a key feature and not aninsignificant detail of the work of the Commission,and to thenl the Commission's Report largely iat­tri'buted the success of the investigation. In sup­port of this conelusion the Commission pointedout that when several of the suspects who hadtestHied freely in its investigation were sub­sequently released and "had the opportunity ofdiscussing 'matters with others and receiving in­structions fronl· others," they refused to testifyat criminal trials that followed the Commission'sinvestig,ation.

'One may aSik, what of the Bill of Rights? Whatof that protection of the individual which is thecornerstone of Anglo~Saxon jurisprudence?

As the Commission put it: "The disclosure ofsecret or confidential information to a foreignpower is a suhject which is not regarded eitherhere or in England as on a level with what mayIbe called ordinary domestic offenses." The Com­missionela'borately expounded, this thesis withmany references to and quotations from statutesand judicial opinions, and went to the trouble ofdemonstrating that in so far as the detection andpunishment of espionage are concerned the tradi­tional Bill of Rights does not apply in Canada.Salus populi supren~a lex and the reasonableimplieations of the theory are the law in Canada,declared the Royal Commission, and they practicedwhat they preached. The Commission was atpains to show,incidentally, by frequent citation ofstatute and judicial opinion, that the law of GreatBritain waiS the s;ame.

The Question of "Smearing"

Congr;essional committees in this country areoften accused of "smearing" by making derogatoryreports and statements that injure reputations,although in finding facts they do not observe thesafeguards of judicial procedures. The number ofsuch ,reports has been somewhat exaggerated, butit is undoubtedly true that congressional com­mittees have not hesitated to condemn those whomthey have investigated. Such condemnations wereespecially characteristic of the congressional in­vestigations conducted by the New Dealers, which,according to Harold J. Laski, were inspired byPresident Roosevelt. A notable example is the ship­ping investigation run by Justice (then Senator)Hugo L. Black, rewarded by his appointment tothe Supreme Court.

The Report of the Royal Commission on Espion­age does not suggest that investigation by com­mission will prevent such "smearing." Despite its

552 THE FREEMAN

failure to follow rules of judicial procedure and theex parte and in many instances hearsay characterof its evidence, the Commission dogmatically found"that the following public officials and other personsin positions of trust or otherwise have communi­cated, directly or indirectly, secret and confidentialinformation...to the agents of a foreign power,"naming fourteen individuals. Such oonduct con­stituted a violation of the Canadian Official SecretsAct. Four were named as "media of communicationbetween espiona,ge agents," also in violation of theOfficial Secrets Act. Three additional individualswere said not to have taken "any active 'part inthe subversive activities but would have done soif required"-such willingness apparently not be­ing a crime.

Reputations Were Damaged

AU fourteen of those said to have betrayed theirtrust w'ere subsequently prosecuted. Eight wereconvicted; ,six were acquitted. Of the four "mediaof communication" two were tried and acquitted;in one instance the Grown witb;drew the prosecutionprior to verdict; in the other the Crown did notprosecute at all. Thus in ten cases there was aconflict between the results of judicial and Com­mission ,procedure; the same individuals were heldinnocent by one and guilty by the other. If thethesis be accepted that only judicial procedurescan correctly arrive at facts, these ten were unjustlysmeared. On the other hand the eminent judges whocomposed the Commission thought that hecause theywere not bound by the rules of evidence in judicialproceedings, they were 'better able to arrive atfacts. In any event severe damage was done tothe reputations of people who could not be' shownin a court of law to have committed any crime.

Two of those acquitted were Squadron LeaderF. W. Poland and Professor Israel Halperin.Poland and Halperin, withstanding the pressureof imprisonment and isolation, refused to confessor even to testify. 'The Commission thought theyrefused because "they had been purposefully edu­cated to a condition of mind in which they re­garded obedience to the rules of Communist bodiesas their highest duty and that, if their immediateobjects could be advanced by mendacity or con­cealment...they were quite prepared for such acourse." In other words, the Commis,sion regardedrefusal to testify as showing the hardened natureof the suspect. This view suggests that the acquit­tals were due not to the innocence of these suspectsbut to their greater degree of guilt.

It is frequently argued against congressionalinvestigations that when followed by criminaltrials, the defendant is at a disadvanta,ge becausethe jurors have been prejudiced by reading of theinvestigation in the newspapers. Alistair Cookepressed this point in A Generation on Trial, describ­ing the prosecution of Alger Hiss. Yet which would

lead to the greater prejudice: a report by twojustices of the Supreme Court, or public hearingsbefore a congressional committee? It can hardly bedoubted that their greater experience in weighingevidence and their detachmQnt from political moti­v,ation and conflict would lend the g,reater weightto a report by judges. The subsequent acquittalof so many of those who had been definitely foundby the Commission to have violated the OfficialSecret Acts indicates that the prejudicial effectof congressional hearings is minimal.

Another .criticism of congressional investigationsis that committee members hulrly witnesses. SenatorMcCarthy's rudeness to General Zwicker arousedindignation in 'many quarters. But that indignationcould not have been aroused if stenographic minuteshad not been kept and made public. The Commissionmade public only selected exce'r'Pts from its inter­rogations. Although we may assume that thejustices themselves were never rude, it is con­ceivable that the lawyers or Mounted Police ofthe Commission's staff were on occasion rude tosome of the suspects. But because the full minuteshave never been released the public has no basisfor indignation. It is fair to say that, taking theUnited States as a whole, there have probablybeen within the rlast few months several, perhapsnumerous, occasions on which police officers havespoken rudely to private citizens in greater needof protection than General Zwicker, who was notwithout powerful champions. Yet there has beenno protest, if for no other reason than that theevideI;lce was not availahle. All this is not toexcuse Senator McCa,rthy's discourtesy to GeneralZwicker, but to demonstrate that the publicity ofcongressional investigations provides a major safe­guard against oppression, a safeguard not availablein inve1stigations such as those conducted by theRoyal Commission of Canada or by the ordinarypolice.

Effectiveness through Sacrifice of ,Civil Liberty

An additional criticis'm of congressional investi­gations is that on the whole they have not beeneffective. Compared with the Royal Commissionthey have not turned up many who could be shownin a court of law to be spies. A possible answerto this criticism is that congressional committeeshave not had the leg,al and other equipment avail­able to the Royal Commission. If they had theMounted Police (who, according to the Report,worked "day and night"), powers of indefiniteimprisonment, the rights to disregard the pleaof self-incrimination and to conduct proceedings insecret and to make public only such testimony asthey pleased, it is possible that the committee,swould be considerably 'more effective, especial,lysince the success of the Royal Commission w'as solargely based on confessions.

It is riadily apparent that the advantages of the

Commission were achieved at a sacrifice of civilliberty. If we chose to surrender individual rightsin favor of collective safety, as have the Canadiansand the British, we would probably have betterrooted out Communist infi.lt'ration and espionage,and moreover, we would have done so without theturmoil that our present methods have caused.

The enthusiasm of so many of the liberal intel­ligentsia for the Commission strongly suggests thatthey are indifferent to methods, provided they donot have to know the painful details of their opera­tion.

The intelligent and sincere champion of civilliberty, although freely critical of individual mem­bers of Congress, nevertheless realizes that thein-temper and exaggeration which are the inevit­able concomitants of dealing with controversialmatters in the open are more compatible with civilliberty than dealing with them in secret. So alsoa furore over the privilege against self-incrimina­tion is better than no privilege at all, and thesubpoenaing of suspects than their imprisonment.In short, he does not confuse the shadow with thesubstance.

And although he is shocked at the procedurespermitted by the laws of Great Britain and Canadaand is determined to adhere to our own constitu­tional protections, the true civil libertarian willrecognize that ultimate wisdom has not heen con­fined to the United States, and that Great Britainand Canada are civilized countries entitled to dothings their own way. Consequently, his comment onthe methods employed by Great Britain and Canadamay include expression of regret at their retreatfrom the Bill of Rights but not a proposal that wepay them the flattery of imitation.

Eastward, HoIThe Kremlin declared its willingness to join theN'orth Atlantic Treaty Organization, but the West­ern powers quickly rejected the idea. Sounds likea poor deal. Why not welcome Soviet Russia intoNATO but demand that, in return, we be admittedinto· the Cominform?

Dispatches from Moscow report an acute shortageof ironing boards. The idea is that if anythinghas to be ironed out, the police will do it.

The followers of the party line in this countrycomplain that, because of the atmosphere of fearand suspicion, noted scientists refuse to work onimportant atomic projects. Shouldn't the Comradesbe happy about that?

Will someone please tell us why the Communistsfig ht for freedom only in free countries?

ARGUS

MAY 3, 1954 553

Exchange Controls Must Go

By WILHELM ROEPKE

Erroneous monetary policies and illusions about theE.P.U. prevent European governments from returningto free convertibility, which is essential to therevival of healthy international economic relations.

Throughout monetary history exchange control hasbeen almost unknown. Only occasionally has an ex­ceptionally ruthless ruler-like Philip the Fairin ,early medieval France-tried it with somemeasure of success. 'The classical economists, suchas Ricardo and Say, declared it impossible becausethey assumed people would never permit the stateto impose on them the degree of slavery that anefficient system of exchange control implies. Itis logical, therefore, that it was realized sub­stantially only after the Bolsheviks took power inRussia in 1917. From there it spread in the earlythirties to central Europe, together with thepolice state which is requisite to it.

When, during World War Two, exchange con­trol was adopted by nearly all countries along witht~e other concepts of total war, it was assumed itwould be abolished when the war was over. Thisbelief was certainly implied by the Bretton WoodsAgreement, though it is in flat contradiction tothe whole inflationary and collectivist ideologybehind that agreement. Almost ten years have nowelapsed since the cessation of hostilities, andexchange control is still the practice of the over­whelming majority of countries. There are fewtoday in the free countries who would openlydefend this barrier governments have put uparound their national systems of money, trade, andproduction. 'They do so rather by declaring a returnto convertibility "premature," by warning againsta "rush to convertibility," by setting conditionsthat would make it impossiible, or by so distortingthe concept itself that it becomes as empty asthat of democracy behind the Iron Curtain. Thishas proved a highly efficient way of making surenothing is done to abolish 'exchange control.

The reluctance to defend exchange control openlyis quite comprehensible. For by now almost every­one understands exactly what it means-not onlyred tape and intrusion upon the most elementaryrights of men but also intolerable disorder ininternational trade. To the extent that the work­ing machinery of exchange control has been madesubtler and smoother and its more flagrant aspectsmitigated, the latter consequence has become evenmore· important than the former. Without removalof exchange control (it is a pity that instead ofthis soft and ambiguous expression there is noEnglish equivalent for the strong and straight-

554 THE FREEMAN

forward German expression, Devisen-Zwangswirt­schalt-coercive economy of exchanges) there isno possibility of reconstructing an internationaltrade system worthy of the name. Without freeconvertibility there can be no world-wide multi­lateral trade; without world-wide multilateraltrade there will be no world economy. Withoutfree convertibility of currencies, there is no pros­pect whatever of reviving international capitalmovements and investments, but without this re­vival no world system of economic relations anddevelopment is conceivable.

Two Maladies of the E.P.U.

But have we not already gone far on the road togeneral ,convertibility? What about the EuropeanPayments Union? Is it not the answer to theproblem, at least for a large and important partof the world?

In the United State'S as in Europe many people,more well-meaning than well-informed, view theE.P.U. with the same tenderness as the SchumanPlan, that is, "as one of the many wonderfulachievements in what is confusedly called Europeaneconomic integration. Unfortunately, the situationis quite different from what they imagine. E.P.U.,for example, far from. being a step toward con­vertibility, actually presumes the continuance ofthe exchange control systems of its member coun­tries, at least for payments within the E.P.U. area.It is true that the arrangement was created toserve as a makeshift until full convertibility couldbe restored. Its very purpose was to make itselfsuperfluous. However, human nature and institu­tions 'being what they are, it was unlikely fromthe outset that the E.P.U. would work for itsown extinction.

The very concept and nature of the E.P.U. de­feats any hopes that it might open the door to con­vertihility of currencies. By offsetting the deficitsand surpluses of the balance of payments betweenthe member states, it has undeniably rendered agreat service in re-establishing multilateral tradewithin this bloc and removing the larger part ofquantitative import controls (always with theexception of exchange control). However, from thebeginning it was inevitable that the E.P.U. wouldbe afflicted with two diseases, one perhaps curable,

the other not because it is inherent in the con­stitution of the plan. The first was a lack ofmonetary discipline on the part of several im­portant members so great as to jeopardize theminimum equilibrium among them all that theworking of such a payments scheme implies. Thecountries with reckless monetary and fiscal policiesand internal inflationary pressure would go onliving beyond their means, while the others wouldbe compelled, by the mechanism of the E.P.U.,continuously to fill the gap in the balance of pay­ments the spendthrifts' engineered by their in­flationary and collectivist policies of "cheap money,""full employment," and what not. The E.P.U.would then be split into one group of "excessive"debtor countries contriving by their own policiesa permanent passive balance of payments andanother group of "excessive" creditor countriesfooting the bill.

