Askov American., 1943-12-16
Explosive Forces

Explosive TOrces
The second article in series
on postwar problems as dis
cussed by Ely Culbertson, author
of the celebrated World Fedora
ton Plan, and Devere Allen,
Worldover Press editor, is pre-
sented below. This weeks article
lists further questions by Mr..
Allen. Mr.. Culbertson will give
his answers in later issues of this
paper. The articles are released
by the Worldover Press.
3. Historically We stand at the con-
fluence of two great forces. Machine
production, the power age, reached
its full momentum if not yet its max
mum quantitative capacity, at sub
stantially the same time that ma
tionalism achieved its most potent
influence thus far. Indeed, the In
dustrial Revolution followed so close
ly on the heels of the American and
French Revolutions that nationaliSm
and mass production have been flow
ing along like that part of the Rhone
leaving Switzerland for the Mediter-
ranean, where half the stream is
deep green and the other half glacier
blue, not completely mixing, though
at times cutting into each others
channels and both together making
the river.
We are located, in our day, where
this union of historic forces ruSheS
into the sea of the future. And it
has meant for this generation that
every vessel bearing friendly cargo
of goods to provide nourishment for
foreign people, has none the less
borne at its mast provocative, ma
tionaIistic banner. It also means that
when men have tried to bring to a
common peace table their own ma
tional symbols and dip them in
friendly salute to others, they have
been forbidden to remove the BAN
ners from the decks of their ships,
those in power demanding that, what
ever else, economic privilege and
profits be allowed to continue, in
this spurious protection, on tradition
al courses.
This poses a basic question. How
can we hope to create an interna-
tional society if we are only neutral
on the major issues of economic re-
form? You are not neutral; your
plan calls for civilized work to pro-
mote free trade and economic ad-
vances toward higher living stand
ards. But where is the instrumental
ity to guarantee that work toward
these ends, among others, can be
carried on through the regional and
world organizations directly? What
instruments are to be even as sure
an outlet of opinion as has been the
International Labor Office? Where is
the machinery through which men
can work to secure basic changes ir
the economic and social order, on g
world scale, by agitation and educa-
ton rather than explosion? Are not
such mechanisms even more impor-
tant, in the world ahead, than terri
torial readjustments and the shifting
peacefully, of irredentist areas:
Where, in your plan, is the specific
agency or agencies to which aspir.
ing humans can turn for alleviatior
of wrongs or the satisfaction of in
creasing desires, in the assurance thai
there is forum to which access car
never be denied?
To what agencies can we turn fol
action against economic nationalism
cartels, the exploitation of colonie!
by master nations, the dominance
over regions by the Initiating" (mos
powerfully member states?
What is to precent the use, by reac
tionary governments, of the ma
tional contingents that are to be 10
Gated in the powerful lands, no
merely for international order, bu
Tor that claw and order" at hom
which means actual suppression o
rising movements of the popula
will? In the world we see ahea'
such questions are more releven
than ever before; no democracy
free from the germs, at least, of in
cipient fascism. In your program
an agency available to which op
pressed groups may turn in orde
to catch the ear of all the peoples?
To illustrate: under your plan, ca
natives in Kenya, when gold is dis
covered under the houses in whic
they have been segregated, be an
less arbitrarily moved out by Gov
etous Europeans than they were
few years ago? If not, is there
need for incorporating in your pre-
gram a more specific means of a,
tacking, by legal instrumentalitie
the injustices which in the small cor
tradict our aims, and in the larg
50 often destroy our hopes of peace?