A ROOM OF OUR OWN

...Experience has toned down the effrontery of one of our "experts" who stated months ago to an associate that France was "taken care of except for the transportation problem...

...What Col...

...Even such a sophisticated realist as Col...

...The vital question before us, it seems to me, is our approach to the problem of Germany...

...Tipping back in his chair, a mischievous twinkle in his eye, Bob announced, "I think I shall make you a present of some chocolate creams...

...Those who see an opportunity to pursue a specific interest like airplanes or ships feel differently, of course, but the great number of those eager to go are the ones who seek escape from the "burdens" (or just dullness) of their daily lives...

...Rather than dragging the general level downward with our ragged nerves and tempers, can't we work out a common-sense program with our heads and hearts...

...A Vital Question It has been my observation, for example, that as the war has dragged on its "glamour" has been pretty thoroughly dispelled for the younger boys...

...We could not now speak the language of those people," he somberly told me...

...How can the horrible experience of the peoples of Europe help but affect their outlook...

...E. M. House's papers, Bonsai's Unfinished Business, etc., knows that we cannot escape our share of the blame for what happened after the last war...

...and history, I believe, will bring an awful in* dictment against those who were short-sighted and selfish enough to let such a tragedy happen...

...But I may tell you that my observation is that incompetent statesmanship and selfishness is at the bottom of it all...

...The "hell-raiser," individually or as a nation, is he who has no feeling of responsible kinship with the world around him...

...It is not so much a breaking down of civilization as a lack of wisdom in those that govern...

...Anyone reading, as I have been doing' of an evening, the records during and after World War I, such as Col...

...This may or may not be true, but it is water over the dam at this time...

...No matter how simply we have lived or what trials and hardships we have had in making our way here, in their eyes we have had comfort and security for which we deserted them...

...The Germans have a special genius for organization, and I have no doubt in my own mind that the well-informed and experienced members of the foreign services of Britain and America and other Allied governments who know Germany intimately, not to mention outstanding Germans in exile, could still find and back men and women in Germany who can lead her into the paths of peace...

...Is it to be the ancient eye-for-an-eye, tooth-for-a-tooth, the medieval punishment for a crime with no thought as to its cause, or are we going to make use of what we think we have learned about human psychology...

...Groans of delight greeted the box as they dug into it, and I remarked to Bob, "It wouldn't hurt you to give us a little treat like that once in a while—you can afford it...

...House Said The "Vansittart school" of vengeance on Germany keeps talking about the "mistakes we made after World War I." We certainly did make one tragic mistake but not in the direction intimated by the'vengeance-lovers...

...That is why with the best intentions in the world, I fear the governments in exile will find themselves out in the cold with their own people...

...He was sick of school so he joined the Navy...

...A Room Of Our Own By Isabel B. La Follette **A7"OU don't really deserve it," I facetiously told my JL offspring, "but I am being kind enough to share •with you the present of candy which Judy gave me...

...He kept insisting, "If he is marching for food, do not blame him...

...The family went into gales, and as we got up from the table I called their attention to the fact that when we had sat down they were "in each other's hair," and that it is wonderful to perceive what a little good food will do for the inner man and his outlook on life...

...Yet these were the people who made the peace and with whom vanquished Germany had to deal...

...House, like other commentators of that time, speaks in high terms of individual leaders in Europe and Germany, men of generosity and ideals...

...I remember a highly sensible and intelligent German friend who was with us in London when the news came of Hitler's march into Czechoslovakia...

...House who was dealing on intimate terms with the governing groups of Europe, wrote to President Wilson in February, 1916, "In each government I have visited I have found stubbornness, determination, selfishness, and cant...

...A German exile, now American, told me some time ago that he had at one time considered returning to Europe when he retired to spend his declining years, but that now it would be out of the question...

...To me the outstanding tragedy of the postwar period was the fact that such men were unable to make themselves felt in the policies of their own countries to strengthen the hand of their counterparts in republican Germany...

...What he may lose thereby carries no weight beside what he feels, even to destruction...

...I proceeded to expatiate on the old principle that everyone loves little attentions— that it isn't so much the gift itself as the knowledge that the giver has thought of you...

...I just never think of it...

...You know, like the little boy who gave his grandmother a pair of roller skates...

...I cannot believe that the situation can be improved by strengthening the dose, but that we should apply entirely different treatment...

...Bridging The Gap We have learned a lot in the past year in Italy about what outsiders, even with the best of intentions, can and cannot do to govern another country...

...Yet somehow we have to make that bridge, just as somehow we must bridge the gap between our men who have been through the horrors of war and those of us who have had security at home...

...That is why I just cannot fathom the people who insist that the way to make the Germans and the Japanese "love their neighbors" is to make their conditions of life as intolerable as possible...

...My personal experience with the children and also with adults in this jittery period, emphasizes to me the importance of food, affection, and encouragement in the satisfying expression of one's creative interests...

...One continually hears self-glorification and the highest motives attributed to themselves because of their part in the war...

...Male-like he immediately replied, "Sure, I can afford it...

...Up against the problems of adolescent children myself, I have been on the look-out for helpful suggestions wherever I could observe them, and am thoroughly convinced that the happy, well-adjusted social being is he who has satisfying outlets for his imagination and energies...

...I saw with my own eyes French colonial troops occupying the Rhineland and what that move cost both occupier and the occupied...

...Those of us who in the home, or job, or even extra-curricularly study human nature cannot escape the direct connection between man's inner spirit and the way he behaves toward the outside world...

...The German people were convinced from their experience of inadequate food conditions dating from World War I that the boundaries of Germany were insufficient to furnish enough for their needs...

...While they expect to go and accept it as their lot, the lad with active interests and ambitions quite naturally feels that the war is interfering with his precious future...

...that somehow the world had ganged-up on them to prevent the satisfaction of this primary urge, so there was no alternative but to take it...