OUR LUNATIC POLICY IN GERMANY'

...Bevin proved himself an exception—at least he has not yet been in his present office long enough to lose his compassion, his humanity, his sensitiveness to suffering, his understanding that no matter what the sins of the Nazis have been, no decent Christian man sits by and sees people dying and condemned to die without trying to do something about it, unless he determines to egg it on in the manner of a Henry Morgenthau...

...Our Government, like that of the other Allies, has seized all the public moneys upon which it can lay its hands and in addition it compels the Germans to contribute to the support of our troops, though fortunately, unlike the Russian Army, ours is not living off the land...

...It is enlightened self-interest for which I am appealing, as well as right doing, and if the readers of these lines feel as I do I trust they will write immediately to their Congressmen and Senators for action now...

...Lloyd George told the Welsh Church some years before this war began that if the churches of England and the United States permitted another World War to come they might just as well lock their doors in advance because there would be no use for them afterwards...

...Bevin referred to the howors of the trains with the dead and dying arriving at the Stettin-er station seven days enroute from Poland without food or water—in one cattle car "four or five were dead already, another five or six were lying alongside of them given up as hopeless by the doctor, and just being allowed to die...

...Bevin saw in Berlin in those desperate throngs coming in from Poland, as did Charles Bray, a London reporter, a despairing woman "trying desperately to force milk from her milkless breast—-a pitiful effort that only left her crying at her failure...

...But it was Churchill who told the House of Commons that it would be all right to uproot these 5,060,000 in East Prussia and stuff them into what was left of Germany, fpr the Allies had certainly killed .that many Germans and these expatriates could take the places of the dead—let us thank heaven that we have Attlee and Bevin in charge of England and not Churchill...

...Together we can make it impossible for Englishmen to rise in the House of Commons and speak of the "lunatic policy" of the United States...

...Bevin began his speech by wishing that there were more parliaments like the Commons in other countries to debate this terrible subject in the freest terms and, referring to his visit to Berlin, said: "As I watched, I felt, my God, that is the price of man's stupidity and war...

...I refuse to share his guilt, just as I denounced Potsdam as a terrible crime which is already beginning to revenge itself much sooner than the most optimistic among us had dared to hope...

...It was a memorable debatr- for many reasons and it would stend out if only because it showed the British at their best —that the bulk of them are of such spirit that they refuse to gloat over or to lumiliate a conquered opponent, whether in athletic contests or in dreadful war...

...to feed "her two whimpering babies...

...But no American today who has an anti-Nazi friend or relative in Germany can send one dollar or a parcel through the mails to help them to live...

...1, the Allies have given no help to the Social Welfare Organization which, with a staff of 33 and 220 helpers, has been trying to offer relief to the best of its ability, or in any other way sought to deal with these dying victims of organized Allied cruelty...

...Mr...

...Other speakers not only denounced Russia and the United States, but declared that the "greatest catastrophe the human race ever experienced is at hand unless aid is promptly furnished...

...The world is too small for such a disaster to come to one part of it without the other being affected, and, as the Conservative Member of Parliament said, diseases spread like wildfire...

...They "are being," to use Mr...

...How often does so high an official in any land admit that his government has erred, and erred crassly and horribly...

...Yet up to Sept...

...We throw private individuals out of their homes to make way for our officers and men—our and the French and the British commanders have just made a present of the great Krupp factory to the Russians, thereby cutting out the heart of the Ruhr and condemning many thousands of Germans to unemployment and starvation...

...Only the rarest person in the world can be trusted with such power...

...We shall pay a terrible price for it—if we do not—an economic price, but also a human price...

...Sir Arthur Salter, an independent member of Parliament, who also testified as to the conditions in Berlin from personal observation, told the horrible truth when he asserted that "if, as is now thought, millions during this Winter freeze and starve, this will not have been the inevitable consequence of material destruction and world shortage of material...

...I wonder if we in America have in office a single man who might be as big and magnanimous as Ernest Bevin, who even added to his passionate plea his admission that the whole dividing up of Germany into zones had now proved to be another mistake...

...It had not counted on the underlying fineness and generosity of so many of the plain people of England...

...I want to see us help the Germans because if we do not, we must renounce every claim to being a Christian nation...

...But Mr...

...But we do everything in such an unctuous, self-righteous, holier-than-thou way, that it is nauseating...

...That was in full accord with the "laws" of war as they existed at that time...

...Eisenhower and the three associated heads of the other occupying forces must know exactly what is happening if% Ernest Bevin saw it, but their hearts are unwrung...

...I want this because it profoundly affects not only the good name and reputation of the United States, but because it will render a service to our country if we can ward off the catastrophe in Europe...

...Hard hit as England is financially, Mr...

