http://www.hawaii.edu/uhwo/clear/HonoluluRecord1/articles/v4n4/Frankly%20speaking.html
Honolulu Record, August 23, 1951, vol. 4 no.4, p. 8
Frank-ly Speaking
By Frank Marshall Davis
The Dewey Philosophy
In his speech at a luncheon meeting here Saturday, Gov. Thomas E. Dewey of New York, two-time unsuccessful presidential candidate, stated flatly the backbone of bi-partisan foreign policy when he said:
“The time is coming when it will be necessary to draw a line and say: ‘This is the free world and no part of it shall be allowed to become Communist.’ “
The truth of the matter is that Dewey is late, as usual. That became our official policy with the signing of the Atlantic Pact. Our aid to the French in Indo-China and our intervention in Korea are the results of this policy.
But what burns me up is the naked gall shown by Dewey and the rest who shape our foreign policy when they assume that America has some divine right to dictate to other peoples and nations the kind of government they may have. It is a contemporary version of the master race theory we were supposedly trying to destroy in Nazi Germany.
Force and Violence To Deny Self-Determination
What Dewey says, in effect, is that we must use force and violence, if necessary, to keep a nation from accepting communism even though the majority of the people of that nation have expressed a desire for communism.
As a matter of fact, the people of America have the right to establish a socialist or communist government if they so desire. The right to replace one form of government with another is an historic right. It was the backbone of the Declaration of Independence and was repeated often by Lincoln, the immortal leader of the party whom Dewey pretends to follow. Some 200 years ago an English king had Dewey’s idea and used force and violence to try to keep the people of the 13 American colonies from forming the kind of government they wanted.
But Dewey is not interested in the desires of the people to improve their lot. Had he lived, during the days of Jefferson and Hancock and Franklin and the others who laid the cornerstone for our nation, I firmly believe he would have sided with the British. In his speech here Saturday, he praised the French forces in Indo-China and the English in Malaya. And what are these forces doing? They are trying to crush the efforts of the non-white peoples of Indo-China and Malaya to win independence and control of their lands, just as did the people of the 13 colonies less than 200 years ago.
Colored People Interested In Status of U. S. Negroes
To further show Dewey’s character, not long ago Doris Fleeson mentioned in her syndicated column that Dewey, while in Singapore, was “shocked to find an incident of racial prejudice involving a few hundred people out of 150,000,000. is front-page news in Singapore and elsewhere and considered worthy of a four-column photograph on page one.” This “incident” was the recent race riot at Cicero, Ill., a suburb of Chicago.
To Dewey, this disgraceful spectacle was a minor thing. His indignation was not that such could happen in America, but that it should get around to the rest of the world! What Dewey refused to see is that the majority of the people in Singapore are as dark or even darker in their skin coloring as the Negro war veteran who was the victim of mob action in Cicero. And to the people of Singapore, there is this unanswered question: If America is as democratic as it claims to be, if the U. S. has the kind of government which Dewey says it has, why are there such incidents as the Cicero riot aimed at a fellow citizen purely because he is the same color as the majority of the people of Singapore? You get the idea that none may criticize or change one iota of what Dewey calls the “free world.” This means that the colonial peoples must be content with their inferior lot under their white European masters, while internally we are expected to turn our backs on a Cicero riot and give three extra-loud hurrahs for Dr. Ralph Bunche. Anything else is communism and must be fought.
Actually Calls for International Loyalty Probe
What Dewey and the rest of our foreign policy makers are calling for is a kind of international loyalty probe.
Here at home individuals have been blacklisted and fired from government jobs and private employment because they dared openly to fight against conditions and practices which they believe to be completely contrary to democracy. They opposed the status quo; automatically, they were disloyal.
The people who are fighting to throw off French and British domination in Indo-China and Malaya also oppose that status quo. They, too, are disloyal. And by putting them down, the French win praise from Dewey for helping preserve the “free world.”
The free world of Gov. Dewey is being molded into the shape of official America, with its reverence for the status quo. That means the undiscriminating preservation of what is bad along” with what is good, and in this we have the basic weakness of the whole matter.
Can We Stop, Change For the Better?
I know of no person with even moronic intelligence who wants to toss out the many good things in America. But in the eyes of certain powerful people, an attempt to eradicate anything evil is interpreted as a move to wipe but everything. It’s either all or nothing at all. Do not harm one little hair on the head of our beloved status quo, or you will be considered an outlaw.
That, as I see it, is the Dewey philosophy. Even with our guns and planes and money and atom bombs, how much of it can we force upon the rest of the world?
http://www.hawaii.edu/uhwo/clear/HonoluluRecord1/articles/v4n5/Frankly%20Speaking.html
Honolulu Record, August 30, 1951, vol. 4 no.5, p. 8
Frank-ly Speaking
By Frank Marshall Davis
What is Loyalty?
