THE CULTURAL FRONT
313
the element of time played an all-predominant role.
It
is calculated on
split seconds. And when I was reading
Logic
by John Dewey, I wrote Dr.
Dewey a letter in which I discussed baseball in terms of his conceptions of
empiric propositions. I suggested that every pitch, every movement to
right or left by a defensive player was an empiric proposition. I further
suggested that before every pitch, the batter's stance, and his preparation
to hit or not constituted a counter empiric proposition to that of the
defensive team. I believe that I proved the point that baseball, when
properly played, is calculated on a strictly rational basis. In brief, it is a
logical game. But logic and rationalism are shallow, and so here I am,
trying to get out of the clutches of Waldo Frank, and what do I do, but
fall right back into them. Baseball is too rational. Therefore it must be
dangerous. I will not tell why I am a baseball fan. This very minute, I
renounce baseball along with culture. I hereby announce that I am not
only an ex-novelist: I am also an ex-baseball fan. I will have as little
truck
with batting averages as I will, from this point on, with the novels
of Ernest Hemingway, the philosophy of John Dewey, the logic of Carnap,
and the history of Charles Beard. I know what I will do. Dr. Max Lerner
recently quit being a fellow traveller of the Kremlin, and wrote an article
in
The Saturday Review of Literature
in which he signified more or less
that he was becoming a fellow-traveller of Waldo Frank. I am going to
go him one better. I am going to become a fellow-traveller of all three
of these intellectual cops. I will not join the Fifth Column, not even
through such an entrance as the turnstiles of the Yankee Stadium.
~~E,ery
Personal Consideration Must
Git-e
Way"
Elsewhere in this issue we print an appeal/or contributions to
THE PARTISAN
REVIEW FUND FOR EUROPEAN WRITERS AND ARTISTS.
The letter from /gnazio Silone
from which we quote below was received just as this issue was going to press.
"There is one thing above all I want to say to my friends in America: that
there is not a moment to be lost in sending aid, somehow, to our German, Ital–
ian and Spanish friends who took refuge in France. All the news we get here is
really frightful. The latest: a telegram from Marseilles informs us that Federica
Montseny, former minister in Cabellero's cabinet, has just been handed over to
the Spanish authorities by the Petain government. Letters that have come to me
recently from V..... S..... , F .•..•..
J ... . .... .,
H ..... S...... and others
who are in the unoccupied part of France, justify the most serious fears. While
waiting for whatever fate the military authorities have in store for them, they
ask
the immediate sending of funds with which to buy food....
"There are times when every personal consideration must give way, and
only a collective viewpoint is permissible. . . . Finally, let me say now-after
years of gloomy prophecies- that there are aspects of the situation over here
today that have escaped the notice of the American press and that permit us
&till to hope. ..."
IGNAZIO SILONE
July
14.
