THE DEMOCRATIC WAY TO ENDURING PEACE
Follette, Sen. Robert M. La Jr.
The Democratic Way To Enduring Peace By SEN. ROBERT M. LA FOLLETTE, Jr. EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the third of 3 articles charting a foreign policy for America, based on Bob La Follette's historic...
...Economic considerations are vital in any planning for a just and lasting peace...
...Specific Improvements There are other improvements which would make of the plan a far more democratic and workable organization...
...Most of my life has been spent in trying to get practical improvements adopted into the structure of our economic, political, and social life through group action...
...Britain soon withdrew, for as her Foreign Secretary, George Canning, put it bluntly...
...These principles are: 1. America is prepared to aid all nations, allied, liberated, and former enemy countries, to help themselves in the great task of reconstruction...
...Article 6 of the Treaty establishing the Quadruple Alliance in November, 1815, read: "In order to consolidate the connections which at the present moment so closely unite the 4 sovereigns, the High Contracting Parties have agreed to renew at fixed intervals, either under their own auspices or by their representative ministers, meetings consecrated to great common objects and the examination of such measures as at each one of these epochs shall be judged most salutary for the peace and prosperity of all nations, and for the maintenance of the peace of Europe...
...Compare this language, as the enterprising newsletter Human Events did, with the comparable sentences in the Crimea Declaration of 1945 at Yalta: "The Premier of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and the President of the United States of America have consulted each other in the common interests of the people of their countries and those of liberated Europe, . . . The conference agreed that permanent machinery should be set up for regular consultation between the 3 foreign secretaries...
...At the end of this war Germany and Japan will both be devastated physically, disorganized politically, and impotent as military menaces...
...The new frontier is as challenging as the old, but no challenge has ever been met by running away from it...
...How It Might Work Under this provision any one of these nations which might be accused of aggression or of a warlike act would be allowed to sit upon the jury which passes upon its own acts...
...Let us cooperate to extend freedom, democracy, and equality of opportunity to all men, regardless of race, color, or creed...
...Thereupon the world organization would be confronted with the horrible choice of either permitting the aggression to go on or of acting in violation of its own pledges and entering upon a war to stop the aggression...
...Instead we have drifted and vacillated dangerously and thereby confused the people at home and abroad...
...History records the unhappy result of the Quadruple Alliance of 1815...
...But we can provide relief for the tragic present and long-time credits for the longer pull...
...For the sake of the argument let us waive the question of whether collective security can succeed when all nations retain their complete sovereignty, and let us consider the veto power which permits any one of the 5 great powers—Britain, Russia, the United States, France, or China—to veto a charge of aggression against itself...
...The Big Power Alliance of more than a century ago inevitably became a harsh instrument of repression and reaction which sought to snuff out the aspirations of small countries and liberal forces, and generally to maintain an intolerable status quo...
...But she refuses to lend her support to the extension of slavery or totalitarianism...
...But their writings and speeches do not contain a clear-cut, affirmative expression of what that role shall be...
...THE United Nations Organization blue-printed at Dumbarton Oaks [and now approved at San Francisco] represents, I know, a sincere attempt by men and nations of divergent viewpoints to fashion an instrument which would be acceptable to all...
...Then, as a member of that jury, the accused nation can by its own single vote declare itself "not guilty...
...By a single vote, as against the 10 other votes, Japan would have won the verdict...
...We have failed to throw our moral strength into the balance for reconstruction of liberated nations in anywhere near the degree that we have pitted our military strength against the enemy for the destruction of Fascism and Nazism...
...For years I have served on committees and worked in legislative bodies...
...4 Far greater emphasis and prestige should be at...
...They, too, established their more earthy ambitions with •fine-spun phrases...
...on genuine international cooperation, not a facade for military alliances...
...Certainly none of the other former Axis nations—Italy, Rumania, Bulgaria, Hungary, or even impoverished Spain, can seriously be regarded as a major threat to peace—unless one or more of these nations should be allied with a great power...
...In the records of our non-military activities in Europe one searches in vain for a connected and coordinated pattern of behavior...
...From a political standpoint the only nations which can start an aggression which might bring on another world war are the 5 Big Powers...
...But America is not committed to supporting the doctrine of Great Power domination or the balance of power...
...It puts a premium upon bad intentions...
...Furthermore, it is not based upon a realistic view of the situation which prevails in Europe now that the war has ended there nor upon the situation that will prevail when the war is ended with Japan...
...The past shows us that sometimes governments change...
...What is the influence we have had in the counsels of the Alliance...
...Let us join with the other nations to preserve peace, but let us never give our consent or support to any extension of slavery, Great Power domination, or imperialism...
...EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the third of 3 articles charting a foreign policy for America, based on Bob La Follette's historic speech in the Senate May 31...
...Our protest was treated as wastepaper...
...But then, according to the proposed voting scheme, the Japanese delegate to the Security Council would have been invited into the jury box to vote upon the motion with the other 10 members of the Security Council...
...The whole arrangement exploded in 1848 with the revolutions and wars which swept the continent for years afterward...
...tached to the work of the Economic and Social Council...