Creditor and D,ehtor Countries

Theoretically, this disease of the E.P.U. could,as I said, be cured. But in spite of variouse:ffiorts to do so, it is now worse than ever. Thosecountries that always stood for or found theirway back to economic balance and discipline havelong since emerged as the involuntary bankers ofthe E.P.D.: Switzerland, West Germany, Belgium,the N'etherlands, ,Austria, and, less markedly,Sweden and Portugal. For most of these countriesthe sums involved are enormous, and the momentis near when they must stem this mounting tide.Two of these -countries, Germany and Austria, werethe one.s most severely devastated by the war andits consequences. Since Germany is now the mainvictim of the payments plan, her impatience withit and her insistence on a return to convertibilityis comprehensible.

The permanent creditor countries are, in addition,victims of this system on another score. Thedebtor countries, instead of removing the internalinflationary pressures that are causing a deficitin their balance of payments, try to restore thebalance !by restricting imports from the creditorcountries. At the same time the latter are ex­horted to open their gates as widely as possibleto all E.P.U. countries (discriminating thereby allthe more against the dollar area). What thisamounts to is using the variations in the degreeof "liberalization" and "deliberalization" (importrestrictions in the name of collectivist "austerity")for restoring the equilibrium of the balance of pay­nlents. Normally, the balance of payments is reg­ulated by changes in the discount rate of theCentral Banks. This policy has been replaced by theso-called "liberalization program," with the defi­cits or surpluses of a country with the E.P~U.

arbitrarily dictating the discount rate.Nobody outs'ide Europe can have an adequate idea

of the absurd and increasingly unbearable con-

sequences of this VICIOUS system. Une occurredrecently in connection with Germany's offer torepay her debt to Switzerland, which had beenlong awaited. But Switzerland feels compelled torestrict this repayment severely in order to avoidan undue increase of her credits in the E.P.U.,for which the Swiss taxpayer must pay. Anotherabsurdity is that the more extreme the creditorand debtor positions are, the more the E.P.D. in­creases its gold reserves, since debtor countrieshave to pay their full deficits in gold, whereas thecreditor countries can take out only 50 per centof their surpluses in gold, the other half goinginto the treasury of the E.P.U.

An answer to the pertinent question as to howthe debtor countries are able to pay their deficitsin gold is that, to a considerable extent, the goldcomes in various forms (grants-in-aid, offshorepurchases, etc.) from the United States, withoutwhose continuous 'contributions the whole systemwould long since have ceased to work. Anotheris that some debtor countries are already nearlyat the end of their tether. The worst case isthat of socialist Norway, which now sets her lasthopes on the World Bank to hail her out oncemore so that she may go on with such projects asbuilding steel works in the Polar circle. Meantimeshe retains the inflationary interest rate of2 per cent.

D,iscrimination Against the Dollar Area

In the highly improbable case that all membersof the E.P.D. would adopt the sound course of thecreditor countries, there would still be the in­curable disease of the E.P.U. Were there even agreater halance between the member states, thelaek of balance between the Ibloc as a whole andthe rest of the world would remain. This cannotbe removed because it is inherent in the systemitself-unless we take seriously the utopianeventuality of extending the E.P.U. into a pay­ments union of the whole world. Some countrie'Sof the E.P.U. have, 'by the natural structure oftheir foreign trade, an excess with E.P.U. coun­tries and a deficit with the rest of the world;others have a deficit with E.P.U. countries anda surplus with the rest of the world. Germany isthe chief example of the former, Italy an exampleof the latter. It is not possible to offset thesesurpluses and defieits, as they are normal in aworld-wide multilateral trade system with freelyconvertitble currencies.

The E.P.D. is a regional monetary bloc, withaU the evil consequences of such a bloc, in­cluding in particular the discriminatory treatmentof countries outside it. The main sufferer is thedollar area. Much as a country like West Ger­many may wish to free American imports fromrestrictions to the same extent as European im­ports, she is hampered by the shackles of the

MAY 3, 1954 555

E.P.U. With only half of her monthly surplusfrom the E.P.U.' convertible into gold or dollarsand therefore available for purchases from thedollar area, the more she liberalizes Americanimports the more her position as an extremecreditor country of the E.P.U. would be aggravated,since then she would import even less from E.P.U.countries (while prohably exporting more to them).

If this discrimination against the dollararea is to end, the present system of regionalmonetary blocs, of which the E.P.U. is the mostimportant, must be replaced by a return to freelyconvertible currencies. There is some irony inthe fact that the United States is becoming moreinterested in such a course. Until quite recentlythe notion of "scarce currencies" (with the "dollarshortage" as its main example) has confused theissue, on both sides of the Atlantic. Throughoutthe first postwar years the Europeans were ex­horted to "save dollars" by buying as much aspossible from each other. That was caned "Euro­pean 'econom'ic integration." If it should now berecognized that this is little else than a namefor a discriminatory bloc, for autarky and planningon a continental scale, and for lifting the, problemsof bilateralism to an intracontinental level, thatwill be a step forward of benefit to all concerned.

Essence of, the Prohlem

I have explained in detail the imbroglio of theE.P.U., even at the risk of seeming too technical,because only thus ,can the imperative necessity ofa return to genuine and free convertibility befully seen. The greatest obstacles to that returntoday are the illusions about the E.P.U. and thetendency to muddle on, together with vast vestedinterests in the status quo. That is why theemphasis must now be on the side of convertibility.

In order to achieve this a good many te.chnicalcomplications must be overlooked, and we must g'etdown to the simple essence of the problem. We haveinconvertible currencies because we have exchangecontrols. Exchange control, however, is merely apolicy that defends by police force a disequilibriumon the exchange market which would not exist with­out erroneous monetary and fiseal policies of thenational governments. Change these policies, andyou can remove e~change contr'ol and thus makeyour currency freely convertible again. Avoid in­flation, restore the "good will" of your currency,use the instruments of credit policy in order tocontract or expand the volume of money as equilib­rium requires, make the climate hospitable tocapital, do not live beyond your means, and, ifnecessary, adjust your exchange rate so that itbecomes a true expression of the real purchasingpower of your currency, in which case the balanceof payments and the exchange market will lookafter themselves.

Convertibility begins with the right monetary

S56 THE FREElVIAN

policy for each national government. It 'requIresthat the collectivist controls of foreign trade whichput the balance of payment,s into the Procrusteanbed of unsound internal policies be replaced bythe well-tested classical instruments of a balance'of payments policy as outlined above. The col­lectivist "austerity" of forbidding the importationof things the consumer likes to have must besuperseded by the liberal "austerity" of adjustingthe volume of money and incomes to the real re­sourees of the country.

Countries Must Act Independently

There is, therefore, no reason why the return toconvertibility should be sought by internationalconf.erences, agreements; and institutions. As ex­change control has been introduced independentlyby each individual eountry it surely can be removedin the same way if only the governments also ridthems'elves of the wrong internal poUcies to whichexchange control corresponds. Every country is"ripe" for convertibility that earnestly wants tofulfill its conditions. '

The example of Canada proves it can be done.There, on December 14, 1951, the government de­creed "that effective immediately all foreign ex­change controls are being terminated." That wasall there was to it. Since then, the Canadian publichas been permitted to hold foreign currencies andto dispose of them in any manner it sees fit.

Unfortunately, present conditions in the .coun­tries of Europe are not quite so favorable to thissingle solution. Belgium and West Germany have,by their efforts in mone'tary discipline, hardenedtheir currencies to such a degree that they couldseriously consider the return to free convertibility(in the case of Germany at least on current accountuntil the Sperrmark bloc has been unfrozen). OtherEuropean countries, like the Netherlands, Austria,and Denmark, are not far from this stage. Butnone of them would dare to take the initiative be­cause of the tangle created by the E.,p.U. All knowthat the E.P.U. has to be replaced by freely .con­vertiblecurrencies, but all are waiting for leader­ship and 'common action.

'The spell would be broken at once if Great Britainwould restore convertibility. 'Since that is todayeven 'less likely than a year ago, must the con­tinental countries wait indefinitely for convert­ibility? Each country can, of cour,se, progressivelydismantle its system of exchange control, afterthe Swiss pattern of a lopsided convertibility thatis compatible with the working of the E.,P.U. Thecountries in question have already made con­s'iderable advances in this respect. But then thequestion arises as to what to do with the E.,P.U.,which cannot operate indefinitely.

'To this end, the main creditor .countrie,s of theE.P.U. should agree on a plan for common action,preferably in consultation with Great Britain and

the United States, with a view to forming anucleus of free convertibility among themselvesand with the dollar area. Meantime they wouldcontinue their payments relations with the othercountries through E.P.U. and, at the same time,insist on .more severe conditions for the debtorcountries within that group. This would make the

E.P.U. and the reckless policies of the debtorcountries less attractive and in time allow theE.P.U. to peter out. Thus the present deadlockcould be over,come in the most gentle fashion. Thehope does not seem unwarranted, and this projectwould also stimulate Great Britain into actionand bring the United States Jnto closer cooperation.

The Risk •In Hawaiian Statehood

By HAROLD L,ORD VARNEY

Hawaii's gallant nineteen-year fight for state­hood is again threatened with disappointment.Kamaainas who were getting out their victory leisfor the celebration are now talking sadly aboutanother year. If Hawaii loses this time, the causewin he found in many criHscrossing Washingtonpolitical factors. But underscoring the oppositionhas been one persistent issue which would not down.That issue is Communism.

In the final Senate debate, the dwindling op­ponents of statehood dampened the assurance of themajority by their recital of an appalling listof facts indi:cating unhealthy Communist strengthin the Territory. The Senate chose to ignore thesedisclosures, but after the vote, it wa,s apparentthat a calculated risk had been taken. Some of thefacts are:

1. That 26,000 of Hawaii's wa,ge earners, withtight job control over the Territory's sugaT andpineapple plantations and over inter-island trans­portation, are discipHned members of HarryBridges' International Longshoremen's and Ware­housemen's Union (I.L.W.U.) under the local ruleof Jack Hall, a convicted Communist, at liberty onbail. During the six years since the C.LO. expelledthe LL.W.U. as Communist-controlled, the 26,000hav,e clung faithfully to Bridges and Hall in therface of repeated A.F.L. and C.I.'O. efforts to annexthem.

2. That approximate1ly 2,000 Territorial em­ployees, some of them in sensitive jobs, are enrolledin another of the unions expelled because of Com­munist control, the United Public Workers.

3. That the voting power of these 28,000 andtheir families could conceivably give the politicalbalance of power to the Communists in the electionof Hawaii's first two Unit,ed States senators.

Jack Hall and his henchmen have discreeUy keptin the background in the pres'ent statehood cam­paign, but on a previous ace-asion Hall sounded off

Communists boast, with reason, that they canelect Hawaii's officials, control its police.Red infiltration is the real reason why .theTerritory may again Jail to become a state.

unmistakably on his plans for statehood. "Do notforget," he told his followers, "we are aching forstatehood, and then we will be able to elect ourgovernor and our judges, and we will have controlof the poHce."

There is nothing chimerical about these Com­munisit Party hopes. Already, the LL.W.'U. hasestablished strong beachheads in the H,awaiianDemocratic Party. American-minded Democratshave tried to block them, but there are others vvhahave welcomed them.

One of these beachheads is the Mayor's officein Honolulu. Octogenarian Mayor John H. Wilsonactually a!ppeared at a Jack Hall defense rally, andwas a charaeter witness for Hall at his trial later.The Mayor's administrative assistant, W. K. Bas­sett, a former editor of a pro-Communist newsp.aperin California, acted as a reception committee togreet Harry Bridges when the latter visited Hono­lulu in 1952, after his own San Francisco con­viction as a Communist. So potent is the Hallfaction in Hawaii's D'emocratic Party that, ac­cording to the report of the Hawaii Commissionon Subversive Activities, "Forty-one CommunistParty members had credentials in the 1948 Ter­ritorial Democratic convention," five of them mem­bers of the executive board of the Hawaiian Com­munist Party.

Such infiltration would not be a matter of deepconcern were the Republican le'ad in the islandscopper-riveted. An discussions of statehood startwith the postulate that the election of two Repub­lican senators, after admission, is certain. Butthis is purely conjectural. At this moment, islandpoliticos would certainly make book on the G.O.P.,but if there were a sudden nationall swing backto the Democrats, the Republiean margin would hemuch too slim for comfort.

In the 1952 election, in the face of the Eisen­hower landslide, Republican Delegate J aseph R.

