The Freeman February 1951
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the FEBRUARY 26, 1951 25 CENTS UNIVERSAL TRAINING: A FRAUD Hoffman Nickerson THE MENACE OF USURPATION Edna Lonigan SOVIET UNDERGROUND, U. S. A. Paul Crouch ENGLAND'S SOCIALIST ORDEAL George Winder THE ELEMENT OF SURPRISE An Editorial Editors: John Chamberlain • Henry Hazlitt • Suzanne La Follette PUBLISHED FORTNIGHTLY FIVE DOLLARS A YEAR theFREEMAN A WORD with which is combined the magazine, PLAIN TALK ABOUT Editors, JOHN CHAMBERLAIN HENRYHAZLITT Managing Editor, SUZANNE LA FOLLETTE OUR Business Manager, KURT LASSEN CONTRIBUTORS FEBRUARY 26, 1951 HOFFMAN NICKERSON'S views on universal military training are based on experience in CONTENTS VOL. 1-NO. 11 two wars. He was with the General Staff of the AEF in 1918, and later became a mem Editorials ber of the U. S. Section of the Interallied Armistice Commission. In WorId War II he The Fortnight. ... ................. .............. .. 323 served as a major. His most recent books are The Element of Surprise. ......................... ... 325 "The New Slavery," "Arms and Policy" Evil Communications. .......... .. ................ .. 327 and "The Armed Horde." •.. GEORGE Our Own........................................... 328 WINDER is a British financial writer and a Goes the Comrade. ............................ .. .. 328 frequent contributor to the Cit1J Press in Universal Training: A Fraud HOFFMAN NICKERSON 329 London.... The inside story of the U. S. The Menace of Usurpation EDNA LONIGAN 331 Communist Party's preparations for going England's Socialist Ordeal. GEORGE WINDER 334 underground is .told for the first time by PAUL CROUCH, former district organizer for Lines and Points EDMUND J. KIEFER 335 the party and director of its work among the Soviet Underground, U. S. A PAUL CROUCH 336 U. S. armed forces. In 1927 he was sent to Manpower of Free China GERALDINE FITCH 339 the Soviet Union, wllere he was made an "He Was A Man -" CHARLES YALE HARRISON 341 honorary commander of the Red Army. Mr. From Our Readers. ................................... .. 342 Crouch broke with communism in early This Is What They Said. ............................. ... 343 1942, and is now completing a book on his years in the party's higher echelons...• Books GERALDINE FITCH has spent most of her A Reviewer's Notebook JOHN CHAMBERLAIN 345 adult life in China, where she became well The Theater of Yeats THEODORE KOMISARJEVSKY 346 acquainted with Chiang Kai-shek and other Christophers' Crusade GEORGE E. SOKOLSKY 347 outstanding personalities. Just before the The Great Heretic WILLIAM HENRY CHAMBERLIN 348 Korean War she spent two years in Korea as a journalist, covering United Press and Money For the Millions JAMES RORTY 349 International News Service part of the Tradition of Opulence EDWARD DAHLBERG 350 time, and contributing to magazines. ... Ben Franklin's Letters DON MILLER 351 CHARLES YALE HARRISON is the well-known satirist whose "Generals Die in Bed" was a Theater best seller in the late twenties. His "Meet Darkness at Noon RICHARD McLAUGHLIN 344 Me on the Barricades" satirized the Com munist party line of the mid-thirties. His Poem latest book is "Thank God for My Heart Death Valley, 1951 ~EN RAY REDMAN 344 Attack." ... DON MILLER is a free-lance writer who has been on a number of news papers, most recently the Pittsburgh Press. The Free:rpan is published fortnightly. Publication Office, 10 Ferry Street, Concord, N. H. Editorial and General Offices, 24-0 Madison Avenue, New York 16, N. Y. Copy Forthcoming righted in the United States, 1951, by The Freeman Magazine, Inc. John Chamberlain, Another article by Lawrence R. Brown, President; Henry Hazlitt, Vice President; Suzanne La Follette, Secretary,' Alfred Kohlberg, Treasurer. author of "Why Stalin Needs Asia" (Janu ary 22) will contribute to the argument over Application pending for second class entry at the Post Office at Concord, N. H. Rates: sending American troops to Europe. Oliver Twenty-five cents the copy; five dollars a year in the United States, nine dollars for two Carlson will report on the questionable po years; six dollars a year elsewhere. litical aspects of the billion-dollar irrigation The editors can not be responsible for manuscripts submitted but if return postage is project for Central Arizona. Why the CIa enclosed they will endeavor to see that manuscripts reJected are promptly returned. and the AFL should favor higher profits will be discussed by Harold Loeb, whose article It is not to be understood that articles signed with a name, pseudonym, or initials necessarily represent the opinion of the editors, either as to substance or style. They are "Profits = Efficiency" appeared in the Free printed because, in the editors' iudgment, they are intrinsically worth reading. man of November 27. RUMFORD PRESS, CONCORD. N. H~ t e NEW YORK, MONDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1951 fect demanding further