The World of nations in a Global War
Citrine, Sir Walter
The World of nations in a Global War By Sir Walter Citrine What Next for Britain? >' -• London, England. IT give* me pleasure to subscribe to the twentieth anniversary •number of The New...
...In fact, in both regions it has had to recede...
...Precisely the same group of Republicans —headed by Senator Lodge—who had urged our intervention in World War I long before April, 1917, and who subsequently voted down the League reverted in 1921 to the main article of faith in their lifelong doctrine of Manifest Destiny...
...The interval is for China one of sacrifice, however, and the long view is doubtless small comfort...
...His criticisms of the I. S. State Department flow from his essential charge that many American diplomats today, so very far from the tradition of Tom Jefferson, are ignorant of "internal polities" . . . blind to the "happiness of the people" . . . dangerously ill-equipped to represent progressive American democracy at a moment of historic crisis...
...If oae routes— without this aid from the old whirling planet—as Nathaniel Peter does here—the decisive blows against the Pacific enemy will be some time in the coming...
...Weddell stepped out, "one of them" (in the words of Mr...
...Even Indian disaffection, which would no doubt hamper us materially, would not be enough to tip the scale in Japan's favor by the end of May...
...Franco believes, whether or not with justification, that he still has a few talking points in dealing with Hitler...
...But he knows at the same time that his soul and Spain's—such as they may be—are in pawn to the Nazis...
...On which side, the advantage of time falls cannot be proved, but on aS the evidence discernible both in the Atlantic and Pacific it ought- to fall on ours...
...But if liberals ignore what is happening in the world around them, it will be just that much easier for reactionaries to take over...
...On the other hand, we shall have developed so many new industries and new processes, we shall have developed hemispheric solidarity and self-sufficiency to such a point that the nineteenth century v:rld of free trade enterprises will be as dead as the mercantile age of the eighteenth century...
...In 'ether, words...
...That, perhaps, was our "secret weapon...
...On July 17, 1941, our - Ambassador to Spain, Mr...
...During the 1920's our foreign investments grew to 15 billion dollars...
...The second is that a return to Isolation will lead to the election of a Bricker, Taft, or a Dewey to the Presidency...
...Japan lacks the shipping to bring them to the homeland for manufacturing and, still more, it lacks the equipment of machine tool* to process them...
...Despite a widely held belief, there is nothing in Japan's present position from which it can derive sufficient additional power to counter-balance our own increase in power...
...To foresee these trends is not to assume that we shall go over to Fascism after the war...
...tary machine...
...One school of thought urged Us not to make the mistake of going into another war...
...THERE remain a generation or two of Amer-4 icans who recall with pride the incident of "Perdicaris alive or Raizul dead...
...It is apparent in the speeches of Clare Luce, Congressman Maas, and others...
...The cause in which we are engaged is one to which "otody who values the principles of humanity or the ideals of Progress can deny his support...
...It can be expected, then, that Japan will have to wait until the end of the year, and by that time we shall have further added to our strength and may have far more of a free -hand in the East...
...Our failure during these years was not a failure of isolationism: it was a failure of the wrong brand of internationalism...
...The debate continues with both sides still clinging to their original assumption that history is repeating itself—in the face of ample evidence that history merely goes cn where it left off...
...and will no doubt be as sorry as I am that a more satisfactory result was not attained- However, we now have in being an Anglo-American Trade Union Committee representing the American Federation of Labor and ourselves...
...By Nathaniel Peffer Can Japan Last...
...It has tost its great gamble...
...We did everything we could to assist trade unionists driven from stricken Poland...
...then surely Japan will make no further progress and may even have to begin to recede...
...The forty-eight states can never again hope to achieve complete self-sufficiency...
...he accorded to the Vatican all the diplomatic respect to which, in the American tradition, it was entitled as s religious organisation, namely, none- He upheld the Republican leader Juarez and sent an army under Grant to the Mexican border to enforce respect for the American view...
