The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1923-03-14


sAewsd VIA. they we're mare concerned 70 prevent
,he sptvAd " democracy than anything else' The
ttaly Alliance VI the absolute tAenAtehy, IN faet
had bevun II supetsede the Concert ~ Eutupe
Accordingly, IN the conference " that year. Great
nvl,N,n alssen,ed from The policy Of Ia heluhbots
wNd pnysd A sbeetatofa role, What was mofn
lwnuttan, Canning, them Nfelnn Secretary,
suunded the United states as 10 whether II would
hp wlllNv N enter Into Joint agreement IN re-
gard 10 the s,rupple between spain and I,s eoch'.
"a, which WAS then poinp on IN South America
A. no nut 49, he wished 10 "call IN the New
World 10 redress the balance Of the Old"
Most Of the "fathers" Of the American Con.
stitution were IN favor Of entering Into some
such arrangement but President Monroe and his
Cabinet preferred that action should be taken
separately BY the two countries, Hence the
PRONUNCIATION by the United states OF the Monroe
Doctrine IN 1874, which insured that the New
World should grow up In freedom and indepen
dence and not under the control of the reactionary
and autocratic European states.
Today we see the same process In operation.
The United States withdrew from Europe almost
at once Great Britain has tried to solve the
post war problems by taking leading part In
all the international reconstruction conferences.
But today, after the triumph of Mussolin In Italy
and the decision of France under Poincare to
have recourse to force In an attempt to secure
PREPARATIONS from Germany, II has withdrawn,
temporarily at least, to the position of an observ-
er. There is. too, today a practical identity of
view, both in London and In Washington, as to
fundamental policy. Both are for moderation
for disarmament, for the maintenance of Europe
on basis not of the military ascendancy of any
power, but of democracy and nationality Will
that identity of outlook lead them, as It did
century ago, to the promugaion, separately or
together, Of another doctrine which they will sus-
tain in the modern world?
But there is one fundamental difference be-
tween the situation as it then was and as it is
now. A hundred years ago the steam engine.
the electric telegraph and the airplane had not
been invented. The world was isolated into COM
partments by geographic facts. Today it has
shrunk quite small, in terms of time and space
News travels round the globe in few seconds
The trade of every country is increasingly de-
pendent on that of every other country, either
for markets for the supply of raw materials
No nation is isolated, in fact nowadays, and what
is principally wrong with the world is that all
its peoples, in Europe no less than in America
are trying to live in isolation, each unto itself
alone. The state of Europe, for instance, would
not be what it is, if Great Britain and the United
States haQ USED Jnelf influence Wisely anu
selfshy in curbing reaction and working for peace
in the years that followed the war;
declaration of policy, therefore, in 1923
must be of different nature from the Monroe
Doctrine of 1923. 1t would have to concern itself
not with defending the independence of the AM
ercian continent from Intervention from Europe
for that is already secure, but with bringing
some kind of stability and peace into the world
as whole What is needed above all else today
is recognition that the very multiplication OF
states in the modern shrinking world makes it
imperative to draw up some code OF rules dehn-
ing the rights of nations and regulating their
dealings with one another Real progress can
come not from frantic attempts to patch up one
temporary peace after another, but from serl-
Gus effort to make law effective among the nations
Is it inconcevable that if the two leading peo-
Piles in the world began to take counsel together
they might formulate international code so
fair that all nations would gradually come to see
that the only way in which they could themselves
gain peace, security and prosperity would be by
subscribing to it