The people's voice. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1939-1969, 1941-05-14
BY UNCENsORED

The most uncomfortable of the var
ious cliques in the Committee to De
fend America by Aiding the Allies has
been the little group of liberals and
leftists who could not hide their
chagrin at being found in a committee
weighted down with Morgan partners
Morgan lawyers and an interminable
| list of intellectual nobodies from the
Social Register. A few feeble at
tempts were made to justify this odd
alliance. 1t was set forth that, after
all, the social outlook of the House of
Morgan is not what it used to be and
might even be considered more far
seing than the social outlook of, say,
Sears-Roebuck. The handful of labor
officials on the committee made siren
uous, costly and generally futile eff
forts to interest their rank and file.
But the forlorn little group which was
concerned with social and economic
progress at home as well as aiding
the Allies found no comfort; there
was no shred of recognition by the
CDAAA that the U. S. had any econ
omic problems to solve other than the
faster production of arms for Britain.
Their plight was emphasized by the
fact that liberals and leftists who
were non-interventionists had organi-
cations of their own, centering around
the Keep America Out of War con-
gress whose program took full &C
count of the need for social regenera-
ton at home. Liberals had always
been anti-war and naturally had their
anti-war organizations.
Delayed Birth
For many months pro-war liberals
and leftists inside and outside the
CDAAA have been trying to agree on
a program and an organizational set
up of their own. Last week, year and
eight months after the war began,
they appeared The organization calls
itself the Union for Democratic Ac-
ton. It's membership consists mainly
of junior executives in the New York
labor movement, college teachers and
writer's. The chairman is DR.. Rein
hold Niebuhr, professor of Christian
Ethics at Union Theological Semin-
ary who brings the blessings of God
and the sanction of the Christian
ethic to his flock of left-wing New
Dealers, ex-Socialists, ex-Stalinists
and ex-Lovestoneites.
The aims of this group were known
before they were formally stated: II
to overcome fascism as an external
peril by whatever political, economic,
and military means are needed to de-
feat the aggressors and make it pos
sible to eliminate the conditions of
anarchy that gave it
birth"-in other words, war If neces- |
sary; p to overcome fascism as an
internal peril by defeating it abroad
and by making the extension of de-
mocracy an integral part of the |
struggle to bring about that defeat"
Stilborn
What the intellectual world waited |
for was not statement of these aims |
but program for their achievement
since they seem obviously contradic-
tory Though a few of our best liberal
minds are involved in the Union for
Democratic Action, its program does |
not even undertake to resolve these /
1t simply Celebrates |
1 list of eminently desirable things
hat Should" happen. 1t is based on
he flat assertion that a certain type
If British victory must be won. 1.-THE
yital fact is that England offers hope
or progress; Germany offers black
error" What American involvement
n total war offers is a subject neither
mentioned nor discussed
1t is tiresome and irrelevant to base
program on the importance of a
British victory. Liberal non-interven-
ionists have always recognized the
of a Nazi victory But
america is not simply on an idle shop
ling trip trying to make up its mind
whether to buy bottle labeled Brit
sh Victory" or a bottle labeled "Nazi
If America makes up its {
mind that it must have British vic
Dry it might - probably will-be {
allied upon to fight for it. The vital {
act is not simply what kind of terror
iermany offers, but also what kind 1