REFLECTIONS ON THE MOSCOW CONFERENCE

Morley, Felix

Reflections On The Moscow Conference By FELIX MORLEY PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT'S optimism in regard to the Moscow conference has been justified by publication of its declarations and covering statement....

...And if some portion of that force is to be provided by American soldiers, the fact under our system of government must be understood by the Senate, in addition to the Administration, in advance...
...At the Verona Congress the French government announced its intention to intervene in Spain in order to restore absolute monarchy in that country...
...In the future, as then, an independent Austria under continuous international surveillance could be made an impediment to German penetration in southeastern Europe...
...The achievement is certainly as much as could be expected from a political conference held while the outcome of the war still hangs in the balance...
...5. He was 73 years old...
...Born in Laubheim, Germany, the son of a cabinet-maker, Oscar came to the United States when he was 14...
...To analyze its implications is to help in resolving difficulties ahead...
...As a former member of the Senate, which body must advise and consent, by a two-thirds majority, in the ratification of any treaty, Secretary of State Cordell Hull might well have avoided this slip...
...It would be the negation of statesmanship to ignore the moral implicit in that chapter of relatively recent history...
...But so far as the United States is concerned these declarations are more accurately statements of executive intent, subject to the closest Senate examination before any international obligation is established in permanent form...
...He selected The Progressive to take over the Guardian's circulation and he contributed regularly to the columns of this magazine until his health became impaired early this year...
...A popular union of the German and Austrian republics, if it had not been expressly prohibited by the Treaty of Versailles, might well have strengthened the forces of democracy in both those countries and thereby averted the rise of Hitler...
...A year or so after this rupture, when Canning decided to support our own Monroe Doctrine against the wishes of the European Concert, the collapse of the Quadruple Alliance became complete...
...He educated himself and became a crusading editor and public speaker who played a leading role in the politics of pre-World War I Wisconsin and pre-World War II Oklahoma...
...These exorcize the spectre of a separate Russo-German peace...
...He fought injustice with that boundless courage of his—fought it wherever he found it—in the coal mines, along the docks of New Orleans, in the Oklahoma dust bowl, on the cotton plantations of the old South, and in the factories of the North...
...Death sought him out last week in his home in Oklahoma City where he had been critically ill for some time...
...When the Moscow declarations are thus examined, it is not improbable that there will be some reservations on the one pertaining to Austria...
...He braved the wrath and vituperation of two generations of war hawks to oppose American entry in both World Wars...
...Every nation for itself and God for us all...
...To exaggerate the significance of this opening move would be to invite later disillusionment...
...The Moscow conference was the opening gambit of the epic chess game in which the major Allies seek attainment of a world securely organized for peace...
...The result was that England eventually dealt the death blow to the Quadruple Alliance, at its fourth formal congress, held at Verona seven years after the battle of Waterloo...
...By a curious inaccuracy the Declaration on Austria was proclaimed in the name of "the government of the United States...
...In 1822 an earlier Quadruple Alliance failed because the English people refused to support continuous military intervention in order to maintain a dictatorial status quo in Europe...
...Any parts of the Moscow declarations which might have to be maintained indefinitely by force will, in consequence, be subjected to particular scrutiny in this country...
...Things are getting back to a wholesome state again," wrote Canning, then Foreign Secretary...
...Goebbels has already worked that propaganda overtime...
...It is far more of an accomplishment than was generally anticipated...
...The reason is not because it permits the Nazis to argue that German surrender will mean dissolution of the Third Reich...
...He was thought to have been on the road to recovery and he had announced his determination to resume writing regularly for The Progressive soon, but he suffered a stroke last week and died Friday, Nov...
...Today it is the United States which is doubtful, as was England a century and a quarter ago, as to the desirability of providing men and women for any permanent policing of Europe...
...Collapse Of An Alliance For those with a sense of history the Four-Power Declaration at Moscow evokes memories of the promising start made by the Quadruple Alliance of Great Britain, Austria, Prussia, and Russia which eventually overcame Napoleon...