MAY 3, 1954 557

Farrington won by a majority of only 9,303 out ofa total Territorial vote of 126,193. His opponent,significantly, was former Judge Delbert E. Metzger-the famous bail reducer in the 1951 Communistcase. Judge Metzger later traveled 6,000 miles toNew York to accept an award from the NationalLawyers' Guild, named as the "legal mouthpiece"of the Communist Party by Attorney GeneralBrownelll on August 27,1953. That such an LL.W.U.favorite should come so close to victory in 1952after Hall and his six comrades had been indictedas Communists was ominous. In fact, in 1946,Delegate Farrington himself, a dedicated anti­Communist, found it necessary to a'ccept the sup­port of Hall's Political Action Committee in orderto win re-election.

Jack Hall's Influence on Voters

The thought of what could happen politicallyafter statehood if Hall and his Democratic feHow­travelers made a· successful demagogic racial ap­peal to the have-nots among the 398,377 non­Caucasians (85.2 per cent of Hawaii's total pop­ulation) is a haunting specter to the statehoodseekers. So far Hawaii, 'by its wise racial policies,has avoided racial rbloc voting. But there areplenty of explosives in the disproportion of raceson the Islands, and no one can predict how presenttensions would work out, if statehood wereinstituted.

Although the great majority of the responsiblepeople in Hawaii have long favored statehood, afew important voices have been raised against it.One is that of Walter F. Dillingham, outstandingbusiness leader. A Republican, Mr. Dillingham haspointed out that the voting power of the Com­munist-led unionists is so great that both Repub­lican and Democratic candidates for office understatehood will inevitably take a sof,t attitude towardCommunism. Both parties will "have to appeal tothem" in elections, he argued. /'This is only politicalgood sense."

Mr. Dillingham here raises the undiscussed issuewhich is at the heart of any long-!range consider­ation of the statehood question. That issue is thecapillary attraction to politicians of both partiesof a great deliverable bloc of 50,000 or so Hall­controlled votes. Hall does not need to poll amajority of Hawaii's votes to win his ends. Byclever brokerage of his votes he can make certainthat the anti-Communism of the candidates ofboth parties will be softened and emasculated.There have already been painful examples of thiswooing of the LL.W.U. vote by Territorial senators,legislators, and supervisors of both parties.

Another impressive voice is that of Judge 1. M.Stainback, who was Governor of Hawaii when theCommunists won their footho'ld there. Judge Stain­back is both a former advocate of statehood andan unwitting former Communist collaborationist

558 THE FREEMAN

(he appointed Jack Hall to the Territorial Boardof Public Instruction in 1945). He has learned hislesson the hard way. Judge Stainback told theSenate Committee, at the statehood hearings:"I do not think that there is any question thatthey [the Communist leaders] would have influencein the election of the Senators and R'epresentatives,just as they have in the members of the Legis­lature."

Admittedly, such voices are a small minorityin Hawaii's Ipresent clamor for statehood. Impor­tant Hawaiian spokesmen take a confident viewof the Communist danger. They rea'lize that theCommunist-controI1ed union is still a harrowingproblem, but they regard it as a reeeding one.They point out that the HaIl...Bridges coterie reachedits peak in 1946 when it almost captured theLegislature, and that its political power has beensteadily subsiding ever since. The conviction ofthe seven Communists in the Smith Act case in1952 was the final shattering blow, they reassurethemselves. This assurance was badly shaken bythe spectacle of 26,000 plantation workers andlongshoremen walking out on a three-day politicalprotest strike, following Hall's conviction. Butthe great majority of Hawaiians in business andthe professions whom one encounters on MerchantStreet these days believes unquestioningly that theCommunist situation is safely in hand.

Lost Opportunity

The story of how Hawaii acquired its presentformidable Communist junta is a dishearteningchapter in the chronicle of America's anti-Com­munist fight. The business leaders who makedecisions in Honolulu were elaborately forewarnedagainst just what has happened. During the periodin the late thirties, when Communism was makingits first stumbling starts, they spent patient daysconsulting experts in labor and Communist prob­lems who came to the islands in a steady paradethrough the pre-Pearl Harbor years. They con­sidered plans and programs which wereex'pensivelydrafted to forestall Com'munist infiltration. Andthen, by some strange palsy of will, they did nothingabout it.

This is not to say that prominent Hawaiiansof that period were any more apathetic and ir­resolute toward Communism than their counter­parts on the mainland. The thirties was the decadeof the Great Unbelief, when hi,gh-placed Americansspent more time in criticizing Martin Dies thanin detecting the Alger Hisses. Hawaii was amicrocosm of this national attitude.

I myself directed one of the major efforts toalert the Hawaiian public to the Communist dangerbetween 1938 and 1940. At that time, Communismwas so feeble in the islands that it could havebeen snuffed out like a candle by a com,munityleadership that was reaHstic. The rnawkish.

Eleanor Rooseveltian attitudes which had alreadygained some foothold among the intelligentsia andthe middle classes in the islands, and which wasthe nourishing soil of the Communism which wasto come, had not yet succeeded in driving perma­nent roots into the community. Everything whichlater burgeoned poisonously in the Territory wasalready existent in embryo form, but could haveheen stunted. The opportunity was lost.

E,arly Communist Cells

Jack Han was already in Hawaii, living pre­cariously on the McBride plantation in the out­lying island of Kauai, with a handful of Japanese­American followers. At that time, he did noteven have the support of Harry Bridges, but wasan unpaid organizer for the now extinct Agri­cultural and Cannery Workers Union. In HonoluiJ.u,Prof. John E. Reinecke, one of the convicted sevenof 1953, was posing as a Rooseveltian "liberal"and was maintaining a Communist cell whichmasqueraded under the deceptive guise of theInterprofessional Association. Other tiny Com­munist recruiting points were the Nuuanu book­shop of Howard Clark and the M;anoa residence ofa writer. The point was that every importantCommunist was known. A sy,stem of communitycontrol of the activities of the Communists, whichwould have ;been impossible in the mainland states,was in the grasp of Hawaii's leaders. Unfortunately,they never employed it.

The 'larger task,. in the thirties, was what maybe described as the "war of the mind." Under theimpulsion of the New Deal in Washington, leftistideas were seeping into the minds of island teachers,territorial employees, socia,l workers, newspaper­men, and professional workers. One memorableproject of the 1938-40 effort was the drafting ofa master community chart, pointing out the en­trance points of all these agitational ide'as, andindicating agencies and methods of refutation.Hawaii at that time was singularly free frompubHc f,eeling against business in its more virulentRooseveU-epoch form. It was the thesis of ourprogram that, as long as no deep gap was per,mittedto develop between business leadership and the com­munity, the Communism of the HalIs and theReineckes would find no nurturing soil for lodge­ment in Hawaii.

Able m'en, who have since been conspicuous inother social activities, participated in the am­bitious undertaking. John W. Vandercook cameto the Islands to write an inspired plea for thesugar' industry. Dr. William Robinson, formerPresident of City College, hot from his controversieswith Mayor La 'Guardia, came to wage a stim­ulating public debate with exponents of progressiveeducation who had fast;ened thems,elves upon theHawaiian .s'Choo~'s. Jos,eph B'arher, John McCarten,William M. Camp, William Cogswell, Earl Welty,

and Lawrence Greene turned out polemical copy.Integrating the operation was the driving will ofSydney S. Bowman, the most brHliant mind everenlisted in Hawaiian public relations. In col­lateral programs, such men as Carroll E. Frenchand Almon E. Roth came to counsel on lahorstrategy. Frank E. Midkiff conducted stirringround-table discussions with the business-baiters,with William Costello, now a C.B.S. newscaster,carrying the baH for the leftists.

It was a brilliantly conceived program, but allin vain. Hawaii's business leaders applauded theprogram and underwrote it, but they took onlyhalf-hearted steps to implement it. So uncoordi­nated was the follow-up that at the time when afour-page memorandum on Reinecke was in thehands of the community leaders, he was given anappointment in the high schools from which, whenhis Communist activities became a matter ofpublic notoriety, it was impossible to oust himuntil 1947. Instead of plugging up the politicalman-traps in the community while there was stilltime, a policy of drift and procrastination wasfollowed, until finally the control of events passedout of the hands of businessmen. At the heightof the war, Hawaii found itself maneuvered bya C.I.a.-influenced Administration in Washingtoninto turning over its unorganized plantation work­ers to the check-off of Harry Bridges. A Com­munist movement which was too feeble to main­tain a headquarters in the Islands found itselfthe master of 26,000 plantation workers. Today,the $300,000 I.L.W.U.edifice in Honolulu standsasa grim monument to this defaulted opportunity.

Hawaii's disillusioning experience with Com­munism has at last jolted her into a realizationof the gravity of the problem. If she wins state­hood, she will find herself facing the Communistchallenge in its naked form. Admittedly, she willbe commencing statehood under conditions of un­precedented difficulty.

Many Americans would prefer that statehoodshould wait until a new and American-mindedleadership, preferably from the A.F.L., replacesthe clouded leadership of Harry Bridges and JackHall among Hawaii's plantation and dock workers.

Needling the News

A writer on the United Nations notes that "noproblem is too small or remote for U.N. notice."Unfortunately, almost any ,problem is too big andtoo real for an effective U.N. solution.

The strategic stockpiling of metals is frankly ad­mitted to be a price-propping operation for "sag­ging" markets. The U.S. taxpayer, already saggingunder his global burden, must now pick up a loadof lead and zinc. MARTIN JOHNSTON

MAY 3, 1954 559

Will the South Secede?By GEORGE S. SCHUYL,ER

The Supreme Court's promis'ed decision on fivecases dealing with racial segregation in publicschools means many things, apparently, to manypeople. To a very few [Southern legislators it meansa call to arms; such as the plea for s'ecession, ifsegregation is ended, made last month by a Texasstate representative. To a few worried Northernersit seems to mean the possibility of widespread un­rest: witness the eagerness of Northern reportersto stress every random (and rare) comm'ent favor­ing segregation that comes from the South.

Actually, the end of segreg,ation in the schoolsystem of the South is already an a'ccomplishmentthat is in progress. The Supreme Court's decisionmight hasten the process; it scarcely could stopit. For the truth of the matter is that the Southby its own enlightened e:ffiorts has made perhapsgreater strides in race relations than many of thetroubled "non-segregated" cities of the North. Raceriots, for instance, show up today as a Northern,and not a Southern, disturbance.

In education, however, the example of the South'sreaction to the end of segregation already is clear.In a New York Times survey presented last month,it was shown that between 2,000 and 3,000 Negrostudents now attend Southern white colleges. Thenumber began growing significantly after a previousSupreme Court decision in 1950 held that equaleducational opportunities had to be provided forall races. ('The latest court consideration delib­erates whether the idea shouldn't 'be, not simplyequal facilities, but the same facilities.)

What has happened as a result of the effectiveending of segregation in the colleges? Nothingat all unpleasant, the Times reports. The studentseat together, study together, even go to socialaffairs together. And, no incidents. N'o secession. Nonight riders. If Northern observers need somethingto worry about, they might well turn their eyeselsewhere than to the South.

The South is no longer provincial nor is itMencken's Sahara of the Bozarts. Its people havebeen the most mobile of Americans and readilyadjusted themselves to non-segregated institutionselsewhere without becoming apoplectic. They writeto and visit their kinfolk who stayed hehind. Ideasare contagious.

'The "institution" of lynching has vanished.Peonage has gone with the wind. Police brutality,once endemic, is now virtually extinct. The cul­tural gap between the two racial groups, whichwas wide at the turn of the century, has been nar­rowed by the dramatic expansion of the publicschool system, travel, movies, radio, and now tele­vision, to say nothing of newspapers and magazine'S.

Most signin'cant has been the growing rap-

560 TIlE FREEMAN

prochement and cooperation between white andcolored spokesmen for the "new South" since themid-twenties. Today they labor openly and stren­uously to bring their region in step with theNorth, East, and West. For over thirty yearsSouthern churchwomen, white and colored, haveplayed a powerful role in ameliorating the antagon­ism and misunderstanding which made· for violenceand injustice, and have cooperated on civic projectsto an extent often not realized outside the area.

To cap all of these efforts the federal courtshave been consistently hacking away at the struc­tures and foundations of racial segregation. Theyhave outlawed disenfranchisement, white primaries..segregation in interstate travel, residential segre­gation in tax-supported· higher education. Thencame the dramatic abandonment of racial segrega­tion in the defense forces. Boys and girls of dif­ferent colors who had gone to s,eparate schoolsand been 'conditioned by the etiquett'e of Jim Crow,suddenly found themselves working, living,andfighting together in the same uniform. Do they for­get the'Seexperiences when they return home?

Others, as shown, have fared similarly on South­ern university campuses, and there have beenneither riots nor marriages. Hitherto barred fromcounty medical societies, Negro physicians are nowwidely accepted in Dixie. Where once the specterof black policemen gave whole regions the shakes,they are now vie'wed without comment in literallyscores of Southern communities. The opportunityfor assessing Southern citizens on merit alonehas been fully taken.

