MAR CH 8, 1 9 5 4 25 ¢

Eggheads Through History John T. Flynn

British Lion into Ostrich Freda Utley

Articles and Book Reviews by Eugene Lyons, James Burnham~ Henry Hazlitt, Max Eastman, Samuel B. Pettengill, Asher Brynes, Henry C. Wolfe, Serge Fliegers This IS ow-erFlite

Here's a no-clutch drive so good you won't believe It is the simplest automatic of all to use. No it till you feel it ... so advanced you should try it clutch pedal. Wonderfully simplified shift indicator before you invest in any new car today! As one positions. Extreme quiet and smoothness in up­ editor writes, ~~Chrysler Corp. has a winner in or down-shift. PowerFlite-smoothest and most simply constructed And it gives you pocketbook advantages, too. of fully automatic drives." Being so simple, it is rugged, light in weight, has Just try it, in a Plymouth, Dodge, De Soto, fewer parts. Long life is inherent in it. Service, if Chrysler or Imperial, and you'll agree! Its sheer needed, is reduced in time and cost. delivery of power, (torque, to an engineer) reaches ~~Wonderful things keep coming your way from 4.7 to 1. Breakaway and acceleration are superb. So Chrysler Corporation." Now it's the most wonderful is its ~~kick-down" surge of extra power. no-clutch drive of all. Won't you corne in? Wonderful things l

For JOHN T. FLYNN has been one of the staunchest and most consistent opponents in the country rreeman Individualists to the "planned state" philosophy of the New and Fair Deals so loved by today's "liberal" Executive Director KURT LASSEN intellectuals, known also as "eggheads." In a disquisition (p. 407) meant not to condemn FLORENCE NORTON Managing Editor but to inform, Mr. Flynn points out on the basis of past experience and present reality what is likely to be the fate of this self­ appointed elite if their dreams are fully real­ / VOL. 4, No. 12 MARCH 8, 1954 ized. It is perhaps redundant to remind Contents FREEMAN readers that Mr. Flynn is a noted journalist, lecturer, radio commentator, author of more than a score of books on business and Editorials politics. The Fortnight 401 An Oriental Munich? 403 In his account (p. 410) of the unique Technical The Strike-Vote Issue 404 Assistance Program carried out under the aegis Party Strife Is Healthy 405 of the Economic Cooperation Administration, Bookkeeping and Butter 405 ASHER BRYNES is writing from firsthand in­ formation. As a consultant to the E.C.A., he The Planning Mentality 406 worked on this progranl intended to show foreign labor and manage,ment what n1akes American industry tick. l\fr. Brynes has con­ Articles tributed to Fortune and a number of other Eggheads Through History JOHN T. FLYNN 407 national magazines. ,Can Productivity Be Exported? ASHER BRYNES 410 As we go to press the morning's New York Lion into ,Ostrich FREDA UTLEY 413 Tinws quotes the distinguished British historian, Brazil's Boom Town ARTHUR R. PASTORE, JR. 415 D. W. Brogan, as saying: "The issue of Rusi Chose Freedom CONSTANTINE MICHAELS 417 'McCarthyism' is one of the most powerful Letter from Switzerland R. G. WALDECK 418 wedges being driven between the British and The Kremlin's Old "New Look" LEO DUDIN 419 American peoples." In her second report from The "Any" in Espionage SAMUEL B. PETTENGILL 421 England (p. 413) FREDA UTLEY describes the A Second Look EUGENE LYONS 422 state of n1ind of the British public favoring this latest Communist maneuver.

Recently a group of American housewives went Books and the Arts to Sao Paulo to find out for themselves what Jefferson and La Follette MAX EASTMAN 423 had really happened to the Brazilian coffee A Yankee in Nehru's Cour1t JAMES BURNHAM 425 crop. ARTHUR R. PASTORE, JR.'S timely story Europe's Rotten Politics .' .. HENRY C. WOLFE 426 on that city gives a colorful description of Bloomsbury Politician ASHER BRYNES 426 the fabulous city they visited-a city that Dusk Over America? WILLIAM H. PETERSON 427 might well be called the wonder of the Western Liberal's Progress WALLACE MARKFIELD 427 world. Mr. Pastore, world-wide traveler, lin­ The FreeMan's Library HENRY HAZLITT 428 guist, journalist, has just returned from his third trip to South America. Americans A1broad SERGE FLIEGERS 429 We put the question to LEO DUDIN, analyst of Soviet affairs, "Is Malenkov really boss1" His answer (p. 419), based on a careful study of From Our Readers 400 news direct from Moscow, clarifies the much­ disputed subject of who is ruling Soviet Russia today. Mr. Dudin was an assistant pro­ fessor at Kiev University when World War Two broke out, escaped later to Germany, came THE FREEMAN is published fortnightly. Publication Office, Orange, Conn. Editorial and General Offices, 240 Madison Avenue, New York 16, N. Y. Copyrighted in the United to the United States in 1951. States, 1954, by the Freeman Magazine, Inc. Henry Hazlitt, Chairman of the Board; Leo Wolman, President; Kurt Lassen, Executive Vice President; Claude Robinson, Secretary; Lawrence Fertig, Treasurer. Correction Entered as second class matter at the Post Office at Orange, Conn. Rates: Twenty-five cents the copy; five dollars a year in the United States; nine dollars for two years' We regret a typographical error that slipped six dollars a year elsewhere. ' into Freda Utley's "England After Austerity" The editors cannot be responsible for unsolicited manuscripts unless return postage or better, a stamped, sel£i-addressed envelope is enclosed. Manuscripts mUst be typed (February 22 issue). Page 375, column 1, para­ double-spaced. graph 3, line 12: "reduced to sixpence" should Articles signed with a name, pseudonym, or initials do not necessarily represent the opinion of the editors, either as to substance or style. read "reduced by sixpence." As is evident, this ~ 11 Printed in U.S.A., by· Wilson H. Lee Co., Orange, Contlecticut small word makes a world of difference. II FROM OUR READERS II

Why Don't The Bricker Amendment I have been reviewing in my mind You the more or less unanimity of the deans of law schools in being opposed to the Bricker Amendment. I wonder if Restore these men are mostly United World Federalists. Here is a quotation from Dean Erwin N. Griswold of Harva,rd: Faith in ... I feel that it is a mistake to attempt to guard against the result of electing some future unwise President and unwise Senate by a Promises constitutional limitation' restricting their powers. The national safe­ guards against mistakes in foreign policy should remain where they by returning to the were placed in 1789. The faith of our fathers in this area may well GOLD COIN STANDARD? serve us as a sound example. I regard this as so much twaddle. The fact of the matter is that with the present wording in the Constitu­ tion, a United Nations treaty is su­ perior to the Constitution and to all laws ,that may have been enacted or may be enacted, even though the treaty governs internal affairs of the United States. Notwithstanding this wide-open door to fundamental changes in the law of our land, Dean Griswold wants us to depend upon electing a wise President AMERICA'S envied standard of living policy, can redeem currency for gold has been built by faith in promises­ coin. Such action automatically halts and wise Senators to safeguard our faith in performance by the buyer ... issuance of inflationary currency which country. We have just had an example faith in payment by the seller. shrinks the dollar's purchasing power. of a wise Senate in the vote for a When the government in 1933 abro­ Fortunately, during the last twenty foreign treaty whereby our military gated the citizen's right to convert his years, American industry has helped men are thrown upon the' tender paper money into gold-faith in prom­ to mitigate the effect of the dollar's mercies of foreign courts if they com­ ises began to fade. Since then there has shrinking value through greater pro­ mit a domestic offense abroad. .. been a flood of fiat currency. Value of ductivity. For example, Kennametal; the dollar has declined about 60%. as a tool rpaterial, has tripled the output Davenport, Iowa JOSEPH S. KIMMEL Contracts have "escalator" clauses; of metal-cutting machinery, and sped future planning is guesswork. extraction of coal and other minerals. A few weeks ago I read that Bertrand Faith In contracts, and in human re­ But-industry's contribution is not Russell, in a report on the prevailing lationships, can best be restored by enough. The President, important Cabi­ conditions in ,the United States, had returning to it sound money system­ net members, Senators, and Congress­ told his English readers that "nobody and the only sound money system that men have recognized the need for the ventures to pass a political opinion has ever been successful is the Gold Gold Coin Standard. Why, then, should Coin Standard.* It puts control of the legislative action on it be delayed? without looking behind the door. If public purse in the hands of the people, by some misfortune you were to quote who, if displeased with government We must lead, not follow, the world back to morality in money matters. with approval some remark by Jeffer­ • Registered Trade·Mark Restoration of the Gold Coin Standard son you would probably find yourself will anchor the value of currency to behind bars." Excerpt from Republican the m.etal of historically stable worth. In my letter to Senator Ives regard­ "Monetary Policy" Plank Bickering over prices and wages will lessen ... and American industry, of ing the Bricker Amendment, I in­ which Kennametal Inc. is a key enter­ cluded the following quotation from R... 37 prise, will be able to plan and produce Jefferson: "In questions of power, let with effectiveness and assurance which no more be said of confidence in man, is fostered by faith. but bind him down from mischief by We must resume without devaluation the chains of the Constitution." Since The right to redeem *currency for gold will or delay. the time of my letter I could not help keep America free ••• ask your Sen­ One of a series of advertisements published in the public count the number of times this quota­ ators and Congress­ interest by tion has appeared in print, and up to man to work and vote to restore the Gold now, I have heard no report of im­ ~oi~h~a~~~d'si::~i~~ {. I~~lbt prisonmant for quoting it with ap­ ard League, Latrob&, / proval. For 'a learned man, it seems Pa., for further infor­ mation. The League is to me that Bertrand Russell knows an association of pa· very little. triotic citizens joined in the common cause N ew York City LAWRENCE D. FORSYTH of restoring a sound WORLD'S LARGEST Independent Manufacturer Whose Facilities are monetary system. Devoted ExclusivelY to Processing and Application of CEMENTED CARBIDES (Continued on p. 1,.90) reemanTHE

MONDAY, MARCH 8, 1954

alliance takes on a new urgency. The Soviets can The Fortnight never be talked out of the Soviet zone in Germany. They could conceivably be forced out, if the However Secretary of State Dulles tries to ex­ waves of a new June 17 revolt rise high enough. plain it away, the forthcoming Geneva conference represents to the American people an unexpected There was one incidental feature of the Berlin defeat. We 'trusted the President and Mr. Dulles conference that, we believe, must stick in the when they piously proclaimed the United States craw of most Americans. Let us put aside the would never recognize Red China or consent to its basic question whether the conference itself, admission to any meeting at which it would have as an attempted political negotiation, was justi­ equal partnership with representatives of the fied. We think it was not, but even if it was we democratic Allies. American public opinion sup­ don't see why it therefore follows that our diplo­ ported this position overwhelmingly. We have mats must at once enter into amiable social re­ been let down. As explained in detail in our lead lations with the Russians. We did not enjoy those editorial ("An Oriental Munich?", page 403), our stories and pictures of Secretary Dulles and his government has actually consented to a de facto aides at a reception in the Soviet Embassy, ap­ recognition of Red China and an "equal partner­ plauding at a Soviet concert, drinking and shaking ship" conference under the pretense that this hands with the Soviet representatives. was a point gained at Berlin. We as a nation have said-officially-that the Was this maneuver an accident? Some days before present Soviet regime is guilty of crimes beyond Mr. Dulles went to Berlin, his friend and law any that have ever been committed. We have partner, Arthur H. Dean, our chief delegate to documented some millions of its murders, en­ Panmunjom, announced to the press that it was slavements, tortures, and brutalities. We state high time we reappraised our Far Eastern policy that it aims to destroy our government and our and took a more realistic position toward the way of Hfe. Do we mean these things? There are present incumbents in China. rrhe State Depart­ times when we must deal officially with Soviet ment promptly denied such an intention, but Mr. officials. Let us do so coldly, calmly, correcMy. Let us Dean was respectfully retained in his post. He leave it at that. There is no compulsion to eat, or had, it appears, merely let the caJ out of the bag drink, or laugh with them. too soon. Few people realize how some fundamental and It is the same old Molotov. On this point there far-reaching changes are being made in inter­ could be no semblance of doubt after the pro­ preting the Taft-Hartley Act by members of the ceedings at Berlin. The Soviet Foreign Minister's National Labor Relations Board appointed by Pres­ manner may have become less truculent. But the ident Eisenhower. For one thing, they are making Soviet ice-cap shows no sign of thawing. Molo­ a determined effort to divest the board of its tov's absolute veto on the reunion of Germany in authority over business that is obviously small freedom and his grotesque proposal for European and local and that should be permitted to carry "security," which would reduce all· the free states on its labor relations under the local and state of Europe to the status of "people's democracies," law. On January 25, for example, the board topped off by the·, refusal to accept a joint evac­ refused to take jurisdiction over a laundry and uation of Austria, all point in the same direction. dry-cleaning company in Big Springs, Texas. In As Leo Dudin has shown elsewhere in this issue this case it was urged that the board should (p. 419), Malenkov's Russia, like Stalin's Russia, assume jurisdiction because the company held is not a possible partner in reasonablenegoti­ contracts to do the laundry of an Air Force ations. The rearming of West Germany within base in Big Springs. Quite properly the majority the framework of an American-European grand of the board was not moved by this argument.

MARCH 8, 1954 401 'However, Abe Murdock, a holdover New Deal Owen Lattimore (Solution in Asia, pp. 138, 139) member of the board, behaved as if this decision that for the Kazakhs of Chinese Turkestan "the put the nation's defense program in jeopardy. Soviet Union stands for strategic security, eco­ "I am unwilling," he wrote, "to take the position nomic prosperity, technological progress, miraculous that laundry service for hospitals of the armed medicine, free education, equality of opportunity services is an unimportant or unsubstantial aspect and democracy." It would seem that someone is of the national defense or to speculate as to the ,giving a fals'e impression of the true feelings of the extent to which this hospita'l might be, able to get Kazakhs ; and there is no reasori to question the a timely substitute'." This time, luckily, Mr. Mur­ integrity of Mr. Price. dock failed to have his way. But it must be re­ membered that it is members of administrative One of the major dissatisfactions of Republicans 'boards, like the N.L.R.B., who, 'regardless of the with the Eisenhower Administration has been the wishes of 'Congress, make the Ilaw of the land. failure to remove Truman holdovers. Indignation was intensified recently by the appointment of a The forced resignation of Clarence Manion as New Deal Democrat to the important and sensitive chairman of the Commission on Inter-Govern­ post of U.S. representative on the United Nations mental Relations because of his support of the Administrative TribunaL The appointee is Jacob Bricker Amendment is discouraging to the future M. Lashly of St. Louis, a long-time Democrat, participation of free and free-minded citizens former law partner of Clark Clifford (under the in government. Mr. Manion is no fly-by-night or Truman Administration a member of the Presi­ opportunistic politician seeking advancement dential staff), an active party man who worked through government appointment. For twenty­ hard in the 1952 elections to defeat Eisenhower seven years he was professor of consitutional law and the Republican candidates in Missouri. at the University of Notre Dame and for eleven years dean of its law school. He has a sound Lawrence Fertig, New York businessman and basis for believing, as he stated in his letter of columnist on economics and political affairs, a resignation, that "a constitutional amendment is Republican and Eisenhower supporter, was ap­ necessary to put the same limitations upon the parently scheduled to receive this post. At the treaty power that now apply to every other power last minute he was shunted aside in favor of the of our state and federal governments." Some of Democratic appointee. Why? It seems that Lashly his colleagues disagree with him, as do also the is a friend of John Foster Dulles, and was once President and his adviser, Sherman Adams, who encouraged to believe he might be named to the requested the resignation. This is not, however, place on the Supreme Court actually filled by a convincing reason for casting off an able public Earl Warren. To allay his disappointment, Mr. servant who is well equipped by experience to Dulles is said to have pressed strongly for his handle the job to which he was assigned. appointment to the U.N. post.

The Kazakhs (not to be confused with Russian An indignant Missourian· Republican, Glenn Cossacks) area nomadic pastoral people, living in Weber, who led his delegation in the nomination Soviet Central Asia, in S:oviet-controlled Outer of Eisenhower in 1952, resigned from the party Mongolia,and in Chinese Turkestan. Recently many in protest and announced that henceforth he thousands of them, fleeing from Communist at­ would support the Democrats in his state. That tempts to regiment their simple tribal life and may be carrying things a little too far. On the destroy their Moslem faith, have engaged in one of other hand, perhaps he figures he can really get the great heroic and tragic treks of history. They farther with his new affiliation. crossed the fierce mountains and icyplateaus of Tibet, the great majority, including almost all the A national news service feeding material to about women and children, perishing on the way. The 250 labor newspapers with ten to fifteen million survivors (1;700 out of 17,000 in the first wave of readers had to close shop February 16 because fugitives in 1941, 350 of 18,000 who set out in its budget could not support union demands. The 1949-1951) made their way into northern India and service was the Labor Press Association, run have been hospitably received and resettled near by the A.F.L., C.I.O., and various independent Adana, in 'Turkey. union people. Faced with rising production costs and an inflexible $70,000 a year budget, the L.P.A. Thei~ story is told in a recent issue of the Man­ decided to try to get along with a smaller staff. chester Guardian by M. Philips Price, a Labor mem- Oh no, said the C.I.O. Newspaper Guild, you can't 'ber of Parliament, with a knowledge of and interest discharge employees except for just and sufficient in the Moslem peoples of Russia which dates'bacl\: cause. But if we don't cut'down, the L.P.A. to the Revolution. It is interesting and instructive reasoned, we'll go broke and the entire staff will to compare Mr. Price's account, obtained directly be out of work. Labor apparently plays no from the survivors, with the glib .'. assurlance of Mr. favorites, even in the family.

