Askov American. [volume] (Askov, Pine County, Minn.) 1914-current, 1941-08-21
Government Issues
S'Where Law Ends
Tyranny Begins
BY Hjalmar Petersen.

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If America is to do any good
in Europe let it be action for
peace instead of involvement in
their age-old wars. Let it be for
human protection and progress
instead of human slaughter. Four
Lights, publication of the Wom-
ems International L ague for
Peace and Freedom, carries the
following suggestions for peace
now and in the future:
Our immediate defense against die
tatorship is not airplanes or warships.
1t is our own system of State Legis-
latures and the Federal Congress.
These days of theatrical overturnings
have us stunned and bewildered, and
anything so deliberate and reasonable
as democratic legislation is made to
seem like an anticlimax. We are be-
ing propagandized and hustled into
thinking that speed is more important
than direction. In reality-in war
or peace, victory or defeat, democratic
lawmaking is the one indispensable
vehicle for all our freedom, the heart
of our democracy. Let us keep our
selves clear-minded on this fact in
the midst of the confusion.
To preserve our system it must
be kept functioning boldly. To in
sure this keep on urging boldly i'm
mediate foyoroblo ocf;op IN <bo,,
measures that strike deepest at the
root of today's problems.
First in scope and farsightedness
stands the Tenerowicz Resolution to
create Joint Congressional Peace
Commission to initiate, jointly with
other acknowledgements, mediation in
the war now, and to lay sound, demo-
cratic groundwork on which to create
a world federation and government.
Hitler claims international union as
his aim. We know that his union
would be created and maintained by
force and fear. But, at its worst,
union itself means to the tortured
peoples of Europe rest from war and
a chance for life, even if lean and
bitter life. Why is our Congress
loathe to pass this Resolution that
would launch mighty peace Of
fensive today, when tomorrow our
opportunity may be gone, and that
asserts our universal desire for a
union of vastly different kinda
voluntary union of the peoples of
Europe, or of the world, by consent,
founded on freely discussed and
concluded basis of federation, or
league, of peoples?
If Hitler's propaganda is as potent
as our papers and our Nazi-hdnters
tell us, why do we not meet it with
legitimate, constructive declaration of
policy such as immediate and enthusi-
astic passage of the Tenerowicz Reso-
luton. Why not take this means to
declare officially that the u S. stands
ready to lead and cooperate in the
democratic brand of world organiza-
ton? Why leave it to the dictators
to exploit the deepest, most human
longings of all people, for order and
stability?
The Congress surely cannot hesi-
tate because it believes in a return
to the patchwork map of the 1919
Europe? Its endless new frontiers
marked neither natural, racial, eco
nomic, nor even geographic, divisions.
They only laid the trains of powder
that exploded inevitably in the Sec
ond World War. The past, we know
only too we'll, 10 not worth fighting
for. We need to struggle hard for
a new future and to announce open
ly that we are doing so!
Or does the Congress hang back
from passing the Resolution from
fear of entangling ourselves in Euro
pean affairs? Where it is today
voting willingly to intervene in wal
and destruction it cannot refuse to
intervene for peace and construc-
ton.
We therefore beg you to write again
to your Congressman to urge him tt
work and vote for the Tenerowic1
Resolution. Do not hesitate because
people tell you that mediation i!
impossible and world union a chin
era. The world that we are striving
tn create is new world and, a!
Bernard Shaw says, I'VE are sub
iect towards when confronted will
new ideas, and insanely brave whel
we 20 out to kill one another with
physical equipment of artificial vol
canoes and atmospheres Of poison