Where the News Ends

...It is designed "to guarantee far every man, woman and child, of every rare and creed and in every country, the fundamental rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.' One article sets down in clear words "that bigotry and persecution by a barbarous nation is a matter of international concern...

...He has repudiated an entire Polish Government that represents a coalition of the most articulate forces in prewar Poland, that enjoys the virtually unanimous support of the Polish armed forces abroad and of the Poles in this country and elsewhere who can form and express a free and intelligent judgment...

...The armies and councils and courts of all the great powers would back up the right of every little individual human being anywhere...

...The Red Army is the only "United Nations force" in Rumania...

...Poland is an ally, Italy is a former enemy...

...The Soviet recognition of the misnamed "Committee of National Liberation" as a civil affpirs administration for Poland was another...

...There is no prospect of any central authority with the right and the might to enforce international law within any powerful state...

...The result is a feeling of alarm very like that which swept over America between 1787 and 1789 Men wonder whether the war is going to give us what humanity needs...

...The synthetic "Marshal" Tito in Yugoslavia, with the aid of experienced NKVI) (GPU) advisers, is carrying out a ruthless purge of Serb nationalists and other political opponents...

...So important have they become—and so tied into the sffeetions of the people—that they now seem the most precious part of our heritage from the founders of the Republic...

...In this iron age of power politics, of untamed great powers, of spheres of influence and disregard for the rights of the weak...

...There were st least a dozen points in the development of Stalin's policy of mingled brutality, chicanery and deceit in relation to Poland when much stronger words than Mr...

...More thran 1,300 distinguished men and women have signed this proposal...

...This is all fine...

...What is needed is an irresistible popular demand, all over the world...

...But British interference in Italy is far less serious than Soviet interference in Poland...

...The first ten Amendments came as a response to this demand...

...The Constitution adopted in 1789 established all the machinery necessary for the functioning of the new union of states...

...Churchill and Mr...

...The one chance, and perhaps it is not too good a chance at that, of saving Kurope from a long and dismal night of chaotic violence is to establish government by consent all over Europe just as quickly as possible, and with a minimum of distinction between allied and ex-enemy countries...

...It is this fear that has led the American Jewish Committee to propose an International Bill of Rights...

...At Dumbarton Oaks attention was centered on machinery for the prevention of international war...

...The statesseM on the Sf on* case is either the prelude to much stronger representations to Moscow, or it has no moral validity whatever...

...However, a hint is conveyed in a Nsw York Times despatch from London which states: "Since they occupied Belgrade, it is authoritatively said in Yugoslav quarters here, the Liberation movement authorities have executed only 106 persons...

...I do not know bow well-informed our government is about developments in Rumania...

...Where the News Ends By WILLIAM HENRY CHAMBERLIN Wanted: Consistency in Foreign Policy IT was with mixed feelings that I read the severe rebuke to the British veto of Count Carlo Sforsa as Italian Foreign Minister which found expression in the following statement by our new Secretary of State, Mr...

...At the present time humanity is more pnssingly reminded of the dangers of tyranny than were even our ancestors...

...Stettinius used in relation to the Sforza incident would have been in order...

...Since American correspondents who were in Belgrade for a short time were quickly expelled, in the familiar Soviet style, we are effectively barred from learning precise details of what is happening in that unhappy country...

...In all the dictator countries the state is all and the individual nothing...

...It is good,that we dissociated ourselves from this policy, even at the cost of some temporary hurt to the feelings of Mr...

...It means that persecution by the state or by a dominant group of the humblest person in Germany, in Russia, in China, or in the middle of Africa would be the concern of mankind...

...Kden...

...It was taken as normal ami natural that we should do our full share of dying on the European continent, while the British and Soviet Governments gathered up the spoils of war and divided the continent into jarring and precarious spheres of influence...

...There i« nothing on which to base this beautiful Bill of Rights...

...Human beings may eventually get what they need if they fight hard enough...

...Stalin has not contented himself with objecting to a single Polish Minister...

...It is not only in Poland that there has been cynical violation of Atlantic Charter principles on a scale that makes the Sforza incident a very minor peccadillo...

...All the inter-governmental machinery may run smoothly—and yet within ths constituent parts of the United Nations men may suffer oppression...

...It is not as easy as all that We have not—and we probably shall not get—a United Nations Constitution ¦comparable with that of the United States...

...There is every reason .why, as we discuss the shape of the new world organization, the protection of personal human rights should come first in our thoughts...

...we need a clear statement of ideals worth fighting for, however Utopian at this moment...

...Edward R. Stettinius: "The position of this Government has been consistently that the composition of the Italian Government is purely an Italian affair, except in the case of appointments where important military factors are concerned...

