REP. SAUTHOFF SUMMONS PROGRESSIVES TO FIGHT 'TAMMANY-TYPE PEACE'
Rep. Sauthoff Summons Progressives To Fight Tammany-Type Peace' FOLLOWERS of the late Robert Marion La Follette, Sr., attending the 19th annual memorial services for the founder of the Progressive...
...A European Commonwealth Emphasizing that permanent peace cannot be based on "brute force" and "power politics," Sauthoff called for a peace treaty that will deal courageously with the causes of war...
...Sauthoff, who delivered the principal address at the services, warned against those who "would commit us to enforce a peace settlement which might be the very negation of every democratic aspiration which is in our hearts and minds...
...It Is Not Too Late' "Today our boys are fighting the bloodiest war of all history, fighting it on all the seas and all the continents of the world...
...Our answer," he asserted, "must be the answer of Bob La Follette under similar circumstances a quarter of a century ago...
...But candor compels me to state that we are poised to take the same fateful steps against which the late Bob La Follette, Sr., warned so eloquently and so prophetically a quarter of a century ago...
...Sauthoff Summons Progressives To Fight Tammany-Type Peace' FOLLOWERS of the late Robert Marion La Follette, Sr., attending the 19th annual memorial services for the founder of the Progressive movement in Madison last weekend were urged by Rep...
...He warned, however, that "unless some champion comes forward to fight for Allied pledges, power politics with its vicious balance-of-power principle will be established again, and once more the common people will be betrayed...
...A United States of Europe, with which "all of us would be glad to cooperate," he said, is perhaps premature, but other arrangements, such as a commonwealth of Europe, are possible...
...Sauthoff pointed out that it was not the refusal of the United States to join the League of Nations, but rather the determination of France and England to strengthen Hitler as a "bulwark against Communism" that enabled the Nazis to perfect a powerful military machine and plunge all of Europe, and then the rest of the world, into a second world war...
...Our answer is a clear, ringing 'NO'—not a 'no' against international cooperation, for we believe in cooperating with other nations to write and preserve a decent, democratic, anti-imperialist peace, but a pealing 'NO' against those who beckon us to a Tammany-type peace...
...We have squandered most of our influence with our Allies, by failing to secure democratic commitments from them...
...Harry Sauthoff, Progressive Congressman from the Second Wisconsin District, to follow the example of "Fighting Bob" and reject a "Tammany type" peace based on the tragic doctrine of Versailles that "to the victor belong the spoils...
...Whatever may be our differences of opinion on other subjects, we are united in our determination to win the war and to win it as speedily as possible...
...He proposed a creation of a democratic European Commonwealth as one of the first steps in guarding against a new war...
...I have just come from Washington...
...Along with that determination goes the solemn conviction that this time we must win the peace as well...
...Yet we still have bargaining power...
...It is not too late for us to assert our position...
...As our boys fight ever closer to victory, Allied leaders become emboldened to speak in terms of imperialism, spheres of influence, indemnities, dismemberment •—in fact, of goals which are the very opposite of the objectives for which our boys have been told to fight, and if need be, to die...
...There is a growing fear that we shall have another "Versailles, with its hatreds, its plotting, its power politics...
...I wish I could report that there is resurgent hope and rekindled enthusiasm over the prospect of lasting peace when this war ends...
...This fear is being voiced in quarters which are generally regarded as internationally-minded, and that of course, adds to our apprehension...
...Let us use it now—not for selfish purpose, not for national aggrandizement, but to secure agreement on the terms of an honorable settlement which will permit us to work with all countries, with all colors, and with all creeds for enduring peace...
Vol. 8 • July 1944 • No. 27
