Where the News Ends
CHAMBERLIN, WILLIAM HENRY
Where the News Ends By WILLIAM HENRY CHAMBERLIN This Hard Peace" Talk AS tin end of the war in Europe drew* closer, there nre evidence* of regrettable confusion to th* purpose* of the postwar...
...The Cnrretta episode in Rome serves warning as Allied officials and governments-in-*vile: unless speedy justice is don*, unless the Rooseveft-Churchill pledgt to exterminate fascists and fascism is carried out, there will be mob violence...
...It is a pity that national thinking on the character of the peace should hsve received so little positive leadership from Washington...
...Deplorable as such vengeance may be, it is better to liquidate fascism through th* violence of outraged citisans than to tolerate its continued existence—underground or openly...
...The first purpose of th* peace must be permanence...
...Its industries hav* been smashed again and again by the most tremendous concentration of air power ever brought into action...
...It is a •demand easy to understand...
...What was proposed was to carry off whatever industrial equipment Germany might still possess, to seal all mines (an almost insane suggestion, in view of tbe widespread cold in Europe), to close indefinitely all universities, to rlos* all schools until the United Nations could agree as to th* character of n*w textbooks, to break up Germany into two or more agricultural states, snd to carry out sweeping annexation* of German territory...
...It will' retrospectively bear out ths Goebbels propaganda that national destruction of Germany was th* objective of the United Nations...
...In the face of such s crisis we cannot afford the luxury of sentimentality, whether it should assume the form of lbrgetf ulneat of the Nazi crimes or of blind indiscriminate revenge...
...A tremendous amount af semantic energy ha* born wasted in trying to vindicate th* advisability of a "hard" as •gainst a "soft" peace...
...Lloyd Gcorg* stumped the country, appealing to th* easily aroused emotions of hatred, revenge and greed, and promising indemnities from (irrtnany that every sane economist in the world knew could never be paid...
...Can snyono imagine th* granting of visa* to twenty or thirty million Germans as the aftermath of this wsr...
...The second type has received a striking illustration in th* scheme far breaking up Germany and turning it into an agricultural state which has been widely attributed to Secretary Morgenthau...
...Wold promises that every opportunity will be given to mem bers of the community to testify...
...World civilization may have s second chance for recovery after this "second appalling shock within a generation...
...HENRY M. WR1HTON, President ef Brown University, was extremely restrained when he characterized this scheme as "an abdication of tha mind...
...Much of its soil is poor...
...Large sections of its capital are a heap of rubble, and probably the large cities of th* Khinelami and the Ruhr and th* great ports hav* been even more completely devastated...
...Without industry and mining a third or a half of its people would have to emigrate or starve...
...On* AUG official in Rome is credited with the remark that h* wished the Roman underground anti-fascists had »*t been so quickly disarmed...
...There is no assurance that it would have a third chance...
...The destruction of civilisn Iff* and property must be many times greater than what has occurred in England...
...The dcnisl of educational facilities . to- Germans would work to the advantage only of the underground Nazi movement...
...It ia high time that we began seriously to think through the kind of poet ear development thst we want lo tee, ia th* interest of world peace, both' ia Gcrmaay and in Japaa, and that w* < ease to b* intimidated by fall* and misleading semantic* and emotional appeals t* an orgy of revenge which, ia oar sober moment*, tie know me would never rarry through anyway...
...Attempts to build up sn issue as between s "hard" and a "soft" peace ar* essentially futile for two reasons...
...On the whole tha French people have shown remarkable self-restraint...
...First, Germany, as matters stand today, could not enjoy a "soft" pence, even if very mild armistice and peace terms were offered...
...And, it was argued, the rioters w*r* hungry, and so unable to maintain the serenity of spectators viewing affairs from America...
...Direct action by democratic anti-fascist workers is to be distinguished from either th* actions of vigilant* mob action in th* United States or the organized t*rr*r ef the Gestapo and GPU...
...Th* cabinet had abundant reason for taking decisive action...
...There is virtually unanimous opinion in favor of compulsory and thorough disarmament, of trisl and punishment of wsr criminals, and of occupation of Germany for a long period...
...From France have come mingled report* of vigilant* trials held by th* Maquis and strictly legal procedures carried on within courtrooms according to all the rates...
...retta was taken from a Roman courtroom where at was a witness, and murdered by a mob, there was debate in American papers ss to whether the d*at ahould be condemned or applauded...
...Dk...
...swat tveiil mi Mobs versus Courts in Europe In each liberated eountry ef Europe wt witness a. race between revenge and justice...
...Of th* first kind of sentimentality there is little danger...
...There have been occasional declarations of genersl principles by Mr, Hull, but these have been so vsgue and so tenuously relsted to hsrd concrete realities that they inspired the wisecrack of a Washington wit: "From the beatitudes to the platitudes...
