Evening star., 1939-12-31
Uniiication Of Europe
Now 'Necessity,'
Historians Told
Ex-Huneorion Official
Sees Greet Peril Unless
Federation Is Achieved

VI CuIOpC-dClIlO>
cratic or dictatorial-has become s
historical necessity" the Ameri-
can Historical Association was tOlc
yesterday in the final session of its
54th annual meeting.
DR.. Oscar Jaszi. formerly ar
eminent Hungarian scholar and Off
cial and now professor at Oberlir
College, warned his colleagues be-
fore thev departed for half e thou
sand colleges scattered over America
that desperate need for European
federatio presses economically
morally and from an international
point of view
IF the democracies of the world
should be unable to accomplish this
integration by reason and justice
the danger is great that Herr Hitler
or future super Hitler will give a
terribly inhuman Pax Germanica to
mankind tormented and exhaust
ed by war. famine and power poll
tics" he declared at the session in
the Mayflower Hotel
Warns of Allied Reactionaries.
DR.. Jaszi warned against the
Campaign" of English and French
"reactionaries,' and questioned
whether any faith should be placed
in accounts of war causes and war
aims published in white papers, and
blue and yellow books oy both Ger
many and the allies.
Official publications Of diplomatic
documents are results of careful
selection in which Justification may
occur" he asserted. Nobody would
judge criminal case by documents
which a racketeering band had in
tentionally left on the table Of its
headquarters
diplomatic documents are oc-
casionally composed with the special
intention of creating an alibi to
blur war esponsibility," he said.
This process is now gong on
Upon historians themselves Dr.
Jaszi placed heavy blame tcr "the
second world war" He said they
wrote the history of the first World
War as victims of the peace hys-
terra succeeding war hysteria. -
Writing in a morning after hang
over mood. they misinte;p ;preted
diplomatic origins of the struggle he
said
1T is no wonder that the post
war leaders could not plan a good
and reasonable peace-that they
miscalculated thoroughly the psy-
chology of the new Germany, both
in punishments inflicted upon her
and concessions accorded to her, .
he stated.
Historians Defended.
But springing to the defense of
the historians Interpretation of the
World War was DR.. Raymond j.
Sontag of Princeton University. He
contended that scholarly punctur-
ing of war myths built up during
the last conflict has been taken
seriously by the American public
and has been a major factor in
avoiding public hysteria in the
United States during the present
war.
This statement was countered by
c. Hartley Grattan, author of books
dealing with the World War, who
said that books written by profess
sional historians are themselves
academic mythology" of little
value to the public in deciding how
to act now.
DR.. Alfred Vagts, a German army
officer during the World War and
now at Princeton University, stated
that supposedly objective and
scholarly accounts of events issuing
from Europe are undependable be-
cause "on the continent the soli-
darity of opinion and interest be-
tween the government bureaucrats
and the historians has never been
entirely broken.
propaganda is largely applied
history" he said.
At an association discussion ear
lier in the day, attention was turned
to conflict within America, between
the North and the South.
Southern Nationalism.
A feeling of racial superiority, a
lenient philosophy of living, a spirit
of initiative and a consciousness of
kinship were four things which
united the people of the South and
differentiated them from Northern
ers at the time of the Civil War, &C
cording to Prof. Robert S. Cotterill
of the Florida State College for
Women.
These are the elements of South
ern nationalism, Prof. Cotterill told
joint session yesterday of the
American and the Southern His
torical Associations.
Speaking on the topic Southern
Nationalism on the Eve of Seces-
sion: A Product of External or In
ternal Force?" Prof Cotterill said
that to find the origin of Southern
nationalism one must look further
back than slavery-in fact further
back than the South.
The four elements of Southern
nationalism, the speaker said, have
one common characteristic - they
are all English. THE truth seems
to be-" he said. that Southern peo-
pie were Southern before they left
England and continued to be Eng
lish after they reached the South.
"On the eve of secession they
were still English. retaining their
English pride of race, their English
spirit of initiative, their English
philosophy of living"
His Explanation.
In explaining why Southerners
retained their English heritage,
Prof. Cotterill cited conditions and
circumstances of settlement.
"The Southern settlers" he said,
cleft England without bitterness
and arrived in America without
hate. No appreciable percentage of
them had been subject to persecu-
ton in England or had suffered
from dire economic stress. They
wanted to remain English, and once