AMERICA MUST SPEAK UP NOW!
Follette, Sen. Robert M. La Jr.
America Must Speak Up Now! By SEN. ROBERT M. LA FOLLETTE, Jr. ON THE EVE of a smashing military victory in Europe the American people are still ¦without any definite information regarding the...
...The people of the United States understand, without the need of being scolded every day, that the cause of peace will be enhanced through international cooperation...
...The air bases we have built about the world under-I .^id-Lease and by direct military and naval construction are the keys to commercial air transportation in the postwar period...
...The Republican Party apparently is ready to aid and abet this piece of political strategy...
...It is time for America to break away from the imperial designs of Mr...
...It is time, in short, for American principles to take their place alongside American fighting power...
...They wonder if they are to be committed now to enforce a peace settlement which violates American principles of freedom and democracy...
...Here also is the warm water port which has been an objective of Rus-* sian policy for generations...
...In this country there is a profound uneasiness about the domestic economic future just ahead...
...Problems Of The East At Versailles in 1919 a bloc of states—the cordon sanitaire—was built up around Germany...
...The American people wonder whether it is to be retained to give us a dominant place in merchant shipping or are we to use it to restore the merchant fleets of the nations which dominated world shipping before the war...
...The leadership of both the Republican and Democratic parties should break their conspiracy of silence on these great issues and denounce the present motley assortment of political expedients, compromises with imperialism, and concessions to power politics which lead only to future wars...
...There the native population fought of their own accord side by side with the white men, as they did nowhere else in the Orient, because the Filipinos had been promised their freedom and they knew that we meant to keep that pledge...
...The American people believe that a free world, a world of free people, will be a world at peace, a world determined to bind up its wounds and go forward to harness the great engines of this machine age for peace and prosperity for all...
...Is Burma to be returned to Britain, Indo-China to France...
...In the long run the people of the United States will decide the course of our foreign policy...
...Then the deadly wartime destructive power of American production will be matched by the healing, constructive power of American principles...
...Instead, during recent weeks the attention of the people has been directed toward the secret meetings held at Dumbarton Oaks...
...In the meantime swift military and diplomatic developments narrow the opportunity for America to take the lead in rallying the forces of democracy in the world...
...They wonder if they are to be committed to an extension of the present chaos in Italy, or to endorsing Churchill's friendliness to Franco, to abandoning the Poles to any fate the Kremlin decrees...
...Although devoted to the principles of international cooperation to preserve peace, the people of the United States have a few basic questions on their mind...
...They wonder if the United States' approval is to be given in advance to a peace settlement of revenge and dismemberment for Germany: a settlement which would play into the hands of the worst elements in Germany, just as the settlement of Versailles played into the hands of Adolf Hitler and his brown-shirted gangsters...
...Old Parties' Strategy It becomes increasingly clear, as the campaign wears on, that the Administration has decided to withhold from the American people as long as events permit any information regarding its policies in Europe, Asia, and Africa...
...Churchill and the Soviet drive for power of Mr...
...To deny them both the information upon which they can form intelligent judgments and any effective political expression will jeopardize the continuity of our policy so vital to America's role in the postwar world...
...We are paying a terrible price for our failure to stand up and fight for our own principles— and for the principles of the Atlantic Charter to which all the United Nations are signatory...
...Once again, as in 1940, the people are to be deprived of any effective choice on the most important issues of this campaign...
...The British have made it just as clear that we are not to "meddle" in affairs of their Empire...
...An Affirmative Faith In Freedom The American people are in a position to lead the war-weary world to a democratic peace...
...The best available information indicates that 30 giant trusts control the economic life of Germany...
...Their sole function was to try to obtain agreement on a plan to maintain peace by force, regardless of what the terms of peace may be...
...Here lie the greatest potential oil resources in the world as yet virtually untapped...
...Are we to join the British in their desire to freeze Russia out of this vital area, or are we to attempt the difficult task of trying to reconcile these sharply conflicting interests ? The American people wonder also about our policy in the Far East...
...America has won enormous respect throughout the world as a result of the valor and genius of our arms and the miracle of our production by labor and management...
...No one is allowed to know what our policy in this hot spot is to be...
...When our envoy to India reported the ^urgent need for a more decent British attitude toward India, the British not only clamped down a severe censorship but forced the removal of that man, William Phillips, from a post to which he had only lately been appointed in France...
...Hold Aloft American Ideals...
...As we compromise on one principle after another, as we succumb to the pressures from Moscow and London, as we find expediency the soft, easy way to settlements, as we look to vengeance for our policy, and as we emphasize world policing to the exclusion of a just peace settlement to be enforced, we add to that brooding fear that the fruits of victory may wither in our hands...
...The people of the United States understand that there are bound to be differences of opinion and conflicts of interests among the major powers...
...But they cannot function as the citizens of a democracy must function, if democracy is to survive, because they are denied the essential information necessary to the formulation and crystallization of public policies in a republic...
...Paying A Terrible Price Our failure to step forward with an American, democratic alternative to the imperialism and power politics plans of our Allies is costing us dearly in friendship, good will, prestige, and influence around the world...
...The people want to know what kind of peace settlement the world security organization, which was fashioned at Dumbarton Oaks, is to enforce...
