THE MORAL ALTERNATIVE TO CHAOS
Humphrey, Hubert
The Moral Alternative to Chaos By HUBERT HUMPHREY THE AIR is filled with counsels of doom and prophecies of disaster. They are not lightly uttered. They come, for the most part, from men of...
...Despite the apparent belief on the part of both Catholics and Protestants that there could be no peace until the other side was destroyed, the peace of Westphalia in 1648 ended the religious wars without a formal renunciation by either group to the keys of heaven...
...History offers many examples of mortal conflicts between great movements which, with the passing of the years and the cooling of passions, found it possible to resolve their conflicts without war...
...Carrying the banner of such M international program, the Unite...
...Such a program to be effective must be accompanied by provisions for a police force to .....'"I"'" KB national security...
...It must always be our goal to resist injustice, oppression, or totalitarian power in the world, but what we can and must do is to lift the conflicts over ideology out of the realm of war...
...The revolution I'm talking alii is that of the little people all oil the world...
...To strengthen our faith in democracy it must be an essential past of our international policy to enact a program for civil rights...
...We must also make it perfectly clear to the leaders of the Soviet Union that the alternative to peaceful negotiations and settlement could well mean turning the world into a battlefield which would make it the graveyard for the human race...
...These is a moral alternative to chaos—one our country must before it is too late...
...If the crisis continues, the process may quicken in every country...
...At this moment in history the helpless and teeming millions of people around the world anxiously look for a declaration of American jbreign policy which will provide Sbem with the hope that war is not inevitable and that peace can in-peed be a reality for them and their children...
...American strength is said to be supreme from the Stettin-Trieste line and from Greece and Turkey westward to Southern Korea and Japan...
...But the hard truth remains that while America stands powerful, the idea of democracy which it represents is losing strength abroad, and our capacity for moral leadership is gravely questioned by peoples in many areas of the world...
...Our international policy must also encompass within it an economic program for the betterment of the peoples of the world...
...Our proposals for disarmament should include the absolute prohibition of the manufacture of weapons for mass destruction, limited not only to atomic and hydrogen bombs, but . to conventional armaments as well...
...Now is the time to re-examine our original proposals and recognize the need for modifying them in the light of developments since 1946...
...It is vital for us to remember thai we live in the midst of a world revolution whose outcome can mean freedom and hope and opportunity for hundreds of millions for the firsf time, or it can mean the reenslavei ment of much of mankind under ne# forms of imperial tyranny...
...But we do not feel secure...
...Here lies our strength...
...Whatever faith in inevitable progress those of us reared in the liberal tradition have had, is seriously shaken...
...The fear, suspicion, and mistrust which envelop the world today are too obvious to require documentaHUBERT HUMPHREY, U. S. Senator from Minnesota, is one of the leaders of the Democratic Party's liberal wing and national chairman of Americans for Democratic Action...
...The United States stands in 1950 at a high point of power...
...l| will be impossible for us to enlist th| active support of the overwhelming numbers in the world who are colored, and it will be impossible for us to gain their friendship so long as they come to equate, American democracy with racial...
...For foreign policy today ranges far beyond the old forms of diplomacy and includes <8S vital ingredients what we do at home to solve our own problems and Ihus make our way of life more appealing to peoples everywhere...
...The conflict between the Moslem and the Christian worlds was finally resolved by the destruction of neither, in spite of the Moslem slogan, "Face Islam or die...
...Before going to the Senate he was mayor of Minneapolis...
...They have led to a new armaments race which emphasizes atomic and hydrogen bombs...
...We should stand ready to turn over our own stockpiles of destruction to the United Nations as part : of such an international agreement and in concert with all other nations of the world...
...The world looked to us, unscarred by the war, with our resources relatively untouched, and our factories in full production, to lead in a harmonious search for lasting peace...
...President Truman's Point 4 Program must be the central focus of such an economic proposal...
...It is the responsibility of our heads of state to make our plans for such a positive proposal unmistakably clear to the leaders of the Soviet Union, and issue an invitation that they join with us in submitting such a proposal to the United Nations...
...One of the most distinguished of Americans, George C. Marshall, oil...
...States will find itself in partnershM /with the entire non-Soviet worldl challenging the leaders of the Soviil Union to show precisely where thcgi stand in the showdown for peace...
...Radioactive poisoning of the atmosphere and hence annihilation of any life on earth has been brought within the vrange of technical possibility...
...With a positive reaffirmation of our democratic faith, with a determination to protect freedom and resist totalitarianism with an unequivocal declaration in behalf of an international agreement to abolish war and -for universal disarmament, America would gain for itself moral supremacy in the world, and recapture leadership for peace in the eyes of the world...
...Fear is contagious and corrosive...
...tion...
...Certainly the threat of physical destruction must be obvious to every person who reads and thinks...
...the^M just moving in on the crest of...
...we lose our ties with friendly peoples who hope for peace but see our bombs and fear war...
...The process has more in common with man's struggling in a bottomless bog...
...What has happened since those hopeful days of only five years ago...
...Fear can result in placing the control of man's destiny in the hands of a few...
...Nothing could be more destructive at this decisive moment in history than the spread of terror among our people and our leaders...
