The Wilmington morning star. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1909-1990, 1944-04-04
Pussy Footing
BY JOSEPH C. HARSCH

The full reason why Sumner Welles left the
ENTHUSIASTICALLY of State has been long in
coming out.
MIR. Welles left the State department under
as tense conditions as anyone who has left
public office in the Roosevelt administration
Seldom has the White House given such an
obviously synthetic explanation for the depar.
ture of one of its longtime servants as that
given in Mr.. Welless case-the health of Mrs.
Welles. That Mrs Welles' health was not
of the best was perfectly true, but many a
government official has continued in office
under more trying personal circumstances.
particularly in wartime
Mr.. Welles, as every one Of course knows,
left the State department not because of any
personal family considerations but because
he and Mr. Hull had come to the parting OF
the ways on a matter of primary American
policy.
He then became a newspaper columnist.
His early columns were watched with active
interest for signs of the real reasons. They
were not to be found. Mr.. Welles started off
by defending current policies of the depart
ment which had cast him out. Where he crit.
icized it was for the purpose of winning sup
port for policy which had not yet come
into public view. Gradually and with an in
ereasing urgency his plans o organizing
peace have come out
Finally on March %, in the New York Her
aid Tribune, he urged immediate establish
ment of United Nations Executive Council.
He charged the Administration with having
failed to secure such a device soon enough
and he spoke of ''honnilies'' substituted for
workable international machinery W h an
ironic bitterness which for the first time dis
closed the depths of feeling which have de.
veloped between himself and Mr.. Hull.
All of this is enlightening commentary
on those who charge thee administration with
wanting to subordinate the sovereignty of the
United States to some "super-State.'' Mr.
Welles was in fact attacking the Roosevelt
Administration vehemently for cowadice in
failing to set up the basic machinery for a
new international body.
The truth of the matter is that the Admin
istration is so afraid of the International ma
it has missed its chance for getting any real
adequate international machinery at all
Whether this is true time will tell.
Before leaving the service of the State de
partment he had drafted a blueprint for c
world organization. His concept was bull
from logical projection of Pan American
regionalism The world organization start:
with regional security groups-the American
Hemisphere, the British Empire and its nat
uraI European border SateIllLeS, france dnC
Western Europe; if possible, Russia and it!
natural bordering satellites, perhaps China a:
an Asiatic lodestone. These groups administer
their own local affairs. The central power:
Of each group in an executive council take
responsibility for general world security.
At Moscow Mr.. Hull secured agreement!
in principle on world collaboration, which wa:
just exactly one-haf of Mr.. Welles's plan
But the machinery Mr.. Hull proceeded to Sc
up fell short of Mr. Welles's idea by chasms
1t did set up an Italian Advisory Commission
and European Advisory Council. Mr.. HUI
proceeded in other words, to set up explicit
machinery for handling explicit, current prob
lens, but tabled the Welles idea OF genera
machinery for general and future problems
Whether the gradual approach OF MIR. Hull
leaving the establishment of the general ma
chinery to come at some indefinite future
times asst the keynote in the arch, is neces
sarily less adequate than the direct and i'm
me ate plan of Mr.. Welles perhaps even his
tory will never tell
1t does point up, however, the actual, ex
of the Administrators approach to world Sc
treme and perhaps even dangerous hesitancy
curity machinery as opposed to the charge
of a sinister plot to rush headlong into {
"super State.'' The real reason for Mr.
Welless departure stands out as burning
conviction on his part that the time had come
to move coura geously towards world or