DE <: E l\'IIlE n 1954 50¢

The Vigilantes of Beverly HillsMorrie Rvskind

.J

Progressive Ed.ucationUndermined China

Dr. Kao Ch,it~n

Jefferson Revisits AmericaThaddeus Ashby

IRREDEEMABLE currency - despite warnings fromwise economists - was established by the govern­ment in 1933. Since then the thrifty have beenrobbed of up to 60% of the value of their savings... bank deposits, insurance, annuities, pensions,government bonds, and social security.

The Federal administration, elected November1952, promised sensible economics and sound money.The best way to fulfill these promises is by enact­ment of the Gold Coin Standard.* The best time todo it is now.

The public must again be given control over thegovernment's purse strings ... must be able to ex­press lack of confidence in government policy, ifnecessary, by redeeming their currency for goldcoin.

Excerpt from RepublicanHMonetary Policyll Plank

*The right to redeem currency forgold will help keep Americafree ... ask your Senatorsand Congressman to work andvote to restore the Gold CoinStandard. Write to The GoldStandard league, latrobe,Po., for further information.The league is an associationof patriotic citizens joined inthe common cause of restoringa sound monetory system.

Why Don'tYou

MakeSavings

Safeby returning to the

GOLD COIN STANDARD?

For twenty years the previous administrationheld this power away from the people. During thatperiod the value of the dollar has been driven downand down by incredible government policies financedby a flood of fiat currency.

In strong contrast to the dollar's descending valuehas been the increasing productivity fostered byAmerican industry. As an example, Kennametal­as a tool material, has tripled the output potentialof the metal-working industries, and has sped ex­traction of coal and other essential minerals.

But-increased industrial productivity could notalone make up for the dollar's deficiency. Priceshave skyrocketed ... pensioners are becoming pau­pers ... money in the bank is almost meaningless.

The Republican Party has stated its aim to be ...a dollar on a fully convertible gold basis. \iVhy wait?If it's a good idea later-it's a wonderful idea today-for it will prevent further damaging consequencesof an irredeemable money system.

The return of sound. money - in addition to se­curing the value of personal savings - will guaran­tee stability of commercial assets - which will en­courage American industry, of which KennametalInc. is a key enterprise-to create better things, formore people, at less real cost.

We must resume without devaluation or delay.

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Articles

Washington, D. C. . FRANK C. HANIGHEN 208

Readers Also Write 0 • • • • •• 202

Pros, Semi-Pros, Amateurs

The FREEMAN is devoted to the promul­gation of the libertarian philosophy: thefree market place, limited government andthe dignity of the individual.

Take the case of ROBERT R. LENT. As far as Iknow, he never published an article in his life.In the course of a conversation he told meabout his ex.periences in the Air Force withscientific personnel. "Can you write?" I asked."No." "Good. Just write out what you havebeen saying and send your script to me." He'sa full-fledged amateur, but he knew ahout some­thing-which is the first requirement of awriter-and that something was wor,th telling.

I like amateurs. If they work at it, theybecome professionals, and the cause of liber­tarianism is badly in need of professionalwriters. Like, for instance, MORRIE RYSKIND, theauthor of Of Thee I Sing and other plays andmovies. In his metier, satire, he's tops, havinggot there by dint of hard work, even though hemay have acquired a penchant for satire byway of the um,bilical cord. When you get apiece from him, or any professional, you havelittle editing to do; he knows what you wantand don't want, and writes accordingly.

The emergence of the professional from theamateur ranks is largely, I think, a matter oflearning what to leave out. The beginner isinclined to throw into his piece everything heknows, to the disadvantage of the point he ismaking and to the distraction of the reader.THADDEUS ASHBY told me a few weeks ago thathe hasn't as yet mastered the art of omission,but he is coming along fast. I expect greatthings from him, because he has imaginationand industry. At present he is on the staff ofFaith and Freedom.

I don't know anybody who has as thoroughan understanding of libertarianism as my friendF. A. HARPER. In fact, he knows too much. Whenhe has finally rid himself of the academiccurse, he will take his place high among theprofessionals.

DR. KAO CHIEN was a professor at CantonUniversity and editor of the magazine Wen­Tsao when "progressive" education infiltratedthe Chinese culture and rendered it vulnerableto communism.

JEROME LANDFIELD, retired engineer andeditor, spent many years in Russia (for a whilea prisoner of the OGPU), and was instrumentalin preventing, up to 1932, American recognitionof the Soviet Union.

Our reviewers of the two books on GeneralMacArthur are particularly qualified for thisassignme'nt. IRENE CORBALLYKUHN, who knowsthe Far East well, collaborated with FatherRaymond de Jaegher on The Enemy Within.BRIG. GEN. BONNER FELLERS served on GeneralMacArthur's staff for six years.

A Monthly

Libertarians

For

FRANK CHODOROVJAMES M. ROGERS

VOL. 5, N'O. 6 D,ECEIMBER 1954

EditorBusiness Manager

THB

reeman

Contents

THE FREE:M4.N is published monthly. Publication Office, Orange, Conn. Editorial andGeneral Offices, Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y. Copyrighted in the United States, 1954,by The Irvington Press, Inc. Leonard E. Read, President; Fred Rogers Fairchild, VicePresident; Claude Robinson, Secretary; Lawrence Fertig, Treasurer; Henry Hazlittand Leo Wolman.Entered as second class matter at the Post Office at Orange, Conn. Rates: Fifty centsthe copy; five dollars a year in the United States; nine dollars for two years. ,The editors cannot be responsible for unsolicited manuscripts unless return postage orbetter, a stamped, self-addressed envelope is enclosed. Manuscripts must be typeddouble-spaced.Articles signed with a name, pseudonym or initials do not necessarily represent theopinion of the editors.

Editorials

From Christmas to Christmas 205The Sovereign Incompetent 0 •••••••• 0 • 0 '0 0 o. 206Political Smog 0 ••• 0 •• 0 ••••• 0 0 0 • 0 • •• 206Politics Versus Economics 0 •••••• 000 •••••••• 0 •••• 0'0 207A Prediction 0 0 •• 0 0 •• 0 • 0 •••••••••• 0 •• 0 ••••••• 0 ••• 0 • 20-7

Books

A Reviewer's Notebook JOHN CHAMBERLAIN 230Preface to a New Politics REV. EDMUND A. OPITZ 232Civilized Conversation WILLIAM S. SCHLAMM 233MacArthur: New American Saga

Glorious Decade 0 0 0 0 0 0 00. IRENE CORBALLY KUHN 234Living History 0 •••••••••••• BONNER FELLERS 235

Our D~layed H-Bomb 0 WILLIAM HENRY CHAMBERLIN 236Student in Red China 0 0 • 0 0 ••• 0 0 0 • GERALDINE FITCH 236Africa: Two Views of Its Problems 0 MAX YERGAN 237Well Worth Reading .. 0 •• 0 0 0 0 •• 0 • • • • • • • • • •• • • • • • • • 238

The Vigilant'es of Beverly Hills ... 0 0 0 MORRIE RYSKIND 210For Whom the N.e.C. Speaks. 0 0 .REV. EDMUND A. OPITZ 213Progressive Education Undermined China

DR. KAO CHIEN 216The Soviet Psychosis 0 0 JEROME LANDFIELD 219A Note on the Oppenheimer Case . 0 •••• ROBERTR. LENT 221Prosperity by Procreation o. 0 ••••••••• F. A. HARPER 223Jefferson Revisits America .. 0 ••• 0 0 •• THADDEUS ASHBY 226

Keeping America on the GO.. .with ITIMKEN®\ Tapered Roller Bearings

What makes him twice the farmer his grandfather was?

THE farmer of fifty yearsago spared neither his horses

nor himself. Yet, compared tothe farmer of 1954, he hadamazingly little to show for itafter a full day's work.

Today's farmer plows 5 timesfaster than the old-timers. Hecuts hay 12 times faster. Hepicks 1,000 bushels of corn inthe time it used to take for 75.

For today's farmer has a newkind of hired hand; machines.Steel monsters that plow, sow,harvest, and do a thousand otherman-killing jobs with ease!

How can these machines doso much so easily?

One reason is the Timken®tapered roller bearings onwhich the wheels and shaftsturn. They roll the load to savepower from being lost to friction.They reduce wear. They savefarmers money by lasting as longas the machines themselves. Interms of performance, they costless than any other bearings.

Timken bearings virtuallyeliminate friction because theyare designed to roll true. Theylive up to their design because

we make their dimensions andsurfaces microscopically cor­rect. And we make the steel our­selves to further insure qualityevery step of the way. No otherU. S. bearing maker does.

I t all helps keep those farmmachines on the go. So farmmachinery makers' first choice isTimken tapered roller bearings.The Timken r--------,Roller Bear-~ingCompany, e ~n:Canton 6, _ ~

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ican books after 1950, yet the StateDepartment included only his com­munistic works, to the number of six­teen, in fifty-one of its overseaslibraries, Mr. Hughes ci,ted The FirstBook of Negroes as an indication ofhis present anticommunist attitude...

His testimony should be consideredin deciding whether the Girl Scoutendorsement of that book in 1953deserves to be condemned.Brighton, Mass. CHARLES E. RICE

"Glittering Generalities"Frankly, I have been disappointed withthe FREEMAN since it has become amonthly publication; the crisp, freshstyle that was once so much a part ofyour magazine seems now lacking.Glittering generalities concerning af­fairs in the United States and abroadwill' not win the fight that we knowmust be won if our nation is to survivein its present form.... Why not moreforceful articles in support of theBricker Amendment, or in defense ofcongressional investigations exposingReds? ...New Rochelle, N.Y. ARTHUR V. PARETE

RALPH RAICONew York City

Literary '~Come·on"

After reading John Chamberlain'sreprinted revie,w of Essays on Liberty:Volume II (October), I, who am luckyenough to be on the Foundation forEconomic Education's mailing list, dis­agree with his suggestion to introducebits of literary come-ons to woo thereader. Let Mr. Read and his staff re­tain at all costs their "doctrinal pur­ity," and others like me will feel asthough we have been graduated to atrue institute of higher learning. Thehigher the literary level, the finer arethe standards it sets. What betterclarion call could there be to a worldsunk deep in the morass of moraldebasement? The seemingly unattain­able offers the greatest challenge.Santa Ana, Cal. PEGGY K. WALKER

The ,Case Against WarWilliam S. Schlamm (November) madeout the best case possible for war.After Frank Chodorov had finished hisrebuttal, there wasn't much left on theopposition side. And as usual, AlbertJay Nock has the last word. Said thatrevered libertarian:

"This matter of national defensewould take on an entirely differentaspect if people could be brought tounderstand that the only governmentthey need to defend themselves againstis their own government, and that theonly way to defend themselves againstit is by' constant distrust and vigi­lance."

History ,Being RepeatedMay we commend you for the Septem­ber editorial, "The Return of 1940?"As the front-page columnist of a localnewspaper for several years prior toour entry into World War Two, Iargued for peace, for isolation, for astrong America. I warned of the con­sequences, which you outlined as nowafflicting our land.

In the beginning I was supported bythe big capitalists because of mycriticisms of the creeping socialismof the New Deal. ... But their ap­pIause lessened as the rumblings ofwar grew louder, as they realized thatbooming prosperity and huge profitscould be obtained only through con­flict.... It was the same with ourlocal Communists and radicals. Theybacked me in my pleas for peace whileGermany and Soviet Russia were allies.They became interventionists when thetwo nations split. . .

Peace was a lost cause. So wasAmericanism and those who sincerelyfought for it. I was fired.

Now, as you wrote, the tragic historyis being repeated. . . . As you realize,a third maj or conflict will spell theend of the American Republic, justas bureaucracy and big governmentare destroying democracy and freedomat home.Miami, Fla. H. BOND BLISS

Langston Hughes' TestimonyI wish to commend Marion Murphy,author of "And the Right Shall Tri­umph" (October) for her able andforthright chronicle of the left-winginfiltra,tion into the Girl Scout move­ment. However, I feel that certain factsmust be mentioned to keep the recordstraight.

Miss Murphy states that Robert LeFevre criticized the Girl Scout organ­ization for its 1953 endorsement ofThe First Book of Negroes by LangstonHughes. Mr. Hughes, as the articlecorrectly stated, was a leader in thecommunist movement, and did writethe poem "Goodbye, Christ," as well asothers of similar vein. However, onMarch 26, 1953, Mr. Hughes testifiedbefore Senator McCarthy and hisPermanent Subcommittee· on Inves,tiga­tions, and gave a rather convincingaccount of his disillusionment with,and defection from the Communist con­spiracy. . . . The testimony developedthe alarming fact that, although Mr.Hughes' disaffection from communismcaused him to write several pro-Amer-

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THE

reemanDECEMBER 1 9 5 4

From Christmas to Christmas

CHRIST brought to a dispirited world the doc­trine of human dignity. He spoke to menwhose worth to themselves had dropped to

the cost of keeping alive, and He spoke of self­esteem. Only a few listened; only a remnant under­stood. When the scope of human aspirations isforeshortened by continued frustration, and theprimary instinct of living becomes the purpose oflife, he who seeks to awaken hope speaks a strangeand disturbing language. It was to men who hadmade adj ustment with existence that Christ spoke,and they heard Him not.

The price of the political State came high. Itsally, the predatory priesthood, took its cut of pro­duction, and the remaining wage was at the sub­sistence level. Pharisaism, which is the art of ra­tionalizing untruth, called upon the ,Highest to bearfalse witness for tithes and taxes, and upon thattestimony the individual made peace with the ver­dict of his worthlessness. Being without soul, eventhe solace of salvation was denied the Samaritanand the M'agdalene.

To this offal of the social order Christ broughtthe doctrine of the dignity of the individual. Andwhat is the p~emise of this doctrine? That in theeternal scheme of things human existence is theonly reality: therefore, in God's reckoning no per­son is beneath notice and esteem. "The very hairsof your head are all numbered."

Nor did He leave that thought in a doctrinalvacuum, but He implemented it with a promise: theimmediacy of the Kingdom of God-on earth as itis in Heaven. "It is your Father's wish to give youthe kingdom."

And in that kingdom, that social order whichapproximates our concept of the perfect, what mustbe the rule of human relations? Is it not thatjustice shall have its turn, that the reign of legal­ized injustice by which man is robbed of his prod­ucts and his self-esteem shall be no more? And thatthe inequalities which stem from this injustice shalldisappear? For the first shall be last.

Is that reading revolution into the Christ­promise ? Yet, not even the most ardent apologistsfor things as they are dare put the Heaven-on-earth

label on the world to which Christ came, or the onein which we live. Rather, to phrase the smallestdetail of that ideal it is necessary to draw upon ourimagination for its opposite.

",On earth as it is in Heaven." Whatever Heavenconnotes to the theologian, to the layman it spellsthe highest aspiration of the human spirit-whichis Freedom. Can a Heaven which embraces slavery,ec<>nomic or political, have meaning? It is fantastic,blasphemous, if you will, to speak of Heaven-on­earth as a place where one man must pay anotherfor the privilege of living.

Then, again, are the standards of eternal lifefixed by monopoly exactions? Is there a tax onimmortality? Do soul-bureaucrats hound the spiritsinto collectivized subservi1ence? Or rather, do wenot think of Heaven-on-earth as an existencewherein every man may do that which he will, pro­vidad he infringe not on the equal right of everyother man?

He who brought this message of Justice andFreedom to a world from which Freedom andJustice had been banished by Avarice and Powerwas crucified. It is to man's everlasting sorrow anddisgrace that the message itself all but died withHim. For not once during these nineteen centurieshas man been free from involuntary poverty, fromoppression, from war. Always the dignity of theperson is whittled away by the ruthlessness of aself-seeking few, aided and abetted by the prevail­ing Pharisaism. Currently, it is the subtle soporificof socialism. And yet, though privilege and itspolitical satellites will do their utmost to emasculatethe highest of moral values, to twist elemental truthinto its opposite, to obscure light with planned ig­norance, the human spirit cannot be forever stillednor its hope forever denied. The spark that is Mancannot be extinguished.

To those to whom the ways of Justice and themeans of Freedom are known, the meaning of theChrist-promise is clear. And every day, from Christ­mas to Christmas, they rededicate thEimselves, be­cause they cannot do otherwise, to the struggle forthe"attainment of man's greatest ideal-the King­dom of Heaven on earth.

DECEMBER 1954 205

The Sovereign Incompetent

WHEN YOU voted last month, you assumed theresponsibility of American citizenship. You

loaned the sovereignty which resides in you toyour chosen agent for a designated period, andordered him to use it to manage the affairs of thecommunity. It is a loan, not a transference ofsovereignty, according to the American doctrine,and you are the final judge of whether the trustwas faithfully executed.

That is, you are a citizen, not a subject. Asubject owes allegiance to a ruler, who is pre­sumed to be endowed with the special gift ofrulership. A citiz,en, on the other hand, owes al­legiance to his conscience, and in this country hisconscience is ,presumed to be guided by the prin­ciples of government embodied in our Constitution.

During the campaign, all the candidates iteratedand reiterated the dignity of the sovereign citizen.Not one of them even hinted that the citizen givesup any of his independence in voting, or rids him­self of the responsibilities that freedom of choiceimposes on hi'm. Each of the candidates, rather,begged for the suffrage of the citizenry on theground that he was best qualified to carry out theirwill and their purpose.

'The day after election, this relationship betweenthe citizen and the successful candidate changes.The elected official now assumes that the sovereigncitizen is in fact his ward, somebody to take careof because he is incapable of taking care of him­self. He is now a child, or perhaps an imbecile,who must be protected against the consequences ofhis inade:quacy. He must be compelled to "save"for his old age because he is incapable during hisyears of productivity to look ahead; he must beprovided with a "minimum" wage because he cannotcope with the competitive conditions of the marketplace; since he hasn't sense enough to look afterhis health, or the education of his children, or tomarket his skills, or to provide shelter for hisfa'mily, or to successfully manage his business with­out subsidies, it is incumbent on the chosen agentto nurse, succor and guide this erstwhile sovereigncitizen through the vicissitudes of life.

In short, the citizen who before election wasdeemed capable of deciding on the affairs of statebecomes helpless and incompetent immediately afterhe has maae this momentous decision. He must bedone "good" to.

This before-and-after-election contradiction isnot a new or purely American phenomenon, al­though it is true that it has become more pro­nounced since the advent of New Dealism. In 1850,Frederic Bastiat, a French legislator, phrased itas follows in his famous monogr~ph, The Law: 1

1 The Foundation for Economic Education, Irvington-an-Hudson,N. Y. 76 pp. $.65

206 THE FREEMAN

How does he [the politician or do-gooder] regardthe people when a legislator is to be chosen? Ah,then it is claimed that the people have a instinctivewisdom; they are gifted with the finest perception;their will is always right; the ge'neral will cannoterr; voting cannot be too universal.

When it is time to vote, apparently the voteris not to be asked for any guarantee of his wisdom.His will and capacity to choose wisely are takenfor granted. Can the people be mistake'n? Are wenot living in an age of enlightenment? What! Arethe people always to. be kept on leashes ? Havethey not won their rights by great effort andsacrifice? Have they not given ample proof oftheir intelligence and wisdom? Are they not adults?Are they not capable of judging for themselves?Is there a class or a man who would be so bold asto set himself above the people, and judge and actfor them? No, no, the people are and should befree. They desire to manage their own affairs, andthey shall do so.

But when the legislator is finally elected-ah!Then indeed does the tone of his speech undergo aradical change. The people are returned to passive­ness, inertness a'nd unconsciousness; the legislatorenters into omnipotence. Now it is for him toinitiate, to direct, to propel and to organize. Man­kind has only to submit; the hour of despotismhas struck. We now observe ,this fatal idea: thepeople who, during the election, were so wise, somoral, so perfect, now have no tendencies what­ever; or if they have any, they are tendencies thatlead downward into degradation.

Political Smog

FOR WEEKS that peculiar atmospheric' conditionpopularly known as "smog" had settled on Los

Angeles, and the eye-irritation it causes was; be­ginning to make life in the city quite a chore.Following the usual A'merican pattern, a numberof citizens got up a "protest committee," meetingswere held and the politicians were memorialized.

