MORE POWERFUL THAN THE 'A-BOMB'

...The West has not sufficiently sensed the revolutionary ferment in process all over the world, and has not fully realized that the old tempo of human progress, the traditional gradualism, is far too slow for peoples who have for so long known only misery and repression, and who have been shocked into a new awareness and aspirations by the two world wars...

...Peace in the world must be paced by human progress, by equality and dignity for all peoples...

...Freedom and democracy were not in the past generously exported by most of the colonial-minded, imperialistic West, and consequently the millions of Asia and Africa have lagged far behind in the development of human freedom and democratic institutions of government, as they lag far behind in the material standards of life...

...The issue of human freedom covers the globe...

...the inalienable rights of man...

...IV To meet the challenge confronting us we shall find restraint, composure, and cool calculation indispensable...

...It will not suffice to offer them only our sophisticated concepts of "Western democracy...

...It has provided a most solemn warning to all would-be aggressors of the future...

...They seek freedom and a better life—education, housing, health protection, security...

...There are radio commentators and newspaper columnists who concentrate on pouring forth venom and lies with the apparently deliberate purpose of misleading and confusing the public, and breaking down their faith...

...If the lessons of Korea are learned well and if nations will but take the preventive actions which these lessons demand, there can be an end to aggression in the world and an era of far greater security for all peoples...

...We must realize that peace cannot be cheaply or quickly won...

...They do not reflect the American desire for peace, and, indeed, they seem to imply that it is an evidence of weakness to strive for peace...

...It can be no more effective than the firm determination of nations and peoples will make it...

...Those who are privileged to enjoy it have the obligation to use it wisely and responsibly...

...I have a deep faith in its future and in its ability to correct the undemocratic practices which persist...

...There are great numbers of my race who can lay far better claim than I to unselfish devotion to our country...

...They do us much damage at home and abroad...

...We speak glibly these days of the "free peoples" and the "free world," and in doing so we not unnaturally think in terms of our own freedoms...

...But, on the other hand, neither can peace be won by threatening war, by sword-rattling, or intransigence...

...We are a great nation with tremendous responsibilities of leadership to discharge...

...In varying degrees of intensity, it is to be found in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, the Caribbean, Western Europe, and in some aspects at least, it is as yet unresolved even in our own country...

...These revolutions cannot be stopped, nor can they be slowed down...

...II I am an American but I am also a Negro...

...We regard freedom as something well-defined: government of, for, and by the people...

...Our ideals and professions will have significance in this world-wide struggle only as they find concrete expression in policies and deeds...

...It is folly in this age to speak of any nation saving the peace or protecting its security by unilateral action...

...Despite the substantial progress made since the end of slavery the Negro has not yet won his full freedom in this society...

...The fateful questions are two: Will the revolutions be violent, or can they be achieved without blood' shed as the United Nations strives /or...

...Victory in war for the free world, in eliminating one threat to freedom, would inevitably set freedom back everywhere, would leave the basic problem unresolved, and would create condiThe Big Lie Tell a big lie to millions of people, tell it over and over without bothering about facts or logic, without regard to how preposterous or ridiculous or vicious it sounds at first, and pretty soon it acquires the status of fact with those unhappy people who are not in a position to check the facts...

...Every man in the street knows well enough that if one faces the prospect of a fight it is both comforting and good sense to be accompanied by friends...

...the right to boo the umpire and the President alike—we indulge as abundantly in one as the other...

...Freedom is worth any cost...

...to feel secure and without fear in their daily lives...

...We in America have our liberty, our superior standard of living...

...We in the West must realize that despite the undenied benefits which the West has brought to these formerly far-off lands, there is a long and unsavory history of Western imperialism, suppression, and exploitation to be overcome...

...No such concerted effort is today being made by free nations and peoples...

...for us war is a last resort in the defense of our security and freedom...

...Moreover, it is impossible to calculate the damage done to our cause throughout the world by evidences of violent racial intolerance like the recent sordid episode in Cicero, III...

...Korea has demonstrated the immense potentiality of collective action by peoples whose sights are true...

...The only-prediction any of us in the United Nations can make with certainty is that the world will be gravely troubled so long as deep fear and suspicion persist among its peoples, and so long as governments succumb to aggressive ambitions...