It is a daily occurrence' for Negro and whitetravelers to eat together in dining cars, drink inclub cars, and sleep in Pullman cars, with not anuntoward incident reported. Last summer MiamiBeach opened all its hotels and restaurants to aN'egro Baptist convention-and neither the skiesnor anything else fell. The Governor of Georgiaposed shaking hands with the head of the NegroElks whom he welcomed to Atlanta. Recently aNegro football hero received the keys to a SouthCarolina metropolis.

Clearly, this is not the South of the professionalracists. Why expect it to react as of yore: thatiS,as a re,d light on the highway of progress? Itis as law-abiding and patriotic as any other section.True, a Supreme Court decision that Jim Croweducation must go may evoke some shrill howls,frenzied moves, and loud threats, but who doubtsthat common sense will prevail? Significantly, no­body is urging defiance but only discussing evasions,which most people will ignore.

After perhaps some initial shock, the South willconclude that since black and white children playtogether, they can learn together: that ,if Negrogirls can successfully mind white children in homes,they should, if qualified, be permitted to teachthem in school. Any other supposition is acanard.

Soviet Trade: Who Gains?

By LEO DUDINThe growing urge for commerce with Russiais a suicida'l one. Political warfare, noteconomics, dominates the Kremlin's ledgers.

What is the real purpose of the Kremlin rulers inseeking more trade with non-Communist countries?Do they genuinely want to improve their relationswith the West, or are the recent trade agreementsjust an additional Soviet attempt to undermine thefree world?

'The only way to answer these questions is tofind out whether merchandise supplied by the Westis actually indispensable to the Soviet economy. Buthere one must distinguish between the populationand the nationalized economy of a Communist state.For the Soviet people everything is scarce andbadly needed: from shoe laces to refrigerators.But if one tries to determine realistically thevital needs of the Soviet Union as the strongholdof the world Communist 'movement, then the list ofWestern goods desirab'le and even indispensableshrinks to two categories: strategic materiel andmilitary secr'ets.

In return for such "merchandise," Malenkov andhis colleagues would be willing to pay almost anyprice and ,go to any length to meet the demands oftheir W,estern pa1rtners in trade. But since theseWestern goods are not for sale-at least, inthory-can any commodities at all be purchased'whose importance to the Soviet economy wouldinduce the 'Politburo to go half way in .m'eetingWestern demands? If we are not influenced bywishful thinking, the answer is No.

Today the territory open to Communist economicexp'loitation extends from the Elbe River to thejungles of Indo--China. Of the people in thesecountries an but a few million of the Communistelite experience acute hardships in the strugglefor existence. But the only consideration that mat­ters to the men in the Kremlin is whether theterritory can fulfill its role as the stronghold ofworld Communism without any outside assistance.From this point of view the Communist-dominatedterritory is almost complete'ly self-sufficient: .itcan exist indefinitely without any substantial im­ports from the non..JCommunist world. It has morethan enough manpower; it possesses aU kinds ofnatural resources and raw materials, from ironore to uranium; it has immens'e areas of ara/bleland and a highly developed industry. Such postwaradditions to this er:npire as industrial Czecho­slovakia, eastern Germany and Austria, PolishSilesia, and Manchuria not only he'lped to re1storethe war-damaged Soviet industry, but supplied

industrial brains and millions of skilled workers.It is certainly true that Communist mana,gement

of industry is poor and sometimes even ba'rbarousby Western standards. The cost of production ishigh; the results by no means justify the effortsand sacrifices; the orders of the central planningbodies are often contradictory and stupid; thecost of maintaining a swollen bureaucracy istremendous. Under a system of f1ree competitionany enterprise run in this way would soon bebankrupt. But no Western standards can be appliedto an economy where the Party-\State owns e'Very­thing, including the manpower, where prices, wages,and even the purchasing power of money arearbitrarHy set by the rulers.

Gover:n.ment Gold Profiteering

Take the purchasing 'power of money, for ex­ample. Three years ago the Soviet governmentofficially put the ruble on the "gold standard,"established an official gold content for the rubleof .222168 grams, and fixed the gold purchasingrate at 4 rubles 45 kopecks per gram. No officialchange in the rate has been made since then.Nevertheless, recent dispatches from Moscow dis­close that in March 1954 the government under­took to sell gold to Soviet citizens a't 90 rublesper gram, twenty times more than the price ofgo'ld printed on the government-issued money withwhich the citizens are supposed to pay for thisgovernment-sold ,gold.

This example helps to show why it is alwayscheaper for the Soviet government to produce anycommodity at hom.~ than to buy it from a non­Communist country. It also shows that wheneverthe Soviets decide to undersell any of their Westerncompetitors they can easily reduce their exportprices five- and even tenfold without any noticeabledeficit. They can put down the prices of theirexport goods almost as far as they please becauseat home they pay their producers only a negligiblepart of the actual cost of these goods.

Here is another instance. In the autumn of1953 the Soviet government issued a numher ofdecrees designed to raise food production on col­lective farms. One such decree provided a 200to 500 percent increase in government pricespaid for milk, butter, meat, lard, eggs, poultry,fruits, and ve,getabJes delivered by collective farms

MAY 3, 1954 561

and by individual farmers. Would such a drasticincrease be feasible in any country where the gov­ernment pays real instead of arbitrary prices?

For these reasons the Kremlin has never beenreally interested in increasing its trade with theWestern world. At no time during the 37-yearBolshevik regime has the amount of Soviet exportsand imports surpassed 2 or 3 per cent of the worldtota'l. Soviet exports at their peak in 1932 rep­resented only 2.3 per cent of world exports, andby 1935-37 they had fallen to 1.3 per cent of thetotal. Imports showed a similar trend, amountingto 2.7 per cent of the total in 1931 and .9 percent in 1937. Many W,estern obseirvers tended toexplain the increase in Soviet exports and impo~ts

in 1932-33 by the requirements of Stalin's in­dustrialization policy alone.

'Two additional purposes behind this increasedforeign trade were of a political nature. One wasto "assist" the great depression of 1929-33 bymeans of sharply inc-reased Soviet exports at pricesmuch lower than 'even those which existed at thattime in the capitalist countries suffering froman acute surplus of goods. The hope was, first, tobring the ,economic crisis of the West to such apoint that minions of unemployed would start arevolution. Second, by means of increased exportsof food and such luxury items as caviar and furs,the K'remlin hoped to conceal the catastrophicfamine of 1932-33 at home. As soon as economicconditions grew 'better both in the West and theU.IS.:S.R., the amount of Soviet trade with the freewo~ld began to decrease until it dropped to avolume s'maller than the foreign trade of Ts'aristRussia.

Hidden Political Motives

No logical explanation could he found for thisphenomenon. Stalin's policy of forced industrial­izationcontinued at ever...;increasing tempo. Westernmachines and other indust'rial goods were as badlyneeded as 'before. Western countries cou'ld offermuch hetter prices for Soviet agricultural exportsthan they could during the depression, and theU.S.S.R. could export these goods at less sacrificefor its own population. Had Soviet foreign tradebeen motivated by economic considerrations then,it would 'have increased steadily during the latethirties. But any substantial trade with the Westdid not coincide with the goals of Soviet politicalstrategy at that particular period.

Because of hidden political motives, the U.S.S.R.has sharply and without warning reduced itstrade with some countries, while increasing itwith others. For example, during the same earlythirties when Soviet exports and imports :reachedall-time peaks, Soviet imports from Estonia (thena free country) shrank to only 4.2 per cent of theprevious av'era'ge. This unexpected cessation ofalmost all Soviet purchases was meant to crush

562 THE FREEMAN

Estonia's national economy. It was due only to theexemplary discipline of the Estonian people thatthe Kremlin did not sueceed in its aggressive plansat that time.

Another example of the use of trade as a political"veapon occurred in 1946. France was short ofgrain and was importing large quantities from theWestern Hemisphere with the financial assistanceof the United States. This threatened to under­mine the prestige of the French Communists. SoMoscow promised to se1'l some 500,000 tons ofwheat to France. Grain was sold for dollars andcarried from Odessa to MarseHles in Americanships. But Jacques Duclos and other French com­rades accompanied that sale with such a propa­ganda barrage about "fraternal aid" that manyFrench people tended to believe all the wheatcame from the U.S.S.R.

No Increase in Soviet Imports

A study of the present Soviet trade dispels themirage that there has been any substantial in­creas'e in Soviet purchases abroad, and that Malen­kov is seeking consumer goods, driven by his sin­cere desire to improve the living standards ofthe Soviet people. Data compi'led last December bythe Statistical Office of the United Nations showthat total Soviet exp.orts to the free world in 1953were less than $320,000,000, as compa'red withmore than $420,000,000 in 1952. Soviet imports in1953 were something over $300,000,000, as com­pared with 'about $450,000,000 in 1952.

Recently a group of U. S. officials, drawn fromthe Foreign 'Operations Administration, Staite De­partment, and Defense Department, published esti­mates of contracts concluded by the Soviet Unionin the fr,ee world during the eight months prior toFebruary 1954. According to these estimates, theSoviet purchases amounted to: butter, $40,000,000;lard, $2,000,000; chees'e, $3,700,000; herring, $15,­000,000; meat, $22,000,000; sugar, $1,400,000; tex­tiles, '$28,000,000; citrus fruit, $7,000,000.

At first glance these figures seem to be sub­stantial. But what do they mean for the, SovietUnion? Let us assum'e that only the urban popula­tion (about 80,000,000 according to Malenkovhimself) wBI benefit f'rom these imported consumergoods. It appears, then, that a resident of Sovieturban areas in eight months could buy the followingamount of imported goods: 50 cents worth ofbutiter, 2.5 cents worth 'of lard, 4.5 cents worthof cheese, 20 cents worth of herring, 28 centsworth of meat, 2 cents worth of sugar, 35 centsworth of textiles, and 9 cents worth of orangesor lemons. It is safe to assum,e that the Sovietman in the street had no chance to taste theseimported goods, and that Aus,tralian butter, Nor­wegian herring, and Italian oranges graced thetables of the Com'munisteHte.

Soviet exports, too, serve special goals of Com-

munist foreign polley. In addition to such standarditems of export as tim;ber produced by forcedlabor, Moscow offered for sale in 1953 suchstrat'egic goods as chrome, manganese, asbestos,coal, oil, steel, and pig iron. Careful analysis ofall available Soviet data reveals that there wasand still is an acute shortage of these vital mate­rials, especially of crude oil and petroleum products,which a're still rationed. Yet the Soviet govern­ment is pushing the sale of oil through both privateimporting firms and trade treaty agreements withvarious governments. In virtually every countryof western Europe brokers acting for the Sovietsare offering oil and petroleum products at pricesgenerally under those prevailing in the free market.Barter agreements have been made with the gov­ernments of Finland, France, Argentina, Iceland,and Israel. In some cases Soviet offers of oil werequite substantial: 500,000 tons to A'rgentina, 400,­000 tons to France, 75,000 tons to Israel. Whatdid the Kremlin hope to get in return for thisstrategic commodity? Frozen meat from Argentina,herring from Iceland, citrus fruits from Israel,silk and perfume firom France. Who in his rightmind would believe that Malenkov is making suchdea'ls just for the sake of trading, even if they area source of ruble profit from internal sales?

'The political goals in all these cases are quiteevident: to help undermine the economic positionof the United States in South A'merica, to supportthose Frenchmen who seek "neutrality" and opposeNA;T~O and EDC, to induce the Icelandic govern·­ment to refuse ai'r bases to the U.S., to stir uptroub'le in the Middle East. And, in addition, to

II__T_H_IS_I_S_W_H_A_T_TH_E_Y_SA_ID__IIThe House Un-American Activities Committee isusing the methods of a police state. That committeeis keeping files on a million Americans and wouldkeep more if it had the funds.

BISHOP G. BROMLEY OXNAM, at a LentenService, First Methodist Church of Detroit,April 7, 1954

With all these great material advances we aregrowing poorer and poorer as a nation. We areconsumed with fear of the Soviet Union, andinstead of rising up in our might to prove to theworld that democracy works and that it can fosterhuman happiness and goodness, we spend our timl~

looking in corners for bogey men who might havebelonged to the Communist Party.

MIl.LICENT c. MC INTOSH, President of Bar­nard College, speech at Industry-Conegl~

Conference, November 13, 1953

send new cadres of s1)ies disguised as trade agentsto these countries. It must not be overlooked thatthe Beria affair forced the Kremlin to rearrange itssubversive network abroad. This kind of "tradedeal" pays even if oil has to be dumped ahroadat low prices and at great sacrHice to the homeeconomy. Its hasie purpose is to serve the im­perialisticends of the Communist Party of theSoviet Union.

