Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1943-01-04
FotefuI Decade

F0tefuI DECADE
The State Departments White
Paper, setting out the steps which
plunged the world into war during
the decade beginning in 1881, is a
fascinating and a disturbing docu-
ment.
4 It's purpose, in the words of Secre-
tary Of State Hull, is to give the
American people "a clearer under
standing of the problems and tasks
which have confronted us, of those
which confront us now, and of those
which will confront us in the crucial
days ahead" To express it another
way, this is move to put the record
OF the fateful decade before the
people in the hope that, by examin-
ing the mistakes of the past, they will
avoid repetition Of those mistakes in
the future. Primarily, it is true, re-
sponsibility for the conduct of our
foreign relations rests upon the
President and the Secretary of State.
But 1t is also true, as the White Paper
says, that they must closely approx
mate the prevailing views of the
country" Herein lay our greatest
weakness, for the failure to awaken
the people of the country to the
danger which was creeping upon
them possibly brought on the war
and certainly was responsible for the
fact that the. beginning of hostilities
found us relatively unprepared to
fght.
Years before Pearl Harbor the ad-
ministration' foreign observers real
lied that war was inevitable, and so
advised Washington. AS far back as
September, 1884 Ambassador Grew
reported from Toxic that the dom
!nant elements in Japan were bent
upon conquest and that we would be
"reprehensibly somnolent' if we were
to trust to the security of treaty re-
straints or international comfy to
safeguard our own interests. At an
even earlier date our diplomatic rep
7esentatives in Germany-notably
Consul General Messersmith and
Acting Commercial Attache Miller
we're warning that the Nazis were
pointing for war, and constructing a
tremendous military machine which
was under the control of narrow,
ignorant and INSCRIPTIONS adven-
turers who have been slightly
touched with madness from brooding
over Germany's real or imagined
wrongs"
But as these thunderheads built up
in the early part of the decade, with
their truly ominous character to be
confirmed with each passing year,
there was little to warn the American
people of the storm that soon was
to burst upon them. The year 1884
was one of deep depression for US,
and, although the japanese were de-
voting almost half their national
budget to the army and navy and
despite Ambassador Crews urgent
(but unpublicized) warning that we
should maintain our naval superior
ity regardless of COST" we were
spending billions of dollars on a great
social experiment, while the thought
Of war, or of preparation for war,
was very far from our minds. From
time to time, as we moved deeper
into the decade, there were official
warnings, more or less yelled, but in
too many instances the effect of
these was rubbed out by confident
Official assertions that we could and
would live in peace. BY the time the
shape of the future had become I'M
mistakably clear, the President and
his advisers were trying hard to
arouse the people to the imminence
of war, but it was too late. The
probabilities are that on the day be-
fore Pearl Harbor the majority of the
people still believed we could escape
involvement in the conflict.
These are the essentials of our
mistakes in the past. If we are to
avoid repeating them at least two
things would seem to be clearly
necessary. First, some way must be
found of keeping the people better
informed. The proprieties of diplo-
macy may forbid publication of
warnings such as those we received
from Toxic and Berlin, but it can be
seen now that we must pay terrible
price for not finding some way of
communicating the substance Of
these reports to the people and for
our failure to take timely steps to
arouse public opinion to the i'm
minence of danger. This is mistake
which must not be repeated. In the
second place, we should profit from
our neglect of Ambassador Crews
warning in 1884 that we could not
trust to the security of treaty re-
straints or international comfy to
safeguard our interests.
A few months prior to the receipt
of this message from our Ambassador
to Toxic, the chairman of the Amer
lean delegation to the Disarmament
Conference declared that this coun-