Evening star., 1935-08-25
BY EDGAR. ANsEL .MoWRER.

NARIS, France.-Europe Is Stlll
- gaSping at this spectacle:
Fascist Italy has given vir-
- tual ultimatum to the British
Empire to choose either Italy's friend
ship or war. with Italy-and the Brit
ish Empire has not dared to react.
The British lion seems ready to
climb down. A secondary nation like
Italy apparently can offer such an
ultimatum with impunity. Maybe the
English do not yet understand that
not Ethiopia, not the Cape-to-Cairo
red streak on the map of Africa, but
the entire power situation along the
road TO India Is at stake.
Democracies are slow to anger,
slower still to grasp situation.
The British may again be awakened
to an active foreign policy despite the
unreserved Tolstoyanism of their
home labor party and of Australia,
New Zealand and Canada. But it
looks today as though the British
would adopt the French idea-play
for time and try to lirAit the hostili-
ties to Africa.
Olive Branch Still Offered.
This means that at the coming
meetings of the League of Nations in
Geneva. the olive branch still will be
ostentatiously offered to the con-
temptuous Italians and that there will
be serious effort to have the entire
affair postponed.
Sanctions at least may be in abey-
ance, even such obviously effective
ones as withholding from the bank
rupt Italians further credits and GER
tain raw materials indispensable to
waging modern war.
This means that EthiopianS will be
left to withstand the Italians alone.
No, not quite alone. 1t appears the
Negus of Ethiopia will have the as
sistance Of the Hyena men, warlike
Jewish tribe inhabiting certain almost
inaccessible Ethiopian peaks-Hyena
men, instead Of the promised, duly
ratified and merited assistance OF
every member Of the League of Ma
tions.
This is emblematic of the present
world situation.
Menace Of Fascism.
The clearest lesson, If there is one,
IS the inherent menace of fasciSm.
The Fascist Society is totalitarian
state guided by a few irresponsible
self-appointed chiefs, who are in
spired by militant nationalism and
the cult CT violence.
This implies contempt for the
values on which what is left of con-
temporary civilization is based-con-
tempt for peace, tolerance, mercy. OBJ
jective truth and impartial justice,
individualism, self-government and
world organization.
As the italian futurists first and
then the Fascist philosopher, Giovanni
Gentle, have said, the Fascists wish
to substitute the will for the intellect.
As Joseph Goebbels, Reichsminister of
propaganda and peoples enlighten-
ment, told the Germans, the Nazis
have offered Germany a heroic view
of life without sentimentality, mean
ing with naked brutality.
Premier Benito Mussolini exiles op-
pcnents and ruthleSsly banishes COM
petent lieutenants as Abdul Hamid Of
Turkey did with his grand viziers.
Reichsfuehrer Adolf Hitler kills un-
ruly followers with his own hand.
Thereby the future of civilized hu-
manity is severely threatened.
Brutality Glorified.
Such phenomena are not new.
States were aggressive before today.
True, but none of the prewar mod
ern governments ever glorifled war
fare and brutality as they are glorified
today by the Fascists.
In 1918 it was realized that. owing
TO modern conditions. the dynamic
state" animated by the will to expand
by conquest had become a public
danger and must be shackled. The
shackles imposed-chiefly the League
of Nations-were incomplete and when
tried did not hold.
But they had engendered in the vic
torious societies a feeling of such Sc
curity that illusion became rampant,
chiefly the illusion that it sufficed to
offer pious advice and speak gently to
keep the world peace.
Therefore, the democratic societies,
wary of warfare and desiring only to
enjoy leisure and material ease, almost
welcomed the first Fascist government
in Italy III 1922. For this government,
under the banner Of Scotching the
mythical Communist danger, really