JOBS, PEACE, FREEDOM

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25083, 15 January 1947, Page 6

JOBS, PEACE, FREEDOM

"MY MASTER IS THE COMMON MAN"

When President Truman requested the resignation of his Secretary of Commerce, who had said in the hearing of n ®t lo n and the world that the Secretary of State, Mr Byrnes, m effect, tas steering both to ruin, the question of his future in politics became a livelier one than ever. It was soon answered m part at the announcement that he would become of the “New Republic.” The following manifesto by HENRY A. WAT J.ACE appeared in the issue of December 16, the first for w which he waa responsible.

My job as editor of the “New Republic” is to help organise a progressive America. It is a fighting job, the most worthwhile job I ever had. A world at peace is the hope of every American, and a progressive America is the hope of the world. To help build a programme for such an America is as great an opportunity as my first days in the Cabinet of Franklin Roosevelt in 1933. I find no lasting defeat in the recent set-backs to the Democratic Party, but a challenge to make a new start. The American people have rejected, as they will always reject, a Democratic Party that is not militantly progressive. Americans have called for a new leadership. They will not find it in the present Republican hierarchy; until they find it, they will not rest.

The Roosevelt Tradition Progressives are no small and beaten group. We stand as the proud inheritors of the greatest tradition in America, the Roosevelt tradition. Our task is to recast that tradition in terms of to-day. The progressives have not stopped fighting—they have just begun to fight, It is no part of qur tradition to look backward, reconstructing the fragments of the New Deal, bemoaning the loss of the war-time unity of the Allies and torturing’ ourselves with the thought: if he had lived. For Roosevelt there were no endings, only beginnings. To be faithful to the Roosevelt tradition to-day is to look ahead, seeking a new programme for domestic prosperity and world unity, and new- sources of support for that programme among all Americans. As we prepare for a new start, there is much we can learn from Roosevelt, both in his way of thought and in his way of action. He was a progressive first and a Democrat second. Above all, he was a master politician, skilfully improvising from day to day new devices to hold together the cotton bloc, the silver bloc, union labour, the big city machines, and, most important of all, the independent liberals. Often he seemed to be going in two directions at the same time. When a group would place its narrow, selfish interest above the general welfare, he would usually listen patiently and sympathetically. He called this ‘’babying” them along. But there was always a system in his “babying.” He always had his eye on the general welfare, even though fie might be approaching it by the most indirect route- He combined this skilled political in-fighting with a direct radio appeal to the common sense of the people. In the international field Roosevelt used the same techniques. Stalin was deeply bound to Marxism, Churchill to empire and the status quo. Roosevelt’s faith was equally strong, but he never permitted himself to be tied to any rigid dogma. He believed that all anti-fascist forces could be held together by common interest and by common sense. Where Roosevelt failed, it was because he lacked organised support. He had no unified labour movement and no coherent liberal movement with which to work. The people were for him, but they didn’t know how to help him. During all the days of the New Deal there was no systematic

educational work: nor, apart from the PAC, wfiicfi reached only the industrial centres, was an effort made to build a political machine to express liberal thought in action. Only in Roosevelt’s first term did the progressives really have a majority in Congress. ‘After that, the passage of progressive measqres was largely due to Roosevelt’s own skill. Ip war time Roosevelt became a national leader and looked for support from all Americans. Had we fought the war in a spirit of blood, tears, toil, anc sweat, we should have been prepared for the inevitable hardship of the post-war years. But the all-party character of the Administration and the absence of widely accepted war aims obscured for us the essentially progressive character of the war. That is why in Eurppe progressives are on the march and ip America reactionaries win the votes. From Independence to Interdependence

We need to learn all these lessons as we start over. Once the gallant heart and political skill of one man saved first the United States and finally the world. A great movement will produce more great men. But today the work which should have been done can no longer wait. We need to do more than improvise We must plan in long-range terms. We must gather together progressives and fighters for peace from all parties, all regions, and all groups. We must organise a nucleus of progressive energy and inspiration Our purpose is not to criticise from the sidelines. It is to develop a programme and carry it to all Americans No democratic group is beyond our reach in developing this programme—farm, labour, veterans’, middle-class, business, professional, educational, and religious groups are a part of it. Our ideals are the ideals of a living, dynamic America. We shall fail only if we restrict ourselves. We shall , succeed through tfie broadest appealcarried to every country in America and to every country in the world. What is the basis for our pew start? There is nothing obscure in what we represent. We stand for the American tradition. Not the false tradition of dollar diplomacy or high prices created by monopolistic scarcity, but the true American tradition, the tradition that is universal and has never been completely fulfilled—life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Those

