The Chattanooga news. [volume] (Chattanooga, Tenn.) 1891-1939, 1919-07-14
World on Strike Against Disciplne Disntegrating
Forces Frightening, According to Noted Writer

, spelled progress. 1t removed barriers,
| broadened horizons, and increased
mems power to live and do.
The measure of indignation at
tanned was essentially the measure
| of civilization.
Today all this is reversed. The
forces of disntegration are in the
ascendant The war leaves us with
more nations than before, but small
err. weaker and less self sufficient 1t
leaves us with lessened cohesion
within the nations themselves, rival
centers of authority and conflicting
claims of allegiance.
The world war having become a
| necessity, it's strategy demanded a
policy of disintegration. Germany,
failing to break the ring of steel
around her, set about dsintegrating
it. Her intrigues with Caillaux failed
to break the solid structure of
French unity, for France, once as di-
vided as the Balkans, is now the
best integrated nation on the conti-
nent. Similar intrigues in Italy came
perilously near success 1t was in
the feebly integrated empire of the
car that her emissaries achieved
success with results that we are but
beginning to know. The work of two
centuries has been undone.
Disintegration War Weapon.
Equally, the allies found them
selves compelled to adopt a policy of
disintegration. Belgium, whose man
ifest destiny seemed to be a steady
gravitat ton toward the kindred en-
pire whose commerce was her life
blood, must be rescued from Ger
many's clutches. German Alsace-
Lorraine must be detached. The
Polish provinces and Schleswig, de-
spite their advanced Communication,
must be pried loose. 1t was disin-
tegration, seeming retrogression, but
it had to be done.
Above all, Austria. the incipient
Hapsburg consolidation of remnant
races in the noisy Balkans, must be
disintegrated, for Austria had made
| herself a bridge over which Germany
was marching to world conquest.
| The bridge had to be broken al other
bridges are broken to hinder an en-
emYs advance.
1t had to be done, and we are still
in a mood of eXultation over the ac-
cOmplishment of a difficult task. But
as eXultation passes we must feel
the pity of it. Unions among men
are not lightly to be sacrificed. The
empire of the HapsburSs was not I'm
ideal union, but it was a union, and
a union where union was sorelv
needed. The defects attributed 20
its organization were for the most
part defects that inhered in it's hui
man material. The price of union
had largely been paid. its hardships
endured and its adaptations in Part
effected.
A Maze of New Problems.
And now the gain is lost. Instead
of integrating the Balkans we have
Balkanized Austria and enlarged the
domain of Ishmael.
The new nations inherit every
difficulty, every problem, that veXed
the old. Race antipathies will now
intrcnch Themselves behind new Gus
toms barriers, industry will be tram
meled, and commerce will be short
circuited in artificial channels. We
have set the clock back and that not
the less surely because it had to be
set back.
The disintegration of Russia Is
hardly less deplorable. 1t was a
coarser fabric made out Of Cruder
materials. AS such we may perhaps
he less inclined to mourn its loss. To
some, too, the prospects of an indie
pendent Poland or Finland seem
brighter than those Of the Balkan
states, a most doubtful judgment,
but one that we will pass But be-
yond these two the most sanguine
must hesitate.
Liberty must be a fetch to the
man who can congratulate the world
on the accession of Lettonia, Estho-
mia. Livonia and their like to the re-
e ntNh n
need not mourn the Romanoffs, but
the thoughtful will hesitate to exult
over the disintegration of their en-
pire.
Can We Rebuild?
Thus far the direct work Of war,
a work necessarily of destruction.
Can the havoc be undone when the
war is over? Can we rebuild our
Russia and our Austria as we rebuild
the bridges that we blew up and the
railway stations that we bombed to
win our battles? Or. not to be bound
by tradition too closely If we do not
want Austria and Russia back again
as they were. can we build their
equivalent and along better lines as
we rebuild the bridges, perhaps in
better locations and in more, serv-
iceable style?
OF course we can If we want TO,
nut do we want to? This brings us
% the real crux of the matter, the
psychological aspect of world disin-
tcgration.
The war involved, especially for the
allies, a Psychological as well as a
Geographical problem in strategy. In
he western democracies as never be-
fore, mobilization had to be ordered
by the man in the street. Never
broadly conscious of world pGNblems,
this appeal found him in an unusual
degree absorbed in class struggles
and in a mood of assertive indie
pendence. Restiveness under the
-irksome requirements Of progressive
indignation was a universal charac-
teristic. Glasses were everywhere
claiming new rights, colonies and de-
tendencies, straining at the leash,
and partly absorbed peoples awaken
ing to q consciousness of half for
gotten nationality.
A Dangerous Mood.
The demand for rights, for liberty,
'or independence, was based on no
ralculus of advantage. There was no
hesitation at cost, no stipulation of
profit. II was the mood of the age,
n pronounced acceleration of the CEN
trifugal forces. II was a very dyna-
mic and n very dangerous mood, but
one Of immense possibilities for con-
structive evolution II these centri-