THE EDITOR RESERVES THE LAST COLUMN
The Last Column AS THE debates on the future of American foreign policy wax warmer, most of the debaters seem to overlook a simple but tremendously heartening fact—¦ that there is a wider area of...
...It is difficult to summarize that proposition in a phrase or a clause...
...The Last Column AS THE debates on the future of American foreign policy wax warmer, most of the debaters seem to overlook a simple but tremendously heartening fact—¦ that there is a wider area of agreement on fundamentals by most Americans than one would think from the noise sometimes made...
...is convinced that absorption in the form of the organization comes at the expense of concern with the substance of the peace...
...IN his recent book, The Time For Decision, Sumner Welles put it this way: "One of the chief reasons for the compromises which President Wilson felt himself obliged to accept at Paris was the fact that the U. S. had made no effort to reach any prior understanding with its Allies on political and territorial problems...
...It is one between "security" and "justice"—between those who believe that the indispensable requirement of peace is a security organization and those who believe that while organization is necessary, it cannot last or hope to preserve peace unless it is brought into being to preserve a just, honorable, democratic, anti-imperialist settlement...
...William C. Bullitt, who was a member of Woodrow Wilson's staff at the Paris peace conference, put it more bluntly when he wrote recently in Life Magazine that our failure to "pin down the Allies" during the war resulted in the complete loss of "our power over the Allies [because] they no longer needed our men or munitions...
...effort to win concessions from our Allies Until the war had ended, and by that time our bargaining power had vanished...
...I think it must be abundantly clear to all except those who have a stake in confusing the issue that the-overwhelming majority of the nation is agreed on these basic propositions: 1. America cannot isolate herself from the rest of the world...
...We are concerned that in the hands of reactionaries and imperialists, such a course, placing "security" before "justice," could be largely a device to preserve a reactionary^ imperialist status (too...
...help improve the terms...
...This group, or some of its more conscientious spokesmen, feel that we ought to make a fight for a just peace, but the fact that we are defeated in our attempt should not deter us from pledging our men, money, and munitions to enforcing that settlement—in other words, the "security" of an international organization is more important in preserving peace than the "justice" of a decent settlement...
...This was one of the great tragedies of the last war...
...Woodrow Wilson made no...
...Here is the foreign policy choice of our time...
...It is not one between internationalism or isolationism...
...M.H.R...
...3. Genuine international cooperation can best be achieved through genuine international organization, 4. Aside from the political collaboration implicit in international cooperation and organization, there is equally important need for America to cooperate functionally in such social and economic affairs as labor, health, social security, communications, trade, relief and rehabilitation, monetary control, etc...
...Those who believe that "security"' is paramount eon-tend that the United States should join an international organization committed to enforcing any peace settlement, regardUss of the terms of that settlement...
...The shouting—and I'm not here concerned with the name-calling of those who are more interested in impugning motives and blowing up minor differences than they are in promoting mutual understanding—the important shouting comes from disagreement over the one basic proposition I have not listed...
...WELL, what's all the shouting about, you ask, if there is such general agreement oh these fundamentals...
...THE second group, to which I belong, believes just as firmly in the need for international cooperation, but contends that there can be no security without justice, that no world organization, no matter how perfect on paper, can possibly hope to preserve peace if the peace settlement itself fails to get at the basic causes of war, which are social and economic dislocations, a vengeance-minded settlement, imperial exploitation, competitive armaments, racial discriminations, and the sordid selfishness of international diplomacy which we know as power politics...
...If it can be a sentence, however, I know of no better one than that used the other day by a political scientist, who happens to disagree emphatically with my position...
...It is a difference," he said, "between those who believe that in the promotion of peace, security comes first and those who believe that justice comes first...
...They are convinced that even a very bad peace treaty .should not deter us from participating in its enforcement because by our collaboration we may...
...This group feels, too, that America, whose production miracle has reversed the tide of battle, has tremendous bargaining power, and that we squander it away by agreeing in advance to enforce any peace settlement-, no matter how undemocratic...
...2. Affirmatively, America must cooperate with the other nations of the earth in the promotion and preservation of peace...
...The latter group...
Vol. 8 • November 1944 • No. 47