...Silent acquiescence and larger lend-lease shipments pre not hopeful means of checking the nullifies*.,, «f the Atlantic Charter in Eastern Europe...

...But considered in connection with our meek silence and acquiescence in far graver violations of those principles in Eastern Europe it recalls the old Scriptural adage about straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel...

...In expressing a negative attitude toward Sforza that, under the circumstances, amounted to excluding him from the government, the British Government weakened its moral influence in Italy, placed the" odious "Quisling" stamp on any government that might be organized, and played directly into the hands of Moscow...

...At the very least we should make it emphatically clear that we shall recognise no puppet recks* in Poland, and no frontier that is arbitrarily drawn without prior consultation ef the will of tho people by froe plebiscite, accompanied by safeguards for honest voting...

...As this is in the nature of an official or semi-official statement, the figure is certainly not an overestimate...

...All that we got—all thst we could get—from such a conference was a series of tentative propossls for the mechanisms for international cooperation...

...Hull gsve us loo many vague declarations of general moral principles, loo few clear-rut declarations of how those principles should apply to specific siluslions...

...That such a policy, if persisted in, would ultimately lead to a violent explosion of nationalist reaction in the United States and to complete disillusionment about a constructive role in the peace settlement is almost certain...

...The statement that embodied tbtse results was far from breathing the idealism which characterized the Atlantic Charter, under which we were summoned to fight against totalitarianism...

...The debasement of the individual has included hundreds of millions scattered over large parts of the earth...

...It was high time that someone in authority in Washington should speak up emphatically for the realization of American ideals in the peace settlement...

...It was quite widely suggested openly or by implication that while it was our sacred duty to shed our blood and deplete our treasure all over the world, we were not entitled to claim a voice in the postwar settlement, except in restricted areas...

...A school of thought wss gaining ground in this country that seemed to combifie the worst dangers and disadvantages of interventionism and of isolationism...

...But that is all the more reason why this International Bill of Rights should be proposed, publicized and advocated at this dramatic moment...

...It is high time that some individuals in Washington got out of the stupid and humiliating pose, 1* relation to Stalin, of the rabbit storing at the boa-constrictor...

...But the following imperfect fragmentary flashes from Radio Bucharest would suggest that pretty forcible measures of Soviet pressure are being brought to lieai on that country: "On all elements in the population and administration that (-ause incidents with members of the United Nations forces . . . the most severe penalties will lie imposed...

...So it was a good thing that Mr...

...Stettinius spoke up as he did, especially as the issue was one in which the British Government wss clearly in the wrong...

...The Declaration of Independence, adopted fifteen years earlier, had no official standing in the newly created government...

...The annexation of the Baltic Republics, where a reign of terror is now in progress, according to the accounts of refugees who have reached Sweden, is one such instance...

...This Government has not in any way intimated to the Italian Government that there would be any opposition on its part to Count Sforsa...

...Surely our government is not ignorant of a fact which has been publicly discussed in the British Parliament: the disarming, shooting and deportation of Polish patriot units that rose up against the Hermans and helped the advance of the Red A ring...

...The forms and functions of the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Court, and the Economic and Social Council were outlined...

...But all through the discussions of those days there runs the concern for something deeper and more important than smoothly running political machinery...

...Premier Constantin Sanatescu and his entire Cabinet have resigned...

...There are all too few leaders of this type who have survived in the broken, desolated Europe of the present day...

...The human being has been Tubbed of civil liberty...

...He has tried to force on Poland a disreputable "made in Moscow" stooge regime...

...The ton short articles embodied in our Constitution back in 1791 have proved to be s mighty bulwark in defense of human dignity and decency...

...Considered by itself this is a healthy and long overdue declaration of American interest in the practical implementation of the principles of the Atlantic Charter and the Four Freedoms...

...The breach of relations with the legitimate Polish Government in the spring of 194M was one such point...

...My italics...

...If such a bill of rights could be adopted and made to stick—then the war would be really won...

...Count Sforza is a distinguished Italian political figure, a genuine liberal who chose exile rather than submission to Mussolini, a man without a taint of appeasement of fascism or communism in his record...

...The analogy between our situation in that far-away' time and the world situation todsy is so striking as to compel attention...

...And the inconvenient correspondents who might have voiced higher estimates have been eliminated from the scene...

...But if we were right in straining at the gnat of British interference in a governmental crisis in Italy we have just as surely been wrong in swallowing the camel of brutal Soviet domination of allied and neutral, as well as former enemy, territory in eastern Europe...

...The people felt that the functions of the government should be limited, that the dignity of the individual should be protected...

...We begin to see that we can have peace without freedom...

...i For an /nfernafiona/ Bill of Rights ON September 16 occurs the 163rd anniversary of the adoption of our Federal Bill of Rights...