Apsken Ken

["Sol Dollinger" <soldoll@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

 There is no satisfaction to be gained from an account of events in Chicago
that neither you nor I participated. I have the advantage of consulting with
Frank Fried a steel worker and the main sparkplug in left wing Chicago
politics from 1954 until the American Socialist came to an end. Our group
held Debs Forums that were the spark that made it possible for people like
Muste and Lens to have a platform.

 Frank Fried was the prime mover in the organization of the Debs Forums.
They attracted many prominent speakers years before the AFSE. Your
disparaging remarks about the people who rent the hall, put out leaflets to
colleges, write the press releases and have them delivered and all of the
other sundry activity that makes a movement live is not only condescending
but speaks ill of all the Jimmy Higgins who make a movement live and grow.

 The Debs Forum held a debate between Harry Braverman and Utah Governor, J.
Bracken Lee.  That meeting attracted 800 persons.  There was a debate over
China by Bert Cochran and Sidney Lens.  Other speakers at Debs Forums
included E.D. Nixon of the Railroad Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters
union who had an enormous role in the developing Civil Right struggle,
William Appelman Williams, and Kermit Eby.

 Some of your facts are in error and my correction of them is not to
diminish in any way Sid Len?s contribution to the Chicago left.  His role in
the antiwar movement, the writing of many labor books and his identification
with the left needs no further praise from me.

 Sid Lens was an elected business agent for a small BSEIU union.  He left
the Oehler group soon after their break from the Trotskyists.  He had very
little to do with them since they considered him a traitor to their
movement. Lens was for all the years active in Chicago a left intellectual
but he was never a party or group builder.

 Our Chicago group was the central force in maintaining a left presence in
Chicago.  If this impinges on your nostalgic reflections, it is time for you
to stop resisting the worthwhile contributions of Communists, Trotskyists
and Cochranites.

 Incidentally, one of the leaders who appeared on the AFSE program in
Chicago was Claude Lightfoot speaking for the Communist party. The CP was a
spent force and lacked the prestige to organize the meeting. The American
Socialist was the bridge that brought this disparate group together.