'The immediate goals of the present Soviet tr.adeoffensive are twofold: 1) to help split the non­Communist world, and 2) to assist in bringingabout a new depression in the United States andwestern Europe. It can be argued that the presentamount of Soviet trade is still too small to ac­com'plish these g03JIs. But this trade is a monopoly,directed from a single center by those who do notcare whether they make or lose money in theirtransactions. Under no conditions will the Sovietrulers permit exports and imports to play anysubstantial role in the national economy of the vastempire they dominate, and they will cut short eventhe most profitable trade agreement if it tends todevelop contrary to their political goals. In theircommerciai transactions the Soviets are assistedby their fifth colurnns abroad, and by those West­erners who a're always eager to swallow any newpropaganda bait from Moscow. This makes evena small volume of trade with the Soviet Unionpotentially dangerous for the free world.

[For comment on the current urge to do businesswith Malenkov, see Eugene Lyons' "A Second Look"on page 564. THE EDITORS]

As matters stand today a little group [of steelofficials] in Pittsburgh, answering to no one, deter­mines how many automobiles, washing machines,apartment houses, wire fences, and oil refinerieswe shall have, and ·whether or not we shall be ableto live up to the promise of the Marshall Plan.The Thomas committee tells us that the greatestmenace to the private enterprise system lies ina handful of American Communists. In my opinionan infinitely greater threat is the monopolists, whohave long since forgotten what the American sys­tem is all about and who insist on inflicting theireconomic defeatism on the rest of us.

CHESTER BOWLES, letter to Life Magazine,March 29, 1948

Cut the Accent, ComradesThe existence of the H-bomb makes the peacefulco-existence of capitalist America and the socialistSoviet Union an ines,capable national necessity....This is what the Soviet leader Malenkov meantwhen he told humanity that neither Hside" canvin [sic]. DAILY WORKER, April 2, 1954

MAY 3, 1954 563

A Second Look

More Rope for Our Hanging

When it comes to hanging capitalists, Lenin iscredited with saying, "We'll have them biddingtogether for the rope." Whether he said i,t or not,it's uncomfortably close to the truth.

The bait of Soviet trade is again well deployed,and capitalist profit-glands are wate,ring. Europeandrummers, with the ,suicidal Britons in the lead,are in Mos.cow angling for deals. Big posters onthe walls of the London Underground read"MOSCOW ORDERS: £400,000,000 worth of Britishgoods." The figure is a big lie; the thinking behindthe appeal is a slur on British character and a re­minder of Munich. Some Americans, too, arebreathing hard, that hungry gleam in their eyes.

The picture is familiar enough. I witnessed partof it myself more than two decades ago. The press­agented fairy story then had it that with theferocious Trotsky eliminated, a sober-mindedStalin ("really more like a businessman than arevolutionary") was concerned only with the well­being of his beloved subjects. Socialism in onecountry, you know. We need only get behind hisfive-year plans to turn the raging beast into ahousehold pet. Only "anti~Russian extremists" anylonger take the palaver aJbout world revolutionseriously. It is up to the practical-minded Amer­icans, the industrialists and bankers and traders,to scotch silly fears and unseemly prejudices....

The most ardent spokesman for that view wasnot some fuzzy-minded professor or liberal. No,it was the late Ivy Lee, the loudest voice ofcorporate capital. I am indebted to Joseph Anthonyof Spadea Syndieate for the quotations whichfoHow. On August 1,1930, at Williamstown, Mass.,Mr. Lee said:

"Is it not strange that those who could be calledmost nearly friends of Russia in the United Statesare our largest and most progressive industrialcorporations? Why is this? Does anyone supposethat these intelligent businessmen would tradewith Russia even to gain a few momentary profits,if they thought that the prosperity of Russiawould mean their doom? ...

"I was struck in reading Mr. Stalin's ex cathedrautterances before the Communistic party on June27th last with the absence of any of the oldsuggestions that the workers of the world shouldunite. It was distinctly a Russian speech, devot­ing itself to Russian problems. I am impressedwith the thought that the chief preoccupation ofRussian leaders today is with their own affairs,that such Communi~tic propaganda as is conducted

564 THE FREEMAN

in foreign countries is stimulated by the lessresponsible men in Moscow...."

The blessed innocence of the man! He and hiskind stuck to their foolish self-delusion yearafter year, while Soviet Russia in its deepeningIron Age was flooded by terror and death, whileRed conspirators burrowed under the foundationsof all free lands, while Kremlin poisons penetratedthe marrow of American society.

"At heart," Ivy Lee wrote on April 13, 1933,"the changes that are progressing in Russia aimat the same objectives as those at work here. Theyall revolve around the question: how far can yougo in encouraging the profit motive, the initiativeof the individual," and so on.

Nor was it all words. In the early 1930s ourbusinessmen were so eager to pick up trade in anew market that they failed to. notice, let alonethink about, the horrors of that market placeor the agonies of the Russian people. In Novem­ber 1933, a .committee on Russian-Americanrelations of the American Foundation put out aplea for recognition of the U.S.S.R. and Soviettrade signed, among many others, by the presidentsof General Motors, Baldwin Locomotive, Reming­ton Rand, Curtiss-Wright, and Thomas W. Lamontof J. P. Morgan & Co. It has been convenientlyforgotten that the pressures for "normal rela­tions" came largely from business interests, ·withthe opposition led by the American Federation ofLabor and the American Legion.

The ugly consequences of Ivy Lee's success inselling America on a miraculously "reformed"Kremlin under a benign Stalin need not be re­hearsed here. Suffice that the five-year plans, thematerial foundation of the power which nowthreatens a world at bay, would have been im­possible without the collaboration of American,German, and British businessmen.

Today we are again being assured that Malenkov,providentially rid of the bull-headed Stalin, wantsonly to improve living conditions for his subjects.Peace through trade is the neat and· comfortingslogan in a world that surely needs both badly.Weare counseled to remove roadblocks to "co­existence" and, in the words of a conservativeindustrialist, Ernest T. Weir, "establish an atmo­sphere of argeement-a relaxation of tension, adissipation of the present suspicion and distrust."

Mr. Weir's pamphlets on the subject sound re­markably like Mr. Lee's. He, too, appeals to "themore level-headed among us," to "businessmen inparticular, because they are accustomed to meet­ing and solving problems on a factual basis."But is it "factual" to ignore the thirty-six-yearrecord of the Soviet regime and the nature of theCommunist animal?

Not only British businessmen, it seems, arepanting to sell some more rope for our hanging toLenin's inheritors.

Fear~s False, FacesBy WILLIAM HENRY CHAMBERLIN I--------------:-----.....----~

Here are two more books to add to the very con­sidevable library of volumes which give the lie tothe left-wing cliches that we are living under a"reign of terror" (Bertrand Russell) or "a blacksilence of fear" (Supreme Court Justice Douglas)or that all Americans are living in a state ofcraven fear of Senator Jose'ph R. McCarthy (Thefirst book is The Test of Freedom, by NormanThomas, 211 pp., New York: W. W. Norton andCompany, $3.00, and the second is The Urge toPersecute, by A. Powell Davies, 219 pp., Boston:The Beacon Press, $2.75).

Both Mr. Thomas and Mr. Powell are con ~ernedabout the state of American civil liberties underthe pressures and stresses of the cold war. Bothare clearly not admirers of the junior Senatorfrom Wisconsin; both are critical of some aspectsof congressional investigations of Communist sub­version. (Mr. Thomas' criticism is much more dis­criminating, restrained, and factual; Mr. Davieshas a tendency to go off the deep end emotionally.)Both thes,e books, like scores of others of the sametype, have been freely published and circul!ated;neither author has .suffered nor seems likely tosuffer any of the dire consequences that a dis­senter would certainly face if a true reign of ter­ror were in progress.

Although Norman Thomas was six times can­didate for President on the ticket of the now vir­tually extinct Socialist Party, there is no dogmaticMarxism in his thinking and writing. For the lasttwenty years his record of fighting Communismhas been honorable and consistent. He has notreached the point of recognizing the close integralconnection between liberty and private property;but not very long ago a hook of his was publishedrecognizing the extreme dangers of bureaucraticstagnation under socialism.

Thomas is keenly aware both of the reality ofthe Soviet imperialist threat to American nationalsecurity and of the utterly unscrupulous methodsof Communist termites on the home front. Andhis range of ,critical fire includes not only Com­munists, but also the fellow-traveling "liberals"who, in the author's well-chosen ,vords, "mayhave been finally and reluctantly persuaded ofAlger Hiss's guilt, but cannot forgive WhittakerChambers."

The author is clear and outspoken in denyingthe right of Communists to teach:

COlTIlTIUnists have no right to teach, because inbecoming Communist Party members or adherentsthey have performed an act of surrender of theirown conscience and of their freedom to serve truthan act which unfits them for their high task. '

And when he criticize,s Senator McCarthy orsome aspects of congressional investigations (heaccepts investigation as a necessary legislativefunction), he never los'es his sense of balance orperspective. He points out, for instance, that thepeople who cry out against investigations ofCommunism seldom took this attitude when thetargets of Icongressional committees were bankers,oil magnates, and "merchants of death."

And out of his long experience of Americanleft-wing movements he seems to strike a prettyfair balance between overestimation and under­estimation of Communist penetration of churchesand synagogues:

I have known a handful of clergymen and rabbiswho may not have paid regular dues to the Com­munist Party, but who gave every indication ofcomplete loyalty to the Communist line. I haveknown, or know, of many more whose continuingsympathy with Communism did little credit to theirunderstanding of the basic conflict between theirown religious philosophy and the philosophy ofCommunism.

Where Thomas' position is perhaps most vul­nerabl'e is in his attempt to draw a hard-and-fastline of distinction between Communism as aheresy and Communism ,as a conspiracy. Heresy,he argues, should be tolerated in a free society,conspira,cy not. The difficulty with this proposi­tion is what to do about a heresy that breedsconspirators just as a pestilential marsh breedsmosquitoes.

The Reverend A. Powell Davies, a Washingtonminister, approaches the same subject as Mr.Thomas, but with far less balance and factualauthority. Although he discl:aimsany sympathywith Communism, he can find no worthier motivefor congressional committees which have beeninvestigating Communist activities than "the urgeto persecute."

The book is superficial as well as one-sided.There are some slick exercises in elementary psy­chology and psychoanalysis; there are some hor­tatory sermons which do not always stand verywell the test of transfer to the printed page, and

MAY 3, 1954 565

there are some regrettably inaccurate or highlyquestionabl,e dogmatic statements.

How does Mr. Davies know, for instance, thatby the end of World War Two it w,as too late forthe United States to intervene effectively in China,when this policy was never tried? There is noevidence for the author's view that there was' aclose connection between American failure to jointhe League of Nations and the growth of Com­munism in China. And the intimation that theAmerica First Committ,ee was in sympathy withHitler is refuted by the fact that no adherent ofnazism, fascism or Communism was permitted tojoin America First.

A General's PresidencyU. S. Grant and the American Military Tradition,

by Bruce Catton. 201 pp.Boston: Little, Brownand Company. $3.00

This is the first volume in a new series ofbiographies designed to "analyze the relationshipof the man to the events in which he is involved,viewing him neither as the m'aker of his timesnor their product, but instead seeing each as aforce reacting on the other." The plan may notwork out in every case, but for a demonstrationof its potentialities there could not have been ahappier choice than the combination of BruceCatton and U. S. Grant. The subject abounds inthose changes of fortune and apparent changesof character which always attracted Plutarch;the author is peculiarly qualified to make the mostof his material by human sympathy, militaryknowledge, and power of analysis.

The total result is not only a supremely read­able book, but one which in a very brief spacemanages to contribute new ideas and new materialto a subject already exhaustively examined. Mr.Catton points out that Grant the soldier was bothadmired and blamed for the wrong reasons."Butcher Grant," the South called him, with sometacit agreement from the other side, which spoke ofhis grim persistence; whereas Grant actuallyachieved his effects through speed and deception,even in the campaign that led from the Wilder­ness to Petersburg. No one was more surprisedthan Lee when the Union army turned up on thesouth bank of the James River.

Similarly, Grant as President has been viewedas an innocent in politics, who failed to seethrough designing men. Mr. Catton makes thepoint, and backs it up with the evidence, that thisis looking at the wrong thing. Rightly or wrongly,Grant believed that Congress was the supremepower in the land, and the President an executiveof its orders, as Lieutenant-General Grant hadbeen the executive of over-all orders from Wash-

566 THE FREEMAN

ington. If the reconstruction program was nobetter and financiers were permitted to hoist theJoIly Roger, it was less Grant's fault than thatof the Congress he conceived of as representingthe whole people. Indeed, if there is any detect­able flaw in this fine book, it is that Mr. Cattonrather slurs over the fact that this Congress wasconfirmed in its course by the election of 1866;that is, the electorate of the North approved whatwas being done in the South.

