Evening star., 1944-08-24

and By liberal ~
things shall he stand"
There Il no point In asking wha
isaiah meant by liberal; there i
little point in asking what We NEAR
when We use the word now. Any o
US know when we are being or trying
TO be liberal, just As We know wher
We are being mean, no matter how
We may try to justify our meanness
Presently, unless all precedent
fail, the men At Dumbarton Oak
, seeking to work together for tn,
common good, are likely to be as.
sailed by suspicious from the outside
The clamor of cynics will bea'
against the walls. In the name oi
American patriotism there will b.
outcries against things suspected
but not known. We will hear thai
our rights are being sold out or giver
away to the British or the Russians
that the clever men from across tn,
sea are making suckers of us simple
Americans.
Final Word Ours.
As We are assailed with these sus-
picions and hnd misgivings rising
within our own minds, there are one
or two facts to which we should hold
fast.
One Is that everything agreed
upon At this conference and any
subsequent conferences will be
spread upon the record for us tc
read before we are asked to ratify
The final decisions will be in ou,
hands.
Another is that the people Of
Britain and Russia have as great a
stake in the effort to outlaw war AZ
we can possibly have. They have
much more reason to know, much
more reason to understand the in
satiable appetite of the war monster
Not to discount the great contribu-
ton We have made and are making
but merely to suggest the depth OF
the desire for permanent peace that
must be felt in the home countries
of our Allies, consider what has
happened to their people.
In England. since the wars be-
ginning, 53.747 civilians have been
killed and s,79S injured. That was
the figure as Of last June. And the
flying mechanical flends called
robots have killed and injured some
thousands more in the intervening
weeks-women and children and
men too old to fight. In those four
years the British have had many
villages destroyed and cities wrecked.
They are living in the rubble Of
their own civilization.
As for Russia, 1t is impossible for
our imagination to take in the dev-
astAtion suffered by that country.
Imagination has its limits. When
one lives amidst plenty, in = land
intact and no longer threatened,
it Is hard to conceive Of hundreds
Of square miles in which not q city,
town or village has escaped destruc-
ton. As for the human casualties,
the mind cannot take in the mean
ing Of the figures.
70 Millions Victims.
We have learned to think in terms
OF billions when we talk about dol
lars, but we haven't learned to think
In terms Of millions Of human lives.
Yet Foreign Minister Molotov on
June ~ gave $4,000, 900 as his gov
ernment's estimate of civilian VIC
Tins in Russia. This means men,
women and children killed, starved
or carried off in slavery. Casualties
among Russia's armed forces, as
given by Molotov, totaled $500, 900.
Contemplating facts such as these,
isn't 1t reasonable to assume that
the men representing our Allies in
the Warrington meeting have as
deep = determination as we can
have to make the coming peace
permanent, Since, in any case, the
American people will have the final
voice in the decisions of their own