The people's voice. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1939-1969, 1940-05-08
Blame FOR
INVASION NOT
The REAL ISSUE
By SCOTT NEARING
Federated Press)

War is flooding across Scandinavia.
Denmark is under German control
Norway is a battlefield upon which
German, Austrian, British, French and
Norwegian soldiers are struggling for
victory. Bombed wharves and rail-
road bridges, burning cities, anguished
human beings and dead bodies tell
their cruel story of mans humanity
| to man.
Who is responsible? Millions search
for an answer. Foreign Minister Joa-
chin Won Ribbentrop assemblies a not
able gathering in Berlin and impress
sively reads long document that in
cludes citations from military orders
for the Allied occupation of Norway
French spokesman call the document
forgery. British sources say it is a
Idespicable lie.
The Germans insist that they &C.
cupied Norway to save it from the
Allies and cite the planting of mines
in Norwegian waters as a proof of
Allied intentions.
The British and French point to the
German invasion as another instance
in a long list that began with Austria
and has included Czecho-Slovakia and
Poland No small nation anywhere
in Europe is safe from aggression,
they contend.
Which shall outsiders believe? The
answer is obvious: Neither. Both are
undoubtedly lying
At the beginning of war each ma
ton organizes an official lie factory.
Hitler makes no bones about it. In
his my Struggle" he points out that
the bigger the lie and the more often
it is repeated, the greater the likeli-
hood that it will be believed.
After the last war two books ap-
peared in Great Britain: Secrets of
Crewe House" and "Now It Can Be
Told" One was written by the chief
of the British lie factory, the other
by Britain's ace war correspondent.
Both told in detail how the British
public had been lied to during the
war years.
Since the beginning of the present
war, both sides have been classifying,
censoring, suppressing. Only after
peace has been declared will the truth
about the Norwegian episode be
known.
But aside from official misrepre-
sensations and receptions, one thing
is now crystal clear: War cannot be
localized Like a fire, once it has
begun there is no telling what it will
destroy next.
During the anxious years between
Hitler's rise to power in 1888 and the
of war in 1889, Foreign Com
missar M. NJ. Litvinoff of the Soviet
Union repeatedly warned the Euro
pean imperialists that peace is indivis-
ible. mot So" retorted Chamberlain
and his hackers. eve can localize
war in Abyssinia, in Spain and else
where" Events have proved that
Chamberlain was wrong.
The European war is out of hand.
The neutrals are as powerless to con-
troll it as are the warning nations.
Yesterday Poland, today Norway, to-
Holland or Turkey may be
swept by the conflagration.
Maybe the war will burn itself out
in the exhaustion of all concerned.
Maybe it will be extinguished, as it
was in 1917 and 1918, by flood tide
Of revolution.
The question of blame is incidental.
The fact of destruction and disaster
Is a challenge to the entire human
race Not victory, but the liquidation
Of social system that employs war
as an instrument of policy must be
he objective of all men and women
Of good will and social vision.
You cannot control what you do not