THE AIR AGE

...1 wouldn't doubt that for a moment if Ihere's anything an American loves to do it is to gel I lie hell out of America and spend his money among foreigners, especially among Frenchmen and Italians who dislike Ameiican* only slightly less than they do (ierman...

...we want to do ever) thing within our BOWOr to establish such world lels tioas ss will mske it possible to maintain collective security...

...and the British found it expedient to remove, st the turn of the century, many Boers who had made themselves objectionable...

...Yet even before'the war ends we're looking forward to an unreal air world, a typically American one, founded upon commerce and travel for pleasure...

...Does Mary grab Gimbei's dinner, check ? It seems to me that we Americans spent two decades in a haae of unreality from whieh we Were rudely awakened by war...

...But this co- -operation mast he reciprocal...

...Before Americans start traveling all over the world by air...

...Morgenthau and God) we manage to remain solvent when the present disagreement is over...

...for it uses those advancements in , nasabiiiation te move pesceful commerce or manifested force from one part of the world to some acker paii hundreds or thousands of'miles away in a mailer i>f hoHr...

...For frankly, outside of the pro d...

...Even at today's speeds, with today's naiHawr'i no part of the globe is more than sixty hour*' an time from any other part...

...The New Leader and Totalitarianism THE NEW LEADER makes no apologies for the fact that it is anti-Communist, To put the matUr bluntly, we believe that totalitarianism is evil...

...That is the lesson that the airplane i* teaching as today...

...air travel the citizens of all nations may leap into the goo attain phi i i and journey, d la Willkie...

...iThe Babylonians quite naturally resented this, so during occasional decadent periods in Assyria the Baby-, kanans would descend, as the saying goes, onto the Assyrians, and chop many of the more annoying ones to pieces...

...He airplane eveatuslly will indeed makes this aaft world is) geography and time...

...Most American liberal journals side-step this important interustionsl problem...

...Wast the airplane will do is to bring then* confiding farter* rleeer together in time and apace, wiping1: eat the age-old batter* of distance...

...But bis *ay of getting acquainted with a Babylonian was to take him captive, bring him back to Nineveh, and either thop off his head or enslave him...

...Hut politically ^S)Sa*ntar*ry speaking we have net one world hut ¦any w.rlda, meet of them with coniicling rom-ssaKial'interests, with diirrse political ideologies...

...A realistic recognition of the facto of international life, including the character and motives of the various rating governments, would tend to make it possible to msinlain war sort of balance and lanes preserve the peace—for another generation at least...

...This does not mean at all that we are opposed to peaceful collaboration with Russia...

...j to day, century by century, we've been getting bet-»*Sad better...

...with the ailveni of world-nil...

...Undoubtedly, we have made great strides in four thousand years...

...Hat I haven't the least fsilh thst we sre intelligent . enough to learn il...

...Only recently our good anil true friend, Mr...

...and he did it whenever he wanted to during several centuries...

...Nor is it necessary to go to war...

...Ill admit that it haa...

...ao will the more humble American he entranced by some appropriately humble Chinese t» Russian...

...What The New Leader stands for is peaceful collaboration, hut net capitulation, la a dsmofracy, Intornsiisasl policy must secure popular support...

...Vet in Ihe light of history, which nobody reads, is il not reasonable lo conclude thai human nature, which has remained almost changeless through thousands of years, will not change suddenly because the airplane has been invented...

...ijiey humanely chop off their heads or batter their faces in with a board, or bury them alive, or starve them to death...

...Umi of mechanical gadgets, l> as air-p I * n * », I don't aer that we've a d v a n red much be-y o n d thi* s p i r i lual atale nf Ihe ancient Assyrians...

...A FTBR this present wsr—which is merely snotber ** Incident in history—we may reasonably expect that not unity, but disunity will prevail, among friend* and enemies alike, ami that the turmoil of war whi be succeeded by the no lees determined and bitterly fought conflicts of peace...

...If ihia policy—or any other—is to-be permanently successful, the people mutt undent*ad what aort ef powers we are dealing with and what ia going on...

...e * Though we oppose Bolshevism...

...It actually in the physical evidence of a newly-discovered power, a force that must exert an everiarreasliil impact upon the world's affairs...

...We are promised if not perpetual, at least a long-lasting peace...

...However., even the most casual reading of bistosy would suggest that the closer people were to each other, the more cause they found for disagreement sheet this or tly/t...

...They simply force them to dig their own...

...found il necessary for a gentleman residing in (be North to smite another living in Ihe South...

...Such a policy csn be successful only If both sides make compromise...

...Babylonia and Assyria, for instance, were quite close together, even with the primitive nielh-eaa of travel of those times, some 201)0 B.C...

...Suspecting me of cynicism, the airmen, with their eye* fixed on a peaceful world where everyone will fly everywhete in Ihe interests of international amity, will point out that 1 am discussing only belligerent peoples, not the peace loving people of the United States, Russia, China, or Britain, all of whom love each other to distraction because they are united in a fight for Freedom, and hence are different from our despised enemies...

...Thai is all to the good, say the airmen: il will make tat enplane the great messenger of |>eace...

...The United Statis snd Great Britain are far front being impotent Then is no need of granting Stalm all that he demand...

...spreading kindliness, they should remind themselves I hat history is a record of conflict, and Ibat all its important dales are dates when war stalled or ended For some strange reason, Americans seem to think that war is h violent interlude lietween two peaceful periods, when a mine careful reading of history should inform them that peaceful periods invariably have been used to build up strength for war, and that during time* of peace enough international jealousies and animosities are built up lo insure that war is Inevitable...

...Inn them up and shoot them, and then, to prove that they are taking advantage of civilisation's latest developments, they All in the graves with a bull-dozer, and level them off with a steamroller...

