New-York tribune., 1920-03-09

dren Will sooner or later give evidence
Of appetites like our own. They have
necessities, dangers, external menaces
which stimulate a desire for strategic
frontiers, but is this human tendency
sufficient to damn them forever and to
vitiate the work Of liberation?
Odd ssLibernls''
It Is an odd circumstance that those
who call themselves "liberaW evince
little or no interest or concern for the
human aspects Of the question and con-
centrate upon the economic phases.
They would deprive the Poles Of re-
gions in which the population is two
thirds Polish, because the regions are
economically necessary" to Germany.
But when German-speaking districts
necessary to the Czechs are assigned
to the Czecho-Slovak state no denun-
citation Of this iniquity is too great.
That Germany should hold the upper
Silesian coal basin, with Polish pop
ulation, strikes them as thoroughly
just thing, but French occupation of
the Saar Is a crime against the four
teen points, intolerable and unforgiv-
able.
And now, for political reasons, these
denunciations Of the treaty Of peace
are seized upon in America, where the
actual knowledge of the treaty provi-
sions is very slight, and totally colored
by the domestic political differences.
But do the 50,000,O00 human beings
set free count for nothing? Is there
no such thing as comparison of evils I?
In 1914 Germany occupied lands in
habited by between 100000 and g.
100000 Poles, and, in certain regions,
had been for a century expelling the
Poles to make the districts safely Ger
man. Small sections of these regions
have been included in the purely Pol
ish sectors. What Of it?
Be On Guard
Looking at the map Of Europe, the
ethnic map, and placing it beside the
new political map and the old, one will
see in a moment how closely the new
follows racial lines and how little re-
gard the old paid to them. To be
sure, there still are disputes along the
fringes; there are things that suggest
"gerrymanders," to use an American
phrase; but in the old there was not
even hint OF, regard for race liberties.
If the economic terms are unduly
onerous they will have to be modified,
but for this proper machinery has been
found. If certain of the Great Powers
continue to disclose human rather than
altruistic aspirations, this is hardly
surprising, and is not the result of the
Paris treaty. But the weakness of
the liberal" demand for revision of
the treaty lies in the total disregard
for the real benefits it bestows. They
are not interested in racial liberty, but
economic efficiency; they are not con-
cerned with justice to Polish claims,
but only with injuries to German in
dustry.
1t is exactly this sort Of "liberal-
ism" that Americans should be most
on their guard against The liberia
tlon of Italy, in the nineteenth CEN
tury, was one of the greatest facts in
that whole hundred years; to-day it is
unthinkable that millions of Italians
should have been the political slaves
OF Austrian dictators and of petty ty-
rants depending upon external sup
mort 70 hal, ~Io
the Treaty of Versailles and its COM
panion pieces liberated twice as many
human beings. Poland alone is a state
greater in area and population than
the Italy that was set free half a CEN
tury ago.
4 War Of Liberation
1t may take fifty years to reach an
approximate adjustment of the claims
and counter claims growing out of the
liberation Of subject races; it may, as
IN the Italian case, take four, wars to
nix Poland as the World War at last
established Italy; the same is true of
Rumania and Of Jugo-Slavia, but does
~>"-S S~66$oS S00C ~ WOUlO nave OoSn
better to leave them the victims of
German and Magyar tyranny? Is it
not true rather that in any case a
war OF liberation would have resulted
A war that sets 50,000,O0o people
free is not little contribution to
better world in the future, even if
the Immediate consequences of the lib
Grafton involve domestic anarchy in
many regions. Above all, what diff
ference can it make to the world if
German economic prosperity be wrecked,
provided the alternative were the per-
petuatlon of the enslavement Of the
Poles, the Danes and the people of
Copyright. 1920. Mcclure Newspaper
Syndicate)