A TOTAL PEACE OFFENSIVE

...Part of the additional funds could be obtained by restoring wartime tax rates on corporations and upper-income taxpayers...

...The propaganda of the Communists is based on deceit, distortion, and outright falsehood...

...They have done it in China, in Korea...

...Such mutual defense program shall be developed by the United Nations...

...He led the way in the era before World War II with a program for the mobilization of U. S. industry and was in the forefront of the postwar straggle to convert war plants into producers of low cost homes...

...The facts of performance can pentrate the Iron Curtain...

...If we fail now to launch a bold, tangiWALTER P. REUTHER is president of the CIO's United Automobile Workers, the laraest union in the nation...

...and all participating nations shall agree not to employ their armed forces outside their boundaries except at the direction of the United Nations...

...The moral vacuum created in the world by the H-Bomb must be filled...

...The agents of the Kremlin, therefore, find it easy to out-promise us...

...This vast reservior of humanity is being tapped for slave labor and military manpower to meet the requirements of Communist aggression...

...in too many instances they have the mistakes and failures of anti-Communist nations to exploit...

...The current Korean situation is a by-product of our failure in China...

...Such appeals, based on personal knowledge and experience, are more effective than professionally written statements as was proved in the letter-writing that preceded the Italian elections in the spring of 1948...

...An annual report will be made to the people of the world listing expenditures and specific results achieved...

...It is proposed that along with the building of adequate military defense we further strengthen our position in the world by launching total war against poverty and human insecurity, thereby striking at the heart of Communist power and influence...

...There is no ceiling on promises except men's respect for the truth...

...7. The United Nations shall be requested to expand its existing agencies and to create such new agencies as may be needed to administer the world-wide program of economic and social construction made possible and financed by the funds made available by the people of the United States through their government and by other peoples through their governments...

...Slogans and phrases ring hollowly in the ears of hungry men without concrete action to give the words meaning...

...We must prove in action that bread and freedom can live together in the same house...

...3. The anual sum of $13 billion shall be made available to the peoples of all nations, including the Soviet Union and its satellite nations, on equal terms, subject to the conditions set forth below, and shall be allocated among the participating peoples according to a formula based on objective measures of their respective economic and social needs...

...With our human and material resources fully mobilized for peace, we can do the job before us...

...It is not enough merely to make the Voice of America louder and stronger so that democratic slogans may be carried to more people...

...What we can be certain of is that America, the strongest nation among the free peoples of the world, has a moral obligation and duty to ourselves and to the world to make an all-out effort to avoid war and to build a just and lasting peace...

...They are doing it in Southeast Asia, in South Africa, and in Latin America...

...The refusal of one or more nations to cooperate in disarmament shall not affect the commitment of the people of the United States who shall nevertheless through their government make the $13 billion annual payment into the United Nations Fund for Economic and Social Construction...

...But large increases in revenues would flow from the proposal without raising tax rates...

...In terms of the cold War invented and launched by the Politburo, this political and propaganda weapon, now in use around the globe, can be as devastating as a stock pile of H-bombs...

...Our ability to do so will be challenged by the men of little vision and no faith who have dedicated their lives to a perpetual losing struggle against every next step in mankind's progress...

...5. Upon acceptance of this proposal by a majority of its member nations, the United Nations shall convene an international conference for the purposes of achieving total disarmament, establishing universal inspection and other appropriate security controls and creating an international police force...

...American democracy must and, I believe, can demonstrate the moral strength and economic and practical know-how necessary to develop and present to the world a tangible and comprehensive plan of action to achieve economic and social justice which will win for the cause of freedom the loyalties of hundreds of millions of people whose poverty and misery are now exploited by the Communists...

...Reuther's article in this issue of The Progressive was presented in greater detail to President Truman recently...

...It cost 985 million dollars per day...

...8. The United Nations shall create a special agency which shall be authorized to employ scientists and technicians to develop programs and techniques for the development and application of atomic power and energy for peacetime use within the limits permitted by security measures made necessary by the refusal of one or more nations to agree to universal disarmament and inspection...

