WHERE THE NEWS ENDS
CHAMBERLIN, WILLIAM HENRY
Where the New Ends By William Henry Chamberlin Which Way Anglo-American Co-operation Thkkk is no reason to suppose that the replacement of Byrnes by Marshall as Secretary of State marks a...
...On the day following (be election tlfere were heard voice* loud in exultation...
...After he was gone, it became the fashion to pile tliern up at labor's door...
...We have enough of such bad counsellors in America...
...An over-simplified diagnosis naturally leads lo biased and inadequate prescription...
...Innately, the moves in the direction of- cooperalioB or unity bear the marks of political strategy rather than |hose of a genuine will to get together...
...In the interest of their most elementary security, America and Great Britain cannot acquiesce in any European settlement under which anti-Communists in Poland, Rumania, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria are not just .as free Jo express themselves is are Communists in-France, Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands...
...Neither was there any unified organization to determine strategy or to hold the line during times of enemy attack...
...Il •* time for the top leaders to cease being either overcoy or over-smart...
...It was on this basis that the Republican anti-labor campaign was waged and won...
...Russia needs peace and Russia lacks the economic motives for aggression which inspired Nazi Germany...
...The shrewd observation of the famous British Foreign Sec relary, Lord Palmerston, about Russia under the dictatorship of Nicholas I has held true for Russia under the dictatorship of Josef Stalin: "7/ie policy and practice of the Russian Government have always been to push forward its encroachments as fast and a^ far as the apathy or want of .firmness of other governments would allow it to go...
...The most heartening and important diplomatic event of 1916 was the simultaneous and carefully coordinated firming up of the American and British altitudes toward Soviet expansion which began about the end of February...
...There are several fallacies in this line of reasoning...
...The right sort of action may le*** to heller results in 1948 than anyone dared suggest three months ago...
...Many an editor or legislator fairly drooled as he contemplated what the...
...in Mteph wjjggjvt f^mo«|r^ * of *aArWiftg:^ wo^h^ta^rtio&Sof* th> ˆp8| problem, which ii^lM')uyf&^^]l6Jpcm itmua -tion,^ than demon«tr^ivB-^Angh>Aineticaii coolness, And there, ia^cer^nj^ Soviet p/eparations^for-jwar^yhether-iri the f«jm$j ! joie^naria^anic...
...This unofficial Anglo-American coalition yielded solid defensive results...
...There was no general agreement among labor leaders as lo goals or methods...
...If the demands of labor unions were upsetting our economy, it was but a simple step to the notion, that any measures which would restrict and discourage these' organizations-and their obstreplerous leaders would quickly set things right...
...Now American and Brit-' ish statesmen face I he •Important and insistent question: Where do we go from j here...
...Il overlooks the immediacy and urgency of the unfinished business of the postwar world., It is cer* font WMtakov...
...I'nder these conditions there was a progressive accumulation of anti-labor sentiment...
...And he admit* thai the Soviet Union is a totalitarian state, where the government might start a war regardless of the desire of the people: But he suggests that' we are not faced with a "Munich** situation, that there is no urgency for 'swift conquest driving Stalin, as it was driving Hitler in I9.'W...
...The wiser among them, led by Senator Wayne Morse, issue solemn warnings in favor of caution...
...Shall the coalition I be preserved and strength' ened, so that it may sen« ; as an instrument not of isolated, piecemeal defensive moves, but of broaJ conslrtullve* solutions of the problems of Europe and Asia...
...The long political frontier, separating lauds of at least relative freedom from lands of all-out totalitarianism has ben held...
...During the Roosevelt regime, organized labor made its gains in a rather unorganized and irregular fashion...
...The Anglo-American coalition may bring temporary successes, but it will divide the world into two blocs and will cause the Soviet leaders to prepare pertinaciously for war...
...Il has not been rolled back...
...It has, {or the time being, prevented new land grabs, new extensions of Soviet domination over foreign peoples It lias not undone old grabs, old experiments in domination, as the sorry lesson of the recent Polish "Neleo lion" clearly indicates...
...An onlooker would say that this is just what the doctor ordered...
...He is a bad adviser—-to his.own country and to ours...
...The Ball-ftftSmith bill combines and systematizes practically all of the suggested changes which have been widely discussed...
...The newly announced truce in the construction field and the diplomatic action of the Steel Workers Union have started a reversal of public opinion...
...Crossman I* much abler, more intelligent and more conversant with (he realities1 of international politic* than the Henry Wallaces, the Elliott Roosevelt*, tho Corliss l.ainonts ol* this country...
...politicians over-simplify their reasoning and their hates...