...It must become increasingly clear to all, if there are any who really ever doubted it, that peace in the world can be fully secure only when there is universal human freedom, when men as individuals are free to go and come...

...To do so, the West must quickly accommodate itself to a new orientation...

...I am proud to be both...

...The world crisis calls us to a firm rededication to the ideals and moral values that have made us free and great...

...Peace can never be secure in the world until peoples who aspire to freedom may be assured of it without recourse to violence...

...It can be preserved for those of us who enjoy it only by the widest possible mobilization of those who believe in it...

...It will take great sacrifice and unceasing vigilance to preserve it today...

...They should carry the gospel of freedom to the most remote corners of the earth...

...It should be obvious that the free peoples of the world, in the protection of their own freedom, must exert every effort to rectify the errors of the past: • They shoul'd embark upon a universal crusade for.the extension of maximum freedom to all peoples...

...If the future is unclear, the present is not...

...There are ominous rumblings of similarly burgeoning nationalism in Africa...

...I trust that I may be pardoned for noting that my own group, the American Negro, has an especially acute concern for human freedom...

...There are some within the society, more vociferous than numerous, who, for reasons of hysteria or from more sinister motivations, would take advantage of the deep anxiety induced by the world crisis to stifle independence of thought and the right of criticism, to restrict and circumscribe our traditional rights and freedoms, and generally to invoke a reign of suspicion, terror, and intimidation not unfamiliar to Nazi Germany...

...We cannot ever explain such deeds to those non-white peoples who constitute the great majority of the world's population and whose confidence and friendship we seek and need...

...III Some of those who proclaim most loudly and frequently their concern for Americanism and the security of the nation serve it least...

...The article in this issue is adapted from a talk Dr...

...Four score and eight years after the great Emancipation he is still burdened with undemocratic and un-American restrictions and handicaps, with racial discriminations and indignities which deny to him that full measure of freedom which is the rightful heritage of every American...

...It is imperative that we in America realize that these same issues are by no means so well-defined in the thinking of many other peoples in the world...

...These are signs of American conduct that weaken and divide us as a people and undermine our traditional liberties...

...they have been and largely still are neglected, suppressed, long-suffering, and miserable...

...In this regard, the Western world today pays dearly for some of its unfortunate policies of the past...

...That is precisely the purpose of collective security—it draws together in a bond of common purpose, in the interest of their own security, all nations and peoples who are opposed to armed aggression and who are prepared to oppose it with force, if necessary...

...The issue of human freedom, to be sure, is implicit in the desperate ideological conflict between Western democracy and Communism, but it is by no means confined to that conflict, nor would the resolution of that conflict find the issue of world freedom resolved...

...We ourselves have still much to do in the development of our freedom...

...The objectives and tactics of the handful of internal Communists are now well-known and are readily identified...

...It is easy for me to be a good and loyal American...

...To a considerable extent, what we really mean by the "free world" or the "free peoples" are those who are opposed to Communism and aggression, rather than peoples who are actually "free...

...But given any honorable alternative to war they will welcome it enthusiastically...

...In other words, freedom heretofore has been too much confined to an exclusive group of societies, the dominant and favored few of the world...

...It is important for us to bear in mind that vast millions of people—indeed, most of the world's peoples—have had little or no familiarity with the concepts of freedom to which we in America are dedicated...

...It is kept alive by the resources which are put into it...

...But I have also had more than one man's share of good fortune...

...A fundamental issue in the world today, as it has been for centuries, continues to be the fate of human freedom...

...But collective security is a means, not an end...

...to speak, think, worship, assemble, and associate freely...

...There is much lip-service to freedom which is counteracted by a disposition to hold firm to many of the outmoded notions and attitudes of the past regarding peoples long treated as "backward...

...The successful UN intervention in Korea may well prove to be the decisive event in our times...

...This will be costly, to be sure, but a tremendous program could be supported for the cost of only a short period of warfare in Korea or anywhere else...

...Nevertheless, there are voices among us today which speak loosely and lightly of war...

...To believe in freedom, people must have some knowledge and understanding of it...

