A Soldiers’ Bull Session: Capitalism versus Communism

[In this entry, my father recounts a late-night debate about politics and economics among the soldiers in his tent. Many of the comments reported touch on issues that remain hot-button topics today. They include the lamentation that “politics always seems to boil the scum to the top” and the fair observation that a Constitution “written over a hundred and fifty years ago for a little colony of thirteen states” might need some tweaking to remain relevant in the current America. If only the conservative “originalists” on the U.S. Supreme court could exhibit such common sense!)

September 29, 1945 (Okinawa, Japan)

I come back to the tent about eleven-thirty after an evening of bridge. The only light is at Fisher’s improvised work bench, where he sits with black-bearded head bent forward, puzzling over some piece of electrical equipment. But there are voices in the dark. Old Buck and Stan Graham are deep in a discussion of economics and politics. Right in this one tent we have concentrated the best bull-shooters in the whole platoon. Last night it was Army organization, and war responsibility. Tonight it’s communism versus capitalism. These guys are so serious that they can complete one of these discussions without once bringing in women or sex. Of course, they’re never completed in the sense that unanimous conclusions are arrived at. They die out either from the exhaustion of the participants, which is rare, or from the intercession of perverted individuals like Tom Pearson, who believes in going to sleep early because he can’t help waking up early in the morning.

The discussion tonight is even more hopelessly abstract than usual. “I’ve read, or, er, I’ve heard it said,” Buck says, “that capitalism is just the thing for a young country – “

“That’s right,” Stan breaks in, “it’s OK as long as she’s expanding, as long as there’s a frontier. But now the frontier is gone.”

“Yes. Yes.” Buck says. “That’s just what I mean. So now I think that this country is ready – er, really needs some kind of economic regulation.”

“Yeah,” Stan says, “and then we come to a situation where we’re advocating just the things we’ve been fighting this war to prevent.”

“Well,” Buck says, “I think we ought to have a group of economic experts study the situation, and then make an honest report to the people on just what has to be done to stop depressions.”

At this point I enter the discussion and explain that a large number of such studies have already been made, and the reports are available to the public for whatever they’re worth. But Buck says he’s never heard of them. Then I try to explain the dilemma that arises when anyone attempts to press economic sanity through the maze of American politics.

“Well,” says Buck, “it seems to me that if we could educate the people on those things…”

Here again I’m skeptical. I point out that good education demands exceptional teachers, and there aren’t enough exceptional teachers to go around.

“Yep,” Stan agrees, “you can’t get a good man to work for nothing, and that teaching’s one of the lowest-paid professions.”

Then Buck starts working around towards communism again. Joe Graham comes in and says that communism, without the dictatorship part, is the only solution.

“Sure,” I say, “but just take away Joe Stalin and the club over a man’s head, and see what happens to your communistic system.”

Buck has an idea of more “personal” government at the township level. “The township is a closeknit unit, and, with the right kind of supervision, there hadn’t ought to be a single person in it on direct relief.”

I don’t seem to agree with anything that Buck has put forward. “What about the huge cities?” I ask. “That’s where most of your unemployment is. And besides, local economic problems are only tiny segments of disorders that have to be considered on an international scope.”

Stan tries a new tack. “I don’t know why it is,” he says, “but politics always seems to boil the scum to the top. Now if we could have some kind of group down in Washington, and salaries high enough to attract good men, and let this group hold a whip hand over all the sonsabitching senators and representatives, maybe we’d get something done. If they didn’t do a good job, they’d just get their asses booted out of there…”

“And we get some guys just as bad in their places,” I say.

“And how would you know when they’re doing a good job?” Fisher asks.

“Well, you’ve got something there,” Stan admits. “Look, fellows, I’ll tell you what. Don’t you just think that a Constitution that was written over a hundred and fifty years ago for a little colony of thirteen states might be a little obsolete today?”

“You’re absolutely right!” Buck agrees. “Now if we could just make the right changes…”

“Listen,” T. J. Pearson breaks in with a weary voice, “there’s a bunch of guys in this tent you have to shake their asses to get them out of bed at seven in the morning for breakfast, and that starts talking politics at eleven-thirty at night. That’s the one thing that’s wrong with the American way of life.”

