Evening star., 1937-10-06
Peace-Deeds or Words?

Peace-DeedS or Words!
In his most notable presidential ut
terance on foreign affairs, Mr.. Roosevelt
at Chicago yesterday sounded clarion
call for peace. He had dual purpose.
He desired to reaff1rm to the American
people his determination to pursue
policy of peace" and to advocate "a
concerted effort to uphold laws and
principles on which alone peace can rest
secure"
The President does not formally COM
NIT this country to international action
to check "the spreading epidemic of
world lawlessness." But he leaves little
doubt that he is prepared to throw the
full weight of the United States influ-
ence into the scales against aggressor
nations that have turned the covenant
OF the League, the BRAND kellogg pact
and the nine-power treaty into scraps
OF paper; nations that without decla-
ration of war, and without justification
OF any kind, are ruthlessly numbering
civilians, including women and children,
with bombs from the air" and nations
which, lin times of so-called peace, are
sinking ships by submarine without
\ cause or notice" Mr.. Roosevelt refers,
also, to nations which are "fomenting
and taking sides in civil warfare in
countries that have never done them
any harm" and to nations which,
claiming freedom for themselves, deny
1t to others"
If the Presidents scathing indictment
OF treaty breakers, trouble breeders and
ruthless warmakers had actually men
toned names, he could hardly have pill
lorled more plainly the peoples and
methods in Europe and Asia which have
flung the world into the welter of blood
and tears, of mass murder, misery and
alarm in which our vaunted civilization
today has its terrorized being. Mr..
Roosevelt was talking at Chicago. He
was talking to Toxic Rome and Berlin
to those capitals in particular, but in
general to "the peace-loving nations"
which he would rally, before it is too
late, for the defense OF every treasure
garnered by mankind through two mil
lennilms." To Americans the President
addressed special admonition. If men
exulltant in the technique of homicide
rage so hotly over the world that every
precious thing will be in danger"-if
such comes to pass, he said, "let no
man imagine that America will escape,
that it may expect mercy, that this
Western Hemisphere will not be at
tackled, and that it will continue tran
GULLY and peacefully to carry on the
ethics and the arts of civilization"
Not since Woodrow Wilson's message
to Congress in April, 1917, have more
prescient words fallen from the lips of
President of the United States. They
are grave words and were meant to be.
They are words of warning, and were
intended to be. They are words that
needed to be uttered from such a place
at this critical hour. But if they re-
necessary to reflect that they will not
advance the cause of peace an iota or
in even inf1nitesimal degree break the
will or power of those who prefer war
and are now using it as an instrument
OF national policy. The Chicago speech,
unless its noble sentiments are trans
lated into collective world action to rub
out international gangsters, will, like a
thousand peace pleas before it, be as
chaff in Lake Michigans winds. It will
not ground single japanese bombing
plane at Nanking or spike Krupp gun
at Shanghai. 1t will not Withdraw a
solitary platoon of Mussolini's Black Ar
rows from Frances army or demobilize
one of Goering's air squadrons in in
surgent Spain. 1t will fill no Japanese.
italian or German statesman with any
sudden respect for the sanctity of in
ternational law.
In our justifiable pride in Mr.. Roose-
velts valiant plea for peace, amid our
fervent hopes that it will not prove to
be just one more salvo of sounding
brass and tinkling cymbals, this iron
fact. however dismaying, needs to be
remembered-thatw world peace has been
broken or is menaced by elements that
know and esteem only force And that
the force they have loosed upon man
kind cannot be overcome by words, no
matter how golden or right-minded It
would be shutting our eyes to stark real
ism, to let wishful thinking usurp the
place OF common sense, to view the
Chicago speech in any other light.