402 THE FREEMAN An Oriental Munich? Deadlock or capitulation has always been the alter­ valuable raw materia1ls as tin and rubber would native in discussion with irepresentatives of the be ilost to the free world and added to the Soviet Kremlin, or of the Kremlin's junior Chinese satel­ stockpile. Japan's problem vf carrying on essential Ute. The Berlin Conference ended in both. There trade with the mainland of Asia without sur­ .was a complete deadlock on the European problems rendering to Communist political demands would that were supposed to ha,ve been the reason for be much aggravated. India would becom~ still more the conference. Because of Mr. Molotov's in­ appeasement-minded. transigence nothing approaching an agreement The importance of holding Indo-China is beyond was reached on the important questions of German dispute. But hnw is it to beheld? The French unity and a conclusion of the Austrian treaty. are becoming inc1reasingly weary of carrying the There was, on the other hand, capitulation to the burden of a protracted thankless no-decision guer­ Soviet proposall for a full-dress conference between rilla war. Native anti-Communist forces are being the Western powers and Red China. formed; but this process is not as swift or smooth It was clear almost from the beginning that the as might be hoped. American public opinion would -Soviet Union had not the slightest intention of oppose our direct mHita'ry participation, although coming to terms on 'Germany, Austria, or European lavish aid is being sent to the French and anti­ security. The West was firmly committed to a Communist Indo-Chinese. position on these subjects that Mr. Molotov never made any effort to approach. The Soviet Union One harsh fact should be faced. The "negotiated agreed to and attended the Berlin Conference for peace" so wistfully desired in Paris is an illusion. exactly one 'Purpose-to obtain a place for Red Even the unsatisfactory Korean solution-partition China as an equal participant in a future con­ of the country-is impracticable in Indo-China, ference of nations. It succeeded. where there is no equivalent of the 38th Parallel, The first item on the agenda at Berlin, pro­ a.nd the front is all over the country. It is easy posed by Molotov at the opening session of the to imagine how a settlement based on accepting conference was: the Communist leader, Ho Chi Minh, in a "coalition" Measures for reducing tension in international government would end. The only feasible alterna­ relations and the convening of a meeting of ministers tives in Indo-China are decisive military vietory -for foreign affairs of France, Britain, the United or loss of a valuable key position to the Soviet­ States, the Soviet Union, and the Chinese People's Chinese Communist empire. Republic. There is a danger that in a desire to be as In spite of Mr. Dulles' insistence before the con­ accommodating as possible to the French point ference that the United iStates would not agree to of view on Indo-China, we might succumb to the a five-power meeting with Communist China, he illusion that there would be some he'aling virtue and the other Western :powers accepted this prep- in recognizing Red China or admitting it to the -aratory item presumably for time-saving purposes. United Nations. It is a curious coincidence that During subsequent secret sessions this issue was early in January, when Roscoe Drummond was discussed in connection with M. Bidault's desire reporting in the New York Herald Tribune the to find some means of ending the war in Indo-China. existence in the State Department of sentiment The upshot of it all is that a conference will be for considering such a course, the Bevanite New held in 'Geneva on April 26 which will include Statesman in London published an article to the representatives of Communist China. Although both same effect. It is difficult to avoid the suspicion the settlement of a Korean t>reaty and peace in that where there is smoke from two independent Indo-China will be the subje'cts of the meeting, it sources there may be fire. In view of this it is is only the latter on which any action is expected. imperative for us to dig in firmly on the line of ten The French are more than eager to end the con­ good reasons why we should neither recognize flict in Indo-China. They can do so only if Peiping Communist China diplomatically nor countenance ceases helping Ho Chi Minh and his Communist its admission to the U.N. forces. 1. Either of these steps would be a stunning The problem of what should and can be done to blow to our anti-Communist friends in .Asia and prevent Communism from sweeping Indo-China is a stimulus to Communist expansion. one of the hardest that confronts the Western 2. Red China is an unrepentant and partially powers today. If Ip.do-China falls, the danger to successful aggressor in Korea. Thailand, Burma, and Malaya will be greatly 3. The Chinese Communist regime is keeping enhanced, as a glance at the map shows. And if alive the war in Indo-China and stirring up as much all of southeast Asia should fall, several disastrous trouble as possible throughout Asia. consequences would follow. Rich reserves of such 4. This regime has made a practice of insulting

MARCH 8, 1954 403 and maltreating American diplomats and other interest, an objective that had for twelve years American citizens within its power. been enti'rely overlooked and disregarded. 5. 'The torture and maltreatment of U.N. war Now the President has put before Congress a prisoners by the Red Chinese and N'orth Koreans new set of proposed changes in the law. Most of was a major international scandal. these had best be forgotten, the sooner the better. 6. The Red Chinese government shows no signs For their purpose is not to improve the law, or ®f abating its terrific Hate America propaganda, to eradicate well-known evils, but to grant con­ including lying charges of germ warfare. cessions to political labor leaders who' have heen 7. This Chinese government has engaged in huge clamoring for them since 1947 when the Wagner extortion rackets against foreign business firms Act was replaced by Taft-Hartley. still stuck in China, and against Chinese abroad. 8. Anything that enhanced the international One of the President's 'proposals deals with a prestige of Red China would expose the large critical issue, the authority national unions ex­ Chinese communities in southeast Asia to Com­ ercise over the lives and fortunes of their members. munist pressure, infiltration, and coercion. It is at this point that effective reform in our 9. The unfortunate British experiment in recog­ labor relations, if it is to be made at all, must nizing Red China has proved a pitiful fiasco, be applied. morally, politically, and commercially. P.resident Eisenhower has approached a central 10. Among other unsavory activities, the Com­ labor problem with insight and common sense. He munist gang in control of China has 'gone in for wrote to Congress: illegal narcotics trade and for piracy against In the employer-employee relationship there is Japanese and other foreign vessels. nothing which so vitally affects the individual em­ Instead of such a positive policy we have signed ployee as the loss of his pay when he is on strike. up for a round table conference (the round table In such an important decision he should have an is a tacit concession 'to Mr. Molotov) . This means opportunity to express his free choice by secret ballot held under government auspices. that delegates of Communist China will sit down as equal participants with the representatives of Not surprisingly, it was this proposal which other nations, as was Mr. Molotov's intention drew upon the President the full wrath of labor from the start. At the best such a conference can Ileaders and their defenders. It was promptly con­ only be a repetition of the lost weeks at Berlin. demned as unwarranted interference with "free At the worst it can touch off a Far Eastern Munich. and democratic collective bargaining." It was received also with manifest coolness, if not hostility, by the leading newspapers of the country as if the power to call thousands of men and women The Strike-Vote Issue on strike and to keep them out a month or two months was a purely private matter. It ought to be clear to all who have studied the There is ample evidence to show that many of Wagner and Taft-Hartley Acts, or who have the great 'strikes with which this country has operated under them, that the essential amend­ been afflicted since 1945 were arbitrarily called and ments to these statutes should aim to curb the deliberately 'prolonged by the political machines excessive power today possessed by the common that manage our unions. There is no record of run of American labor unions. These powers were consultation on these matters with the ranks of gifts thoughtlessly and recklessly conferred upon employees, let alone bona fide secret ballots taken unions by agencies of the federal government, to gauge the wishes of the people who are to strike. legislative and executive. In assessing the blame for This was the case in a succession of coal strikes, this condition, nothing is to he gained by search­ and in the steel strikes of 1950 and 1952. ing for unknown culprits. Mistakes in policy-and On the railroads it is the common assumption they were serious and far-reaching mistakes-were that strikes are authorized by seeret votes. Hardly made by all of the responsible branches of the anyone knows that the railroad unions write their government-the President, Congress, various and own strike ballots, that each voter writes on his sundry administrative 'boards, and, in lesser ballot his name, address, and place of work, and measure, the·federal courts. that the union itself counts these "secret" ballots. The Taft-Hartley Act was the ,first, though 'The whole business is conducted without any public inadequate, attempt to deal with the unlimited scrutiny, supervision, or interest. powers of private organizations. It sought to pro­ This recommendation of the President's merits tect some of the rights of individual employees the most careful consideration by Congress. There which were being swiftly destroyed by unions are, of ,course, risks in the adoption of this ex­ that acted as if they were beyond the law. It pedient. But it is hard to see these risks are undertook to restore to employers a few of the as great as the risks which workingmen and the rights they had lost ,since 1935. It made feeble public now face from the arbitrary and uncontrolled beginnings in defining and safeguarding the public acts of the political machines of organized labor.

404 THE FREEMAN less and less since the State Department has an­ Party Strife Is Healthy nounced the doctrine that there is no real dif­ ference between foreign and domestic policy. There seems to be something both selective and There was something to be said for bipartisanship synthetic in the anguished outcries of certain when foreign policy began and ended at the New Deall columnists about "excessive partisan­ ,vater's edge and affected domestic policy hardly ship" in Republican speeches. The persons who pro­ at all. It is different now. For one thing bipartisan­ fess to be shocked by occasional references to ship may easily lead to something like one-party Democratic Iresponsibility for the Alger Hisses government. Secondly, it involves the Adminis­ and the Harry Dexter Whites were not, as a rule, tration in concessions, appeasements, and stul­ disturbed when Franklin D. Roosevelt damned tifications. Thirdly, when many policies of the American businessmen as economic royalists, two parties tend to merge, as they have been libeled Colonel Lindbergh as a copperhead, or doing for twenty years, bipartisanship is a device tried to discredit the Republicans as the party of for depriving people of the right to vote on many depression. Nothing, perhaps, is funnier than the crucial matters, such as sound money, the Welfare spectacle of Harry S,. Truman, against a back­ State, labor monopoly, subsidies to agriculture, ground of "give 'em hell" and "pour it on" speeches and, most of all, matters of foreign policy touch­ full of the purest corn of demagogy, solemnly pro­ ing peace and war. fessing a sense of shock at Republican "demagogy." Political party strife is healthy. It releases Rough stuff is the oldest tradition of American our adrenalin fluids. To discount its verbal ex­ party politics. The first President was the first cesses and forget them is one of our fine folkways. victim. Washington was not one who could dish it out; yet ,he had to take it. Now that the Republican Party, for the first time in twenty years, has access to all the dirt in the files and Bookkeeping and Butter is doing to Truman what the Roosevelt Democrats, with gleeful savagery, did to Hoover, the Demo­ During the last week of January the Commodity eratic. Party seems unable to take it. Its screams Credit Corporation, which lends federal money to of righteous indignation are a poor defense and the farmer and buys his surplus crops, appeared no reply at all. Indeed, they serve only to give the before Congress as an arrogant bankrupt. The adversary's invective wider circulation. When farmers had been making a run on its 7,509 lending Senator William E. Jenner suggests that Truman offices. Its capital was impaired, its borrowing sent American forces to Korea not to win a war power was exhausted and its pockets would be but to lose it, and sabotaged victory when the empty in a few hours. Unless Congress threw $741,­ American forces were about to seize it in spite 000,000 into its till immediately, it would have of him, the best thing the Democratic Party could to close up shop. A bill was already pending to do would be to let it alone. The people are fair inerease its borrowing power from $6,750,000,000 in their afterthoughts and hate hitting below the to $8,500,000,000. But a bill has to be debated and belt. They do not expect a President to be in­ takes time, whereas it wanted the money at once. fallible and are charitable toward errors of How could Congress do that? By passing a joint judgment. resolution to wipe out $741,000,000 of the Com­ Theodore Roosevelt once complained to his modity Credit Corporation's LO.U.'s held in the friend Lincoln Steffens that he felt his popularity vaults of the U.IS. Treasury. Then it could borrow to be slipping. Steffens, a very wise old cynic, more money and be in cash again. said: "Then commit the worst political blunder The House had already passed the resolution you can think of. The more outrageously you are and then adjourned for a long week end, which denounced, the more people will rush to your meant the Senate could not amend it. It came defense." before the Senate on Friday, under an emergency The Democrats seem to have served the Eisen­ rule, and had to be passed that day, just as it hower Administration with a kind of ultimatum, was, in order to reach the President on Saturday. to the effect that unless the Republican tongue is Suppose it wasn't. What terrible thing would hap­ purged of its venom they will break the harmony pen? Well in that case, said the head of the of bipartisanship as to matters of policy wherein Commodity Credit Corporation, he would have to the Eisenhower program differs not too much from send telegrams to 3,000 county agents saying, the Truman program, especially foreign policy. "No more loans. We are busted." Imagine what It is a powerful threat because the Republican that would do. It might cause a panic in agricul­ margin in Congress is too small to put over the tural prices. It might ruin the whole farm program. Eisenhower program without some support from Senator John J. Williams (R. Del.) said: "Then the Democratic Party. he had better Ibegin to write the telegrams right But so what? We have never been able to find away and find out for sure what will happen, anything sacred in the bipartisan principle-and because I am not going to vote for this resolution."

MARCH 8, 1954 405 The reso~ution, which required unanimous consent, 'went nver until Monday. No telegrams were sent; The Planning Mentality nothing happened. The debate was resumed on Monday and turned In his Economic Report to Congress the Presi­ largely on the Commodity Credit Corporation's dent said: "The arsenal of weapons at the dis­ bookkeeping. How did it know it was busted? posal of government for maintaining economic How had it arrived at the figure of $741,000,000 stability is formidable." He promises that he will to represent the impairment of its capital? Its not hesitate to use any or all of them, and if he apologists explained that the law required it to needs still more power he will ask Congress to charge itscaJpital with the losses on a six-billion­ confer it. But stability alone is not enough, dollar inventory of surplus agricultural Icommod­ because "The American people will not be long ities, owned and in storage or under loan, some of content with employment opportunities that are it spoiHng. But were' these losses actual or pros­ merely stable, or with a stationary standard of pective? Nobodycould say for sure. living." Therefore a stabilized economy must expand. Then .he says this: Take butter. The Commodity Credit Corporation The key to governmental planning for economic had more than 200,000,000 pounds of butter for growth is, of course, the federal budget. Generally which it had paid 67 cents a pound to support speaking, it sums up every activity undertaken by the price. All it knew for sure was that its butter the government for the people and every payment was worth less than it had cost. During the year by the people to the government. it had been able to dispose of some butter. Adding Ponder the assumptions that are implicit in up all of these receipts and dividing that sum by these few words. The first is that it is the func­ the number of pounds disposed of, it arrived at tion of government to plan the growth of the an average of 38 cents, and that, it said, was the economy. How it grew to be what it is-the most average market price for butter. The difference dynamic economy that ever existed in the world­ between 67 cents and 38 cents·applied to more than without the aid of government planning, no 200,000,000 ipounds of butter was $71,000,000, a planner seems to know. The second assumption loss it charged to its capital ac:count to prove it is that private enterprise alone cannot do it. The was bankrupt. Note that the 67 cents it paid for government must intervene with its powerful butter was an artificial price, upheld by the gov­ weapons. The third assum·ption ia that vision, ernment's buying to remove the surplus from the judgment, and wisdom are the divine attributes market, and at the same time what it called the of government. average market price of 38 cents was absurd and imaginary, bealring no possible relation to what Fifteen years ago the New Deal planners, with the butter would ,bring if it had to be sOild. a broken Recovery Program on their hands and Senator WHliams wanted to know how, for pur­ unable to believe that they could have been wrong, poses of bookkeeping, the Commodity Credit arri'ved at the idea that they had been defeated Corporation could say 38 cents was the average by one astonishing and hitherto undiscovered market value of butter, when, first, there was no fact-namely, that the American economy could free and open market on which that guess could not expand any more. It was mature. It would be tested, and second, the only butter market be static thereafter and unable to provide people extant was the 'one cont'rolled by the Commodity with adequate buying power. This was proved Credit Corporation itself, where .everybody was by charts, diagrams, and false reasoning. The obliged to pay 67 cents? conclusion was that deficit spending had to be 'The only result of the debate was that the Com­ from that time on a permanent policy of govern­ modity Credit Corporation's demand was shaved. ment, else the people would fall into great poverty. Instead of $741,000,000 it 'got only $681,000,000­ They would never again have natural income that being the amount of its notes which the enough to buy all that they were able to produce. Treasury was directed to tear up and throw in President Roosevelt adopted that thesis. the wastebasket, and this a makeshift only until The tremendous expansion that has taken place Congress could pass the bill increasing its borrow- since then was not planned. Necessity obliged it. ing powell'" to $8,500,000,000. ' But the planning mentality is tough. Failure does Meanwhi1le, under the umbrel'la, enormous quan­ not touch it. It will do better next time if only tities of grain continue to be imported from it has more power. Canada, which obliges the Commodity Credit The point of these remarks is to call attention Corporation to lend American farmers more on to the fact that the idea of a·planned economy their surplus grain ; meanwhile Mexican labor continues to stalk its prey through the tall continues to be imported to enable fa1rmers in bipartisan grass. The prey, now sore and limping, the Southwest to increase their production, and is the free economy in which the regulating prin­ meanwhile the American consumer will continue ciple is not intervention by government but the to fume-and pay. free market.

406 THE FREEMAN Eggheads Through History

Planners 0/ a model society administered by an By JOHN T. FLYNN intellectual elite lorget that the techniques o I acquiring and wielding power inevitably pass Irom the philosophers to practical politicians.