...The North Korean puppet army acting for the Kremlin must be pushed back to the Thirty-Eighth parallel...

...wait, hopelessly and helplessly, for the ultimate explosion of world-wide conflict...

...Other nations will be asked to make similar investments in peace according to their ability, but the United States investment will not be conditional upon payments by other nations...

...2. The annual sum of $13 billion made available by the people of the United States through their government shall be deposited in a special United Nations Fund for Economic and Social Construction...

...We can afford the cost of the total peace offensive outlined herein, including adequate armed defense, short of total war, $13 billion annually in foreign aid, and social progress at home...

...Corporations paid taxes of approximately 57 per cent in their profits during the war...

...They must be helped to realize what their own industries could provide in shoes for their feet, in shirts, dresses, and coats for their backs, in chairs and tables for their homes, in scarce drugs for their sick children, in all the necessities and comforts that they now lack, if only their government could be gotten to agree to join with others in universal disarmament and inspection...

...We cannot know whether total war will come or if so, when...

...It cost 41 million dollars per hour...

...13 billion is less than 5 per cent of our current yearly output...

...4. This proposal, upon adoption by the Congress of the United States, shall be submitted to the peoples of the world by the President of the United States through the United Nations...

...We must stand up and demonstrate that we have the courage to remove the price tag from our efforts to lead the world to honorable and lasting peace...

...The compelling necessity for quick, positive, daring action is more than a matter of high purpose...

...Can we do nothing more than turn back today's aggression...

...It is proposed in effect that we take the price tag off peace...

...How many aggressions, manned by peoples of puppet States equipped and trained by Russian Communist commissars and generals, can be resisted and thrown back before one explodes into full scale international warfare...

...The Communists have perfected the technique of exploiting poverty and human insecurity and are forging human misery into a political weapon of aggression...

...we failed in China...

...Communism did not succeed in China...

...We are at the place in world history where we must recognize that the best hope of saving freedom and achieving a just and lasting peace is in action—action so challenging, so vast in scope, so practical in design, and so sincere jn purpose that it will fill the moral vacuum in the world with reborn hope and a renewed spirit of cooperation among the people of all nations...

...The $13 billion annual investment in peace which is here proposed represents an increase of only about $9 billion over the foreign economic aid we have been providing...

...Each member nation of the United Nations shall be entitled to be represented in the People's World Assembly for Peace by 18 delegates in all, composed of two each from the organization or organizations most representative of the following groups in its population: dirt farmers, industrial workers, housewives, youth, veterans, educators, scientists, -professional persons, business men, and religious leaders...

...We must launch a total peace offensive...

...A Total Peace Offensive By WALTER P. REUTHER IN VIEW of the character of world Communism and the impossibility of predicting the next power move of the Politburo, no one can be certain that war is or is not inevitable...

...Until we understand why deeply religious peasants attend mass in the morning and Communist rallies in the afternoon, we have not grasped the fundamentals of Communist power...

...We must free ourselves from the paralyzing effect of the campaign of moral and political intimidation that is being waged among us by these men of little faith who would sell America short and leave the world with no hope for peace...

...II We cannot win in a battle of words...

...We made the tragic mistake of believing that freedom's fight in China could be won on the battlefields alone, when all the time we should have known that basically freedom's fight hadto be won in the rice fields...

...When hundreds of millions of people are hungry, when they are struggling to get the bare necessities to keep body and soul together while their officials are living in luxury, we cannot fill their empty bellies with pious slogans about the virtues of democracy...

...If worst come to worst and circumstances compel us to fight total war, the American people will be willing to make whatever sacrifices will be needed to put our total resources and maximum effort into winning that war...

...Aid from the Fund shall, in that case, be made available to those remaining nations which agree to cooperate in a program of mutual defense until such time as a disarmament program is universally accepted...

...This fund shall be used solely to help people in other nations to help themselves by developing and expanding th.e economic resources and facilities of the participating nations and for other purposes that will contribute to improvement of living standards, including nutrition, housing, health, and education of their people...