...Even if they did, it is doubtful whether Japan could make full use of them...
...For an attempt to achieve this is now too late this year...
...If we use our intelligence and do not lose our heads in victory, it will be one which will give some assurance of peace in that part of the world...
...How long will Franco go on talking big to the democracies and find themselves^—or at least us—officially, pretending to like it...
...played an active part in knitting together, through the Anglo-French Trade Union Committe, the Trade Union movements in.the two principal opponents of Nazism...
...In the early stages of the war the T.U.C...
...Thus we were assured a voice in dealing with such whal problems as production, man power, food, transport, the collection and allocation of war material, and the adjustment, with as little hardship as possible, of industrial organisation to wsr time purposes...
...Back to normalcy, as one wit has expressed it, will simply become "back to sub-normalcy...
...There hare been physical considerations that dictated decision...
...And to retake Burma requires more power than we can threw Into the area until Germany is st least being roiled back...
...Maximilian, on Mexico's throne, the, Monroe Doctrine might have been destroyed...
...Then came the fall of France, the surge of aggression through the Balkans, with the ever-increasing commitments these events entailed...
...On any reasonable calculation, time works against Japan...
...If we are...
...Moreover, those who want us to .pursue a more enlightened and successful brand of internationalism are failing to grasp their own problems as welt as underrating their isolationist opponents if they believ«_ they need only discredit our national policies and our national leaders during the dozen years that followed the last war...
...To eliminate Japan does no good if Germany is victorious in the West, for then We shall merely have to withdraw all our military resources from the Far East to meet further German advance...
...Hamilton tells that a gang of Fascist students at the Madrid university had plotted an attack on our embassy and the perpetration of personal insults against our Ambassador, Mr...
...The ground has certainly been cleared of those obstructions which are a hindrance to the development of our peacetime economy, and fatal to our national interests in time of war...
...It can be broken now only if Japan, chooses to resume the offensive...
...China will he emancipated sad a new equilibrium will be set ap in the Far East...
...Great Britain and America have elected not to try for the present...
...Two obsessions dominate most liberals and many radicals today...
...The British have made advances from tjb* Indian frontier into Burma: the Americans have won back matt-of the Solomons end New Guines and have inflicted serious losses ' on the Japanese navy...
...Examine their influence on the happiness of the people...
...It would be well to remember this friendly service iu this time of war...
...Appeasement's Child, the speech was Franco's answer to Weddell's efforts to obtain satisfactory assurances from Franco toward the United States after the fall of France, "and in the course of it he paused frequently to see whether Mr...
...The opportunity for lightning victory after the manner of Malaya and Burma has passed...
...The immediate, urgent aim of every unit on the side of the A1lied Nations must be to compass the downfall of Nazism and its A*is allies...
...THE essential point is that Japan must go forward or suffer * defeat, and if it has not been able to go forward while we were occupied elsewhere, there is little chance of its being able to do so after we are not so occupied...
...Let us look again at this question of realistic tradition in American diplomacy...
...I have mentioned international trade union relations...
...Moreover, this war will certainly lead to some form of disillusionment, to some degree of reaction...
...True, Hitler has not yet pulled the right string that will catapult this sometimes untractable puppet bodily into the war on his side...
...Myths About American Isolation By QUINCY HOWE PARALLELS between this war aflff the last * one continue to bewilder and mesmerize many Americans...
...In his outline of "Objects of Attention for an American," Jefferson noted: "Politics of each country, well worth studying so far...
...From the beginning of the war the Trade Union Congress has devoted itself to two main objects: the furtherance of the national %ti effort, against Fascism in defense of freedom and democracy, by every possible means...
...1 V"J The loss of Australia would be painful to the United Rations, would prolong the war for them, but would not.ViM them to the point where they weald have to accept Japan's conditions...
...It could he, he sag g eg ted...
...We may even be able to deflect enough military power from Europe to abandon the defensive...