Something aver a year ago Mr. Louis Bromfield, in healthy 'mind can object to social planning? And, the FREEMAN ("The Triumph of the Egghead," after all, who are capable of understanding the De1cember 1, 1952) defined the word egghead. It aspirations of the people better than the Thinkers, was designed to describe a character who pretends the'scholars, the philosophers? to the title of philosopher-a sort of professionall intellectual-dedicated to the theory that the egg­ It Began with Plato heads are the appointees of Destiny who will bring something known in the trade as "security" to a What is litUe known is that throughout history creature known as the "common man" in return for this notion of the Planned Society has been con­ which aU" they ask 'is that he deliver his soul to sidered to he a department of philosophy and its the management of a government operated by the practic'al administration the function of the phil­ eggheads. The society of the eggheads embraces osopher. As far as I know the earliest-certainly Communists, Socialists, rudimentary Fascists along the most famous--of these planning evangelists with a numerous following ofcerta1in publishers was Plato who, in his Republic, sketched his perfect and their wive'S, rich men's sons and daughters, society. There would be no private wealth, but and even some corporate vice presidents. Several all would ibe rich, since all would have an equal of our convinced left-wing phiJosophers, in the "allotment" of leisure, merrymaking, visiting, early thirties, discovered a magic brand name for drinking wine, and begetting children-but all in their product-the Planned Society. moderation, particularly the last. There would be The central idea in this revolutionary method was three groups-the Workers who would produce, the that the business of planning and managing the vVarriors who would defend the city, and the Phil­ model society belongs not to politicians or business­ osophers-to be called Guardians-who would men but to the intellectuals---Socialism or cause they could never become philosophers or egg­ Commun'ism under a new 'brand label, plus the heads. The producer and merchant and warrior are insidious appeal to the vanity of the Heavy hopeless in the field of statesmanship-"Until Thinkers on the campus, in the labor unions, in philosophers are kings, or kings and princes have the Colony Club and s'imilar roosting places for the spirit of philosophy, cities win never cease deep-thinking ladies, as well as in the lower echelons from ill." (Plato: The Republic.) of bank and corporate directorates. It is to these Perhaps the most famous of these mythieal tall-ibrowed heavy thinkers that the name of heavens is the happy island community. of Sir eggheads has been given. 1 do .not·pretend to know Thomas More, to which he gave the name of Utopia, why, but it seems almost incredibly appropriate. which has continued in use to describe these en­ It seems to distill the essences out of several other closed social heavens. More was a scholar and a words such as double-dome, crackpot, do-gooder, dreamer who, after his break with Henry VIII, and pinko. It describes, as Mr. Brom·field Observed, went to the Tower and the'll to the headsman with the inteUectual lacking in common sense, a doc­ perfect composure. During the imprisonment pre­ trinaire contemptuous of experience, a fuzzy­ ceding his beheading he described the perfect minded, starry-ey.ed dreamer. society discover,ed by a mythical navigator caned The explosive element in this philosophy is in Raphael Hythloday. The people divided their time the two words which describe it---"the Planned between agriculture and industry, the whole prod­ Society or Economic Planning. After all, what uct going to a common warehouse. There was no

MARCH 8, 1954 407 gold, no hoarding, no covetousne'Ss. The dirty work one fortune, amassing another, he settled down as was done by slaves convicted of transgressing the a qualified philosopher and wrote three volumes on law. Every thirty families chose a magistrate; the Industrial System and Christianity. He con­ each ten magistrates chose an over-magistrate who cluded, of course, that the new order must be de­ served for life and who chose a philosopher-prince signed by the scientists, run by the industrialists. who also ruled for life. ' It would guarantee jobs and s'ecurity for all. This Not long after More, another philosopher, Francis idea immediately attracted a whole rabble of pro­ Bacon, created another earthly paradise ruled fessors, writers, poets, lawyers, some eng.ineers, by another philosopher-king. He conjured out of and a number of politicians. Sit. Simon finally the mystic seas his own island-New Atlantis. Here drifted out of the movement, and the leadership fell the center of authority was Solomon's House, a to Enfantin, who committed it to free love, thereby laboratory where twelve chosen students pursued disrupting it altogether. the search for truth and made up the aristocracy. About the same time Campanella, an ItaUan Rule by Philo8ophers monk, brought from the deep his fabled island, the City of the Sun. Here the people were poor These erratic intellectual adventurers were not because they possessed nothing and rich because fools. Many were men of large intelligence. But they wanted for nothing. The state was supreme there is a little screw somewhere near the center and deposited in the hands of "an aristocracy of the intellect which holds all its functions to­ of learning." In the City of the Sun, incidentally, gether in harmony, .so that a man. may dream, yet Campanella discovered progressive education cen­ dream within reason. When that little screw gets turies before John Dewey. The city had seven loose, the imagination, the reason, and the sense great walls on which were presented pictorially of order and proporition begin revolving in con­ the seven regions ,of knowledge, from which the trary and ecc'entric orbits with amazing results. children would inhale education painlessly while A:ssociated with St. Simon was a far greater in­ they played. tellect-that strange recluse who might well be installed as the patron saint of the eggheads: Masterpieces of Credulity Auguste Comte. He is the perfect example of the mental philosopher who presumes to reorder the The last half of the eighteenth century and the world of men. and work of which he knows nothing. first quarter of the nineteenth produced the most His method was to retire into complete seclusion, extr;aordinary eruption of authentic eggheads in avoid newspapers and economic matter, and devote history. The age of reason and of the machine himself to reading religious and political works. was dawning. The old order was crumbling, but Thus withdrawn from the play of economic, polit­ the philosopher with his enclosed heaven would ical, and human forces, he prepared a blueprint for persist. There was, for inst,ance, Etienne Cabet, the reconstruction of society.

who discovered a new Utopia called Icaria. This c Comte sought a substitute for God, and created was a heavenly democracy divided into a hundred " Humanity as a vague deity to be worshipped. Then provinces arranged around a capitol situated in he tried to duplicate the images, sacrifices, and the very center. All streets and blocks w,ere ar­ ceremonial devotional forms of religion-even ranged on a mathematical pattern. All industry prayers. There would be a hierarchy with its and a'griculture was state-owned. All the peo­ officialdom, priesthood, and an elaborate series of ple, regardless of sex, dressed alike. Education was feast-days to excite the devotion of the faithful. compulsory and all must work to the age of sixty­ Running through it all, however, was the coneept five. The people chose their state officers, but only that the rule of the people belongs to the philos­ from among the certified technicians; those selected ophers, who would form a sort of priesthood in this constituted a Dictatorship of the Technicians, who new church. Here was eggheadism in its perfected possessed, among other powers, absolute censorship form. of literature. The most dramatic episode in this series of weird Impatient to establish his heaven on earth and adventures occurred in our own country under the balked in France; Cabet took his blueprints to name of Fourierism. Charles Fourier was a French Texas, of all ,places, from which he was driven by traveHng isales,man who made the comforting dis­ yellow fever to Illinois. There he set up an ideal covery that the earth was passing out of its infancy. community of over a thousand members. But his He had a plan to insure 70,000 glorious years for Icarians began to behave like human beings. They mankind, when lions would be used as draft animals argued and quarreled among themselves, and the and Whales would draw vessels through the ocean. paradise dissolved. He proposed to organize society into phalanxes, It taxes belief to witnes:s these masterpieces of small agricultural communities each with less than credulity launched by men of great intelligence. two thousand inhabitants. Workers would dine in a Take Henri de Saint·Simon, for instance,. born in central hall on mea1ls prepared in a great kitchen 1760. After a bizarre career, which included losing by expert cooks. Every inhabitant would produce

408 THE FREEMAN enough·from his eighteenth to his twenty-eighth to be sensitive to the problem of sociall reconstruc­ birthday to support him in leisure for the rest of tion, are apt to offer a peculiarly hospitable incuba­ his life. Each community would be headed by a tion to these giddy ideas. In these later years egg­ Unarch, and all the phalanxes would be united headism has run like a scourge through our colleges under an Omniarch. and our journals of opinion. The younger the thinker, the bolder his philosophy. This bursting Early American Eggheads egotism of the young intellectual who feels his diploma confers upon him authority to seize the Curious as this movement was, even more curious world by the scruff of the neck and shake it into was what happened to it when it crossed the ocean good behavior may be seen in this chant of the to America. Here it enlisted the passionate support youthful Rexford Tugwell, just emerging from the of many of the most famous writers, thinkers, Columbia campus: journalists, and teachers of the day. Its most noted convert was Horace Gree'ley, founder of the New I am strong. I am big and well-made. York Tribune, a candidate against U. S. Grant in I am sick of a nation's stenches. the 1872 Presidential elections. Greeley was brought I am sick of propertied czars. into Fourierism by Albert Brisbane, an able jour­ I have dreamed my great dream of their passing. nalist who was engaged by Greeley to expound its I have gathered my tools and my charts. My plans are finished and practical. philosophy in the Tribune. Another convert was I shall roll up my sleeves-make America over. Paul Godwin, associate of the New York Evening Post. Charles A. Dana, editor of the Sun, also Here is the egghead literally on fire-true in­ enlisted for this new edition of paradise. But the heritor of the "book and the torch" of Plato and real center of the movement was the Transcen­ Bacon and Campanella, of St. Simon and Comte, dentalist Club of Boston, the rendezvous then of and above all of that molehill of poets and musi­ America's intellectual world. There N'athaniel Haw­ cians and novelists and philosophers and journalists thorne, 'Villiam Ellery· Channing, George Ripley, and teachers who fluttered around the pale but Ralph 'Valdo Emerson, and others breathed their beautiful candlelight of Brook Farm. collective souls into the movement. George Ripley, The modern eggheads are the natural inheritors literary critic and encyclopedist, who was also a of the divine right of revolution and social recon­ Unitarian minister, bought a 200-acre tract not far struction. But with this immense difference. They from Boston \vhere the first phalanx was organized no longer talk of Brook Farms and Icarias and under the auspices of the famous Brook Farm small enclosed village communes. Long ago Karl Institute of Agriculture and Education. The central Marx saw the end of that nonsense. Universal suf­ building was nearing completion when it was frage and the machine changed the nature of the burned to the ground. With it the great dream struggle. The philosophers now talk of throwing perished. down the boundaries of nations and subjecting not This was the first authentic roost of the first a.village, but a world to their planning. What was great collection of eggheads in· America. Ralph once called Communism applied to a village republic Waldo Emerson wrote to Carlyle in England: "We has become Socialism erected over a vast nation. are a little wild here with numberless projects of But they do not call it Socialism. It is now being social reform-not a reading man but has a draft peddled under a new brand name-the Planned of a new community in his pocket." It was the same Economy. in England. Social conditions in England indeed But the great objective is the same. Beginning cried aloud for reform. And there were serious, with the nation, the population will enjoy the vote practical men busy ,vith that task. But there was but under arrangements such that the power of the same giddy flock of eggheads, too, flying those who control the state will be so great it can­ through the rosycloudlands of transcendental not be successfully challenged. But our bold and economics. hopeful eggheads make one decisive mistake. They 'The root idea at the bottom of this long history suppose they will control the state. It may be the of reckless social blueprinting from Plato to Henry peculiar forte of the philosophers to dream, but Wallace and the Americans for Democratic Action when the dream has been realized and the state has is that social planning is the peculiar mission of been invested with these vast and compulsive pow­ the poet, the essayist, the novelist, the professor, ers, it will be not only the governor but the em­ and the technician. I do not by any means infer ployer of all, with a power over men's bodies and that all intellectuals are eggheads. I merely suggest minds too great to be resisted. At this point the that eggheadism is an occupational disease of the management of the state will come into the hands intellectual, to which the shallow or the frustrated not of the professors and their fellow intellectuals, or the unsuccessful or the angry or vengeful in­ but of the practical politicians who understand the tellectual, particularly if he has a passion for techniques of acquiring and retaining and manag... hatred or notoriety, is· exposed. I would also suggest ing power. Then, I suggest, most of the eggheads that members of these crafts, if they are disposed will be in j ail or in flight to Canada or. Mexico.

MARCH 8, 1954 409 Can Productivity Be Exported?

Si,nce 1948 five thousand European representatives By ASHER BRYNES of labor and management have sought the secret of ou.r industrial success. Here is what they learned.

Why does the United States produce more goods costs against the dollar cost of typical commodities than any other country in the world? What is in this country; and they did the same thing, in the secret of AmeDican production? Can this secret the same way, for their own countries. They dis­ be communicated to other nations? These ques­ covered that industrial workers in the United tions were 'answered recently in a unique and States earn from ,two to five times the purchasing somewhat roundabout way. In the summer of power of European workers. 1948 a side project of the Marshall Plan was launched under the name of "Technical Assistance Work Pace Studied Program." An infinitesimally small sum was alloted to it-only about one twentieth of one per cent All the European trade unionists were eager of the total lent or given away in Europe or Asia to know whether the brisk movements of American in the past six years. The ,idea was to show workers did not tire them out. The 'answer was European industries on all levels how to produce that in mass-production factories the work pace more goods for themselves. Firsthand acquaintance was always set by agreement between the manage­ with American production would, it was hoped, ment and the labor union. What they saw, it had allay their fears that the adoption of our pro­ to be pointed out to them, was the result of a duction techniques would lead to unemployment, technique of doing things with both hands that "cut-throat competition," bankruptcy. The plan, as had been developed by American production engi­ organized under the aegis of the Economic Co­ neers. Such methods of putting as many as pos­ operation Administra'tion, called for study visits sible of a worker's motions to effective use, to­ to this country of representative foreign groups gether with the breakdown of operations into steps of businessmen, management,enginee'rs, workers. so simple that workers could achieve an extra­ The dollar costs involved in these trips would be ordinary agree of deftness, accounted for Amer­ met out of Mar.shall Plan funds. ican labor's ability to produce at remarkable Early the following year the first "productivity speeds with little strain. teams" began to arrive in the United States. At The total effect of these methods was forcibly the outset they were mostly labor te'ams. It was summarized by an American labor union officialwho generally agreed that first of all European workers lectured a French productivity team on 'its way must see that American production methods do through W,ashington, D. C. HI have always been not drive wage-earners to exhaustion and in­ a Socialist, and I ,still am," he was reported as termittent idleness. After briefings in New York saying. "That is my ideal; but I am a realist. The by regional representatives of the A.F.L.and capitalistic system as it is applied in the United C.I.O., these first labor teams went on tours of States brings the workers advantages superior to the country. They visited union locals in the East those enjoyed by the workers of any other country. and Middle West; they looked into a few mass­ So long as this ,continues, I do not see why we production factories; and they examined the much­ should want to change our system." publicized Tennessee VaHey Authority. Finally, they After this first phase, industry and specialist wound up rin Washington to attend lectures by the teams began to 'arrive. They came in groups of Labor Division of the E.G.A., to visit the Depart­ between eight and fourteen people, busine.ssmen, ment of Labor, and to discuss American unem­ engineers, accountants, and rank-and-file workers. ployment insurance and social security systems. Each man had been nominated by his particular The European trade unionists came away, gen­ trade association, professional society, or union; erally speaking, with the knowledge that American together they represented management, technicians, wage-earners did in fact own automobiles and and labor of a particular industry. They were drove to work in them every day. They saw also supposed to travel together and inspect the Amer­ that in the factories everyone seemed ,to 'be known ican firms which produced the same goods as by his first name, and this was even more impres­ their industry. It was expected that if all members sive than the automobiles. They asked for figures of an industry team agreed that some machine, on paychecks and divided them into hours of process, procedure, or layout they found in ·the work and priced the result, to determine real United •States was an improvement over the way