 

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The Case for An “Elitist” Foreign Service, and a Restrained Congress

[In this final segment of his long July 22 entry, my father shows both his idealism and his naiveté by making a case for Congress to leave the details of foreign policy to the “technicians and experts.” He knew that such a proposal would be considered “revolutionary and destructive to democratic principles” by many, but it’s hard to argue with the logic of his position. Nowadays, my father’s perspective — indeed, his overall intellect and world view — would be branded as “elitist” by many in the conservative political camp.

Were he still alive, my father would have little but disdain for the current denizens of Congress, who make their 1940’s counterparts seem like intellectual giants and world-class statesmen. It’s probably just as well that he also missed out on observing today’s “Sam Jones,” as represented by the Tea Party zealots. These deficit-obsessed and mean-spirited partisans bring a whole new meaning to  the “erratic and uninformed public opinion” that so concerned my father in 1945.]

July 22, 1945 (Ft. Jackson, S.C.), con’t.

… Well, Sam, what do you want? A steak dinner today, and a rifle for your son tomorrow? Sam will object that this is a loaded question. Just give him the steak today, and he’ll worry about tomorrow when it comes. We’ve always taken care of ourselves in the past.

Sure, that’s the good old American way. Happy-go-lucky. Binge tonight and hangover tomorrow. But it’s an irrational way, it’s a dangerous way to conduct foreign policy in one of the most powerful nations in the world. In the long run it can be a suicidal way for American government.

The only solution I can see to this problem will be called revolutionary and destructive of democratic principles by many Americans. And there, probably, it will die in a deluge of awe-inspiring words which are meaningless to the people who use them most glibly. But at least I can speak my mind, and let my suggestions stand public examination, whatever the final verdict on them may be.

In the first place, the conduct of foreign affairs, like the regulation of interstate commerce, is a job which demands the full time attention of a picked group of technicians and experts. These men should be appointed by the President on the basis of their ability to do the job, and not because they possess the means to support themselves in an underpaid and mistakenly glamorous profession. The pay should be sufficient to attract men of no private means whatsoever.

Next, Congress should vote to abolish its obsolete treaty power. As long as the Senate clings to its prerogative of the two-thirds vote for approval, it will be bypassed on every possible occasion by such devices as the executive order, whereby President Roosevelt handed over the destroyers to Britain with[out] waiting for Senate approval. Our treaties should be drawn in terms of general objectives only, and be ratified by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress in joint session. Sam Jones has no way of knowing how many shiploads of wheat the people of Greece need this winter, and consequently he shouldn’t vote yes or no on such specific measures through his elected representatives. Enough for him to say whether or not the American people should assume responsibility for keeping the Greek people from starving to death. On such a clear-cut issue as this he may be expected to know where his own interests lie.

It should be up to the technicians and experts to determine such questions as the adequate relief quotas for destitute countries. And then they, through the State department, should have the power to see that those quotas are met on time. Congressional committees should have the right to investigate such State Department activities, but they should not have the power to refuse the appropriations which make such activities possible. The State Department, like the War and Navy Departments during this war, should be granted a lump-sum appropriation, without being required to itemize its proposed expenditures. War and Navy are coming in for accusations of unforgivable extravagances these days, but their primary task was to wage a successful war, and they are accomplishing that task admirably. The State Department’s task might be called to wage a successful peace. If it made a continuous record of accomplishing this task, we should not have to worry any more about the extravagances of war. But it will never get to first base as long as its officials can be hamstrung by an erratic and uninformed public opinion.

If we leave things in their present muddled state, we can certainly expect to do no better than muddle along. The Russian government, whatever its deficiencies, has a foreign office which can act with speed and decision, can apparently make spot commitments in administrative situations with the assurance that they will be carried out. In the gigantic task of restoring Europe to law and order, we’re making a very poor showing, for the reason that our officials can’t make spot commitments, and have little confidence that even their most urgent requests will be met after running through the time-consuming mill of red tape. Thus if we’re surprised to see even the Western European democracies turning to the left, to Russia, we shouldn’t be. Either we shall soon learn to assume the responsibility for the wise exercise of our power, or we shall retire again to the sidelines and wait to be forced into another war which we could have prevented.

