Evening star., 1943-12-01
Hard Peace Wanted
To Prevent New War
By Maj. George Fielding Eliot.

0y MuJ. IeOTge FISluIHV EtlOL.
Once more We are inundated with
flood Of rumors about peace feelers"
being put out by the Germans. The
sharp words of the Secretary of State
are timely warning that this sort OF
thing is of advantage to the enemy.
Peace feelers, indeed; stop and think
a moment; ask yourself why we are at
war with Germany. Precisely because
there was no other way to live in the
same world with Adolf Hitler's Ger
many, save subsection to his will. There
was no faith to be put in German
promises, in the most solemn German
engagements. Germany cynically broke
her plighted word whenever her leader
saw fit to do SO. Then what do peace
feelers amount to? Just that we shall
be asked to accept some more German
promises to be good, instead of pushing
on to unconditional surrender and to
conditions in which we can make Ger
many be good by taking away from all
Germans the power to do anything
except what they are told
1t is little late in the day for peace
feelers, thank you. We shall have to
pay price to defeat Germany, of
course. 1t will cost us more lives and
more material and more time. But 1t
will not cost us fraction OF what 1t
mans a chance to catch their breath, to
rebuild their shattered factories. to re-
store their tottering morale, to refill
their oil tanks and their warehouses and
their arsenals. That is the meaning of
peace feelers" from the German point
OF view; a breathing space, a chance to
escape the consequences Of the defeat
which Germany sees looming on the
horizon.
And, Of course, a chance to try again
when the Allies have demobilized, when
the great coalition has dissolved, and
when people in all the United Nations
have turned again to work or play and
will be reluctant to take up once more
the sword which they have sheathed.
1t Is difficult indeed to believe that
any one can take this peace feeler"
idea at all seriously. There are, Of
course. few misguided souls right here
in the United States who are openly and
avowedly working for what they are
pleased to call "a negotiated peace"
Negotiated with whom? The Germans?
You don't negotiate peace with Ger
man, you impose peace upon him with
q bayonet. That is the kind of peace
he understands, and the only kind
except the kind where he is standing
with a hob-nailed boot on your neck
The German, as Emil Ludwig has elo-
quently told us, can understand master,
or he can understand being master.
What he can't understand is what we
and our British friends call "a gentle
mans agreement That just gives the
Germans belly laugh.
It's all very we'll for nice people to
think we ought to have peace just as
soon as we can get 1t, and that we
ought to be receptive to any peace offer
from the other side. But as a practical
matter, II we ever want peace in this
world, an essential preliminary is that
we afford both the German and the
Japanese people, to the last individual.
a demonstration OF the fact that inter-
national crime does not pay. That is
not to be done by letting them of cas-
lily. That only arouses their contempt.
They wouldn't let a beaten enemy OF
easily. No wonder the uninvaded Ger
mans after the last war were not hard
to convince that their army had never
been defeated-they knew what they
would have done If they had been VIC
tors. This time we have got to show
them that they have been beaten. We
shall be victors-we must act like VIC
tors, not In our own concepts of gen.
erosity and courtesy to the vanquished,
but at least to some extent in the Ger
man and japanese concept of how a
victor should conduct himself
These are hard words, but we deal
with hard facts. We need not 90 to the
uttermost lengths Of the brutality of
our opponents, but We must 60 far
enough so that there shall not arise
any future legends Of the undefeated
army which was stabbed in the back,
on which to found some future propa-
ganda Of revenge. There must be un-
conditional surrender. There must be
no negotiated peace, but an imposed
peace.
Anything less than this is betrayal
OF those who have died'in this war ana
in the last to win world in which
decent folk can live and plan and hope
and pursue happiness.
Copyright. 1943. New York Tribune, Incl