The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1944-01-06

with words and dollars and police
force" is a thoughtlessly impossible
undertaking, as misleading as Cham
berlain's Munich statement Of Peace
in our time"
Here at home we shall be faced by
every sort of readjustment. We must
provide Jobs for the returning Amer
lean soldiers and for our present war
workers. We must work tirelessly to
regain our solvency and to recover
from the present huge drain on every
resource we have. In this alone we
face the greatest task in our history.
We shall be in no position to lift the
standard of living in China, in Russia,
among the 4O0,000,00O impoverished
people of Europe, desirable as that is.
There is no possibility whatever of
our succeeding in such an attempt.
There are hundred places to start
and no place to stop.
There is a limit to the failures
Americans can absorb. At some point
our statesmen failed, or we should
not have suffered as we did in the de-
preston. At another point our states
men failed, or we should have been
so strong on land, on sea and in the
air that there could have been no war
Now they fail again if they saddle our
oil with Tho oc+ronnr,innl b,,r
i dens of all the world.
Our citizens cannot give to the
world (D freedom of speech and ex-
preston, (2) freedom of every person
to worship God in his own way, (3)
freedom from want, and (4) freedom
from fear. The whole conception of
giving or infusing the Four Freedoms
universally is preposterous. 1t is not
idealism. 1t is sheer political bun
combe, and is so recognized abroad.
On the narrower question alone, the
question of freedom from want"
anyone must know that the politicians
of every country in the world will be
pulling on us in a tug of-war to get
the most out of Americas Interna-
tional WPA, exactly as our local
mayors camped in Washington to get
the most out of our WPA at home.
We will be asked to provide "freedom
from want" to at least billion
people, most of them in primitive sur
roundings and 400 100000 of them in
Europe. One hundred and thirty mil
lion Americans are in no position to
do this. The promise Of the United
States is utterly fantastic.
Yet this airy approach to reality is
promulgated at the very time when
the solemn and high purpose of the
United States should be to have the
people of all the world believe in US
what we say, what we do, and what
we intend to do.
By immodest promises and vision
airy plans many of our leaders i'm
mensely increase the possibility that
the people of America will wash their
hands Of everything outside the 10
mile limit, good or bad, at the earliest
possible moment, as they did after the
last war
If our leaders persist in their pres
ent course, we shall fail the world.
We shall be unable to do what our
leaders say we should do In these
circumstances We shall make enemies
of our friends. No one will thank US
for starting down the road, going as
far as we can, and then chucking the
whole business through the revulsion
of our people to program which
Americans know in their hearts is un-
sound and untrue.
The fundamental error of our the
oriSts is that they have never under
stood the place which integrity has
in all the ramifications of life. They
believe that to say a thing is the
same as to do it, as though speech
were capable of modifying the ten
denotes, habits and character of peo-
pie. and as though verbiage were
substitute for will. conscience and
education. They proceed by bursts of
cloquence or of lawmaking; they be
licvc they can legislatc the nature of
impulses, and in so doing they produce
disintcgration.
The obligation to assist toward a
better world and the value in doing
so are obvious. Our duty, however. is
to be useful, not according to our de-
sires but according to our powers. We
| should recognize our own limitations
and abandon the impertincnt idea that
a world is to be built in the American
Concept. We should put limit on our
total postwar aid, both in time and in
dollars, and require that any aid
should be restricted to whatever ma
tons took certain elementary steps in
their own behalf. Only thus can we
make good our promises. Only thus
can VIC maintain our own integrity
and win the respect and friendship of
the world.
| The global concept, stimulated by
the war itself and by the new idea of
the worlds size in the Age of Air. is
one of today's basic developments. 1t
is one Of the great generating
thoughts in the history of man. But