410 THE FREEMAN chings were done in their· factories at home, they ffi@untains of goods. However, they did not evaluate would readily consent among themselves to adopt what they saw. They did not rate the various these improvements in their own industry. factors of. production as we do. These productivity teams covered a fairly large 'The difference is a question of priorities rather section of economic activity in this country. The than of point by point understanding. But the British alone sent out over sixty teams, composed key to all effective action turns on the right of nine hundred experts, who explored such fields answer to the problem of priorities. The teams as iron and, steel, heavy chemic'als, management noticed, quite rightly, that American industry accounting, and mater,ials handling. The only im­ does not have any revoluHonary ideas or device's portant aspects they did not investigate were such for boosting production. They saw many improved financial services as the .flotation, distribution, and models of machines whose prototypes are already trading of various securities; the organization of used everywhere in Europe, many refinements of investment trusts or funds, and the insurance manufacturing procedure and product design, and industry and banking services. The last was an much ingenious gadgetry such as hand tools and important omission beeause, generally speaking, work holders· of simple form and construction. European banks do not support business activity as Considered separately these were small matters. vigorously as in the United States; business loans The more important fact was that they added up. are harder to get, and interest rates are about They never were utilized separately, because twice as high, particularly on the Continent. Americans, labor and management together, co­ With their U.S. government guides, secretaries, ordinated all the machines, all the stages of the and press agents, with film for their cameras and productive process, to achieve an uninterrupted per diem dollars to pay for transportation, hotel flow of production. The miracle was how much came accommodations, and other expenses, they inspected out at the end of the production line, not in any about two thousand American plants and places step along the way. They discovered it to be two of business. Altogether, well over five thousand to three ,times the output per worker in the British members of productivity teams of all na,tions­ industry, and as much as five times the output British, French, Italian, Norwegian, Dutch, and so of similar workers in continental Europe. When on- toured this country. they went back along American assembly Hnes The value of the time contributed by Amer­ to re-check they were surprised again. Nobody ican citizens was also substantial. Many of the seemed to be laboring under any great strain. team inspections. were all-day affairs whichre­ This 'mystery was prophetically analyzed a quired the participation of senior management century and a quarter ago when Charles Babbage, personnel and caused serious interruption of the a Cambridge University professor with a practical very production that was under study. The enlight­ turn of mind, published a remarkable book on the enment, often followed by the entertainment of use of machinery in manufacturing operations in these visiting delegations, was in fact a free­ 1832. The abstra'ct of it, given by Mr. Hutton, sums enterprise offering, in addition to the payment of up the principles of scientific management today: taxes which defrayed the cost of the larger show. Machine-manufactures economize in human effort and time...But machines must have long runs of British Observers Were Surprised production in order to be economical. All consumers' wants should therefore become standardized and Now nearly all of the team reports have been simplified. Manufacture by machines can then be on published in a babel of languages, and again the such a scale that units of the end-product become English have come up first with a full-blown sum­ very cheap. The machines themselves should become standardized for the same reason. Those countries mary of what they saw. Under the catchy title of with the biggest reserve of machinery will then have We Too Can Prosper1 Graham Hutton, formerly of the highest standards of living, the least human toil, the editorial staff of the London Economist, and the greatest material rewards, and the greatest subsequently a commercial attache of the British material power. consulate in Chicago, has compiled an official I t is significant that this unknown pioneer of super-report for the British Productivity Council. the study of productivity, writing at the commence­ In this handy volume the complication of tech­ ment of the industrial boom that made England nological deta'il which made up the bulk of the "the greatest material power" through the middle original reports had to be filtered out, of course, years of the past century-roughly, from 1830 to but the general observations upon the American 1880-looked at the question precisely as American social and economic background-the environment businessmen do. He was distribution-minded. Cus­ of production, so to speak-have actually been tomers should ,be induced, he said, to ask for expanded and clarified in many points. Apparently what machines can make. He thought that the nothing of importance escaped the notice of the cheapness and abundance of machine-made products teams. They clearly ·saw what we do to turn out would be sufficient to accomplish this; and in his time he was right. Price advantage alone was lWe Too Can Prosper, by Graham Hutton. 248 pp. New York: The -Macmillan Company. $2.75 enough. Today our methods are more thorongh-

MARCH 8, 1954 411 going and complex, but the priority is the same. result that the workers themselves are frozen in In the United States the effort to achieve higher unemployment if the fa'ctories in a particular productivity begins with a study of the consumer, locality happen to shut down. with a program of marketing research to find There have been sensational gains in productivity out what he wants and how much of it he is likely here and there throughout Europe and in South­ to buy if it is more effectively advertised and east Asia, but the picture is spotty and the statistics distributed, as well as more effectively produced, are .misleading. On the political side it happens that is, offered at a better pri'ce. Once these facts to be a fact that more people in Italy and about are known, capital to finance the design 'and pro­ as many in France are now voting for Communist curement of specialized production machines can candidates as six years ago, :before the Pro­ be raised, stocks of the necessary raw materials ductivity Program began. England, with the most purchased, extra workers hired and, finally, the showy record of production gains, is slowly losing goods produced at a cost which, as the initial ground in the export markets of the world. German research showed, enables the producer to make a industry, on the other hand, is on the upswing. sale. It is indeed instructive that the word "pro­ The Belgians, too, have been doing.so well since ductivity" is rarely used in America hy man­ the end of the war as to be a continual embar­ agers on the job; when their shirtsleeves are rassment to the rest of Europe. Germany and rolled up they talk endlessly about "cutting costs" Belgium happen to be the countries that have or "pricing a product out of (or into) a market." adopted liberal economic policies~ If there is any lesson in this, it is that restrictive practices and Europe's Restricted Approach greater production programs do not mix, and that a liberal economy is the essential condition for the Production planning in Europe today begins more success of such efforts. often in the government department that regulates Another factor is the situation in Europe, where the factory, or in the line management of the comprehensive social security systems of every factory alone, not with customers, people, buyers type developed early and have now grown to such in the domestic market. As a consequence pro­ magnitude that a man's take from the state may duction, which in America is the byproduct of a be greater than his average earnings for doing successful alignment of costs and prices to. fit the useful work. In France, for example, the father pocketbooks of consumers in a free market, has of a family of five collects about $100 monthly, come to mean something else abroad. In closed, an amount that is more than his, wages but which, restricted, or controlled markets the idea-since in addition to his wages, still does not add up it normally depends on finding more customers-is to an adequate income. It is such a pension rather also restricted and cut down to the size of a than his job and his earnings that have come to neat, small problem; how to squeeze more goods be every man's inalienable right. In other words, out of a given production facility with a fixed it is the job that has been transformed into a number of men and machines without disturbing privilege, as it was in the early days of the anything, or changing as little as possible, in or Industrial Revolution when most people were peas­ outside the factory. ants, living miserably, and began to drift slowly The chances of achieving substantial gains iby off their farms, and out of the poorhouses, to such a restricted approach are, of course, con­ earn a .little 'extra cash in the new factories. siderably reduced. Sometimes it seems to impatient Sales-mindedness, which is the public side of Americans that "progressive" European manage­ American management's cost-consciousness, has ments are playing technocratic games instead of been well expressed by Alexander R. Heron,2 a coming down to earth and trying simply to cut vice president of one of our major corporations. costs in order to reach more customers. "If we as private management are allowed to con­ We have already pointed to some of the reasons. tinue to operate the American economy, we will Wherever any part of the market is regulated the provide more and more jobs. We will provide habits of consumers are, so to speak, frozen. In them by selling more goods and services.... We sU'chcases there is no sense trying to induce accept the task of selling the services of every them to buy more; they cannot do so. In other worker on every payroll." areas of the market where consumers are apparently When European governments allow European free, the supply of workers, capital, or raw mate­ management enough elbow-room to work toward rials may he slowed down or blocked by the gen­ 'an industrial policy of that kind, workers as well eral lack of housing facilities, by trade customs, as customers will begin to· look less and less to or the concerted action of trade groups. In coun­ the state for pensions and price controls. Then tries that have had a 'great deal of unemployme'nt everybody win be able to consider the problemo! since the end of the last war, such as Italy, it pricing goods 'into the hands of more and more is also impossible for workers to move in search 'people. That·is the essence "of 'productivity. . of jobs.· 'Rigid rents and housing controls have 2No Sale, N6 Job, by Alexander R. Heron. 207 pp. NeW York: frozen out the construction of new homes, with the Harper & Brothers, $3.00

412 THE FREEMAN Lion into Ostrich

What lies behind England's refusal to face the Jacts By FREDA UTLEY oj the Soviet menace? What is at the root 0/ British anti-A.mericanism? Miss Utley gives a keen analysis.

London persuaded themselves that the Communist menace At night the lions which guard Nielson's column is a figment of Senator McCarthy's imagination, can be dimly seen through the lighted fountains or a device he has thought up to enable him to which play again in Trafalgar Square. But today lead a "fascist" movement. It is as if they had the ostrich rather than the lion should be Britain's generally accepted the argument of the Left which symbol. It would perhaps be an exaggeration to runs as follows: "Hitler won power by stressing say that nowhere in the W,estern world do so many the Communist danger. Therefore anyone else who know so little about so much as the British people. wants to suppress Communism at home must be But, to judge from the majorrity of their news­ aiming to become a dictator." papers as well as from conversation with both the "intelligentsia" and the "common man," no Dearth of World News other people is more determined to bury its head in the sand and ignore the grim realities of its The present British tendency to refuse to face own and the world's situation. It is not that, the facts is fostered by the diet of mental pap as in France, there is a general disposition to fed to the public by most of the newspapers. The buy peace at any price. In a showdown the British excuse usually made for the dearth of news on lion would come out of hiding and fight beside us. world events in all but a few newspapers is the It is rather that the English today insist on pre­ small size of the papers, long starved of newsprint, tending there is no real danger, provided only and the consequent reliance of the public on the the wild Americans can be taught discretion and British Broadcasting Company for foreign news. diplomacy, and restrained from launching a c'rusade But the radio, whenever I listened to it, seemed to liberate p~ople under the Soviet yoke. to give ,more time to the weather than to world When I asked a Treasury official why there is events. Most of the papers devote an excessively increasing anti-American sentiment in England large proportion of their limited space to every now that American aid has enabled the British to item of news about the royal family, however get back on their feet, he replied: "There was insignificant, to erime and sport, and to accounts gratitude up to some two years ago, but now there of the romances, trials, and tribulations of the is the fear that America wants to mount a white deserving poor and undeserving rich. This charger and lead a crusade against the Soviets." phenomenon, I was told by a journalist, is the He went on to say that Dulles' speeches about consequence of the huge success of the tabloid "liberation" had frightened the British. Daily Mirror, which has achieved a circulation of There 'is a similar str.iking contrast between the more than 'five million by giving the public British attitude toward "McCarthyism" and toward cheesecake, tripe, and soap opera. any and every Senate committee investigation of It would be unfair not to note that the New8 subversion in the United States, and their quick Chronicle and Daily Herald, as well as the Times, and uncompromising reaction toward any im­ Manchester Guardian, and Daily Telegraph, have mediate Communist threat against their own been ,giving good coverage to the Berlin conference. imperial interests. For example, Sir Winston But it would seem that the best and most reliable Churchill had no hesritation in sus'pending the British foreign correspondents are kept under constitutional liberties of British Guiana last fall, wralps except on such special occasions as the in order to "be in good time" to suppress "Com­ conference. And their stories receive far less munist intrigue menacing the normal freedom of prominenee than trials at the Old Bailey. a community." But exposures 'Of Communist in­ What is most disquieting is the failure of most filtration in U.S. government agencies by the British newspapers to give the1r readers any McCarthy and J ennercommittees are mocked at information about Communist atrocities and crimes, in England and 'representedo as signs of American as contrasted with their frequent folksy stories reactionary or "fascist" tel\dencies. about "the Russians." For instance, when on In general, the British press and public resolutely January 9 a U.S. Senate committee announced that refuse to recogn'ize the existence of a world-wide about two thirds of our prisoners of war in Korea conspiracy directed by the Kremlin. They have may have been murdered, constituting "one of

MARCH 8, 1954 413 the most heinous and barbaric episodes of recorded recently giv,en to the Russians to listen, to jaz~ history," most British newspapers failed to men­ or danceWestern dances are. heralded as portent~ tion the report. Even the London Observer gave of liberty and amity with the Western world. All it only a few lines at the bottom of a column, lin all, the British people are being lulled into the headed "U.N. Plans for Releasing Prisoners." belief that everyithing would be all right if only SimilarlY,when several thousand German prisoners the Americans could be restrained from provoking of war returned home after nine years of slave "the Russians." labor in Russia, the Br.itish press as a whole had I found an explanation for the ostrich attitude no word of condemnation for the Sov,iets. in a convers'ation I had with an Iriishman who To compare Communist with N'azi atrocities just works for a London tabloid. He said to me: "The isn't done in England today. So, instead of giving British people have c1Qntracted' out of world affairs. prominence to the torture and murder of U.S. They are interested only in themselves, and want prisoners, or report'ing the terrible exper,iences nothing but secur,ity." This phenomenon is not of German prisoners-both soldiers and civilians­ mere,ly the result of war weariness. "It stems," returning from Soviet camps, the British press, he said, "mainly from the fact that the British, right, left, and center, was busy last December having been relegated to second place in the and January extolling the skill and s:portmanship Western world, feel that they no longer control of the Russian contestants in the International their own destinies,much less· those of other Chess Tournament at Hastings. peoples. ,Consciously or unconsciously resenting Under the he'adHne, "Oh, Mr. M,cCarthy, what the fact that Amerilca is now the leading nice lads these Russkis are," Daily Herald corre­ power in the W,estern world, they lend an eager spondent Maurice Fagence wrote on December 31, ear to anti-American propaganda, while refusing 1953: the New York Times), in consequences are most clearly apparent, because which he not only pra'ised the "admirable bearing the public has been kept in ignorance----,both by the and unf'a!iHng sportsmanship" of the Russian con­ press and the books which get published-of the testants, but also said that the tournament was evidenee .that Western blindness to the Communist "the happiest display of internatiohal amity." danger has led to the Soviet conquest of eastern The B~itish pu!blic is constantly being taught to Europe and China. No books, and pracNcaIly no identify Communism with "the Russians," and to articles, giving the true record concerning Amer­ believe that if "the Russians" are friendly, this ica'n and British postwar China policy have been means that the Soviet government need not be published in .... England. feared. The Albert Hall is plastered with announce­ One of the few British scho'lars who has tried to ments about the visits of Russian.si'n,gers, dancers, enlighten the public is G. F. Huds'ou, a Fellow of and entert~iners. Items such as the perm:is'sian All Souls College, Oxford, who lis also an editor

414 THE FREEMAN of the Econom'l,st. Unfortunately, his articles on China are published only in magazines of small Brazil's Boom Town circulation. In one of them, published in Encounter, he wrote: By ARTHUR R. PASTORE, JR.

Habits of mind formed in happier days when With soaring coffee price~ being .investigated by ideology could generally be left out of account in Congress, and housewives boycotting the little international politics are not easily discarded, and there is a pull to revert to them whenever some brown beans, America's attention has turned to break in the clouds gives the smallest opportunity the source of supply. Whether a short crop, or for belief that the weather is clearing. Since the speculation, or both will be found to have boosted death of Stalin, in Britain at any rate there has prices, a look at Sao Paulo, Brazil, where coffee been a strong tendency to forget about the ex­ is king, will show the world's fastest growing city, perience of the Cold War, to repudiate any sug­ its prosperity based largely on the increasing gestion of "anti-Communism" in world affairs, and to assume that in dealing with Communist Russia­ demand for the aromatic brew. and still more in dealing with Communist China-it "Chicago-with ·palm trees," is the way one is. really only with limited and separate national American businessman described this skyscraper interests that we have to reckon. It would, of course, city, perched high in the mountains above S'antos, be very agreeable if this were so. .. the wor:ld's biggest coffee port. Seventy per cent Hudson's voice is only a very small one in the of Brazil's coffee crop comes out of Sao Paulo desert of British ignorance of the record. I do not State, of which the city is an integral part. From profess to know how great is the responsibility of the miles of plantations around the city comes the Foreign Office, or other British government some of Brazil's ri'chest agricultural output---cotton, departments, for the misinformation or lack of rice, corn, etc. But the richest plum of all is the information given to the public. A'merican journal­ product of the more than a million coffee trees ists in London have told me that nowhere in the to be found In the state. world is there a more effective censorship than Coffee is, of course, serious business there. in England, although it is exercised so subtly that In Santos' Coffee Exchange the tasters sample the people imagine they have a free press. Journal­ the blends with all the care of an expert French 1sts or editors who publish facts which the govern­ wine-taster. And what the brokers do in that ment deems it better that the public should not cathedral-like building has a real effect on how know, run into troubJe. Newspapers, such as the much you'll pay for your next pound of coffee Beaverbrook publications, which dare to defy the at the supermarket. Foreign Office's unacknowledg,ed censorship, are Everything about Sao Paulo is fantastic. The more "isolationist" or blind than the gove1rnment, municipal library is twenty-two stories high. The as witness the Daily Express and Evening Stand­ main street runs for ten miles. The Viaduto da ard, which represent Germany as a greater menace Cha cuts a1cross the city in three levels of traffic. than Soviet Russia. The elevators in the Estado do Sao Paulo bank The British lion may be merely sleeping, or building run faster than those in New York's recovering from the eff,ects of the austerity diet Empire State building. he was fed for so long. Outside London, in country differ~nt places, one meets people who speak with a Year-Long Festivities voice than the London press, and who do not even know that it is fashionable to be anH-American. It's hard to believe that a city so modern is And in Berlin, Eden has been voicing the same celebrating its four-hundredth anniversary in views as Dulles and showing no disposition to ap­ 1954. But just ten minutes from the downtown pease the Kremlin. But-and here' is the rub-at business section Exposition buildings have been this very moment when it is essential that the built on a scale to emulate New York's World's Western powers show a united front, "the largest Fair of 1939. There is a Palace of Nations and a group of British businessmen to visit Russia since Palace of 'Industry and Commerce, as well as a the war" is busy "exploring the possibilities of ex­ Palace of Ag,riculture, to say nothing of a plane­ panding Anglo-Soviet trade." tarium and a theater seating 3,000 people. A year­ Will the formerly intelligent British appreciation long program of festivities will include music, of political realities prevail over the desire to ballet, and art expositions, and international con­ win prosperity and peace "in our time" by provid­ gresses for writers, philosophers, scientists, ing the Soviet colossus with the means to consolidate surgeons, economists, and lawyers. The celebration and extend its power? Or will England sacrifice is IIarge-scale and all-inclusive. Paulistas just don't her own vital interests and those of the whole do things ina small way. Western world in her endeavor, in Churchill's Today Sao Paulo is the third largest city in words, to "m'aintain fifty million people in this Siouth America and ranks as the twentieth in small island at a level superior to that of average population in the world. Its increasing expans'ion Europeanstandards"? in population and building constru'ction makes it

