LAST CHANCE FOR A DEMOCRATIC PEACE

...This hope proved futile, and today the world is paying the price...

...It is one of the greatest and most dangerous illusions that war must invariably be followed by peace—if not a good peace, some peace at least...

...It was hoped that this vote would help to make secure national democracy, which was then menaced by social unrest, and to establish some basis for international understanding...

...A forceful assertion of the principles like those in the 14 Points, deserted in 1919, might kindle once more the moral strength of a weary and disillusioned world...

...This is an erroneous calculation...

...Throughout the ensuing 25 years with their mounting political and economic crises and, finally, the second part of the World War, the world has been striving to recover that peace—the only one that will ever have a chance to be lasting...

...Hope lies also with the religious forces of all denominations...

...The torch, of which Prince Max of Baden spoke, lies once more swealing on the ground...

...Unless they yield to the argument that, since they because of their very smallness do not belong to the chosen ones, objections raised by them constitute trouble-making, perhaps even "aggression," they may play a world historic role now...

...Hope, therefore, lies particularly with the small na« tions...

...of the Second Point, postulating true freedom of the seas...

...It could be argued with some measure of justification that the German Republic bears a good deal of the responsibility...

...The speeches made and the whole tenor of that meeting could leave no doubt that German democracy would never voluntarily agree to the proposed violation of the 2 fundamental principles: integrity of the national soil, and popular sovereignty exercised by freely chosen representatives...

...of the Fourth, envisaging guarantees that national armaments should be reduced to a minimum everywhere, and so on...

...He felt that the National Assembly of Weimar must never ratify the Versailles Treaty, lest the betrayal of the 14 Points should be vested with some sham justification...

...It would give new strength also to the German opposition and thus help to put an end to continued slaughter from which democracy cannot possibly hope to derive any worthwhile gains...

...Hein-rieh Bruning sent a message, and so did the former Reich Minister of the Interior, F. W. Sollmann...

...But if the workers of one country, may be subjected to forced labor, labor rights will be secure nowhere...

...The Allies must not be spared the disgrace of using their own troops against the Wilsonian Peace of Justice in order to uphold the Versailles peace of vengeance...

...It is proposed to hand over the country as a basket case to those who were the first victims of Nazism—the people of Germany...

...Everywhere oppressed human beings will break their chains...

...In every word that was spoken the awareness of a responsibility was alive far surpassing German border questions—namely, that with an enslaved and dismembered German people European and world peace would be impossible...

...It is suggested, further, to punish these victims for deeds which the National Socialists could never have committed had they not been aided by foreign conniving...

...Shortly after its conclusion a German meeting was held in the Rand School for Social Science in New York, sponsored by the Social Democratic party, the Reichsbanner Black-Red-Gold, and other German republican organizations...

...But things had already gone too far...

...And, of course, the grossest violations of the basic principle of national self-determination must be included in the confession, as in the case of German-Austria, the South Tirol, and other regions, committed while the ink used for the signatures was still fluid in its well...

...Wars may well be followed by wars, and today it looks as if we were heading towards a whole chain of them, despite the fact that in certain areas of Europe fighting may soon come to an end...

...In this respect at least the Yalta conference has cleared the air...

...It was over this question that the Socialist Reich Prime Minister, Philipp Scheidemann, who in November, 1918, had proclaimed the Republic, resigned his office...

...In England the interest for Germany will be infinitesimal...

...It is almost extinct, and without American help the bravest of the smaller nations may not be strong enough to lift it up...

...of the Third, demanding equality of trade and the removal of economic barriers between the nations...

...It could be demonstrated almost word for word that each one of the main causes for the misery, the despotism, the bloodshed of our days springs directly from a violation of the principles embodied in the 14 Points...

...But the trouble 13 that many of those who now set out to shape human destiny "forever" (Hitler was modest—his new order was to last only for a thousand years) have not even un-derstood the dreadful story of the last 3 decades...

