Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1958-09-12
Thank YOU Note

So many letters have
reached me from former
readers of my column. re-
GREETING its discontinuance.
that ! have asked the cour-
tesy Of this letter column to
acknowledge them. since /
cannot do so personally to
each.
Their warmth, understand
ing, and good wishes have
brought me the greatest hap
piness and comfort of the
hard period through which
! have been passing. 1t has
made me feel that the effort
has been worthwhile, and
that columnists. If they but
write with all the sincerity
and knowledge of which they
are capable. are performing
a worthy public function.
The letters have made me
aware of a meeting of
minds" of which, hitherto, I
had been partly unconscious.
Especially do I cherish those
who write, Sometimes you
have made me mad enough
to spit. but ! have always
received stimulation"
/ am not at all disturbed
at having melted adverse as
well as favorable responses.
A column is always a debate
with its readers: every thesis
provokes an antithesis and
has usually done so in the
writer's own mind before he
pumps for one or the other:
and usually a syptheSis is
arrived at, nearer the truth
than either.
What has disturbed me
most since World War II is
what seems to me a frightful
uniformity of thinking, as
though there were only one
respectable and permissible
viewpoint on any larger public
question, foreign or domestic.
this pressure toward con-
formity coming from 'liber-
ais" and conservatives"
alike, and from organized
claques bent, not merely on
expressing their own convic-
tions, but on suppressing all
others.
This. If it goes on UNI
checked, not only heralds the
end of free speech, and the
senescence of the great public
debate which marks vigorous
free societies, but 1t deprives
those who make public poll
cies Of the reasoned criticism
that holders Of power require
If they are not to be carried
away by the sound Of their
own voices. 1t requires them
to give reasons for what they
do, that are acceptable to
deliberative intelligence.
So, if / have awakened con-
troversy, I am glad Of it. We
need more controversy in this
country, not less, and If we
can do with more faith we
can also do with more skep-
ticism toward "the powers
that be-" These, on analysis.
are often revealed as erecting
verbal facades over q vacuum
of thought and normal cour-
age, and are power" only
because Of public apathy, the
public fear Of sticking ones
neck out" and the modeSty
of individuals toward prob
lens that they are warned
are too complicated for the
ordinary citizen, when re-
duced to essentials they are
often very simple.
Walt Whitman said that
the function of the American
poet was Ito cheer up slaves
and horrify despots" -glori-
Gus words, and as true for the
columnist as the poet, and as
true in a democracy as in a
totalitarian despotism, into
which democracies degenerate
when an invisible, painless
despotism is exercised over
the mind.
1t is good to know, not only
from recent letters but from
those farther back, that
there is growing. in America
among housewives, work.
ers, businessmen, profession
als--a revolt against mass
thinking and mass opinions,
which are always manipu-
lated. May the revolt flourish;
and may the working daily
press, to which / have so
long belonged, aid and abet
It!
I have often found the
readers columns more inter-
esting and sometimes more
learned than the editorial
pages Of the newspapers.
So I find 1t fun to be among
the "vox populi' and perhaps
from time to time I shall