...It will release the pent-up powers stored in every man's hidden reservoir of hopes and aspirations everywhere in the world...

...If, in addition, taxes on individuals with gross incomes of $15,000 or more were restored to wartime rates, a substantial part of the additional $9 billion in tax revenue would be obtained...

...It is proposed that we mobilize our people morally, spiritually, economically, and politically in a total effort for peace...

...6. After acceptance of this proposal in principle by all or a majority of its member nations, the United Nations shall convene a Peoples' World Assembly for Peace to discuss the proposal in detail and to make recommendations to the United Nations concerning its implementation...

...The sum of $13 billion a year seems big standing by itself...

...Within 5 years it will be less than 4 per cent...

...The cost of armaments must be spelled out in bread and butter terms...

...The achievement of universal disarmament would bring the blessings of lasting peace to America in terms of intangible human values on which no price can be set...

...Must the initiative for peace or war be left to the members of the Russian Politburo who, themselves, are prisoners of the very power they use to rule the people of Russia and other peoples inside the churning concentration camp of misery which they have put together out of the terrible wreckage of World War II...

...The Voice of America will be able to rekindle hope for peace and belief in freedom and justice in the hearts of men when it can answer totalitarian promises with democratic performance...

...It is not a historic accident that in the countries of Europe, such as the Scandinavian nations, England, and Switzerland, where there is an acceptance of social responsibilities with strong free democratic labor unions and where the average person enjoys a measure of economic security and human dignity, the Communists are without any appreciable strength or influence...

...they have merely moved in to fill the vacuum created by our failure...

...In addition, it would make it possible for the American people to make substantial social progress in the form of higher living standards, greater security, increased social services, and a fuller and richer life in educational and cultural values...

...However, by waging an all-out peace offensive we shall have the best prospect of avoiding the infinitely greater costs and sacrifices of total war...

...This proposal is suggested in the sincere belief that our best prospect of avoiding war and winning the peace lies in a plan of action that combines fully adequate military defense with a positive peace offensive...

...The war in Korea has finally atrakened us to the creeping Pearl Harbor of aggression that is being engineered by the men in the Kremlin...

...At a cost no one can now predict, this will be done...

...At least $2 billion in additional government revenue would be provided at present tax rates from the increase in personal incomes...

...The Russian people must be made aware, for example, that in 1947 their expenditures on national defense came to 66.7 billion rubles, an amount equivalent to 51 percent of the 130 billion ruble total value of their entire industrial output...

...They did this in Greece and in Italy...

...13 billion is less than the increase that we can normally expect in a two-year period in the total output of the American economy...

...ble, practical program for peace, we will surrender the world to the apostles of fear, hatred, and hysteria...

...The negative values in which they trade will contribute further to world panic and will make war inevitable...

...We owe it to ourselves and to the people of the world to make an all out effort for peace in the hope of avoiding total war...

...This direct attempt to destroy the sources of Communist power will have to be supported by an adequate system of defense based on joint planning and pooling of strength with our democratic allies...

...They need commit little more than equipment and military advisors while we must throw our own men into battle...

...The Peoples' World Assembly for Peace shall present its recommendations to the Secretary-General of the United Nations who shall forward them to the government of all member nations for official action by the UN Assembly...

...Our propaganda must be the propaganda of the deed...

...Even at this late hour and perhaps because of trie very lateness of the hour, such a program will mobilize a positive spiritual and material force in the world greater than the negative power of the H-Bomb...

...But it is insignificant when measured against our alternatives and our capacities...

...They, plus United States action on the Marshall Plan, did much to defeat the Communist drive for power in Italy...

...it is a matter of democratic survival...

...drain our economy in wholly military preparation for tomorrow's aggressions...

...It is proposed that we agree to win peace with freedom and justice with whatever it takes to win it...

...Even the most enlightened type of colonial policy will not satisfy people who aspire to full independence...

...The United States can afford the cost of peace...

...People now in the free nations who came originally from any nation rejecting this proposal should be asked to make direct appeals to the peoples of those nations...

...It cost 291/2 billion dollars per month...