...THESE are some of the great questions upon which the American people should be forming constructive opinions...
...Let America call upon the peoples of all countries to unite now behind an international program worth fighting for...
...The people know that there is an American way, a democratic way to deal with the worldwide problems which confront us...
...The dawn of victory has had a sobering effect on people everywhere...
...They wonder too if the harsh peace with Finland is only the entering wedge for Soviet domination of the Baltic...
...America can speak up now and make her voice heard wherever men dream, plan, and fight for f reeedom because America today is the one great nation on earth which has no interest in owning anybody else...
...It is time to prove that democracy is the great alternative to both...
...This is a great tragedy for democracy at home and it is fateful for the future peace of the world...
...The People Want To Know The United States has the key position in the United Nations councils today...
...The American people wonder if this plan is not now in the process of being reversed with Russia dominating Eastern and Southern Europe...
...This is a far more wholesome approach than the present practice of total secrecy combined with the current method of pretending that differences of opinion and conflicts of interest do not exist, and then using the smear brush on anyone who suggests that there are differences which ought to be thrashed out in public for the greater good of all...
...The American ideal of equality of political and economic opportunity should be held aloft now to the conquered, occupied, neutral, and enemy peoples of the world as the most hopeful and the most attainable alternative to fascism, imperialism, communism—or chaos...
...But they do not understand why that cooperation must always be on other nations' terms, why the common principles of the Atlantic Charter and the American doctrine of the Four Freedoms must be flouted whenever the great powers find it expedient to do so...
...Along with this concern is a growing fear that we may lose the peace after winning the war...
...The American people wonder if we are to have equal rights to the use of these essential bases built with American money, or do they belong after the war to the countries where they are situated ? Today we have the largest merchant fleet the world has ever known...
...It is time for America to show Europe that the choice is not between communism and chaos...
...Stalin...
...But this respect is being dissipated as our Government fails to follow through in the fields of world politics and diplomacy...
...In spite of all the talk about "cooperation" and world organization, the Soviets have made it clear that we are not to "interfere" with what they regard as dominantly Russian problems in Europe...
...They did not even mention the great problems involved in Europe, Asia, or Africa...
...Everywhere are signs that we must speak up for the American way now or it may be too late...
...When we offered our good offices to help mediate the Russo-Polish dispute, we were told, in diplomatic language, to mind our own business...
...There never was greater need for clear thinking, a purposeful program, and above all, a bold spirit...
...As we wrest the Pacific islands from Japan at such cost in American blood, do we retain them or return them to the various claimant nations...
...But instead of speaking up, President Roosevelt and Governor Dewey seem to have entered into a conspiracy of silence on the vital issues of American foreign policy...
...Peoples everywhere who have been electrified by the might of our arms and the productivity of our farms and our factories have been dismayed to hear that the voice of this giant is only a tiny squeak in the councils of the victorious powers...
...ON THE EVE of a smashing military victory in Europe the American people are still ¦without any definite information regarding the peace policies of our Government...
...The people wonder whether we are going to stand for these cartel agreements be-ing renewed with the result that international trade will be restricted, high prices maintained, world markets allocated, and competition throttled at home and abroad...
...It is time for President Roosevelt and Governor Dewey to speak up...
...They know that in that distant outpost in the Pacific, the Philippine Islands, the American way proved itself to the hilt in this war...
...The American people wonder about our policy in the Near East...
...Here also is Palestine, the focal point of the Jewish desire for a homeland...
...In India we are being blamed with the British and in Poland we are being blamed with the Soviets—all because we have meekly acquiesced in the nationalistic plans of our aggressive associates in war...
...But they know, too, that intelligent recognition of this fact and a frank policy of open discussion and negotiation will often if not nearly, always lead to an acceptable solution...
...These are the decisive months of the war...
...Why then, Americans wonder, is the settlement which is reached on each major question stamped "Made in London" or "Made in Moscow...
...They are the people of the one great power that seeks no conquest, no domination of other peoples...
...But none of these vital questions was discussed by the delegates...
...Do we favor a strong China or do we side with the British and Russians in their desire to keep China weak ? Do we favor return of Hong Kong to Great Britain or China...
...It is time to speak up—to speak up with an American peace program which would capture the imagination and w i n the hearts of people everywhere...
...Before election the Presidential candidates should assert an affirmative faith in freedom and,democracy, so great that the voice of the American people will be as effective in the councils of the world as are our armies on the battlefields and our productive genius on the farms and in the factories...
...Why is there so little of the Four Freedoms and so much of the Four Horsemen of power politics—imperialism, spheres of influence, special privilege, exploitation in every settlement proposed thus far ? It is time for America to use our bargaining power to wring democratic, anti-imperialistic concessions from our Allies so that we can stand up to all the peoples of the world and prove that the Four Freedoms were more than mere wartime oratory...
...It is time for America to assert to Asia that the choice is not between European imperialism and Japanese aggression, but that freedom and self-rule are attainable...
...Men and women everywhere wonder and worry about what lies beyond the command to "cease firing...
...The American people wonder what our policy is to be toward these trusts, which have been the center of the great international agreements between them and the corresponding corporations in Great Britain, the United States, France, and Japan...
...Give this faith- a voice that can be heard throughout the world...
Vol. 8 • October 1944 • No. 42
