talk of “the digmty of zuovk or 04 man’s hasgained almost sancrity, that they tamed.

0; ~e other hand, some current

vocation," the fact is that“for
the can rest back upon things called ‘Rlghts.’. attempts in high leglslative circles to
great majorlty of men m industrial If m’en understandand do theirDuty, prescribe patternsforthought, speech,
plants those words se,eln to have llttle Rightswill follow, and problems w ~ l l and behavior seem to those of us who
meaning.”Moreover, there IS deep un- be solved.” have been reared in the Protestant tradl-
certainty In people’s mlnds “whether the tlon to be all of a pece with collectivist
ancient absolutes have any meaningin TO THESE sample cltatlons fromthe regimentation. As the National Council.
aworldwhlch .knows so much about pronouncements of half a dozen Protes- of Churches has recently declared.
how to manage and contrive.” tant bodies, one may safely adda few “Error must be met by truth in free and
The soclal pronouncements of the generalizations. Broadly speaking, the open encounter. The conscientious ex-
United Lutheran Church in Amerlca are Prot,estantchurches are strongly com- pression of ~deas must notbe dealt with
of particularinterest because of the mlttedto the separation of church and by adungeon,a boycott, or anIndex,
tradltional aloofness of theLutheran state, which, they insist, precludes at nor by arbitrary governmen,tal action.
churches from corporrlte polltlcal achon least In spmt dlplomaticrelationswith character assassmation, or. the applica-
In a sentence whlch may pelhaps be said the Vatican There IS almost universal tion of unjust economlc and social pres-
to express the gemus OF Protestantlsm, opposition among Protestants to any SUreS.”
anofficd
statement declares:. -“The weakenlng of the present pdicial pro- What Sf the trend? In recent years
church may help Its members to evaluate h h t l o n of public support fornon--public Protestant thoughtinABerica has ex-
practlcal proposals, but it must reserve to schools. Whrle the erstwhile pacrfism of perienced a change of climate. The
i’ts members the final decislon whether a substantla1 part of ofiiaal Protestantlsm rather easy and enthuslasstlc optimmn
sFch proposals tend t o accomplish Chris- is no longer in evidence, Its inffuenceis aboutmanandthe world which pre-
tlan‘ends Withm this frameworkthe
” reflected m oppositlon topeace-tlme mdi- valled duringthe early decadmesof the
United Luthelall church has elaborated tary training, and in adeeply troubled century has been tempered by an ethical
set
a of guiding prmclples ranging conscience over the natlon’s continued “realismd’ which has amore or,thodox
wide€y ovel the aDeas which are claiming involvement in war. The hot spot now theological base. Oneresult has been a_ .
the attentron of the other denomma,tions. is;of course, the ominous threat to lessening of the confident “activism” that
Another officiaI statementdefining the personal llberty involved in some intem- had been characteristlc of liberal Protes-
soclal responslbllity of the church affirms perate efforts to eradicate loyalty and tant Chnstlanlty. The chastenrng was
that i t should “talk more about Duties securlty risks. Heae thecentral genius need,ed; the ddlusionment adminlstered - .
and less about Rights. One of the spirit- of Protestantism
~ is confronted-devo- by the events of history has been salu-
. ual weaknesses of OUL tme, from whlch tlon to personal freedom under God. tary. .Signs arenot wanting, however,
many of our social problems progres- Protestant individualism has doubtless that the nerveof the soclal-gospel move-
sively multiply, comes from the debilitat- been carried to extremes, forfreedom ment IS still alive and that Its influence
ing notlon In the minds of people, which can, be preserved only if order is maln- will be increasingly felt.
r -

r.

