The potters herald. [volume] (East Liverpool, Ohio) 1899-1982, 1942-05-28
The Cherry Tree
Where We Hdtched Out
The Truth
. WALLACE SPEAKS
. AFTER THE WAR
. NO EXPLOITER NATIONS
. PEOPLES PEACE

A number of our most alert column
lists, such as Ray Clapper, have been
writing about the recent speech of
| Vice President Wallace, in which he
talked plainly about the peace to fol-
low the war. He talked about Il peO-
pies war and a peoples peace.
1t vas his big point that after this
war there car be no eXploiter nations.
1t has to be a peoples wOrld-not
just in n place, or in a few places,
but every place. In India and China,
as well as in the United States and
Great Britain. In Latin America, as
well rs in Norway and Sweden and
Denmark.
The plain people everywhere have
to get a break after this war.
The Vice Presidents speech was n
of the most notable speeches of the
war period. 1t may be read for decades
after this war, rs an index to what
the war was all about.
X X X
But there are roots to that speech
going far back of it. The Atlantic
Charte, which grew out of the Roose-
Welt Churchill meeting on the Atlantic,
had those roots. Read the plank about
access to raw materials.
Just a few years after the first
World War the International Fedora
ton of Trade Unions had a plank
of about the same nature. Free access
to raw materials everywhere.
That was one of the reasons the
American Federation of Labor re-
manned out of the IFTU for so long.
Now free" access is susceptible of
Il lot of definition and the American
labor movement says it means impov-
erishment under any European defini-
ton. And justly so.
But. there has been much change
since then. Some sort of equality of OPP
pOrtunity to benefit by the natural
wealth of the world looks to be loom
ing out of the smoke and horror of this
war. 1t could make Il marvellous world.
X X X
In that old IFTU declaration are
some of the roots of the Vice PreSi-
dents remarkable address.
In 1923, wasn't it, the American Fed
GRAFTON of Labor declared for dem
ocracy in industry-for a franchise in
industry comparable to the franchise
in political life. There were more roots.
Going back through the years, since
the first foothold on liberty was pro-
cured, the race has struggle necessarily
for more liberty, for more of justice,
for more of security, more of every
thing that makes for living in peace,
with enough of the necessities and
more and more of the comforts and
luXurieS.
This war, if it is taking us any
where, is taking us farther along that
road, farther along toward the goal of
humanity.
Unless there is something like that
ut the heart of this terrific struggle,
then it has no grandeur of purpose fit
to accompany the sacrifice.
x X X
Surely We are not fighting this war
just to save our skins. To save our
skins would be warrant enough, but to
save our skins and give the human
race Il better habitat, that is d; real
and worthy thing to be about.
In almost every epic struggle some
person speaks the classical phrases
that express the purpose and the goal.
Lincoln gave us the immortal mo ma
ton can be half slave and half free"
Woodrow Wilson, ahead of his time,
or else voicing the objective of Il CEN
fury rather than of Il single war, cried
for war to make the world safe for
democracy"-safe for people to live in
peace and freedom.
1t may be that Vice President Wal
lace has spoken in this struggle the
words that will live as the torch of
the years to come.
We cannOt know about that now,
surely, nor can we even know that
the peace to end this war will bring
to us the freedom we want, any more
than did the first World War. But it
must TAX us nearer the goal. 1t must.
FNl, ,lI Al,I1 Jn NO ,A.r INIIV