Chemists who have been studying the problemhave not yet come up with a solution, but it isgenerally believed that smoke mixed with fog is atthe bottom of the annoyance. !Therefore, when thegovernor of the state received the call from theup-in-arms citizenry, he wrote the five oil re­fineries in the city to please shut down theirplants for a week to learn whether the smoke fromtheir stacks is the culprit. For good and sufficientpolitical reasons, he suggested that the re,fineriespay wages during the experimental shutdown.

Most of the adults in Los Angeles smoke. Possiblythe volume from cigarettes, cigars and pipes equalsor exceeds that from the re,finery smokestacks, butit never occurred to the governor to suggest tothe citizenry that they suspend their smokinghabits for a week. Why?

The senatorial candidate got himself into thepapers by announcing that he had wired the Presi­dent of the United States to come to the aid ofLos Angeles, and that dignitary replied that he

would put the Department of the Interior on thejob immediately. Even a candidate for the statelegislature fervently promised to heal the eyes ofLos Angeles-if she were elected.

'The ardor of these politicos is understandable.The annoying "smog" came upon Los Angeles dur­ing the month before election, and it would havebeen quite out of character for them to say franklythat until the 'Chemists learned the cause of "smog"the citizens would have to suffer. Such honesty anddecency in a politician is not to be expected.But the disheartening thing about the furor is thechildish faith that Americans have in the powerof politics to cure their ills. In what way is thisfaith different from that of primitive people intheir medicine men?

Politics versus EconomicsA FRIEND of the FREEMAN complains that too

much space in it is devoted to political sub­jects, too little to economics. ,As an organ of liber­tarianism, he maintains, the publication shouldregularly spell out the operations and virtues ofthe free market.

If we were to follow this advice to the letter, Iam afraid we would soon run out of material andwould have to close up shop. For all that can besaid of the economics of the free market could beput into a medium-sized pamphlet. After you havedescribed how men, operating under their own

, steam and rwithout hindrance, go about the makingof a living, you have covered the subject completely.You don't need a long-winded textbook to explainthe conditions which govern the swapping of topsfor 'marbles-which is a free market operation­and you don't need charts, graphs and calculus todescribe the way in which men go about improvingtheir circumstances. The free market is a naturalmechanism, and the economics of it are simple.

,Only the sick know how healthy they are, saidCarlyle, and it's the same way with freedom; mennever think about it until they lose it, and thenthey write books about it and invent theories toe~plain what it is. We study economics only be­cause the free and healthy market is interferedwith. The interferences with the operation ofthe free market are all political, and so economicsbecomes the study of the monkey wrenches thathave 'been thrown into the machinery.

For instance, right now a good deal of economicwriting is devoted to the subject of inflation.But inflation is si1mply legalized counterfeiting,no different in essence from robbery. It has nothingto do with the study of the production and dis­tribution of wealth, which are the proper subjectsof the science of economics, and it ought to berelegated to a department of political criminology.

Taxation has nothing to do with how producers(not poHticians) make a living; and after youhave mentioned the fact that taxes deprive theproducer of some of his purchasing power, youhave said all that economics should say aboutit; but since so much of this depletion of pur­chasing power is going on, your economics text­books deem it necessary to devote chapters to thesubj ect of taxation. And the more the govern­ment clutters up the market with regulations,restrictions and subventions, the more the studyof economics becomes involved with politics, andthe student never knows whether he is studyingthe one or the other.

It is no wonder that modern books of economicsdeal with the subject as if it were a branch ofpolitical science, which is not a science at all,but rather a hodgepodge of interventions. Facedwith the fact that these interventions are rivetedinto the market, the writers of the textbooks havegiven up on the possibility of a free and healthymarket, and concern themselves with explaining aneconomy comI'>letely dominated by politics. Indeed,most of the textbooks which the students arecompelled to read are devoted to justifying andapplauding the interventions; the professors whowrite them are like doctors who accept cancer as anatural condition of life and advise their patientsto make the best of it.

The FREEMAN is dedicated to the proposition thata sound economy is one that is free of politics;it looks upon the invasion of politics into themarket as a disease. But it is compelled by theubiquity of the disease to be harping on politicsto the apparent exclusion of economics. What elsecan it do in the circumstances?

A PredictionT HE CONGRESS which begins its two-year term

next month will not reduce the public payrollby a single dollar, nor will it abolish a single gov­ernmental agency or subdivision thereof (unlessthe personnel are transferred to an existing ornew agency), nor curtail the squandering of taxmoney either at home or abroad, nor discontinuedeficit spending or attempt to balance the budget,nor retard inflation, nor reduce the tax-burden ofthe nation.

On the positive side, this Congress, like thosebefore it, will grant the Executive further powerto intervene in the private business of the nation,and to limit the personal liberty of the people, andto extend our involvement in foreign entanglements,and to further undermine the authority of thestates; and will hy legislation further weakenthe Legislative branch of the government, to thegreater power and glory of the Bureaucracy.

Wanna bet?

DECEMBER 1954 207

, .cRANK. C.HANIGHEN

Some day some one-maybe it will be John T.Flynn-will write a book entitled The EisenhowerMyth. 'The author might have as his climactic chap­ter the 'election campaign of 1954. For, in the recentpolling, the asserted overwhelming popularity ofthe President received a staggering blow (or, atleas,t, should have-for the prevailing pres,s thought­control apparatus seems intent on proving the wholeoutcome a great personal success for Eisenhower).

N'ever before in recent American history has aPresident gone so far in staking his personal rep­utation on an off-year election, and never has onesuffered such a reverse. Under IPresident WilliamHoward Taft in 1910, the Republicans lost theHouse of Representatives, but they retained theSenate. Under Woodrow Wilson in 1918, the rulingDemocrats lost both Houses; but Wilson's only ef­fort to obtain a Democratic Congress was onestatement. Hoover (often classified by "liberal"columnists as the perfect symbol of IGOP defeat)found at the end of the 1930 election that bothHouses still had Republican majorities; the lowerHouse was organized by the Democrats somemonths later, after deaths and by-elections hadwiped out the GOP majority. 'Truman lost bothhouses in 1946; but in 1950 he campaigned for aDemocratic Congress, and won.

For retention of the Senate, Eisenhower made athree-day "whirlwind" tour by airplane, makingspeeches in four states for election or re-electionof Republican candidates: Senator Homer Fergusonof :Michigan; Senator John ,Sherman Cooper ofKentucky; candidate George H. Bender of 'Ohio,and candidate Herbert B. Warburton of Delaware.Three of these----,Ferguson, Cooper and Warburton-were beaten by their Democratic opponents. One-Bender of Ohio-got in by approximately 6,000majority. But few maintain that this victory re­sulted from Eisenhower's half-hour stop in Cleve­land. 'The cause seems to ,be quite different. Twoweeks before the 'election, Senator Burke, Bender'sDemocratic opponent, announced that he wouldvote for the censure of Senator M0Carthy. At thetime, the GOP national headquarters expert onOhio estimated that this statement would costBurke 100,000 votes in the urban areas. -Even theNew York Times reported the unfavorable effectsof Burke's statement on this vote. In short,

208 THE FREEMAN

Joe McCarthy, not the President's popularity, wasa probable reason for the only victory among thefour solicited by the President on his "whirlwind"tour.

And Colorado-where the President spent mostof his time? The Republican candidate for Senatorunexpectedly defeated the Democratic candidate,John Carroll. Dispatches from that state believethat it was Vice rPresident Nixon's last-minutevisit to Denver and his strong attack on Carrollfor 'being "soft" to communism that defeated theDemocrat. ~Eisenhower ,said nothing whatever aboutthis during his prolonged sojourn there.

The loss of the Senate is all the more strikingbecause of a parliamentary situation which is well­known to the professional politicians. but littlerealized by most of the people. This was the yearwhen Republicans hoped not merely to retain con­trol of the Sena1te, but also to pile up a consider­able margin of Senate seats. One third of theSenate membership is up for election every twoyear,s. In some election years, most of the seatsunder contest are Democratic, in other yearsRepublican. This year a large number of seats heldby D'emocrats, in the 'North, were at stake. HencetheG'OIP had legitimate confidence before thecampaign that they would increase their majorityin the Upper House. We recall how, early in 1953,Senator Taft, the majority leader of his party inthe Senate, talked extensively to colleagues aboutwhat he thought would be certain gains. The result,as we now 'see, is quit'e the contrary.

'This situation assumes an even more worri.someshape for the 'GOP when it is realized that in 1956(when again one third of the Senate seats are atstake), the cards will be stacked against the Re­publicans. This year 21 Democratic Senate seatswere in contest, and only 11 Republican; in 1956,16 Republican seats, 15 D,emocratic and one inde­pendent (figures-Congressional Directory, 1954).Hence there seems a diminished chance of Republi­cans regaining control in that year.

Nor is that all. The President also went to NewYork and Pennsylvania, after urgent requests forhelp from worried GOP leader's. Despite Eisen­hower's intervention, the Democrats won both gov­ernorship.s in these states and, in addition, defeated

GOP Governor Lodge in Connecticut. (Last year,the Democrats won the State House in N'ew Jersey.)It is time to recall that it was the heavy delegatevotes of the powerful GOP machines of these fourstates which defeated Senator Taft at the conven­tion in Chicago in 1952 and won the nomination forEisenhower. Within the party, as well as throughoutthe country, the ,Eisenhower reverse is manifest.And the election outcome carries a serious portent.Control of these 'State houses in the next two yearswill give the Democrats a great advantage inpreparations for the Presidential battle in 1956.

lOne ray of light for the Republicans comes fromthe West. Cons'ervative Republican Governor Good­win Knight won a big victory for re-election inCalifornia. (Knight recently refused to ma~eUnitedNations Day a state holiday. Eisenhower backedU. N. Day.) Knight's victory is also one over the"liberals" in the state GOP, over both Nixon andWarren factions of the party. Indeed, not only inCalifornia, but in the West generally lies the hopeof the G'OP. No wonder that Governor J. BrackenLee of Utah, on the morrow of the election, notedKnight's victory and said that Republican thinkingabout 1956 will have to take into account whathappened in this pivotal s,tate. Finally, the rathernoticeable suppor,t retained by GOP candidates inthe Wes1tern farming areas (not awarded Presiden­tial help or attention comparable to that given inthe East), despite many predictions to the con­trary, suggests strongly ,that the Republican Partymust look to the West for its real political base.

The President's popularity was reported sinkingthree weeks ago in the New York Times, scarcelyunsympa,thetic to Eisenhower. It is noted thatDemocratic Senator Neely of West Virginia wasre-elected after a campaign in which he kept re­ferring to Eisenhower as "the worst President."And it is now recalled that independent RepublicanRepresentative Gordon Scherer of Cincinnati wasre-elected handily, after he very emphatically andpublicly refused to pose with the President for newsphotos and asserted that he would not be subjectto influence from the White House.

'True, it seems likely that the last-minute effortsto save the GOP from a landslide defeat met withsuccess. But, in the Capital, it is believed that theconservatives in high places in the party, such asChairman Leonard Hall, swung the party strategyto the right in the last days of the campaign andsaved the party from rout. (Vide the President'sreversal of his position on the communist issue atCleveland in the final week of the campaign.) It isstrongly the opinion of conservatives that the out­come constituted a personal defeat for the Pres­ident, not for his party.

It is neeessary to underline this point becausealready the "liberal" columnists and commentatorsseek to minimize the defeat. These are the gentle­men who have constantly boosted the idea of his

"popularity," who have played closely with the"liberals" in the White House entourage of thePresident and who helped to create the split in theparty over McCarthy. If Republican papers andparty functionaries fail to recognize the facts andif they fall for the "liberal" line, disaster in 1956looms.

One election outcome touched off much discussionamong the professional political brethren in Wash­ington-the announcement that a Democratic Gov­ernor had been elected in New York. The im­portance of New York bulks large in the politicalcelebrations. Observers here know full well that thegreat political machine of the Empire State willnominate the candidate and probably bring abouthis election. One thing is not forgotten by the GOPnational headquarters-that no Republican has everbeen elected President without New York's elec­toral vot,e. No politico forgets that New York's 45electoral votes are cast as a bloc.

These facts are recalled at the opening of thislast session of the outgoing Congress, as SenatorKarl Mundt of South Dakota comes back from hisstate. It is said that Mundt will lose no time inpushing his favorite measure, called the Mundt­Coudert Amendment, which would reform the elec­toral college. 'The proposal requires that each Pres­idential elector be chosen from a congressional dis­trict, wi,th two electors at large in each stat'e (likeSenators), and the votes would not be cast as aunit by states. The proposal has historical andconstitutional backing and undouhtedly should re­ceive support on that basis alone. But it also at­tracts int,erest because it would alter the center ofpolitical power in the United States.

,One consequence would be the splitting of the45 votes of New York (probably resuJ.ting in atally of 23 Democratic and 22 R,epublican electoralvotes), thereby considerably reducing the influenceof the Empire State. And that is a baneful in­fluence, many members of Congres,s believe. Onepoint of,ten raised is that the electoral vote of NewYork in a close election can well depend on thesize of the vote of some left-wing small party likethe American Labor Party (as it did in 1948). (TheALP will probably be succ~eded now by the mis­named "Liberal" Party.) The New Deal Adminis­tra,tions of Roos,evelt and Truman played gameswith the ALP, and many here believe that the ap­peasem'ent of Soviet Russia stemmed from thepolitical need of appeasing a comparatively smallnumber of leftists in New York City.

Mundt himself has this very prominently in hismind. In an address befor'e the Good GovernmentSociety on Fehruary 22, 1954, he spoke of a "hiddenthird par.ty that has grown up and that is gnawingaway vigorously at the vitals of our political ex­istence. The pressure groups and splinter factionsfunctioning in America today combine to form thishidden third party."

DECEMBER 1954 209

The Vigilantes of Beverly Hills

By MORRIE RYSKIND

Joey lives next door and is usually there to greetme when I come home in the late afternoon-unless,of course,~he has the mumps or the measles. We~reold friends-I've known Joey ,ever, since he wasfive-and I 'look forward to passing the time of daywith him. Indeed, I customarily spend the last twoblocks from the bus .line trying to figure out what'costume Joey will: be wearing.

Yesterday-Tuesday--'-'-proved to be HopalongCassidy Day. As the 'fearless son of the Old West

,spotted 'me, he covered me with his trusty Win­chester and barked, "Halt! Who goes-friend orfoe?"

I reached for the sky and answered, "Friend!"His steel-blue eyes watching me warily, Joey kept

me covered and said, "Advance, friend, and give thecountersign."

I thought fast: the Cassidy get-up might be onlya disguise, in which case I was confronting thefamous sleuth, Nick Carter. On the other hand, itmight be Hopalong himself-or Buffalo Bill orDaniel Boone or.... I took a chance. "Heigh-ho,Silver!" I gambled, knowing my life was at stake.

I t was a lucky stab in the dark. The Lone Ranger-for it was indeed he-grinned, said, "Him okay,Tonto, him friend," to the unseen Indian whoaccompanies him on his never-ending search foroutlaws, dropped his gun and asked, "Hi! What'snew?"

I confessed to a dearth of news in my unexcitinglife, and then asked the Ranger about his day. Well,sir, you wouldn't believe what that young fellowhad accomplished in so short a time. Of course,there was school from nine to three; but betweenthree and four Joey had rounded up a whole gangof rustlers who had been terrorizing Beverly Hillsfor years. After turning them over to the Sheriff,the Ranger had 'gone to the drugstore for his usualchocolate malted. Some uncanny instinct had thenled him to the railroad tracks, and he and Tontohad arrived just in time to foil a band of trainrobbers. In the ensuing gun duel, the outlaws hadfled and Joey had escaped with a scratch on his arm.He rolled his sleeve up to show me the wound."Recognize the bullet brand, partner?" he asked.

To the uninitiated eye, the nick looked like anordinary vaccination mark. But, as one of longexperience in these matters, I was readily able toidentify the cut as the result of a bullet used

210 THE FREEMAN

Cowboy Joey and Professor Jamison are alike intJheir zeal for tracking down offenders-butwith a difference, as Morrie Ryskind tells inthis classic on his encounters with neighbors.

exclusively by the Jesse James boys. (I have asimHarmark myself but that is another story.)'Joey came up ,with more details: though the otherdesperadoes had fled, the one Joey had plugged inthe leg was. still s,omewhere in the underbrush­Frank J ames, no less. The Lone Ranger immediatelyswore me in as deputy, and I was about to walk to'the corner with him to look for the blood-drippingsthat would reveal the outlaw's trail when Joey'smother appeared and called out, "Joey! No bath,no supper!"

"Shucks!" said Joey. "Carryon, partner. See youtomorrow." And with a cry of "Coming, mother,"the Lone Ranger was gone.

I looked around for Tonto, but he had obviouslygone with his comrade. I trust I am not a coward,but I didn't feel up to tackling Frank James single­handed. So I decided that I'd just turn into myown doorway and have a pre-dinner Scotch andsoda. But as I turned I was hailed by anotherneighbor. This one waved a brief case at me insteadof a gun, but I knew I was covered just the same.

Traveler in the Fog

Professor Jamison-he's not really a professoryet, but he shows all the makings--teaches Historyand English at the local high school, and is a verylearned man but, somehow, he is not as much funas Joey. It's probably my own fault, but I'd ratherhave a Scotch and soda any day. But I'm the sortof guy who responds when somebody says, "Hello."You know, noblesse oblige.

"Hi," I responded. "Nice day."The professor snorted. "Superficially, yes," he

said. "But with the fog of fascism sweeping all overAmerica, the climate of freedom is nothing to boastabout."

That startled me. "Fascism?" I asked. "I thoughtwe'd got rid of Mussolini and Hitler-"

"That's what makes it worse," snapped the pro­fessor. "To have won the war and lost the peace!"

For one idiotic moment, I thought he had goneRepublican. "You mean Yalta and Teheran?"

"I emphatically do not. I mean investigatingcommittee~ and loyalty oaths and the ChicagoTribune &i1d all the reckless crew of super-patriotswho are destroying our civil liberties, raping theConstitution, interfering with the prerogatives of

the executive, and turning us all into second-classcitizens who are afraid to open our mouths! Butthey'll never shut me up."

I didn't think they would, but I was beginningto wish somebody would. But the professor, afterjust one breath, was off again. "We're going tofight them every hour and every minute. Do yourealize what sort of day I had?"

N'ow if there was one thing I didn't want toknow about at that particular moment, it was thesort of day Professor Jamison had had. ThatScotch and soda looked 'more appealing than ever.But I knew it would have to be delayed.

It turned out to be a harrowing tale. If you thinkJoey's day was one long series of hairbreadth ad­ventures, I assure you it was nothing compared tothe professor's. And remember, Joey's day didn'treally begin till three.

J amison's day began at 9 a.m. Even so, he hadmanaged to sign four petitions before his firstclass: one in support of the United Nations; onefor the unrestricted right of free speech and theelimination of Red-baiters from the air waves; oneagainst witch-hunting and book-burning. All threedemanded, as a necessary corollary, the expulsionof McCarthy from the Senate.

"And the fourth?" I asked.IThe Prof. hesitated. "I'm not sure, because I

didn't get a chance to read it. But Henry SteeleCommager's name wason the committee, so Iknew I didn't have toread it."

I knew what he meant.When I see Henry SteeleCommager's name onsomething, I don't readit either.

In the morning ses­sions, the Prof. teacheshistory. "And none ofthis super-patriotic, na­tionalistic, warmonger­ing hogwash," he as­sured me. "It's allstraight Frederick L.Schuman. It's a hardrow, but I flatter my­self that my pupils will be citizens of the worldwhen I'm through with them."

I was impressed. "You do all this yourself?" Iasked. "No Tonto?" He looked puzzled. "Tonto?"

For the first time, I realized there were lacunaein the professor's knowledge. "Tonto," I explained,"is an Indian philosopher."

"Oh," said the Prof., and I thought I detected anew note of respect in his voice. "No, I'm afraidthat would be a little over their heads. Though Ido teach them about Nehru and his Middle Waybetween the warmongers of the East and the West.How does this-er-Tonto stand on Nehru?"

There he had me. "Well," I stalled, "as a· lay­man I doubt that I'm qualified to judge. But I· couldlend you a book on the subject-as soon as I'mthrough with it." I knew Joey would be glad­indeed, he has often offered-to lend me any partof his large collection of comic books.