MARCH 8, 1954 415 even bigger than any city in the United States on the architects~ drafting boards only yesterday, except New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. but today it's a reality. A new building goes up All these rapid-fire statistics the average Paul­ in Sao Paulo every twenty-four minutes around the ista will reel off at you with calculating-machine clock! The standing Paulista joke to a tourist is efficiency, for the residents of Sao Paulo have a "Please don't take a 'picture of our c'ity, because it real Chamber-of-Commerce pride in their amazing will change while your camera shutter is clicking." city, which they claim-and with facts and figures Much of Sao Paulo is like the United States. to back it up-is the world's fastest growing city, The office buildings and hurrying crowds could be any\vhere, any place, and under any circumstances. transplanted to New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles~ To add weight to the argument, they point out that Next to the signs in Portuguese, you'll see many the population has been more than doubling every familiar U.S. trade names. And Coca-Cola is fast ten years. Back in 1910, Sao Paulo had a mere outselling even coffee in the stand....up bars around 314,000. By 1920, it had jumped to 550,000-and the city. was still considered a small town next to big-time It's no wonder American capital is attracted to Rio. But in 1950, the population figures had leaped Sao Paulo, where 91 per cent of Brazil's foreign to 2,200,000. Today, it is close to 3,000,000. trade is concentrated and the booming export If that doesn't convince you, the Paulistas will market is located. Most of all, American tbusines;) gladly throw another barrage of figures at you. favors Sao Paulo bec!ause the city has an unmistak­ The State of Sao Paulo, with the city as an integral able drive and pace. American firms know the part, contributes 50 per cent of Brazil's total Paulista can produce and will keep on producing exports, as well as 50 percent of the national in­ as long there's a market for any product. Years come, 48 per cent of the country's banking business, ago Sao Paulo had to figure a way to get water 49 per cent of the total electric power consumption, power up over the mountains which were nearly and 50 per cent of the nation's textile production. 3,000 feet high. They did it by reversing rivers, In addition to all this, Sao Paulo's booming indus­ and their industry profited. Then they had to tries make everything from automobiles to pen­ build a modern route over the same mountains icillin and toys. to Santos to get their exports out to a world market-they did ,that, too, by tunneling through Yon Almost See It Grow the mountains and carving out a two-way express highway over which more than 150,000 buses, It's easy to see how Sao Paulo has become the trucks, and cars pass each month. At the Congohas industrial hub of South America. More than 40,000 Airport a plane either lands or takes off every plants and factories in the city keep industrial three minutes. One air route which links Sao wheels constantly moving. Sao Paulo State rep­ Paulo' and Rio is now classed second only to the resents the greatest concentration of industrial New York-,Washington air service in volume of might in all Latin America today. Like the popula­ passenger traffic. tion, industry has increased to such a point that But Paulistas have an eye for beauty, too. it's hard to keep up with. new records 'and figures. Theym'ay have acres of mode'Tn architecture, but In the last ten-year period Sao Paulo produced the streets, like most Brazilian cities, are still a more than half of all Brazil's manufactures. Ten blaze of mosaic-work in artistic patterns. And years ago, it was only a third. their swank re'Sidential areas are graced with Part of the answer lies in the wonderful climate. terraced, landscaped parks overflowing with tropical The Paulista looks scornfully down upon his cousin flowers and clipped hedges in formal designs. in Rio who believes that manila, or tomorrow, he'll They have not neglected the cultural side, either. get around to filling that order,but why worry Paulistas point with pride to their Teatro Muni-. about business today when it's much better to sip cipale where international ballets perform and his tiny cup of strong, black coffee as he con­ grand operas are sung by stars fresh from New templates taking the afternoon off for a dip at York's Met, Paris' Opera Com,ique, Vienna's Copacabana Beach. Rio is hot, and not blessed Staatsoper, Milan's La Scala, and Buenos Aires' with the humidity-free'climate of Sao Paulo. Teatro Colon. The Paulista has no time for a two-hour nap Paulistas are a polyglot people. The city's rapid after lunch as does the Carioca in Rio, nor does growth in recent years has been largely due to he sip his coffee in a sidewalk cafe. He gulps it at wave after wave of European immigration. You a stand-up bar, as he gets ready to hop a plane can hear many languages spoken-French, German, for Rio-like a New York commuter rushing for English, Italian. In fact, the newsboys hawking his morning train. Business is the key-word in their varied stock of magazines and publications Sao Paulo. Probably that explains w,hy books on will offer you all the selection ofa Paris kiosk. busriness, a.ccounting, and finance are outselling Like everything else in Sao Paulo, the American novels in Sao Paulo's bookstands today. colony is growing. About 2,000 American f'amflies And buildings! Most Paulistas will admit that are now stationed in the city, and the number the city's imposing, New York-like skyline was keeps increasing almost daily. Some of the "old

416 THE FREEMAN hands" have been there twenty years or more and well aware of what's going on here. He re'ads the are practically Paulistas in spirit. The American papers, and he knows that the U.E. is on the Chamber of Commerce is one of the busiest places Attorney General's llist of subversive organizations, in to\vn, as more and more Yankee dollars flow He also knows that some of the union's officers, into Sao Paulo's industrial melting pot. questioned by congressional committees, have re­ It's no wonder capital is attracted to the world's fused on constitutional grounds of self-incrimina­ fastest growing city. For topping all the other tion to answer questions about membership in the amazing things about this 'boom town is the fact Communist Patty and espionage 'activities. that Sao Paulo is perhaps the only Latin American N'asar decided not to join the D.E. He wanted, city-or for that matter the only place in the he said, to find out more about the union before world-that has never suffered a major depression. becoming a dues-paying member. The shop steward, And that's quite a record, when you consider that naturally, did not like this. He is a Russian, born Sao Paulo is four-hundred years young. in China and now a citizen of Brazil. The plant, especially its night shift (in which Nasal' worked), employs a number of Displaced Persons, fugitives from behind the Iron Curtain. The shop steward, Rusi Chose Freedom it is reported, taunts them constantly for having exchanged their wonderful countries for the im­ By CONSTANTINE MICHAELS perialistic, warmongering United States. He never explained why he continues to live here. This country spends vast amounts to combaf Com­ munism. Congressional committees investigate all Nas'ar'sstalling tactics were effective for about phases of anti-American activity, and receive head­ two months. He kept asking the steward all kinds lines, plaudits, and appropriations. It is hugely of questions 'about the U.E., and received the ironical that while such investigations are going most fantastic replies. Apparently, any answer on, Americans are compelled to join and pay dues was considered good enough for a Hgreenhorn." to organizations that have been declared subversive "Is the union a member of the C.I.O. or A.F.L. ?" by the government itself. Nasal' asked. It took a newcomer to the United States to "The U.E.," the steward answered, "is an in­ challenge an incongruous dictum and refuse to dependent union. We used to belong to the C.I.O. join a Communist-led organization-the United but got out of it because the C.I.O. has become Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers Union a government-dominated union. We wanted to be (U.E.) in the plant where he worked. He is with­ independent of .government pressure." The steward out a job now, and nothing can be do:pe about it. carefully concealed the fact that the' U.E. had Nothing, that is, unless the case of Rusi Nasar been expelled from the C.I.O. in 1949 for pro­ becomes a national issue. It is worth fighting for. Communist leanings. Rusi Nasal', only two years in this country, Nasar was finally presented with an ultimatum: is an engineer by profession. He received his join the D.E. or quit your job. The management education under the Soviet regime. Nevertheless, wanted him to stay. He was an intelligent and he despises it. The Communists boast of having conscientious worker; in the short time he had eliminated illiteracy in his native 'Turkestan, in been employed at the plant he had been promoted. the central Asiatic part of Russia. Nasal' feels no But he had to join the union. gratitude for that. "My people," he says, "would This he refused to do. "I cannot," he declared, be much happier if they had remained illiterate. "join any Communist-dominated union-even with "Vho wants to be literate in order to be compelled the intent of opposing the Communists from inside to read all the Communist lies? I'd rather be a the union. I am not going to pay a single cent of shepherd than a Soviet engineer." my wages to support an organization that owes During the war he served as a commissioned allegi'ance to Communism. I have fought Com­ officer in the Red Army. At the end of 1941 he munism and Communists all my life. After the was taken prisoner by the Germans. After Ger­ war I refused to return to my homeland, thus many's capitulation he refused to return to the jeopardizing those of my family who were still Soviet Union, staying in a Displaced Persons' camp there. I did not come to the United States to in Germany until 1951, when he was finally granted contribute to Communist causes. If Americans want permission to eriter the United States. Here he to do it, that is their business. If I wanted to worked on and off in various places until, in support Communist organizations, I would have October 1953, he was employed by the Electronic returned to the Soviet Union. Here I will not do it." Transformer Company in New York City. The management of the company sympathized According to union regulations at the plant, with Nasar. But the're was nothing they could do. within four weeks anew etttployee has to join the The D.E. has a contract with the plant, Nasar union officially recognized as the bargaining unit. had to join up, or else... Despite his short time in this country, Nasar is He preferred the "or else..."

MARCH 8, 1954 417 Letter from Switzerland Public opinion was all for -recalling the Swiss dele.. gation from Korea and writing a prompt finis to a mission that had failed. But the government thought otherwise. Switzerland, Foreign Minister Ma>.. Lesson in Neutrality Petitpierre explained to his :irate compatriots ought not to capitulate to minor difficullties when By R. G.WALDECK it was a matter both of serving the peace 'and of justifying its existence as a neutral in a divided Swiss neutrality has a patron saint.' He is Nikolaus world. The very fa.ct that the ISiWiss delegates never von F,IUe, ,farmer,councillor, 'and judge, who in compromised on "the moral principles laid down by 1467 retired to 'aravine whe,re he lived, according the Geneva Convention and opposed any encroach­ to legend, for twenty years, partaking of neither ment on them by either side attested to their "un­ food nor drink. In my hlotel room in ZUrich there limited" and "perpetual" neutrality, and set an were two pictures of "Brother Klaus." One depicted example to other civilized nations. For the United him bidding ·a te'arful farewell to his wife and ten States, Great Britain, and Sweden had finally felt children, the other, counseling a group of visitors: compelled to join Switzerland in its out-'and-out ":Oh, my dear friends, don't get mixed up in foreign rejection of violence. quarrels." Dr. Petitpierre made no bones of the fact that It is this pearl of Klausian wisdom that has the main reason :Switzerlland had let itself in for guided the Swiss ever since. Nor is there 'any doubt the Korean adventure was to show Washington that it has served them well. Ina turbulent con­ how useful neutrals still are in the international tinent, Switzerland has remained peaceful and con­ seheme of things. This opportunity was the more tented within her frontiers. One doesn't talk about welcome as the memory of the eartly postwar years, Switzerland. Which is exa'ctlywhat the iSwiss want. when U. S. diplomacy had proclaimed its distaste The Swiss take a dim view of any political move for neutralitY,still rankled. that deviates ever so slightly f,rom Brother KI'aus's "You know," a member of the Swiss Bundesrat sage precepts. One such move was the decision of said tome, "He'rr LauchIin Currie was sent over to the Bundesrat on June 13, 1953, to participate in tell us that neutrality was tantamount to treason." the execution of the Korean truce. In a way the He paused for a moment. "Herr Currie," he went Korean job was particularly suited to the Swiss. on lightly, "seemed to have been quite a friend of After ,all, to assist in the orderly transition from Herr Ha'rry Dexter White. And Herr White-I hear war to peace is a proper task for neutral nations. the,re are people in the States who believe, he was a . But in this case the Swiss were put in an extremely Sloviet spy." A :long pause. "I wonder sometimes equivocal position. Their genuine and traditional why Herr Currie wa.s so hard on our neutrality. neutrality was thrown into the pot with the so­ Was 'it because it might benefit the ,German economy called neutrality of Czech'oslovakia and Poland. at a time when Herr White and his friends stilil The way the sitory was told me Iby a member of dreamed of turning IGermany into a pasture?" A the Swiss Bundesrat, :it would seem that Berne, sigh. "It would be> interesting to know just what from the start, ,complied only reluctantly with the in all this was Russian inspiration and what was proposal of the U. -N. Command to furnish, along plain American shortsightedness. .. ." with !Sweden, a delegation to :the Neutral Nations However, this was all over 'and done with. The Repatriation Commission. However, determined to Korean move achieved its goal inasmuch as the prove to the world that neutrality does not exclude United States, for the first time since the war, a;ctivity in the interes,t of peace, ,switzerland sent rec10gnized the importance of having neutrals. A its men off to Korea. Soon it became clear that they memorandum from Washington, praising Switzer­ had landed in the thick of what Brother Klaus land's readiness to do its nonpartisan best in arhi­ referred to as "foreign ,quar,rels." The insistence of boating international diffeTences, gratified Berne the Swiss delegation IQn ,the principles of the Geneva and partly Icalmed public opinion with regard to the Convention, according to which prisoners could not deviation from Brother Klaus' strict doctrine. be forced to listen to "explanations" against their Some observers believe that 'Swiss foreign policy win, enraged the Communists. By November the is hound rt~ evolve toward participation in various Berne Bundesrat found itself the recipient of angry international agencies. I .see no sign of any such notes from the Polish, Chinese, and Czechoslovakian evolution. IOn the contra1ry, though the Swiss do not governments denouncing the 8wiss for abetting doubt the high aspirations of the ,U. N., the E. D. C., "anti~Communist terror" in the prisoner-of-war and NATO, they seem to feel that they cando camps and for "sabotaging the armistice." Radio better on their own. Peking let go with particularly offensive 'attacks. The Swiss people were shocked. Claiming no • part in the drama of international politics, they The Daily Worker is now celebrating its thirtieth didn't 'see why they should be cast as villain in a anniversary. We wish its editors many happy performance which at best was not to their liking. returns-to Moscow. ARGUS

418 THE FREEMAN The Kremlin's Old "New Look"

In spite of wishful thinking in the West about the By LEO DUDIN "new" Moscow line, lacts indicate that the Kremlin has not altered its pattern 0/ purges and aggression.

The B'erlin conference has forced the Western world opened on R'ed Square opposite the Lenin-Stalin to occupy itself once more with the big question: tomb. On New Year's Day the gates of the Krem­ What are the re'al aims of Malenkov and his lin were thrown open to children, and a masquerade regime? for some selected Moscow youth was .arranged in In the year that has elapsed since Stalin's death an historic Kremlin hall. a veritable avalanche of sensational news items In its foreign policy the new regime brought has come from Moscow. A new distribution of about an armistice in Korea while extending the commanding posts in the Kremlin, with a simul­ war in Indo-China. It promised a better life to taneous rearrangement of all' the highest organs East Germans, but repressed with tanks their of the state and party apparatus, immediately revolt last June. It intensified the "peace offensive" followed the announcement of Stalin's death. In of the old Stalin type land suspended the "Hate less than two weeks came' the big news that America" campaign for a short time, only to Malenkov had surrendered the all..:important posi­ renew it. It had talks with Tito, made a kind of tion of the First Secretary of the Central Com­ ill-fated peace with Israel, blocked all the ways mittee of the Communist Party to a relatively to settle the controversial issues in Europe and unknown man, Nikita S. Khrushchev, thus seem­ Asia, and spared no effort in sowing discord ingly stripping himself of a decisive instrument among the Western 'allies. in the struggle for the position of dictator. The In order to show their friendliness to the West­ official emphasis since then has been on "collective ern world the leaders invited some new "vodka leadership." Stalin's name has appe'ared less and visitors" to the Soviet Union, opened certain areas less frequently in the Soviet press. At the same of the U.S.S.R. to foreign diplomats, and even time there is an increasing tendency to replace' permitted some foreigners to marry S\oviet girls. Stalin by Lenin, proclaiming Lenin as the "moral Soviet musicians and singers were sent to Italy father" of the new regime. and Switzerland, and the French were promised A purge of the pur,gers has begun. In April the a visit from the ballet of the Bolshoi Theater. former boss of the dreaded M.G.B., Ignatiev, and his deputy Ryumin were stripped of all honors, Stalin's True Disciples pronounced "enemies of the people," and then disappeared. In July their flate was shared by The swift succession of such news items tended Lavrenti P. Beria himself. A number of high­ to create an impression of some radical change ranking M.V.D. officials throughout the country in the Kremlin's policy. But do any of them alter were removed and vanished into oblivion. In those few basic elements which really determine December this whole process culminated in the the possible courses of Soviet policy? "trial" of Beria and six of hiB closest henchmen. The first ,and probably most important of these At the same time the new bosses were apparently basic elements is the composition of the new ruling trying to gain the sympathy of the various strata group in the Kremlin. Even after the execution of the Sioviet population. Marshal Zhukov was of Beria it remained very similar to the old taken from' his forced retirenlent and raised to Politburo. Additions were made' from among those the highest possible post in thE~army. A sweeping men who under Stalin stood just one'rung below arnnesty for minor offender,s was promised; the the top of the Soviet hierarchical ladder. arrest and torture of the "Kremlin doctors" was Almost all of the present rulers are over fifty. branded unjust and illegal; and official anti­ They were elevated by Stalin from the rank and Semitism was halted. file of the party c·adres some twenty or even In September a new policy of "butter as well as thirty years ago because of their personal qual­ guns" w,as proclaimed. The population was prom­ ities: the ability to work very hard, energy, ised an abundance of food and consumers' ,goods in ruthlessne'Ss, devotion to Stalin and his cause. It the not too distant future. Construction of some is safe to assume that they accepted Stalin's of Stalin's "pyramids of Comrnunism" was inter­ theories and were quite willing to go along with rupted, and the forced labor switched elsewhere. him in his practical actions. The road to power A huge new department store, caned G.U.M., was of everyone of them was cemented with blood.

