The union times., 1945-08-18
World At Peace
 For First Time
 In Ten Years
Organized Labor To Play Decisive Role In Post-War
 Developments

The guns are siIenced at last in a world at peace for the first time in more than a decade.
 FasciSm has met its bloody end in the tiny islands of Japan, from which just IA years ago Japanese war lords sent troops plundering into Manchuria as the first experimental move in fas- clsm's plan for world conquest.
 In the era between those two fateful dates fascism encircled the globe and swept humanity into the most terrible war in his tory. The cost of the war in lives and suffering and destruction is perhaps too great for the human mind to grasp, but one simple point has now been pounded home with all the force of an atomic bomb.
 ALWAYS A MENACE
 EoCscvrn oux,~,h 0-0 . al a menace to all the world. It can only be wiped out through the joint action of all peace-loving nations, united in bedrock friendship.
 This simple point sounds like a platitude today, but it was a great joke just few years back to the bored diplomats in the League of Nations who listened indifferently to the cries for help from the vic tims of aggression.
 Japan invaded China-with the help of certain Americans who eager ly sold her scrap iron and supplies. In Germany the NaziS came into power-with the boast Tomorrow the World on their lipS-but the lead CTS of other nations heard only their cunning promise to fight the real enemy, bolsevism Ethiopa fell to Mus solini'S booted blaokshirts and then the Axis was ready for it's first important rehearsal of World War II-Spain.
 The Soviet Union warned in the League of Nations that there was still time to halt the Nazis through collective security but the appeasers were too busy working out the de- tails of a game they called nOn-in- terventiOn to listen. Hitler marched into Austria and now suddenly the appeasers who had been assuring the people of the world that the NaZis needn't worry them at all changed their tune and said the Nazis were so powerful that noth- ing could be done to stop them.
 Czechoslovalcia was sold out next in a meeting at Munich. A cheap price, the appeasers thought, when Hitler assured them that his ambi- tionS lay only in the east, in the di- rection of Russia. Neville Chamber lain flew back to England and spoke of peace in our time. But the peace exploded in his face just year later when Hitler'S panzer forces drove deep into Poland.
 THE 'PHONY' PERIOD
 World War H began officially on Sept. l, 1889. There was an inter- Jude of eight months or so-the phOny war-while Great Britain and France sat and wondered if Hitler might still perhaps change his mind. They woke up out of that cosy little dream in May l94O into the nightmare of the fall of France and Dunquerque.
 Entry of Russia and the US. into the war struck the opening chords in the swan song of world fascism. The United Nations were born and groped their way through many misunder- standings and sharp conflicts to the high point of the signing of the char ter at San Francisco. The rotten fa- cade of German and Italian fascisn crumbled before the might of the AL lied armies. A few months later the last stronghold of fascism, Japan, followed her Axis partners down to defeat.
 The shameful episodes Of Spain and Munich h0Ue been Uindicated but the end of the scar has sO0shed n'U0y only the tOpsOiI of fGscisn. The ,OOrld is full Of hungry, up- rooted people. They nOsv look to the United Nations to carry OUer into the peace the hard lessons they in sV0r. Organised labor the sOOrId sOiH play de- cisiUe role in rhis great undertak- ng.