"Fine 1" beamed the Prof., and went on with hisrecital. His lunch hour had been fairly normal: hesigned a petition against the so-called BrickerAmendment, subscribed for two new liberal pub­lications, and presided over a meeting of FacultyMembers for the Reinstatement of Dr. GregoryZilch. (Dr. Zilch, who taught math, has been sus­pended for exercising his constitutional right toinvoke the Fifth Amendment when asked some per­sonal questions by a House committee.)

No Dangling Participles

What makes Dr. Zilch's suspension ,even worse isthat it interferes with Jamison's Tuesday afternoonoff, which the Prof. usually devotes to writing in­dignant letters to the editor of the Los AngelesTimes. In the necessitated rearrangement of sched­ules, the reactionary Miss Hotchkiss-there is un­impeachable evidence that she was for Bob Taftin '52-had agreed to take over Zilch's Tuesdayafternoon classes, and Professor Jamison had beenforced to take over Miss Hotchkiss' English coursesfor that day. Now the Times (the L. A. Times, thatis, and please don't confuse it with the New YarkTimes) was anti-Zilch editorially, and the Prof. wascertain they .had pulled strings backstage to getrid of the Jamison letters.

"But if that's their game," he smiled, "it's alosing one. I still write letters to the Times-onSunday afternoons. And wait till your hear what Ido to Miss Hotchkiss' English class!"

I waited-and heard. As part of its EnglishPoetry work, the class had been asked to memorize"Gunga Din" and "Recessional." And had enjoyedthem-until the Prof. pointed out the racist theoriesof the former, and the imperialism of the latter."Give me ,enough Tuesdays," said the Pro!., "andthose kids will know the score."

As for prose, he had avoided the conventionalGettysburg Address and had read them extractsfrom Adlai Stevenson's speeches-models of excel­lent English. "I have found no better way," heassured me, "of teaching them 'apt alliteration'sartful aid'; the man's use of simile, metonomyand synechdoche is unparalleled; his logic is un­assailable, and in his gentle satire I believe he ranksabove Addison and Steele. And, best of all, never adangling participle! What a wonderful thing it·would have been for the English language if thatman had been elected President!"

"Perhaps in '56," I suggested.The Prof.'s eyes gleamed. "By that time 'many of

my pupils-and there are hundreds of teachers likemyself over the country-will be eighteen. What

DECEMBER 1954 211

a superb bit of poetic justice it would be if Eisen­hower's proposed legislation for giving the vote toeighteen-year-olds elected Stevenson! Jove, I thinkI'll mention that in my speech before the ADAtonight. Say, if you're not doing anything thisevening-" he suggested wistfully.

Mali.gned Minority

I thought fast again. "Dragnet," Danny Thomasand David Niven were coming up on TV, and thenthere was that now long-postponed drink. "Sorry,"I said, shaking my head ruefully, "I'd love to, butI have a date with a minority group."

"Minority group?" He was impressed. "Mexicans,Jews, Negroes?"

I cannot tell a lie. "Scotch," I said.He weighed that a moment. "Scotch? You know,

I've never· thought of them as a minority group.But then I suppose they are, aren't they?"

"Minority?" I ,echoed bitterly. "I'll say they are.The Jews 'make up 4 per cent of Americans; theNegroes have risen to 10 per cent; but the Scotchcomprise only (I made a rapid calculation) 2.3 percent." (I felt pretty safe because the Prof. isalways quoting me figures about how 2 per cent ofAmericans own 98 per cent of the wealth, and Inever ask him where he gets those figures from.)

"Yes," I continued, "only 2.3 per cent. And whathas the ADA ever done about that?"

"Well," he stumbled, "I'm not sure-""N'o," I thundered. "You're not sure because

you've never taken the time to study these matters.A small 2.3 per cent of the population has 97.7 percent of all the jokes told about its stinginess-pureracism, modeled on the Nazi plan. They're goodenough to fight in your wars, but you only sneerat them in peace time. Schuman doesn't bother

Will Rogers on Marxism

about the Scotch; Adlai never mentions them, ex­cept for a passing jest; you never see a Nationeditorial demanding that the Scotch be integratedinto the rest of the American community. No! Butthe Scotch will one day rise and ask that they beaccepted as first-class citizens. When that daycomes, where will you be? Lined up with the forcesof fascism or in the vanguard of the hosts of free­dom ?"

For one blessed moment the Prof. was speechless.Then he said tremblingly, "One of my grandfatherswas Scotch. If there's anything lean do-"

I whipped a blank piece of paper and a fountainpen from my pocket. "Will you join the Committeeof Ten Thousand?"

"You can count on 'me," said the Prof. with thefervor of the convert. Without any hesitation, herested the paper on his brief case and signed.

"Good," I said, as I took the paper and pen back."I'll let you know what happens." And as we shookhands, I whispered to him, "The password is 'Scotswha hae wi' Wallace bled.' Kilts are optional."

I left him and headed for the Scotch in thekitchen. In the interests of accuracy, I glanced atthe label and noted that it is 86.8 per cent and not2.3. But the principle remains.

And, as the drink mellowed me, I thought howlucky I was to have two such neighbors, so differentand so startlingly alike. The outlaws still held uptrains and rustled cattle in Beverly Hills, but Joey,the Lone Ranger, was at my right hand to protectme from them; and, at my left hand, stood thequixotic Professor Jamison, holding at bay the evenmore dangerous windmills of reaction. With neigh­bors like these, a man could sleep 0' nights.

There was only one real difference, I realized asI poured a second drink, between them. Joey wouldgrow up some day.

Communis,m will never get anywhere till they get that basic idea ofPropaganda out of their head and replace it with some work. If they plowedas much as they Propagandered they would be richer than the Principalityof Monaco. The trouble is they all got their theory's out of a book insteadof any of them ever going to work and practicing them. I read the samebooks these Birds learned from, and that's the books of that guy Marx....

I read his life history. He never did a tap of work only write Propaganda,according to his own history. He couldent even make his own writings pay,much less his theories.... He always wants to figure out where he and hisfriends can get something for nothing. 'They even suggest somebody dividingwith them. You could take those 600,000 Communists over in Russia andtake 600,000 rich Americans and you could put them all together and makethe Americans divide up with them equally, and in six months the 600,000Communists wouldent have a thing left but some long hair and a scheme totry to get back the half that the Americans was smart enough to take fromthem.

WILL ROGERS, The1'e's Not a Bathing Suit in Russia, 1927

212 THE FREEMAN

For Whom the N. C. C. Speaks

By REV. EDMUND A. OPITZ

A century ago an English wit said that his was thereligion of every sensible man. "And what," afriend asked him, "is that?" "That," replied thewit, "is what every sensible man keeps to him­self." This self-imposed restraint once applied alsoto a man's politics. But, now that some prominentchurchmen feel impelled to make pronouncementson political subjects for religious reasons, and thepulpi:t in some quarters tends to approximate thesoapbox in purpose, there seems to be noreason why polite conversation should bar eithersubject.

The current religious scene is full of controversy.The controversy, however, is no longer confinedto theologieal differences, but centers more aroundsocial and political questions. In fact, the theo­logical differences have been so submerged as topermit leaders of a number of denominations tojoin forces for effecting what they consider theircommon religious obligation, the solution of theworld's social and economic problems. That is amajor purpos,e of the Na,tional Council of theChurches of Christ in the U.S.A. (N.C.C.),purporting to speak for 35,000,000 church members.In the name of religion, the field in which thesechuroh leaders have been trained and in which theyare presumed to have some competence, they issueresolutions and pronouncements on matters that aretheological only because the imagination and arro­gance of these leaders make them so. And theyclaim to speak for 35,000,000. Do they?

Presumably, the intent of these socio-economicreligious leaders is to bring Christianity up todate. There are still some unsolved questions inthe field of theology, and millions of persons arestill troubled because they lack a framework forhuman values, because the human spirit goes un­fed, because a life which they feel ought to bean adventure in destiny seems to be devoid ofmeaning. It is to find the answers to such questionsthat they go to church. The historic faith ofChristendom has not failed to provide answers tothe millions who have asked for them, and if thecontemporary church does not do likewise it simplyfails in its appointed duty.

But what, in their effort to make the faithcontemporary, does the church leadership, as rep­resented by the N.e.C., offer its constituents intheir quest for spiritual solace? In effect, their

An interlocking directorate, consisting oj afew churchmen out to achieve social upliftthrough political action, purports to speakfor 35,000,000 Protestant church members.

pronouncements declare that "as soon as allpeople are well-housed, clothed and fed---by polit­ical means-then we can talk to them about theneeds of the soul." This, of course, is question­able religion, but it is also poor economics andbad politics. Good economics and good politicsrest on a spiritual base, and unless a man issiquared away in this area---1Which is the provinceof religion-he will not better himself by directaction aimed at material ends.

This point-that moral and spiritual understand­ingmust precede a sound approach to political andeconomic matters-needs investigation. A notedBritish theologian, Christopher Dawson, put it thisway: "The true social function of religion is notto busy itself with economic or political reforms,but to save civilization from itself by revealingto men the true end of life and the true na­ture of reality." An equally noted economist,Ludwig von Mises, writing on the conditions ofmaterial progress, says, "The material changes arethe outcome of spiritual changes."

An Aura of Authenticity

But the ecclesiastical vocal cords in the NationalCouncil proclaim a contrary opinion. Out of thedepths of this ,conspiracy to make of Christianityan instrument for improving man's material condi­tion by political means, comes the cry, "The Churchmust speak." And when it speaks, it speaks of"social action"-which is an euphemism for polit­ical action. Not that these pronouncements froma presumably religious body make much sense, polit­ically or religiously, but because the Council pur­ports to speak for 35,000,000 church members,an aura of authenticity settles on them. Manyof the members are, of course, utterly indifferentto the doings of the National Council; some mayagree with the sentiments expressed, while many,perhaps a majority, are as resolutely oppos,ed tothe sentiments as they are to the highly dubiousprocedure of issuing statements in the name ofpeople who have not even been consulted.

Why has this irregular and questionable pro­cedure been adopted in ecclesiastical circles? Thetactic is inexplicable unless it be assumed that,in the thinking of the men who use it, threepremises have been accepted. First, prophetic

DECEMBER 1954 213

r,eligion is reduced to one of its ingredients,social uplift. Second, it is decided that socialuplift depends on political action. Third, polit­ical action needs the guidance which can comeonly if the Church is whipped into a politicalpower bloc. The single-minded pursuit of theseaims is hampered by any dissension over theo­logical issues. It is difficult in these days to con­ceive a theological position so far out of line thatanyone embracing it would be ousted from hischurch, but on political and economic questions thelines are much more sharply drawn. A libertarianin eertain ecclesiastical circles is as unthinkableas an intelligent man at a faro table. This isnot to say it does not happen, but if it doesit doesn't happen long. A rough map of thesecircles would include the expensive seminaries, theeditorial offices and the bureaucracies of denomina­tional and interdenominational agencies. Most ofthe men who staff the positions in these circlesare "committed to the position that Christianitydemands drastic changes in the structure of sociallife." Such is the boast of one of their number,and common observation bears him out. The polit­ical pronouncements issuing from these quartersgo right down the line for the Welfare State.

A handful of men in these strategic positions:constitute what is, in effect, an illiterlockingdirectorat,e of American Protestantism. There areabout 180 persons on the General Board of theNational Council of Churches. It might be riskyto designate the pivot men who call the signals,but it is safe to say that they number few,er thenone hundred and eighty. The names on this boardturn up elsewhere as denominational officials, edi­tors, professors, and officers in related organizationsand foundations of the social uplift varity. Thusthere is a tightly organized little group of peoplededicated to a drastic refor,m of the social order,strategically placed so that they can mold religiousopinion, help or hinder the advancement of a min­ister, and use the church members as a soundingboard for ,their political views.

Pronouncements on World Affairs

Here is a typical example of how they work.About a year ago the National Council sponsored aStudy Conference on the Churches and WorldOrder. Materials prepared in advance by a depart­ment of the National Council came to the confer­ence as ordinary lucubrations on foreign affairs.As far as content goes, they were changed little bypassing through the conference, which attractedabout four hundred people; but the ratifyingaction transformed the resolutions and messagesinto an expression of the mind of 35,000,000 churchmembers-if one were to beUeve the press releases.There is an ulterior motive in the passage of politi­cal resolutions-it is to use 35,000,000 church mem­bers as a lever to move politicians.

214 THE FREEMAN

This conference passed a resolution condemningthe Bricker Amendment in the name of the 35,000,­000, although Protestantism is as divided on thisissue as it is on others. The action was engineeredby a few men playing close to the v,est, but theheadlines which resulted may have played a part inthe political calculations which helped defeat theBricker Amendment by so narrow a margin. Thiswas undoubtedly the result hoped for by the hier­archy. Thus, when it is urged that "The Churchmust speak," it is understood that the accents willbe those of the interlocking directorate aimed at anaudience of politicians. This kind of an audiencecannot be expected to attach much weight to theintellectual substance of a pronouncement; but35,000,000 potential votes-that it can understand.In this way the Church, as a corporate entity, seeksto become a moving force in power politics, andfalls into the temptation which has beset theChurch in every age and against which its wisestminds have issued warning. This is the temptationto render unto Caesar the things that are God's.

Two such warnings come from the two bestminds the Church of England has produced in thelast generation. The late Dean of St. Paul's, theVery Reverend W. R. Inge, declared:

No Church ever goes into politics without comingout badly smirched.... We have seen the EnglishChurch in the eighteenth and part of nineteenthcenturies identifying itself too much with the landedinterest, and showing small sympathy with theefforts of landworkers to secure conditions of civil­ized life. And now, when power has definitely passedinto the hands of the masses, we see large numbersof churchmen repeating the same mistake undercolor of rectifying it.... It is notorious that politicalChristianity excites bitter hatred against the Church.. . . The choice for the Church is between politicalpower and moral influence. We cannot doubt onwhich side a true follower of Christ should rangehimself.

The late Archbishop of Canterbury, WilliamTemple, was an outstanding leader of the social gos­pel forces and friendly to Britain's Labor Party.Nevertheless, he stated categorically:

It is of crucial importance that the Church, actingcorporately, should not commit itself to any partic­ular policy.... The Church is committed to theeverlasting Gospel and to the Creeds which formu­late it; it must never commit itself to an ephemeralprogram of detailed action.

;The interlocking directorate which seeks, throughthe medium of the N.C.C., to convey the im­pression that it can deliver a large Ibloc of votes,may believe ever so sincerely that it is !Working onlyfor righteous purposes. But there are heady sensa­tions that accompany power. The ordinary practiceof gilding self-interested motives with altruisticlabels is stepped up with every increment ofpower, and raised to the nth degree in those whoare able to convince themselves that they exercisepower as vi'ce regents of the Almighty.

Most men believe that religion cannot turn itsback on the com'mon concerns of life. God is a Godof righteousness, and churchmen cannot ignore theissues of freedom, justice and mercy, nor allowevil to go unrebuked. There is little significant dif­ference of opinion on the point that whereverhuman values are involved, religion is likewise im­plicated. 'The real criticism of the directorate'spolitical activity does not come from those whodeny the relevance of religion to social and politicalquestions. The real criticism is two-pronged; theNational Council makes pronouncements on ques­tions which are primarily technical and withoutsignUicant ethical or religious content, and then itcompounds this evil by attributing to 35,000,000church members views they do not hold.

Partisan Collectivism

Whoever attempts to raise questions about thesepronouncements is ac'cused of holding to the pie­tist position that religion has nothing to do withthe relations among men. This may be the case insome instances; but a far larger number of religion­ists believe that religion does have a social applica­tion, but not the partisan collectivist applicationrepresented in the thinking of the inrberlockingdirectorate. The directorate believes that a socialapplication of religion is some degr,ee of socialism;they are collectivists. O\thers believe that each man'sfreedom under ,God is inconsistent with a societystratified into thos,e with political control and thosecontrolled; they are libertarians.

Collectivists and libertarians alike believe thatthere is a social application of the Gospels, butthey differ as to what it is. Collectivists have notyet come around to the admission that there canbe any honest answer but their own-the old claimof infallibility.

,An example of this occurred in a recent ChristianCentury ,editorial on the National Council state­ment, entitled "Christian Principles and Assump­tions for Economic Life." 'This statement has beenin the works for a number of years and is basedon earlier statements in a similar vein from the oldFederal Council days. Its more moderate tone isdue in part to the exchange of ideas that has beengoing on for the last several years between the

National Council and the Nartional Lay Committee.The Lay Committee numbers 171 men and womenfrom all walks of life. It has pr,epared an "Affirma­tion ... on the Subject of Corporate Pronounce­,ments of Denominational or InterdenominationalAgencies." This was presented to the same sessionof the General Board of the N'ational Council whichconsidered the "Christian Principles" statement.The latter statement was accepted by an overwhelm­ing vote, 77 to 4. The proposal that the Lay Com­mittee's "Affirmation" be printed in pamphlet to­gether with the "Christian Principles" statementwas defeated by the same overwhelming vote.

'The Christian Century editorial calls the Nation·al Council's s'tatement "a landmark for Christianthinking." 'The editorial goes on to say, "The firsthurdle, and almost the last, which had to besurmounted was the conviction on the part ofsome tha:teconomic life should lie outside the scopeof church and National Council 'concerns." But theeditorial writer apparently had not even read thatportion of the Lay Committee's "Affirmation" whichhe reprinted, for it says: "We believe the pervadingpurpose of God's will extends to every aspect of lifeand suggest no limitation on its applica'tion to theaffairs of 'men.... However, our Committee believesthe National Council of Churches impairs itsability to meet its prime responsibility when, si,ttingin judgment on current secular affairs, it becomesinvolved in economic or political controversy, hav­ing no moral or ,ethical 'content."

To say tha,t technical questions in economics andpolitics lie outside the domain of religion, as doesthe "Affirmation" of the Lay Committee, is onething; to say that the whole of economic andpolitical life is beyond reach of religious and moralconsiderations is something else again. The distinc­tion seems to escape the Christian Century.

'The effort of a few churchmen to play theocraticpolitics and use the Church as a means of effectingtheir own outmoded social reforms could, if it metwith any success, inflict permanent damage on thereligious life of America. Fortunately, their actionshave roused opposition among men who have beenbrought to a renewed interest in the things ofreligion. The Church will continue to speak, butinstead of speaking to politicians it will speak tothe deepest human needs. Which is as it should be.

Republicanism permits the individual to persuade himself that theState is his creation, that State action is his action, that when itexpresses itself it expresses him, and when it is glorified he isglorified. The republican State encourages this persuasion with allits power, aware that it is the most efficient instrument for enhancingits own prestige. Lincoln's phrase, "of the people, by the people,for the people," was probably the most effective single stroke ofpropaganda ever made in behalf of republican State prestige.

ALBERT JAY NOCK, Our Enemy the State

DECEMBER 1954 215

Progressive EducationUndermined China

By DR. KAO CHIEN

The fall of China to the Communists startledmany who know that country. "How is it possible,"it is asked, "that the Chinese people, with theirculture and tradition based on the Golden Codemoral phHosophy of Confucius, can accept theimmoral, unnatural system caned communism1"

To answer this question, two factors must beconsidered. The first was the physical weaknessof the nation brought on by the long Japaneseaggression. The second was the mental confusioncreated by Chinese intellectuals during the yearspreceding the fall of the country. This secondfactor contributed more to the disaster than thefirst, although it was not as apparent. To ap­preciate this, one must revie.w the elements ofeducation in China in respect to the traditionalChinese culture, which has maintained a highstandard for more than twenty centuries. [In thebox on the opposite page,Dr. Kao outlines the fun­damentals of ,the teachings of Confucius and Men­cius which shaped this culture.]

Following the Opium War with the British in1842, China lost one war after another to theWestern powers, suffering heavy damages andcostly indemnities each time. Chinese inferiorityin scientific development and heavy industry wasblamed. Consequently, the country',s patriotic leadersdecided that if China is to take a rightful placeamong the nations of the world, she must firstmodernize the nation in science and industry.For that purpose many students were sent toEurope and America to study.

In 1917, students graduated from Columbia andHarvard universities returned to China. A largenumber of these graduates, instead of learningthe scientific know-how expected of them, had beenthoroughly indoctrinated in pragmatism, 'experi­'mentalism, economic socialism and, above all,atheism. They organized a movement called "thenew culture movement of May Fourth," to whichuniversities and schools all over China responded.This movement emphasized first, liberation ofindividual and social life from Chinese cultureand tradition; second, promotion of liberal thinkingas ag,ainst the traditions of Chinese absolutism.

