Dear
Milton: You advised me to ignore the letter that accompanied your note of the seventh. Even though your mere fowarding of the letter shows that you were somewhat bothered by the criticisms in it, I would normally follow your advice. However, I cannot fail to return to you some brief comments on it--for two reasons.1
The first is that, while the general purport of the writer's criticism has been presented to me over and over again, and is based upon an amazing ignorance of facts, he does bring up one startlingly new, not to say fantastic, allegation to sustain his preconceived notion. This allegation is that "reactionaries" recommended Warren's appointment to me.2
The second reason for comment is that the writer labors under the false but prevalent notion that bullying and leadership are synonymous; that desk-pounding is more effective than is persistent adherence to a purpose and winning to that purpose sufficient support for its achievement. For this particular kind of person, there is greater satisfaction--possibly sadistic--in seeing their opponents reviled and cursed in the public prints than there is in the knowledge that the causes for which they themselves stand are being constructively advanced.3
Now to speak about the Warren appointment for just a moment. The writer of the letter apparently assumes that a lifetime on the bench or in the exclusive practice of law would produce the highest possible qualification for the Supreme Court. I disagree.4
I believe that we need statesmanship on the Supreme Court. Statesmanship is developed in the hard knocks of a general experience, private and public. Naturally, a man occupying the post must be competent in the law--and Warren has had seventeen years of practice in public law, during which his record was one of remarkable accomplishment and success, to say nothing of dedication. He has been very definitely a liberal-conservative; he represents the kind of political, economic, and social thinking that I believe we need on the Supreme Court. Finally, he has a national name for integrity, uprightness, and courage that, again, I believe we need on the Court.
So far as come to my attention, the only people that opposed the idea of his appointment were of the Chicago Tribune stripe, the very ones that your friends say supported him!5 Yet the writer of your letter who, as a former member of the OWI, should know the power and tricks of propaganda, blindly assumes that in order to get a liberal out of the State of California, reactionaries chose to place him on the Supreme Court where, manifestly, his influence over our national economy and future will be vastly multiplied.
Now as to your friend's more general charge that the "reactionaries" are having their way in determination of policy. I wonder if he has any knowledge whatsoever of the bitterness of the fight to maintain the Excess Profits tax on the books for the next six months. I wonder if he realizes what a battle we had to get the emergency Immigration Bill through Congress. Does he know anything of the forces that opposed the extension of the Reciprocal Trade Act for another year? Does he have any appreciation of the kind of people that aligned themselves in opposition to systems of technical and military aid for our essential friends and allies of the free world?6
What I am getting at here is that if he were an accurate observer of the developing scene instead of a blind swallower of some columnist's rantings, he would discover that the forces of reaction--as he terms them--have not only not been allowed to gain control over policy or to exert undue influence over leaders in the Administration, but they have been defeated, soundly defeated, in some of their most determined efforts.
As for McCarthy. Only a short-sighted or completely inexperienced individual would urge the use of the office of the Presidency to give an opponent the publicity he so avidly desires.7 Time and time again, without apology or evasion, I--and many members of this Administration--have stood for the right of the individual, for free expression of convictions, even though those convictions might be unpopular, and for uncensored use of our libraries, except as dictated by common decency.8
We have urged that America must be true to the problems of freedom and justice as applied to the individual if America herself is to remain free. Permit me to say that I think there would be far more progress made against so-called "McCarthy-ism" if individuals of an opposing purpose would take it upon themselves to help sustain and promote their own ideals, rather than to wait and wail for a blasting of their pet enemies by someone else. Frankly, in a day when we see journalism far more concerned in so-called human interest, dramatic incidents, and bitter quarrels than it is in promoting constructive understanding of the day's problems, I have no intention whatsoever of helping promote the publicity value of anyone who disagress with me--demagogue or not!9
My final remark is that I should like to see the writer's explanation of the bitter attacks made upon this Administration by some of the well-known reactionary columnists and the Chicago Tribune series of publications.
You say that the writer supported me for the Presidency because he believed certain things about me. There is one thing you can assure him. I have not changed. I stand for exactly the same things that I have stood for many years. He or anyone else can go back over my public statements to the very first time that anyone showed enough interest in me to listen to a public statement of mine, and he will find that I have never indulged in bitter personal indictment or attack. To my mind, that practice smacks of more of the coward and the fool than of the leader.10 As ever
