Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1922-08-31
Our War After the War"
WY HEN it was suggested in the course
M of the World War that after the
conflict of arms was over AM

conflict of arms was over and the
battle "lost and won," the victors should con-
tinue hostilities by way of economic measures
against the vanquished, most Americans pro-
tested. 1t would be, they maintained, no less
unwise than ungenerous to carry on war
after the war; and to prolong hatreds which
could but react to the injury of those foment-
ing them. To break the enemy's militaristic
will and destroy as far as possible his power
for future harm was the rightful purpose,
but not, after having accomplished this to
deprive him of a peaceab1e 1Ive1inood. For,
it was argued, the economic interests of ma
lions were so closely and so widely interknit
that to take harsh repriSalS against one, in
normal times, would eventually injure all.
This was the representative American view
not only in 1915 and 1916, but also after our
country entered the war, and indeed was one
of the earnestly avowed policies of our Gov
eminent. PRESIDENT Wilson repeatedly spoke
out against economic revengeS, and at the
peace conference opposed them so cogently
that the scheme, at least in its formal and
organized aspects, was abandoned. 1t was
not matter of idealistic sentiment, but of
the hardest sort o. common sense. Prosper
ity, it was perceived could not abide with
out peace and world peace would be impossi-
BILE with bitter economic war Thus it was
that American influence, along with the bet
ter judgment of the Allies, was cast against
the idea of penalizng German commerce
ordinations which would make it virtually
impossible for that country to do foreign
business.
But how strangely, how heedlessly have
the powers at Washington reversed that
gacious policy! Congress, as OUR WORLD
magazine observes, is at work "embodying
in our own law the principal elements of this
project which we denounced when first pro-
posed by our friends Our tariff and ship
subsidy bills are more drastic than the prof.
ect of the Allies for war after the war;"
and they are directed not solely against a
former emmy, but against our present
friends
This is the sort of consistency that made
the Pharisees notorious, and is part and par
eel OF that parochialism which has prevailed
at Washington for the last two years. The
difference between the Fordney-McC umber
tariff bill and the reprisals once urged at
Paris and London is that while the latter
were prompted by a quite understandable if
imprudent passion, the former is born of
sheer stupidity. The Allies, at least the clear
headed amongst them, came to see long ago
that if Germany were reduced to economic
impotence she could pay no indemnites and
contribute nothing to the common industrial
and commercial rehabilitation on which the
welfare of all Europe depends. But our own
Republican tariff thinkers apparently do not
yet see that if they hedge America about
with a barrier of import duties so high that
foreign trade cannot get over, they will
thereby check the processes on which de-
ponds our own widest veal. They ignore the
fact that without reciprocity there can be no
sustained and vigorous trade; that if the
world is not permitted to sell to us it can
hardly be expected to buy from us; and that
unless we have foreign markets for the sur
plus of our fields and factories we cannot
prosper, cannot obtain good prices for fruits
of the soil, cannot keep labor profitably en-
ployed, cannot expand and go forward. What
will abundant harvests avail if they must
glut our barns and go to waste for want of
markets abroad?
That is the goal to which our provincial
tariff-makers, trend albeit unwittingly. That
is the price which the rank and file of the
American people must pay for the "protec-
ton of special interests. That is the war
after the war" to which a peaceab1e nation
is being committed by frog-pond statesman
ship adventuring the seven SEAS