Its leaders maintained that the traditional con­trol of the mind on a moral basis held China

216 THE FREEMAN

How China's new educational policy, adopted in1922 through the influence of Western-trainedintellectuals, helped the Communists take over.

from scientific progress and industrialization. Theyattacked traditional Chinese culture in books,pamphlets and periodicals. They made speeches,held conferences, sponsored mass rallies andagitated.

This new culture comprised the experimentalismof John Dewey, the socialism of Harold Laski, thematerialistic immoralism of Bertrand Russell andother theories prevalent in the Western world atthat time. Its leaders glorified these new "thinkers"and propagandized their theories and blueprintsfor the reformation of China. To strengthen thismovement, John Dewey was invited in 1919 tolecture in China. He lectured for many monthsat the University of Peking and other institutionsof learning all over China, spreading his theory ofpragmatism. Everywhere he went, the new in­tellectuals enthusiastically welcomed him as asaviour of China. Later, Bertrand Russell was alsoinvited to China. His radical views on moral andreligious issues had great influence ,and did seriousharm to the thinking of Chinese intellectuals.

New System Made Obligatory

Under the strong influence of this movement,the N'ational Ministry of Education in 1922 adopteda new educational policy for all schools, publicand private, throughout the country. The policy,called "the new school system," abolished thetraditional aim of educ,ation in China and replacedit with a program of "progressive education." Theprogram was obligatory.

As a result of progressive education, youngpeople were trained in the spirit of revolutionand reform. They learned to ridicule the tradi­tional Chinese moral principles as impediments ofprogress. At home they had no respect for theirparents or elders, whom they considered the victimsof old Chinese tr'aditions. In the schools theylearned to call student strikes against the author­ities. When this generation graduated from theschools, a serious social problem was created;besides being unprepared for making a living,these youngsters lacked the proper social gracesneeded for mingling with their f'ellow-men. Theolder educators and leader,s of China protested

strongly against the system; the Nationalist gov­ernment, in view of the results, abolished it in1928 and substituted the "new school system," withan educational program patterned after the "threeprinciples of the people" advocated by Dr. SunYat-Sen, founder of the Republic of China. Un­fortunately, the spirit of progressive educationcould not be banished and it continued to dominatethe intellectual, educational and cultural circles.

tThe new culture movement very successfullyundermined Chinese culture and traditions, but ithad no philosophy to guide the individual andsocial life of the people. The advocates and fol­lowers of the movement brought to China theWestern ideologies of pragmatism, experimentalism,positivism, naturalism, evolutionism, materialism,socialism and atheis'm. But they never stopped toconsider whether or not these theories could satisfythe needs or solve the problems of China, or

could be adapted to the character of the Chinesepeople. The "great introducers of new theories"revelled in their glory.

Because these new ideologies are doctrines ofchange, in which there is no absolute truth andno reality, they offer no philosophy of life, with­out which one's life is incomplete. The new move­ment destroyed the old Chinese design for livingand did not provide another; the people wereled to the crossroads and abandoned there. Theywere lost. Even the leaders of the new culturemovement ,began to lose confidence in the ideologiesthey had introduced.

This tremendous vacuum in the minds of theChinese made them easy prey for communism. Thepeople were told by the underground Communiststhat communism is the only cure-all for the illsof China. The underground Communists introducedthe doctrine of class struggle and underlined the

China's Educational Heritage

II'IiJf-.i.~411Ji'!ff!~/liIfa, llli: It~l-o #tJ~/J.:ip~//rp~tW~"8hfi:t­~tfiJ~I~~ /~.IE. fibI~:If:f./~If.tfb/~ f</If;~/!v1J?lt (jf ;~I J!f5~ I~j~;(1 f/

Traditional education in China is based onthe philosophy of Confucius. In Great Learning(one of the Four Confucian Books, written byTseng-'Tse, a well-known disciple of Con­fucius), one reads:

"The way of great learning is to under­stand bright virtues, to improve the peopleand to rest in the Supreme Good." To attainthis goal one should "gain knowledge throughthe investigation of things, train a sincere will,rectify one's heart, cultivate one's personality,manage one's family, administrate the affairsof the State and promote universal brother­hood." [Dr. Kao has transcribed this quotationin Chinese characters, shown above.]

'This is called the Triple Purpose and EightPrograms of Education. The method of educa­tion starts with the perfection of the in­dividual through intellectual and moral teach­ings. It is then extended to the family, society,the State and the world. Family management isbest promoted by harmonious cooperation be­tween husband and wife, parental love andfilial piety between parents and children, and

mutual assistance between brothers and sisters.In society, fidelity among friends is greatlyencouraged. In the State administration, justicebetween the ruler and his officials must alwaysbe maintained.

In Annals, book of King Yao (2375 B.C.),one reads that Chi was appointed Minister ofthe Department of Education to teach thepeople Five Relationships, as follows:

"Love and piety between father and son;justice between the king and his officials;harmony between husband and wife; mutualassistance among brothers; fidelity amongfriends."

Confucius and his followers adopted thisteaching and developed it.

In the field of universal brotherhood, theprinciple of Wang Tao, meaning to conquer bywinning the hearts of the people, is emphasized;Pa Tao, which means to conquer by force, isfrowned upon. This principle was expoundedby Mencius, great philosopher and follower ofConfucius, as indicated in his book Mencius,the last of the Four Confucian Books.

DECEMBER 1954 217

necessity of creating a classless society. They gavenew interpretations to the whole history of thedevelopment of Chinese society to prove that com­munism is the only course 'to' follow. Graduallythe bewildered people gave communism a favoredplace in their thinking, not because they likedcommunism, but because they had nothing betterto follow.

A Harsh Awakening

Thus, the path for the swift taking over ofChina by the Communists in 1948-49 was preparedby the materialistic philosophy introduced by the"progressives." But the Communists seem lackingin gratitude, for they have treated these intel­lectuals as shameful opportunists and have sub..jected them to extr,emely harsh brain-washing.They are forced to condemn themselves as reaction­aries, remnants of feudaliS'm, exploiters of thepeople and running-dogs of Western imperialis'm.These intellectuals awoke in horror from theirrosy dream, but too late. Countless were liquidated.A few fortunate ones escaped to the free world.Those who could come to the United States arefighting Communists, not because the Communistsenslave the people, but because they treated theseintellectuals badly. Often they declare themselvesliberals and protectors of freedom, but few haverepented or even admitted that they were largelyresponsible for the loss of freedom for 450,000,000Chinese. They have not abandoned dialectical mate­rialism, nor have they eeased trying to propagandizethis deadly doctrine. Strangely and sadly, many ofthem are still considered by some Americans to beprototypes of the "modern Confucius" or "fore­most Chinese scholars."

Almost all Chinese living abroad are dedicatedto the struggle against the Communists. Unfor­tunate'ly, the line of attack is not clear. Many ofthe intellectuals are opposed only to the crueltyand inhumanity of the Communists, not to thephilosophy of commun'ism, sjmply because thisphilosophy is in keeping with their thinking.They do not realize that the inhumanity of theCom,munists is the logical conclusion of communistpremises. Fighting Communists without fightingcommunism is meaningless and ridiculous.

,As to the Chines'e on the mainland, they havebeen rudely and brutally awakened. They nowsee the worthlessness and evil of the alien ideologyof communism, and not only seek to free them­selves from this viselike control over mind andbody, but also feel the need for a sound philosophyof life. Undoubtedly many will return to thefamiliar ways of Confucianism, but many otherswill seek a higher and more inspiring plan forHfe.

Christianity embodies all the virtues of Con­fucian teachings plus a well-developed and thoroughprogram for living. More important, its complete

218 ,THE FREEMAN

theology in the supernatural order, lacking inConfucianism, will fill the glap in the Chine~e

people's way of life. After their experiences withthe Communists, only Christianity can satisfy theneeds of their· minds and souls.

A Lesson in SocialismAs a teacher in the public schools, I find that thesociaHslt-communist idea of taking "from each ac­ording to his ability," and giving "to each accord­ing to his need" is now generally accepted withoutquestion by most of our pupils. In an effort toexplain the fallacy in this theory, I sometimes trythis approach with my pupils:

When one of the brighter or harder-workingpupils makes a grade of 95 on a test, I suggestthat I take away 20 points and give them to astudent who has made only 55 points on his test.Thus each would contribut'e according to his abilityand-since both would have a passing mark-eachwould receive according to his need. After I havejuggled the grades of all the other pupils in thisfashion, the r'esul1t is usually a "common owner':'ship" grade of between 75 and 80-the minimumneeded for passing, or for survival. Then I spec­ulate with the pupils as to the probable results ifI actually used the socialistic theory for gradingpapers.

First, the highly productive pupils-and they arealways a minority in school as well as in life-would'soon lose all incentive for producing. Why striveto make a high grade if part of it is taken from youtby "authority" and given to someone else?

Second, the less productive pupils-a majori1tyin school as elsewhere-would, for a time, be re­lieved of the necessity to study or to produce. Thissocialist-communist system would continue until thehigh producers had sunk-or had been driven down--Jto the level 'of the low producers. At that point,in order for anyone to survive, the "authority"would have no alternative but to begin a system ofcompulsory labor and punishments ag'ainsteventhe low producers. They, of ,course, would then com­plain bit1terly, but without understanding.

Finally, I return the discussion to the ideas offreedom and enterprise-the market economy­where each person has freedom of choice, and isresponsible for his own decisions and welfare.Gratifyingly enough, most of my pupils then under­stand what I mean when I explain that socialism­even in a democracy-will eventually result in aliving death for all except the "authorities" and afew of their favorite lackeys.

THOMASJ. SHELLY

(Printed copies of this letter may be obtained/rom TheFoundation for Econorrdc Education, Inc., Irvington­on-Huds,on, N.Y. Five copies free, then one cent each.Ask for Clipping of Note, Number 36.)

The Soviet PsychosisBy JEROME LANDFIELD

At the time of the Bolshevik Revolution I cameinto contact with a number of its most outspokensupporters. What struck me about them was an,attitude ··similar to that of the Greenwich Villagevariety of artists-people who, unable to face theirlack of talent squarely, ,soothed their ego by in­veighing against the classics and praising "theprimitive." Similarly, the Bolsheviks seemed pos­sessed of a fear of economic progress and inveighedagainst "capitalism." At bottom it was envy of thesuccessful; the envy led to hatred.

At the time my interest was in individuals, andit did not occur to .me to g,eneralize. Since then,however; the successive developments of the Sovietregi,me have convinced me that this is but a large­scale example of the inferiority complex I had ob­served in its original leadership.

Lenin believed that communism could succeed inRussia only if there were world revolution. Hereasoned that Russia was chiefly an agriculturalcountrY,and that communism would fail if it werenot supported by an industrial class. Hence, all­out efforts were made to bring about revolutionin other countries.

Forcible Industrialization

But these efforts failed, and with the death ofLenin and the rise to power of Stalin, there camea chang,e of policy better suited to satisfy theinferiority complex. This was the forcible in­dustrialization of Russia. Stalin drov'e toward thisgoal with an iron will. The remaking of a societyby force is an impossible task, has never succeededwhen tr,ied, and results in dangerous dislocations.It would take too long to recount the blundersthat wrecked the Russian economy, but a fewindicative examples may be cited.

One is the Dnieperstroi, the dam intended toutilize the rapids of the Dnieper River for hydro­electric power. Several years before the Revolu­tion, plans for this project were worked out. Butcompetent engineers turned it down on two grounds.The first was that the hydroelectric plant wouldhave to be supplemented by a steam plant at lowlevel time, and coal for this plant would have to behauled 200 miles by rail; the other was that therewas no industry within reach to use the power.The plans wer'e 'buried in the Interior Departmentuntil dug up by the Bolsheviks, who undertook theconstruction at a staggering cost. Of course, itwas a gigantic flop.

'Then ther,e was the absurd subway for Moscow.. A

tramway or a bus line would have answered everypurpoS'e, but New York, London and Paris had sub­ways, so the Soviet Union had to have one.

Magnitogorsk is another example. In southwest­ern Siberia there is an extensive deposit of iron ore.The are is high grade, as I can testify, for I ex­amined it myself. This suggested to the Communiststhe idea of building a rival of Gary, Indiana.The coking coal to slmelt the ore was brought inover a ramshackle railroad from a deposit 600miles distant, and then the product was thousandsof miles from where it could be used. Besidesthis, it was estimated that there was ore for onlyten years in sight.

,The latest absurdity is the thirty-four-storyUniversity of Moscow. Although the plain aroundMoscow lent itself beautifully to building a use­ful institution of learning with every convenience,the Soviet leaders had to build this structurebecause they had heard of a similar one in Pitts­burgh. Symptomatic also are the preposterousclaims of Russian priority in all manner of dis­·coveries and inventions.

Envy of the successful frequently breeds hate,and this by constant stimulationm.ay become anidee fixe. The Soviet government, in order tojustify its tremendous armament program, hasstimulated this manufactured hate of America bysuch absurd charges as "germ warfare," "!War­mongering," "Wall Street imperialism," and "racialdiscrimination."

'The answer to this mass inferiority complex

DECEMBER 1954 219

is not a policy of containment, which simply ag­gravates the diseas-e. The really feasible andeffective method is the infiltration of truth, con­vincing truth, among the peoples behind the IronCurtain. The convincing exposure of just onepropaganda falsehood throws doubt on all the rest,and if this exposure makes the authorities ridicu­lous, it is doubly effective. A dozen of Lichty'sdevastating cartoons would be worth more thanmillions of military expenditure.

In such a campaign we have two favorablefactors. One is that, except for Soviet officials andthe group of indoctrinated fanatics, the Russianpeople and those of the satellite states hate com­munism. The other is that even the officials suspecteach other and most of them long for a differentlife.

With these conditions in view, let us make abrief realistic appraisal of Soviet power. It wouldbe foolish to underestimate the development ofair power and the advance in atomic research­two fields in which the U.S.S.R. owes much toforeign experts-or the threat those hold for us,for there is always the danger of a Soviet dictatorrunning amok. This danger has probably been les­sened with the death of Stalin and the struggle forpower that followed it. Likewise, the disturbancesin East Ge~many and unrest in the satellite stateswould appear to have lessened the danger.

Soviet Resources Limited

Now let us look at the other side. The resourcesof Russia have been greatly exaggerated. EuropeanRussia is a vast alluvial plain; the highest ele­vation is nine hundred feet. Hydroelectric powerin any· signi,ficant amount is out of the question.Climatic conditions hamper all transportation sixmonths in the year. Coal and iron resources insouthern Russia are noiW negligible, and the oilwells of Baku and Grozny have been depleted. Re­liance for fuel and metals is entirely on Siberia,and here their usefulness is limited by distanceand climate.

The agricultural situation is appalling. Evidenceof this is to be found in recent decrees andbureaucratic shifts. Before the Revolution thesoutheastern part of Russia produced a surpluswhich made up for the deficiency in the north­western part, ,where soil and climate were unfavor­~ble.The liquidation of the more prosperousfarmers and the dragooning of the peasants intocooperatives proved disastrous. Everywhere thereis a food shortag,e; famine is always imminent.

Except for the threat of the atomic bomb, thedanger of an attack on western Europe would ap­pear to be entirely unfounded. Supplies and trans­portation for a land attack are lacking. At thefirst sign of such an attack there would be suchoutbreaks and sabotage in the satellite states asto hamstring it. Likewise, it is estimated that fuel

220 THE FREEMAN

supplies would limit the Soviet air force to forty­eight hours in the air.

Finally, there is an important aspect of thewhole problem that has been shamefully mis­represented in current literature concerning theRussian people. Most of these writers never knewRussia before the Revolution and have swallowed,hook, line and sinker, the picture of pre-Revolu­tionary Russia given in violently partisan andentirely superficial and inaccurate descriptions.These have described the Russian people as igno­rant, as natural slaves of autocratic government,and as a mingling of racial stocks with a largeadmixtur'e of the Asiatic.

For a score of years prior to the RevolutionI spent much time in Russia. I learned the languageand read and spoke it fluently. At one time Ilived for months in a peasant cottag'e as a memberof the family. I spent four seasons in variousparts of Siberia and employed scores of peasantsin mining explorations. I visited many of theindustrial plants and knew their managers. I wasentertained in the homes of all classes of Rus­sian society. It is on the basis of this experiencethat I wish to correct certain grave misinformationconcerning the Russian people.

First, let me expos,e the myth of Mongolian andTatar racial mixture. The mass of the Russianpeople, at least a hundred million of them, are ofpure Indo-European origin. These were the Slavswho migrated northward from the Carpathians intothe vast plains of Russia, drove back the Finnsand other nomads, cleared the forests and settleddown as farmers. The 'Tatar invasion held themunder tribute for two centuries, but the Tatarsnever occupied the country, and there was no in­termixture. I well remember a summer spent in thetown of Elatma, on the Oka River some two hundredmiles south of Moscow. It was 'located betweenKassimov and Riazan, two Tatar settlements thatdated from the thirteenth century, but as far asI could learn there had never been a case of inter­marriage.

As to the political instincts and capabilities ofthe Russ'ian people, many writers apparently sharethe belief that the Russians were so influencedby the Tatar invasion and Byzantium Christianityas to be naturally adapted to autocratic rule. Iknow from personal experience that this is notthe case.

Here is an example. I spent the summer of1899 in the Ural on a mining exploration on theSerebrianaia River. The object was to determinewhether the gravels along the river where suit­able for profitable dredging operations. For thisit was necessary to obtain an option from the vil­lage that owned this land. I drew up a contractby which we agreed to pay a certain amount forthe option and a large amount per acr,e if wedecided to use the land for dredging. A town meet­ing was called, and I addressed it. A vigorous dis-

cussion, pro and con, ensued and the proposedcontract was turned down. A s,econd meeting gavethe same result. At a third meeting, I convincedthe townspeople that it was to their advantage, andapproval of the contract was voted. It was justlike a New England town meeting and was typicalof other experiences I had in Russia.

Another incident on an entirely different planewill serve to illustrate the point. One day Ireceived a call from Prince Boris Golitsin. Hewas a man of great cultur'e and scientific achieve­ments, an explorer of note, and a member of theAcademy of Science, who later became director ofthe bureau of engraving and printing, and dir,ector

of the Palkova astronomical observatory. He ex­plained that he happened to be near my apartmentbecause he was serving on a jury in a neighboringcourt, and that he considered this to be his civicduty.

There are two points that I would like to drivehome. The first is that the Russian people arefundamentally democratic in our sense of theword, thanks to their ancient traditions of demo­cratic self-government. Second, it is my firm beliefthat the present Communist regime carries withinitself the seeds of its own destruction, and thateventually we shall find harmonious cooperationwith the Russian people.

A Note on the Oppenheimer Case

By ROBERT R. LENTWhy have some eminent scientists proved ,naivelysusceptible to communism's promises 0/ securityfor all? Here is an analysis 0/ several reasons-

In a letter to the Atomic Energy Commission, inreply to charges placed against him by the Person­nel Security Board, Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimersaid:

"My friends, both in Pasadena and in B·erkeley,were mostly faculty people, scientists, classicistsand artists. I studied and read Sanskrit. I readsomething of other parts of science. I was notinterested in and did not read about economics andpolitics. I never read a newspaper or currentmagazine; I had no radio; no telephone; I learnedof the stock market crash in 1929 only long afterthe event; the first time I ever voted was in thePresidental election of 1936. To many of myfriends, my indifference to contemporary affairsseemed bizarre, and they often chided me for beingtoo much of a highbrow.... I was deeply interestedin my science, but I had no understanding of therelations of man to his society."

The Religion of Science

If you analyze this self-portrayal (and I havereason to believe it to be hones't), you get an ink­ling of the reason why the occasional top-flightscientist, or even one of lesser degree, falls preyto the seductive promise of communism. And youbegin to understand why the scientists of Germanywere entranced by Hitler and became his dupes.For the letter reveals the deplorable deteriorationof the man who becomes completely immersed inthe religion of science and thus loses touch with therealities of life. It shows, too, what happens to the

mentality of the person whose existence is shelteredby the State.