...Sir Walter Citrine, presents a picture and general outline of British hopes, planes, and prejudices...
...Readers of The New Leader will W> doubt be well aware of the circumstances which prevented the Project from coming to frujtion...
...Perhaps...
...It is commonly assumed that such a leader would install an American form of Fascism...
...The Japanese enemy, according to Professor Peffer, one of the Mar tion's leading Far Bast experts, has passed the peak of conquest It'a all downhill, and the pace would he accelerated, were it net for the Allies' necwaaary Get-Hitler-Firat strategy...
...It was a language in the tradition of American realism which called for...
...Weddell . . . was getting the full effect...
...we can cooperate with other nations to eliminate frictions between countries...
...Toe one sure trend that this war has set in motion—here in America even more than in any other part of the world— is the development of large, self-sufficient regional economies...
...And that lndamT* wmrtd prove to be the decisive blow against the Japanese mlli...
...seismologist, took s look at the record...
...Under the shelter of our movement today are working groups of trade union refugees from every country which has fallen to the Nazi-Fascist combination, preparing for the day when they will return to take up the task of restoring the great organization of international trade unionism...
...To cite but one example: Had not our government under Lincoln acted energetically and bluntly when Louis Napoleon of France and Pope Pius IX challenged our Monroe Doctrine by placing the puppet European "emperor...
...The first Minister was Lord Beaverbrook...
...If, on the other hand, Germany is disposed of...
...that Spain's only charter of independence at the moment is a pawn ticket from Hitler, and that Hitler, or those who act in his name, will stand just so much talk...
...But a time may come—if not in 1944, then in 1948—when the people who have experienced all the agonies and exaltations of this war will turn for leadership to someone who has undergone those same experiences...
...We at once took steps to establish a joint Anglo-Soviet-Ameri-«n Trade Union Committee...
...T*HE war in the Pacific is in a state of suspense...
...Weddell entertained members of the American colony at a Thanksgiving dinner, "there wss general agreement among the guests that the Am hassador had no choice but to demand an apology and ask for his recall if it was not forthcoming.'' It was a week before Mr...
...Japan NOT so long ago tharaensi-tive chap ap at Fordham...
...Weddell...
...Qn the ether hand it was our straightforward, cards-on-the-table dealings with England, that caused her to withdraw from the "punitive" expedition to' Mexico into which she had been inveigled, and to renounce, all her claims to political influence on our continent, in favor of our awn Monroe doctrine...
...The assumption that the United States will return to Isolation proceeds from a completely false assumption since the United States did not adopt an isolationist policy after the last war...
...w Spain ft is necessary and * proper that Lawrence Fernsworth, writing here on U. S. diplomacy, recall some Jeff ersonian wisdom — and not merely because of the Bicentennial, but also because Thomas Jefferson himself was a shrewd and able American diplomat...
...It has been successful because it was the unique product of American character and the American way...
...In Southeastern Asia it has not even attempted to go forward...
...Pre-war consultations between the Government, ourselves, and employers' organisations had paved the way for the setting up of advisory bodies in connection with every department of the State economy...
...His tenure of office lasted only a few days, but in that time he appointed a Committee, of which I was chairman, to survey the field of war time industry and make recommendations as to how it could be keyed up...
...Britain THERE was a time when 4 London had to take it Hitler's Nasi legions were set at the British channel...
...forthright words and action at all times, and of blunt words and direct action when circumstances required...
...If the European war can be brought to a close ha the next year or at meet two years, Japan will be beaten...
...Prior to Pearl Harbor most debates concerning American foreign policy proceeded from the assumption that the history of twenty-five years ego was repeating itself...
...The civilized nations have welcomed our forthright speech and our energetic manner of getting down to business...
...Weddell could see Franco...
...PRODUCTION has of course been, all through, the key problem...
...For us in the United States this latest eruption of a professed enemy of the code of human rights that Americans hold dear, prompts the question: "When will the government of the American people adopt a policy of traditional realism toward Spain...
