BOOKS

T is. McCarthyism? How
° has Senator Joseph McCarthy
risen from relative obscurity to
national prominence in the Am-
erican scene and how does he
wield such influence? These ques-
tions, and many more, are well
answered
McCarthy, the Man and the Ism.
Written by Joseph Morton, and
published by Pacific Publishing
Foundation of San Francisco, this
3l-page pamphlet is now avail-
able in Vancouver at the People’s
Cooperative Bookstore, 387 West
Pender Street, priced at five cents.
_ The author starts from the pto-
position that McCarthy, as a man,
did not creaté McCarthyism any
more than Hitler created Nazism.
“Even though the term Mc-
Carthyism - derives from the
name of a man, it is not an in-
dividual attribute. It is a social
Phenomenon. It took root be-
cause the social soil was fertile.
It flourished because the poli-
tical climate was favorable. | In
the first instance, it was the cold
war that prepared the ground
for McCarthyism.”

Morton does, however, make the
point that the man and the ism
- have influenced one another and
through their interaction, attain-
ed an identity.

The Truman administration
sowed the wind and reaped the
whirlwind. By introducing the
mass witchunt, repressive legis-
lation and.a policy of belligerent
hostility to wartime allies, it till-

/ed the ground and spread the
seed for McCarthyism. Morton
quotes the liberal New Republic
(December, 1952) on this score:
“Truman opened the dike to the
flood waters of political oppres-
sion which are now upon us.”

‘Dealing with McCarthy as a

-man, the pamphlet proves in

- black and white that:

+ McCarthy is a four-flusher
who falsified his war record to
get ahead in politics.

> He was reprimanded for un-

ethical practices while serving as

a judge. ;
This booklet gives some details
of McCarthy’s financial manipula-
tions ,showing how he made a
_ fortune in a few years under
_ very questionable circumstances.
In Canada, such an exposure
would drive a man out of public
office, but corruption is much
more commonplace in the U.S.
Between January 1, 1948, and
November 12, 1852, McCarthy
banked $172,623.18 on a senator's
Salary of $12,500 a year. During
the same period, his agent deposit-
wed. $96,921.26. More than $48,000
‘of this combined boodle was in
- Cash, reminiscent of gangster pay-
offs. In addition, McCarthy paid
‘off a personal loan of $39,900.89.
‘ Whenever such unpleasant facts
are brought out into the open,
this demagogue falls back on the
old Hitler technique of shouting
about the communists in order to
confuse the issue. His reply
breaks down into two parts:
+ The Communists are Oppos-

ed to McCarthy and McCarthyism. -

+ Anyone who criticizes Mc-
Carthy is a communist or fellow
traveller, or .a fool.

Any person who refuses to testi-
fy before McCarthy’s investigat-
ing committee is automatically

- branded as a traitor to his coun-
try. When Senator William Ben-
ton filed charges of financial ir-
regularities against him McCar-
thy refused to appear before the
‘committee of the U.S. Senate set

-up to deal with the charges.. In-
stead, he circulated a series of
poison pen notes. Here is a

- sample of what he wrote:

“TJ am sure you realise that

'

ieee

ina pamphlet entitled —

McCarthy's record, aims bared
in hard-hitting new pamphlet

the Benton type of material. can

be found in the Daily Worker
almost any day of the week and
will continue to flow from the
mouths and pens of the camp
followers so long as I continue
my fight against Communists in
government.”

It has become public knowledge

that McCarthy now has the finan-
cial backing of some of the rich-

‘est men in the U.S. This pamph-

let points out that in his earlier
years, he didn’t turn his nose up
at a chance to pick up “small
change.”

Wh
(; Uy
if

f

For example, he got $10,000
‘from a prefab housing corpora-
tion operating on government
money. McCarthy was on the
Senate committee that controlled
the handouts. The corporation
went broke and the public was in
the red for some $30,000,000. In
1947, the Pepsi-Cola Company en-
dorsed one of his notes for $20,000.
And, in the U.S. Senate, McCarthy
bitterly attacked the administra-
tion for its handling of sugar con-
trols.

* * *

McCARTHY won his first elec-
tion with the support of American
Action Incorporated. The back-
ers of this group have been brand-
ed as “fascists seeking to preserve
property rights at the expense of
human rights.”

When 43 Nazi SS troops were
found guilty of murdering Ameri-
can POWs, McCarthy barged into
the hearings of the Senate Arm-
ed Services Committee pleading
for the killers. :

In 1949, he wrote a letter urg-
ing parole for William Dudley
Pelley, a pro-Hitler propagandist
sent to jail during the Second
World War. This same Pelley
distributed anti-Semitic tracts in
the U.S.

The China Lobby, a reactionary
pressure group working to place
Chiang Kai-shek back in power,
even if it means war, are among
the known patrons of the loud-
mouthed Senator.

Morton points out that while
McCarthy does not condemn de-
mocracy at Hitler did, his very
actions are designed to destroy
democracy. By stifling free de.
bate, he closes off “the oxygen
that Keeps democracy alive.”

The author. further Points out
that while personal ends and the
desire for personal power play
their role, McCarthyism, like fas.
cism in Germany, basically,
springs from two motivating
forces: ‘

+ The desire of powerful, fin-
ancial interests to establish ab-
solute economic and _ political
control, :

+ The desire to “coordinate”
the home front in order to clear
the decks for a reckless military
Policy abroad. ;

The pamphlet does a good ser. *

vice in the way it deals with
Communism, pointing out that
Many people who are opposed to
Communism can nevertheless be
won to the fight against McCarthy-
ism.

-Morton does not suggest that
they must renounce their opin-
ions on Communism as a pre.
condition of fighting McCarthy-
ism.