When I read this letter, in the record of theOppenheimer hearings, my mind rev,erted to myexperiences in the research and development workof the United States Air Force. From 1950 to 1954,as a commissioned officer, I served as personneladviser to the Deputy Chief of Staff, Development.Translated, this means that I was a personnel officerassigned to the procurement, training and utiliza­tion of scientists for the Air Force. My workbrought me in daily contact with ,many of theeminent scientists in industry, government andeducational circles. I met many to whom the self­portrayal of Dr. Oppenheimer is applicable.

Let me tell the story of one brilliant young manwho came to my attention. He was the son of aweaUhy man who had given his offspring every­thing but parental attention. His early years wereguarded and guided by servants and tutors. At theage of twenty-three he had acquired his Ph.D. atone of our major technical institutes, but despitethis equipment he was reluctant to go out into theworld. He decided to prolong the charm of in­stitutional life by studying law. Two y,ears later,with an LL~B added to his other degrees, he wasstill reluctant to meet the discipline of the marketplace, and planned to work for a degree in businessadministration. A friend dissuaded him from sodoing, and he entered the lfield of patent law. Hewas a dis'mal failure. An intellectual robot, he waswithout the imagination needed to apply his the­oretical knowledge to practical situations, and quite

DECEMBER 1954 221

incapable of coping with the attitudes of prospec­tive clients.

So he fled from society and re-entered the sanc­tuary of institutional life; he became an assistantprofessor at the college which had made him whathe was. Eventually he transferred to another sanc­tuary, the government. Here he is ,content. H·ere heis a "doctor," not a "mister," and, above all, he isrelieved of all concern about the source of hissustenance. He has found the warmth, comfort andsecurity of his prenatal state; that is what all hisstudy had prepared him for.

Social Progress by F'or,mula

W,ith some variation in details, this is the storyof the lives of a number of ,eminent scientists. Theircommon characteristic is an addiction to sciencethat :amounts to a mania; in all other matters, theirnaivete is almost childlike. Being utterly withoutguile, they ,can fall easy prey to the shrewd andunscrupulous com'munist agent.

'The promise of communism-security for allpeople-makes sense to the scientist who hasalways enjoyed institutional securlty. If the Statecan provide for him, why cannot it provIde for thebutcher, the haker and the candlestick maker? Sincehe has never had need for exercising freedom ofchoice, he puts no importance on it. His formula­ridden mind 'easily accepts the concept of a societyrun by a formula. Sci,ence, which has shown himhow to fathom every materialistic problem pre­sented to him, can surely come up with a math­ematical equation that will solve all social problems.All one needs to do is to submit man to environ­mental conditioning, such as he employs in hislaboratory, and the right answer will be found.That is what communism holds, and therefore its

promise appeals to him. He has no criteria by whichto examine that promise; his training has not fur­nished him with any.

The product of the larger technical institution,I found, is far more characterized by this naivete,which easily turns to emotional instability underthe impact of social contacts, than is the graduateof the smaller college. This is probably due to thedifference in curricula. Most small colleges insistthat the student take some cultural courses, whilethe larger technical schools concentrate on scienceto the exclusion of everything else. Furthermore,the student in a large institution loses his sense ofindividuality the mom,ent he is enrolled, merelybecause he is lost in the immense student body; onetechnical school actually prides itself on its indif­ference to the individual student. After having losthis identity for four impresS'ionable years, it iseasy for the graduate to accept the basic premiseof communism that the individual does not count.

Among the scientists with whom I came in con­tact, the majority were cognizant of the limitationsof science, and realized that the ,finite mind of mancould not penetrate the mystery of the laws ofnature. Whether they came to that realizationbecause of their early religious training or becausetheir scientific thinking had taken a philosophicalturn, I do not know. But I do know that thos,e whobelieved in a God of the 'Universe were more stableand showed greater strength of character thanthose 'who had swallowed the materialistic philos­ophy whole. The former were certainly consideredless of a security risk than the latter.

I do not know whether Dr. Oppenheimer was oris a Communist. But I do know that those whoworship at the shrine of science are apt to lose allsense of moral values and thus become susceptibleto the lure of communism~

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~ ,".2 THE FREEMAN

Prosperity by Procreation

ByF.A.HARPER

Economies and obst:etrics must have engaged inadultery to beget the new theory of baby prosperity.

A quarter of a century ago, when we were beingplagued w,ith imagined surpluses, many economistswer,e concerned with what they called the nation'spropensity to consume. N'ow this is being replacedwith concern over the nation's propensity to pro­crHate, and belief in baby prosperity is sweepingthe land through publiC'ations ranging all the wayfrom light reading for the layman's Sunday after­noon to technical business forecasts.

Here are a few samples: A popular magazine,having a thous,and readers to the FREEMAN'S one,re'0ently published an article entitled "Our NewWeapon Against Depression : The Baby Boom." Abankers' bulletin heaped more dirt on Malthus'bones by asserting: "It's hard to see much de­pression coming up if the pr,esent population is toincrease two and two-thirds millions yearly through1960." A renowned Harvard economist, speakingof an "extraordinarily bright" prospect for theeconomy, ,says: "In part, these bright prospects arethe result of the rapid rate at which population hasbeen increasing."

'The baby prosperity argument goes like this: Aclick every twelve seconds on a machine in theWashington Census Bureau announces the birth ofanother consumer for the market in America. Asevery storekeeper knows, new consumersme,an newbusiness, and new business means prosperity. Stockwhich the merchant has sold must be replaced. Thissets in motion a new wave of business all the wayback to the manufacturer and the producer of rawmaterials---'not overlooking all the rela'ted services.

Or, to express the idea another way: The nationalincome this year is said to be about $1,750 perperson. Since ther'e would have been no demand andno national income without any population, thisamount is what the average person added to themarket dem,and. Every newborn baby, then, adds$1,750 (plus or minus) to the national income; heis precious not only to his parents but also to thegeneral economy.

This concept that babies g~ve birth to prosperitycalls to mind the traditional Chamber of Commerceprogram of 'enticing new businesses and morepeople to come to the town. In promoting theseprograms, it is often i,mplied that if the populationof the town can be doubled, everyone will be twice

An economist points out fallacies in thepopular theory that a boom in the birthrate is a weapon against depression andbrings an upswing in national prosperity.

as prosperous-well, much more prosperous at least.But since one town's gain is another's loss, theclaim can be made that babies bring prosperitywithout provinciality and selfishness. The storkdoesn't use any moving van and disadvantage someother town; everybody gains.

That iis the idea in brief. The ar,ticle alreadym,entioned concludes with this beautiful economicrainbow: "The blueprint for tomorrow is clear-theChildren's Decade is unques:tionahly America'swealtthiest as.set for a depress,ion-proof future."

The Appeal to Patriotism

'The idea of baby prosperity adds another appealIto the natural emotional urge toward parenthood.Every procreator a patriot! The prospecHve sireof even a moron can believe that in adding anotherchild he is adding umpteen dollars to the nationalincome. All countrymen should tender to him theirthanks. The sleep of long-suffering parents may bedisturbed in the process, but thait sacrifice is forthe national welfar'e.

It is perhaps not an accident that a populartheory of baby prosperity came just at this time.It came in the wake of a gloomy business forecastwhich threw quite a selare into business cirelesa few months ago. Dr. Colin Clark, the notedAustr,alian and British economist, flatly predictedthat the United States faced a major economicsetback. Coming from such a source, it frightenedthe fearsome and most of their complacent cousins.Its influence as a gloomy forecast was so greatthat it received the distinction of inducing acounterprediction from Washington. But even thatwas not enough to allay economic fears in a nationthat has come to treat the Statue of Liberty asthough it were a symbol of Mammon.

More persuasive than the official pronouncementsof bus'iness he~alth, I believe, has been the growingfaith in baby prosperity. Its power lies in its plau­sibility, since it is so much eas;ier to understandthan the complex curves and depression curativesusually found in the economist's kit.

In self-defense against misguided busines,s ad­vice, it behooves us to take a .critical look at thetheory. I do not believe that the baby boom andincreasing population assures prosperity. We mayhave prosperity during a period of increasing pop-

DECEMBER 1954 223

ulation, but without the one being the cause of theother.

In challenging the theory I do not mean to pre­diet,either, that an increasing population willbring a depression. I am merely s,aying that topredict the business future one must consult sourcesother than the stork and the mortician.

In challenging the theory of baby prosperity Iam not presuming to advise parents about havingoffspring. That is for them to decide on their ownresponsihility. I only suggest they omit this na­tional welfare buncombe from their precalculations,le'aving it entirely to the Socialists for use as oneof their political nostrums.

If the theory of baby prosperity were correct,why do we not find China among the most prosper­ous nations of the world? And India? They have aplenitude of offspring. 'They have great concentra­tions of population per square mile. If these makewelfare in a nation, it should be rampant in suchplaces. Yet they are among the least prosperous inthe world. By looking' at the matter in this w,ay­simple ohservat,ion and deductive reasoning-thetheory is exposed as not only false, but false with avengeance.

A Matter of Proauction

Its falseness, if we look beneath this surfaceevidence, lies in the simple fact that low productionper person is what really causes the low level ofliving in ,any nation. Another baby does not raisethe production per person automatically. After thebaby has grown to a product1ive age, special condi­tions might result in increased production perperson; but these conditions do not prevail in anynation already rather fully populated, where morebabies will almost certainly have the effect of re­ducing the level of living.

Every baby is born full of wants, and this addsto the pile of wants within thenation, to ibe sure. But it is produc­tion and not these wants which makeseeonomic welf;are. I have never knowna person whose wants as a wholeseemed to have any limit. One's wantfor a thing like salt is limited, but nothis total wants for everything, includ­ing vacation trips and services andthe like. If wants alone assured pros­perity, there could never have beenanything but unlimited prosperityanywhere in the world.

So the error in the theory of babyprosperity really lies in confus'ingwants with the things which satisfythese wants; in confusion betweenwants and effective market demand,or the means of buying. You and Iwant things but cannot have them un­less we produce them, or produce the

224 THE FREEMAN

means of buying them, or have them given to usby someone who has produced them.

The level of living we now enjoy in the UnitedStates is in large degree due to the increased pro­duction made possible by the use of tools operatedby electrical and other nonhuman sources of power.These tools have been accumul'ated for our use bypersons who have saved and invested in them. Iwould slay that perhaps 95 per cent of our level ofliving in the United States is due to the aid theyhave given to human hands. If we lacked most ofthese tools, as does the person in China or India,we would be producing little if any more-perperson-than he does.

Baby Brings No Tool Kit

The newborn baby has neither goods nor realbuying power attached to him when he comes. Weare all born nude, economically :as well as physically.And neither does he bring with hi,ma kit of toolslike those m,aking possible some 9-5 per cent of whatwe are able to produce. So when he attains aproductive age, others must share with hi.m the useof tools already there. Everyone then has fewertools to use and less can be produced-per person.The result is that the level of living must go down,not up.

Let us presume that the population were todouble, due to a friendly invasion from M'ars. If theMartians brought with them no tools and we wereto share our tools with them, the production andlevel of living of those already here would have todecline by half, plus or minus. Our economic wel­fare would go down.

When the population increases faster than thetools with which to work, the use of tools will haveto be spread thinner and thinner. And since toolsgive productive leverage to hand and brawn, therewould then be less production and a lower level of

living, as surely as four divided bytwo is two.

He who projects his business planson a false premise, such as the as­sumption that more babies assureprosperity, will some day come out ofhis economic stupor on the sheriff'sdoorstep, broke.

But a false basis for predictingbusiness prospects is not the onlydanger in the idea of 'baby prosperity.The concept is dangerously close todenying the right of man to be free,and that is perhaps its most seriousaspect.

The idea that babies are valuableis not new. In the Homeric period ofancient ,Greece parents sometimes .goldtheir children into slavery. Like goats,children had a price in the marketplace. Anyone trying to promote

Planned Parenthood in that day would have beenlaughed out of home and goat-yard alike.

Then a new idea came to dominate people's think­ing. lit was the belief in the dignity of each in­dividual under God, under rights and responsibil­ities of self-ownership. The child was not for sale,nor was he thought of as an economic asset of anyother person or any collective of persons, like anation. He was not a digit of national wealth orincome, for the calcula'tions of some bureaucrat. Soit came to pass that a child, in growing up to be afree moan, was considered free from the day he wasborn and this new theological concept came todominate the economic practices of mankind. Andchild slavery faded.

,Over the intervening centuries the dominant cul­ture of the Western world left the -matter of thebirth rate to the family, where it belongs-no long­er weighing its children as economic assets. To doso has become a sacrilege. We love them, and that isthat.

An Old Concep~ Reappears

And now the reactionary concept that babies areeconomic assets is again rearing its ugly head. Tosay that a baby is worth something to the marketof America is dangerously close to saying that ababy has worth in the market as a direct object ofsale. For a thing of worth is an asset, and an assetis saleable in the market.

'The concept which made child slavery tolerableto ancient Greece is thus reappearing in respectedintellectuall circles, in the form of this idea of babyprosperity. It is a symptom of the collectivizedthinking embodied in modern socialist-communistdoctrine. We first accept the idea that our economicwelfare is the respons1ibility of government ratherthan ourselves. Then we discover that babies arenational economic assets, assuring prosperity. It isa perfectly logieal derivative of this to say that thegovernment may claim control of the means ofwelfare for which it has been acclaimedresponsible.

And the government then becomes the logicalmanager of procreativity-perhaps, one day, undera new Department of Genopropagationempoweredto select for you your mate and to control all yourfamily affairs. The government in its new role, ofcourse, must make the children work and producewhen they are old enough.

Such steps into collectivis,m do not entail anydisharmony of logic, and in that sense may not beas fantastic as they may at first appear. Childrenneed not be auctioned off in a market place, as inancient Greece. Enslavement to government is astruly servitude as if children are sold to privateowners on the auction block.

lIt is never too early to destroy seed-thoughtswhich can grow into colossal destroyers of humandignity and freedom, like belief in baby proSIPerity.

Malthus' MistakeDr. Harper discusses in the preceding article thenew economic theory that babies make for prosper­ity. But, even as this theory is bandied about, wehear repeated murmurings of the Malthusian the­ory: namely, that population tends to increase fasterthan the means of subsistence, and that nature'scure for this inevitable overpopulation is pestilence,famine and war. The theory of "prosperUy byprocreation" (or Malthusianism [in reverse) israther new and has not, as far as we know, achievedtextbook standing. But ·Malthusianism is stilltaught in some college courses, while every so oftenwe read in the newspapers that the troubles ofJapan and India are due only to overpopulation.

The food situation in the United States is aconundrum for neo-Malthusians. Here a teen-agebaby-si,tter earns the lequivalent of a pound ofchicken in only an hour. And here we have acorn "surplus" large enough to fill a freight trainextending from Los Angeles to Atlantic City.

The reason for the food abundance here, ad­vanced by neo....Malthusians, is that we are the luckydescendants of ancestors who happened to cometo this land of abundant resources.

This easy explanation needs scrutiny. WhenColumbus arrived on this hemisphere the sparsenative population lived on the verge of starvation.They hunted the buffalo that roamed over whathas become the corn belt. They evaded diamond­backed rattlers as they hunted over lands now lushwith citrus groves.

Since Columbus' day the population has increasedsome four hundred times, and the diet has improvedfrom one of poverty to one of luxury. And thisfine fare takes only one fifth of the income of theaverage family.

What brought albout the abundane:e? What factordid Malthus leave out of his calculations? (He diedjust before that great era in Britain when thisfactor was allowed a trial for a half century.)

That factor is freedom. More exactly, it is thepartial removal of political interference with theright of the individual to own, save and investwhat he produces. When a baby is born it has twohands with which to feed one mouth; and whenit is able to do so, the baby will see to it that anabundance reaches i,ts mouth, provided no police­man filches from the handful. But, if the police­man takes too much, the grown-up baby will stoptrying. In short, production increases, other thingsbeing equal, as the right of private property isrespected.

The fascinating story of the history of foodand its relation to freedom will be found in ascholarly book by a lifetime student of the sub­ject: E. Parmelee Prentice's Hunger and History(published by The Caxton Printers, Ltd., Caldwell,Idaho, $5.00).

DECEMBER 1954 225

Jefferson Revisits America

By THADDEUS ASHBYThe framer of the Declaration of Independencecomes back via Time Machine and ta'kes a lookat liberty and individualism in America today.

An -inventor in our town built a funny-looking con­traption which he called a Time Machine. I watchedhim demonstrate it. He pressed a row of buttonsand turned a dial until the number 1776 popped up.

A cloud of smoke swirled around the machine.The inventor spun a wheel, a heavy door swung openand there inside a cell, surrounded by wires andtubes, stood a fellow wearing a white wig anddressed in a Colonial suit; a handsome, aristo­cratic sort of a man. He blinked,extracted alaee handkerchief from his brocaded sleeve, anddabbed the smoke out of his eyes.

He said: "My name is Thomas Jefferson' ofMonticello. I don't believe I have had the honor."

We introduced ourselves. "You're in the twentiethcentury," the inventor told him. "Wait, I wantthQ reporters and photographers to record this!"

"What do you know I" he whispered to me. "Itworks I Watch him for me!" And he rushed off.

I stared at Mr. Jeff,erson. He smiled back."Could we take some air? I am bound to confess Ifind it somewhat stifling here."·

"But you can't go out in the streets like that.Come home with me and I'll lend you a suit ofclothes."

"I should like some tea," said Thomas J'efferson."We've got plenty of tea," I said. "Let's go.""What is the price of tea in this country?"

Jefferson asked."This country is America," I said. "And tea is

$1.50 per pound."":Outrageous I" said Jefferson. "If Samuel Adams

were here, he would throw it overboard!""Here's my car," I said."Strange ... Perhaps we could have our tea while

they are hitching up.""Hitching up? Look, Mr. Jefferson, this isn't a

eoach. It's ready to go as is. It has an engine underthe hood. It's a-horseless ,carriage."

"Amazing I And on what principle does thisengine run, :Sir?"

"Well, it ... just runs. You put in gasoline here,see. And then it burns and, well, it's really verysimple."

"Indeed." Jefferson scowled at me."You'll get to talk to an engineer," I assured

him. All the way out to the house Jefferson keptasking me embarrassing questions. "What's that?"He pointed to the instrument panel.

"That's a radio. Like to hear it?"

226 THE FREEMAN

He listened a moment. "That is quite enough,"he said. "Can you explain the principle on which itfunctions ?"

"Well, a man talks into a microphone, and thesound is transmitted through the alr, and uh, itcomes out here. It's really very..."

"Simple," said Jefferson."Mr. Jefferson," I said, "I know you were an

architect, scientist, inventor, farmer, lawyer, jack­of-alI-trades. Well, I'm not. ~verything is special­ized today. A mechanic can tell you how our enginesrun. All I can tell you about is politics."

",Politics. Good," said Jefferson. "My interest,too. I have written some short opinions on thesubject. I daresay the imperfections and errorswhich we encountered in my day must all have beenresolved by now."

"ISir," I told him, "I'm afraid those imperfectionsand errors have only been aggravated."

"Incredible I" said Jefferson. "You speed throughspace, throw your voice through the air. I marvelat your mechanical progress. Have you not shownsimilar progress in government?"

"In my opinion, we've gone backwards," I said."I cannot believe it.""Here we are, Sir," I said.

Jefferson looked around, at the electric lightswitches, the gas furnace, the plumbing fixtures,the radio-phonograph. He said "Hmmm I" severaltimes. We had some tea. After a moment Jeffersonsa-id:

"But to the quick 0' the ulcer! The specialis tsshall explain these miracles to· me. I request nowinstruction concerning the political degenerationwhich you allege has occurred."

I pointed to my library. "You can read all thesethings .for yourself, Mr. Jefferson," I said. I showedhim my hooks. "I have here just a few of thebooks, magazines and pamphlets which prove indetail, naming names, facts and figures, thatAmericans have been bargaining away the rightswhich you described in the Declaration of Inde­pendence. Look at these pamphlets." I handed hima lapful of literature.

"Here's a book that tells how one Supre,meCourt decision after another transferred morepower to the federal government," I said.

"Why didn't the Legislative branch impeach thejurists responsible?" demanded Jefferson.

"This pamphlet tells how Congress abdicated itspowers to the Executive," I said. He scanned thepages, open-mouthed, wide-eyed.

"Here's one that shows how the Reconstructionperiod violated the rights of the States," I said,heaping another pamphlet on the pile. "Here's onethat shows how the government got into the busi­ness of subsidizing private citizens, beginningvvith the Post 'Office, which you Founders providedfor, then the railroads, ending with the airlinesand government ownership of more than eightycorporations operating in competition with privatecorporations."

