LUST FOR LOOT
Lust For Loot "The past should teach us that the most beautifully worded and cleverly contrived instrument of enforcement that the United Nations can possibly devise will fail if the final peace...
...Wrote Mr...
...The British Government, with American backing, intervened to halt the hostilities...
...Beals for readers of The Progressive: "Oil and Near Eastern territorial grabs were part of the loot of the first World War for democracy...
...Here in Wisconsin it was maneuvered through the Republican legislature over Progressive opposition by a few clever Republican leaders under the guise of limiting the tax burden of those with modest incomes...
...The conflicts arise when the terms of a bargain begin to be specific...
...When confronted by their aroused constituents, several Republican legislators frankly admitted that they had been duped and did not recognize the dangers of the bill...
...The Anglo-American position was eminently correct, of course, as far as the immediate situation in Syria and Lebanon was concerned, but one cannot refrain from expressing the cynical comment that British and American oil interests are also up to their necks in plotting and conniving for the enormous oil reserves of the Middle East...
...They were 'liberated.' But France and England squeezed out Italy and divided the western end of the Mediterranean, and England nibbled her way all around the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf, establishing 14 different protectorates...
...Carleton Beals, crack student of world affairs, summed it up for readers of The Progresive in his prophetic and penetrating article, "Oil Imperialism Imperils The Peace," in our May 21 issue...
...Charles de Gaulle signed a treaty in which he recognized the end of French control over Lebanon and Syria...
...Joseph C. Grew, now Undersecretary of State, pushed the matter through successfully...
...Shifting The Tax Load ONE of the most mysterious developments in modern politics is the apparent ease with which the Committee for Constitutional Government is putting over its "millionaires' amendment...
...Lust For Loot "The past should teach us that the most beautifully worded and cleverly contrived instrument of enforcement that the United Nations can possibly devise will fail if the final peace settlements are not firmly grounded in the principles of justice and liberty...
...Self-government was authorized, and the majority of the United Nations, including Russia, Britain, and the United States, recognized the new regimes...
...Pennsylvania, Iowa, and Kentucky have such resolutions pending...
...America is prepared to pay the price for practical idealism—for this is the only road to peace— and part of that price must be an alert determination to refuse to underwrite territorial grabs and spheres of influence for any nation, Britain and Russia no less than impotent France...
...The purpose is clear...
...The big war profiteers seek to hold on to their wartime swag by shifting the tax burden to the little fellow...
...The Lebanese objected strenuously, sensing naturally enough after centuries of Great Power manipulation, that France was on the verge of reestablishing control in order to protect her share of the oil loot in the Middle East...
...The Arabs were promised political freedom...
...It is estimated that if the amendment is passed, the Federal treasury will lose 6 billion dollars a year in revenue at the present time and more after the war is over...
...Only Saudi Arabia remained nominally free...
...NO one who searches beneath the surface of the conflict in the Middle East can escape the conclusion that here is a melancholy repetition of the same lust for loot which made a mockery of the ideals expressed by the Allied statesmen at the end of World War I. It is easy, said Bob La Follette to the Senate, "to get individuals and nations to agree upon vague, general statements of idealistic purposes...
...If 32 states act favorably, Congress will be obliged to call a convention to consider the amendment...
...Bloodshed followed almost immediately when the French landed new troops in the Syria-Lebanon Area...
...Other states would do well to heed the warning of Congressman Michael J. Bradley, Pennsylvania Democrat, that "if this raid is allowed to be consummated that the tax burdens of those in the $500 to $1,000 income groups would be doubled and trebled...
...THE urgency of this sharp warning last week by Bob La Follette (See Page 1) was dramatically underscored by the bloody developments in the Middle East—Syria and Lebanon—where French troops fired on native populations and British forces silenced the French—even as the statesmen at San Francisco were seeking to put their finishing touches to the charter of the proposed world organization...
...The resolution has been put over by a skillful campaign of misrepresentation...
...With some effort by our State Department and our Navy, American companies were cut into the oil, getting a 25 per cent slice...
...This amendment to the Federal Constitution would place a drastic limitation on the Federal Government's power to tax incomes, gifts, and inheritances...
...IT was in 1942, when he was operating in London as head of the Free French Government, that Gen...
...The Committee, sponsored by the reactionary newspaper publisher, Frank Gannett, and other big business interests, has been able, with "back door" tactics, to maneuver its resolution calling for a constitutional convention through 18 state legislatures...
...The background of the current explosion in Syria and Lebanon is not difficult to trace...
...Verbal idealism does not cost anyone anything .Practical idealism comes high, for it demands mutual sacrifices and constant cooperation in the achievements of a common purpose...
...de Gaulle and the French press, not without considerable justification, charged that the crisis in the Levant had been sharpened by local agents of British oil interests and that what was superficially a French-Syrian clash was actually part of the oil war involving the pipelines across Syria...
...Illinois and Arkansas have also taken rescinding action...
...Late in April of this year, however, a French warship was sent to Beirut and landed troops...
...It is encouraging to note that other states have recognized their error...
...A Progressive-sponsored resolution in the present session of the legislature to rescind the action of the last session met with no opposition from the thoroughly chastened Republican majority...
Vol. 9 • June 1945 • No. 24