“LIFE,” Pt.er Gynt decided, “1s a matter called exotically enough, the Garden of
of passing safe and dryshoddown the Allah. But the only exotic thlng about
rushing stream of tlme.” When, not long it was that the rent was free.”Free be-
past, I ddcovered myself to be not only cause I was b a n g accorded the ten-day-
passing safe and snugly shod but down-’ Hollywood-hospltalltytreatment,which
right lavishly set up, I felt, though there 1s prescribed on the assumption that
was no Anitra near, that I agreed with half a grand allotted from a producer’s
Gpnt a11 the same. budget toward thecomfoltandenter-
Thedowuight lavishsetup was tamnent of any writerfromthe hinter:
, land is certain-with the help of that
ATELSON ALGREN, nzithor of “The Yogi sun-to arouse’such slaverlng grat--
n/lnn with the Golden -ArmJJdud 2 itudeinthehinterlanderthat he’ll sign
“C&cago: Crty 012 the Muke,” herein. for whatever sum theproducerdeigns
shrives hzs irztrod:<ctzon t o the 1120re5 of t o name. That if the latter doesn’t delgn
Ha,?lpuoo$ wiu2th 9etlner.r of The Nation. to name a sum, said hinterlander w d
cume to feel so guilty about the advan-
tagehe 1s taklngthat ultimately he’ll
sign anything, lust to be able to look
otber men in the eye once more, aGd the
producer can fill In the figures
“Don’t worry about price,” I had
been comforted over long dlstance, “you
can trust me. I Lzke ‘ taking care of
writers. I’d especially hk‘e to take care
of yo;.”
I was touched Even fFom adlstance
the man liked me. I could not know that
he was applyingthe first stage of the
treatm’ent, whereln the party. of the
first part can afford nothmg less than

6S The NATION
 affectlon fortne party of the second. of no imporeance at the moment that my
Even from a dlstance. For I hadnot eyes weren’tfocusing. Indeed, I bowed
yet felt that sun. so low from -the waist, in the direction
I judged the lady to be, that I had a blt
DRIVING FROM the statlon, the pro- of trouble straighteningup. It wasn’t
ducer’s flunky assuled me that the apart- till the following
‘forenogn
that I
ment I was to occupy had been vacated learned that Miss
Sldney was in
I by a namestar only a fewhours ago; Brussels.
“Y~u’llbe sleeping In ha bed tonight,” When I confronted Guru wlth his
he promised. How lucky, I thought betrayal hedldn’t so much as redden.
dreamdy, thatthetramhad been late. H e was just hurt.Theparty to whom
Living In such a place, I gathered, rent he’d introduced me, i t turned out,was
or no rent, was In itself an event, one to a hrghly effective wrlters’ agent-so why
makea tripfrom Chicago well worth dld I alw.lys have to get so salty when
any hinterlander’s whde. spmebody triedto do somethingfor
But I dldn’t myself consider tile place me? “We’ll get along better when you
any particular great shakes until the begin trusting others,” he counseled me
flunky appointed the star’s pantry with- l k e a father-and toppedthe blt off
a case of good scotch, a case of fair rye, wlth the hollowest laugh I’d yet heard
.?and a case of cheap bourbon, then in the Land of Hollow Laughter.
lowered hls lids to indlcate we weren’t Then he put a contract before me and
even to talk about money. “Don’t men- confessed, “I’m not a bnsiness man at
- tion It,” he reassured me the moment I hea5t”- placingpne hand over the I~eart
stopped shaking. tb indlcate precisely where he wasn’t a
I I chose to lnentlon it allthe same: busrness man-“‘I’m justanotherfrus-
What I mentioned speclficaily was, “For trated writer.”
God’s sake wheie’s the gin?:’ He m u s t I looked around for !heot11e1 frus-
I have thought I sald “djinn,”> for in a trated writer. Seelng none, I placed
moment there appeared-precisely as 111 Bernard Shaw’s hand over my own
a story by John Collier-a realHolly- valentine-shaped ticker and confessed in
wood djmn, an honest-to-God Guru turn,“I’m not a writerat heart. I’m
c
, looking as if he’d slept In a bottle wlth justanotherfrustrated busmess man. said he wouldn‘t even h a w toextend .
the cork in it. He was fresh up from And don’t even trust myself.” hkmself. Yet OD the morning he phoned
Malibu, and hrs toes stuck out of 111s to say, “After all, I do llke you,” IL
sandals ‘ l k e amputatedthumbs. With AGAIN in a matter of moments,but really felt I had h i m
the rest o f , him stuffed hurriedly into now more as’ In somethrng by Howard “I llke you too,” I assured him.”
somethmgthat looked llke a cast-off Fask, I was evlcted from the Garden of W e had now reached that stage
tattersall of the lateLaird Cregar’s. Allah where noAnitra was near.And whereintheparty o€ the second part
It was of course, the producerhim- presentedwlth a bdl, p e r drem, w h ~ c h can afford nothing less than affec[ion for
self. And we were off to Romanoff’s. Guru just happened to have In his hand. the party of the first; I needed to buy a
I dmed with h m unaccompanled that Itemizing, among other small comforts, house in Indlana as much as he needed
first evening, a bit self-conscious ofmy one case of good scotch, one case of fair to make a million dollars.
I