"Why were the people not educated to standtheir ground against these usurpations?" askedJefferson.

"'This book tells how the income tax destroyedthe power of the states, how the draft law de­stroyed the power of the militias to resist thecentral government, how the United Nations hasbeen given the power to commit this country to'police action' anywhere in the world and usedrafted men to further ,entangle us in foreignexpeditions. Here's one. . ."

"Stop!" cried Jefferson. "Stab my eyes! I've hadenough! Take me to the revolutionaries!"

"Who?" I asked, not sure I had heard correctly.

"The men who intend to revolt and overthrowthe tyrannical government you have described tome."

"Oh, you mean the Communists. I don't knowany, ,personally."

"Communists? Did you not tell me," asked J effer­son, "that Communists advocate extension of thepower of the federal government? If so, I shall notaddress myself to them. I refer to the revolution­aries who seek to restore the principles of theDeclaration of Independence."

"Oh," I said. "They're called Conservatives andReactionaries."

"Names signify little," said Jefferson. "I myselfvIas called a Democrat. Take me to these Reaction­aries. I intend to help them foment their revolu­tion."

"Well Mr. Jefferson," I said, "I'll take you tothem. But if you start talking about revolt, they'llthink you're some kind of a dangerous radical."

"I was," said Jefferson. "Shall we start?"

Since most of the signers of the Declarationwere lawyers or farmers, I thought I'd take J effer­son to a lawyer and a farmer, both conservatives.

"I'll take you to the best lawyer in town," Isaid. "But first, do you mind chang-ing out of thoseknee breeches and taking off that wig?"

I phoned for an appointment with the lawyer."We have time," I said, "to visit Farmer Gimmey."

"Is he a rebel?" asked Jefferson."Oh, no," I said. "He's a good Republican."'The good farmer quieted his barking dogs and

sauntered over to the car. "Farmer Gimmey," Isaid, "here's a friend of mine, name of Jefferson."

"Stay a while," said Gimmey. "I thought youwere the man from Soil Conservation. They'regoing to pay me for putting in a big dam."

"Mr. Jefferson wants you to sign a Declaration ofIndependence," I explained. "He wants you torevolt against controls, restrictions and high taxes."

"Sounds like a Red plot to me," said Gimmey."Revolts and all."

"This is just the opposite," I said. "Mr. J,effer-son wants to restore constitutional government."

"Would I lose my wheat support checks ?""Yes," I said."Milk support checks?""Yes.""Butter ?"" ':fraid so.""Conservation dam checks?""All your dam checks," I said. "But you'll keep

every cent you earn.""Are you crazy?" asked Farmer Gimmey. "Com­

ing out here butting into my business!""John Hart was, as you say, 'crazy,'" broke in

Jefferson."Who was John Hart?" asked Gimmey."Just a simple farmer," said Jefferson. "He sign­

ed the Declaration of Independence. The British

DECEMBER 1954 227

burned his farmhouse and sawmill and blackenedhis acres. He died in 17'79 without ever knowingwhether the Americans would win the war for In­dependence which he helped start with his signa­ture."

"Why bring him up?" asked Gimmey."You were asking just now, whether you would

lose your government checks," explained Jefferson."John Hart would sign the Declaration again,though he knew it meant he would lose everything."

"How do you know he would?" demanded Gim­mey.

"I know," said Jefferson, "that Farmer JohnHart loved America and the liberty it stood formore than all the things he lost."

"Do you think I don't love America?" FarmerGimmey bristled.

"Not more than your stipends from government,obviously," said Jefferson.

"Wait a minute," said Gimmey. "Those subsi­dies promote the general welfare-otherwise thefarmers would go out of business and the nationwould starve to death..."

Jefferson turned to me. "lOur host would findmy reasoning too tedious to follow," he said, "and Ifear that my continued presence here will onlyweary him and keep him from his task of feedingthe nation." He turned back to Farmer iGimmey."You will forgive me, Sir," said Jefferson, "if Itear myself away. I have the honor to be yourmost obedient servant."

Never having been insulted ,before 'in such anelegant manner, Farmer Gimmey's feet took rootsin his sod; his tongue seemed to have stuck inhis mouth, and his cheeks reddened under the tanleather of his skin.

As we pulled away, he cried : "Wait! I'll sign."I stopped the car. "On one condition," he said."Condition?" asked Jefferson, perplexed."That all the others getting subsidies, the labor

union man, the businessman with his tariffs, therest of them, sign it first, and agree to give up theirsubsidies, too I"

"We should still be in Philadelphia," said J effer­son, "if the delegates there had each made the samestipulation."

"What do I get out of it?" demanded Gimmey,visualizing the loss of his checks.

"'Perhaps no more than Lewis Morris," said J ef­ferson. "A rich farmer, Morris stood to gainnothing by signing. By refusing, he would havelost nothing but his self-respect. The British.learning that he had signed, desecrated his manorhouse and fired his thousand-acre stand of 'excellenttrees. His family endured seven years of hand-to­mouth living."

Farmer Gimmey contemplated this fate for hisfamHy and found little to recommend it. "'Timeshave changed," he said.

"'The issues have not changed," said Jefferson.

228 THE FREEMAN

We drove back to town without speaking. Totake the gloom out of the silence, I turned on theradio.

And, ladies a'nd gentlemen, while we seek federalaid to education, we do not seek federal control.Education is the most precious part of our nationalheritage, a'nd those who would deny us our share ofthe national wealth stand guilty of depriving theleaders of the future of their right to knowledge andthe free access thereto. If education is to be free,then those who stand in the way of federal aid, whenlocal resources have dried up, are attacking free­dom of education, freedom of the mind, academicfreedom. We can go forward to new heights only byestablishing a United States Department of Educa­tion with cabinet rank, a'nd the privilege of sharingin the golden bounty of the federal income tax.To what nobler purpose could our national treasurebe put? (applause)

Ladies and Gentlemen, You have just heard alladdress entitled, "How to Preserve Free Enterprise."

I turned it off. "See what you started with tax­supported education?" I said.

Jefferson stroked his chin. "There numberedbut one university president among the signers,"he said. "I wonder if that gentleman would signnOMT• ••" There was gentle irony in his eyes.

We arrived in town, and I slowed down so thatJefferson could see the tall buildings. He did notseem interested. After waiting an ,impressiveamount of time we were admitted to the law of­fices of Wiley, Craft and Schuyster.

"Mr. Schuyster, Mr. Jefferson," I ,said."'Mr. Jefferson?" said Schuyster, laughing.

"Name's familiar. Any relation to the ThomasJefferson ?"

"I am the son of Peter Jefferson of Shadwell,Albemarle County."

Schuyster was not impressed."I should like to know," said Jefferson, "what

"action you aim to take about the income tax?""Certainly, Mr. Jefferson." Schuyster lowered his

voice. "Now, we could offer to settle for twenty­five cents on the donar if the amount comes tomuch, and if your voting record will hold up. Orwe could get a hearing before a tax court."

"No," said Jefferson. "I want to go to the heartof the matter. Tell me what you would be inter­ested in doing about this infernal income tax."

"I'd have to know the facts first, Mr. Jefferson.But I can tell you right now that no firm carriesmore weight with the right people than ours. Justlast year we arranged for one of our clients toavoid payment of $100,000. A great many solu­tions may be found if the amount is imposing."

"You misunderstand me, Sir," said Jefferson. telwant to know if you would participate in a move­ment aiming at the abolition of the ,income tax. Asa lawyer, interested in justice, would you join anag-gregation of patriots assembled for the purposeof declaring their independence from taxation with­out limitation1"

"Are you serious?" sa'id Schuyster. "How couldthe government meet its huge expenditures with­out the income tax?"

"It couldn't," said Jefferson. "So you believe inthe income tax, Mr. Schuyster?"

"Of course," said Schuyster."You believe in it," said J,efferson, "but you will

do anything to circumvent the law?""Well, not exactly anything," said Schuyster.

"We have never done anything really illegal. Ifyou're thinking of those allegations made last year,they were never proved!"

"Mr. :Schuyster, many of those who signed theDeclaration of Independence were lawyers likeyourself," said Jefferson. "One of them, JohnAdams, vigorously aroused himself over somethingcalled the stamp tax. He said the American col­onies should revolt against it because it was anencroachment by the state on the rights of the in­dividual. You are, of course, familiar with thestamp tax, Mr. Schuyster?"

"Why, ah, you tell me about it, Mr. Jefferson.""It was a small tax on all legal documents, not at

all burdensome, by some standards, on anyone,"said Jefferson, smiling frostily.

"But they refused to pay it?" asked Schuyster."They refused with enthusiasm," said Jefferson.

"And the law was repealed. Lawyer John Adam;;;was instrumental in removing this plague."

"What does that have to do with the income tax?"asked Schuyster.

"Just this. The stamp tax fails to compare evendistantly with the income tax. Yet lawyer JohnAdams preferred to revolt rather than pay it. Hewas the strongest speaker in favor of signing theDeclaration. Would you have signed it, Mr.Schuyster, believing as you confess that you do, ina much worse form of tax-yoke than that whichprompted the Declaration1"

"I'm a patriotic American, Mr. Jefferson. Cer­tainly, 1-"

"'Think before you speak," said Jefferson. "Doyou know what happened to the signers?"

"Why, I assume they made out all right. We wonthe war, didn't we?"

"The majority of them suffered deeply," said

Jefferson. "After the Declaration was signed andtransported to King 'George, more than a yearpassed before the Americans could raise and equipa substantial army. In the meantime King Georgegave the order which doomed the signers to behunted down and hung. Many fled their estates,saw their croplands and trees fired by Britishtorches. They lost everything and never regainedtheir fortunes. They pledged their lives, theirfortunes and their sacred honor. Would you?"

Schuyster smiled and said, "Would you, your­self?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you, Mr.Schuyster," said Jefferson.

We stopped off at my house so Jefferson couldchange back into the brocaded suit. When we ar­rived back at the Time Machine, the laboratory wasdeserted.

"Won't you wait until my friend the inventorcan get the photographers to come back? Theywon't believe this without pictures."

"N0," said Jefferson. "I will leave you to workout your own destiny. This is not my country."

"Wait," I said. "There are some people, not here,perhaps, but scattered in distant places all overAmerica, just a few, called Individualists. I metsome of them at the Congress of Freedom in Omaha.They signed a policy statement which quoted fromthe Declaration. There are others, some of themjust waking up to the necessity of making a strong­stand for liberty. If you would stay we could findthem."

"N0," said Jefferson. "I have battles to win inmy own time. I envy you your automobiles, yourelectric lights. I shall tell Ben Franklin aboutthese things. But I prefer to live among freemen,and watch young spirits flower in the air of free­dom. For that I would give up anything else. Ifyou assemble sufficient patriots, and succeed in re­storing freedom in America, you will then knowthat to which I refer, and which now calls meback."

"I hope some day to know it," I said.And I counted up the number of those I knew

would sign the Declaration today. Would you sign?

When we consider that this governlnent is charged with the external and

mutual relations only of these sta1tes; that the states themselves have

principal care of our persons., our property and our reputation., con­

stituting the great field of human concerns., we may well doubt whether

our organizaltion is not too complicated., too expensive; whether offices

and officers have not been multiplied unnecessarily., and sometimes in­

juriously to the service they were meant to promote.

THOMAS JIEF,FER80N., First Annual

Mes@age to Congress, ,December 8., 1801

DECEMBER 1954 229

By JOHN CHAMBERLAIN

A Reviewer's Notebook I~ ~__-.a

"How many of us really would wantto be John Stuart Mill? Who wouldnot rather be Scott, or Hawthorne,or Disraeli or even Byron?" 80Russell Kirk asks in a rhetoricalflourish in his recently publishedA Program for Conservatives [re­viewed on page 233 of this issue].Mr. Kirk's question, which breathesa deep personal contempt for thewhole subject of economics, is un­fairly posed for the simple reasonthat it attempts to compare the in­comparable. Given a choice of beinga genius like Hawthorne or a man ofpurely logical intellect like Mill, mostpeople would naturally choose to bethe genius. So, too, in the world ofmuscular activity would most peoplerather be Joe DiMaggio than aplain blacksmith. But just as thereis plenty of room in the world forballplayers and iron workers, so isthere need for both imaginative ar­tists and men of logic. It makes littlepractical sense to start a pogromagainst economists merely becausethey aren't poets or novelists ordramatists, or even social prophetson the order of Carlyle.

But if Mr. Kirk asks an inadmis­sible question in his vigorous pleafor a return to conservatism, he doesmanage to raise a point about JohnStuart Mill. The real question is:Who would want to be Mill underany circumstances? Mill was a greatEnglish worthy;. his essays in de­fense of liberty and individualitywill live forever in a world that willa}ways have desperate need for co­gent anti-Statist, anti-authoritarianthinking to counter the recurrentoriginal sin of tyranny. But theprice that Mill paid for living hisown peculiar life was just about ashigh as could be exacted from any­one.

In a splendid biography, TheLife of John Stuart Mill (565 pp.,New York: Mac-milIan, $6.50, pre-

230 THE FREEMAN

f'ace by Professor F. A.· Hayek),Michael St. John Packe takes usdeep into the personal hell of Mill'sprivate life. As a child, John StuartMill had the misfortune of servingas a guinea pig for the insanely one­sided educational theories of hisfather, James Mill. John Stuart Millplayed no games and had no child­hood or adolescent friends; he wasthe supreme and absolute oppositeto Tom Sawyer and HuckleberryFinn.

Then, having survived his up­bringing, he had the misfortune tofall in love with a married woman.Apparently he lived for years incompletely celibate attendance uponhis "Platonica," a Mrs. HarrietTaylor who took it upon herself toremake the very content of Mill'smind. The deliberately enforcedcelibacy, a tribute to the Victorianconventions that seems strange in aso-called "rationalist," could nothave been easy, for the supposedly"dessicated" John Stuart Mill, asMr. Packe brings out, was a genu­inely passionate human being. Whatthe celibacy amounted to must havebeen self-torture in the highest de­gree. Eventually Mr. Taylor died,but by this time Mill had been seri­ously smitten with tuberculosis. Hismarriage to his "Platonica" passedthe disease along-with the resultthat Mrs. Mill died one of thosedreadful' nineteenth-century deaths,with Mill an agonized watcher. Millhimself managed to survive hisdisease for many years, but his oldage as the "saint of rationalism"w·as grey and sad. Says Mr. P,acke:"Gone is the slender figure reclin­ing in an armchair by the fire, withthe cat Placidia purring at his feet,who rose and cordially gree1ted thereporter from the Chicago Tribune.. . . In its place remains the legend. . . a name erudite and respectable;

sober, censorious, and sad; prodi­gious and at the same time somehowawful, a kind of moral,Great Agrip­pa. Above all, dryas dust."

8 urely no one in his senses wouldchoose to live the life of John StuartMill. But the writings of Mill aresomething else again. His On Lib­erty, which, as Mr. Packe says, isless of a philosophical textbook thanit is "a hymn or incantation," isone of the great essays of thelanguage. The words ring out morevi,brantly than ever in our owndebilitated time: "The demand thatall other people shall resemble our­selves grows by what it feeds on.... Its ideal of character is to bewithout any marked character; tom·aim by compression, like a Chineselady's foot, every part of humannature which stands out prominent­ly." Or: "The only purpose forwhich power can be rightfully ex­ercised over any member of a civil­izedcommunity, against his will, isto prevent harm to others. His owngood, either physical or moral, isnot a suffcient warrant." (Italicsours.)

These words, flung in the teethof the collectivists of the eighteenfifties and si:~ties, failed to preventthe "iage of darkness" that was eventhen setting in. As Mr. Packe says,"the era of the beehive state wasdawning, and the freedom of the in­dividual was going out of fashion."Yet Mill's doctrine, that society isnot an organism ("when the fingeris cut, the whole body bleeds, butwhen a man dies . . . society atlarge is unaware"), must sooneror later live again in the popularconsciousness of men who instinc­tively insist on justice, for the op­posing organismic concept of societymust, as Packe cogently puts it,"either baldly assert that might isright, or else seek refuge in the

sophistry of the general will."But if Mill's words on Uberty will

live as long as hum·an beings refuseto be ants or bees,.it cannot be saidthat he did not make his own con­tribution to the "age of darkness"that was to overtake England. Thetrouble with Mill was that his pow­ers of analysis failed him at a cer­tain point in his economics. In writ­ing about production, Mill was con­tent to follow the laws set forthby an older generation of economists.Since "scarce means" are a fact ofnature, the necess-ary choice betweenscarce alternatives gives rise tomeasurable productive activity. ButMill went on to say that productionand distribution, in economics, hadno necessary hard-and-fast, or"scientific," relationship. With pro­duction, you could get only what theearth and the human beings thereonwere capruble of yielding. But oncethe product was in hand, so Millsaid, it could he distributed in anymanner that society was agreed uponas fitting. It could he expropriated,or redistributed by a "progressive"income tax, or left in the hands ofthe original producers to consume orto sell or to give away in charityto others.

This "discovery" by Mill that the"laws of economics have nothingto do with distribution" (the words'are from Robert L. Heilbroner'sThe Worldly Philosophers) has beenhailed as a "profound contribution"to social science. But those who hailit as such are inv,ariably the verysort of people who distrust Mill onthe subject of liberty. While the"profundity" of the contribution isextremely questionable, it has cer­tainly had its effects on the theoriz­ing of Keynesians, Fabians, Beve­ridgeans, neo-Marxians, technocrats,N'elW Dealers, Fair Dealers, socialdemocrats, Socialists, Communistsand Fascists. One and all, these ad­vocates of arbitrary redistributionof the economic product have seizedupon Mill's words to justify theirown antiliberal and organismictheories of the State as the properarbiter of consumption.

When Mill was speculating on thesupposed difference between thelaws ofproduCition and the laws of

distribution, taxation, which is thegreat modern tool of redistribution,was not very onerous. But today itscarcely takes a technical economistto see taxation has a very definiteimpact on production. The laws ofone are interconnected with the lawsof the other. Everybody knows of ex­amples of people who cease to putforth a certain type of effort oncethe income tax reaches into theupper brackets. A writer like JanStruther, author of Mrs. Miniver,gives up a lecture tour because itpromises to yield her only fiftycents on the dollar after taxes; alawyer like Bernard Knollenibergpractices at his profession for onlythree months of the year and thendevotes himself for nine months toamateur scholarly pursuits in thefield of the American Revolution of1776.

These are outstanding individ­ual examples known personally to meof how interference with the dis­tribution of wealth can change thepattern of production, for better orworse. But the impact of inter­ference is general and pervasive aswell as individual. When, for ex­ample, the State steps in to dis­tribute housing by the control ofrents, as in France, there is a veryprofound impact on the supply ofnew houses and even upon the re­pair of old houses. New houses failto come into existence,and the oldhouses fall apart.

Mill did not live to see the direresults of his theory-or, rather,his lack of theory-regarding dis­tribution. If he had, he would cer­tainly have changed his mind, foras the great champion of inductivereasoning he was never one to over­look the facts. Yet it is strange thatsuch a devotee of strict logic shouldhave made such a thundering mis­take. Henry George, among others,caught the drift of Mill's error longbefore there were any Keynesiansaround to build their cloud-castleson the illusory foundations of Mill'swords.

How did Mill happen to go offthe track in his economics ?Mr.,Packe has much to say about theeffect of Harriet T,aylor, Mill's"Platonica," on Mill's economic rea-

soning. Mrs. Taylor, long before shebecame Mrs. Mill, was an incipientdo-gooder. Her sympathetic re­action to the revolutionary up­risings of 1848 sent her off on atheory that, to quote Packe, "a lotof the objections to the communalownership of property were nothingmore than humbug." She orderedMill to abolish, in the second editionof his Principles of Political Econ­omy, all of his original objectionsagainst socialism and communism.Strange to tell, Mill, at the cost ofsome worry, followed her commandsto the letter. He did not turn hisback in so many words on the pri­vate system, or on the classicaltheory of competitive economics, butthe changes in his text, particularlyin the third edition of his book, weresuch that the reader could comfort­ably regard communism and capital­ism as systems with equal possibil­ities for satisfying the economicwants of man. Thus "coexistence,"-at the behest of Harriet Taylor, wasimplicit in Mill's Principles of Polit­ical Economy a full century beforeClem Attlee and Ny,e Bevan set offfor Moscow and Peiping to observethe workings of an "alternative"economy.