...Among the speakers were Friedrich Stampfer, the former editor of the Vorwaerts, and Arnold Brecht, formerly chairman of the German Reichsrat...

...Wilson's peace pro-gram rightly envisaged international guarantees for the working classes...

...I conclude: The true Wilsonian Peace is not yet lost...

...And then, without food or medical supplies, living in a country of ruins, and with tens of millions held as slave laborers, the German people are apparently expected to "make democracy work...

...And not enough with this, these victims of Nazism are to be held in subjugation by foreign bayonets, cut off by $60 fines even from human contact with American soldiers who might be an important link with the outside world...

...Hope lies with American labor...

...Two weeks later, when in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, the signatures were affixed to the treaty, the Wilsonian Peace of the 14 Points was lost, and with it peace as such...

...This unique "opportunity may also be America's last, and it will not remain in American hands much longer...

...This burden will hardly be alleviated by the magician tricks of the kind "Now you see it—now you don't" recently played with the Atlantic Charter...

...Under the threat of an Allied ultimatum that hostilities would be resumed unless the treaty were adopted, the National Assembly, 5 hours before the deadline, voted as the betrayers of the Wilsonian Peace would have it...

...Never again will they give their assent to plans that, worse even than in 1919, amount to a total and unconditional surrender of democracy itself...

...How Germans Feel The terrible mortgage of the pledges, broken or never honestly intended (as revealed by the Secret Treaties between France and Russia published in January, 1918, by Oswald Garrison Villard) is still weighing heavily on the shoulders of the democracies...

...The net outcome of the Yalta conference with regard to Germany is, after all, clear enough...

...And if a country needs only be big to avoid being called an ag-gressor when it commits aggression, peace will be a farce from the beginning...

...Last Chance For A Democratic Peace By PRINCE HUBERTUS ZU LOEWENSTEIN WHEN the Versailles danse macabre was at its height, on June 13, 1919, the great liberal and first parliamentary Reich Chancellor, Prince Max of Baden, the man who, on the basis of President Wilson's 14 Points, had opened the Armistice negotiations in October, 1918, wrote in the Berliner Tageblatt: "Today the disappointed Americans tell us publicly: 'European civilization deserves to be doomed.' It is up to Europe to say No, and, should America lose faith, to pick up in this very last hour the swealing torch and to light it anew...

...For this would mobilize public opinion, he felt, and coerce the Allied governments to retrace their steps...

...Prince Max of Baden, in his article mentioned above, wrote that if the treaty was to be imposed by force, then let it be done...

...As soon as peace is established, the victors will first engage in many celebrations, and then domestic problems will absorb all the energy of the peoples...

...Could it be that the world has become anxious to have edifying examples...

...German believers in democracy—political exiles as well as the millions at home—have certainly learned an important lesson...

...Without a clear recognition of the moral rights of men, regardless of nationality, the rights of men of no nationality will be safe...

...Certainly, some day the treaty will be revised, but in a planless manner...

...As far as meetings in exile go, it was perhaps the most representative ever held since 1932...

...The sufferings of the German people would find mention in the liberal press under the same sentimental headings as stories against vivisection or about the plight of Albania...

...By giving its assent to the Versailles Treaty it could not help becoming an accomplice to all its injustices, and at the same time its signature contributed to smooth the conscience of the perpetrators of the violation of all moral and guaranteed principles...

...People might counter," he concluded, "that revision would soon come even if Germany signed...

...Europe would then be turned into a chaos of national and social revolutions...

...A people of model slaves, proving to the big and powerful that democracy is a most noble creed after all, which thrives best where conditions are worst ? This is not the way history works...

...The eldest son of Gustav Stresemann was present, as well as members of the Catholic Center party, Social Democrats, liberal, conservative, and trade union leaders from all parts of Germany, each with an unbroken record of many years of struggle against totalitarianism...

...They read like a table to be used by all who wish to examine their conscience before making a good confession of their political sins: Paying The Price So many violations of the First Point, which demanded open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, and the exclusion of all secret diplomacy for the future...