 

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“National Sovereignty” Concept Cripples U.N.’s Mandate

 [In this third installment drawn from the July 22, 1945 entry, my father presciently identifies the problems the new United Nations organization will face, especially due to its adoption of the slippery concept of “national sovereignty.” In many ways, this entry foreshadows the rocky road that the UN has travelled since its founding, particularly the Cold War-era face-offs between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Whether it’s from China, Libya or the U.S. itself, the constant invocation of National Sovereignty by U.N. member countries shows no signs of dissipating.]

 July 22, 1945 (Ft. Jackson, S.C.), con’t.

…We may already have congratulated ourselves on the part we played in the drafting of the United Nations Charter at San Francisco, and on the part we now expect to play in whatever international organization is established under the charter. But our congratulations should be well-tempered with caution. The document on which we are preparing to set our Congressional stamp of approval is well booby-trapped with those supposedly rational words and phrases which technological developments have made largely obsolete in the modern world. We may bandy them about in good faith, but when we shape national policy on them, we’d better be damned sure we know what we’re talking about before we act.

“National sovereignty” was a phrase stressed more, perhaps, than any other at the Conference, and it’s by all odds the most dangerous. For what does “national sovereignty” mean in today’s world? The most common interpretation seems to be that the administration of domestic affairs is solely the concern of the respective national governments. This, at least, is the best that the delegates to San Francisco would allow themselves publically to express, though if they are the able men they’re supposed to be, they must all privately have realized that this interpretation is little more than a verbal evasion for the time being of a practical problem which must be faced repeatedly whenever the international organization begins to function. For it is simply a backhanded statement of isolationism (You let me alone, and I’ll let you alone), and  thus at the very beginning a flat admission that the nations are not willing to attempt to enforce that international law and order which could be their only justification for joining together in the first place.

Of course this is an overstatement of the situation. But it’s better to see it that way than to attempt to hide it or minimize it. Its most optimistic supporters admit that the charter is only a hopeful beginning. At least it gets most of the nations on the world peacefully together under one roof. What goes on after that admittedly depends on the willingness of the great powers, or the US and the USSR, to cooperate. But it isn’t clearly pointed out that international cooperation must inevitably mean a continuing compromise on matters which are still considered to be purely domestic in nature. Until “national sovereignty” is whittled down to about the present significance of “state sovereignty” in the US, no international organization will have a ghost of a chance of keeping the world at peace.

This is going to [be] a tough job of whittling, when most of it must be done by two nations of such divergent political opinion and practice as America and Russia. We want the Russians to come a certain distance towards democratic capitalism. We must then be prepared to move a certain distance towards democratic communism. I say this without meaning that Russian communism is at present markedly democratic. We believe that much is lacking in that respect, though we must concede that millions of Russians are apparently well-satisfied with their government, and convinced that we Americans are politically backward in certain respects. This is certainly not a situation which can be helped by name-calling. But we should insist on steadily expanding facilities for the interchange of unbiased news, as well as facts and figures on industrial production and military strength. Among nations which honestly desire to remain at peace with each other there can be no reason for suppressing such information, and its dissemination in reliable, public bulletins should have the effect of dissipating that unhealthful atmosphere of intrigue and distrust with which nations have habitually carried on their diplomatic relations. Texas doesn’t feel injured when Massachusetts knows how much oil it produces, or how many airplanes. The members of an international organization which means business should invite the publication of all such devious facts.

The possibilities of such forms of international cooperation are as numerous as the problems which the nations of the world share in common. But we will never see them realized if we place our hopes in the formal signing of documents and treaties, and the dispensation of high-minded advice. Ours is the potential power, and therefore the responsibility, to set practical examples of cooperation for the maintenance of international law and order. There’ll be no law and order in those places where people have no food and shelter and clothing. In those places it’s our responsibility to provide the essentials of life as far as our means allow without the actual deprivation of any of our own citizens of these essentials. Our business sense should tell us, if it’s as keen as we claim, that we won’t get something valuable without paying a good price for it. International order and peace in a world so terribly devastated by war comes at a high price. Millions of American men are still paying that price in the actual  waging of war. But most Americans have a chance to get off incomparably easy as compared with the peoples of the rest of the world. Near the all time material peak of their standard of living, in spite of the war, they have only consent to the slight cut in that standard which will be necessary to supply the peoples of devastated areas with the means of staying alive and starting a new community life from scratch.