...This is a complete misrepresentation of th* character <>f th* scheme, as outlined by th* leading news agencies...
...If there is to be even a tolerably decant peace settlement that will rule out firmly and unconditionally quack remedies like annexation of unwilling peoples, artificial partition, deliberate destruction of industry, th* initiative will apparently have to come from below, rather than from above...
...In extenuati** Lewi* Mumford pleaded that Rom* had been liberate...
...A lot of good, steady Norwegian citizens said to their government: "Tha* bloody traitors are all around...
...Germany is s densely populated country...
...Such lethargy and indecision on the part of official bodies is an invitation to lawlessness...
...What is important is that a schema which, had it bean adopted, which it apparently fortunately hag not bean, would have completely blocked th* reconstruction of Europe and sowed th* seeds of n new war, beside* cynically repudiating every principle of the Atlantic Charter, shoald have received serious Presidential attention...
...Th* President's state papers during th* last two years have been amazingly barren in concrete suggestions for the better world thst is supposed to emerge from the detest of the Axis powers...
...Whether Morgenthau was the author of this plan or whether he merely sponsored suggest ions which wcr* offered by others in Great Britain or here, is not of grant importance...
...we know them...
...Csreful methods hsv* been outlined to distinguish between voluntary acts of coiisborstion and forced labor on German projects...
...But there hsve sets no reports of Orgies of violence...
...The Allied War Guilt Commission has established n record for procrastination...
...It would probably contribute more than any other measure to the perpetuation of the heroic legend which the Nazis will want to leave behind, after their military defeat...
...He pledges thst ths Quislings are to be stripped forever of the right to vol* or hold office...
...will throw an aura of heroism around men who, in the event of a more ransonable settlement, will ho rseognixod by the groat majority of Germans for what they wars: a group of brutal yangotsrs who brought unprecedented misery to their own pooplo and to ths whole world...
...Th* first result of this approach was th* Versailles Treaty...
...Mors than other occupied countries Frsnc* has suffered from treason of its own citisans...
...Th* Norwegian government-in-exile announces cartful preparation for dealing with Quislings in th* land where th* genuine, original Quisling gave his nam* to the entire malodorous trib...
...The death penalty has been introduced to meat this emergency...
...There hare been unconvincing euempu to gloss over the significance of th* Morgenthau whams by tuggetting that, as Germane will b» pretty btxHy shattered anyway, it really does not matter much whether we continue to "ruin a ruin...
...TilE traa issue i* net between * hsrd snd a soft aettlasamt...
...Where the News Ends By WILLIAM HENRY CHAMBERLIN This Hard Peace" Talk AS tin end of the war in Europe drew* closer, there nre evidence* of regrettable confusion to th* purpose* of the postwar settlements...
...in a few days they w*nM hav* purged more fascists than th* courts hsve taken care of in several months...
...One could observe th* ssme development in England saer the last war...
...AU limits on fine* snd prison terms have been removed...
...Moreover, there is not the slightest indicstion thst anyone in a position of authority in Washington or London favors mild peace terms...
...But new decree* have been issued to assure quick and adequate punishment by regular legal procedure...
...Of course in Una* of war no on* wants to b* atigmatisad as urging a "soft" peace with the enemy, so th* advocates of a "buckets of blood" aftermath to hostilities hsve things pretty much their own way in the...
...emotional field...
...for many months and the fascist leaders have not yet been punished...
...Th* tra* imae I* between a p*ac* that will stick, that will look te a gradaal integration af a chastened and reformed Germany inle tha Earopean and world remmaaity aad a peace te fsntsitic in rsvengefal character that It wiH lack aay morel sanction and will break do* n after a decade ar two jast because pehlie opinion everywhere will recegaise that it i* unenforceable Not th* least objection to ths Islter type of peace is that it will tend to justify and glorify the war, in its last defensive phase, to the average German...
...When Denato Cat...
...Us manpower has been bled whit...
...give as just three days, we will settl* accounts and ssv* a let of time and money...
...Th* people naturally hate their own traitors even more than they do the Germans...
...A sentence of nstionsl death of this kind would keep a pivotal, central part of Europe in continuous upheaval, would aggravate poverty and unrest everywhere and would bring its own economic retribution to the United Slstes and Great Britsin, in the loss of an important msrket...
...Our most significant statements of wsr aims, the Four Freedoms, the Atlantic Charter, antedate our forma) entrance into hostilities...
...Th* settlement will inevitably be hard, and la proportion t* th* magaitad* af th* Nasi rriasas against the people* af Earope...
...There was is Norway a popular demand for "three lawless days...
...Terje Wold, th* Norwegian Minister of Justice, announces that there is to b* no such op*n sesson *a traitors...
...The long-range result wss Hitler...
Vol. 27 • October 1944 • No. 41