...losophv which, by the most ^obvious logic,' leads t3 the aspiration for world conquest, disguised, perhaps to the Soviet...
...People and...
...This last statement, as I write It, looks comically cockeyed...
...In view of this situation, the labor forces find ' themselves in a more favorable situation than they could have foreseen three months ago...
...Once the war was ended there was, in fact, so little agreement that numerous leaders and unions spent a good deal of their time jockeying for position rather than pulling for the common good of the workers...
...It provides for a new Federal Mediation Board, a sixty-day waiting period, abolition of the check-off, limitations oh the organization of foremen, more definite legal responsibility of unions, prohibition of secondary boycotts, obligatory registration, of unions and publication of their financial statement...
...Visions of 1948 have led lo a toning down of Republican militancy.^ The lime is ripe for'labor lo move forward...
...Recently one of the leaders of the anti-Bevin group of Labor members of Parliament, R. II...
...non-Communist worlds, a phi...
...But it is precisely the shadow of this coining battle which gives the Republicans pause...
...Where the New Ends By William Henry Chamberlin Which Way Anglo-American Co-operation Thkkk is no reason to suppose that the replacement of Byrnes by Marshall as Secretary of State marks a deliberate shift in the main lino of American foreign policy...
...Ho would expect the triumphant majority party.to pass il with whoops of joy and thus give President Truman the opportunity to veto the program as a whole and so establish the lines for the battle of 19111...
...leader* theroaelves, as a quest for "security...
...The decks have been cleared for action, but the triumphant Republicans are in a deep dither making, tip their minds what action to take...
...So long as President Roosevelt was alive, the conservatives could attribute all our jolts and jars to him...
...And so, Crossman concludes, *'the healthiest development which 1947 could bring would be a loosening of tho close Anglo-American partnership of 1946...
...Stalin's only "secret weapon" is "the Communist philosophy and the Communist parties outside Russia which propagate it...
...S. Crossman, recommended dissolution of iiil'iiualc co-operation between the United Stales and Great Britain in an article published in the IS no - York Times Sunday magazine...
...Or shall it be allowed to dissolve, on the assumption that a demonstrative division between the two strongest western powers will abate Soviet will ,Io aggression...
...o$ of ^ropngoflii,':.inirigu<j anj| fifth column ^activity, abroad,-.would be slowed dowji " by 'indications Jbat opposition lo: ste^ was slackening in America and Great Britain...
...Just for this reusoii hi* argument, deserves careful study and analysis...
...To accept Crossraan's advice would be equivalent to dissolving an alliance which had just won a defensive victory, at the cost of great struggle and sacrifices,'- while the enemy's main forces were still unbroken: This' would be bad military strategy\ and Grossman's ideas would be distinctly bad diplomatio strategy...
...Everything that went wrong— especially the mounting cost of living—was said by countless politicians and editors to be due to labor's aggressive action...
...An Editorial— Labor Laws and Public Opinion WHAT is now happening in Washington is an instructive lesson in the way democracy works...
...Unfor...
...hut always lo slop and retire ivhcn it met with decided resistance, and then to wait for the next favorable opportunity to make another spring on its intended* victim...
...It was this Anglo-American cooperation, manifested again and again on such issues as the maintenance of the independence of Iran, the safeguarding of the Dardanelles, the protection of Greece, the warding off of complete economic and social collapse in Germany, that preserved some remnants of freedom, order and hope in a postwar world that had seemed to be disintegrating...
...But the success of the Anglo-American coalition thus far has been of a negative and defensive character...
...Republicans would do to labor once they cleared the deck* for Bclion on Capitol Hill...
...The change comes, however, at a moment when a cross-roads of decision has been reached...
...of that now seems long ago and far away...
...Had it not been formed, had the counsel* of Henry Wallace in this country and of Zilliains in Kngland prevailed, it is impossible lo say how many new countries and areas would have been annexed outright like Latvia, Lithuiania, Kstouia ami Kastern Poland or reduced to political vassalage like Poland, Kumani, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria...
...Yet individuals who specialize in foreign all airs on both sides of the Atlantic sometimes put it • forward as a serious-argument...
...sSoch preparationt would rather be speeded op.'- ' * Crossman underrates the significance of the fatalistic Communist philosophy 'of inevitable 'conflict between the- Communist, and...
...i\l,l...
...Ha l>rgiii* disarmingly by admitting that what he call* . lite policy of the big aqueete and what 1- have called tlfet iinoASt'ial Anglo-American Coalition ha* yielded . -jiravlical result...
Vol. 30 • February 1947 • No. 6
