1919 AND 1943--A DEADLY PARALLEL
Hanighen, Frnak C.
1919 And 1943 - A Deadly Parallel By FRANK C. HANIGHEN Washington, D. C. "THE STAGE is set, the destiny disclosed," pro- cl'aimed President Woodrow Wilson a generation ago as he presented his...
...George revealed that while Sen...
...For the forces arrayed against them, openly or secretly, add up to a formidable army...
...Joseph Ball of Minnesota...
...Still another member disclosed that the compromise resolution's reference to a "just and honorable peace" would preclude any acceptance by the country of Russia's claims to the Baltic states, Bessarabia, parts of Poland and Finland...
...There was the wicked Sen...
...If Washington and London had been aware that the "prosecution" of the war would serve as the only agenda, they could have sent their military experts...
...13, should serve as a warning to Congress against voting to commit us in advance...
...The Boys Don't Agree Somehow the frenzied drive for speed in committing the Senate seems to have abated, for the moment anyway, among the internationalists...
...In the Pravda editorial, Russia said that the tri-partite diplomatic conference would not deal with political problems, but only with the prosecution of the war...
...But the Pravda editorial went further and spelled out its meaning...
...Alben Barkley, the Administration's Senate spokesman, that the Senate would have to postpone making its world-shaking pronouncement because he had to run back to Kentucky for a couple of weeks of political campaigning...
...Despite numerous appeals to the Administration to "take the Congress into confidence" in order to prevent a repetition of 1919, the Roosevelt Administration has followed slavishly in the footsteps of the Wilson Administration, by keeping Congress and the people in the dark...
...The Connally resolution enjoyed high prestige, for it resembled closely an outline of American foreign policy recently advocated by Secretary Hull on the radio...
...conference did not intend to discuss frontiers (read: partition of Poland, Finland, and Rumania) or the status of the Baltic states any more than the "borders of the United States or the status of California...
...I doubt it...
...Almost without exception, the Gelehrten (as Mencken forcefully labeled them) told the tale from the standpoint of confirmed pro-League and Wilsonian advocates...
...The deadly parallel ought to make itself felt today...
...For the present situation in the Senate inevitably invites comparisons with that of the closing years of the Wilson Administration...
...how the forces which took us into the war turned on its product at the end and inevitably, working far deeper than any plot, undermined the whole structure...
...You Can't Escape History What the Irish and Germans felt here in 1919, tomorrow the Poles, Italians, and perhaps the Jews (with some resentment about Britain's policy towards Palestine) may feel towards another Versailles...
...Secretary Hull, with his Spanish War experience, and Anthony Eden, with his background as a major in World War I, can hardly cope with Russian generals...
...15 uttered a profound truth when he said, "Perhaps today if the Administration would give us the facts about our diplomatic relations with Great Britain and Russia and China and France and Italy, the people would come to a wiser conclusion than their leaders will reach behind closed doors...
...The lack of unity among those pressing to commit the Senate now was apparent in the clash of opinion between Sen...
...While only a few days ago some of the boys were predicting all manner of dire developments if the Senate didn't act at once, the new slow-down was typified last weekend by the announcement of Sen...
...Whatever vague assent (and I believe it is vague, and filled with reservations) such resolutions as the Fulbright measure may command among the mass of Americans, rests on a popular desire to lay the foundations of a peace which will end wars...
...And then, destiny pulled the lever in reverse...
...Connally and the more extremist group led by Sen...
...Wendell Willkie in his St...
...Or, perhaps the B2H2 crowd will have dropped their crusade...
...Some day, he will tell how the eloquence of Borah and La Follette, stumping the country, roused the people to the dangers of the commitments they were asked to approve...
...Then under pressure of world events (and a lot else besides), the House produced a wondrous equivocation called the Fulbright Resolution, into which one could read internationalism or isolationism as one wished...
...La Follette the only member of the subcommittee opposing any action at this time...
...Finally this flash-back of 24 years must include another shot...
...It said that the Russians at the...
...In the first place, the subcommittee not only rejected the B2H2 Resolution, but also another resolution proposed by Sen...
...Thus, with "bitter enders" on both sides and "compromisers" in the middle, the picture takes on the grouping of the 1919 battle—with its Wilsonian bitter-enders, mild revisionists, strong revisionists, and all-out anti-League forces...
...A Shamefaced Birth Perhaps, by the time this article reaches print, history will have repeated itself, and bitter-enders on both sides will have beaten the compromisers...
...The Russians Speak Up Even if the B2H2 adherents could overlook the above discouraging picture, as politicians they could hardly remain blind to the political calculations motivating "compromise resolutions...
...On top of these considerations, the action of Russia, as expressed in the Pravda editorial of Oct...
...If they have, they'll retire with honor...