Yet it is rather in its examination of the factorsthat made Grant a great general than in theanalysis of what happened to the general asPresident that the peculiar merit of the booklies. Grant himself had little to say about it inhis memoirs, for the reason that no one knowswhat screws and bolts go into his per,sonalassembly. Lloyd Lewi.s died before' he could com­plete the job of integration he began; now thelack has been supplied and the gap closed in sucha manner that the job will not have to be doneagain. FLETCHER PRATT

America's "Day of Infamy"The Final Secret of Pearl Harbor, by Rear

Admiral R. A. Theobald, U. S. N'. Ret. 224 pp.New YOl~k: The Devin-Adair Company. $3.50

Truth, crushed to earth, is reputed to possessrecuperative powers of great dependability. Thereis much evidence that this is so, but she is gen­erally appallingly slow in getting to her feet.I have heen waiting these many years for anaccount of the truth about Pearl Harbor to riseand confront us on terms which defy doubt. Thisjob has now heen done, I think, definitely for historyby an eminent naval officer who had a peculiartraining for the task. Rear Admiral R. A. Theobaldwas an officer at Pe,a'r} Harbor the morning of theattack. He has been suhjected to no such assaultupon his honor and his professional judgment asPresident Roosevelt, General Ma1rshall, and AdmiralStark used to smear Admiral Kimm'el and Gen­eral Short in order to discredit them and hideRoosevelt's own shame.

The day afteT the Japanese struck at PearlHa~bor, Roosevelt referred to it as that "Day ofInfamy." It was, indeed, a Day of Infamy. Butthe infamy rested upon the nam'es of Roosevelt andStimson, Stark and Marshall, all of whom knewthe attack was coming-almost the ve'ry day andhour-yet withheld from their commanders inHawaii any warning. Thereafter those commanders"were saddled with the whole blam'eand punishedby reti'rement.

I myself had a hand in provoking the congres­sional investigation of Pearl Harbor after whiehI attempted to put into a pamphlet the truth aboutthat shocking episode. But the orders, the dis-

patches, the goings-on behind the scenes are suchthat a technical knowledge of naval and armymanagement and warfare are essential to trans­late all t'his professional materiall into an under­standable narrative. 'This Admiral Theobald hasnow done in a clear, sharp, completely convincingaccount of the dramatic movements and eventspreceding the attack.

On the night before December 7, 1941, Presi­dent Roosevelt and his commanders, Admiral Starkand General Marshall, knew the attack was coming.Our a,rmed services had performed a miraculous ,iobof breaking the Japanese mechanical code whichthe Japanese believed was invulnerruble even upto the day of their finall defeat. The breaking ofthis code was one of the most carefully guardedsecr,ets of the war. For weeks the Japanese highcommand had been giving orders to their agentsin Washing1ton, Pearl Harbor, and the Philippine'Swhich made it abundantly clear they were preparingto attack Pear,l Harbor, that the attack would inall likelihood be made on a Sunday, that it wouldbe made from the air, and would be directed atthe destruction of the United States fleet in thePacific.

To Roosevelt and S'timson, in Washington. therewas but one souree of fear: that Admiral Kimmeland General Short in Pearl Harbor would learn ofthe ~Tapanese plans. If Kimmel were warned, hew'Ould be required by the agreed \var plans to takehis "Thole fleet immediately out into the open sea,while Short would dispose his war planes fordefensive and counte'r-action. In this case theJapanese plans "would be frustrated, for they con­templated the fleet moored cold at its wharves likeso many sitting ducks, and Rooseve'1t's long hoped­for attack by Japan might be cal'Ied off. There­fore he kept Kimmel and Short in the dark andpermitted the fleet and the army to remain un­defended, inviting the Japanese assault. In otherwords, the J a:panese supplied the attacking force;Roosevelt supplied the living target-the fleetdestroyed, 3,000 men killed.

The blackest part of M'"ds plan for enteringthe war was the pretense of Roosevelt, Marshall,and Stark of .surprise and indignation when theblow came. Kimmel and Short were charged withthe responsibility for the disastrous defeat, andwere retired.

Having been through this shameful episodemyself more than once', I cannot withhold myadmiration for the dramatic cla1rity with whichAdmiral Theobald has unraveled the story of thisconspiracy to get unwilling America into the war.Roosevelt's aim was to involve us in the Pacificas a means of bringing us into the war iIi Europe.The witnesses to these events are now comingforward. Among their books none is more import­ant than Admiral Theobald's The Final Secret ofPearl Harbor. JOHN T. FLYNN

Cuba's DictatorA Sergeant Named Batista, by Edmund A. Chester.

286 'pp. N'ew York: Henry Holt and Company.$3.50

Mr. Chester's biog1raphy opens with a colorfulaccount of his hero's first known act of earnestpatriotism, at the rather tende'r age of a year andsix months, when his parents took him to thefestivities which marked the inauguration of theCuban Republic, on May 20, 1902. "A good citizenhe' was, this little 'Beno' Batista," writes Chesterwithout the slightest tremor. "Not a single whimperout of the little Cuban throughout the long nightof revelry...Maybe it was at this point in hisinfancy that the spark of revolution came intothe life of Fulgencio Batista."

Now if an author stumbles across a personalityso stupendously gifted as to get the "spark ofrevolution" in his infancy and to brief his bi­og'rapher on this distant and uncanny reminiscence,the writer may be forgiven if he incurs numerousexaggerations and significant omissions.

To anyone slightly familiar with the unfoldingof the historical events in which Batista doubt­less played a striking, though not always a credit­able role, Chester's treatment of history appea'rsrather farcical, not to say outright amusing. Hismonotone of unqualified praise for the man who hasagain 'assumed the ominous responsibility of settinghimself up as the dictator of his country is somanifest that the reader wonders what purposecould an experienced newspape,rman-as Chesterreveals himself to be-entertain with 270 pagesof tireless incense. The ans'wer may be in the factthat Chester is Batista's friend and press agent.

IThe issues involved with Cuba's fate are sos'erious, however, that someone should spotlightsome of the author's most gllaring and most sig­nificant omissions. For example, the bland silenceabout the fact that Batista ran for President onthe Communist ticket in a Communist front coali­tion, that he legalized the 'Communist Party, thathe delivered Cuban labor to Communist control,and that, in 1940, when Chester says that "it wasfortunate for the cause of democracy that Cuba,a vital factor in the defense of the WesternH,emisphere, was in the hands of a friendly gov­ernment," Batista had just campaigned arm-in-armwith the Communists, under the Soviet-inspiredslogan: "Keep Cuba Out of the Imperialist War."

'The resurgence of such an opportunist (despitehis present lip-service to anti-Communism) as thehead of a police state, at a moment when SovietRussia is again casting out for the dominantposition she held in the days of the Soviet-Nazi"nonaggression" pact, gives food for more seriousthoughts than those reflected in Mr. Chester's en­tertaining piece of political mythology.

KARL HESS'

MAY 3, 1954 567

Crime vs. AmericaSyndicate City, by Alson J. Smith. 290 pp. Chi-

cago: Henry Regnery Company. $4.50

Nobody can spend twenty-four hours in Chicagoand not do business with the Syndic-ate. This isthe point which Alson Smith has sharpened sothat it penetrates every page of his book.

Senator Estes Kefauver said it this way: "Chi­cago is, in many respects, ruled not legally butextralegally by Stone Age criminals who are them­selves untouchable by law." In this meticulouslydocumented indictment, iSmith tells why, and whatmight be done about it.

Chicag'o has been "the wickedest community"since the 1800s, Smith reminds us. It has there­fore attracted the kind of people who "whetherthey admitted it or not liked the atmosphere ofthe wide open town." Smith has attempted to avoidthe entirely one-sided view whi'ch has discreditedother authors. He believes in Mayor Kennelly'sintegrity, though the Mayor, reared in the jungle,"knows the sco~e which means that he knows hislimitations." Smith concedes the accomplishmentsof the "tough-cops" and their resistance to cor­ruption. Ninety per cent of the police force isgood, but "the honest ninety per cent try to coverup for the crooks [dishonest ten peT cent]." So"no top hoodlum has ever been convicted of aserious crime in a local court."

The Chicago crime cartel's political tentaclesreach into Washington, D. C., and respond instantlyto a directive from Palermo, Sicily. (tSmith be­lieves Lucky Luciano is still Mister Big.)

Smith describes that fraction of Syndicate Citywhich is comprised lar,gely of citizens of Sicilianextraction and lays much of this evil on theirdoorsteps-slum d.wellers "in America . . . butnot of it." Smith, barging into this neighborhoodwhere most recent write,rs have feared to tread,explains the strange dual-citizenship of this Sicilianfraternity and the Mafia which disciplines it. Themanner in which they accept charity, then auctionit off. The way in which they honor their criminals.

In his conclusion and recommendations, Smithspells out a wide variety of constructive reformsranging from replacing ragged police uniforms toa new criminal code and sweeping judicial reforms.Mostly, he believe's the final choice wil'l be with thecitizen, presently apathetic. The reformers arepunch-drunk from the beatings they've taken. Butthe little fellow can effect a change when he stopshis own petty lawbreaking (slot machines in theLegion Hall, two dollar bets with the cigar storebookie). Until then, the sel'fish indulgence of thesepretty good people will continue to spawn thelarger operations (narcotics, vice) on which theChicago underworld flourishes. Chicago needs anew City Charter, says Smith. With fifty "littlemayors" (Detroit has nine, Los Angeles seven)

568 THE FREEMAN

the opportunity for graft and favoritis'm is vastlyincreased.

Officials of every city of 200,000 and more willlearn from this book, and thus 'may be deterredfrom barging past the danger signals which Mr.Smith so plainly identi'fies. But a's far as reformingChicago is concerned, it is unlikely that the mass,whose cooperation is required, win read this gospelof good government, ,and so they will not hear orheed the warning that if the Communists eve'r allythemselves with the Mafia, we are lost. "Indeed,a nation whose moral -fibre and ethical standardsare eaten away by termite-criminals in its greatcities will bean easy prey to any dynamic ba~barism

that appears to challenge it." PAUL HARVEY

The Age of the BorgiasThe I.Jife and Times of Lucrezia Borgia, by Maria

Bellonci. Translated by Bernard and BarbaraWall. 343 pp. N'ew York: Harcourt, Brace &Company. $5.00

Lucrezia Borgia lived in an age and mental climatewh1ich was very much like our own. There was thesame intellectual curiosity, the same willingnessto experiment, the sa-me social fluidity, and the,same widespread doubt and distrust of traditionalvalues. M'en were being liberated from old re­stra1ints. But with the restraints went many of theold landm'arks that had given order, direction,and meaning to their lives. To the men and womenof the Renais1sance life was no longer an orderlypilgri'm's progress along the road to salvationthat had been mapped out by the spiritual guide,sof the church. It had become an adventurousvoyage of discovery over uncharted ground.

Thus the historical figures of the Renaissancetook on larger than life-s'ize proportions in theeyes of later generations, which had their feet onceagain more s'ecurely planted. And, due to a uniquecombination of circumstance'S, the mem1bers of theBorgia family came to loom even larger than theother figures of their age. Yet by Renaissancestandards they were not at all untypical.

It just so happened that Alexander, Lucrezia'sfather, became' Pope .in the year in which Columbusdiscovered America and changed the face andfuture of the Western world. Lucrezia's brother,Cesare, happened to have his political career writ­ten up not in the customary manner of a eulogisticbiography but in the guise of a sociologicaltreatise by that first neutral scienNst of politics,Machiavelli. And Lucrezia herself happened tospend her life in high places where she attractedthe eye and stirred the gossip of the age. Thusthe family lived in the limelight and, as theirfortunes faded, became the butt of vituperationand zeal'ous moral condemnat'ion.

Mrs. Bellonci's study reduces the Borgias tohuman proportions. No doubt, they were wicked,

but not ,more so than many of their .contemporarieswho had lost their mor,al bearings and werefloundering in a morass of .cruelty and crime inwhich vice might be loked upon as virtue andgenerous implusesand noble instincts channeled toserve ignoble ends.

They were not Ha tainted stock"-Alexander'sgreat-grandson, Francisco Borgia, found a placeamong the Saints of the Church-and Lucreztaher1self emerg1es as an appealing and even attractivepersonality. She was the typical Renaissance lady,cultured, self-possessed, with a taste for poetryand beautiful things, also warm-hearted, affec­tionate, and loyal to her family and her chosenfriends. Yet she was C'au~ht in the net of strongercircumstances. All her life she searched for peaceand harmonY,and there is perhaps some poeticjustice in the fact that she found it finally in thefaith whose spirit had been so memorably out­raged by Alexander Borgia.

Mrs. Bellonci has recreated all this in a well­written and carefully-documented volume. Onlythe lack of illustrations, especially of the portraitsreferred to in the text, detracts from its value.And its unevenness-detailed discuss,ion of minorcontroversial points but few quotations fromLucrezia'is own utterances---,may perhaps be blamedon the fact that the book is an "abridged transla­tion." HUBERT MARTIN

A Brief for BraveryThese Men My Friends, by George Stewart. 400

pp. Caldwell, Idaho: The Ga~ton Printers, Ltd.$6.00

During the most recent of the world wars, the twoprincipal Allies tried unprecedentedly hard .toextend mutual understanding down to the lowesttroop level. In furtherance of these efforts, GeorgeStewart, a pastor of Connecticut Presbyteriansand an Anglophile, was assigned to the BritishArmy as a kind of roving font of information onAmerica and Americans.

