WHY WE LOST THE LAST PEACE
Follette, Robert M. La Sr.
Why We Lost The Last Peace By ROBERT M. LA FOLLETTE, Sr. PROLOGUE AMERICA today faces a momentous choice. We can acquiesce in the demands of those who want a peace settlement based on...
...It is the beginning of war and not the end of war...
...And in the meantime, if it be possible, we must establish a peace that will justly define their place among the nations, remove all fear of their neighbors and of their former masters, and will enable them to live in security and contentment when they have set their affairs in order...
...They locked the chains on the subject peoples of Egypt and India...
...it will do more than that...
...The Treaty, of Versailles took Germany's territory, European and foreign, without compensation...
...We can acquiesce in the demands of those who want a peace settlement based on imperialism, spheres of in-fuence, coercive force, and, in fact, on all the treacherous proposals which evade a basic diagnosis and courageous treatment of the world's ills...
...It closed out all of her interests in foreign lands and abrogated all treaties which had given her commercial privileges and concessions before the war...
...America today faces the same choice that America faced in and after World War I. One alternative is a harsh treaty of revenge, based on power, imperialism, aggrandizement, dismemberment...
...That resolution has been misrepresented both as to its terms and purposes...
...Adolf Hitler, who campaigned on a promise to tear up the Treaty, swept into power, lacking even then a majority of the votes of the people of Germany...
...It appropriated her natural resources, her coal, her iron, her phosphate...
...but he persisted in his fight to put Congress on record as opposing an anti-democratic, imperialist, vengeance-minded peace...
...This little group of men who sat in secret conclave for months at Versailles were not peacemakers...
...Or we can recognize that wars have causes—imperialism, competitive armaments, territorial aggrandizement, social dislocations, economic inequalities, racial discriminations, harsh indemnities, and a hate-creating spirit of revenge...
...In November, 1918, on the eve of the signing of the armistice, our Allies specifically accepted the 14 Points, which we had given our pledge should be written into the peace treaty...
...He declared that the great nations which had associated themselves to destroy German imperialism had now "definitely united in the common purpose to set up such a peace as will satisfy the longing of the whole world for disinterested justice, embodied in settlements which are based upon something much better and much more lasting than the selfish competitive interests of powerful states...
...Wilson met Clemenceau, Lloyd George, and Orlando at Paris, and gave his assent to a treaty which has resulted in prostrating Germany, dismembering Austria, and throwing millions of the common people of Europe into a condition of economic slavery...
...This was also the choice of a quarter of a century ago...
...Then, fearing the wrath of outraged peoples, knowing that their new map would be torn to rags and tatters by the conflicting, warring elements which they had bound together in wanton disregard of racial animosities, they made a League of Nations to stand guard over the swag...
...At Versailles the imperialists who directed the policy of Great Britain, France, Italy, and Japan, deserted those principles, and repudiated the only vital relationship which bound them to this country...
...La FoUette's resolution was not adopted...
...And by every canon of law and every principle of honest dealing between men and nations, she was forever estopped from raising any question as to any and every construction which those proposals covered...
...It will take from the backs of unborn generations in Central Europe, intolerable burdens laid upon them unjustly for the sins of their fathers...
...they were warmakers...
...They patched up a new map of the old world in consummation of the terms of the secret treaties the existence of which they had denied because they feared to expose the sordid aims and purposes for which men were sent to death by the tens of thousands daily...
...This week, on the 19th anniversary of the death of Robert Marion La Follette, Sr., the Editors of The Progressive reprint, in three parts, fragments of his articles and speeches which, taken together, present the story of why we lost the last peace and a powerful warning to us as we fact a new peace settlement...
...It will revive American industry and free the commerce of the world from the strangling influences of militarism...
...La Follette warned came less than two decades later...
...On Dec...
...It gave a foreign commission control of her commercial and industrial life...
...It took all of her ocean shipping and large portions of her inland vessels...
...Great Britain at the 11th hour reserved the freedom of the seas and some questions as to indemnity for subsequent discussion...
...The Editors PART I A Plea For Action AUGUST 11, 1917,1 introduced in the United States Senate a Concurrent Resolution declaring that the Constitution vests in Congress the right to determine and announce the objects and purposes for which this Government shall continue to participate in the European war, and that the United.States will not contribute to the efforts of any European Government to annex new territory or to enforce indemnities...
...When this monstrous scheme for tyrannizing the world under a coalition of five great powers was offered to the voters of this country it was rejected by the most overwhelming majority in the history of the nation...