Put didactically, as I have done it, this sounds like an easy thing to do. But put practically to Sam Jones and family, in the form of continued rationing so that our ships can cart off to foreign countries some of the things “we’ve been fighting for,” it will be near to a political impossibility. In the abstract, perhaps, it won’t be so hard to convince Sam that primarily we’re fighting for a peaceful world where all men will be able to enjoy a larger share of the things which make life more pleasant, – the beef steaks and the automobiles. But then tell him that he’ll have to wait a little longer than he expected for his own postwar beefsteak and automobile, and he’ll write to his senator: “Dear Bill: How much longer is this country of our going to play Santa Claus to those damned foreigners? Cut out sending them good stuff that American citizens can use right her and now!”

Already this outcry is rising like an Anvil Chorus throughout the nation’s newspapers. And no doubt it’s rising to a roar in Congressional mail. That’s public opinion. The poor Congressmen have little choice. Cut down UNRRA shipments. Stop feeding civilian populations in liberated and conquered countries. Relax rationing at home. No foreign loans without guaranteed security….

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The Limits of Letting Public Opinion Drive Public Policy

 [In a long journal entry — close to 4,000 words — on July 22, 1945, my father opined about foreign policy, the imperative of the United States to engage in reconstruction, the downside of public opinion driving public policy, and a host of other topics. In this first excerpt from that entry, he notes the proclivity of the “everyman” American, Sam Jones, to worry more about a steak dinner today than a recurrence of world war 15 or 20 years into the future. My father’s comments about the need for political leaders willing to buck the pressure of uninformed public opinion seem apropos to the present day (as his journal writings often do). Another of his statements that remains true for our times: “…we easily persuaded ourselves that national good was necessarily universal good, and failed to perceive that certain of our cherished advantages were maintained directly or indirectly at the expense of other parts of the world.”]

July 22, 1945 (Ft. Jackson, S.C.)

… Basically, these war years, with their extravagant spending of men and material, have outraged the practical “business sense” of the common American who carries on the national business, be he civilian or soldier. Right now, he’s getting angry about our large scale handouts to our Allies, and President Truman, his perfect representative, is apparently telling the boys at Potsdam that from now on it’s “put up or shut up.” This attitude is generally applauded, and rightly so, if we don’t let ourselves get talked or scared into “practical” deals which end by increasing, rather than diminishing, the various frictions still existing among the nations. But that’s a big IF, and will often call for national policy which demands present sacrifices as the investment in future security. UNRRA [United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration] presents such a situation now, and we don’t seem willing to go very far beyond a profession of good intentions. Exasperated, but well-fed Americans get the preference over starving Europeans. And later many Americans will become exasperated at these Europeans for embracing Communism after we’d gone to the trouble and expense of liberating them from Fascists totalitarianism. We’ll never know how quickly the sweets of liberation can pale on an empty stomach.

As a nation we’ll make these “mistakes” simply because a steak dinner today seems more important to Sam Jones and his family than another world war fifteen or twenty years from now. That doesn’t mean that Sam Jones is a bad or irresponsible man, but it would seem to mean that he’s a poor man to entrust with the shaping of American foreign policy. Yet Sam Jones, taken by the million, is public opinion, and we are told with authoritative finality that American foreign policy between these last two wars was increasingly isolationist and appeasing because public opinion would allow nothing else. “We knew what was coming,” many of our leading statesmen have said, “but we were powerless to act because of public opinion.” Of course, one seriously questions the omniscience of most of these bleating sheep, but at the same time one must admit a measure of truth in their argument. If important information was made available to the members of Congress, information which revealed the extreme danger of our position in an Axis dominated world, and if these men, reflecting the naturally limited viewpoint of their constituents, refused to believe in the significance of this information, refused, possibly for reasons of election strategy, to pass it on to their constituents, and thus left us dismally unprepared when the strike came, then our foreign policy set-up is certainly inadequate.

There is always pressure for various changes in any governmental system, and unimportant changes in both personnel and procedure are constantly being made. Over a period of years these minor changes may add up to a real change in political philosophy. This is evolutionary development, and has been a privilege of the American people since 1789, with the exception of the Civil War. At that time the revolutionary concept of the right of secession from the Union was advanced, and it was denied only at the cost of a bloody war.