These Men My Friends is a collection of Stewart'sreminiscences about the men and the places he gotto know on this unusual mission, and it is aimedat the reciprocal of the mission's result; that is,a better understanding of the British by theAmericans.

.some Americans will not want to understandBritain and the British, however, in quite the wayStewart intends. For one thing, he has a goodword to say for the Empire, especially for someof its policies in India. And when writing aboutthe Empire's soldiers and airmen-whom he metin all manner of martial circumstances, in all thetheaters of action-he makes no anguishing biopsyof whatever ,animosities there may have been be­tween officers and enlisted men. Nor does he dis-

tinguish between regulars and what we ove"r herecall in our own army "citizen soldiers." In 'bothcases he breaks the "modern" literary precedent,according to which the military must be viewedwith distaste.

Stewart himself is something of a new departurein war writers, by virtue of a rare comhination ofexperiences in his background. As a boy of fifteen,he was operating his own ranch on the rough,man....hating terrain of southwestern Idaho. WhenWorld War One came along, his B.A. and LL.B.degrees from Yale might have got him a commis­sion simply for the asking. Instead, he enlistedas a 'private and during the fighting rose to therank of battalion commander.

Between the wars Stewart acquired a Ph.D.,entered the Presbyterian ministry, and wroteeighteen books. He is now a lieutenant colonelin the U .IS. Air Force.

These Men My Friends is composed in a style asbland as a rectory tea, but it manages to leave apungent impression of war as interpreted throughits impact on the men involved in it. Much of thisputs one in mind of the ,late Ernie Pyle's syndicated"GI Joe" dispatches. Stewart, hO'\Yever, has gonedeeper into his Tommies.

When he backs away for more of a panoramicview of the war and its implications, the authormakes one feel he is listening to the final, fadingnotes of "Rule, Britannia," the last time it willever he played.

In India, for instance, at the Red Fort of Delhitoward the close of the war, five native soldiersare being invested, some posthulnously, with theVictoria Cross. Never before have so many awardsof this most coveted British medal been made ina single ceremony. The medals are presented by theViceroy, Lord Wavell, in a ritual that features allthe awesome pomp and splendid costumery of theRaj. Outside the walls of this enclave at the verysame moment, men in bed sheets are brazenlyhurrying the Raj to an inglorious finish.

Another British election, another war, and scoresof war :books have intervened between Stewart'sexperiences and his writing of them. He, of course,is aware of this. But he is a man who is obviouslyanxious about the future of the qualities that havemade men, armies, and nations of the Westernworld great. Maybe he intends his book as adeposition to be filed in evidence should it everbe necessary to hold an inquest at some futuredate (in some "progressive" or "people's" court)into the demise of these convictions, traditions,and virtues. RICHARD M. PALMER

Any book reviewed in this B,ook Seeillion (or anyo,ther current book) supplied by. return mail. Yo'upay only the bookstor'e price. We pay the postage,anywhere in the world. Ca~talogue on request.

TH:E BO'O'KMAIILEIR, Box 101, New York 16

MAY 3, 1954 569

James Joyce's FriendSilent Years: An Autobiography with Memoirs

of James Joyce and Our Ireland, by J. F.Byrne. With a foreword by Harvey Breit. 307pp. New York: Farrar, Straus and Young. $4.00

The genius of James Joyce is still modern litera­ture's Number ,One enigma. Fresh material on thequixotic Irishman's life is eagerly welcomed as apotential source of light on his work. The authorof Silent Years vias a lifelong friend of Joyce;he is the Cranly of Joyce's novels. His autobiographyis a treasure trove of new insights into Joyce'scomplex and baffling per,sonaUty.

In Silent Years, Mr. Byrne's account of his lifeat school andcollege,even when it does not directlyinvolve Joyee, has a signi1ficant bearing on theJoyce story. Throughout childhood and youth thetwo young Dubliners were reared in the identicaltradition of Irish Catholic culture, steeped in thesame broad classical scholarship, trained in onephilosophy and one liturgy. True G·aelic individ­ualists, both renounced the faith in boyhood. Thisis the rich-textured spiritual background into whichthe author of Ulysses wove the startling patternof his ego.

Joyce, two years younger than his friend, usedto wait for Byrne to finish his habitual chess games.Touchingly dependent on their w.alks and talkstogether, he enjoyed striking sparks from Byrne'sbrilliant analytical mind, drawing out his originaltheories and listening to the recounting of incidentsin his life. Not a few features of the walks andtalks were to turn up later, in one form or another,in Joyce's novels. The peaceful Byrne residence inEccles Street, for instance, became the less peace­ful Bloom home in Ulysses.

But Silent Years is by no means all Joyce. JohnFrancis Byrne, in his own right, has led a fulland interesting life. He toiled on Wicklow farms,lectured on Spinoza, and shuddered at Irish ghosts.He was in the forefront of Ireland's fight forfreedom. Although he left Dublin for New York in1910, he continued to work for the nationalistcause, endangering his life by returning to war­time Ireland. He tells the inside story of thetragic Easter R,e1bellion of 1916 and England'ssavage reprisal in wrecking Dublin's historic busi­ness district and promoting a reign of terrorthroughout the land.

In New York, the erudite Mr. Byrne worked asreporter and editorial writer. In a short story pub­lished in 1917 and reprinted in Silent Years, heforetold the discovery of the H-bomb. On theMonday before the' Wall Street crash he wrotefor his Daily News Record column a predictionof Tuesday's stock-market calamity. His A Parablein Gold, written in 1930 to expound his conceptof international debt, was intended to head off

570 THE FREEMAN

such transactions as Lend-Lease. And no cryp­tographer yet, it would seem, has caught up witha code he devised in 1919.

I t is easy to see why the ,lonely Joyce clungto Cranly-Byrne, finding comfort in his kindlinessand stimulation in the flight of his unorthodoxthought. The author of Silent Years is no even­tem·pered optimist. Fearless, he loves a challenge;honest, he comes right out with name'S and dates.To be sure, there are frustrating gaps in his rollcall. He says nothing about Yeats, Russell, Colum,and their Irish Renaissance. And what became oflovely N'orah? ANN F. WOLFE

Gift and GushStay on, Stranger!, by William S. Dutton. 79 pp.

New York: Farrar, Straus and Young. $1.75

The Journey, by Lillian Smith. 256 pp. Cleveland:The World Publishing Company. $3.50

Twenty-eight years ago, Alice Lloyd went to amountain town in Kentucky, "where no man worthshootin' went unarmed." A graduate of Radcliffe,a ne.wspaper woman but half paralyzed with alifelong disability, she went off to Caney Hollowto find a milder climate. What she did find was a lifecareer for herself and a mighty surge of promisefor 100,000 people. In Caney Hollow there was nodecent school, no good road, no window pane, a'background of the sort that gave birth to endles8turgid long-bearded jokes.

Today Alice Lloyd is past seventy-seven. Sheowns two cotton dresses and a worn-out type­writer. She works hard and long and she looks onthe fruit of her work. For a person in the seventiesit is a rich gift indeed. Caney Hollow now has afamous college, thanks to Alice Lloyd; it hasengineers, doC'tors and nurses, lawyers and teachers,and each of them is home-grown. This is a re­markable story. A sidelight is its encouragement t.othose disabled who suffer from frustration.

Miss Smith's book is quite another matter. Youcan sickly over anything with gush. 'This is nota novel but the account of a soulful journey, desti­nation vague, object to help the handicapped. Theactual war to lighten this tragedy is being foughtwith grim will, scientific knowledge, and longpatience. It is being fought by doctors, psychol­ogists, parents, and the victims themselves. Theyare doing a good job. But this writer is so ecstaticthat she loses her way, and so did this reader.

Miss Smith even meanders into a side road totake a crack at Senator McCarthy. Once Miss Smithwrote a best-seller about miscegenation whichannoyed many Negroes and delighted "liberals."This new book may delight a few intensely sub­jective readers. It probably will annoy many more,including the handicapped. HELEN WOODWARD

Non-Communicative ArtBy MAX EASTMAN

My friend Bernard Berenson, prince of art critics,has written an astute little 'book called Seeing andKnowing in which he reviews the history of artis­tic conventions as a series of compromises betweenconceptual knowledge and visual experience. Hedoes not conceal his low opinion of the presentconvention culminating in what is called "abstractart." He feels sure, he says, that the "confusion,struttings, blusterings, solemn puerilities that arenow 'practiced, taught, admired, and proclaimed,"will not last forever. But he does not say why hefee'ls sure of this.

To my mind these manifestations in the worldof art associate themselves with what is happeningin the political world, and I feel evangelical about it.Although I admire Berenson profoundly, I nevercould quite imitate the serene detachment withwhich he dwells among ideas-and among pic­tures, and books innumerable, and a beautifulgarden and a too beautiful sky-in his shrinelikevilla on a hin overlooking Florence. I feel we haveto descend into the plain and raise an army andgo to war for civilized values in art as well aspolitics and economics.

So far as poetry is concerned, I did go to warfor these values twenty-five years ago in anessay called "The Cult of Unintelligibility." I wasdefeated, and very soon disappeared under aflood of extremely erudite and awfully overwhelm­ing langua'ge which goes by the name of the NewCriticism, but none of my arguments wereanswered.

I am not going to trundle out all the old cannonI employed in that purely literary engagement,but I do want to recall one maneuver which hasespecial relevance to modern art.

I was talking about Gertrude Stein as theFounder and high priestess' of the Cult, and Iadduced this example of the Gertrudian prose:

"I was ,looking at you, the sweet 'boy that doesnot want sweet soap. Neatness of feet do not winfeet, but feet win the neatness of men. Run doesnot run west but west runs east. I like west straw­berries best."

One can hardly deny, I remarked, a beauty ofing,enuity to those lines. They have a fluency onthe tongue, a logical intricacy that is intriguing.And no doubt anyone who dwells with idle energyon their plausible music will find thoughts andimpulses from his own life rising to employ themas a symbol or pattern for a moment of thought orimaginative realization. But the impluses that rise

to those lines from the reader's life will neverby one chance in a million be the same as thosethat dictated them in the life of the author.Communication is here reduced to a minimum. Itis a private art, just as private as the emotionallife of the insane. In .fact the passage I quotedwas not from Gertrude Stein, but from the sten­ographic report of the ravings of a maniac citedby Kraepelin in his Clinical Psychiatry. Here isa passage that is from Gertrude Stein:

"Any space is not quiet it is so likely to beshiny. Darkness very dark darkness is sectional.There is a way to see in onion and surely verysurely rhubarb and a tomato, surely very surelythere is that seeding."

I t is just the same thing, you see, only perpetratedvoluntarily-and in my opinion not quite so well.

Turning to Art

I t seems to me that exactly the same maneuversmight be executed, and with a like success, againstpresent tendencies in the plastic arts. The essentialthing that has been disappearing from both fieldsis intelligible communication. The artist mullsaround with patterns, diagrams, and symbolicentities that contain both thought and emotionfor him, and then leaves it to the beholder to investthem, if he can, with other thoughts and emotionsthat belong to him. Once more it is private art­and once more just as private as the emotional lifeof the insane.

In the spring of 1950 the University of Viennaput on an exhibition of thirty paintings, half ofthem by well-known surrealist or abstract painters,the other half by patients from a mental hospital.(Among the well-known were Picasso, Miro, EricoDonati, Max Ernst, and the American, YvesTanguy.) An audience of presumably normal per­sons, 158 of them, w'ere unable to say which was~;vhich. Their answers, that is, were 50 per cent"'INrong and 50 per cent right, as pure chance'would predict. Before another audience of 105persons a test was made with ten poems. Fiveof the poems were of "surrealist origin," threehad been written by schizophrenic patients, andtw,O were arbitrary sequences of detached wordsand iJ)hras·es. Here again the guesses were 50 percent wrong, not one of the listeners being ableto identify the two "poems" faked from haphazardwords and phrases.

Functional insanity, in its most general form,

MAY 3, 1954 571

as everybody knows, is an extreme withdrawal intoa world of private values and meanings. However,I am not saying, and neither did the Vienneseexperimenters, that the artists in question areinsane. My thesis is that they might just as wellbe, so far as the social or communicative valuesof their work are concerned.