...Without the proof of performance, they are ignored, rejected, and, if shouted too often and too loudly, are resented and become ammunition for the enemy...

...The price, high though it may be in lives and money, will be less than the cost of appeasement of Soviet aggression...

...We can seize the initiative for peace by putting into effect a greatly expanded foreign aid program geared to the economic and social needs of people throughout the world while promoting a practical program of economic and social justice at home...

...World War II lasted 44 months, and, according to ECA Administrator Paul Hoffman, its total final cost to the American people will be 1 trillion, 300 billion dollars ($1,300,-000,000,000...

...Such atomic project shall be financed out of the United Nations Fund for Economic and Social Construction, and the services of this agency shall be made available to assist the peoples of all participating nations to build a richer life for themselves and the world community...

...The Communists have not conquered China...

...Our failure in China was typical of the general failure of the West to understand or pay heed to the social dynamics and ferment that stir the exploited and oppressed Asiatic peoples...

...Corporation tax payments would increase by perhaps another $2 billion due to the increased profits resulting from increased production...

...Western powers too often have attempted to sit on the lid and at best to treat the people of these countries as children, entitled only to second-class economic and political citizenship...

...Only the United States has the material resources for the bold, constructive action needed to banish the fear that holds the world paralyzed on dead center, hypnotized by negative values based on men's fears and hatreds...

...Whatever such a peace may cost it is infinitely less than the cost of war...

...At present profit levels, a 60 per cent average rate of tax on corporate profits would provide $7 billion of increased taxes...

...9. The United Nations and its member nations who accept and pledge cooperation in carrying forward this peace proposal shall take effective steps to expand and strengthen the means of mass communication and to use them to familiarize the peoples of all nations with the commitment of the peoples of the United States and of other nations and with the provisions, possibilities, and concrete economic and social achievements of this peace proposal...

...We must meet the challenge of Communism, not by pious slogans about democracy's virtues, but by a positive program of social action that can and does win a fuller measure of economic and social Justice for all people everywhere...

...13 billion is l/100th of the cost of World War II...

...It is proposed that the American people, through their government, express concretely their devotion to peace, justice, and humanity by making a fixed commitment to the peoples of the world as follows: 1. For the next hundred years (1950-2050) the people of the United States through their government pledge themselves to make available through the United Nations an annual sum of $13 billion...

...Ill Prompt and decisive action by President Truman and the United Nations in resisting military attack on South Korea has undoubtedly forced some revision of the Communist time-table of aggression...

...The United States has and must accept the major responsibility for filling this moral vacuum with positive, human, democratic values that, in practice, will re-establish the worth and dignity of the individual human being...

...Since 1945 the number of people under Soviet domination has increased from 180 million to 800 mil-lion...

...It will provide hope against despair and promote revolt against rule by terror...

...The Peoples' World Assembly for Peace shall be reconvened annually to hear reports on expenditures, projects, and achievement and to discuss and make reommendations concerning future operation and projects of the peace program...

...By putting enough people to work to produce $13 billion in additional wealth the entire tax base is broadened...

...The cold war is essentially a struggle for men's minds and hearts and their loyalties...

...The engineers of Soviet aggression have shown that they can recruit by propaganda and pressure vast numbers of satellite troops, thereby holding in reserve the entire Russian Army, Navy, and Air-force...

...This, over the hundred-year period, will equal the final money cost—$1,-300,000,000,000—of the last war to the American people...

...We shall not make effective, lasting progress against the Communists, we shall not win the millions of democratic allies needed to convert the negative defense against the Kremlin into a positive building of the peace until we understand and do something practical about the basic unsolved economic and social problems that are the source of Communist power...

...This means that our manpower and the manpower of the few nations that can supply troops for the United Nations' armies may be bled white whenever and wherever the Kremlin decides to launch a new aggression...

...They have in many countries a wealth of real grievances to denounce...

...The above figures make no allowance for the incalculably greater cost of war in human lives and human values...

...Reuther's activities range far beyond the immediate needs of a great labor organization...

...But Communism cannot compete in performance...