MARCH 8, 1954 419 And yet some Western eggheads believe that aft-er most popular of these theories was the one that the death of their leader these men ceased to be the Soviet Army, as represented by such war heroes what they had been all their lives. as Marshals Zhukov, Konev, and Vasilevsky, was Has their mentality changed? Mr. Molotov gave rapidly gaining power, while the role of the M.V.D. a rather clear-cut answer to this question in his was just as rapidly dwindling. Every bit of in­ Berlin diatribes. Anyone can arrive at the same formation that tended to support this theory was conclusion if he reads carefully the recent speeches carefully picked up and repeated over and over by Malenkov, Khrushchev, and other leaders of again. the Kremlin group. A close analysis of all available Soviet sources Take, for example, a recent r,eport the new does not reveal, however, any serious facts in theoretician of world Communism, P. N. Pospelov, support of this theory. The role of the Soviet made at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow on the Army remains practically the same as .it was under occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of the death Stalin. None of the army leaders was permitted of Lenin. Malenkov and other Soviet leaders were to join the ruling ,group: they still have to take present and heartily applauded the speaker. Dis­ their orders from .the Kremlin. Lately none of patches of Western correspondents . in Moscow them has received any special award or been other­ stressed only the report's conciliatory tone toward wise publicly honored. The only exception was America and its several quotations from Lenin that of Marshal Konev, who was granted the about the possibility of "peaceful coexistence" with dubious honor of presiding over the Special Col­ the capitalist countries. But somehow these cor­ legium of the Supreme Court during the trial of respondents failed to mention the central theme, Beria and his henchmen. In the past such honors also documented with quotations from Lenin: the have proved the first step on the road to the firing capitalist world is doomed; history leads to the squad. ultimate victory of ICommunism; this victory is to be achieved by means of revolution; the capitalist M.V.D. Troops Stronger than Army system must be destroyed by force, and bourgeois society annihilated. This theme was repeated Many wishful thinkers in the West have spoken hundreds of times by all the Moscow and provincial of the ostensibly decisive support given by the newspapers, ,vhile Pospelov's "peaceful" overtures army to l\Ialenkov in his struggle against Beria. received merely lip-service. And the editors of The reasoning of those who supported this theory these newspapers ought to know what is im­ was very simple: Beria had his l\I.V.D. troops, portant to the Kremlin. therefore Malenkov could get his support from the Revolution and destruction are the working army only. This theory might ·appear ,sound to all theory; "peaceful coexistence" was 'a smoke screen those who are inclined to se'e the events in Moscow to enable Molotov to develop his tactical maneuvers in the ,same light as, for example, those in in Berlin. Does this differ from the familiar Stalin Nicaragua. Two little facts, however, are' over­ pattern? looked. The first is that the battle between Malen­ The next crucial issue is that of correlation kov and Beria was fought and won behind the between the state and the party. Communists all Kremlin walls with no outside forces involved. over the world will cease to be Communists only 'The second is that in time of peace the Soviet when and if they put the interests of their respec­ Army is no match for the M.V.D. troops. As long tive countries and states before the interests of as there is no major war the army has rifles, guns, the Communist Party. We know how this issue machine-guns, tanks, and airplanes, but it has no was handled by Lenin and Stalin. 'The Communist shells, bombs, or cartridges, and only a limited Party is the leading and directing force of human supply of gasoline. All these things are in the society (or of the nation); the State is merely hands of special M.V.D. detachments. Whenever a an instrument to implement the policy as laid commanding office'r of any army unit needs shells down by the 'party. In his first public speech a or cartridges for training or other purposes, he year ago as the new head of the Soviet government must ·submit an application to his local M.V.p. l\rlalenkov repeated this basic Communist rule. representative. He also has to account for used His regime has kept hammering away at this ones and return the remainder as soon as the theme in all the organs of propaganda ever since. training is over. The whole trick is very simple, How about the apparatus at their disposal which but the result is that in time of peace the army has to translate their theories into practical has no more real power than any other group of action? Most Western observers agree that there Soviet citizens. This system helped Stalin to main­ are three basic pillars supporting the Soviet dic­ tain his rule, and there are no signs that Malenkov tatorial rule: the party, the secret police (M.V.D.), has changed it one iota. and the army. Recently, in connection with the But suppose Malenkov had had some way of Beria trial, publications of the We'st were virtually equipping the army in order to use it against flooded with theories and conjectures about some Beria. In this case he would have had to rely drastic change in their relative importanc·e. The primarily upon the troops of the Moscow military

420 THE FREEMAN district. And after his victory he would naturally have rewarded those officers who had helped him. The "Any".In E·splonage Nothing of the kind occurred. The commanding general of Moscow military district, Artemiev, the By SAMUEL B. PETTENGILL commandant of the city of Moscow, Sinilov, and the commandant of the Kremlin, Spiridonov, were Downright ignorance of the scope of our espionage all dismissed ,some time between July and September laws seems to have been an important reason, 1953. If all these facts are collated, the conclusion heretofore unnoticed, for Pres-ident Truman's will be that the role of the Soviet army remains handling of the Harry Dexter White case and about the same as it was under Stalin. others of like character. On September 2, 1948, How about the M.V.D.? N'o one could deny that when Mr. Truman was a candidate f'or re-election the liquidation of Beria and a subsequent purge as President, he made the remarkable statement of his lieutenants throughout the country had to that "during the war the spies were not Com­ bring about some major changes in the methods munists. Russia was our ally, and the spies were and set-up of the Soviet secret policy. But does this Germans and Japanese." necessarily mean weakening the role of the whole This statement, repeated two months later, is institution? Under Stalin, N.K.V.D. heads Yagoda perhaps more revealing of the President's psy­ and Yezhov, with scores of their assistants and chology and motivation than anything that has thousands of minor officials, were liquidated as appeared. More important, however, is the fact "enemies of the people." The secret police became that many illegal activities at that time by Amer­ even more powerful. ican citizens, in office or out, are still condoned, One strange thing must be pointed out with if not excused, by large numbers of people on the regard to the writings of those Western observers ground that the Russians and Americans were "in who 'believ,e in the decline of the M.V.D. role: it together." This Presidential point of view pro­ they involuntarily follow the line of Soviet vided a sort of moral cloak for espionage. propaganda. Everyone who happened to read the 'The espionage laws on our statute books since editorials in Pravda and Izvestia dealing with the 1917 make it a penal offense for anyone not case of Beria could see that the purpose was to authorized to do so to "transmit to any foreign create an impression that the party and the gov­ government ... information relating to the ernment had decided to decrease the power of the national defense. . ." Note the word "any." It M.V.D. and to prevent any excesses in the use of makes no difference whether the foreign govern­ it. Is it s'afe to take the word of Pravda at face ment 'and the United States are at peace, or whether value? it is our ally in war. Only the punishment varies­ It seems much more sound to support judgments imprisonment for not more than twenty years with some undisputed facts. Beria was executed, in peace time; in war time, death or thirty years. but the man appointed head of the M.V.D.-Sergei Hence any American citizen who transmitted Kruglov-served for many years as Beria's first secret information to Russia when it was our ally deputy and was known even among the Chekists became aspy, Mr. Truman notwithstanding. for his exemplary ruthlessness. Pravda and all other The wisdom of the law's application to "any Soviet newspapers accused Beria of every conceiv­ foreign government" cannot be doubted in the able crime, but at the same time these papers re­ light. of recent history. Russia is now our c'O'ld war ferred to the bulk of the M.V.D. officials as foe. The secret of the atomic bomb, for example, if "honest workers of state security" whose practical transmitted to Russia when our ally, can be used duties were in line with the interests of the Com­ against us in the event of outright war. munist Party and the Soviet government. In the All authority to transmit national defense secrets weeks that followed the execution of Beria, not must flow directly from the President, as Com­ a single additional public attack was made on mander in Chief, to the person transmitting. The the M.V.D. personnel; no decree was approved fact that a person may hold high civilian office, which aimed at diminishing the power of the as did Harry Dexter White, gives him no right M.V.D. Moreover, the signs are mounting that to transmit such information unless he is author­ the work of purging the purgers has been prac­ ized through a direct chain of command from the tically completed by this time, and that the "new President. If not, he has no more right to transmit M.V.D." under Kruglov, with the help of some than a private citizen, and is guilty of espionage. other branches of the terror machine, have been The patriotism of Harry Truman is not in assigned to a sweeping purge of the party ap­ ques,tion; his knowledge of the espionage ~aws it paratus. Who comes next? was his constitutional duty to enforce may well The picture is clear-cut. The old "Stalin team" be questioned. It would appear that when White is still in the Kremlin; their system of power is was appointed, the Administration was still drunk built in accordance with Stalinist rule; their on its own pro-Soviet propaganda. Party loyalty, method of operation is the purge at home and and a desire to sweep the bad news·under the bed, aggression abroad. did the rest.

MARCH 8, 1954 421 tokens of authentici.ty. Besides, the essentia~sabout the Soviet land and the mentality of its masters A Second Look have been spelled out in action and policy, year after year. ByE.UGE,NE LYONS Yet the fable that nobody. knows nothin' about the Soviet realities persi,sts. Why? First, I think, it is bec,ause pro-Kremlin propa­ At Idlewild airport recently about thirty pa1pitant ganda has been so successful in breeding con­ reporters, photographers, radio and television fusions; in burying even the most palpable and people crowded around a group of American documented truths-such as slave labor or the youngste'rs just back from a distant and pre­ bankruptcy of collectivized farming or the obvious sumably spine-tingling journey. The travelers were hostility of the people to the regime-in mountains questioned jointly and singly;' some were signed of double4alk. up forthwith to write their adventures for publica­ Second, because so many people in the non­ tion in the newspapers; the snapshots they had Soviet world have a psychological stake in shield­ taken on the trip were flashed on TV screens and ing their illus'ions on all things Soviet. The curious bought up for publication in magazines. I was notion that no reports on those things, however myself conscripted to help interview two of the expert and convincing, really penetrate the mystery vikings for a New York radio station. enables them to linger a bit longer among their What remote and exciting places had these bold fading hopes and enthusiasms for the "great voyagers reached and explored to rate such unusual experiment." attention? Deepest Tibet perhaps, or Amazonian Again and again some journalist, emerging from jungles, or some sunken Atlantis? his Soviet assignment, makes a sensation with his Nothing of the sort. The boys and one girl, inside, close-up !reve:lations. A year or two later editors of college papers, had spent three weeks, his successor in Moscow comes out and makes portal to portal, in an uneventful and strictly roughly the same 'revelat'ions in roughly the same guided tour of the Soviet Union, seeing the sights words-and once more it is a sensation, as if his and talking to selected citizens through well­ predecessor hadn't existed. Communist Russia is trained interpreters. Equivalent visits had been the one America that is endlessly rediscovered. made by· other campus journalists a couple of The marvel of it all is that the millions of months before and by grown-up small-town editors Americans panting for a glimpse of the Soviet sho~tly after the demise of Btalin. And each of truth through the eyes of iteen-age tourists resist the homecoming parties had been similarly greeted, the temptation of reading first-rate books on the plied with solemn questions to which they gave subject. They want the information fresh, fragrant, solemn answers, televised and syndicated, before and, above all, trivial. And they ignore the richest being blotted out and forgotten. source of uncensored information open to them in It is extraordinary, surely, that in the thirty­ the hundreds of thousands of self-exiled Soviet seventh year of the Kremlin dictatorship a hum­ men and women not only willing but eager to tell drum trip to its domains still makes news-more all they know. so, indeed, than in its earlier and less shrouded The two youngster,s whom I interviewed were years. This fact seems to me more interesting and clean-cut, bright, evidently a few notches above revealing than any of the naive "impressions" the average college man. Yet they had swallowed brought home by the wayfarers. It is a fact some transparent lies and allowed themselves to saturated with pathos, for it means that a great be gulled by a few of the more ,mildewed propa­ nation and a great people have bee'll so tragically ganda lines. It seems that Soviet college' men, they cut off from the body of mankind tha1t a few re­ assured me, were honestly unaware of the existence turning tourists become objects of overflowing of concentration camps! They -can hardly be curiosity. blamed-more mature Americans (Willkie, Joe The aura of wonder that surrounds such tourists Davies, etc.) have been taken in despite longer emanates from the stubborn myth that Soviet sojourns. Russia, no matter how often it may be explored Somehow the spectacle of a vast and powerful and reported, remains mystery, enigma, and riddle. empire engaged in the business of cheating a hand­ Actually, of course, no other nation or50ciety ful of young people-of le'ading blindfolded has been a,s extensively and on the whole accurately foreigners among gagged Russians-is sad and . described, analyzed, and annotated as the U.s.s.n. distressing. So is the thought that the three-week Every publishing season adds a spate of new books tourists, at least while the spell of their pilgrimage to an already massive literature on the subject. lasts, will ·be licensed to t,alk nonsense about the Books by diplomats and correspondents, economists Soviets in the press and on the air. The myth and social theorists; above all, books by fugitives that the U.S.S.R. is forever terra incognita-a from Communism who carry the marrks of Com­ myth useful only to the Kremlin and its en­ munist abominations on their minds and ,souls as tourage-will be with us fora long time to come.

(22 THE FREEMAN Jefferson and La Follette By MAX EASTMAN ~------o:-----_...... I

To me what makes John Dos Passos a big thing keen libertarian ideaHs'm and good sense, unmixed is not his inventiion of a new form in fiction, the and untrammeled with German metaphysics. panorama novel as I call it. That was, indeed, and remains an historic achievement, but it is Dos Passos makes Jefferson far too real and not the thing I think of when his gendus comes to too naturally at home in the world to in­ mind.. I think first of the intense poetry and drama, dulge in the overwrought lucubrations about the vivid imag,inat1ive realism 'of 'his style, and thought-up problems that are ,imputed to him in second of his high, fine-edged, and incorruptible Robert Penn Warren's pain-filled 'and harrowing inteHigenc,e. Incorruptible, I mean, not only by poem, Brother to Dragons (230 pp., Random House, commerciail considerations, but by the ego-impulse, $3.50). It happens that two boys who were the by established prestige, pride in his own past, the sons of Jefferson's sister killed a Negro slave for approbation of his admirers. Dos Passos is one a crazy reason-no better reason than that for of the few imaginative writers who banked the1ir which the Chicago youths, Leopold and Loeb, whole careers on the validity of the revolutionary murdered Httle Bobby Franks not s'o long ago. socialist theory, and when the theory was dis­ Warren is intrigued by erimes of vi'olence, and astrously shown up by the course of events, had he naturally delights especially in one which oc­ the clarity of mind to see it, and the cour'age to curred on the night of the first in a ser.ies of s~y it, and say it without fuzzy qualifications or great earthquakes which shook "the whole valley self-excus1ing parentheses. This has no doubt cost of the Mississippi, from the Missouri to the Gulf," him a lot among his C'ontempor,aries, but in the and which is, or can be, connected in no matter lQng light of history it will shine like a halo what remote way with a man whom all America around his head. looks to with reverence. 'That's ,all right; it makes I make these rem,arks Ibecause Dos P'assos' latest good melodrama, and crimes of violence are an book (The Head and Heart of Thomas Jefferson, ancient and honorable subject of poetry. But I 442 pp., Doubleday and Company, $5.00) is both find it impossible to rimagine a man of Jefferson~s an evidence and a fruit1ion of this trait in his extrovert temper and realistic good sense making character. He has done a great service to the a great moral and metaphysical to-do about this caus'e ox freedom by turning his mind and his monstrousness in a "vessel of my blood." Indeed ima~inavive talents to this new task. He revJives a line of talk more unlike anything Jefferson ever the head and heart of Thomas Jefferson in the said than that imputed to his ,ghost in this poeln same way in which hemakles people live in his would be hard to invent. novels-by paiinting in broad strokes the world However, that is not an ultimate critieism. The in which he lived, and telling story after story of insane murder committed by his nephew is, I those, both in England and Amel'lica, whose thoughts take it, only a symbol for the general collapse of influenced him and whose }lives impinged upon Jefferson's ideal hopes for mankind. They are his. It is a panorama biography. I cannot pretend called "lies" in this poem, and their motive is it is as vivid or exciting as the best of his novels. declared to be personal vanity, not serious con­ The subject matter, perhaps, is too far from his cern for human welfare. I find ita resolutely own experience. But he gives' us a real Jefferson, cynical poem, the poem of one f'Or whom the main and the privilege of living in his world with him. problem of llife is how to be gloomy when all goes It is interesting to reflect that only fifteen well. The author certainly solves that problem if years ago Samuel B. Pettengill' wrote ,a book not ,any other, and he solves it with passages of called Jefferson, The Forgotten Man, trying to very powerful poetry as well as some carelessly persuade Americans to see and remember the versified prose. man's wisdom and the great pa'rt he played in His prejudicious vision is revealed in the pre­ layJing the foundations of' their freedom. Today he face, where he quotes the famous 'epitaph Jefferson is being remembered in Violume after volume. A,s wrote for himself,and which ,is caryed on his the star of Karl Marx declines with the f.ailure monument at Monticello: "Author of the Declara­ of his "dii,alectic" revolut\ion, it is not unlikely tion of Independence, of the IStatute of Virginia that a whole generation of disillus:ioned proletarian flor Religious Freedom, and Father of the Uni­ writers may find solace in reviving Jefferson's versity of Virg'linia."