...2 America is ready to aid European Nations in ? creating a confederation of European states on a federal principle of local and cultural autonomy similar to Switzerland and this country...
...Too many of us overlook the simple fact that there must be sweat and toil in peacemaking if we are to escape the blood and tears of war...
...But I want an organization that is practical enough to make a constructive beginning in maintaining a just and democratic peace...
...This has been and is more than a war...
...It thus makes any one of the big powers a potential obstructionist...
...It seems to me, unfortunate from the standpoint of an effective organization that the Security Council has not been enlarged to include at least 6 more nations, in order to provide far broader representation and a greater cross-section of world opinion, and that two-thirds vote be required to invoke economic or military sanctions, in order to prevent a single Great Power from standing successfully—and legally—against the world...
...Suppose a plan similar to Dumbarton Oaks had been in operation after the first World War...
...We cannot rebuild for them...
...The 4 Great Powers which overthrew Napoleon—Great Britain, Prussia, Russia, and Austria— banded together to preserve the fruits of their victory...
...It ? was the wisdom of the Founding Fathers in providing for the amendment of our Constitution which has made it possible for that document to meet the sweeping changes of more than 150 years...
...The Security Council would have met in solemn assembly, listened to all of the arguments, decided that Japan was an aggressor, and moved that economic or military sanctions be imposed upon Japan...
...3 America is determined to see that all Nazi and ? Fascist criminals are brought to trial...
...This seems preposterous when applied to this shocking instance of aggression in the recent past...
...I propose that our Government proclaim a series of basic principles as the cornerstone of American foreign policy—the cornerstone on which we proposed to build our relations with the rest of the world...
...But this country is opposed to a treaty which repeats the disastrous errors of Versailles...
...There are no easy answers to peace...
...If we are as firm as we should be in our determination to keep them disarmed, neither of these former powers can possibly be an important threat to the peace of the world...
...I know that it will be said that the present 5 Great Powers are "peace-loving" nations...
...Nevertheless, it seems entirely clear that they stopped far short of an acceptable goal—and I am not talking of the perfect goal...
...Too often we have shown marked evidence of an inferiority complex...
...America's role is to prove that economic abundance can be attained without sacrificing political freedom and human liberty...
...This was a definite act of aggression by any definition...
...Unless there is a united determination to get at those causes of social, political, and economic dislocation, we shall have tricked ourselves, by relying solely on the might of an organization, into a false and treacherous sense of security...
...We protested at Laibach, we remonstrated at Verona...
...Too many of us find it easy to hope that a package marked Peace, postmarked San Francisco, will be delivered to us some day soon, free of charge...
...on the genuine principle of self-determination, not power politics and Great Power domination, and most of all on a clear realization that the basic causes of war are social, economic, and political in character...
...Here in the United States we can demonstrate that both are attainable if we have the courage, the vision, and the perseverance to plan and work for them...
...can we be certain they will always remain so...
...The New Frontier This is one of the great turning points of history...
...We stand before a new frontier of opportunity...
...But even if they are that at present, how...
...6 America recognizes that a sound structure of ? peace is much more than a matter of political arrangements...
...It is perfectly clear from developments in Europe during the past year or more that we do not have such a policy...
...This is a revolution against scarcity and tyranny...
...Suppose China had then taken action and accused Japan of aggression...
...But to solve them we must shed our mood of frustration and face up to them with courageous realism...
...And too often we have allowed the name and honor of this country to be associated with policies which are repugnant alike to the democratic-minded people of both Europe and the United States...
...Six years ago another Big 3 met and worked out an easy answer...
...less the peace it is erected to enforce is a just and honorable peace, a peace founded on tolerance not vengeance...
...History is filled with grim reminders that alliances based upon the theory that a clique of victorious powers should dominate the world and police the peace lead only to repression, imperialism, and ultimately war...
...Too often we have been content to let our representatives abroad become mere yes-men for our Allies...
...Their names were Hitler, Daladier, and Chamberlain, and one of them, Mr...
...America has a great constructive role to play at this critical juncture...
...Any such arrangement is visionary and unrealistic because it ignores the lessons of the past...
...6 The charter of the proposed world organization ? should include a World Bill of Rights, through which the signatory nations pledge themselves to preserve and to extend religious and political freedom, civil liberties, racial equality, the protection of minorities, and the abolition of human slavery and imperialism...
...None of the small nations which have been liberated from the Axis yoke looms as a potential aggressor...
...In its present form, the proposed organization plan strikes me as a gilded facade for the old-style military alliance built exclusively on force or the threat of force...
...But in achieving this goal we must resist the Pied-Piper3 who would take us down some easy road which can only end in bitter disillusionment and the loss of our fundamental liberties...
...on freedom not imperialism...
...This challenging task we must begin now by projecting a program for the United States which will provide useful and self-respecting employment for everyone who is willing to work...
...2 That the international organization will fail un...
...port to democratic principles and democratic aspirations...
...5 America stands ready to cooperate with all na...
...It is a revolution...
...TOO many of us have failed to understand the explosive character of the period in which we live...
...Twelve years later the Security Council would have been confronted with a crisis when Japan moved into Manchuria in 1931...