...in 1923...
...which in the lingo of Franco and his kind is of course the smear word applied to all who believe in rtian's hope for freedom...
...in the Pacific and Far East, which alone can compensate It for its sacrifices and which alone can save it...
...One is that the United States must not return to Isolation after this war—as it did after the last one...
...Latin-America, Mexico included, might again be if not Spanish colonies at least under the political domination of Europeans powers...
...The Fascist gang came: when Mr...
...They will, I am sure, understand foe sincerity of the motives which actuated the T.U.C...
...With the spread of aggression we had new obligations to meet- in respect of comrades who had escaped from Norway, Denmark, Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg...
...The monsoons begin in a few weeks...
...Roosevelt's leadership...
...Even from the Chinese point of view there is an economy of time and suffering in first concentrating on the West...
...Although the proportion of our total production that went into foreign trade did not markedly increase during the 1920's, our dependence on various foreign raw materials did—and so did the dependence of our surplus capital on foreign markets...
...If a balance be taken now, it can be said that Japan has reached the top of its form...
...We live in a different world in which the^ Western powers in general and the United States in particular cannot hope to enjoy quite the prestige they did in the closing months of the last war...
...Early in 1942, following urgent representations which we made to the Government, a Ministry of Production was at last established, with wide powers of control...
...That President Roosevelt's Four Freedoms and the Roosevelt-Churchill Atlantic Charter have not made the world-wide appeal of President Wilson's Fourteen Points need not be taken as a reflection on Mr...
...Japan is as strong as it ewer will be, whereas we hsve not yet come to the fulness of our potential strength...
...Whereas during the last war the United States developed certain industries and certain branches of agriculture to a point that made us increasingly dependent on foreign countries, today we are having to do so many different jebs that our economic selfsufficiency is increasing by leaps and bounds...
...British and American strength can "be concentrated in the Far East and Japan defeated...
...Perhaps the best contribution I can make is to describe some-tains' <»f the br*ad llnes °* "©Hey which the British Trade Union Movement has followed during the strenuous period of wsr in which the peoples of the United Nations are engaged...
...Critical Laborites are moving out in independent political appeals...
...In the following article...
...It hps not since than been able to make any progress at either point...
...To call our half-hearted, inept, irresolute internationalism of the 1920-1940 period by the name "isolation" is to delude ourselves dangerously with words...
...We have on our side built up too much strength...
...Quincy Howe, in the accompanying article, traces the background and presents the choice...
...IT give* me pleasure to subscribe to the twentieth anniversary •number of The New Leader, and to record my testimony for Me sustained support it has given to progressive thought and action throughout its active life...
...As long as we are actuated by ""ae considerations we need fear no test, however stern to which *e maj, ^ submitted...
...Problems . mast inevitably arise with each new phase on which the war enters, but I can fairly claim that we are now in a position of vantage for dealing with all these questions, and for making the best possible use of our great resources, both human and material...
...We can go blustering along, seeking to grab whatever spheres of influence we can—this is the line of the "isolationist groups...
...It was inevitable that grave, difficulties should arise in the period of transition, and on our side we studied every aspect of the question with the utmost vigilance...
...Much hsd been expected of us...
...That path is a portent of danger...
...Another in 1M...
...The- question is: how are we to adjust our relations to an interdependent world...
...For practical purposes this means an attempt to take the nbrth and east coasts of Australia, thu» cutting off America's supply route to the southern Pacific, and then press on into Australia But even if Japan should do so and should succeed, which is highly doubtful now that so much of its naval superiority has been whittled away, it would still be winning points only...
...that a trembler was in stare for Toje...
...f\X July 18 last, the sixth anniversary of that murderous attack in the night on the people's government in Spain...
...It was a language which bandit* understood—which Franco would neyer misinterpret...
