LETTERS
173
Allen White, who recently explained why
his
Emporia Gazette
had dropped the
syndicated "Washington Merry-Go-Round"
column: "We felt the authors, Mr. Pear·
son and Mr. Allen, were too anxious to
print ... matters which would offend the
censor and possibly give aid and comfort
to our enemies. . . . These you11g men are
good reporters. They are honest and con·
scientious but just a shade too enterpris·
ing for these troublous times."
•
"Miss Rothe's discussion of Russian
music under the Revolution was written,
and accepted for publication in these
pages, before Russia entered the present
war."-Editors' Note at the end of an
article on Russian music in the Winter,
1942, issue of
Kenyon Review.
•
Freedom only for the supporters of the
government, only for t_he members of one
party-however numerous they be-is no
freedom at all. Freedom is always and ex–
clusively freedom for the one who thinks
differently. ••• Only unobstructed, effer–
vescing life falls into a thousand new
forms and improvisations, brings to light
creative force, itself corrects all mistaken
attempts.••• Without general elections,
without unrestricted freedom of the press
and assembly, without a free struggle of
opinion, life dies out in every public insti–
tution, becomes a mere semblance of life,
in which only the bureaucracy remains as
the active element.- Rosa Luxemburg:
The Russia n Revolution.
•
Editors,
The Nation
Sirs:
We think your readers will be inter·
ested in our recent experience with the
Post Office News Co., a large book and
magazine store at 37 West Monroe St.,
Chicago.
From the time PARTISAN REVIEW first
appeared under its present editorship
four years ago, P. 0. News has been our
biggest Chicago outlet. Last summer they
increased their order by one-third. On
December 15 last, they wrote us as fol–
lows (complete text) :
"This letter will serve to cancel our
~tanding
order for PARTISAN REVIEW. Re–
turns
will
follow."
We replied, asking why this sudden
cancellation. Receiving no answer, we
wrote to the Union News Co., of New
York City, which is P. 0. News's parent
corporation. Union News, has to date,
been equally uncommunicative.
A friend
in
Chicago advises us that
after Pearl Harbor, P.
0 .
News purged
its shelves of all left-wing publications.
He adds, incidentally, that even
The Na–
tion
and
The New Republic
were at first
banned.
Government censorship can be had
enough, but unofficial censorship is to
the official variety as lynching is to legal
execution. We see no good reason for
P.
0.
News Co. to assume the functions
of the Department of Justice.
Thank you for giving this affair a little
healthy publicity.
Sincerely,
THE EDITORS OF pARTISAN REVIEW
Feb. 17, 1942.
•
Three books, either critical or definite·
ly hostile to the present regime in Russia,
have been withdrawn from publication
after having been publicly announced.
Doubleday, Doran has cancelled the pub–
lication this spring of
One Who Survived,
the reminiscences of a former Soviet
diplomat, Alexander Barmine. Harper has
withdrawn
My Year in the U.S.S.R.,
by
the former
N. Y. Times
Moscow corre–
spondent, G.
E.
R. Gedye, and also Trot·
sky's
Life of Stalin.
The latter book was
actually sent out for review, only to be
recalled a few days later (on December
12) by a note signed by President Cass
Canfield which concludes, "We hope you
will cooperate with us in the matter of
avoiding any comment whatever regarding
the biography and its postponement."
.
'
There be who perpetually complain of
schisms and sects, and make it such a
calamity that any man dissents from their
maxims••• . They are the troublers, they
are the dividers of unity, who neglect and
permit not others to unite those dissevered
pieces, which are yet wanting to the body
of truth. To be still- searching what we
know not by what we know, still closing up
truth to truth as we find it {for all her
body is homogeneal and proportional),
this is the golden rule in theology as well
as in arithmetic, and makes up the best
harmony in a church; not the forced and
outward union of cold and neutral and in–
wardly divided minds.-John Milton: Areo·
pagitico.
