IF THIS BE ISOLATIONISM-
Meyer, Ernest L.
If This Be Isolationism— By ERNEST L. MEYER TWO weeks ago, in the pages of The Progressive, Sen. Robert M. La Follette, Jr., offered a stirring and a lucid plea for a new conception of America's...
...Yet all his arguments and illusions are the coinage of the Chicago Tribune, and are indistinguishable from one of Col...
...It is less starry eyed, tougher, more realistic...
...What they'd think, what they'd say, what they'd do—might give the right pitch to the guys with the frock coats, striped • pants, and silk hats...
...Yet in PM's issue of Oct...
...That's why we say—let Ivan, Tommy Atkins, and GI Joe get together...
...It means a sweeping away of the old formulas of secret diplomacy and division of swag at war's end...
...Let America call upon the peoples of all countries to unite now behind an international program worth fighting for...
...It is, if you will, "tough," and speaks for the ordinary men in the ranks...
...It means a democratic effort aimed at winning a truly democratic peace...
...And let Mr...
...Yet in a recent issue, the doughboy paper said editorially: "Ordinary folks manage to get along together and all of them want the same things: a chance to work,-enough to eat, a little fun and all the things that home, family, and peace mean to a man...
...And he concluded on this note: "The American people are in a position to lead the war-weary world to a democratic peace...
...Then Mr...
...Lerner, if he would clothe himself in but the tatters of the liberalism he professes, must know that power without principle is a Frankenstein monster, and that principle must be rooted in the common dreams and needs of the people everywhere to insure peace...
...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...
...They might not figure to a hairline a dicker on Danzig or the Dardanelles—but they play the cards face up on the table...
...The Lust For Power "Give this faith a voice that can be heard throughout the world...
...It understands that power counts more than words...
...And Lerner, its chief editorialist, is hailed as the paper's most liberal contributor...
...Lerner is today watching power, rampant, marching across the earth's bleeding acres with one "tough" and "realistic" aim—to perpetuate the blissful prewar status quo of power...
...If this appeal in the Army newspaper, and if the appeal of Sen...
...McCormick's editorials except for the gloss...
...La Follette has done has been again to dress up the deathly skeleton of the isolationist position in the raiment of liberal concepts like anti-imperialism and democracy...
...The GI Version No...
...If Sen...
...They don't think much about big money...
...La Follette which expresses the same hope for a democratic getting-together of all people, be "isolationism," then heaven grant us more isolationism...
...Take away this issue of PM and give me instead a copy of the United States Army newspaper, Stars and Stripes, which has just come to hand...
...And yet the Senator is denounced as an isolationist...
...Lerner has seen throughout history alliances and.combinations of power war upon rival combinations of power, with the plain people the sacrificial goats upon the altar of power...
...Cartels and colonies aren't in their line...
...Lerner draw what comfort he can from his power, his frock coats, striped pants, and silk hats, the "realistic" internationalism of ruin...
...The attack comes from a strange quarter...
...It means internationalism—the enduring internationalism of the masses as against the transitory alliances of the military leaders...
...It means a summons to all plain people everywhere to demand a share in shaping the destiny of the earth's oppressed...
...Robert M. La Follette, Jr., offered a stirring and a lucid plea for a new conception of America's duty in the formulation of peace terms and the nation's role in the postwar world...
...Lerner has seen the world go to pot through power...
...The leadership of both the Republican and Democratic parties should break their conspiracy of silence on these great issues and denounce the present day motley assortment of political expedients, compromises with imperialism, and concessions to power politics which lead only to future wars...
...The Stars and Stripes does not profess to be liberal...
...What Sen...
...In New York, the newspaper PM poses as the most liberal daily...
...Lerner in his own lifetime has seen the reactionary power of Britain and France arming an ultrareactionary and devilish.power in Germany in the hope of stemming an upstart revolutionary power in Russia...
...Power...
...La Follette speaks as a liberal—as one who inherits the mantle of his great father...
...He urged that we speak up against the power politics and imperialism of the Allies which is losing us good will among peoples suffering under the ambitions of nationalistic leaders...
...La Follette's plea means anything it means a ringing call to add flesh and blood to the hollow bones of the Atlantic Charter...
...16, quoting from tffe same Sen...
...La Follette article from which I have taken extracts, Max Lerner concludes : "The statement by Sen...
...is a bid for the leadership of the postwar isolationist forces...
...Lerner adds these amazing words: "What is encouraging is the fact that the internationalism of tomorrow will not be the internationalism of yesterday...
...They are the people of the one great power that seeks no conquest, no domination of other peoples...
...On every issue that he touches he shows that he has no concrete solution, and that the old liberal tradition of the La Follettes has gone to seed...
...He attacked the secrecy which shrouds our official attitude toward the great problems involved in Europe, Asia, and Africa...
Vol. 8 • October 1944 • No. 44