...What we should not forget I* thic In the air age we <-antankerou* humans will possess the power lo do more hurt to each ether, at longer distances, in a shorter apace of time, than we ever had Ih* power to achieve before...

...and be will love us—especially if we give him something- on lend-lease as a token of our affection...

...far from changing anything that five thousand year* of recorded history have demonstrated lo be changeless, will merely Iniiig every nation of the world into closer and more intimate contact with oilier nations that it doesn't like...

...Now that we face war, we think we are at last being realistic...

...Today in Poland the German* no longer !*tot w the barbarous coatees of saying s~.pl* thtry «¦* like...

...federation The heat form for Joint ioteraatienal action is a world federation If this proves lot practicable, then old -fashioned collaboration ths old game of alliance*—is bettor than epea hostility ami the sort of rivalry that lead* to immediate war...

...Our policy is to toil the truth about the Russian Government so thst the American people and) their representatives may be successful in finding way• of dealing with it...

...to the mr corners of Ihe earth...

...Baby-kj^tos and Assyrians being what they were, that the ¦¦stone would merely have hastened the demise* of a 'toss lot moiw Babylonians and A**yri*ns ? Constant ¦¦dsss of The New Leader—which seems to have very 'hoT* faith hi anybody—perhaps will incline to the Tat-probability...

...And thin, mind you, went on for centuries, •SSjSf which nobody' really had time to get on a ehsatnry footing 'with anybody else...

...gOTall of that happened a long time ago...

...Slalin, found it needful lo do away with large groups of Russians, for Ihe greater seeuiity and happiness of the U.S.S.R...

...The air, far from changing anything, is merely a new medium where the blue-sky buccaneers of all nations may wage their commercial and political conflicts until such time as the whol* thing agnin blows up in our faces in war Ihe next one waged with land and *ea forces, but with air power multiplied fifty or a hundred times wliat it is today...

...This way can be found only through joint agreements, mutual adaptation, and the reconciliation of conflicting national interests...

...All sn Assyrian had to do in order to know a Babylonian letter Wa* simply to walk next door...

...Fascist totalitarianism is the more immediate evil...

...Ami just as Willkie war eii-leataied by Joe Stalin and Madame Chiang Km .'.Ink...

...This means thrt we have no thought of attack on Russia or on sny ether nation with the political principlee of which we do not agree...

...Any unilateral mevee in the international fleas tend to destroy whatever peaeibilitiee there mey he for s work...

...Even the Japs, admittedly less advanced in kindliness than their Christian allies, don't flay Americans and Filipinos alive...

...H possible that the airplsne, if invented some Mis years ago, would hsve altered the situation to •ay noticeable degree...

...A few veer* age, for example, Europe wan nearly • »* days' travel-time away by the fastest steamer...

...All of tins, assert the airmen, will be possible after the wai if,' under God and Mr...

...Thus, in short order, we Americans will know everyone on Ih* globe, and love him...

...We helieie that World War Hi ran be avoided only by international cooperation...

...tsOay it is only ten hours away...

...Constant acquiescence on the part of the democracies lo Kussian national interests csn lesd to nothing but disillusion and—eventually—conflict Perhaps The New Leader is sometimes over-emphatic...

...thousand* of others are going I. take week end trips lo Europe, or slightly longer ones to Moscow and Chungking...

...At present, we are helping to feed our allies...

...But this pulling together must be based upon a realistic understanding among them...

...Moraantbau (or Mr...

...The majority of us accept wholeheartedly Ihe idea, unjustified by history, that after the war everything will be better, the wot Id over...

...It mesna that we are -tiling to support any resume able compromise in the effort to And a way of getting on mith the Kussian government...

...As a nation we are not critical at all...

...This forces me to remind them that even in our own country, some eight decades ago, we...

...Some of them even try to cast a mystic and shining halo ovsr Soviet practices which they cannot openly and honestly defend...

...100.000 Americans, the airmen tell us, are going to own their own planes as soon ss they can he built for Ihem...

...Is it not more probable...

...Is it mil sound to conclude that the coming ail age...

...the airmen *** say, eltiea when human nature haa become— human, aa H were...

...It is more nwakltionary than the invention of gun-powder, of the glass* engine, ef the harnessing of electricity, of the taajevery of radio...

...In the Orient, and in Poland, things don't seem in u <¦ h different from ancient Assyria, where they put the severed beads of captives on posts - as the Japanese did with the severed head of a Filipino re-c e ii 11 y. As for flaying alive, while that custom seems to have died out, is it because hiininns have become kindlier, or because flaying alive, like Kgyplian embalming, has become a lost ait ? Such considerations should bring Americans to a lather more critical approach to the postwar air world than we so far have indulgeil in...

...In an effort to right the balance we occasionally hare published too many articles revealing the perfidious role played by Russia in the present international situation...

...But in the postwar world will we continue to feed our competitors...

...It seem* to this observer of world *h» that if the airplane had been available in 2000 ¦A'the Assyrians would have been saved a lot of toonos: Instead of driving a Babylonian to Asshur or j***** on foist, and then flaying him, they would have tojSafhim in Babylon, thus saving air express charge* *» astasias* carcase, and getting the hide there fresh— *s*-ty euiek-froxen if qukrk-freesing had aeon in-"*¦»¦ at that time...

...The world's ***ajsjiue* cantankerous inhabitants have fought with eett Other chiefly because they were atrangeis and aMOS" got well enough ncquainteil lo appreciate each eonsra virtues—if any...

...Peace depend- on the teamwork of the big three...

...But that is precisely what soldiers of Ihe last weie promised by the stale«rpen of those days, and it didn't materialize...