The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1935-05-29
Liberal Viewpoint
by DIR. HARRY ELMER BARNES

COME of our best-informed and most inteln-
- gent publcists and scholars predict that
when the next great comes the united
States will once more be found sucker, TINS
time pulling the British and French chestnuts
out of the fire in the Pacific through disastrous
and expensive war with Japan.
The best possible protection against such
deplorable eventualty is full knowledge of the
time when we spent $4,000 900 to assume the
role of suckers for Europeans in 1917~18. We not
only spent this vast sum OF money but wasted
many American lives in order to help France TO
gel back Alsace- Lorraine, Russia to make futile
effort to secure the Straights and Great Britain
to destroy the German navy, merchant marine
and colonial empire.
At the very moment when the threat of an
other great world war is more ominous than at
any other time since 1914, we are fortunate in
having published a book which is almost per-
fectly designed to inform the American c1tizenry
with respect to the realities of the great hoax
of 19l4-19l8
This is Walter Mills Road to War; Amer
lea 1914-1917." 1t is a reliable, comprehensive
and extremely readable survey of how the United
States drifted into the World War.
MIR. MILLS makes no revolutionary dsclos-
IVl ures The essential facts were given in
1926 in my chapter on the United States in 1.-The
Genesis of the World War" -Four years later
c. Hartley Gratan drew the picture of our entry
into the World War on much larger campus in
his why We Fought"
The author sketches, first, the general ignor-
ance and indifference of the United States in
GLIDING our government with respect to the
issues of the outbreak of the World War in 1914.
This ignorance and Indifference were soon
supplanted, for the most part, by passionate par
tisanship and more or less complete misinforma-
ton created by the extensive Allied propaganda
in this country. Our bankers financed the Allies
and our munition makers sold them war neces-
sites. Hence, our material interests lined up
with our prejudiceS.
With the best of Intentions Colonel House
fitted about in Europe without being able to
maintain the desired objectivity, though his
record is extremely creditable compared to that
of Walter Hines Page. Neither Mr.. House nor
Mr.. Wilson was unaware of the bunk in the
Allied pretensions, but Mr. Wilson was unable
to act with sufficient resolution to Illustrate their
ambition to bring us into the war and crush
Germany
BY his delays, vacillations ard encourage
ment of the Allies Mr. Wilson lost the oppor-
tunity to realize the noblest ideal expressed dur
ing the World War; namely. his peace without
victory"
A T time when we had more reasons for
y fighting Great Britain than for fighting
Germany the man who kept us out of war"
according to the campaign of 1916. threw us into
the carnage, in the spring of 1917.
The result was the Treaty of Versailles, the
brutalities and stupidities of the next Is years,
and the present menace of another world calam-
ity. There may be little basis for isolating our
selves from European peace efforts and inter-
national agencies, but there is certainly every
possible basis for isolating ourselves from the
next European conflict.
number of recent books deal with the dan
ger of impending war and of possibilities of
averting the conflict. Professor Frederick l..
Schuman gives us the best analysis Of the Hitler
regime which has thus far appeared in England
("The Nazi Dictatorship" Knopf). Paul F.
Douglass treats of the new religious trends under
the Nazi and of the efforts made to bolster
patriotism Good Among the Germans. Univer-
sity of Pennsylvania Press In the second vol
ume of their "Redirecting Education" columbia
University Press. Rexford G. Tugwel and Leon
H. Keyserling not only treat of new educational
trends but show how the schools are being used
to inculcate patriotism and intelslv national
hatreds, especially in France, Germany and
Italy.
Herman Berstein edits symposium of opin-
ion on the possibility of abolishing war. Some 80
believe that war can be averted, while half
dozen, including Mencken. Freud and Dean Inge
doubt it. ("Can We Abolish WARP" Broadview).
In his careful work, international Security"
Council on Foreign Relations Prof Philip c.
Jessup indicates just where the United States
stands with respect tc collective world action in
the interest of peace.