...Any one who has frequented the lobbies knows the story—"We've got to keep Willkie (the so and so) in the Party—he represents the big money —we can't afford a split in 1944—of course, we don't believe in this commitment stuff—etc., etc...
...If they should offer their resolution as an amendment and it should be rejected, there might be unfavorable reactions abroad...
...But the pre-Pearl Harbor interventionists can't have it both ways and can't plead the cause of small nations and the giant imperial powers...
...The Senate crowd backing the Ball, Burton, Hill, & Hatch resolution for American participation in a postwar scheme of collective security, with the inspiration of a much cagier operator in the White House, plumped last Spring for American commitment to something resembling the old League of Nations...
...La Follette voted against the compromise resolution, others objected to it only to vote "yes" reluctantly...
...Destiny, today, may repeat that performance...
...To continue the parallel, the average 1919 American reacted to the power-grab of Britain and France much as do the five globe-girdling Senators and the millions who respond to their rather naive discovery that Britain runs an efficient and unscrupulous empire business...
...Next, the Senate subcommittee of the Foreign Relations Committee charged with meeting the House challenge, last week gave birth to a resolution, also of "neuter gender," as one of its backers observed...
...But Sen...
...Commenting on the compromise approved by the subcommittee, Connally said: "The former supporters of the Ball-Burton-Hill-Hatch Resolution should support the present compromise resolution...
...Louis speeeh of Oct...
...Pre-Pearl Harbor interventionists, before the war, fed a wave of feeling against Axis powers by references to bleeding China, Czechoslovakia, Australia, Norway, etc...
...Robert M. La Follette, Jr., promptly expressed opposition to any resolution, neuter or otherwise, which would seek to pledge the United States to support policies as yet unstated...
...But the lessons of 1919 and their application today appear only darkly through the falsified glass which "treasonous clerks" who sought to explain the history of that day and this have created...
...In the United States the people have a right to make the decision...
...You can't escape history...
...If this means anything, it means that Russia (like Britain) reserves the right to interpret the Atlantic Charter as she pleases...
...Lodge and the naughty Republicans who did to death the Wilsonian passport to Utopia...
...For, in the twenties, historians fabricated a "cops and robbers" legend about the death of the Treaty and the League...
...Propaganda increased, and so did the emissaries who weave little paths from one end of Pennsylvania Avenue to the other...
...It embodied Hull's demand for (1) creation of international machinery for handling disputes between nations, (2) submission of justifiable disputes to a world court, and (3) military and economic sanctions to be used against recalcitrant nations...
...Another subcommittee member observed that the members finally decided to report out the compromise resolution principally because of the imminence of the tripartite diplomatic talks in Moscow...
...Ball and his associates, who generally invoke, in support of their own position, the "argument" that there might be unfavorable reaction abroad unless we did this, that, or the other thing, were unimpressed by Connally's warning, and they announced that they would seek to commit the Senate to an outright pledge by the United States to cooperate in an international police force to stand guard over whatever peace settlement is reached by the victorious powers...
...The Senate showed historic phlegm...
...The announcement from Moscow," observed Con-stantine Brown of the Washington Star, regarded as reflecting opinions of the High Command, "has caused serious concern in responsible Washington quarters...
...Connally, the chairman...
...Now a lot of slick manipulators may believe this popular sentiment would acquiesce in letting Britain and Russia impose their imperial wills on little nations...
...It represents the best that they can hope to secure...
...1919 And 1943 - A Deadly Parallel By FRANK C. HANIGHEN Washington, D. C. "THE STAGE is set, the destiny disclosed," pro- cl'aimed President Woodrow Wilson a generation ago as he presented his trans-Atlantic labors to Congress...
...Brown points out that both the American and British delegations in Moscow are composed almost exclusively of diplomats who know nothing of military affairs...
...The "harmony" decisions of the Mackinac conference and the approach of the campaign of next year influence regular Republicans...
...Not only the "fair play" sentiment among the American people, but the feelings of various racial groups can swell quite a different wave—a wave of protest against another Versailles...
...The "neuter gender" resolution, however it's billed in the press, really enjoyed a very shamefaced birth...
...The schoolmaster Wilson who preferred his pupils to learn by rote rather than by lucid explanation, seems to have left descendants...
...This being the case, any commitment such as the B2H2 resolution which would guarantee such war-breeding conquests, makes no sense...
...Thus, the subcommittee said "no" to anything like a League...
...Nor was Sen...
...He said the Senators did not want to incur responsibility for failure of these talks...
...Some day, perhaps, a true historian will really evaluate the forces which turned the country against the Wilson formula...
...It means that Russia intends to sow seeds which can only grow into World War III (or, as she may prefer to put it, to prepare for that future war...
Vol. 7 • October 1943 • No. 43