...Nor, so far as I am aware, has any American correspondent in Berlin cabled the horrifying stories of what is going on that have been appearing in the London News Chronicle and the Laborite Daily Herald...

...Even this inhuman Conservative, however, urged relief for Germany and warned that "disease can spread like wildfire...

...Bevin announced that it was ready to do its share—pay one per cent of its national income to UNRR A and to go it alone if no one else is humanitarian enough to contribute...

...Of course not...

...Michael Foot, a leading Laborite, declared that "it is still our duty to show that this country is the foremost champion of tolerance and decency...

...It was the most awful sight yon could potsibly see," (my italics)—this in reference to the throngs that were pouring into Berlin from Poland and Russia...

...MY plea is, of course, not merely for the Germans— heaven forbid...

...In the Thirty Years War you knew what would take place...

...WELL, I for one don't want to be held responsible because of Roosevelt's misdeeds at Cairo, Yalta, and Teheran...

...America sits back and does nothing...

...PERHAPS Mr...

...No less than 25,000 of these utterly pitiful people had reached Berlin in a single day...

...In the name of democracy and peace on earth, numbers of our soldiers have helped themselves to whatever they could ship or carry home...

...Eisenhower has said that I have seen is that it will be a bad Winter and that he looks for "some trouble" for his troops—American bullets, perhaps, as an antidote for starvation and the insanity of the starving...

...when the invading army captured a city it frankly and openly looted the town, stole everything it could get its hands on, raped all the women and usually set fire to a large part of the city...

...Never was it made clearer that the fate of nations cannot be arbitrarily placed in the uncontrolled hands of three, or 10, or 20 individuals—especially when their spy-its are tainted by war hates and the surpassing bitterness of needless war losses of precious lives...

...26, to describe what we and Runsia are doing in Germany...

...BUT America...

...Putting aside the terrible punishment which England received at the hands of the Germans, the Commons, under the leadership of the new Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin, made it plain that the English are horrified by the misery and starvation in Germany today and the worse conditions which are sure to come unless immediate drastic measures are taken by the Allies...

...Undoubtedly Mr...

...There will be waning use for them in this country if they do not take the Christian attitude toward all Europe—Belgians, Dutch, Greeks, Danes, French, Italians, Germans, and the miserable people everywhere...

...It is the inevitable consequence of merciless Allied leaders condemning millions to death by arrogating to themselves the right to order the lot of these people without the slightest regard for any decent economic, humanitarian, or ethical considerations...

...What Americans refuse to realize is what I have so often written before, that whether you detest Germany or like her, that country is the industrial heart of Europe and you cannot destroy it and have millions of her people die of hunger and cold without injuring all the adjoining nations directly, and ourselves indirectly...

...Just as if the thousands of workers in Krupps, who voted the Socialist or Communist ticket against Hitler as long as they could, or the peasants from German Poland, are responsible for Hitler's misdeeds...

...Because of our "insane policy," the mails are still closed from the United States to Germany—it was only last week that the Germans were permitted to send letters from one zone to another if they wished to inquire, for example, whether their relatives in other cities were alive or dead...

...Yet Gen...

...And the average American says: "Good, serves them right...

...No less than 14,000,000 homeless, starving wanderers are now stranded in Germany, utterly destitute and without shelter...

...Mr...

...I want it to utilize every possible ship, every carrier and every battleship that has any carrying space on or under its decks to send food and supplies to Europe...

...Congress delays in voting anything to the UNRRA, and the Republican minority thinks that only $550,-000,000 should be voted instead of the $1,800,000,000...

...I want Congress to vote that $1,800,000,000 to the UNRRA, with all its faults, right straight off...

...No American newspaper that I have seen has brought out the fact that most of these victims are not Nazis from the cities, but harmless peasants torn from their land on which they and their forebears have lived industriously and peacefully until their government forced them into war...

...We help ourselves to private property, just as did the conquering troops of Tilly...

...Indeed, one of our illustrated weeklies in giving the pictures of one of these terrible trains has commented cold-bloodedly that bad as the situation is, it is not likely to arouse sympathy among the Allies...

...they asked for it and now they are getting it...

...Well, frankly, I prefer the methods and morals of the Middle Ages...

...WHEN one Conservative member said that he "did not care two pins what happens to the German women and children," the Commons, described by Herbert Matthews of the New York Times as "emotional, highly strung," cried out "shame...

...It is the inevitable consequence of cruel hard-heartedness, of the "insane policy" of vengeance and revenge of the French, Americans and the Russians, and of the British until now...

...Bevin himself warned the world that if the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration does not at once receive the $1,800,000,000 it is asking of Congress, it will face disaster in its undertaking...

...Bevin's words, "driven, some one way, some another," while about 10,000,000 displaced persons are waiting to be moved from Germany back to Italy, France, and elsewhere...

...All that Gen...