...Death Claims Oscar Ameringer OSCAR AMERINGER, one of the great progressives of America, is dead...
...Englishmen were then as dubious of the desirability of international policing as are many Americans today...
...For both Russia and Great Britain, where the power of the executive in the conduct of foreign affairs is practically unlimited, the Moscow declarations are to be regarded as announcements of governmental policy...
...As a step towards the overthrow of Hitler, and the complete elimination of the Nazi organization, the separation of Germany and Austria can of course be wholly justified...
...Against this, purpose, as it clarified, the public opinion of Great Britain rose in protest...
...England," said the Foreign Secretary, "is under no obligation to interfere, or to assist in interfering, in the internal concerns of independent nations...
...Although gifted as a painter and musician, Oscar Ameringer devoted most of his mature life to battling for the rights of the common man—the worker, the small farmer, the sharecropper...
...But to decree this as a permanency would be like saying that the Baltic states must never be reunited with Russia, which the Moscow conference definitely did not proclaim...
...Late in 1941, Oscar regretfully suspended publication of his widely renowned American Guardian because of poor health and financial difficulties...
...It was only a few weeks ago that Freda, his wife, wrote the Editors of The Progressive saying that Oscar was impatient to resume writing and would soon be doing his regular stint...
...The political and economic reasons for a permanent separation of Austria and Germany are perhaps more clear today than was the case in 1919...
...Milton Mayer, who recently spent a day with Oscar, contributes an appraisal of the man in his article on Page 4 of this issue...
...Beyond this they lay foundations for a functioning international organization in the shape of the permanent European advisory commission to be established in London...
...The British government, however, instructed its delegate, the Duke of Wellington, to insist upon "a rigid abstinence from any interference in the internal affairs" of Spain...
...Only the threat of military force was able to prevent that natural union after the last war and it is quite possible that only military force, British, Russian, or American, would be able to prevent it again at some future date...
...Abundant evidence of success, however, must not blind American eyes to the magnitude of the issues still unsolved, wholly aside from the fact that German resistance is by no means shattered and that Japan, 23 months after Pearl Harbor, has yielded only the more easily detachable fragments of her enormous conquests...
...This "Concert of Europe," designed "to guarantee Europe from dangers by which she may still be menaced," was cemented by formal treaty after the Congress of Vienna...
...The Declaration On Austria Close attention, in this connection, should focus upon the "Declaration on Austria...
...The clear intimation is that any future Austro-German union, regardless of the character of the governments in both countries, will be expressly prohibited by the future peace treaty, as it was by the Treaty of Versailles...
...Because of earlier scepticism the greater popular tribute is now owing for the cooperative efforts without which there could have been no reconciliation of divergent national ambitions...
...Only gradually did it become clear that the primary purpose of some of its participants was to repress the rising forces of democracy and nationalism, so greatly stimulated by the French Revolution and Napoleon's consolidation of German and Italian principalities...
...Three members of the Quadruple Alliance approved the French request for moral support in this dubious venture...
...A Dictatorial Status Quo Certainly all who know anything of the dreadful difficulties which confronted the topheavy Viennese republic after the last war will be baffled by the assertion of the Moscow declaration that through independence pauperized Austria will be able "to find that political and economic security which is the only basis for lasting peace...
...The Declaration on Austria needs Senate clarification because of its intimation that the German-speaking peoples are permanently to be kept apart by force, regardless of the form of government which may succeed the Nazis...
...But whereas France and Italy stood to gain most from the previous prohibition of Anschluss, that policy would now give Russia opportunity to become dominant throughout the Balkan peninsula, where Pan-Slavism is already strong...
...This announces, in names of "the governments of the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and the United States of America," that the German annexation of Austria, originally recognized by both Great Britain and the United States, is now regarded as "null and void...

Vol. 7 • November 1943 • No. 46


 
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