“Honest difference with Com-
munism, no matter how strongly
expressed, is a legitimate politi-
cal position.” “Anti-Communism”
becomes illegitimate when it is
used to silence opposition, and
as a smokescreen to conceal the
ulterior motives of groups seek.

ing to destroy democracy and est-.

ablish fascism. :

“To attain either clarity or
unity in the fight against Mc-
Carthyism, therefore, it is neces-
sary to cut through the fog of
McCarthyite ‘anti - communism’,
to reject the attempt to make

_ this sinister ‘anti - communism’
the dividing line between. poli-
tical sheep and goats.”

When you have read this pam-
phlet, you will be proud of the
fact that the democratic voice of
the U.S. has not been silenced.
Although the MeCarthyites have
tried hard, they have not suc-
ceeded in extinguishing the torch
of liberty. Read this pamphlet,
and pass it on and help to keep
McCarthyism out of Canada. —
JACK PHILLIPS

Rare prehistoric find

A block of red sandstone, now on display in the American Mpseut
of Natural History in New York, represents a maior paleontologi¢

discovery.
The discovery, of great importance

‘It contains the bones of eight tiny prehistoric hore
in the study of prehistoric anima gh

was made some 50 miles from Colorado Springs.

Two satirical films --.
but one unintentional

_ GOOD, IN a conventional way,
is Hobson‘s Choice based on the
classic Lancashire dialect play by
Harold Brighouse.

This is the story of a determin-
ed Salford girl who marries the
bootmaker from her father’s shop

and makes a successful business-
man of him.

It punctures snobbery, cele-
brates the homely Laneashire vir-
tues of Self-help and hard work
and has a lively sense of regional
patriotism. é

Charles Laughton magnificently
Caricatures the pompous small
businessman whose daughter de-
fies him. Brenda de Banzie plays
up well as the determined Mag-
Sle, seeing her chance of a hus-
band and seizing it in a forthright
Way.

John Mills has the right blend
of comedy and Pathos as the soft
bootmaker who learns to stand up
for himself,

ok oa x

AS SOON as we see the rocky
mountainside with a British sup-
ply column toiling up to where
Sinister tribesmen crouch in am-
bush, we know where we are.

In King of the Khyber Rifles we
are back in the days of imperial
stiff-upper-lippery,

In those days—a century ago,
when the Indian Mutiny was just
about to erupt—there were only
two things certain to be furrow.
ing every commissioned brow in
the garrisons horth of Simla,

One was the tribesmen, who

Poet who was begining to see

1

WHEN DYLAN THOMAS came
to Vancouver a few years ago he
attracted little attention outside
the limited circles to which he
had a special appeal, His poetry
was so personal that few could
understand it. He had created an
idiom, almost a language, of his
own.

Tt was musical and amusing —
if you had the taste for that kind
of thing and the time not only to
read but also to digest it. And,
although it was far more popular
than most modern versé, it was
really poetry for the few.

Yet, as his last and most promis-
ing work, Under Milk Wood,
shows; he was turning to more
popular expression. Completed

only a few days before his death
in New York last November and
how published by Dent ,this work

reflects what Daniel Jones notes
in the preface, that Thomas had
“intended to turn from the strict-

ly personal kind of poetry to a

- couraging,

more public form of expression,
and to large-scale dramatic works
in particular .. .”

That such a writer had turned
to popular expression was en-
It might well have
helped a revival of poetry. For
the decline in general interest
in poetry is bound up with the
obscurity of so Many of our
modern poets.

Under Milk Wood evokes a day
in the life of a small Welsh sea-
side town, It is written in lang-
uage to be recited and declaim-
ed and there are interspersed
songs. :

Thomas preserved much that
Was good of his special idiom,
although at time his knack of
punning ran away with itself. But
the dreams, waking and sleeping,
of his characters are convincing
and so are the snatches of con-
versation to resolve things with
a poke. It was a little too easy.
Waldo’s song begins:

Vater

In Pembroke City when 1 was
young

I lived by the Castle Keep

Sixpence a week was my wages

For working for the chimbley
sweep,

Six cold Pennies he gave me
Not a farthing more or less
And all the fare 1 could afford
Was Parsnip gin and watercress,

And it ends with a “kind
woman who took pity”: See
\

+». She sighed to ‘th
blush 9! ® me with a

_ Northwest Frontier,

ESTHER WILLIAMS currentl!
appearing in Dangerous wh
Wet.

kept the garrisons on their t0®
by constantly threatening to dds
An expedition against heavy ° +,
was the standard answer to at
The other bit of how-d’y&
was the new fellah in the mess:

_Was he or was he not PD fF
Was the general justified in se27
ing him to almost certain de?
or was he influenced by a des”
to prevent his daughter M
ing the son of a bally native? 3

These harrowing problem :
which have been with us the
since Hollywood discovered
are weet
threshed out afresh on the bro#
er canvas of the Cinemasc®
screen, :

Tyrone Power is a newly 2 ond
ed officer whose efficiency se
grasp of strategic theory at")
instant suspicion in the mind? ok
his fellow officers. His sulky
proclaim that there is somet
odd about him, sone that

Sure enough, it transpires | pis
his mother was an Indian a0 ‘bat
boyhood friend none other

la

that same Kurrum Khan W??
sa i and sweep my chimbley... the current scourge of Hee
ring along your chimbley frontier.

brush!’

dees _ PACIFIC TRIBUNE — APRIL 23, 1954 — PAGE

a

Capt. Power finally strike*c
blow for the right of a half ¢he
to serve imperialism and ¥ or 0
hand of the general’s daughte® 1,
the time-honored way. He Tul

down a rising against
odds. : Re
—THOMAS SPENC™