This does not fully apply, of course, to thevalues of what is called pattern or design. Herethe difference between literary and artistic talk­ing-to-oneself is considerable. It is impossible toput paint on canvas, 'or lines on paper, or moulda figure in clay, without creating a pattern.Whether good or bad, the pattern is objective, itis accessible to all beholders. But no one wouldhave the hardihood to call these modern artists"designers." Designers make linoleum, tablecloths,dress goods, wallpaper, paper for Chr.istmas pack­ages. To identify abstract art with their craft"\vould deflate and des,troy the whole revolution.It would deprive the artist of the excited thoughtsand emotions he experiences while creating hiswork. It would deprive the beholder of the thoughtsand emotions he experiences 'while conte'mpla,tingit. Neither of these experiences is necessarilyinsincere. That is not my implication, but merelythat, apart from the perception of design, theseexperiences are not, by a million chances to one,the same. They are not, by a million chances toone, in any important respect, similar.

'The insincerity lies in the, pretense on thepart of the critics, patrons, guardians of ourculture, and provincial, half-educated, half-aliveas'pirants to a reputation for expert familiaritywith it, that any part of this experience is con­veyed by the aritist to the beholder. In so far asthe most renowned "abstractions" are anythingmore than the art of the designer, this pretenseis false; it is phony. It has filled the world ofculture with poses, lies, hypocr,isies, false claimsto eminence, and fatuous bombast posing as esotericknowledge inaccessible to the simple mind. Ithas enthroned mountebanks and bunk-shooterswhere men of the highest mind and most refinedperceptions used to sit.

Impostors Exposed

Every little while this fact is demonstra,ted,and the impostors exposed, by a press dispatchsuch as this:

A 17-year-old artist admitted today that anabstract painting a Toronto art gallery had placedon exhibition was only an old piece of cardboard onwhich commercial painters had cleaned their brushes.

Curator Sydney J. Key of the Toronto Galleryhad written to Bob Nealess a glowing letter ex­pressing his admiration for the youth's novel effects.

"You seem to be aware of the accidental effectsthat can result from lines, calligraphy, blots, andthe use of a spray gun," Mr. Key wrote. He said thatNealess seemed to be "considerably interested in

572 THE FREEMAN

a variety of effects that can be arrived at throughexperimental use of your materials."

Nealess said he took a piece of cardboard onwhich artists at a local engraving plant had cleanedtheir brushes, and sent it to Toronto under thetitle, "Melancholia in A Swamp."

Here is another similar dispatch:

Artist Thomas Warbis does not take muchtrouble over his painUng. He splashes the colors­dozens of them-with a bold brush or his barefingers or an old stick with a chewed end.

He lets his cat Jill pad over the fresh paintand swish her tail over it. And while turning outhis masterpiece "Figure 8: Skegness," he spilleda saucer of paint on it by accident, smudged it,tried erasing it, and finally gave up the attempt.

But the sponsors of a local art show thought"Figure 8: Skegness" was good enough to exhibit.Critics praised it..."A fine specimen of modernismby the Barrow-on-Soar artist Thomas Warbis."

They found later that artist Warbis is six yearsold. When Tommy himself turned up at the exhibit,a caretaker threatened to throw him out-he triedto stand on his head in a corner.

And let us read one more of these typical dis­patches, this time from London:

Three abstract paintings displayed today at theTate Gallery are hanging sideways because theirowner prefers them that way. To casual visitors,the unusual positions of the artist's. signatures oncanvas is the only clue to the ninety~degree diver­gence in viewpoint between painters and patron.

One of them, William Gear, already has gonethrough a similar ordeal-except that it was ac­cidental, not intentional. His "Autumn Landscape,"bought by the Art Council for £500, appeared upsidedown in a catalogue of the exhibition at last year'sFestival of Britain.

A 90 per ce'nt divergence between the experiencethe artist meant to convey, and the e~perience

received by the appreciator and purchaser of hispainting! I find it astonishing that artists cannotperceive the ignominious posirtion in society towhich this reduces them. The divergence is notusually, 90 but nearer 100 per cent, and the dignityof the artist in the transaction is thus properlyto be estimated at zero.

We 'must, of course, he tolerant of the aberra­tions of creative genius in any field. As Platoobserved of the poets, they have to be a littlecrazy in order to .escape from the near-sightedpracticality that Hfe forces on us all. At Jeastthey have to be childlike. They have to play ser­iously. They have to experiment. They have tofool around with all sorts of ideas and non-ideasa good deal of the time. But this is not true ofthe critics, the ..uestheticians, the directors ofgal1eries, the art dealers, the editors of artmagazines, the writers of books about art. Theprofessional ar1t critic is a breed of heing thatthe world got along without well into the nineteenthcentury. We could get along without him again ifhe fails to defend the unquestionable' and enduringvalues against commercial fads and fra:uds and

fashionable fake-evidences or superior culture. Theartists, I believe, would soon get back on the pathof good sense and dignity and social communion andhard work, if the critics held the standards firm.

To prove that, with hardly an exception besidesBerenson himself they are not holding ,standardsfirm, let us recall a costly and convincing eX!peri­mente In 1948 Life Magazine assembled a group ofsixteen eminent art critics and connoisseurs fromall over the world to debate the question "Whethermodern art as a whole is a good or a bad develop­ment." So far as Life's eighteen-page report of thedebate reveals, not one word was said on thisquestion by any of them. They disagreed about allthe pictures presented to them, not only aboutwhether they were good or bad, but about whatthey were and what they had to do with.

The one thing upon which they did unanimouslyagree-with a single half-hearted exception-wasthe magnificence of the painting by Pablo Picassoentitled, "Girl Before A Mirror." [reproduced onthe inside back cover of this issue]. It is "acceptedon -every hand as a great modern classic." accordingto Life's editors. "However," they add, "it is notan extreme example of 'modernism.' ... The formof the girl is still recognizable; hence the laymancan see the physical distortions to which the artisthas subjected it, and thereby learn much aboutwhat the artist was trying to do."

That allusion to the layman, I must pause toremark, is of the essence of the trick by whichthis cult of non-communication is propagated. Thepretense that an experienced critic and connois­seur can tell the difference between the work ofa schizophrenic or a dabbling schoolboy, and thatof a Master of Modernism, has been refuted above.But it was still better refuted in this same ex­periment conducted by Life. That not one of theselearned connoisseurs assembled at vast expensefrom all over the world had the slightest ideawhat Picasso had in mind with his "Girl Before.A. Mirror" was frankly acknowledged by all ofthem in the very same conference in which it washailed as a ',great modern classic." Remember thiswhen tempted to say, "I don't understand modernart." Say instead: "I like art which can be under­stood."

Let us consider briefly what happened in thisconference of super-sensitized aestheticians whenPicasso's picture was placed before them. Tobegin with, Meyer Schapiro, Professor of FineArts at Columbia University, hurst forith with anexcited exposition of what the picture meant to him,an exposition which, according to Life's reporter,"held the conference spellbound." As everythingwas taken down by a sitenographer, we are privi­leged to know just what it was that held themspellbound.

Schapiro began by saying that there are twoimages of the human body: one as it is seen fromthe outside, the anatomical image, and another,

the image we form of it from the inside. As imagedfrom the inside, it is "full of distortions andstrange relationships," owing to the way we feelabout it. "For instance, when you have a tooth­ache, one side of your face feels bigger than theother.... In a similar way, in fantasy, our con­ception of the bodies of others is affected by ourfeelings. It is this kind of personal, internal imagethat Picasso is portraying here."

Ingeniously 'Complicated Explanation

Now it does not happen to be true, at leastin my case, that when you have a toothache oneside of your face feels bigger than the other-notunless the dentist puts novocaine in the gum, whichof course alters the purely sensory experience.It is certainly not true, in general, th~t anemotional interest in some par1t of a body, whetheryour own or another's, entails an enlargement ordistortion of the image of that part. No such cor­respondence between emotional interest and im­aginary shape and size has ever bee'n established,or, so far as I know, even proposed as an hypothesisby any psychologist. It is just one of those irre­sponsible remarks that professional talkers aboutart feel free to make. However, it gave MeyerSchapiro a good start, and from that point on heread things into this picture that I am sure nobodyelse would ever think of in a million years.

Picasso, he averred, has "discovered for artthe internality of the body, just as the impression­ists discovered blue shadows, which were at firsta scandal." And more scandalous still, in this pic­ture the girl's body is seen from the inside andthe outside both at once'! The girl is in "a sltateof tension which is highly sensual in character,"and Picasso also, it seems, is amorously excitedabout the girl. And that accounts for all thesevarious loops, lobes, and protuberances inheringin her body in the similitude of a toothache asseen from the inside looking out.

I am not meaning to ridicule what Schapirosaid about the picture, although I cannot concealthe fact that I think it was old-maidi,sh, academical,pur,ely cerebral, and unrelated to any real facts.No live man feeling adolescent about a girl's bodywould want it to protruberate like that in variousplaces. I cannot imagine anYlthing that would killa passionate feeling more quickly. Picasso, I'msure, would jump out of the bedroom window if agirl developed any of these manifestations, whetherinside or outside. However, all I meant to prove isthat Schapiro's interpretation is too ingeniouslycomplicated to have occured to any other humanheing on examining the same pictur,e.

For that purpose, let us have a little more of it."Thus the body is represented both from outside

and within, and in the mirror is still anotherimage of the body." Schapiro did not say whetherthis other image is an outside or an inside one,

MAY 3, 1954 573

and I for the life of me cannot tell. But at anyrate it is a different image, and Schapiro thinksit is a "wonderful magical, poetic idea, to showthe human body which is ordinarily represented inone way ... as 'belonging to three different modesof experience within one picture."

"I don't know of another painting in all historywhich does that," he exclaims.

And I must say that I don't either. Nor do Ithink this painting does it, or any painting couldpossibly do it. He seemed unaware that he washarking back to "representative art" to explaina phenomenon that rose out of a revolt against it.

"The shapes," he continued, "are forcibly con­trasted and tied together. The repeated form ofthe breasts, and what we may take to be thewomb... " (A layman, of course, might want toknow whether it is a womb before drawing anyimportant conclusions about it, but not so the con­noisseur.) "The breasts ... and what we may taketo be the womb, and the form at the elbow-thegreen circle-are all clearly "related." How relatedhe does not say.

"The roundness of the face belongs with thesecircles." What "belongs with" means he does notexplain. "But in the face is also a moon crescentwhich occurs elsewhere on the body and there is alarge contrast like that of the sun and moon inthe relation of the real body and the mirrored bodyand indeed the moon has a reflected light." And heconcludes: "Whether the symbolism is deliberate,unconscious or accidental, I would not dare tosay...." In any case "These contrasts and repeti­tions . . . have a manifest purposiveness whichto me is grand."

Artist or Lunatic?

That was what held the experts spellbound-anelaborate invention on the part of Mr. Schapiro,and one characterized by what to his mind was agrand purposiveness. But he quite frankly acknowl­edged that he did not know whether the purposesin question existed, even unconsciously, in the mind

of the artist or not. The whole thing may havebeen purely accidental. That is, it may have beenmade up by Meyer Schapiro, as in my opinion itundoubtedly was.

Indeed when the question was raised explicitlywhether, as a matter of fact, Picasso had intendedtoexpre'Ss· any of these notions with which Schapirohad held them spellbound, those experts agreed thatthe question was "of course unanswerable," and thatit was also "irrelevant to the enjoyment of thepicture."

Thus we have reached a phase in the developmentof the plastic arts where it does not make anydifference to the high-up critics and connoisseurswhat, if anything, the artist was trying to convey.They have no criteria by which they can decidewhether he was, in fact, an artist or a lunatic.They can be hoaxed into reading "advanced" valuesinto a painting composed by a six-year-old boywith the help of his cat's tail and a saucer ofpaint accidentally stepped on while the cat wasat work. They write glowing tributes to a piece'of old cardboard on which painters have wipedtheir brushes. We need no further proof, it seemsto me, that the essential thing which has disap­peared from the field of art as well as poetry isintelligible communication. And I need hardly addthat when art is unintelligible and people go righton forming judgments about it, the basic thing thatis disappearing is intelligence. In art and poetry,alike, the net result is a consecration of the mentalblur, a benediction upon the vice of cloudy andconfused thinking.

The relation of this to what is happening inthe political world seems fairly obvious. That somany highly placed critics have accepted a returnto mumbo-jumbo, and even helped to put it overon the public in the name of intellectual culture,is to me but a part of that general surrender ofmental 'and moral integrity to crude primitive andunillumined states of passion which threatens ourv/hole Grae'co-Christian civilization with ruin. Ithink this will seem quite obvious to future his­torians if history survives.

The State of Poetry, 1954not

they do like sense in poetry any morenot

nor nonsense eitheTjust posturethey are intent upon

s rp

ou y

t

574 THE FREEMAN

tlet them have it

WITTER BYNNER

Museum of Modern Art

Girl Before A Mirror, by Pablo Picasso

"Thus we have reached a phase in the developm ent of the plastic alrts where it does not makeany difference to the high-up critics and connoisseurs wha't., if anything., the artist was trying toconvey."" Se,e "Non-Communicative Art,"" page 571