closed-in toes. The next, I took. the rye, and one case of cheapbourbon. So though the very sight of me caused
liberty of Invltmga new-foundfriend. Nothing was free after all. 111s features -to be suffused by a disguit
Thegext I took two lherties,and by “Is there any relntlonshlp between matched by nothmg earthIy save the re-
. the time we made the Brown Derby we my refusal to slgn and’ my evlctron?” vulsion in my own breast, we clung
“

wereblockingtraffic Wlth my senses I had just time to inqulre. passionately each to each in a fnendshlp
by now a-whnl wlththewonder and He never so much as cracked. “ W h a t based on the solid rock of,utter loathing.
hurry of I t all, I had no time for the kmd of a busrness man do-you think I H e showed up with a flute of Johnny
- approprlate gratitude. am?” he demanded.
a To illustrate fulther the operation of nf-
Inthefamthope of fanlung a spark “What kind of a wrlter do yon thmk
fection 111 The Land. of HollowLaughter:
~

in that direction, the d ~ i n n inqmred I am?’’ was all I could thmk to reply. W h d e I was waltlng In the office of a
softly, during the course of some fever- Whereupon welocked, the terrible medlum-medbigshot to be intloduced to a
. klng-slze bigshot, the latter entered and went
Ish carryings-on at the Beverly-Wllshxe, djmn In the open-toed shoes and I in dlrectly Intoconfelencewiththemedmm-
andthe wind whisking every whlch my watertight ones, In a hfe-and-death slzed onewlthoutmdlcatingawareness of a
thud party in the room except by a paIm over
way, whether, I’d care to meet MISS struggle to determme, once and for all, his mouth and an occhsmnal jerk of a t h u n h
Sylvia Sidney. who was the greater jerk. in the general duectlon of that party. Whls-
pers, chuckles, tllumb Jerks, Q final back slap
The entlre course of my llfehavlng I very nearly. won. But I was scarceljr a -and he had leftquite as unceremoniously
been deterl!uded by the 1331 version ranking contender and I’was up against ‘IS he hadenteled.Whereuponthe nylmn-
slzedoneassuredme. “He lldes you And
of “An Amerrcan Tragedy,” It seemed the champ.Smart money wouldhave ‘meant It.
-
]zdy 25, 1353 69
 Walker on onearmanda male friend have anythmg on meforthetheft of “l‘m a nice guy ! Why do yon k k e 9 m
on theother. By the’stardust inthe the Stone ofScone. “You see,” he ex- act It& d jerk?”
fnend’s eyes I lmmedlately fiecognized plained wlth that smile whlch succeeded Overwhelmed by what I had .done to
an autograph hunter,. one,who inquii-ed so wondrously in being at once abjectly this kindly soul, I followedhimabout
my name so shyly that I laughed lightly, shamefaced andhaughtlly self-satisfied, the room as hysterical as he was: “I
“ Y o u got m e . ” Whereuponhe put a “every tlme ,I talked long distance to don’tknow why I make you act llke
packet of blue papers boundwitha you I had a lawyer on th’e extenslon ” thls,” I broke down completely; “this
red rubber band mto my hacd, and the 0 Great Guru from Malibu, I knew isn’t therealme! Back homepeople
only process-server in theworld wlbh then how much you l ~ k e dme. like me !”
stardust eyes excused himself. And as if struck abruptly by the in- . Whereupon the party of the first part
Rlfflmg hurriedly through the packet, justice of everythmg, h’e strode to the gently placed the bottle in the left hand
I realized thatGuru was chirglng me -middle of the- room, llterally beating his of the party of the second and, Even
with everythmg from piracy on the high breast wlth one hand and still clutchiig more gently, a pen that writes under
seas to defraudmg an innkeeper. I was the bottle fervldly wlbh the other, to water in his right. .
secretly relieved tonote that he didn’t turn the awful accusation upon me- That Yogi sun had don&me in at last.

