STREAMLINING POWER POLITICS
Streamlining Power Politics IT WAS moving day at Dumbarton Oaks last week. The Russian delegation moved out and the Chinese diplomats were ushered into the stately mansion in suburban...
...They have been carrying on the most reactionary kind of political activity, as any fair-minded person who has followed their activities will testify...
...The opening attraction left much to be desired...
...Sen...
...Called to Washington to appear before the House Campaign Expenditures Committee Gannett's propagandists defied the Congress of the United States by arrogantly refusing to furnish a list of the people who had contributed $100 or more to the organization...
...The Russian delegation balked repeatedly at Anglo-American recommendations, sniffed suspiciously at talk of giving small nations a voice in world councils, and refused to yield on one of the most basic propositions of all...
...In reality it was a propaganda outfit to fight progressive reforms...
...The Russian delegation moved out and the Chinese diplomats were ushered into the stately mansion in suburban Washington...
...Certainly, no one can offer objection-to either procedure...
...Briny stated, the conflict was this: The Three Powers agreed that they (and possibly China and France) would dominate the world security organization...
...These latter are presumably to be so completely conquered, disarmed, and policed, as to be rendered impotent as a future threat to world peace...
...Americans have heard much of the need for a world organization to guard the peace...
...But until the problem of full employment and full production is tackled intelligently and courageously, it is urgently necessary that we adopt the most intelligent stop-gap legislation possible...
...It has happened, and it could happen again...
...George D. Aiken, Vermont Republican, have introduced legislation in Congress to revive and strengthen this plan...
...Recent developments indicate that the officials of this Committee have no better understanding of the Constitution than had those of its predecessor...
...British and American delegates urged that if one of the governing clique were accused of aggressive designs or actions, its conduct would be judged by the others with the accused member abstaining from sitting in judgment of its own acts...
...The claim of the Gannett crowd that their organization is not political in nature and thus not subject to the Committee's jurisdiction, is patent nonsense...
...Tory Defiance SEVERAL years ago, Frank Gannett, a reactionary eastern publisher who is known for his passionate longing to return to the age of feudalism, organized an outfit called the Constitution Educational League...
...The purpose of the League, according to Gannett, was to educate Americans in the meaning of their Constitution...
...Small nations would be given some representation in the governing council, but any action against an "aggressor nation" would require the unanimous approval of the Big Three (and possibly China and France...
...A Must For Congress IT IS ONE of the tragedies of our day that under the programs offered to America by the two old parties, we must continually think of this country's future in terms of hungry, sub-standard income groups on the one hand and vast surpluses of farm commodities on the other...
...But the Soviet delegation, acting on specific orders from the Kremlin, refused to agree on this decisive point...
...Gannett now has another propaganda outfit, this time called the Committee for Constitutional Government...
...Thus, while the delegates issued pious state-merits about great progress toward permanent peace, the result was to enthrone power politics in its most anti-democratic form...
...It is reported that if they persist in their present attitude of defiance they will be cited for contempt of Congress and there is a possibility that the affair may be certified to Speaker Sam Rayburn to be turned over for grand jury investigation...
...The man in the street doesn't need a diplomat's silk hat or frock coat to grasp the fact that the first half of the Dumbarton Oaks security conferences produced only a slightly streamlined formula for power politics...
...If the Soviet position at Dumbarton Oaks prevails, there will be two standards of international morality—one for the great powers, which will be free to seize territory, practice imperialism, and develop "spheres of influence" at will—and another standard for the small nations of the world and the defeated powers...
...It is estimated that the La Follette-Aiken bill will provide at least 70 per cent of an adequate diet for 23,000,000 Americans and absorb a large measure of the millions of tons of surplus food the farmers will have on their hands when we return to a peace economy...
...One such step, which proved highly successful in pre-war days, was the Federal Food Stamp Plan...
...Under questioning by Committee members these "experts" demonstrated that they eould not answer the most elementary questions about the Constitution—questions that any school child would be ashamed to miss...
...This demonstration of contempt for the orderly process of American government came, incidentally, only a few short days after Sidney Hillman had presented to the House Committee a complete report of all contributors to the CIO Political Action Committee...
...It is time that Congress taught the Committee for Constitutional Government its first lesson in Constitutional government...
...Robert M. La Follette, Jr., Wisconsin Progressive, and Sen...
...One can well imagine the epidemic of apoplectic seizures that would have swept the editorial sanctums in this country had Hillman taken the attitude of Gannett's propaganda peddlers...
...Now, suppose for a moment one of the Big Three becomes an aggressor...
...It lasted six weeks, or twice as long as scheduled...
...By some rule of diplomatic hocus-pocus, the Russians and the Chinese are not supposed to sit around the same table, for they are not at war with the same branches of the Axis...
...That is why it is so difficult to understand against what or whom the proposed security organization is to protect the world if each of the big powers is to have a decisive veto over any attempt to halt aggression by one of their own number...
...The Russians held out—and the conference broke up'without agreement—for the right of each of the Big Three to veto action by the security organization even if its own aggressions were under consideration...
...Hence, two "security" conferences were scheduled, one for the British, Americans, and Russians, and the other for the British, Americans, and Chinese...
...Some of the high paid Constitutional "experts" of the League were called before the La Follette Civil Liberties Committee...
...The second half of the double-header has now begun...
...Certainly this measure should be high on the legislative priority list when Congress reconvenes next month...
...There is vital need for early enactment of this legislation so that the machinery to put the plan into action will be ready to go when the impact of peace hits our strained economy...
Vol. 8 • October 1944 • No. 41
