Toledo union journal. [volume] (Toledo, Ohio) 1942-current, 1945-05-18
The
Beam
By
Clayton W..
Fountain


atrocity pictures published in
the papers recently, get the
feeling that lot of folks are
suddenly coming to realize
that the Nazi system was a
very nasty business.
Oddly enough, these revela-
tions of the torture and brutal
ity practiced by the Nazis
make me feel cocky in a sad
sort Of way.
I feel like Growing.
I feel like saying to those
who are so shocked by the
exposures of mass murder,
scientific torture and delib-
crate starvation:
What is so shocking about
the uncovering of the beastly
and inhuman methods by
which the Nazis have sought
to retain their power? We
anti-fascists have been telling
you for years just how evil
the Nazi system was, and you
would not believe us. Now
you are shocked to find out
that we were telling the
truth"
WENT TOO FAR
For a long time, before the
Nazi system became strong
enough to threaten the secur-
ity of financial interests in
other countries, there were
plenty of people who felt that
Hitler wasn't such a bad guy.
Sure, he locked up lot of
Jews and laborites. But every
body knew that the Jews were
either communists or interna-
tional bankers, or both, ac-
cording to Nazi theory-and it
was therefore proper to lock
the Jews up and kill them off.
Unionists, communists and
socialists were also nasties
who just went around agitat-
ing and stirring up trouble
and Hitler made lot of
people feel more secure when
he popularized the practice of
jailing these trouble-makers
and humping the worst of
them off.
He just went too far when
he started killing people who
were not Jews or labor agita-
tors.
LITTLE HELPERS
There are still substantial
numbers of people in this
country who would not be
shocked at all If the brutal
practices of the Nazi prison
camps were to be used in this
country aaginst union leaders,
Jews and Negroes.
Negroes have been hung,
alive and Kicking, from trees,
soaked with gasoline and set
afire, and their flaming bodies
riddled with bullets. This hap
pened in America-not Buch-
enWald.
Out west, after World War
/, labor organizers were mutt
lated and murdkeed by armed
mobs of vigilantes. This hap
pened in America-not Da-
chau.
So Hitler has his little help
ers in this country. A lot of
them get a kick out of draping
themselves in white night
shirts to disguise their iden-
tity while they roar around
the countryside terrorizing
Negroes, Catholics, Jews and
labor organizers.
PURPOSE OF TERROR
The point of this piece is that
the Nazi system-with all its
shocking beastlineSs and bru-
tality grew out of the idea
that it is okay to lynch mem
bers of so-called inferior"
races and bump off labor agi-
tatorS.
In the beginning, the pur-
pose of this terror is to scare
the property less majority of
the population out of the no
ton of organizing to improve
their lot.
That is why some indus
trialists hired goons and gang
sters in this country to try to
break the labor unions.
The horrors revealed at
Buchenwald and Dachau are
simply examples of anti-un-
ionism in its most refined de-
velopment. These evils can
happen in any country that
hires goons to scare people out
of the notion of acting collec-
lively to build a better world.
TWO ROADS