e Story Didn’t Tell . . )by

-
- [Recently Llfe plu2tedan artzcte and from both theA. F. of L: andthe Two months later C .G McGehee,
pScfzms er~zphnnzmgthe violence and C. I. 0. wenttb Elizabeth In response presldent and charman of the board of
disolder Ihnt nzc;rked a piper stqzke in a to a call fromthepaper-mill workers. the Calcasleu Paper Company, mtiated
s m d Loz~zszanrttown. H e l e fJ the o t h v An election was held, and the C. I. 0. a “back-to-work“ movement and afber
szde of the- story, zulztten by a foln2er Unlted Paperworkers of Amerlca won by gettlng a kourt order restricting picketlng
Associdfed PPress jeporter zubo 2s ?zow asllmmargln over the A. F. of L. reopened the plant. When five hundred
arrisfanf edltor of the publzcntiom de- International Brotherhood of Paper of the Calcasleu workers refused to
pnrtnzent of the Internntzonal Brother- Makers. The company, however,. still returnto work, many more thanhad
hood of Pclper MnLers.] ’refusedto sign a contract. FlnaIJy the origmally voted for the unions, the
United Paperworkers gave up. company recrulted stnke-breakers, some
Elizdbeth, La. ‘ The A. F. of L. union then returned locally, some m other areas. State troop-
COWS glaze in the yard of the cornmu- to Elizabeth, reinforced by a slster ers escorted the scabs to and from work
nlty
hall in Elizabeth; Louisiana, a union, the International Brotherhood of- Soon afterward mknagement notdied
sleepy little company town of abouta Pulp, Sulphite, and Paper Mill Workers. the men stdl on strlke that they had ~

thousandpeaple. You couldn’t ask for Another election, heldm May, 1951, been “permanently dmharged.” At the
a, quieter place to negotlate a union con- was lost by two votes. A charge of coer- same time It orderedstrlking workers
tract.Butwhilethe negotiators In the cion was then filed agamst the company out of their cpmpany-owned homes.
hall have hardly raised thelr voices the wlth the National
Labor Relations These evictions are stdl bemg fought
town outslde has been rocked by dyna- Board. The board found management in the courts by the unions’ attorneys.
mite explosions and shotgun blasts. guilty of interference, restraint, and
Back in the thirtles an organizer for coercion, andordered ’ a new election, VIOLENCE now burst out Homes and
the A F. of L. Paper Makers made an which was heldin May, 1952, and cars belosging to both strlkers and
attempt to unionlze .the Calcasieu Paper whlch the two unions wonlU459 to204. scabs were shot intoand set on fire. A -
Company’s mdl .In Elizabeth, but com- But eventhis clear mandate was* not gas line supplying fuel to the plant was
‘ pany resistance was unusually strong and - enough for management. I n an attempt blown up several times, and aspur of
the organizer soon went on togreener to repeat the tactics used successfully the Santa Fe Rallroad leadmginto the
pastures, unlonlzing other
Southern agalnst the C. I. 0.th,e company‘simply mill was dynamited.
paper mllls. The Calcasieu mlll re- refused to bargain. As a result new The unlon leaders immediately dls-
mained“open shop,” stdldictatmg to charges were filed by. the unions with associated the membership from these
its workers, stillignormg their griev- the N. L. R. B. The workers finaIIy acts, but the company charged that the
ances, stillowningthelr homes, their took a strlke .vote, but before they couid culprits were “unlonmen”.and issued
streets, their churches, their very lives. act, the company closed themdl.The arms to the scabs. This moye led to the.
About fobr years ago union organizers lockout was ordered September 13, 1952-. belief that at least some of the incidents
1 .
I

70 The NATION