...WE in the British Trades Union Congress are keenly desirous " that the American membership should be made as widely representative of American labor as possible, and we would welcome the presence of delegates of the Congress of Industrial Organizations and the Railway Brotherhoods in our joint discus-rions in the Anglo-American Trade Union Committee...
...Let me cite one more instance from this revealing and appalling book: Mr...
...That the Chinese age justified in feeling themselves to be let down b> America can hardly be disputed...
...He gave a new twist to his speech by affirming that with Russia in the war as one of the United Nations partners the struggle had become a "war to the death" which may last six or eight years...
...The Japanese cannot force decision...
...No organisation in the world has ' a wider knowledge of the problems of the workers than the T.U.C., and we realised from the first that a mere ruthless scrapping of the rights and privileges gained by generations of struggle would contribute nothing to the industrial efficiency so essential to the effective prosecution of the war...
...Spain— Lack of a Realistic Policy By LAWRENCE FERNSWORTH IJITLER's somewhat rel'ractory and talkative * * manikin in Spain, Francisco Franco, made the other day another of his flatulent speeches in which he expressed his contempt for democracies and openly flaunted his solidarity with the Axis and its aims...
...The conquered territories are an asset to Japan in that thus supplies essential to us are withheld from us—rubber and tin, mainly...
...It is the only tradition we have in the field of diplomacy...
...Weddell, was present when Franco made an earlier anniversary speech assaulting the democracies...
...A major Japanese earthquake occured...
...But we seem headed for some sort of highly centralized state control in any case...
...A full-scale offensive would have little or no chance of success in that time...
...Once Burma was lost, help to China on a barge, train...
...see what they eat, hew they are clothed, and whether they are obliged to work too hard . . ." As a foreign correspondent in Spain, Fernsworth had his first-hand opportunity to study Spanish politics...
...A year ago it had com* to the border of India and to the fringe of islands overshadowing Australia...
...When both aides have reached their highest potentiality, Japan can be crushed, unless events in Europe cut across those ia the Pacific in such * way as to change the relative weight of power there...
...The only question is...
...Invasion was imminent, and thousand-pound bombs rained from the air...
...as respects internal affairs...
...But that has not been wholly a matter of - [ choice...
...Powerful interests in this country seek an imperialist-expansionist line...
...Not content with entering into a series of undertakings that they promptly made us incapable of fulfilling, these same leaders in the government and out then launched a vigorous program of financial and industrial expansion overseas...
...he served a blunt dispossess notice on Louis Napoleon...
...H will be through no lack of goodwill on our part if there should be any misunderstanding between the trade union ¦ovements of ourytwo countries...
...That night when Mr- and Mrs...
...In the environs of Australia it has made attempta that haw* <b*en abortive, and at times almost disastrous...
...Just as it would require an even bigger man than either Wilson or Rcosevelt to assert the world leadership that Wilson enjoyed for a few brief months in 1918 and 1919, so it will take more than a McKinley or a Harding to offer an alternative leadership to that of the New Deal...
...the promotion of international trade union unity between the great democratic countries...
...having advance notice of the plan, informed the Franco government and asked for protection...
...and little has come forth...
...It must grow naturally, and we have no intention of interfering in the least with the autonomy of the Amer-- k»0 labor organizations in deciding their policy in this or »«y other matter...
...The RAF wrecks factories and piers of the Nazi wsr machine...
...I do not claim that all our difficulties have been met...
...When Russia was assailed we lost no time in establishing relations wjth our trades union comrades in the Soviet Union, and the Anglo-Soviet Trade Union Committee has now been in existence for more than a year...
...T As far as the national effort was concerned we had this advantage, that we had long foreseen the possibility of the struggle , is which we are now engaged...
...became unfeasible, and for practical purposes we shall net be able to get much into China until Burma ia retaken...
...For Japan has brought itself to the point where only two things lie before it: mastery over half a world (which involve* defeat of Great Britain and the United States) or destruction...
...And in a confident, revitalized Britain, party-lines are beginning to take it...
