176
PARTISAN REVIEW
Hans Kohn
A.
Philip Randolph (president, Brotherhood
Layle Lane (columnist, Harlem Age; vice-
of Sleeping Car Porters)
president, American
Federation of Edward G. Robinson
Teoc.hers)
James Rorty
Algernon Lee (N. Y. City Chairman, Social
Alex Rose ( N. Y. St• te
t
A
·
M~er:rC::rtic
Federation)
Gac:t:n~~~~~;v:.:~)
u
secre ary,
men-
James Loeb, Jr. (executive secretary,
Union for Democratic Action)
Meyer Schapiro
Ludwig Lore (foreign news commentator,
Harry Scherman (director, Book of the
New York Post)
Month Club)
Ferdinand Lundberg
Joseph Schlossberg (member, Board of
Eugene Lyons
Higher Education of N. Y. City; secy.-
Thomas Mann
treas. emeritus, Amalgamated Clothing
Margaret Marshall
Workers)
R. M. Mciver (professor of sociology,
Rose Schneiderman (secretary, N. Y. State
Columbia University)
Department of Labor)
Morris Milgram
(executive secretory,
Vincent Sheean
Workers Defense League)
W. Warren Smith (president, Tobacco
Rev.
A.
J . Muste
Workers Union)
Louis Nelson (manager-secretary, Local
Norman Thomas
155, Internationol Ladies Garment Work- Dorothy Thompson
ers Union)
Reinhold Niebuhr
Carlo Tresca
Culbert
L.
Olson (Governor of California)
Robert Watt (international representative,
Walter Pach
American Fede ration of Labor)
David Pinski (president, Jewish National
James Wechsler (labor editor, PM)
Workers Alliance)
Edmund Wilson
Katherine Anne Porter
Bertram D. Wolfe
Rev. A. Clayton Powell, Jr. (Negro leader;
Matthew Woll (vice-president, American
member, New York City Council)
Federation of Labor)
Note: The affiliation of the signers are given for purposes of identification only.
Letters
WANTED: MORE ARMY LETTERS
Sirs:
Your letters from soldiers are so inter–
esting and so important I think I will
have to tell you my obsession hoping you
may be enough in agreement to give it
some sort of a boost. It is that there
should immediately be an organization for
a Soldiers and Workers Peace. I have
been met with the objection anything to
do with soldiers can be construed as
treason, but my idea is
not
to propagan–
dize the soldiers, but to hear
from
them,
to let them tell us what they want, and
to listen mighty careful.
If
you can re–
ceive letters from soldiers,
if
they can
know there is someone to listen to them,
there might be some hope for a decent
peace after the war. They have been told
to die without being asked. Must they
also be told how to live after the war in–
stead of being asked, those that survive?
The workers are more articulate, but they
should also be assured of continued at–
tention. Do you agree?
Sincerely,
MARGARET DE SiLVER
BROOKLYN,
N. Y.
We do agree and hereby invite our
readers in the armed forces to write us
their reactions and impressions, for pub–
lication here.- Eo.
POET EXPLAINS
Sirs:
May I make a point of structural an–
alysis about my poem
Winter 1939
that
appeared in your last issue. The poem
was written on and as of that date and
the meaning of the last line, "now at last
they have their war" was therefore the
following: that certain Americans, pre–
viously described, now have the satisfac–
tion of the war in Europe.
Obviously . if this poem were written
now, the last line would have to read:
"now at last
they
have
our
war," or more
sardonically, "now at last
we
have
their
war." But in such a case-and here
is
the point of structural analysis- the whole
rest of the poem would likewise have to
be altered, for the unresolved note of
"their" and "our" cannot be the conclu–
sion of the preceding description of tor–
por and dead-end. Given the line "now at
last
they
have
our
war," the poetic at·
mosphere may well be wintry, but it can–
not be an atmosphere of
ending.
It is the