What Mr. Packe has to tell aboutHarriet Taylor's influence on Mill isextremely enlightening. Yet Mill'svulnerability, far from being a merematter of cherchez la femme, actuallywent back to the upbringing whichhis father forc.ed upon him. Mill wascompelled by paternal fiat to be alogician at an age when most boysare ranging the creek bottoms, orplaying soldier. He grew up in ahousehold dominated by the utili­tarian theories of Jeremy Bentham.But boys aren't natural utilitarians;they are natural romantics. Withhis romanticism suppressed from thecradle to his late teens, Mill revoltedagainst "logic" in his twenties. Hecame to exalt f,eeling and sentimentsimply because his father had nevergiven way to a single emotional im­pulse. The blame for John Mill'saberrations in middle life shouldproperly be laid upon Jam,es Mill,the stern sehoolmaster armed with atheory of child psychology that al­lowed nothing for simple fun.

DECEMBER 1954 231

Preface to a New PoliticsGovernment: An Ideal Concept, by

Leonard E. Read. 150 pp. Irving­ton-on-Hudson : The Foundationfor Economic Education. Cloth$2.00, paper $1.50

This is something of a "man bit·es·dog" book. Leonard Read is. certainlyamong those responsible for the con­temporary libertarian renaissance inAmerica that has produced a grow­ing body of thought in which gov­ernment is strictly limited to neg­ative functions. And now he writes abook in defense of government!

The paradox is easily resolved. Itis Mr. Read's contention that thebest way to insure a principled lim­itation of government is to have athorough grasp of the principleswhich justify the existence of gov­ernment. Without an understandingof why we need government, we willnot know how to limit it. W,e cannotknow when government is out-of­bounds unless we know what con­stitutes in...bounds. This is not awholly novel problem, and Mr. Readis not the first to tackle it. But hisanswers are, in important respects,answers in a new key. For me, thebook is best understood when I putit within my own fr'amework of in­terpretation. What follo'ws, then, isone way of looking at the book, andMr. Read is responsible only as theinitiator of a train of thought.

Two centuries ago man was re­garded as a static creature, and uponthis premise was erected a theoryfor the ordering of society. Lastcentury the picture was extendedbackward to produce the concept ofman as a creature deposited upon hispresent eminence, like the ark onArarat, by the thrust of materialforces of which he was the end prod­uct. This picture, in its turn, led toa theory of society. Just now the dimoutlines of a more comprehensivepicture of man are becoming visible.He is seen as increasingly a partnerin his own evolution, a process inwhich the forces are mainly psy­chical rather than physical, a processwhich is continuing in man andoffers him a way ahead-not just away out. This new concept of manhas not yet produced much in theway of political theory.

There are perennial human prob­lems which each age encounters in

232 THE FREEMAN

its own way. Among these is theproblem of men in society, the draw­ing of a distinction between what isindividual and wha1t is social. Eachage attempts to work out its ownanswers, and some succeed ratherwell. The eighteenth-century answerto social questions was quite anachievement in its day and containsmuch that is still redeemable; buta century later it was an answer toquestions no one was asking. Themid-twentieth century is a time ofsuch rapid transition that all effortsin the field of political theory seemto boil down to an attempt to fit·eighteenth-century answers to nine­teenth-century questions! We makeimpossible demands for controlledliberty, while within reach there aresufficient materials to effect a newsynthesis in political theory.

The significant political thoughtof the rationalistic and pre-evolu­tionary eighteenth century was pre­mised on the conception of man as acreature who had arrived on theplanet with all his faculties andpowers as standard ,equipment.Among other things, he had a built­in set of natural rights. Classic lib­eralism erected an impressive struc­ture on this picture of man, but thepicture gradually faded ·away.

By the middle of the nineteenthcentury the conception of man as alargely static late-comer upon theearth was giving way to the ideathat he was related to other livingstuff and had developed his facultiesby interaction with his environmentover an immense period of time. Ofthe several theories of evolutionoffered to account for the new factsof biology, the nineteenth-centurychose to embrace the materialisticone associated with the name ofDarwin. The idea of man as a beinghaving inherent rights derived fromhis Creator did not fit into this pic­ture. Classic liberalism responded tothis challenge by evaporating andthen condensing as the new toryism.The real exploiter of the evolution­ary picture of man was Marxism.The dogma that all history is thehistory of class struggle is the directcounterpart of the idea that strugglefor existence and natural selectionare the forces that have hewn outliving forms, including man. Social-

ism was to the nineteenth centurywhat liberalis'm had 'been earlier­the virile main stream of socialthought.

The nineteenth-century schemehad no place for the limited govern­ment concept. It did not occur tomen to limit government on moralgrounds until it had first occurredto them that the individual is a per­son pf worth and dignity and thusought to be free from arbitrarylegal invasions of his privacy. Thereligious idea of man laid thegroundwork for the political idea oflimited government; but when mencame to be regarded by the mate­rialists as little more than merefragments of the natural landscape,the idea of limited government madeno sense.

We are now living in the post­materialist era. This means that weare also living in the post-socialistera. Intellectually, socialism is dead;practically, the beheaded corpse stillshows vitality of a sort. The evidencefor the demise is the fact thatneither Marxist nor other socialisticschemes are now defended as con­sistent theoretical systems; instead,they are relied upon merely as prac­tical politics or devices of sabotage.The fountainhead of even these ac­tivities is now gone, so it is only amatter of time before the newscatches up with those who still manthe outposts. When they realize thattheir faith is gone, their fight willvanish also.

'The materialistic picture of manhas gone, taking its typical socialtheory, socialism, with it. It is beingreplaced by a new picture of manwhich does not yet have an acceptedlabel, but which might be called theconcept of emergence. Man is re­garded neither as a static creaturenor as solely the product of materialfactors. His history is seen to be oneof development in response to a non­material as well as to the materialenvironment. His energy is still un­spent, and he is able to cooperatewith the forces of life to further hisown creation by rising to highergrades of consciousness. In orderfor the individual to realize his ownpotential he needs to be free, as freeas he was conceived by liberalism.But his emergence is premised onhis understanding of his own inter­dependent relation to his fellows;that sense of community which oldersocieties had and which some SociaI-

ists may have thought they couldregain by coercion. The concept ofe'mergence has room for religionbecause it depicts individual life asan adventure in destiny.

This newer conception of man andhis place in the seheme of things willeventually produce a body of socialtheory based upon it. Mr. Read,while he has not made a consciouseffort to write such a social theory,nevertheless has written a bookwhich is, at the very least, a prefaceto a new politics.

Others will take an entirely dif­ferent slant on the book, and like ordislike it for their own reasons.They will find plenty of material forheated discussion in Mr. Read'streatment of the vexing problems oftaxation, education, conscriptionand the like. In his earlier writings,Mr. Read has shown a unique abilityto start the ball rolling. This timehe sends it flying.

REV. EDMUND A. OPITZ

Civilized ConversationA Program for Conservatives, by

Russell Kirk. 325 pp. Chicago:Henry Regnery Company. $4.00

This book, quite aside from its in­tellectual importance, is an aestheticdelight. Reading it, one experiencesthat sublime joy of a true literarygourmet-to see a well-built mindperform magnificently. And it isanything but preciousness that madethe author (and this reviewer) paysuch emphatic attention to form.This, after all, is a book on the con­servative attitude; and there is per­haps no more reliwble test of a con­servative's authenticity than hissense of form. A liberal "ideologist,"when the going gets rough, and hisstyle even rougher, can always pleadthe alleged power of the nostrum hesells. But a conservative sells nonostrum. He recommends neither aprescription nor even a theory. Thetrue conservative recommends noth­ing but reverence for the accumu­lated wisdom of the human race­which, one will notice, is preciselythe meaning of what we call "for'm."

Mr. Kirk's preceding book, TheConservative Mind, became aliterary event mainly because itproved that the conservative posi­tion can be stated with unmistakablelearning and even with wit. This, to

a ridiculously misinformed genera­tion of liberals, came as a stunningblow: they had been taught, forseveral decades and in all the bestuniversities, that conservatism wasthe pellagra of our mentally under­nourished-and here, plainly visibleto anyone who can read, a youngMidwesterner was presenting a con­servative statement whose eruditionand elegance made the liberal .col­leges of the Eastern Seaboard looklike intellectual slums. Even Yaleand Harvard had to take notice; but,having come out from under theshock, their final response was: "Ahyes, but the conservative Mr. Kirkoffers no program for action!"

Which, of course, was like theheathen holding it against a Chris­tian 'missionary that he had no goodvoodoo prescriptions on him. For,just as the Christian denies the veryreality of voodoo, the conservativedenies the very idea of "programs."And Mr. Kirk, I take it, meant thetitle of his new book, A Programfor Conservatives, to be sheer irony.For, naturally, he offers here no pro­gram for conservatives or anybodyelse. What he does offer is a forceful,penetrating and witty discussion ofthe pathetic, and often terrifying,results of liberal programs. Like atrue conservative, Mr. Kirk consid­ers the organic reality of life; andhis point is precisely that the SocialEngineers, those restless blueprint­ers, of progress, not only do uglyviolence to life but, thank God, arenot even efficient.

:Not that Mr. Kirk refuses to seethe obvious need for a constant re­form of the many social provocationsto our sense of justice and beauty.He enumerates these provocations,from inadequate housing to evenmore inadequate journalism; andthen contemplat,es in this prudentbook what can be done about thatmalaise without our ending up inLe Corbusier's "planned" ant-heapsof homes and the horrors of an ulti­mately conformist press. He doesnot postulate like a liberal. Rather,like a genuine conservative, he en­circles his subject with civilized con­versation.

And since the hallmark of civil­ized conversation is that it invitesparticipants, I should like to cut in.Mr. Kirk, it seems to me, unneces­sarily weakens his case with severalalmost desperate attempts to prove

that "the U. S., throughout most ofour history, has been a nation sub­stantially conservative." This is sim­ply not so; and no amount of skillfuleloquence can alter the manifest fact.

As human being, the American isjust as capable as anyone else ofpreferring a reverent (i.e., conserv­ative) to a hustling (i.e., "progres­sive") attitude-which is all Mr.Kirk needs to claim. The moment hetries to c1aimmore, so that he maycontend a special American affinityfor the conservative position, he en­gages in fiction. The specificallyAmerican experience of life,"throughout most of our history,"is indisputably a fierce yen for in­stitutionalized "progress" by utopianlegislation and industrial gadgetery.Individual Americans, like Calhounand Adams, may have known better;the American species (to the extentthat there really is such a thing) is,of course, populist rather than con­servative-and for a very forcefulreason: America happens to be theonly society in creation built byconscious human intent; and the in­tent was "improvement." This con­tinent was settled, and developed, byEuropeans tired of Europe's ancientcommitments, and determined,eachof them and each in his own way,on a "new beginning."There just isno point, and certainly no possiblegain of wisdom, in denying this factof American history.

But that very same fact, inter­preted correctly, may fortify theconservative position considerablybetter than its willful negation couldever do: the historic reality ofAmerica proves that men's will andmen's preferences are socially crea­tive. The conservative attitude has achance to instruct future Americanpreferences, not because it owns anhistoric mortgage on America's so­cial real estate, but because it maypersuade searching men of its moraland aesthetic superiority. For Hege­lians, everything that exists is goodby virtue of its existing. Buttrue conservatives linsist on ahierarchy of values from which man,who was granted free will, canchoose according to his moral in­struction and his sensitive taste. Forinstance, FREEMAN subscribers canchoose (and are herewith urged) toread Mr. Kirk's books. If they do, Idare say there is more future thanpast in an American conservativeposition. WILLIAM S. SCHLAMM

DECEMBER 1954 233

MacArthur: New American Saga

History has a way of lifting heroes out of the ruck of theircontemporary mediocrities. It seems that this process ofselection is already working in the case of Doug!.as Mac­A.rthur; public ac~eptanc~Cof the fi~~t two boaks dealingwith this unusual figureo/.three w~rswould so indicate.The FREEMAN is glad to c ;review and reconlmend both.

Glorious DecadeMacArthur: 1941-1951, by Maj.

Gen. Charles A. Willoughby andJohn Chamberlain. 441 pp. NewYork: McGraw-Hill. $5.75

Into the comparatively young lifeof this Republic there came in her1940'S a ti,me of trial unparalleledin her experience. It was a decade ofdisaster, from the sneak attack onPearl Harbor to the Korean debacle.Paradoxically, it was America's mostglorious period of military victories,as well as her most shameful era ofpolitical cowardice and diplomaticdefeat.

One figure-that of General Doug­las MaeArthur----..stands out beyondall others in any chronicle of thisperiod; and this absorbing book isthe complete account of the mostmomentous decade of his life andours.

Fortunately for Americans, thetrue story of this crucial period inour national history is at last un­folding. Some of its villains andheroes are silenced in death, butmany are alive and vigorous, ableand wining to give testimony. Andwhile the picture is still obscuredby the smoke of blazing controversy,its outlines are now clear and itsdetails are emerging in sharper andsharper focus all the time. DouglasMacArthur, like Herbert Hoover,will live to see his life's workcrowned with the understanding ap­probation of all the Americanpeople-not just the passionatelypartisan and the intellectually honestinformed minority, but all of them.

When that day com,es, it will bebecause men like Charles Willoughbyand John Chamberlain, with patientskill, examined a mountain of evi,;.dence, read all the record and, bitby bit, in a chronology as fascinat­ing as a "whodunit," built the casefor MacArthur so that America mayread and judge for itself.

234 THE FREEMAN

Willoughby was G-2 (Intelligence)at MacArthur's headquarters for tenyears. He had an opportunity, closeup, to watch the planning and de­velopment of all the MacArthurcampaigns from Bataan to the battlefor North Korea. He had the ad­ditional postwar advantage of studyof the documents of all the otherelements in the campaigns. Theseincluded contributions of militaryand civil staff officers, extracts fromunpublished wartime manuscriptsranging from captured J ap diariesto depositions made by officers whowere cloak-and-dagger men on dan­gerous missions deep into the heartof enemy-held territory.

This came about because all majormilitary headquarters maintain smallresearch groups that prepare the his­tory of the 'commands; and at Mac­Arthur's headquarters in Tokyo, G-2was given the task in 1946. Willough­by waseditor-in-chief of the myriadprojects which grew to a total of30,000 pages of text, nearly ninemillion words.

This book, then, on which Gen­eral Willoughby and writer-editorJohn Chamberlain have colla1boratedso brilliantly, deals less with themovement of wrmies than with whatthe authors describe as "the con­siderations of 'high command,' theanalysis of the political, strategicand economic factors that influencedGeneral MacArthur's major deci­sions in the Pacific, in Japan andin Korea, during the period, 1941­1951."

It must be noted that this is thefirst book to make plain the natureof the MacArthur strategy whichwas in conflict with the Navy's con­cept of the Pacific war. The battleis the payoff, and we won that war.But MacArthur himself would bethe first to discourage post-mortenlson the human mistakes that weremade by men operating under theterrible stress of battle. Of his

strategy, MacArthur says: "Newconditions require for solution, andnew weapons require for maximunlapplication, new and imaginativemethods. Wars are not won in thepast."

The "new conditions" in Japan in­spired the successful use of the"new, imaginative weapons" duringthe Occupation years when Mac­Arthur was Supreme Commanderof the Allied Powers. But no weap­ons, new or old, could prevail againstthe conditions set up in Korea. Mac­Arthur had fifty years of militaryservice and achievement behind himwhen he was named Commander ofthe U.N. Forces. He was a soldierwho knew only one way to fight awar---1win it. He could not under­stand U.N. inconsistencies, contra­dictions and evasions that culminatedlfinally in a cowardly .diplomaticcoercion of the United States. Thiswas pressure exerted with brutalforce on America's sensitive nerveof international responsibility. Itwas suggested subtly, then boldly,that, somehow, the United Stateswould bring on the calamity of a"third world war" if she did notagree to appease the Communists.It was a slick scheme, and it worked.

The "police action" undertakenwith such glorious impetuosity byPresident Truman in June 1950, andsupported only half-heartedly by theU.N., had become embarrassing tothat body with its Soviet and satel­lite m,embers. As for MacArthur----­well, he was a bloody nuisance. Heactually interpreted literally hisoriginal orders to restore peace,order and unity to the entire Koreanpeninsula. The evidence is here thateven after the Chinese Communistshad secretly joined the N'orth Koreanforces in massive numbers, Mac­Arthur could still have won the war,crippled communism in China, evendestroyed it in Asia.

Smallpox, typhus and typhoid wereraging among the Chinese troops.They did not know how to controlthe dis,eases, and the Russian vac­cines were no good. In order to ex­plain their medical failures to theirown troops and to a frightened,restless population, the Chineselaunched their charges of "germwarfare" against the U.N. CapturedChinese documents containing theirown front-line m,edical warningsproved the epidemics, so far, werelocal, but the Eighth Army's medical

experts had to be sure of the kindand extent of the diseases. BrigadierGeneral Crawford F. Sams, Mac­Arthur's health officer, volunteeredfor a "medical raid." He infiltratedcommunist lines and his report clear­ly established that the Red troopswere sick and dying like flies. Ifthen, MaeArthur had been allowed tofollow through on his attack, we couldhave won, because the Red armyin Korea was out on its feet. Butthe Communists were calling for anarmistice, and the evidence is plainthat someone in the U.N. pushed itthrough.

MacArthur was relieved, the warwas lost, America's heavy casualtieswere for nothing. American prestigein the Far East has gone from anall-time high in '45 to an all-ti'melow in '54. MacArthur got a baddeal, but the United States got aworse one.

No American can afford to missthis book. It is the bloodstained textof the American conscience. And itis superb reading. John Chamber­lain's art guarantees that.

IRENE CORBALLY KUHN

Living HistoryThe Untold Story of Douglas Mac­

Arthur, by Frazier Hunt. 522 pp.New York: Devin-Adai~. $5.00

The Untold Story of Douglas Mac­Arthur is a brilliant achievement bya master craftsman. In it more thana half-century of history is superblyput together, coordinated, evaluated,dramatized, given motion and per­spective by a talented technicianwhose passion is truth. Frazier Huntinterviewed almost everyone whocould throw light on MacArthur andthe MacArthur family. The book ispacked with new material, startlingdisclosures, revealing episodes. Huntworked prodigiously for three yearson the actual story. But his entirelife had prepared him for the task.

Frazier Hunt and Douglas Mac­Arthur are nearly the same age.Each has played a role in the tur­bulent events during the first half ofthis century. After Hunt was grad­uated from college, he operated aplantation in Mexico and was drivenout by the revolutionists. A fewyears later MaclAlrthur was sent toMexico during the Vera Cruz inci­dent. There his exploits of personal

valor were almost beyond one'simagination.

World War One found them bothin Europe. MacArthur was a combatBrigadier General of the RainbowDivision, while war correspondentHunt covered the Rainbow's battles.

Hunt was the first American toenter Russia after the revolution. Hejoined General Graves' expedition toSiberia and returned to the UnitedStates by way of the Philippines,India and Europe. On this trip heendorsed Philippine independenceand established a warm friendshipwith Manuel Quezon. After a tour asSuperintendent at West Point, Mac­Arthur was sent in 1922 to thePhilippines. And there he, too, esta,b­lished a warm lifelong friendship

with Quezon. It was this commonfriendship, together with a realiza­tion of The Rising Temper of theEast (as disclosed in Hunt's book bythat name) which cemented the Mac­Arthur-Hunt friendship. Both havehad a clear grasp of Asia for morethan a third of a century.

While MacArthur was Chief ofStaff, in 1930-35, his burning con­cern was to hold his tiny defenseestablishment against economydrives, misunderstanding and down­right apathy. At the same time,Frazier Hunt was writing and broad­casting, urging preparedness andwarning of the dangerous turmoil hehad pictured in his revealing book,This Bewildered World. In WorldWar Two, Hunt joined MacArthurin Australia and accompanied himon the Hollandia operation.

Legend and fiction have more orless fixed it that MacArthur was adarling of the gods to whom Pres­idents and senior officials were eager

to dole out choice assignments. AsHunt reveals, nothing could be far­ther from fact. MacArthur alwaysearned his choice assignments, de­spite seemingly insuperable obsta­cles. His rapid promotion engenderedbitter and lasting jealousy amongofficers who had formerly been hisseniors. But these obstacles were asnothing compared to another fightwhich was to be directed againsthim.

