Toledo union journal. [volume] (Toledo, Ohio) 1942-current, 1944-12-15
The
Beam
By
Clayton w.
Fountain


for the crimes and horrors
which they have visited upon
this earth," says a resolution
adopted at the CIO national
convention.
So we have set ourselves up
as judges. And from a dis
tance of some 5000 miles, we
have judged every German in
the Reich; we have found
them all guilty as charged,
and we have, in effect, sem
fenced them all-every man,
woman and chill d-to the
penalty of a hard" peace.
/ submit that this is a
strange policy for adoption by
a great labor organization like
the CIO.
It's strange because it is at
odds with the humanitarian
outlook that labor has long
held with respect to the par
ticipation of people in wars.
NOT GUILTY
We of labor have always
held it unjust to accuse a
whole people of war guilt. 1t
has been our belief, based on
sound historical facts, that ag-
greSsor nations are guilty of
Waging war on other nations
because the aggressors are
governed by powers that find
war profitable.
This is not to say that the
actual waging of war itself is
always a profitable venture.
Sometices this is not so. But
most wars are fought to retain
control, or to gain control, of
hunks of real estate rich
enough in value to pay off
juicy jackpots to the victors.
The war in which we are
now en- ged differs only
slightly from this rule. 1t is
political war; and right-think
ing folks the world over want
the United Nations to win, in
the sense that they want to
see Fascism smashed-and in
the sense that they want to see
progressive, democratic gov
ernments come to birth in the
defeated Axis nations.
But in the nature of its be-
ginnings, which run all the
way back to the rise of the
Nazi regime in Germany, this
war does have the earmarks
of a commercial brawl.
ROOTS OF WAR
The fact is that the roots of
this war run all the way back
to the causes of World War |.
Hitler was able to justify much
of what he did, in the German
public mind, because of the
kind of peace that was i'm
posed on Germany at Ver-
sailles.
In 1919 it was also popular
to blame the whole German
people for the first World
War. The blame was finan-
ctally fixed on the German ma
ton in the terms of the Yer
sailles peace treaty. Under the
terms of this pact, which was
negotiated at the point of a
gun, the rulers of England and
France thought to keep Ger
many poor and weak for many
years 10 come.
According to the theory of
Versailles, the Germans were
to be made to work hard in
order to make reparation pay
ments to the Allied victors;
and the fact to this compulsory
reparation was supposed to
keep Germany too weak and
too poor to wage aggressive
warfare.
OBVIOUS INJUSTICE
The Versailles pact was OBJ
viously unjust. But the Ger
mans were not supposed to be
able TO do anything about
that. Now the whole world
is sweating in a mess that Hit
lerism brought about in spite
of the hardness" of the peace
terms reached at Versailles in
1919.
Actually, it is as stupid to
blame the w h o e German
people for the brutalities the
world has experienced in this
war as it would be to blame
the whole American people be-
cause Negroes are lynched in
the South.
If we accept the idea that all
Germans are to blame for the
evils of this war, then we will
be practicing what the NaziS
preach when they say that all
Jews are bad.
Organized la bor should
never accept this idea, because
labor is made up of Germans,
Jews, Negroes, Catholics and
people with blue eyes and
bowed legs. and whenever