Evening star., 1939-04-03

casts from
abroad means that if the democra-
cies of the world have good case
to present they can eventually
count on the German people them
selves to overthrow the Nazi regime
and replace it with a government
which will enter into true partner
ship of peace. This was the man
ner in which the German people
separated themselves from the auto
cratic government of the Kaiser in
1918 and it is the only method left
short of actual war.
The assumption that millions of
persons must be killed in order to
defeat the will of an arbitrary gov
ernment in Germany has been too
widely accepted for the economic
security of the world.
But the assumption, on the other
hand, that the world can be re-
stored to economic stability through
a triumph of intelligence and moral
force has been in the last several
weeks regarded as impossible of full
fillnent because the German peo-
ple-the very ones to whom pro-
grams of change must be addressed
have been rendered inaccessible
by censorship of the press and
radio.
Today all this has been altered.
Germany's millions of fair-minded
human beings, who hate war as
much as do the fair-minded human
beings of other countries, can be
reached by air.
The question will promptly be
asked, however: What can the rest
of the world say to the German peo-
pie which will make them feel JUS
titled in throwing off the yoke they
now bear as the lesser of two evils?'
Whatever one may think of Herr
Hitler's policies of brutality, and
they cannot be too strongly con-
demned, anybody with a knowledge
of what has happened in Europe
since the Armistice and who will try
, to look effectively and unselfishly
at international events, must con-
cede the logic of the Hitler argu-
ment as it applies to Britain and
France. If not ourselves.
What the German ruler says, in
effect, is that for IS years the Ger
man people waited for justice to
come out of discussions with Britain
and France applying the democratic
method of reasoning, but in vain.
He recites the vast amount of repa-
rations money paid, the raw ma
terials taken from Germany. the
colonial territories seized, and the
insistence that Germany remain dis
armed while the Allies took no real
steps to disarm themselves.
Whatever one may think of this
line of argument, and doubtless
there will be arguments in refutation
offered by the British and French,
the fact remains that the points
made will appeal to patriotic Ger
mans as justifying almost any means
to preserve the German position in
the world
What then can the Allies offer
If they do manage by radio broad
casts to reach the German people?
They and the United States, which
also has played part in postwar
developments, can only be per-
suasive If their sincerity is unques-
TONED and if they present world
economic program which will ap-
peal to the German people as likely
to lead to a better status than they
have today under rigid Fascism.
If the United States, and Britain,
and France, each ready to make
sacrifices in order to prevent war
in which millions of innocent per-
sons would be slaughtered and the
outcome would leave the world even
more impoverished than it is today,
and even more receptive to "isms"
than it has been in the chaotic
period of the last seven years?
If the democracies really want to
make peace and forestall war, they
can unite on a series of pledges
which, it now is known, will reach
the German people. The leaders of
Britain, France and America have
said in recent months that the flu
ture of Christianity is inseparably
bound up in the future of democ-
racy. Granting this to be true, the
leaders of these same countries can
achieve for Christianity its greatest
victory of 1000 years by applying
ethical principles of self -eXamina-
ton and unself1shness to the formu-
lation of a sound international pro-
gram. BY power of example alone
will the German people be con-
vinced of the sincerity of the de-
mocracies of the world.
The basic cause of world insecurity
today and war threats is economic
maladjustment. America, with an
unprecedented supply of gold, has
the leverage to compel peace by eco
nomic settlements and financial aid
abroad that would restore employ
ment within the United States by
reason of increased production
needed to feed and clothe and equip
an undernourished world. The rec
ord over a period of $50 years shows
that Europeans sent us their wealth
and money to help us build our re-
public and develop our resources
and the Europeans lost plenty in the
process.
So again the choice is between un-
selfshness and selfshness, between
the investment of dollars and pounds
and francs and the investment Of
millions of human lives on the bat
tlefelds, between a program of re-
arrangement of colonial possessions
and trade opportunities and accept
ance of the promise that war is now
and always will be the only way out
The German people, it is disclosed,
are reachable with news and ex-
hortation, but the challenge now is
to the peoples of Great Britain
France and the United States, speak
ing through public opinion govern
. ments, to re-examine honestly their
own policies and offer a program
which the peoples of Central Europe
can honorably accept as worth.