Let's Abolish Europe:
SHUB, ANATOLE
A modest proposal Let's Abolish Europe By Anatole Shub LET'S ABOLISH Europe, the man said; we've had nothing but trouble from them. Here we've given them billions of dollars and still they act so...
...And that Eden...
...There are lots more important things than that...
...He thinks just because he's got a democracy running for 400 million people, we ought to kowtow to him...
...Even the Swiss are unreliable...
...Nehru—any time you ask him to do anything, he's got his own ideas...
...What do they mean, alternatives...
...Why, the country's never been so prosperous...
...if they had only signed that SEATO pact when Foster Dulles told them to, before Chou En-lai and that bunch came around...
...Well, Senator Wiley sure told them off...
...it's useless...
...This Mendes, all he ever talks about is reviving France...
...Here we've given them billions of dollars and still they act so high and mighty...
...We know all about that one...
...Here we had this EDC all set two years ago and now we have nothing...
...Guess that Schleswig-Holstein thing gave old Adenauer the jitters...
...The Japanese are even worse...
...They wanted us to take over that war, but we told them: No sirree, we'll back you to the hilt, but no American boys...
...Course we don't want war, but we're not having any of that coexistence either—that's Communist talk...
...And showing those Hiroshima movies all over the place—what nerve...
...All they talk is that "economic and social" stuff...
...Maybe we ought to abolish people...
...We really wanted to give the Italians Trieste, and now they don't understand why we just can't...
...Anyhow, this Mendes-France goes to Brussels with a hatful of tricks and says he'll get EDC through if we fix it to suit the French...
...You can have all that talk about "cooperation between equals" and "mutual compromises...
...But what can you do when people just don't know what's good for them...
...Ever since then, those Europeans have been pesky...
...Look what they're doing now...
...How can you fight Communism when we're the only ones who know anything about it...
...Those Europeans are all alike...
...why, if Foster Dulles hadn't gone over there to stiffen up his spine, he would have fallen right in with Eden and Mendes...
...Pinay and Laniel, they were good fellows...
...This fellow Yoshida is for us, and the whole country is at his throat just because of a little corruption...
...Then he acts as if Europe can live without it, and everybody in France just smiles...
...And those Koreans and Chinese Nationalists—all they do is scream about liberating their countrymen...
...Try and tell it to those Europeans and Asians, though...
...after all, we know the majority of the French really want EDC, no matter what those politicians say...
...We were all set to give France the deep freeze (after all, Franco's with us now), and Eden goes running around trying to pull the French and Germans together again...
...Why, if the Russians had been stupid enough to start World War III just because we unleashed Chiang and bombed Manchuria, they would have deserved every atom bomb we could drop on them...
...So he throws EDC into their Congress and lets them kill it...
...Seven years they fight in Indo-China and then they chicken out...
...See what I mean...
...how about that...
...After all, we've got to do some business, too...
...The British helped ruin us there...
...they're the worst of the lot...
...Every time we make a big decision, they horn in and spoil it...
...No—all those Italians keep saying is "You promised, you promised...
...they say we've got nothing real to offer besides war...
...Two years we're trying to get them to rearm, and they won't do it...
...Well, not exactly—our fellows say EDC isn't dead yet and the Europeans could still put it across if any of them wanted it...
...They better lay off that corruption talk—that's the way we lost China...
...We've accepted lots of their compromises before...
...What's wrong with the way things have been going up to now...
...Imagine that: After the way the French wrecked everything, Eden is still trying to save them...
...Come to think of it, though, those Asians aren't much better...
...shucks, we're making sacrifices too—look at all the trouble we're having balancing the budget...
...When the Korean War was on, they stopped us from bombing China...
...Anyhow, on account of Attlee and that bunch, we had to make the truce—but we brought the boys home, didn't we...
...Just because we raised the tariff on their watches, they get hot under the collar...
...Well, we've really shown him...
...If we'd had that pact, things would be different...
...Say, that Adenauer really worried us...
...they couldn't do much about EDC, but they were for it—you could trust fellows like that...
...Don't they know Tito's on our side now...
...The East German refugees there—why are they so hot to unify Germany...
...You take those French...
...Now they're all talking about coexistence...
...And don't we send over all those tourists with American dollars...
...That's why I say we've just got to abolish Europe...
...Well, our man Bruce was there and he made sure nobody was buying that...
...You'd think they'd appreciate it, but no, they're just like the rest of them...
Vol. 37 • September 1954 • No. 39
