Askov American. [volume] (Askov, Pine County, Minn.) 1914-current, 1942-07-30

Europe. What her policing" would
be like can only be guessed from her
history and from Germany's treat
ment of her. She might be merci-
full. To be merciful would be wise,
and Stain has shown great shrewd-
ness at times. He also has been
ruthless at times. We would expect
ruthlessness if he had Germany in
his grip. We would not expect him
to leave Germany to us.
Pan American Peace System
Prohibits Intervention.
We shall understand one of the
limits of the international police idea
if we test it in relation to the mainte-
nance of law and order in the West
ern Hemisphere. Our southern neigh
bors have habitually shown them
selves extremely jealous of their
independence and watchful of the
COLOSSUS of the North" President
Hoover and the Roosevelt-Hull adj
ministration have felt it necessary
to make herculean efforts to remove
the fear of us from the minds of
these neighbors of ours and in its
place to establish faith in us as an
honest neighbor whose power would
never be used to intervene in their
domestic affairs. We have built up
with them complete Pan American
peace system, the cornerstone of
which is an absolute prohibition of
military Intervention on the part
of the United States or any other
nation in the affairs of the rest. This
prohibition of coercion has been
essential to the success of our Pan
American solidarity. We shall do
well not to disregard this lesson.
No More
Pax Britannicas.
One trouble with us is that we are
being beguiled by the apparent sue
cess of the pax Britannica of the
past hundred years, during which
Britain with her great Navy has been
the dominant power in the world.
She has had her share of RESPONSE
bility for some wars but has pre-
vented others. Our proposed seven
ocean Navy backed by fleet of a
hundred thousand airplanes suggests
that the dream of the Knox-Luce-
Lippmann school of thought that we
assume the burden now too heavy
for little Britain is not without in
fluepce in the White House, despite
the Wallace-Welles reputation of
imperialism. The reasoning is: We
don't want Germany to rule the
world. We don't want Japan to rule
the world. Then, why shouldn't we,
with British cooperation, rule the
world to insure that other nations
don't? This is what some people
mean by international policing"
We reject this conception as i'm
perialism pure and simple. We be-
lieve that the era of empire really
ended at Singapore, not only for
Britain but for all of the great pow
ers, and that it is good radiance.
Henceforth, the relation with their
less powerful neighbors will, we hope,
be no more domineering at most than
that of big brother towards his
little brothers, who may be depended
upon to resist vigorously, and in the
long run successfully, every en-
croachment on their rights. This is
the pattern we seem to be following
in the Wetern Hemisphere. Similar
declarations are the probable outcome
of the present violence in Europe
and in Asia. All attempts at per-
manent domination through military
conquest will, we believe, fail, as
our efforts failed with little Mica
ragua.
World Government Policing
Like Prohibition by Law.
But suppose we, abandon altogether
this conception of imperialistic DOM
ination following victory, and get
directly now to the question of a
genuine World Government backed
by a genuine International Police
Force, made up of citizens of all ma
tons and controlled by the Interna-
tional Government in which all ma
tons are represented.
The first criticism of this more
honest conception that comes to
mind is that, in attempting it, we
should be putting the cart before the
horse. We tried this once in passing
the Prohibition Amendment. After
unsatisfactory experience with local
option and state enforcement, we
convinced the legislatures, or a ma
jority of the citizens, in three-fourths
of our states that national prohibi-
ton would rid the nation of the
drink evil. We wrote prohibition
into our Constitution. Then we set
tied back in our armchairs and left
to the Federal government with its
supposedly irresistible power the task
of enforcement. The result is now
history. In word, we found out
convincingly that the power behind
a law is not the police, strange as it