MARCH 8, 1954 4~~3 Warren attributes to "some ultimate vanity" train to his next engagement was 'held up waiitlng ,Jefferson's failure to mention here that he had for him. Again and again he writes hom,e about been President of the United States. What aston­ talking two to three-and-a-half hours, and how ishing blinaness! Jefferson's epitaph is one of even after that the audience remained in their the finest and most delicately ironical gems in seats and insisted on his continUling. But he never our history. "Beware of governments!" is what it says how many of the audience 'remained. Some says. "Don't kowtow to high officials! If I hap­ of them, I feel quite sure, had to go home and pened to become one, forgive me. And remember 'bed down the horses or nurse the baby. But lost I did something toward the real task-to make men in the miraculous flow of words out of his mouth, free and give them the opportunity to grow." he was in no state fora statistical approach to this pro-blem. A wise orator stops talking hefore About the same time with Dos Passos' Jefferson, anybody stops listening. Nothing he says after the there arrived in ·:my hands the life of Senator first forty minutes or an hour has any effect La Follette wr,itten by his wife and daughter. anyway. (Robert M. La Follette: June 14, 1855-June 18, I met Bob only once, and that w-as in Moscow 1925; Chapters I-XXVI by Belle Case La Follette where he was visiting in a friendly spirit a regime and Chapters XXVII-LXXII by Fola La Follette. that I was ardently, although with theoretical 1,305 pp., The Macmillan Company, two volumes, reservations, defending. Our meeting was cordial $15.00.) Here, as in Dos Passos' book, the ambience as an Old Home Week, although I was distinctly plays a strong part" in the story, for the authors conscious of the fact that he did not share my have made much of news reports and editorial belief in the revolutionary class struggle, and he, comments-a little too much, perhaps-about the I presume, did not enjoy having anybody stand Senator's activities. The .story is brtiskly ,and well to the left of him. Most radical idealists, .who told, however-told in far better English than ig were in leash to ,current common sense and usual in biographies wr-itten by "the family.," political affiliations, used to have that feeling Well, ,it was a wonderful family! about the Socialists. But we had both opposed Strangely ,enough, I found myself more at home Wilson's entrance into the First World War; we with the head and heart of 'Thomas Jefferson had that in common. Today we should still agree than of Bob La Follette, and I wonder if I can about that, and in other respeets I should be to the explain why. In Jefferson's head and heart the "right" of him. focus of both thought and feeling, politically His image in my mind fits well with the glow­ speaking, was the concept of human freedom. In ing portrait his wife and daughter have painted Bob La Follette's the focus was social justice. of him. He had great human warmth and an I .do not mean that Bob-it is not I, but his wife attitude of humble fellowship with those who and daughter who have 'chosen to dign'ify the shook his hand, and yet there ,vas som'ething nickname-was indifferent to the freedom side of leonine in his aspect and bearing. I do not refer the "free and equal" slogan. He felt that in fight­ so much to the flowing mane and majestic faraway jng the trusts and the "special interests" he was gaze, as to the firm line of the lion's mouth, if defending a free America. And I think to a certain Y9U ever noticed lit. extent he was. P'lutocracy was a real menace in those Nothing could daunt Bob La Follette's courage days. The fight against special privilege or "Big or shake his determination. The story of his opposi­ Business" or "Wall Street," or whatever bad tion to the declaration of war, and after that name we chose for it, was a fight for freedom. his demand that Wilson formulate our war a1ims Bob characterized it in prophesying its success. and that we adjust taxes to income, his insdstence "Providence willing, I believe I !shall last long that we continue to be rational when the whole enough to see the nation freed from ,its economic country was pass,ing through a phase of hysterical slavery and the government returned to the people." madness-a "witch hunt" such as this genera­ He didn't last long enough to see it, but it tion is unable even to imagine-make one of the happened. The ,enemy of those days was licked, noblest pages .in our poEtical history. He wa's a and for those primarily concerned about freedom great Senator, and bis Golgotha, his proud and the danger now lies in the overgrowth of the indomitable bearing under wen-nigh universal government itself. That ,is why Thomas Jefferson contempt, vituperation and deliberate cruel ,humil­ seems nearer to our hearts today. than Bob La iation in the press, pulpit, platform, on the Follette and the muckrakers, social reformers, stage, in the street cars, is the very portrait of settlement house workers, do-gooders, the "soc-ial a hero. Its conclusion in his subs,equent rise to justice element," who followed in his train. glory and very near to the Presidency-theabje,ct Bob had one fault which impeded him seriously, apologies to him, or to his heirs, .of prominent and·some thought almost cost him the presidency. politicians and journalists who had vilified htim­ He had the gift of gab, and he loved to he'ar could not be improved on if the tale had been himself· talk. On one occasion he had to be lifted made up by Tolstoy or Victor Hugo to point an up bodily and car~ied off the platform while the everlas,ting moral.

424 THE FREEMAN A and where to go. (This globalist well-wishing, in­ Yankee in Nehru's Court cidentally, is quite a reversal of his buried, if not Ambassador's Report, by Chester Bowles. 415 pp. forgotten, !Great Heresy of 1940, when he stood New York: Harper and Brothers. $4.00 in the front rank of America First.) At the axiomatic level, one would normally as­ I am one whose spirit does not 'rejoice in the sume that the function of an ambassador is to shrines of Eleanor Rooseveltism, and I therefore express and further the interests of the nation approached this book by so active a priest in that that he represents. Under the addling influence of muddy faith with low expectations. I am compelled, globalistic welfarism, even this simple truth be­ and indeed happy, to record that as a hook comes hazy. 'The problem becomes the search to Ambassador's Report is much better than I had understand the other fellow's point of view, the thought possible. Where M!r. Bowles sticks to his hope that he will "sUicceed," the effort to aid him own observations and experience, his book is some­ without any strings attached and without expecting times silly, but often fresh and illuminating. He anything in return. There was a time when such manages to communicate something of the feel of an approach to foreign policy and diplomacy would life in N'ew Delhi. He was a determined traveler; have been thought immoral. It might still be won­ and he describes with zest his visits to villages and dered what right a ,government has to distribute technical projects as well as to official functions. abroad the goods of its citizens without demanding The chapter on his travels to Nepal is 'good and un­ a 'reasonable value in exchange. usual reading. There is still more on the plus side. Informative In judging the performance of his mISSIon to chapters discuss India's "democratic five year India, Chester Bowles and his admirers have con­ plan," the 1952 election, ,local :C'ommunity develop­ fused personal with political success. Many Indian ment, and the problem of land reform. The "back­ leaders and much of the articulate Indian public ground" treatment of general Indian and B'ritish thought that he was fine, and were g1ad to have imperial history is superficial, but there is an him around. Why should ,they not? He flattered able historical and analytic a:ccount of Indian. them, "learned" from them, "interpreted" their Communism. The intellectual level of this last is views for the edification of the State Department so much above most of the rest of the book as to and the American public, and urged Americans suggest that it may come largely from another not to criticize, counter, or interfere wi.th anything hand. I wondered, in fact, whether I did not detect that the Indians might choose to do. Apart from the in it the style and the mind of Henri Sokolove, purely factual material, this present book is not the labor attache of the New Delhi Embassy staff. a balanced study of India today, but a brief for Even if the research here and elsewhere is not the Indian position in domestic and especially Bowles' own, he must be given credit for the use world affairs. No hired press agent could have to which it has been put in assembling this book. done a slicker selling job on Nehru, that brilliant, A good deal of fun has been made of Bowles' devious, self-righteously double-dealing spellbinder, attempt to "democratize" diplomatic life: his torn by his fused envy and hatred of the West. children attending the public school; the whole Mr. Bowles dresses up for the American public family bicycling through New Delhi; the formal every form of excuse devised by the ingenious invitation to Indian employees; the violation of Hindu minds for their Soviet-serving policy of caste lines; the "mingling with the common people." neutralism and "not choosing sides." One might Sometimes this behavior does seem to have been most relevantly ask: just whom do these globalist tasteless, or too much mixed with "public relations" \ ambassadors think they are hired to represent? and advertising techniques. Sometimes the Bowleses Mr. Bowles seems to have spent half of his time seem to have been too self-righteously progressive with Nehru apologizing for Americans who have and humanity-loving about it. But on the whole chosen sides and who think that in foreign affairs there is something to be said for it. After all, the friendship and aid of America should be de­ we are a revolutionary and democratic nation. It voted in the first instance to those nations and has been our historic mission to break with the peoples who are prepared to choose the same side. class-ridden, stratified schemes of older cultures Meanwhile, during the two years of his Indian and to build a free, fluid, and flexible society. It duty, as Mr. Bowles' personal stock advanced, the is proper that this should be (though it seldom is) political relations between India and the United expressed in the manners of our diplomats. States sank steadily to new lows. Mr. Bowles The failure of this book-as of Chester Bowles' ordered the Information Service to eliminate all mission....--llies in the fields of ideas and policy. sharp anti-Communist propaganda because it upset \Vhenever he turns to questions of policy, he be­ his Indian friends. The United States was rewarded com~s vague, platitudinous, irresolute. He is full by more direct and almost contemptuous attacks of good will toward India-and all the rest of by Indian spokesmen in the United Nations. Mr. the world, for that matter-but his good will is Bowles staggered every firm Indian anti-Communist not attached to any clea1r conception of what to do by granting a first exclusive interview to Blitz,

MARCH 8, 1954 425 the <-most prominent pro-Communist magazine. The Hardinge; he charges, "hoped the-British Prime United States was 'rewarded by Indian sabotage Minister could tell his king what iSir Robert Wal­ of policy .in Korea. pole had once told Queen Caroline: '-Madame,there While Mr. Bowles got his cheers and headlines were thirty thousand men killed in Europe ,this from Madras to Lucknow, his predecessor, Loy year, and not a single Englishman.'" Henderson, sat in Teheran without benefit of the In Dr. iSalvemini's eyes the most heinous British claque of New-Deal-bred columnists. There, working crime was the purported Machiavellian plot to steadily in the sole interest of the nation that he turn Hitler away from the West in order to vent represents, Ambassador Henderson, unsung and the Nazi fury on the Soviet Union. There is little unanointed, reversed in favor of the free world a in this volume which might indicate that Stalin, situation that nearily all political doctors had de­ too, was doing some plotting. Here is the way clared hopeless and lost. J AMES BURNHAM the author explains the Kremlin's policies: From 1933 to 1936 Stalin had hoped to avoid war in Rus-sia by avoiding it in Europe. From 1936 on ihe could no longer hope to avoid war in Europe. Europe's Rotten Politics He sought only to prevent it in Eastern Europe, by diverting it westward. Prelude to World War II, by Gaetano Salvemini. 519 pp. New York: Doubleday & Company. And so the peace-loving !Stalin made his pact $7.50 with Hitler, with never, of course, a thought of territorial loot or the hope that the Western nations An historian who has taught at the University would de.stroy themselves. Not everybody will agree of Florence and lectured at Harvard, the octo­ with that -v.iew. genarian Professor Gaetano Salvemini is far­ Dr. Salvemini sticks to his thesis of British famed not only for his erudition but·also for his hypocrisy and treachery. "Had Hitler left Britain strong views on world affairs. When Mussolini alone," he maintains, ";;tIl British 'mistakes' would came to power, Dr. Salvemini left his native land have been mistakes no longer, and perhaps Churchill to live in Britain, France, and finally the United himself today would admire the wisdom of his States. Now that Italy is a republic, he has re­ Tory friends." turned to the University of Florence. It hardly need be said that this is an angry book. His Prelude toWorld War II has a rather mis­ It is, however,a carefully documented volume into leading title, inasmuch as the book deals mainly which an enormous amount of work has gone. with events prior to 1937,and there is hardly There is wit, entertaining description, and at times anything about Danzig, Poland, Czechoslovakia, brilliant logic and exposition. The treatment suf­ Lithuania, and other regions which played major fers, it seems to me, from excessive personal feel­ roles in the prelude to the tragedy that opened ing and lack of balance. There is no doubt that on 'September 1, 1939. It is rather difficult to Professor Salvemini knows Italy, France, and decide just what the author set out to do when he Britain infinitely better than he does the Soviet wrote this volume,unless he was trying to portray Union. HENRY C. WOLFE in European politics a rottenness almost past belief. There are many villains in Professor 8alvemini's story, very few heroes. Needless to say, Mussolini comes off badly in Bloomsbury Politician the play-by-play account of events which led up Principia Politica, by Leonard Woolf. 319 pp. New to the Italian invasion of Ethiopia. The slapstick York: Harcourt, Brace and Company. $5.00 Caesar, whom Dr. Salvemini calls "half madman, half criminal," is shown as a shabby opportunist Noone should be scared away from this pleasant who, nevertheless, had the brass and cunning to book by the title, which suggests that Mr. Woolf bluff and outwit the British, the French, and the has managed to produce something like Newton's League of Nations. The League· is depicted as rife Principia, or the Principia Mathematica of Bertrand with cowardice, chicanery, -and stupidity. Russell and Alfred North Whitehead. He has not, Along with the Duce the principal villains are nor does he erven so much as try. Instead, he has the British leaders, especially in the Foreign Offilce. written a rather disarming autobiography of a Not only Sir Samuel Hoare but also Baldwin, man who incessantly talked about politics for Simon, Eden, and Austin and Neville Chamberlain almost fifty years. "I was born in the year 1880, are portrayed as betrayers of Europe's peace, men when Victoria was Queen and Mr. Gladstone Prime r~ady to clasp the hands of Hitler and Mussolini. Minister. I am, therefore, 72 years old," he ibegins. The author makes the point that it was not only After a 'Short spell of service as a member .of the Tory but also Labor policy to undermine France British imperial bureaucracy in Ceylon he returned vis-a.-vis Germany, thus hobbling the only nation in to England and with his wife, Virginia Woolf, Europe that could have moved effectively against founded the IIogarth Press and became one .of Hitler in the early years of the Nazi regime. Lord the luminaries of Bloomsbury, London's Greenwich

426 THE FREEMAN Village. Another member of Mr. Woolf's grour Autun~n of Liberty is a timely book. It is also was John Maynard Keynes, who gave him that a personal book. In it you will meet Paul Harvey, exaggerated title because, said Keynes, the work a man, an American, a ,champion of liberty. "was really a s,tudy of the fundamental principles You will find his questions stimulating and im­ of political thought and action." Mr. Woolf trea­ portant. WILLIAM H. PETERSON sures this example of Keynesian inflation along with his other memories of the past through the first half of the book. In the second half he' argues gracefully that dictatorships do not really belong Liberal's Progress in the modern 'world. They are throwbacks to an earlier stage of man's political history. The only The Death of Kings, by Charles Wertenbaker. 478 pp. New York: Random House. $3.95 way they can survive in our time is by isolating and. terrorizing their own people, and by threaten­ One of the better known characters in contemporary ing, the free nations wi,th war. In the 'end there American fi:ction is the bright young man who has will 'be war, 'a third world war. Whether there sold his services, but not his soul, to a powerful will be still other dictatorships to tackle after and unprincipled news magazine. Despising its that, Mr. Woolf does not say. ASHER BRYNES "ideology," which he can never adequately define, and terrorized by its power, whose source he can­ not trace, he is nevertheless unwilling to relinquish Dusk Over America? his handpainted neckties or Sutton ,Place flat. Comes the final conflict between individual con­ Autumn of Liberty, by Paul Harvey. 192 pp. New science and the overriding 'bureaucrati:c will, and York: Hanover House. $2.00 our journalistic libertine turns saint, triumphantly bearing his half-finished novel out of Rockefeller Is" Liberty's torch flickering in the United States? Center as hOe makes his way to honestpO'verty Are Americans being numbed into accepting the on a N ation-type weekly. easy 'virtue of the welfare state and hoping wist­ A charter member of the penitent and petulant fully that the Communist menace will please go Time alumni, Charles Wertenbaker, once again away? These are the questions that Paul Harvey, follows the course of the guilt-ridden huckster A.B.C. news commentator and author of Remember searching for integrity. What distinguishes The These Things, asks in this volume. Death of Kings, however, from most of its literary Mr. Harvey holds that freedo: stems from ante.cedents, is the author's overweening nostalgia vigilance, strength from morality, p litical honesty for the golden era of the 30's and the Popular from constitutional integrity, a d abundance Front, when the air was rich 'with revolutionary from hard work and honest swe t. He has no promise and "the American dream, once too big truck with the speciousness of 'containment," to be contained between the oceans, had not been "Yalu sanctuaries," and "collective security." He turned into a nightmare by the fearful, who argued believes that liberty is as sacred as life itself. And about who had lost China while the rest of the he puts his trust not only in talking tough with world was being lost." ('To ,read the Sunday book Soviet Russia but in acting tough as well. supplements or the Saturday Review, it would seem There is something of Walt Whit an and Patrick as though most 'critics werre beset by a similar Henry in Mr. Harvey. Listen to this: nostalgia; one, hailing its ",brilliance" and "objec­ The sirens three of this century re Communism, tivity," expended himself in gleeful effort to identify fascism. . .and the one in the middle with the benign the characters and dredge up the specific events smile on her innocent-appearing fa e, Socialism... which furnish the 'plot.) The subversive Pythagoreans ha e been burned at the stake or sent to the salt mi es by the very The Death of Kings is a kind of liberal's progress, politicians they had championed...b cause when they from the innocent years when "good men dared overthrew existing authority, being themselves un­ to trust each other" to the "political ice age" scrupulous and evil, they had nothi g to suhstitute ushered in,. roughly, with Alger Hiss's wistful dis­ for the old tyranny...but a new a archy. sertation on the habits of the prothonotary warbler. Paul Harvey knows his history ell. He knows Mr. Wertenbaker lays open the underbelly of that what rotted Rome can rot the United States Beacon - .an ungainly cross-breed of Time and as well, that the Sixteenth Ame dment on the Life-and' performs a conscientious, if vindictive income tax tore a. gaping hole in ur federalism, that the Seventeenth Amendme t sanctioning direct election of senators tore nother under Any bo,ok reviewed in this ,Book Sec,tion (or any the guise of "democracy." He cirit cizes, in turn, other current book) suppli.ed by return mail. You intellectual fakery" the pyramidin of executive pay only the bookstore price. We pay the postage, authority~ paper currency, the, U~ .,government anywhere in the world., Catalogue on req"est. handouts wh~ther foreign or domes ic. "America," TINE BiOJOiKMAILER, Box 101, Ni8W York 16 he warns, "is almost ripe for a itler."