Since we are in a period which finds loyalty probes and oaths in every direction, you will please pardon me if I ask a simple question of the powers that be. That question is this: Just what is loyalty? Of course I know that in a general way, loyalty is supposed to mean support of America and its institutions. But when you get down to concrete thinking, just what does this mean? To be loyal, must you give support to each and every institution? Is everything sacred? If not, what can you attack without being labelled disloyal?
Disagreement Found Even In High Places
I have looked a long time for a satisfactory answer and to date have found none. Nobody in authority has as yet spelled out what must be unquestioningly supported, and what (if any) may be safely attacked.
There is disagreement even in high places, on the question of loyalty. Discrimination, segregation and racism are American institutions, as one-time Chairman John Rankin of the un-American committee publicly pointed out And yet the President of the United States, Harry S. Truman, has spoken for the overthrow of these institutions by suggesting passage of civil rights legislation. To the powerful white supremacists, this is unquestioned disloyalty. And it is a fact that Negroes and Jews have been kicked out of Federal jobs on charges of disloyalty because they actually fought for the program that Truman has verbally supported.
Similar examples may be cited in the concrete areas of labor union activity, free speech, public housing, etc. One person may be considered disloyal for endorsing a program outlined by other persons who are not considered disloyal; or disloyalty may be pinned upon an individual for exercising the rights guaranteed by the Constitution.
What Are Dangerous and Safe Ideas?
As of now, loyalty is a kind of erratic ghost which changes shape and locale whenever it wishes. Yet we are supposed to be able to recognize it and say to our fellow-Americans: “Loyalty is a tall, broad-shouldered man with iron-gray hair and a mole on his right cheek about one inch above his black moustache. He lives in that green house at the corner of Cottage and Straight Streets.”
In an article some tune ago in the Saturday Review of Literature, Henry Steele Commager of Columbia University, professor of history and noted author, had this to say:
“If you are going to silence or punish men for disloyalty, you must first determine what is loyalty. If you are going to apply Mr. J. Edgar Hoover’s ‘easy test’ of a subversive organization: ‘does it have a consistent record of support of the American viewpoint?’ you must determine officially what is the American viewpoint.
“If you are going to dismiss men for membership in subversive organizations, you must establish what are non-subversive activities and organizations. If you are going to discourage or silence dangerous ideas, you must establish what are safe ideas.”
Who Will Decide?
And thus we come to the core of the problem: Who is going to spell out concretely and precisely which are the safe ideas that may be openly expressed by the American public? Who is going to decide what ideas are disloyal and dangerous and list them as thoughts which must not be expressed by Americans?
Let us say that the White House decides to lei the nation know exactly what is loyalty and disloyalty. A special commission is then appointed. It has the job of sifting and cataloging all ideas. But that will take years, maybe generations, for mankind has held many ideas since his appearance upon this globe. Meanwhile, to be on the safe side, people would be forced to go along with no thinking at all, thus turning us into a nation of puppets. But maybe that’s the idea, after all.
During this period, what happens to science, literature and the original thinking that makes for human progress? To be on the safe side, all the scholars would have to be liquidated. Imbecility would be the only guarantee of safe and unmolested living.
“Every Thinker Puts . . . Stable World In Peril”
For the bald truth is that thought control perils conservatives and reactionaries along with radicals. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said: “Every idea is an incitement,” and the noted philosopher, John Dewey, has written:
“Let us all admit the case of the conservative; if we once start thinking, no one can guarantee where we shall come out, except that many objects, ends and institutions are surely doomed. Every thinker puts some portion of an apparently stable world in peril, and no one can predict what will emerge, in its place.” The ultra-conservatives have all but wrecked the free enterprise system, cornerstone of capitalism, by monopolies, trusts and cartels. Hitler’s thinking led to World War II and the death of an estimated 40,000,000 human beings. The Nazi bid for world control was the result of thinking by the extreme right.
Nation Heads for Disaster When . . .
Turning directly to economics, what ideas are loyal and which disloyal to capitalism? Is it disloyal to oppose the gigantic octopus corporations who control meat packing, etc., and demand that their tentacles be severed? If this is disloyal then where does that place the government, which has anti-trust laws and a special antitrust division of the Department of Justice?
This nation has a lot of questions to answer before we can determine what loyalty is. Meanwhile, in place of exact definities, there is a general official attempt to shut off all criticism and dissent. To be on the safe side, nobody should praise or criticize anything not praised or criticized by the “safe” leaders in Washington. The result would be inertia and apathy where energy and independence once flourished.
I must agree with Professor Commager when he says:
“A nation which, in the name of loyalty or of patriotism or of any sincere and high-sounding ideal, discourages criticism and dissent, and puts a premium on acquiescence and conformity, is headed for disaster.”