three conditions in our Declaration of Independence are to-day a Declaration of Interdependence for the world. To-day they mean peace, freedom, and jobs for all. Diehards of the Right to-day assert that jobs for all are beyond the reach of a society based on peace and freedom. Diehards of the Left maintain that freedom must be sacrificed for the sake of jobs and peace. Modem imperialists dream that in the name of jobs and freedom we shall fight a third world war. Rejecting all these, I stand for one idea: that jobs, peace, and freedom can be attained together and can make possible One World, prosperous a n d free, within our lifetime. The World-wide Search We can achieve peace, jobs, and freedom in One World without war. But we cannot preserve any one of these conditions in any country unlau we achieve all three in all countrtaj Peace, freedom, and jobs for all an indivisible. Before we win lasting peace, we must achieve some measure of world government and law. But society comes before goremment, * our own history proves. Before we get world government and law, all peoples must become in some measure part of One World. America will never be part of One World in which there is not civil liberty. The U.S.S.R, will never be part of One World in which there is not economic and social security. All who really believe in One World recognise .that the search for peace, freedom, and jobs for all is one world-wide search. This search is the basis for our new start. Jobs for all means action now to prevent a serious depression in the United States. A depression is corning unless we act to prevent it If depression comes, two-thirds of all veterans who have started their own businesses will go bankrupt; farmers will face foreclosure; workers will be unemployed. When 2.5 million veterans have no comes, when 20 million American families have incomes of less than 40 dollars a week, when other millions have used up all their savings, a depression in America means disaster. Lowered production in America will cause depression everywhere. Traditionally Republicans are agaimt government action to prevent depressions. Most Republican congressmen believe in complete freedom for large corporations to hold up prices by monopoly, while the prices of farm products and the wages of labour are beaten down. Traditional Republican policy calls for high tariffs, thus im tensifying depression, For thia reason, the world expects the depression to come sooner and to be more severe as the result of the Republican victory. For years progressives have stood for high production. Recently, reac? tionaries have called for “production at any price” in an effort to’ destroy price controls. I hope they will go on calling for production, now that controls are off. One agency exists to help maintain production—the President’s Economic Advisory Council. The council is supposed to keep the President continually informed on the economic health of the nation and to make suggestions which the President can pass on to Congress. The fact that Congress is Republican does not relieve either the progressives, the Council, or the President from working out an effective programme. Businessmen and labour leaders will sup- < port it. . The function of business to-day is to produce goods abundantly at reasonable prices, pay decent wages, aha make a fair profit. Industry canppt and should not bear the sole responsibility for keeping our economy at full production. Full employment n fair standards is the resoonsibilifiMM government. We are for whatm.-. measures democratic government must take, in low-cost housing, public health, regional development, foreign loans, the provision of minimum standards. progressive taxation, the lower- v ing of prices through trust-busting or the efficient operation of disorganised basic industries by government ownership or control. “In the Name of Security'’ . Peace to-day means action to halt the dangerous drift toward war. Th lß drift has gone so far that all governments act as if they had a mandate

from their people to prepare to win the next war. Through this false mandate the mast trivial issues become insoluble because they are seen as war preparations. The United States is led to squander its greatness m propping up corrupt and undemocratic regimes as supposed safeguards against communism. In the name of security, America is spending 13 billion dollars a year on armaments and Russia is keeping five million young men in the Red Army while factories ana fields lie idle. In the name of security, we are destroying UNRRA and refusing to send food and supplies to relieve famine and misery overseas because relieving famine and misery among other peoples is supposed t° raise their ability to fight a war. To carry out a political purpose we are condemning thousands of people to death and millions to misery. In the name of security, German scientists are working in Russia to develop rockets capable of attacking America while other German scientists work in America to develop rockets capable of attacking Russia; at a time when American and Russian veterans are still dying of wounds inflicted by Germans. Our present search for security leads to insecurity and war. We are searching in the wrong ways, and wj search itself is vain. Security alone can never be achieved. We can no more find security by searching security than we can find happiness by searching for happiness. (To be completed)