SELECTIONS FROM OUR MAILBAG
MR. BROOKS'S REJOINDER
To the Editor of the Herald:
I do not want to burden your columns with an extended reply to Mr. Coffin's challenge on behalf of the Industrial Defense Association. This much, however, should be said:
The Lusk report, upon which the association relies with such confidence, was made to the New York Legislature when A. Mitchell Palmer and William J. Burns were endeavoring to persuade the American people that the United States was in imminent danger of overthrow by soviet agents. The report was responsible for the so-called Lusk laws, which were part and parcel of the hysteria which afflicted many good but credulous persons, some of whom evidently have not yet recovered from their fright.
The New York Legislature, however, soon regained its sanity and under Gov. Al Smith's leadership, scrapped the Lusk laws as ill adapted to American institutions, while the people unceremoniously retired their author to private life.
Mr. Coffin's letter confirms the suspicion that some of the gentlemen who have lent their names to the Industrial Defense Association are ignorant of the activities and purposes of its executive head, Mr. Hunter, whose views I correctly quoted in your columns. As he is the mouthpiece of the association, I should think it would be advisable for the officers and the advisory board to know what he is saying. Evidently some of them do not.
Mr. Coffin's alibi for Mr. Hunter regarding the League of Neighbors would be more convincing were not that organization included in the printed publication of the association "What's What" and classified among the "subversive societies and organizations actively working for the destruction of Christianity, civilization and government in America."
The editor of a Boston paper which printed Mr. Hunter's accusations against the League of Neighbors suggests that he probably mixed his organizations up. This very likely is correct, for it must be very difficult not to make such a mistake in a list of [275] organizations including such notorious public menaces as the Quakers, the Mothers and Parent Teachers Association and the Community Church.
When Mr. Coffin speaks of the "consternation" caused in certain quarters by his association's disclosures he doubtless has in mind, among others, members of the Foreign Policy Association and the Directors of the World Peace Foundation, who learn from "What's What" that they are classified in a group "practically all of whom" are pledged to the "weakening of the moral [fiber] of the people by advocating free love between the sexes."
Recently 1400 citizens of Chicago attended a dinner in honor of one concerning whom the President of the United States wrote "I trust that the testimonial which you are about to offer her may give her renewed strength and courage to carry on her work of peace and good will." The governors of Massachusetts and New York and countless citizens of prominence through the nation united in expressions of affection and respect for this person. Meanwhile the Industrial Defense Association characterizes Jane Addams in this fashion: "for the past 13 years her energies have been largely engaged in promoting movements which true patriots must regard as detrimental to the best interests of this country."
What's What? Let us say rather What Bosh!
LAWRENCE G. BROOKS.
[52?] State Street, Boston, Feb. 1.
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