The present war has been as much a Civil War as that war between the North and the South, but because it concerns a world union of “sovereign” nations rather than a continental union of “sovereign“ states, because the apparent national differences of the peoples involved have obscured the basic philosophical issue, we, as the victor side, are likely to bungle the victor’s responsibility of directing reconstruction even worse than we did after our Civil War, when the issues were relatively clearer. The German and Japanese totalitarian governments have been a mortal challenge to our own democratic institutions. This challenge could hardly have been made with such ferocity if democratic government had seemed as fair and advantageous to the rest of the world as it seemed to us. In other words, we easily persuaded ourselves that national good was necessarily universal good, and failed to perceive that certain of our cherished advantages were maintained directly or indirectly at the expense of other parts of the world. And to bring it closer home, we may as well admit that during the thirties the democratic way of life left several million Americans out in the cold of economic privation. Had these millions become a majority, or seized political power while still a minority, Americans might possibly have found themselves attempting the desperate cure for their ills which the Germans tried under Hitler….

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Worry and Uncertainty Following FDR’s Death

[This conversational entry is interesting as a snapshot in time, given that it depicts the reaction by my father and a couple of his Army buddies upon receiving the news of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s death (on April 12, 1945). The concerns they raise reflect the magnitude of FDR’s unequaled position on the national and global stage, and include even the possibility of domestic revolution. The trio also expresses what were probably widely held doubts about his successor, Harry S. Truman. Truman would go on to prove most of those doubts unwarranted.]

April 13, 1945 (Ft. Jackson, S.C.)

Cunningham and I were sitting on the ground near our tent, talking a little, and taking it easy in the afternoon heat. Pearson came down through the woods and stopped over us. “I’ve just heard some very bad news,” he said.

“What’s that,” we said, thinking, I suppose that he was going to tell us we were stuck on some special detail.

“President Roosevelt is dead,” he said.

Somehow I knew that he was speaking the truth, yet the words wouldn’t sink in, and automatically I said, “You’re kidding.”

“No,” he said, “it’s true. I’ve just been listening to it over a radio. He was at the place of his in Georgia –“

“Warm Springs,” Cunningham said.

“Yeah, I guess that’s it, the little White House. He was sitting having his portrait painted. All of a sudden he fainted, and that was all. Cerebral hemorrhage.”

“Truman!” Cunningham said. That was what had immediately flashed to my mind, too. Harry Truman was now President of the United States.

We three fellows talked together for half an hour before it was time to fall out for the evening formation. We were struggling to fit this almost incomprehensible event into our minds, and see what meaning it had for us. Some of our remarks were purely emotional; others we tried to think out.

“God!” We’ll never get out of the Army now,” Cunningham said.

But I didn’t think that the President’s death would have much effect on the actual course of the war. We agreed that it might have some immediate effect on the men at the front, but we couldn’t decide whether it would more inspire or discourage them. Also, it seemed likely that Germany and Japan would attempt to gain a psychological advantage from his death, but we weren’t really worried about their success.

Then we wondered if there was any danger of an internal revolution. “Watch and see,” Cunningham said. “The Communist[s] will really make a big bid to take over the country now.” Pearson and I didn’t think this possible, but we all began to see some danger of a military clique installing itself in power, and I thought the threat of some form of Fascism was more dangerous than that of Communism.

“Can you imagine Harry Truman sitting down with Churchill and Stalin!” Cunningham said.

“That sounds ridiculous,” I said. We all mentioned Truman many times, but had nothing kind to say about him beyond a vague hope that he might somehow rise to the occasion. We all thought that either Wallace or Dewey would have been preferable to Truman. “Maybe he’ll die of the shock,” I said.

“That would give us Stettinius,” Pearson said. But we couldn’t feel enthusiastic about the Secretary of State, either. In short, try as we might, we could think of no man now in public life sufficient to take his place. Thus we began to realize the true enormity of the risk we had taken upon ourselves by making Franklin Roosevelt almost an indispensable man in our national affairs. Once there was Willkie, at least, to stand beside him in stature, but Willkie, too, was dead now. “What’s going to happen to us now?” This thought seemed uppermost in the mind of almost everyone.

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