...It is because I believe that the American way of life-—for all the shortcomings and imperfections of our society—is the best blue-print yet devised for dignified living among free and self-respecting men that I am deeply disturbed at some of the signs of our times...

...These vast millions, on whom the eyes of an anxious world are now focussed, are not really "backward" or inferior or different...

...We must prove our friendship by extending to them a friendly, not a paternalistic, hand...

...It seems to me that there are too many people in high as well as low places who are using our traditional freedom to serve their selfish ends without regard for the well-being of the nation...

...We must never forget that the most vital issue is the peoples of the world—their progressive well-being, the realization of their aspirations, their changing attitudes, and the way of life they may choose or may have forced upon them...

...To us, the issue of peace or war is also simply defined...

...There are demagogues busily at work misleading the people with half-truths and purposeful falsehoods...

...We must demonstrate our sincerity with regard to the principle of the equality of all peoples by accepting and treating all peoples as equals...

...As Secretary of State Acheson has recently written: "Collective security is like a bank account...

...There are some who talk as though the only relevant question concerning our going to war is whether we can be certain to win it...

...It is only by patient, unrelenting, and undismayed effort that secure peace can be achieved...

...On this score, we have much to be concerned about at home...

...freedom of speech, press, and conscience...

...But in actual fact, many among those who are allied with us or whom we hope to have allied with us, against the Communist threat, would not measure up at all as "free" by our standards of freedom...

...We have bigotries to eradicate, undemocratic limitations on suffrage to abolish, poverty and insecurity for many of our citizens to eliminate...

...In this dangerous age it is not enough to have and enjoy freedom...

...Revolutions are in progress among them...

...They should give encourage ment and substantial material sup-retort to the development of free institutions among every people they can reach...

...They should seek the rapid dissolution of colonialism...

...I have mentioned the issue of peace or war...

...Nor can there be any question of peace at the price of appeasement, or surrender of fundamental principle...

...In this threatening hour we must be strong, but our strength must consist of more than arms and production lines and armies of fighting men, indispensable as these are...

...They would not, to be sure, take peace at any price, at the fatal cost of appeasement...

...Philip D. Reed Chairman of the Board of General Electric Company tions which could only beget further war...

...All this has little or nothing to do with Communism or any other ideology...

...In that hand must be many of the things they have so long lacked and now desperately seek, and with no strings attached—technical assistance of many kinds, friendly advice, goods, mechanical equipment, medical supplies, foodstuffs, and assurance that they can have freedom and be secure in it if they will but join with those who stand for peace and freedom...

...Our future will be in most serious jeopardy if our principles, high moral values, and our ideals are to be sacrificed on the altar of petty partisanship by petty men...

...There can be no doubt that the American people seek peace...

...Taken in this sense, one of the most serious weaknesses of the RALPH J. BUNCHE, director ol the Department of Trusteeship of the United Nations, is one of the most celebrated American figures in world affairs...

...Those voices which speak of the useless-ness of the Korean action speak falsely...

...We see partisanship running hog wild...

...Peace and freedom in the world are closely allied...

...It was necessary in Korea, and collective security is at work there, more promisingly today than at any time since the North Korean forces launched the aggression against the Republic of Korea in June, 1950...

...It took great sacrifice and unrivaled courage to win our American freedom...

...The tried and true and fully honorable instrument in the conduct of international affairs is negotiation...

...to earn their daily bread, and enough of it, by voluntary labor...

...In the end, it is how we use our freedom that will count most heavily...

...The universal struggle for human freedom can be won...

...We need men who will hold country above party...

...But there arc other peoples in the world who seek the freedom they do not now enjoy and who, if no alternative is left to them, will fight to achieve it even as we fought for our own 175 years ago...

...But they have awakened or are rapidly awakening...

...They deliberately ignore the highly significant fact that the Korean decision was the first instance in history of collective police action to repel aggression...

...The concepts and practices of freedom and democracy have been cultivated primarily as Western notions and assets, and have in the past been withheld from or only grudgingly conceded to peoples elsewhere in the world...

...The settlement of international disputes by negotiation and compromise is a difficult and tedious, and, today particularly, a frustrating process...

...Our effective strength must depend also upon great wisdom and understanding, and upon an unimpeachable moral position...

...There are no easy roads to peace, no short-cuts or pat solutions...

