Detroit evening times., 1945-07-13

about 40 per cent of Poland Bessarabia
and northern Bukovina and part of Fin
land.
1t has also been foreshadowed at Yalta
that East Prussia and an indefinite
amount of German territory east of the
Oder will be handed over to Poland. This
is in disregard of the desires both of the
Poles, who would prefer to keep their
eastern provinces, and of the solidly Ger
man population which will be uprooted.
THE widespread practice of setting up
J. puppet governments with the aid of
outside military force is not in harmony
with Clause 3 of the charter:
They respect the right Of all peoples
to choose the form of government under
which they will live; and they wish to see
sovereign rights restored to those who
have been deprived Of them"
Clause promises to further the en-
joyment by all states. great or small, VIC
tor or yanquished, of access, on equal
terms to the trade and to the raw mate
rials of the world which are needed for
their economic prosperity"
THE SILENCE ON IMPLEMENTA-
TION OF THIS CLAUSE HAS BEEN
POSITIVELY RESOUNDING.
Instead, plans are put forward in high
official circles for the deliberate destruc-
tion or crippling of industry in Germany
and Japan, two densely populated coun-
tries where a considerable part of the
population would starve to death without
the means of livelihood afforded by in
dustry, shipping and foreign trade.
Clause promises peace (which will
afford assurance that all the men in all
the lands may live out their lives i'm free
dom from want and fear"
But much official and semiofficiai
thinking seems directed toward the aim
of perpetuating want and fear" in the
defeated countries. Nor is freedom from
want and fear conspicuous IN the lands
of eastern and southeastern Europe which
have fallen under Stains domination or
in the colonial areas of the world
Clause predicts that "all of the ma
tiOns of the world =. must come to the
abandonment of the use of force"
This is little less deceptive than most
of the assurances in the charter, since no
time limit is set for the realization of the
prediction However, there has been
conspicuous absence Of projects for agreed
limitation of ornaments among the
United Nations after the end of the war.
IN SHORT, it is high time TO recognize
i that our war aims in World War III, as
set down in the Atlantic Charter, have
been far more crudely and fagrantly be-
trayed than our war aims in World War
|, as set forth in Woodrow Wilson's Four
teen points
We have repeated historical blunder.
WE HAVE FAILED TO USE THE
LEVERAGE OF OUR IN NJ EMS K
STRENGTH AS A PURVEYOR OF IN
DISPENSABLE MUNITIONS AND SUP
PLIES IN ORDER TO INDUCE OUR
ASSOCIATES TO LIVE UP TO THEIR
OBLIGATIONS.
The past is water over the dam, But
the future is still ours to shape.
We should take the fullest advantage
of the extremely loose character Of the
world security organization commitments
and avoid binding engagements to enforce
a peace which, in its present form, is thor
oughly bad, and which unless ii is pro-
gressively modified, will impose intoler-
able strains, hardships and grievances, all
pointing to an ultimate explosion of new
conflict after the exhaustion of the pres
ent war has passed.
America should assume the grave re-
sponsibility of enforcing peace everywhere
in the world only on the assumption that
the terms of settlement are tOlerably good
and reasonable, pointing the way to recon-
struction. not to blind revenge.
But for the kind of peace that is in
the making the soundest advice is that of
Senator Vandenberg, when he said few
months ago:
81 am not prepared to guaranty per-
manently the spoils of an unjust peace. 1t
will not work."