People: Point, Counterpoint

Noteworthy reactions to hulking, humorless Novelist Theodore Dreiser’s damnation of the British war effort, in which he said he preferred Nazi rule in Britain to rule by “aristocratic, horse-riding snobs”: Pearl Buck, Clifton Fadiman, Rex Stout, F.P.A., other members of the Writers’ War Board said the Dreiser remarks were “sabotage,” possibly “treasonable,” observed “our enemies would pay him well for his disservice to our country’s cause.” And from London piped George Bernard Shaw: “To say that Dreiser’s comments regarding the war are furiously inaccurate is only to say that they are like everyone else’s comments regarding the war. . . . There’s nothing to fuss about. … If he is soundly determined to see Adolf Hitler damned first, he can say what he likes regarding wicked old England.” Said Dreiser: he had been partly misquoted.

Meantime the “Lidice Lives” Committee of the Writers’ War Board (executive chairman: Fadiman) got a little tap on the knuckles from Premier Adélard Godbout of Quebec. The town of Frelighsburg, Quebec, announced the committee, would change its name to Lidice. But Frelighsburg had not been informed, and shortly Premier Godbout announced simply: Frelighsburg will be Frelighsburg and Clifton Fadiman will be Clifton Fadiman.

Said Lady Astor, U.S.-born M.P., at Cliveden: “I would not mind sitting on a platform with a Russian Communist, but I would not be seen dead with a British Communist.” Snapped the London Daily Worker: “Lock her up.” Cried U.S. Communist Earl Browder from a platform in Manhattan’s Union Square: Open a second front now, for the United Nations’ sake. Snapped the New York Times: “The silliest spectacle we have seen in a long time is that of American Communists . . . holding a mass meeting in Union Square to demand that the military strategy of the United Nations be changed to suit the party line . . . folly. …”