Americanism

Americanism, in the concrete means this—it means that eight Negroes were murdered at the Anguilla camp in Georgia and the guards who murdered them were given a clean bill of health by a federal jury in Brunswick, Georgia. It means that two-thirds of the draft violators are still in jail due to failure to grant a general Christmas amnesty, it means that one may have religious scruples against service in the army but not intellectual or philosophical ones—so that it becomes the business of the State to decide what religion is. It means that a mink coat was given on the Walter Winchell programme to whoever sent in the most superficial definition of a Communist. Mink coats! And millions in Europe and Asia starving. Mink coats! And an unemployable man in New York City forced to struggle along on 12 dollars a weke. Mink coats! And a poor couple in Pennsylvania, the husband bed-ridden and the wife constantly in attendance, forced to make ends met on 63 dollars and 80 cents a month. What a marvellous service this disgusting display of conspicuous consumption renders to Marxism!