MARCH 8, 1954 427 exploratory. tiere is Berkeley, the middle-aged in­ that "gave its heart to social revolution." They tellectual, "seeking to understand his time, to cling, with a ,passion that has no 'base -in circum­ participate in ,the bringing about of a better time stance or objective reality, to the image of an and to love and be loved by a·good woman." Here America lost to fear and reaction, persecuting too is Freeman, the oncea!rdent poet of the the virtuous, the innocent and unorthodox. Like prolet-cult who has mortgaged himself to Beacon; Eric Hoffer's True Believer, they see the present Abel, the brassy, chauvinistic foreign correspondent, as something tainted, unclean, a mean way-station gloriously declaring his love for the "little people" on the road to Utopia; they shove it off the stage as he is blown to bits by a mortar shell; Elgin, of history, speaking and thinking only in terms of the veteran of the Abe Lincoln Brigade, yearning "generations" and "waves of the future." for another glpain; Chatham, resigned for the sake­ Armed with this vision, it is no wonder that of his sons to ten more years in his glass cubi~le; Mr. Wertenbaker cannot bear to believe Hiss and, finally, Beacon's beetle~browed master, Louis guilty. In a thinly disguised re-creation of the Baron, who turns from the pursuit of an ideal Hiss Case, we see the amoral, vague1y homosexual to the pursuit of heresy. monster Angus Griswold piecing together a skill­ In this fictional potpourri, Mr. Wertenbaker ful pattern of lies and truths to destroy defiant, seeks to blend Lord Acton's famous aphorism on s'quare-jawed Elgin, who, to protect his wife, power with a Stalinoid's apologia pro vita sua. sacrifices himself upon the altar of reaction. And Thus, if his tired liberals bemoan the news from finally, as though to leave no possible doubt re­ Russia, they are comforted by the knowledge that garding the fate of the liberal in America, th~ "revolutions were seldom tende-r"; if they regret penultimate scene has Berkeley uncoupling his the Communist victory in China, they point know­ destiny from Baron and Beacon;as he steps from ingly to the Generalissimo's betrayal of her peas­ Baron's elevator for the [ast time, Angus Griswold, ants; if one of their number has turned traitor, sinister as the Prince of Darkness, enters to usurp it is only hecause he belongs to the generation his place. WALLACE MARKFIELD

seeks to deal with the subject purely on ethical The Free Man's Library grounds. Would total equalization of incomes, he asks, even if it did not reduce production, be By HENRY HAZLITT good or desirable? ,Or does justice demand in­ dividual rewards proportionate to the value of The Theory of Economic Policy in English Clas­ individual services? In an acute and original dis­ sical Political Economy, by Lionel Robbins. cussion, Mr. de J ouvenel shows not only how 217 pp. 1952. New York: St. Martin's Press. disappointing (in Great Britain, for example) the $3.00 results of a further redistribution of incomes would be, but how redistribution has turned out Professor Robbins here presents in broad outline to mean in effect "far less a redistribution of free the theory of economic policy held by the leading income from the richer to the poorer, as we English classical economists-notably Hume, Adam imagined, than a redistribution of power from the Smith, Bentham, Malthus, Ricardo, S,enior, Torrens, individual to the State." 1\lcCulloch, and the two Mills. It is the author's conviction that this theory has been gravely 'mis­ The Passing of Parliament, by G. W. Keeton, 208 rep'resented in contemporary discussion, on the pp. 1952. London: Ernest Benn, Ltd. $4.50 one hand by presenting the classical economists as. being callous to or neglectful of humane con­ G. W. Keeton is dean of the Faculty of Laws at siderations, such as the problems of unemployment University College, London. During the past and poverty, 'On the other hand as carrying the seventy years, he points out, the British Parliament, doctrine of laissez faire further ,than they actually though still nominally supreme, has conferred on did. Dr. Robbins is an authoritative but gracious government departments and bureaus increasingly guide. His book is written with lucidity and charm, wide powers of law-making. Party discipline has out of a rich and accurate scholarship. intensified, so that a government may rely upon a firm majority in the House of Commons to 'give The Ethics of Redistribution, by Bertrand de legal force to almost any measure it proposes. It Jouvenel. 91 pp. 1951. New York: Cambridge is Professor Keeton's thesis that, in consequence University Press. $1.75 of these developments, the sovereignty of Parlia­ ment is in danger of becoming a fiction. This Deliberately putting aside the argument that cur­ scholarly and cogent book is a worthy and neces­ rent government efforts to redistribute incomes sary successor to The New Despotism, written by reduce or destroy incentives, Mr. de Jouvenel Lord Hewart more than twenty years ago.

428 THE FREEMAN conqueror, and Jeaves with a duffie-bag erammed full of trophies. Hayes' G.L is humble and warm~ 11 -T-H-E-A-T-E-R_--11 hearted. Like many thousands of his buddies, he is terribly homesick, and wants to Ire-create abroad the atmosphere of a clean home, a steady girl Americans Abroad friend or a wife-symbols that represent for him By SERGE FLIEGERS intensely his personal concept of America. He is naively unprepared for the anti-American slogans Ever since Mark Twain achieved a smashing suc­ his girl throws at him. He cannot work up a cess with his Innocents A broad, the theme of Amer­ sense of guilt because his "materialist civilization" icans in foreign ~ands has been richly exploited produces better cigarettes, dehydrated soups, and by our authors and dramatists. Unfortunately, in U. S. Steel. He sees nothing wrong in acquiring the course of history, the gay picture of an Amer­ a steady girl friend, and he does not feel like a ican tourist starting on his foreign trip for conqueror, either politically or romantically. pleasure or profit has been replaced by the g!rim vista of American soldiers embarking for faraway 'This crass ,contrast between the G.L and his battlefields. girl, caught in the empty Icliches of Yankee-baiting, The most celebrated IchroniCiler of this new type is perfectly maintained in Act of Love, a United of dreadful "tourism," of course, was Ernest Artists Irelease starring Kirk Douglas and Dany Hemingway, whose Fa,rewell to Arms (about an Robin. Although he shifted the scene from Rome American in war-torn Italy) was published shortly to Paris, director-producer Anatole Litvak was after World War One, then produced as a play, able to maintain the delicate feeHng of innocence and later made into a movie. We do not intend, about the soldier of the Via Flaminia. He goes at this point in his career, to place Alfred Hayes even farthe'r, for his magnificent treatment of the beside Hemingway, yet there is a genera1 analogy prostitutes' jail in Paris brings into sharp relief insofar as Hayes' recent book, The Girl on the Via the cynical duality of European morals. Despite Flaminia, (about a G.L in Rome) has just been the unorthodox beginning of their romance, the presented as a play and, with some variations in soldier is willing to marry his girl. But French story and locale, made into a successfUlI movie by officials condemn her to the legalized status Anatole Litvak. of a prostitute. Mr. Litvak, keenly aware of Both Hayes, who wrote the book and the play, the Communist-nurtured anti-American sentiment and Irwin Shaw, who adapted it for the screen, throughout Europe, makes his point with purpose have abandoned Hemingway's formula of treating but without detriment to the dramatic quality Americans abroad-especially American soldiers­ of his picture. as gun-toting, wine-swigging creatures of doom, He' comes up, however, against a domestic death, and destruction. As typified by Hayes, the problem. In order to conform with the rigid new attitude is one of deeper understanding. prescriptions of the ,Movie Production Code (see Hayes' ,play, which opened at the "Ci~cle in the FREEMAN, February 22), he has to 'give his the Square," an off-Broadway center-stage theater, picture an unnecessarily ,bitter ending. The Code closely follows his book and concerns a G.l. who rules that a girl even unjustly dassified as a is living with a basically honest, hungry, and prostitute must come toa bad end, and so the lonely Italian girll in a pension on Rome's Via picture makes it painfully clear that she drowns Flaminia. In return for his solicitude andcoffe'e in the river. "I would have liked to do it dif­ and cigarettes, our 'G.L gets a lot of anti-American ferently," Mr. Litvak told us sadly, "hut there propaganda of the "Yankee, Go Home" type from were the censorship difficulties..." his mixed-up girl friend. His patience and affec­ Not mentioned by Mr. Litvak is another Code tion are about to overcome her unreasoning resent­ restriction that impinged upon the story of the ment when tragedy strikes. A raid on the house picture. Hayes' book made it clear that the villains forces the girl to register as a prostitute, and of his story were the local police and the magistrate. in an access of shame and grief, she runs toward But according to the Code, neither foreign govern­ the river. The G.L runs after her and-we hope­ ments nor groups should be' shown in a dis­ catches her in time. Leo Penn's intelligently re­ advantageous light. 'Thus the onus for wrecking strained acting is superb, as is Jose Quintero's the romance between the soldier and the 'girl was multiple-action staging, and Alfred Hayes' fast and shifted from European bureaucrats to the U.S. c'rackling dialogue. However, the value of this Army, and it is an uncomprehending Colonel who play is mainly in the new view it takes of our ships the ,G.l. to another area and precipitates soldiers abroad. the tragedy. This, of course, does nothing for the Whether consciously or unconsciously, Hayes movie nor for the prestige of our army. But while has done an efficient job of wiping away the old successfully tilting at the false image of our anti-American propaganda cliche of the swagger­ soldiers abroad, Mr. Litvak cannot be expected to ing, gum-chewing U.S. soldier who comes as a engage the windmill of censorship.

MARCH 8, 1954 429 Science in Industry Your February 22 editorial "Profit­ II FROM OUR READERS II Seeking Science," in· which you hail a valuable atomic discovery in the (Continued from p.400) WHAT IS THE R.C.A. Laboratories as an inspiring Strikes in Public UtiUties answer to the "campus liberal theory" Last fall a strike on the Key Railroad, that scientific progress is incompatible MAJORITY the only public means of communica­ with the profit motive, leaves me some­ tion between San Francisco and the what confused.... I am ~t a loss to East-Bay cities of Oakland, Berkeley, understand why . . . a discovery by a VIEWPOINT? Alameda, and a dozen more, was salaried scientist working for a cor­ settled after a tie-up of seventy-seven poration seems to you more "profit­ days. The one-way fare was increased seeking" than a discovery by a salaried The public obtains a mi­ from thirty-five cents to fifty cents professor working for a board of trustees, or a salaried civil servant nority viewpoint of American for a distance of seven miles. For the greater part of the century ... the working in a government laboratory. business, because most of our fare was ten cents. Possibly you are not aware that under nation's business is small and You recently had a strike in New the traditional law of the United States York when the labor unions denied a scientist cannot patent the discovery not very articulate. Is Small babies and hospitals the right to obtain of natural phenomena, and hence can­ Business Doomed? (by J. Gor· milk. The East Caast cities had a not make a profit on what our founding fathers, perhaps mistakenly, considered don Roberts) gives you a shipping strike on their hands. Does authority rest with the stalte to be the property of mankind. But viewpoint unusual because legislature or with the labor unions? this is the law, and it was not invented it is typical. For a copy of If authority is vested with the state. by "campus liberals." then it is time the state legislature However, it may be that I do you this booklet, send 25c to enacted a law making it mandatory an injustice, and ... you merely wish \ Emarines Book Store, Coun­ for labor unions to obtain sanction to assign a part of the credit due the scientists' discovery to the profit-seek­ cil Bluffs, Iowa. Please men­ from the legislature before calling a strike on any public utility. ing motives of the corporation under whose aegis they worked. But this is tion this publication when Menlo Park, Cal. E. A. STENT orderi,ng. a dangerous argument. By exactly the same logic you would be obliged to "The Most Stimulating" assign the credit for Pavlov's dis­ Of all ,that I read, the FREEMAN is coveries to the Soviet gov:ernment, the the most stimulating and the most credit for Bohr's discoveries to Danish FROM THE ORDEAL OF BE­ distinguished. .. It has courageously socialism, and' the credit for Galileo's assailed ,every form of tyranny over work to the Papal Inquisition. No tell­ ING ANALYZED. COMES ••• the mind of man. ing where this would end! ... Henry, Ill. MILES DUNNINGTON N ew York City DAVID EASTON

Dr. {(lein's Record It's about time someone pointed out As former associate of Dr. Julius that recent scientific discoveries very Klein in the U.S. Department of Com­ useful to mankind have been made in merce, I was delighted to read Stanley the research laboratories of American High's article "Peru's Economic Come­ industry. Your edito~ial "Profit-Seeking Science" might have mentioned that By Maurice Na'tenberg, back" (January 25) and to learn of the great contribution the able Dr. some of our most dedicated and selfless Regent House, Chicago 40, II!., Publishers. $2.50 Klein had made to that country. It scientists are working for profit-seeking THIS FIRST realistic couch-eye view of analysis, was not surprising to me, of course, corporations because they thus have exposes serious abuses perpetrated in the secrecy knowing of his fertile brain and world­ every advantage in equipment to aid of the analyst's chambers. wide experience in his chosen field. their search, and because they realize THAT FREUD only wrote a new, and possibly A little correction of his record, that business competition and industrial the weirdest chapter in the age-old history of know-how will give the results of hypnotism, is ably proven. The data on the de­ however, is in order. Mr. High reports velopment of his technique, theories, his basic that Dr. Klein had "served as chief their discoveries to the world quickly aims and views, healing results and many other of the Latin-American Division of the and economically. valuable facts, make this study an original and U.S. Department of Commerce during Chicago, Ill. ELIZABETH MILLS fascinating contribution to psychology. the Hoover Administration." He was "As a former analyst, I can certify, the material A W,ire frOID Pro-America in FREUDIAN PSYCHO-ANTICS is authentic and chief of that Division long before Mr. technically correct." Hoover became President. We were CONGRATULATIONS ON SPLENDID EDI­ Coyne H. Campbell, M.D. F.A.P.A. F.A.C.P. Chair­ together in that Division under Presi­ man Dept. Neuropsychiatry, Univ. of Okla. TORIAL "PREACHERS OF HATE" [Febru­ dent Wilson's Administration. When ary 22]. IT WAS READ ALOUD THIS Mr. Hoover became Secretary of Com­ MORNING AT PRO-AMERICA'S REGULAR MAIL COUPON TODAY merce, Dr. Klein became the Director MEETING ALONG WITH THE PROFOUND Regent House, 4554 8roadway, Chicago 40, III. of the U.S. Bureau of Foreign and AND DIRECT STATEMENT DEPLORING ANTI­ Enclosed 11 $2.50. Will return book in 5 days if not Domestic Commerce of which the Latin­ SEMITISM AND RACISM FROM SENATOR pleased. American Division was one unit. When JOE MC CARTHY AND DAN SMOOTH OF Name. PLEASE PRINT. Mr. Hoover became President, he wisely FACTS FORUM, ROBERT STRIPLING, AND chose Dr. Klein as Assistant Secre­ BELLA DODD. Address. tary of Comm,erce. ... MRS. TOM SHAW J. ANTHONY MARCUS City Zone State New York City Dallas, Tex. First Vice President

A growing enterprise

with diversified products. •• For continuing success a business Inust expand to Ineet AInerica's changing needs.

Plate Glass, shown emerging from a The Merchandising Division was established by ~~Pittshurgh" started paint production melting tank, was the first product made by IlPittsburgh" in 1896. Today there are approximately 200 to provide customers with high-quality IIPittsburgh Plate." IlPittsburgh" today op­ merchandising branches located advantageously throughout paints. Today the Company operates 14 erates 4 plate glass plants, 3 window glass the nation ready to serve the needs of local consumers both paint plants located from coast-to-coast. plants, 2 insulating window plants, a Fiber efficiently and economically. Glass plant, and a Pittco Metal plant.

~~Pennvernon" is Brushes-all types of the trade name for them-are produced in IIPittsburgh's" famous IlPittsburgh's" 4 brush window glass. This pre­ plants. From its original mier glass is produced !line of paint brushes, with a special process IIPittsburgh" expanded which was developed ~nto production of by IlPittsburgh's" ex­ motor-driven industrial tensive research pro­ brushes. gram.

~~Pittshurgh" first Fiber Glass is the entered the chemical newest IIPittsburgh" field to obtain soda ash product. Produced in for glass manufacture. severa I forms, fi ber Today its wholly-owned glass can be used as subsidiary, Columbia­ thermal and acoustical Southern Chemical Cor­ insulation and also as a poration, produces rei nforci ng agent in fab­ chemicals for industry ricating operations. and agriculture.

PAINTS • GLASS • CHEMICALS • BRUSHES • PLASTICS • FIBER GLASS

PIT T 5 BUR GHPLA T' EG LAS 5 COM PAN Y IN CANADA: CANADIAN PITTSBURGH INDUSTRIES LIMITED