...Lincoln did not send gifts to Maximilian, offer to make deals with Louis Napoleon, or dispatch emissaries to the Vatican...
...how far that disillusionment and that reaction „ - will go...
...Today Hitler sits uneasily on a European sowderkeg...
...It has taken us a long way...
...The other school urged us not to make the mistake of staying out of another peace...
...America also took the lead in organizing the Dawes and Young Plans and in arranging for the Hoover moratorium...
...namely, the defeat of the United Nations and tho triumph of the Axis with all that they stand for...
...We recognize, however, that unity cannot be weed...
...This is to say thst Japan can be saved only by an overwhelming German victory in Europe...
...We feel that direct contact between American, British and Soviet labor is essential to » solidifying of our joint war effort, and to deal with the ¦rjent problems of reconstruction which will arise in the jest-war period...
...IN the interval, however, the * full price must be paid by China...
...T'HE words isolation and internationalism have become empty abstractions in the post-war*debates...
...HIS War presents an entirely different pic-* ture...
...Our answer to this studied affront was to press more favors on Franco...
...But presumably in the meantime he had been in communication with our State Department...
...As T. J. Hamilton tells it in his new book...
...Winston Churchill maneuvers skillfully to stabilize his Coalition Tory-Labor government on the new levels...
...This is the harsh price that must be paid for the British-American decision to make Europe the main scene of action until Germany is defeated—a decision which is difficult to attack on any logic which considers ' the world struggle as one and also takes into account the interests of the United States and Great Britain...
...But they do not yield to Japan materials with which it can make itself sufficiently strong to meet the combined weight of Great Britain and America...
...Hamilton) "grabbed his arm and tried to hold it up in the Fascist salute while others sang the party anthem, 'Face to the Sun.' The Ambassador then broke away and started back to the Embassy...
...Take every possible occasion for entering into the houses of the laborers, and especially at the moment of their repast...
...Not only was this protection withheld at the time set for the demonstration, but the uaual embassy guard was not present...
...Japan would be no nearer acknowledged sap*taacf...
...Franco, as reported by the United Press, "ridiculed the liberal, democratic form of government and said that the totalitarian system had proved its superiority . ." He said he had a well equipped army of three million if necessary to fight "Communism...
...Toward the first only the conquest of India can serve...
...Hardly had we returned from the first of the joint meetings of this body, held in Russia, when we learned that the USA had been brought into the war by the wanton aggression of Japan, who appeared as an active ally of the Axis...
...We lost no time in getting down to this task, and were soon able to produce recommendations—the first of which was for the letting up of a National Production Advisory Committee—the effect of which has been to eliminate waste and delay by extend-in...
...Weddell...
...And so "when the interview took place we offered the Franco government a credit of $100,000,000—instead of demanding an apology...
...He treated Maximilian for the usurper that he was—beneath the dignity of official notice...
...On the contrary, it has foagkt mainly en the defensive...
...This was the signal for stone throwing, and although he waa not hit, one struck the emblem of the United States over the Embassy doorway...
...In that event it will have started on the road to doom...
...we are just coming to ours...
...r. .. 1 It mast not be forgotten that for a year new Japan has ( stood still...
...FOR the present, then, there is stalemate, and from every,indice--tion the stalemate is not likely to be broken until Germany is clearly on the way to detest...
...This brief chronicle must certainly prompt the reflection that even the course of present-day history in Europe might have been very ftiffsTlJM if w.e had known bow to act in the American tradition...
...Never had we departed further from a policy of political isolation and economic self-sufficiency...
...the functions of regional committees...
...changed the course of our history to our advantage...
...What lies ahead for British polities...
...Would still be winning tactical successes only and be as far iron uMmmte victory as ever...
...These words were blunt notice from Spain—as if any more blunt notices were needed—that only one solution of the war was countenanced by Franco Spain...
Vol. 26 • April 1943 • No. 15