...Once America gives up her active search for peace we lose all hope of reaching the peoples behind the Iron Curtain...
...Humphrey attracted world attention in 1948 when he led the successful fight before the Democratic National Convention for adoption of an unequivocal declaration of civil rights...
...discrimination...
...The necessity for renewed and continuous negotiation is greater than ever before...
...We should stand ready to consider practical suggestions for the development of the necessary techniques of supervision and control...
...It is essential that such a program be conducted through the United Nations and its specialized agencies...
...It is unnecessary to train young men and women for war in a world society dedicated to peace...
...Not only peace but our national interest demand that we make new efforts to negotiate...
...Having offered our willing-to join as partners in the juggle for peace and against the teal enemies of mankind, hunger and we would gain for ourselves and loyalty of all peoples...
...Such q demonstration is essential if we ar| to convince the peoples of the workff particularly the millions in Asia aofl Africa, that we sincerely believe in democracy and human equality...
...In Europe, in Asia, in Africa— wherever men gathered—people recalled the hopes of the Four Freedoms and the promises of the Atlantic Charter...
...Decisions in such an atmosphere must give special weight to the advice of those who specialize in violence...
...Who can say with moral certainty that our voices would not reach through the barriers and provide new hope and inspiration where despair and hostility now reside...
...We would be affirming our faith that in the conflict of ideologies be^ tween democracy and Communist totalitarianism, democracy will prep vail...
...and, perhaps most important, we lose the basic moral purpose which is the fabric of our democratic way of life...
...In 1945 the hopes of the peoples of the world were stirred when the United States put aside its traditional reluctance to play an active role in international organizations, and played host to the United Nations conference in San Francisco...
...Our first concrete proposal to the leaders of the Soviet Union must be to set up a conference on universal disarmament—universal not unilateral—with international guarantees of security...
...It must also encompass within it the vision of an inter-related world economy in which our Government, as the wealthiest in the world, makes a substantial contribution in a joint international effort against poverty, disease, and inequality...
...With such a program, we demonstrate to the Russian people, and certainly to the peoples of Asia, Africa, and Europe, our basic striving for peace, understanding, and international justice...
...Under the stress of continuing war tension, a hitherto democratic country may well transform itself into a garrison-prison state...
...By the same token, however, nothing could more effectively wreck our hopes for peace than the attempt to escape from the harsh realities of international life...
...They come, for the most part, from men of good-will, men like Dr...
...Let any government that refuses our offer then face the responsibility in the eyes of the peoples of the world for continuing the race toward destruction...
...I do not propose for a moment that we ignore the deep-rooted contradictions between democracy or totalitarianism in any form, whether it be Communist or Fascist...
...The time has come to ask ourselves if it isn't our responsibility, as Sens...
...Albert Einstein who said recently: "The idea of achieving security through national armament is at the present state of military techniques a disastrous illusion...
...it is this central fact of our era which emphasizes the necessity for pbdernizing our thinking about the limits of foreign policy...
...wave...
...leern what they are missing...
...Command of the seas and the possession of land and carrier-based bombers which extend military might into the interior of continents, have created a sphere of power which no nation in history has ever approached...
...Our responsibility is to tell the peoples of the world that we, temporarily the mightiest of nations, are ready to join in an international effort to abolish war...
...McMahon and Tydings have suggested, to rekindle the hope of the peoples of the world by taking the leadership in the quest for honorable settlement and universal disarmament...
...We must resolve to take some of the imaginative daring which we have shown in the physical sciences to start a chain reaction among the peoples and governments of the world against this madness and insanity...
...Significant as was the original Acheson-Lilienthal report on atomic energy controls from which the Baruch Plan was devised, we must stand ready to broaden it by extending its coverage to all weapons...
...In much of the globe this process has gone far even now...
...Our President said: "We must embark on a bold new program for making the benefits of our scientific advances and industrial progress available for the improvement and growth of underdeveloped areas...
...We in the United States have accumulated a stockpile of atomic bombs and are now spending 15 billion dollars a year on military preparedness...
...The United faj tions must be transformed into m organization capable of enforcjfy peace under law...
...Its success may call for no revolutionary seizure of power by totalitarian forces...
...Not only is there the grave threat of physical destruction, but the chronic threat of war, even without its advent, must inevitably create a state of perpetual crisis and resultant loss of human freedom...
...I do not propose that we still our voices in opposition to slavery, nor our vigilance in behalf of freedom...
...We would be proclaiming t$ the leaders of the Soviet Union, "Dare you affirm less for your faiti in Communism...
...Certainly the fact of mounting insecurity in the face of stockpiling and rearmament justifies critical self-analysis and honest inquiry into better and more effective methods of seeking peace, security, and the concept of united nations we dreamed about at San Francisco...
...former Secretary of State and CM« of Staff, caught the temper of on time recently in a speech in Hotta] lulu when he said: --*.§ "There is no doubt in my mia| that we are in the middle of/l world revolution—and I don't mCM Communism...
...The Communists §9 like your surf-riders here...
...They're beginnlQffll learn what there is in life...
...Our disarmament proposal must also include with it a plea for universal abolition of peacetime conscription...
...Perhaps an equally cogent example is the period of religious struggles of the 16th Century...
Vol. 14 • April 1950 • No. 4
