The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1935-02-16
Liberal Viewpoint
by DIR. HARRY ELMER BARNES

world Politics and Personal Security" by
Harold D. Lasswen CWhittleSey House McGraw
Hill Book Coz
Since 1914" by ]. H. Landman Barnes &
Noble).
THE Study Of international Relations in the
United States" edited by Edith E. Ware Co
lumbia University Press.
DROF. LANDdAN has procured an extremely
Il clear and concise history of the world since
the outbreak of the European war in 1914. II
is printed in a form designed to make 1t espe-
cially clear and disable for the general reader
and for rapid reference 1t is we'll supplied with
maps and illustrated with particularly illumirat-
ing and cogent cartoons. The failure to realize
a new era as a result of the World War is
brought out with real force:
Twenty years have elapsed since Princip
fired the first shots of the World War on June
% at Sarajevo which killed ATchduke Francis
Ferdinand and enveloped mankind in history's
most devastating war. These two decades con-
stitute the painful period of CESSATION Of the
new era The first decade was characterized by
unabating hatred between the Central and
Entente powers-an odium provoked by the war.
beginning with the year 1924 the pains were
for a time eased. Cancellation was the palliative.
The Allied troops withdrew from the Ruhr; the
Dawes and Young plans were adopted; Germany
entered the League of Nations; the Kellogg pact
was designed; the Allies evacuated the Rhine
land; world economics improved; and the Spirit
of Locarno made for greater assurance Of peace
in western Europe.
ounce the year 1880 mankind has been ex-
Experiencing the pains of labor attending the
birth of the new era. The stock market crash OF
late 1929 had its repercussionS throughout the
world. Banks closed; unemployment increased;
Japan seized Manchuria; Hitler made himself
ruthless dictator of Germany; the Disarmament
oil
half of Europe, and Communism threatened.
The new era is not yet born"
Prof. LasSwell of the University of Chicago
has written the most original book on world
politics which has appeared in a decade. He
indicates how our present system OF 1nterna-
tional anarchy moves in a vicious circle Threats
of vars fears and economic insecurity, which
grow out Of international anarchy render the
individual nervous, Supersens1t1ve ana prone TO
| emotional explosions. The mass OF individuals
thus motivated tend to make international re-
lations all the more difficult and unstable as the
result of collective filters. And so the system
moves on like a SNOWFALL. 1t should be the pur-
pose of the reast in world politics to make clear
these facts and thus to promote greater feeling
of security and confidence:
WARS and revolutions are avenues OF dis
charge for collective insecurities and stand in
competition with every alternative means OF dis
sipating mass tension. The reduction OF violence
in world politics means strengthening the COM
peClClVe power WIlOSS COoVo
are less. The special province OF political
pSychatrists who seek to develop and to practice
the politics of prevention is devising ingenious
expedients capable of discharging accumulated
anxeties as harmlessly as possible.
~THIS age of the revolt of the masses or the
l. era of world wars and revolution puts
he emotions of the masses in the foreground of
political events. Sound measures for the re-
moval of unfavorable objective conditions OF dis
content require mass support; and cherished So
cial values require mass support, or mass de-
Election, if they are to survive.
1.-THE politics of prevention calls for con-
tinuing audit of the world level of insecurity
The political sychiatriSt, assuming the deslr-
ability of enabling human activities to evolve at
a minimum of human cost, approaches the prob
lem of war and reOlution as one detail OF the
whole task of mastering the sources and mitlga-
ting the consequences of human insecurity in our
unstable world
DR.. Ware has compiled most thorough and
painstaking prospectus and summary OF every
type of activity and organization in the United
States designed to promote the study OF inter-
national relations in every area of the world. In
scope the exhibit is extremely impressive but
Prof. LaSSwellS volume makes it very clear why
the activities chronicled are so futile, namely
because most Of them fail to go to the roots OF
international insecurity in either an economic
or psychological sense.
They remain chiefly superficial pleasantr1es
on the surface. This is due in no small degree
to the fact that those who finance such research
and activities are themselves in part responsible
for the very conditions which create and per-
oetuate ill-wiu and insecurity in the contempt
rary world.