The Wilmington morning star. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1909-1990, 1944-09-06

troubled earth by holding per-
petual mass meeting, is, if I may
say so, the purest globaloney. But
we shall hear much more OF it.
Every specific arrangement will be
attacked by the opponents of any
arrangement on the ground that it
is not global enough, that it places
the many and weak at the mercy
of the few and mighty.
I find myself singled out by Mr..
Hard as an exponent of brutal, and
cynical power politics: with high
respect and personal affection ex-
tending over many years, I must
say that Mr.. Hard has misunder-
stood the subject which he is talk
ing about.
Because I have written about the
Atlantic community of nations and
about the Russian orbit, and about
the probability that there will even
tually develop a Chinese orbit,
Mr.. Hard says that 1 am "a de.
wiser of spheres or zones" that I
am opposed to the unity Of man
kind and am one who holds ''the
utterly SELFISH view that 1.-The hui
man race" should be deliberately
divided into spheres" Now I am
not that wicked nor that near to
omnipotence. The truth is that
these regional groupings were de-
vised by the geography of the earth
and the course of history. I did
not devise them. have attempted |
to describe them, and then to see
how in world which in fact is
composed of regional groups of ma
tons, peace could be organized
among them.
It stands to reason, I submit,
that we shall get exactly nowhere
by denying the facts of life be-
cause we do not like them. The
United States is a great power,
and it will not serve this country
or any other, for us to pretend |
that we are not citizens OF a great
power. Our power is fact, and it
carries with it responsibility which
it is our duty to discharge honor /
ably and wisely. II
We shall end by Sinking it ig- /
nobly but sentimentally if we pre- /
tend that in the maintenance of |
peace our role and that of Afghan
istan are the same. We shall or
ganize only chaos and anarchy if 4
we act on the assumption that we /
do not have more responsibility in /
the Caribbean than we have in the /
Black Sea, that the Soviet Union /
will not be closer to Finland than |
she is to Cuba and that we are
not closer to Mexico than we are
to Persia.
Such differences are the condi- II
tons Of international life, not a
theory about it. To protest against \
the facts is like complaining about
the weather at a time when the /
task of those who steer the ship
of state is to take account not only !
OF the fixed stars in the heavens
but of the winds and the tides and
the shape of the land.
At bottom Mr.. Hard begs t h
whole question of international or
ganization. The problem is how to
relate in a stable and secure way
a great number Of states OF vary
ing size and power, in different
stages Of political development,
with differing cultures and tradi-
tons and ideals. 1t is not a solu-
ton of that problem to say that
all we need is an alliance of the
three or four strongest military
states. But neither is it solution
to deny that these three. or four
strongest states must be united in
peace if the peace is to be pre-
served.
The immediate problem is how
the unity among them which now
exists in war can be preserved
after the war;. I see no solution to
that problem except that which is
now, hope and believe, our off.
cial policy: to treat this war time
alliance as the nucleus of larger
organization in which the othes ma
tions, each according to its interest
and its geographic position, parti-
cipate. Mr.. Hard may call this a
scheme for dividing the world into
spheres. but call it a policy of
uniting the world by consolidati. g
the natural, the historic, and tne
strategic connections of the ma
tons. This is in the real sense of
the word an organization of peace
as distinguished from the bedlaln
and babel OF Mr.. Hard's world I'M
ion by mass meeting. =