...If we meet the challenge of the new frontier wisely we can provide opportunities for security, education, health, housing, and recreation such as we have never had before...
...The proposed world organization is a far cry from the true conception of collective security advocated by many sincere exponents of internationalism...
...In their practical operations there is little difference between national and international organizations, except that the problems are more complex, interests are more conflicting, and a meeting of minds more difficult to obtain...
...Chamberlain, proclaimed they had bought peace for our time—by appeasing a dictatorship, by selling out small and helpless countries—without dealing in a fundamental way with any of the basic problems which were eating their way, like a cancer, through the body of all Europe...
...Let me make it clear that I do not hope for a perfect plan because I know full well from long public service that only time and experience can make it more perfect...
...In 1919 Japan was considered a "peace-loving nation" and would have therefore been entitled to a seat as a permanent member of the Security Council...
...In other words, it is the type of alliance which Great European Powers have employed all through history without ever preventing a war...
...Those problems are not insoluble...
...3 Greater scope should be given to the Assembly ? in order to provide for a more representative determination of issues which will inevitably confront this organization...
...our remonstrances mingled with the air...
...In our rejoicing over the end of the European war we must not forget that every economic problem which existed in Europe when the war began is still there in aggravated form...
...The Washington Post, which is strongly supporting a world organization to enforce peace, on May 19, 1945, published an editorial telegraphed from San Francisco commenting on this veto power being given to any single nation...
...Therefore, the provision which permits one of the Big 5 to veto sanctions against herself could readily become a device to provide one of the conquering Great Powers with license for precisely the type of aggressive acts which inevitably bring war...
...ganization should be opened to all nations willing to abide by the principles of that organization...
...But the Japanese delegate could have voted "not guilty...
...In this editorial The Washington Post said: "The veto power arises out of the unanimity rule among the Big 5 incorporated into the Dumbarton Oaks plan, without which coercive action against transgressors cannot be taken...
...We shall get off to a false start if we fail to recognize: 1 That the proposed plan needs basic overhauling ? if it is to become a genuinely democratic instrument for the preservation of peace...
...They accept the challenge with the same pioneering zeal, the dauntless courage, and the passion for freedom and democracy which sent their grandfathers and great-grandfathers across 3,000 miles of danger-ridden wilderness to build a new and a free society not only for themselves but for the oppressed of all lands...
...tions of the world to preserve a just, a democratic peace through the instrumentality of a world organization built on democratic lines...
...I can remember when during and after the first World War Japan and Italy were repeatedly referred to by Senators on the floor as among the "righteous," "peaceloving" nations because they were then associated with us in waging war and in writing the peace...
...2 Membership in the proposed international or...
...It seems to me fundamental that if the United States is to play an active, perhaps decisive role in world affairs, we must harness our activities to a basic American policy—a policy rooted in the American ideal of political freedom and economic opportunity for all...
...1 The Charter should be made easier to amend...
...7 America knows how powerful a role her own ? Bill of Rights has played in shaping the destiny of this country, and therefore calls upon the nations of the world to write an International Bill of Rights to protect the peoples of all countries...
...This agency of the whole plan seems to me to be the most potentially useful branch of the organization...
...The Quadruple Alliance of the 19th Century is a classic example...
...5 The principles of the Atlantic Charter, which are ? a modest enough expression of the ideals of all freedom-loving peoples, should be incorporated into the proposed document as a minimum standard of conduct for all nations becoming members of the organization...
...I cannot see how any world organization can enforce peace with a voting provision such as is now proposed...
...Yet that is precisely what the Dumbarton Oaks Plan, as now decided upon at San Francisco, clearly permits...
...The roll, would have been called, and the other 10 members would have voted "guilty" upon the evidence submitted...
...that those which seemed to be "peace-loving" may in a few years become imperialistic and perpetuate aggressions...
...I am not and never have been a perfectionist...
...TOO many of us forget that the death of Hitler has not removed a single cause of Hitlerism...
...I have a long memory as to what has taken place through the years in the Senate Chamber...
...8 America is aware of the fact that, for all our ? desire to help rebuild the rest of the world, we would be faithless to our own people, and the peoples of other nations who look to us for example and inspiration, unless we put our own house in order...
...Editorial writers and public speakers talk glibly of America's new role in world affairs...
...Under such a voting system only a few instances where one Great Power committed an act of aggression, stood accused by other members of the Supreme Council, and then went scot-free by its own vote would wreck any world organization...
...In its present form there are certain provisions which I fear may defeat that purpose...
...I am offering constructive criticisms of the proposed world organization because I do not believe that, in its present form, it is sufficiently practical...
...4 America is firm in her determination to lend sup...
...The peoples of America do not shrink from the responsibilities which modern technology and the war have thrust upon them...
...A Gilded Facade The fundamental need is for a far more democratic organization—one that will be responsive to the peoples of the world rather than to the power politics demands of a few dominating powers...
...Therefore, we should not rely upon a form of organization which can suddenly be paralyzed and perhaps wrecked by the vote of one nation which may be desirous of achieving an imperialistic purpose...
Vol. 9 • June 1945 • No. 26
