Evening star., 1934-01-21
BORAH REVEALS ACCORD =
WITH HITLER ANDH DJJCE
Speech in New York City
Reveals Spirit Antagonistic to Exist
ence of Powerful League.

mented agreements And when, faced
with the question of resorting to either
military or economic coercion or throw
ing up their hands, the member nations
of the League-with whom the United
States was now closely associated
chose the latter course. then 1t was q
self-evident fact that decisions by the
League lacked all authority. They did
not have the color of moral force, nor
did they have the backing Of military
or economic power. They were, in
fact, wishful-thinking and nothing
more-a sort of national set of Nss
Year resolutions which countries couk
take and break as they chose.
Meantime the progress-or lack o,
progress-of the Disarmament Confer
ence plainly disclosed the fact that in
armaments- in all else-nations
were thinking purely nationalistically.
Actually the armed nations were men,
aced by the territorial ambitions Of
the disarmed and limitation or reduc-
ton OF ornaments would serve the
particular interests Of one side or the
other OF the contestants. Accordingly
disarmament as a means to promote
| purely nationalistic ends was actually
the issue at Geneva. Each nation re-
fused point blank to consider the ques-
ton of ornaments pure and simple
In word, the Disarmament Con-
/ ference disclosed that as nations could
/ not cooperate to enforce peace and as
/ public opinion within nations and in
/ the world as a whole was not adequate
/ 10 preserve peace, so the League could
| not provide either place or an at
moSphere where nations could CO.
| operate to solve the problem of arma-
ments. Together the Manchurian and
disarmament affairs conclusively DEM
onstrated the bankruptcy of the League
! OF Nations in the field of peace
But 1t does not require single Sec
ond of thought to recognize that the
actual failure was not with the League
itself. What was demonstrated was
that the world in its present post st-war
MOOD is incapable of any serious in
ternational cooperation. Precisely the
same truth was demonstrated by the
tragi-comedy of the London Economic
Conference. So far as we have yet
come in the matter of internationalism
all countries and all peoples are equally
dominated by the conviction that the
uses Of an international conference or
society are primarily and even exclu-
sively to provide places for voicing and
an opportunity for imposing purely
nationalistic conceptions.
Unable to Bridge Gap.
This conviction. too. arises from the
fact that so far it has been impossible
fto make clear to peoples. to majorities
within countries that their own rights
and interests are not and cannot be
absolute when brought into conflict
with the similar rights and interests
of other nations. No people wants
war; the desire to escape it is equal
among all peoples everywhere. But
no one group can perceive that un-
compromising support of exclusively
national theses internationally can
only lead to military clash on the
one hand and economic conflict on
the other
All the peace movements and en-
deavors of the postwar era have broken
down because they have been unable
to bridge this gap between the desire
of peoples for peace and their insistence
upon their national theses which must
insure war. All these movements all
these endeayors-of which the League
Of Nations is the most considerable
, have undertaken to build upon the
common desire of all peoples for peace
without regard for the equally unani-
nous concern of these peoples for their
national interests.
The result has been that every inter-
national postwar meeting-econonic
hnanclal. political and military-has
broken down at precisely the moment
when the attempt was made to trans
form a general desire for peace. order
and prosperity into some universal sys-
tenn. And all countries have been
equally certain of their own good faith
and similarly indignant at the attempt
of others to interfere with their rights
and restrict their national policies
What has been and remains inter-
esting in all Of this is the steadfast re-
fusal of the peacemakers of the world
to recognize the basic fact that progress
toward internationalism must be con-
ditioned not uDon international but
upon national education and activity.
No international organization. however
constituted, can function usefuly while
all peoples are thinking only in terms
of nationalistic interest. No reform of
the League machinery will have any
value precisely so long as peoples
generally are resolved to employ the
League only for their own ends or to
stay out of it because membership
might menace their own interests
When one says, as many do today,
that the League Of Nations Is dead,
what they mean is that the experience
of the postwar years has demonstrated
the League was founded upon a condi.
ton contrary to fact in all present time
and therefore was foredoomed to failure.
The League is neither dead nor alive
because it was an inanimate instrument
and not an institution blessed with the
breath of life. 1t was designed to be
the agency of a world taught by the
last war Of the need of international
organization to avoid further conflict.
But that world existed only in the
minds of a restricted number of
idealists and dreamers
The actual world was populated by
peoples who found in their Hitlers,
MuSsolinis Borahs. Hardieus. etc. their
true prophets and in the gospel of un-
compromising nationalism their chosen
faith. Today the League is therefore
like another ark built inland against
the arrival of a flood which might
float it. The food in this case was the
flood of popular opinion everywhere
supporting international conceptions.
Since, however, the waters never rose,
the ark has never f1oated. But to re-
construct it now will not hasten the
flood or help in the floating
Ironically enough when one thinks
of what Borah, the liberal. really seeks
to stand for, his words are quite cor
rect when he declares that another
revolution has failed-this time a
revolution seeking to overthrow ma
tionalism In this respect however the
Senator from Idaho is far less illumi-
; mated than either Hitler or Mussolini,
for the latter both perceive clearly that
war is the inevitable consequence of
the gospel which they profess and
| preach whereas BOrah still clingS to