The first great fight against Mac­Arthur's leadership developed duringthe episode of the bonus march inWashington in 1932. Hunt makes itclear that the 'marchers were in­spired, led and financed by Com­munists, and this event marked thebeginning of the Communists' bit­ter and constantly increasing hate ofMacArthur. From this time forwardhe was to get in their way, and theywere to spare no means to destroyhim. Usually the Communists spokethrough others who oftentimes wereinnocent of the real forces againstMacArthur. But this struggle-itstrue import long unrecognized evenby MacArthur himself-grew into athunderous storm of battle.

The crescendo finally broke overKorea. And in this temporary defeatMacArthur rose to great stature.His address before the Joint Sessionof the Congress may stand amongthe great speeches of all time.

MacArthur's 'eventual separationfrom the Korean war had to come.Once the Washington decision wasmade not to wi'll the war, his relief,;as inevitable. He could not longhave fought a war of attrition. Hehad a passion for avoiding casualties.As MacArthur told President Roose­velt at Pearl Harbor, July 27, 1944,"Your good commanders do not turnin heavy losses."

The Untold Story of Douglas Mac­Arthur is pro-MacArthur, Jut it isobjective. Except for the narrativeon early life and parents, the Gen~

eral never saw the manuscript beforepublication. This reviewer served sixyears directly under General Mac­Arthur; the account of events dur­ing this period appears absolutelyaccurate.

Much criticism has been directedagainst MacArthur to the effect thathe was selfishly and unreasonablyambitious. Hunt goes a long waytoward clarification of this criticism.Invariably, what was best for his

DECEMBER 1954 235

country-and on this MacArthur hasbeen consistently right-----was to be­come MacArthur's own guiding prin­ciple. This dedication was so in­grained that it became part of hisvery being-a personal, inner ambi­tion.

Hunt firmly establishes Mac­Arthur's genius as a commander andas a statesman. Certainly no com­mander ever faced greater obstaclesand did more with less means. Fewcan read this biography withoutfeeling resentment that our govern­ment is not now profiting by theservices of this tested leader.

It is doubtful whether there is abetter biography in existence. Andcertainly there will never be a betterbiography of MacArthur. But thisbook is more than a biography; it isliving, throbbing history.

BONNER FELLERS

Our Delayed H-BombThe Hydrogen Bomb, by James

Shepley and Clay Blair, Jr. 244pp. New York:' David McKayCompany. $3.00

This attempt by two Time corre­spondents to piece together the storyof how the United States constructedthe hydrog,en bomb, after years ofneglect and opposition, has been al­most as explosive in its impact asthe bomb itself. Its publication hasexcited a storm of criticism fromscientists who arerepresiented as'dragging their heels on the hydrogenbomb and by a well-known pair ofcolumnists, high,· in self-esteem anddeficient in tolerance, who consti­tuted themselves passionate defend­ersof Dr. Oppenheimer when hissecurity clearance was with(~rawn.

The abusive language of men ofscience would be more impressiveif and when it is backed up bydocumented dis,proof of the factspresented in the book.

The authors contend that the maincredit for creat'ing an instrument ofdestruction fiar mor,e powerful·· thananything the world has known be­longs to Hungarian-born nuclearscientist Edward Teller. Teller wasconvinced of the scientific feasibilityof the project at the time when thefirst·· atomic bomb was manufacturedat Los Alamos during the war.Unlike: some of his scientirficcol­leagues, hebeliev~d,not.·only that

236 THE FcREEl\fAN

the bomb could be m,ade, but alsothat it should be made. He acted onan elementary commonsense viewwhich some very erudite men ofscience seemed unable to grasp.

America has no monopoly ofscientific brains and technical re­sources. If the United States couldmake the hydrogen bomb, so couldthe Soviet Union. The best hope thatthis horrible instrument of destruc­tion would never be used, directlyor as an instrument of blackmail,was to see to it that the UnitedStates kept ahead of Russia in thisformidable field.

Teller and the few men in highoffice, among whom the authorssingle out Admiral Lewis Straussand the late Senator Brien McMahonfor honorable mention, had to com­bat much opposition from varioussources, involving precious years ofavoidable delay before the hydrogenbomb project received official sanc­tion and support. There was, afterthe war, apathy about new develop­ment of nuclear weapons; this waspartly a result of sadly misplacedconfidence that the Soviet Unionwould not be able, over a long periodof time, to produce the atomic bomb.Actually, the Soviet government,with assistance from Klaus Fuchsand other atom spies in the West andfrom captured German scientists,was able to explode an atomic bombin 1949 and claimed mastery of thehydrogen bomb in 1953.

There was military conservatismeven in the relatively young arm ofthe service, the Air Forc,e. Therewas the strongest opposition on thepart of many atomic scientists, in­cluding J. Robert Oppenheimer andJames B. Conant. As late as theautumn of 1949 a meeting of theGeneral' Advisory Committee ofscientists attached to the AtomicEnergy Commission voted almostunanimously against proceedingwith the H-Bom,b, on the ground thatit was immoral, needlessly destruc­tive and might not be feasible.

Senator McMahon, a layman inscience, presented a sounder viewwhen he wrote to President Trumanpointing to the fearful' threat to thefree world which exclusive Sovietpossession the H-bomb would pose:"Put total power in the hands oftotal evil, and you can only get totaldestruction."

WILLIA'M, HENRY CHAMBERLIN

Student in Red ChinaThe Umbrella Garden, by Maria

Yen. 268 pp. New York: The Mac­millan Company. $4.00

Although this book modestly pur­ports by its subtitle to be just "APicture of Student Life in RedChina," it is more than that, forit takes little im!agination to guessthat the process of regimentationextended through every avenue andwalk of life in the "N;ew China."

University students in general,and those of progressive Peita(Northern University) in particular,awaited the People's LiberationArmy with eager exci1tement: com­munism promised a new life, with anend to the food shortages, inflation,politieal chaos, stringencies of localgovernment unable to cope with thepostwar problems following Japaneseoccupation and the subsequent civilwar. Maria Yen was not a memberof the communist underground, noreven of such procommunist frontsas the Youth League and the N'orthStar Athletic Club. But she was aliberal, in rebellion against restric­tions, against the scarcity of food,against old-fashioned professors andhackneyed literature and drama,against the austerity of the post­war years.

I have no doubt that Richard Mc­Carthy was of great help in adaptingthe original Chinese story into aform suitable for Western readers,for the craftsmanship is good. Butthe ability to recall (or more likelyto reconstruct) dialogue, student dis­cussions, dialectic lectures of theparty workers, must be Maria Y,en'scontribution. And it is this, plus herindependent and logical thinking,even when she dared not voice herthoughts and was parroting thejargon of the party perfectly, thatmakes this book of great int<erest tome.

For example, there is the scenewhen Maria and her friend fromFu Jen (Catholic University) talkover a meeting wher,e their "progres­sive" leaders have told them thatonly the old and ignorant in Russiastill go to churches; that when thisgroup of old people die, "religionwill disappear for good from theSoviet Union." The Catholic girlhad r'ead that Stalin had been forcedto relax controls on the churches dur­ing the war,and that young workers

Africa: Two Views of Its Problems

and soldiers had knelt beside oldpeople in long-clos'ed churches. Why,she asked, did Stalin have to throwopen the chapels and let people sip"this spiritual gin for the slaves ofcapital" again? Thirty years agothese "old people" hadn't been veryold. Why did they still disobey theirbeloved leader wbout religion? "Ifreligion is what they call it, escap­ism, it means there must be some­thing that religious people are escap­ing from, even now in the SovietUnion?" The dis'cussion soundsauthentic. So do discussions of howstudents can assist their professorsto bring their thinking and teachingup-to-date-up to Communist re­quirements, that is.

The daily, persistent pressure of

The Heart of Africa, by AlexanderCampbell. 487 pp. New York:Alfred A. Knopf. $5.00

Before the African Storm, by JohnCookson. 265 pp. New York:Bobbs-Merrill Company. $3.50

During the past eighteen months atleast twenty-five books on Africasouth of the Sahara have been pub­lished in English. The reasons forthis are not far to seek. Every partof Africa presents first-class issues.In South Africa it is race relations,a billion-dollar mining industry lin­volving gold and uranium, and stra­tegic factors in the world militarypicture. In West Africa it is self­government-now a fact in the GoldCoast with its all~African Parlia­ment, just around the corner in Ni­geria, and certain to come soon inFrench West Africa.

In addition, there is the .issue ofcommunist penetration and disrup­tion, which actively threaten Afr&catoday. Through Cominform agentswithin Africa in trade unions andother organizations, through thepowerful French and Italian com­munist parties, through British andIndian communist organizations andthrough fronts in the United States,world communism lays siege to thisstrategic continent.

In these two books Mr. Campbelland Mr. Cookson deal interestinglyand sometimes impressively with anumber of Afriican questions. Bothof these writers have lived in ~frica.

student criticism, of calls-sup­posedly social-by Youth Leaguemembers to check on a doubtfulstudent, to question what one wasdoing, writing, thinking is clearlyportrayed. It leads the author tosay, "The criticism meetings areperhaps the most important singlepart of the whole pattern of super­vision." Sooner or later it becomeseasier to give up than to hold out.

There is much of the book thatMr. Attlee and Mr. Bevan would dowell to read in order to learn howthe "spontaneous demonstrations"are organized, how the gratifyingproduction is obtained by Stakhan­ovite methods. The Umbrella Gardenis an enlightening and convincingbook. GERALDINE FITCH

They have the feel of the issues andtherefore write about them withcompelling interest and convictionand at times with constructive im­plications.

Mr. Campbell's style is reportor1ial,setting forth impressions and inter­views as he travels up and down thecontinent. His thirty-one chapterstouch upon every part of Africasouth of the Sahara. He is sometimesflippant in his comment and has aflair for striking phrases, ever thejournalist out to attract attentionby the way he says things; and hemakes a go of it. He wisely makeseffective use of sixteen superb pro­fessional photographs.

In his last chapter, "Continent inCrisis," Mr. Campbell is at his con­structive best. Speaking of the Afri­can, he says: "Above all, he wantsto be regarded as a human being inhis own right." Of Europeans hewrites: "The whites have convincedthemselves that most Africans are'just like children.'" But he adds:"Not only do the most intelligentwhite people I have met in Africarealize the inevitability of change;they are anxious to speed it up, tobridge the dangerous gap and getthrough the perHous transitionphase as quickly as possible." TheHeart of Africa is not an exhaustivebook; it may not be even a balancedbook; but it ds informative, provoc­ative and therefore, at this period,useful.

In Before the African Storm, Mr.

Cookson himself reveals the unfor­tunate defect in his approach whenhe refers to "my pro-British op'in­ions." In retrospect, he wishes thata "firmer imperial policy had beenexercised by Britain in South Africaa hundred years ago n

; his assump­tion is that such a policy "wouldhave been means to a justifiableend."

It is to be feared that history doesnot bear out Mr. Cookson's assump­tion. The final results of imperialfirmness have proved none toohappy. Ancient Rome had to yieldto foes that might have been won bya more conciliatory policy. Thesefoes, in time, set the prelude toEurope's "dark ages." By blindineptitude in her colonial policy,France has indicated in Indo-Chinathat imper,ialistic communism is thealternative to outworn colonialism.Where British imperialism has leftits constructive nlark on history, ithas ,been due not to firmness,but tofluidity in policy, to conciliatorytactics and ability to change.

Mr. Cookson's subJective approachleads him into a second and perhapsmore serious error: he would makeSouth Africa the origin of most ofAfrica's woes. His two chapters onthat complex country lack the ob­jectivity which might enable readersto understand what he says else­where when he speaks of the Boersas "the,se strange embittered peo­ple who have had a raw deal fromhistory." To be sure, that "raw deal"has imposed uponl Africans an al­most unbearable burden, but insteadof diseussling constructive methodsfor dealing with the problems, Mr.Cookson merely castigates SouthAfrica and derides the Boers.

It is to be regretted that he per­mits his knowledge of Africa andhis writing ability to have this nega­tive effect. His light and penetratingtouch and his anecdotal facility arequalities needed in making Africamore fully known. One may readBefore the African Storm and get agreat deal out of it; but what do wedo about the storm? MAX YERGAN

Any book reviewed in this Book Section(or any other current book) supplied byreturn mail. You pay only the bookstoreprice. We pay the postage, anywhere inthe world. Catalogue on request,.THE BOOKMAILER, Box 101, New York 16

DECEMBER 1954 237

SOCONY-VACUUMOIL COMPANY

INCORPORATED

The Board of Directors todaydeclared a quarterly dividend of50¢ per share and an extra divi'dend of 25 ¢ per share on theoutstanding capital stock of thisCompany, both payable Decem'ber 10, 1954, to stockholders ofrecord at the close of businessNovember 5, 1954.

W. D. BICKHAM, Secreta.ry

Our Freedom Was ·Founded onFaith in God, by E. Gordon Fox.8 pp. One of a series of brochuresdistributed by the Freedom Clubof Downtown Chicago, 35 EastWacker Drive, Chicago 1, Ill.

Here is a pertinent excerpt fromthis brochure: "People constitute anation. And the betterment of hu­manity can result only from the in­tegrated betterment of individuals.A collective economy inevitably de­bases citizenship. It denies the exer­cise of individual judgment. Servilityreplaces initiative. Independence re-

stand in his class? How much of thework set up as an academic standardfor his grade does Johnny know?

SNUX and related.systems havethe designed purpose of decreasingcompetition among students. Theprogress of the United States isbased upon a competitive society.

"Our Economic Freedoms and theUse Thereof!" by Dr. G. Row­land Collins. Bulletin, The FifthThird Union Trust Co., Cincin­nati, Ohio, September 1954.

Concern has recently been expressedin several quarters because businesshas failed to educate the public aboutbasic economic and business con­cepts. Dr. Collins, D'ean of theSchools of Business at New YorkUniversity, says that the major rea­son for this is that business itselfhas no set concept to transmit tothe people.

According to Dr. Collins, the taskof developing a basic philosophy ofbusiness should not be left to theacademic economists, primarily be­cause they are generally too far re­moved from actual business life. Atthe same time, he says that most ofthe academic economists concentraltemore on political economy, exaltingthe role played by the State, ratherthan developing a workable theoryof business economics. He points outthat deans of business schools shouldshoulder the responsibility of mak­ing sure that students understandcertain basic theses: that the indi­vidual is the most valuable resourcethere is; that though Americans arejustifiedly proud of our many free­doms to do things, our freedomfrom the State is of at least equalimportance.

"Senate or Rubber Stamp," by PercyL. Greaves, Jr. Christian Econom­ics, 26 W. 58 St., New York 19.N. Y., November 2, 1954. Singlecopy free

Mr. Greaves has written logically,unemotionally and dispassionately ofthe real issue at stake in the movefor censure of Senator McCarthy­the subservience of the Legislativebranch of government to the Exec­utive. Against the background ofconstitutional theory and govern­mental philosophy, he comments onthe current acceptance of the over­extension of Executive power intothe realm of Legislative affairs.

In Periodicals

"America's Master Blunder-The·United Nations" by Harold LordVarney. American Mercury, 11East 36 Street, New York 16,N. Y., November 1954. $.35

Despite the fact that we have re­ceived nothing but defeats and set­backs as a result of our membershipin the U.N., Mr. Varney fears thatwe are destined to remain a memberfor some time to come. Briefly trac­ing the formation of the U.N. byAmerican "liberals" and one-world­ers, the author states that the eager­ness of the U.S to join the U.N. wasa greater blessing than Stalin couldhave hoped for. These same "lib­erals" now have us tightly enmeshedin the U.N'. With or without theU.N., but de:finitely because of it,Mr. Varney sees World War Threeas inevitable.

This is the fifth in the series, "TheStruggle for Our Children's Minds,"concerned with problems in the mod­ern educational system. Mr. Whit­man reports on his ·first-hand obser­vations in several communities wherecontroversies over grading methodshave arisen. He found that the re­port-card ratings of A, Band C havebeen increasingly replaced with newsystems, such as SNUX and EGFU.The letters in SNUX, for example,represent respectively, "Normalgrowth is taking place," "More ef­fort should ibemade," "Unsatisfac­tory work," and "Needs special help."

On the surface, perhaps, there islittle difference between SNUX andABC. Why isn't an S just as good asan A? But the underlying concept isfar different. S, the highest grade inSNUX, means that "Normal growthis taking place." J ust what does thistell the parents? How does Johnny

signs to blind obedience. . . . Freeenterprise, on the contrary, places apremium on individual effort. Itstimulates independence, ingenuity,enterprise, initiative..... It is notbased on compulsion and coercion. Itis based on self-discipline, which isthe only effective discipline. It is thehonor system, applied to life."

"Report Cards: EGF,U, or ABC?"by Howard Whitman. Collier's,Crowell-Collier Publishing Co.,Springfield, Ohio, September 17,1954. $.15

October26,1954

DividendNo. 175

This page is devoted to brief noticesof pamphlets, speeches and otherreading matter of interest to liber­tarians-toward the end that theseefforts may receive wider attention.

Country Almanac, by A. B. Gen-ung. Freeville, New York. $5.00a year

This four-page sheet, savoring ofrural homespun wisdom, dissects andtries to forecast affairs of local,state, national and world importance.But it is not a weather forecastingalmanac, leaving that to God andgovernment.

'The editor knows governmentalprocesses well, having retired fromalong-time position as a governmenteconomist to take up an abode in therefreshing air of south central NewYork-appropriately, at Freeville,where he writes of freedom in anenticing sltyle.

238 THE FREEMAN

Announcingan issue of

THE

reemandevoted to the

single topic of the

UNITED

NATIONS

and

ONE WORLDISM

The Ph ilosophy

The Promise

The Performance

to be published in

MARCH 1955

Professor Edmund P. Learned

Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration--writes on

The Truth AboutGasoline Prices

I n these days of high prices it seems as if every­thing we buy costs at least twice as much as it

used to. That's why it's encouraging to tell you abouta commodity which, outside of increased taxes,actually costs little more than it did in 1925. I'mtalking about today's gasoline.

It is very important to note that the consumerowes this favorable price situation to one basic fac­tor-the healthy struggle for competitive advantageamong all U. S. oil companies and gasoline dealers.

I can demonstrate how this competition works bya study made of a typical midwestern oil company.This company was considered a price leader becauseof its dominant market position. Yet in Ohio aloneits products were in active competition with thebrands of 7 large national companies, 5 smaller butwell established regional companies and the privatebrands of jobbers and large retailers.

The company's retail prices were the result ofkeen local competition. Except for differences incustomer services or unusual locations, prices out ofline with competition caused loss of trade. From thesocial point of view, retail prices in Ohio weresound. Consumers had ample opportunity to choosebetween varying elements of price, service and qual­ity. Their choice determined the volume of businessfor the dealer and the supplying company. New orold firms were free to try any combination of appealsto attract new business. Even the biggest marketerhad to meet competitive prices. And price leader­ship-in the sense of ability to set prices at will-wasimpossible. If, as rarely happened, a price was estab­lished that was not justified by economic forces,some competitor always brought it down.

Consider the effect of this competition since gaso­line taxes were first introduced. The first state gaso­line tax was enacted in 1919. Last year, in 50 repre­sentative American cities, federal, state, and localgasoline taxes amounted to 7Y2 cents that had to

be included in the price paid by consumers. Never­theless, management ingenuity contrived to keepthe actual advance in price to consumers down to3Y2 cents. This is an outstanding record in view ofthe general increases in wages and higher costs ofcrude oil.

This same competitive force among oil companieshas resulted in the 50% gasoline improvement since1925. The research and· engineering efforts of theoil companies supported by the illlproved designsof automobile engines, have produced gasoline sopowerful that today 2 gallons do the work that 3used to do in 1925.

Edmund P. Learned, professor of Business Adnlinistrationat the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administrationis the author of a study on the pricing of gasoline by amidwestern oil cOlupany. This study, considered to be aclassic on the gasoline price question, was published in theHarvard Business Review and is the basis for this article.

This is one of a series of reports by outstanding Americans who were invited by TheAmerican Petroleum Institute to examine the job being done by the U.S. oil industry.

This page is presented for your information by Sun Oil Company, Philadelphia 3, Pennsylvania.