...They partitioned territory and traded off peoples in mockery of that sanctified formula of 14 Points and made it our nation's shame...
...If they do, we shall put our aid at their disposal in every way that we can...
...La Follette more than 20 years ago...
...We are under no obligation to the Allies in respect to the treaty...
...Wilson referred with words of encouragement to the Germans, Austrians, and other peoples of Central Europe "who have just come out from under the yoke of arbitrary government and who are now coming at last into their freedom...
...It is a reversion to barbarism...
...This Peace Treaty, a document of hate and fear, came to the Senate after it had been incubated in darkness and secrecy...
...The Allies were under the most binding moral obligation to write into the peace the terms which this country had formulated in principle and which they had proclaimed to the world as their own...
...No isolationist, he wanted the United States to use its influence in the world to create a just settlement...
...The treaty pact with Germany is a reproach to Christianity...
...This way leads to World War III in a generation...
...He said: "We must hold the light steady until they find themselves...
...Less than 20 years after the memorable statements by "Fighting Bob," a Germany that had been weakened, disorganized, and dismembered by the Treaty of Versailles, in violation of our solemn -promises, gave up its 20-year struggle to remain free...
...It internationalized her great river system and made it a part of the high seas...
...It will open the channels of trade...
...How completely we bungled our opportunity then is all too apparent in the world now at war...
...Everything in this article except the paragraphs in italic was written by the late Sen...
...IT IS the plain duty of the United States Government at this time to use its influence toward the fulfillment of the promises made by the responsible representatives of this country and the Allied governments during the war...
...Six years afterwards Hitler launched war in Europe, and within two years, the whole world was ablaze with hostilities...
...It must be rewritten in the spirit of peace and justice or another great calamity will befall the world...
...It also provided that Congress shall declare for a public restatement of the Allies' peace terms disavowing any advantages in the way of indemnities, territorial acquisitions, or commercial privileges by which one nation shall strengthen its power abroad at the expense of another nation...
...These next paragraphs were uttered after the war had ended...
...It is a disgrace to its authors...
...The declarations by the President (Wilson), accepted by Congress, by the American people, by the Allies, and the world as the responsible voice of our Government, pledged us to conduct the war with "no selfish ends to serve" and pledged us absolutely to a peace expressed in the formula: "No annexations, no contributions, no indemnities...
...Finally, after robbing her of the means by which to restore her economic health, it provided for quartering an army of tax gatherers and soldiers upon the German people indefinitely at Germany's expense to collect a crushing indemnity of $24,000,000,000 in gold...
...but the Congress does hereby declare in favor of the creation of a common fund to be provided by all the belligerent nations to assist in the restoration of the portions of territory in any of the countries most seriously devastated by the war, and for the establishment of an international commission to decide the allotment of the common fund...
...Great Britain had given her open consent or silent approval to the President's peace proposals, indemnity, freedom of the seas, and all...
...Resolved, further, That Congress declares that there should be a public restatement of the Allies' peace terms, based on a disavowal of any disadvantages, either in the way of Indemnities, territorial acquisitions, commercial privileges, or economic prerogatives, by means of which one nation shall strengthen its power abroad :at the expense of another nation, as wholly incompatible with the establishment of a durable peace in the world...
...PART II The Promise Of Peace (Sen...
...Mr...
...La Follette's remarkable prophecy had come true: The men who sat at Versailles were not peacemakers...
...PART III Betrayal At Versailles WHILE these generous words were still re-echoing throughout prostrate Europe, Mr...
...They cut and slashed the map of the Old World in violation of the terms of the armistice...
...I, for one, do not doubt their purpose or their capacity...
...They were war makers...
...There are some happy signs that they know and will choose the way of self-control and peaceful accommodation...
...2, 1918, in announcing to Congress the signing of the armistice, President Wilson reaffirmed in specific language the principles to which this Government would be bound in arriving at the terms of peace...
...Its principal provisions were these: "Resolved, That the Congress hereby declares that this Government will not contribute to the efforts of any belligerent for the purpose of prolonging the war to annex new territory, either in Europe or outside of Europe, nor to enforce the payment of indemnities to recover the expenses of the war...
...This policy will not alone discharge our obligations...
...The other alternative is a declaration now of democratic peace objectives —to be followed this time by an honorable fulfillment of pledges honestly given...
...It will build for the peace of the world a foundation of justice and honesty...
...EPILOGUE THE treaty was not rewritten, and the great calamity of which the late Sen...
...They betrayed China...
Vol. 8 • June 1944 • No. 26