inflation. For the policy he pro THE FORTNIGHT poses can only monetize the public debt, and by increasing Former President Hoover's speech of February 9 was the supply of money and credit further depreciate the remarkable for its command of economics and logistics, value of the dollar. Then, to "protect" the American pub but most of all it was noteworthy for its hopeful breadth lic with his right hand against the inflation that he is of view. Far from being "defeatist" or "isolationist" (the ordering with his left, he has his price controllers throw two epithets commonly hurled at Hoover), it set the a general ceiling (which quickly develops leaks) over American struggle against Stalin into the proper frame prices and wages. Price ceilings never give long-run pro work of its world setting. By comparison with Hoover, tection against the consequences of monetary debase the Administration spokesmen are almost parochial in ment. They merely unbalance and distort production their aims: apparently they would let the whole of the while diverting public attention from the government's East go Communist up to the very gates of Suez, Aus own inflationary activities. tralia and the Hawaiian Islands in their one-sided con centration on a Europe that has both the manpower and Preventing prices from reflecting changed conditions the machine-power to save itself. In advocating that eliminates the guide by which millions of enterprisers, America funnel the flower of its army into Europe when each of them expert in his own field, govern their actions. Stalin may very well elect to move south or east, not Instead of businessmen reacting to the market, govern west, the Administration spokesmen remind us of the ment officials must make the requisite decisions. Not only panicky Atlantic seaboard citizens of Spanish War times are such decisions usually faulty since they are based on who wanted the U. S. fleet strung out in front of our inadequate information - the human mind can not harbors from Maine to Georgia - a disposal which of balance all factors as does a free market - but they are course would have left the Spanish fleet free to go prac difficult to initiate, revise and revoke. Thus, freezing tically anywhere else. prices changes the economy from one of nearly reflex • actions to the, stream of events, to an administered sys The essence of the Hoover speech comes down to this: tem. Wars come to an end. But it seems foolhardy to America, as the protector of the whole free world, must be make this shift in time of peace because the defense effort able to concentrate its power for use where it may be may go on for several generations. most needed. But to be truly free to save the West, America ,needs Europe's self-help; hence the reminder Now that the latest railway strike appears to be wither implicit in Hoover's words, that western Europe has its ing away, probably Congress will cool off and nothing own obligations under the North Atlantic Pact. If it will will be done toward forestalling a recurrence. What no begin to get some ponderable divisions under arms body seems to appreciate is that strikes are now endemic while the U. S. concentrates on building up its air and sea on the railroads. They come at increasingly frequent in power, Stalin will hardly dare his worst in any direction. tervals, each one a little more severe than its predecessor. When a strike occurs, some Congressman usually proposes The Administration's economic policy becomes more in some absurdly drastic punitive measure - but, as soon credible every day. On the one hand it actively promotes a as the strike is over, it seems impossible to get the legis reckless inflation. President Truman throws at Congress lators to consider the subject at all. As a matter of fact, a fantastic $71,600,000,000 expenditure budget. He not right after the mid-December strike, Congress enacted a only proposes unparalleled non-defense expenditures, but "union-shop" and "check-off" bill for the railway unions. dares Congress to cut them. Then he does what he has When intransigeance is thus rewarded and never pun not a shadow of legal right to do. He calls the Open ished, how can the unionists be expected to behave any Market Committee of the Federal Reserve System before differently than they do? The Railway Labor Act has him, tells them they must support government bonds at been a dead letter since 1941 as an instrument for main existing levels, and gives out statements announcing that taining labor peace on the railroads - and in all that time they have "pledged" themselves to do this. This is in ef- , Congress has not done a single thing to remedy this the FREEMAN 323 dangerous situation. The Railway Labor Act as it now every 3000 citizens. In 1948, however, the convictions stands is pretty much of a Wagner Act. There has been were 520,000 - or one for every 96 of the 50 million popu no "Taft-Hartley" for the railroads - and these strikes lation.