SEEDS OF FUTURE WARS'
Seeds Of Future Wars' VICE PRESIDENT Henry A. Wallace's recent declaration in behalf of an American foreign policy which would promote the economic and political freedom of India, the Netherlands...
...Canada has already shown one way, as the editorial below on the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation makes clear...
...Our present policy of advocating freedom out of one side of our mouth and agreeing to finance suppression of the fight for freedom out of the other side can only lose us what influence and good will we have left around the world...
...This cynical appraisal of the intelligence of the American citizen is not greatly different from the contemptuous attitude of the Nazis and Fascists regarding the capacity of a free people to make intelligent decisions once they are given the facts...
...Now they are at the very threshold of being called on to put their theories into practice...
...Wallace made it clear that it was not the mission of the United States "to write declarations of independence for the colonies of other powers," but he added, referring to Prime Minister Churchill's imperial design: *'Nor is it our mission to underwrite other peo-ople's declarations of continued empire...
...Catledge makes clear, the strategists have just the opposite objective...
...Prime Minister Mackenzie King is expected, in view of the Saskatchewan results, to postpone once more the date for a dominion election, but as the law now stands he cannot put such a national test off beyond next Summer...
...Unfortunately, however, as Mr...
...The trend toward shortening and streamlining platforms and declarations of principles is a method of running away from a clear-cut, unequivocal statement on the leading issues...
...They want to avoid a showdown on basic issues...
...Seeds Of Future Wars' VICE PRESIDENT Henry A. Wallace's recent declaration in behalf of an American foreign policy which would promote the economic and political freedom of India, the Netherlands East Indies, and other subject areas of Asia is one of the most statesmanlike utterances to come from a high Administration official in many months...
...It might be particularly effective as a challenge to our own swing to the right...
...The little group of preachers, teachers, farmers, and trades unionists who launched this political venture only'll years ago have done their educational task with superb results...
...Wallace's results in a tragic contradiction in Administration policy...
...This, of course, is a basic premise in the foreign policy of The Progressive—that imperialism is one of the chief causes of war, and that unless we act courageously to banish it from world politics, no world organization can hope to keep the peace...
...Streamlined Evasions STRATEGISTS for the Democratic Party are playing around with the idea of borrowing heavily from the advertising profession's thumb-worn book of cynicism and presenting the voters of America with a platform so short, and so vague, that it can be written on the back of a postcard...
...Final reports may make the CCF triumph even more imposing...
...Vice President Wallace, unfortunately, • runs away from the implications of his own position by failing to press home the point that the United States must exact from its allies a promise of progressive abandonment of imperialism before this country promises to join in policing the peace settlement...
...If the frenzied rush to shorten and streamline platforms were motivated by a desire to simplify and make the various planks more intelligible, the trend would be healthy and thoroughly democratic...
...This failure of Mr...
...Then this continent would see for the first time a genuine showdown between socialism and traditional capitalistic liberalism—for the Progressive Conservatives insist that they are liberals—for control of one of the nations of the Americas...
...The continuation and extension of this policy of evasion by the two old parties may finally have a salutary effect on American policies by forcing the long-delayed realignment of political parties...
...The outcome, whatever it might be, would have repercussions in every part of this hemisphere...
...Canada's CCF Forges Ahead (From the Christian Century) ONCE MORE the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, Canada's upstart socialist party, has won a smashing victory in a provincial election...
...The prairie province of Saskatchewan, which has been in Liberal hands continuously—except for a brief Conservative interval in 1930-34—since its formation in 1905, has elected at least 45 CCF candidates to the 55 seats in its legislature...
...The Administration can resolve and eliminate this basic contradiction only if it is willing to face up to the realities of world politics and take its place unreservedly in the ranks of those fighting for freedom, and not for the preservation of an imperial status quo...
...While the Vice President contends for Asiatic freedom from imperial domination, the President announces his willingness to underwrite British, Dutch, and French Empires in the Orient by a four-power alliance...
...This contradiction was most apparent last week when the Vice President called for freedom for India while Drew Pearson, the Washington columnist, was revealing that the President has approved the delivery of "tremendous quantities" of American munitions to the British in India to suppress revolts for freedom...
...Turner Catledge, New York Times correspondent, last week quoted "confidants of President Roosevelt" as favoring this postcard platform strategy as a means of ducking commitments on such controversial issues as the poll-tax, anti-lynch legislation, wage and hour control, and wartime bureaucracy...
...With the CCF in control of Saskatchewan, the official opposition in British Columbia and Ontario, and credited with being powerful enough to take charge in Manitoba and Alberta whenever it can obtain an election, it is plain that this socialist party is now definitely bidding for the rule of all Canada...
...Like the pill and toothpaste peddlers, who hide the real qualities of the products they promote behind high-sounding but misleading slogans, these Democratic strategists hope to compress their position on major issues into a platform of less than 300 words which will commit them to nothing...
...This device is finding increasing popularity with both old political parties...
...And as in Ontario's election of last Summer, the Liberals likewise were all but wiped out...
...The Conservative party, which recently re-baptized itself as Progressive Conservative and chose a leader from Manitoba in an effort to win the prairie farmers, did not win a single seat...
...The Vice President put his finger on the most urgent reason for pressing for an erid of imperial rule in Asia when he pointed out that the conflict of forces there—between European masters and Asiatic subjects—has in it "seeds of future wars...
...A party that stands for something and isn't afraid to fight for its convictions will emerge to challenge the streamlined evasions of the two old parties...
...Frightened by the rapid and continued growth of CCF strength, it is quite possible that the old parties will combine for the national election...
Vol. 8 • July 1944 • No. 27