...They avoid the vital truth that Korea sounded the harsh alarm for the free world and purchased invaluable time in which free peoples might mobilize their strength...

...Best known for his successful mediation in the Palestine conflict, he has performed a host of less widely known services in the cause of peace and international understanding...

...This is no mere question of peoples and concepts of the West as against peoples and concepts of the East...

...In it both peace and freedom seem clear-cut and decisive to Americans...

...We are, perhaps, less well-prepared to identify and deal with neo-fascists in our midst...

...The Western democratic and freedom-loving world can do much to determine the answers to these questions...

...We hear some who boast of our ability to defeat any enemy and who seem to regret that we are not hastening to do so...

...free world" is to be found in the fact that so many of its peoples are not really free and do not enjoy those fundamental rights and freedoms which inspire peoples voluntarily to make heroic sacrifices for their heritage of freedom, or, for that matter, to understand clearly the essential issues between democracy and Communism...

...We need men who are national patriots before they are party partisans...

...Pretty soon even the injured and slandered parties, who know better, are panicked into fighting the big lie or negotiating over it...

...when every man, whatever his race or color or creed, whatever his culture or origin, can walk with full dignity and on a plane of equality with all other men...

...the dignity of the individual...

...The world of today is drifting dangerously...

...But war is no longer the way to win it, either for those who have it or for those who seek it...

...Peace, clearly, cannot be won in this way...

...In such soil freedom would quickly wither away...

...Recruits for freedom—and they are desperately needed—can be won only by the widest extension of freedom...

...Actually this is the old concept that the end justifies the means, no matter how immoral the means may be...

...But the dividend is peace...

...If I understand them correctly, there are some Americans today who would have us conduct our foreign affairs on the juvenile basis of drawing lines, issuing dares, and swaggering about with an atomic chip on the shoulder, crying aloud that we can lick anybody...

...The West must learn how to approach the Asiatic and African peoples un-derstandingly and how to win their trust and friendship...

...I think, for example, of the Negro soldier in the hazardous foxholes of Korea, fighting and dying for your future and mine, for security and freedom for you and me that he has never himself enjoyed in full measure at home, solely because his skin is black...

...We shall dissipate our strength if we lose sight of the fact that a weapon of even greater effectiveness than the atom bomb is the strong appeal of peace to the peoples of the world...

...The principle of collective security is neither mystery nor plot...

...Bunche gave at the World Affairs Institute at the University of Denver recently...

...Peoples, otherwise peace-loving, will wage war for their freedom...

...This holds particularly true for Americans because of our heavy responsibilities of leadership, and because the eyes of so many peoples the world over are intently focussed upon us...

...This is Americanism at its finest and should put to shame the racial bigots and those small men who, with loud irresponsibility, parade about the country as self-appointed guardians of Americans and Americanism, sowing vicious crops of suspicion, mistrust, confusion, and loss of faith in our democratic institutions...

...just as if it were the truth...

...But it can be achieved only through the resolute application of collective security...

...Inevitably, as a Negro, I have had no little experience with racial handicaps, rebuffs, discriminations, and indignities, not a few of which were encountered in the capital of the greatest democracy on earth...

...Will the revolutions lead into democratic or totalitarian channels...

...The preponderance of the world's population is found in Asia and Africa...

...and this can come only from experience with it...

...But the sands are running fast...

...In this sense, the impasse between West and East often leads us to oversimplify grossly the universal problem of human freedom...

...I believe in my country and the American way of life...

...But now, the Western concept of freedom is everywhere challenged and threatened by the Communist creed...

...War, we contend, is something which can only be forced upon us by direct threat to our national security...

...There can be peace in the world...

...These incidents make more virulent propaganda against us than any enemy could possibly invent...

...For some, freedom is only a convenient vehicle in the service of selfish individual political or economic ends...

...There are character assassins at work who respect not even those public servants whose lives have been fully dedicated to the nation...

...We would fight again to protect our heritage...

...We have witnessed such determination recently in Southeast Asia and the Near East...

...We need men of courage who will stand forth as true partisans of freedom, equality, and democracy...

...But today, every war, no matter how small and local, poses a threat to the peace of the world...

...They, too, threaten our liberties...