Evening star., 1946-10-19

For centuries deyout men and
women thought 1t was necessary to
fight with one another to preserve
their different religious beliefs. But
through long and bitter experience
they learned that the only way to
protect their own religious beliefs
is to respect and recognize the rights
Of others to their religious beliefs.
War is inevitable only If states fail
to tolerate and respect the rights of
other states to ways of life they can
not and do not share. That Is
truth we must recognize.
Because in the immediate after
math of war our efforts to induce
nations to think in terms of peace
and tolerance seem to meet with
rebuff, we must not lose faith. What
may be unrealizable now may be
realizable when the wounds of war
have had chance to heal.
We must not lose faith, nor cease
to struggle to realize our faith, be-
cause the temple of peace cannot be
completely built in a month or a
year.
United States Refuses to Gang Up.
But if the temple of peace is to be
built the idea of the inevitability
OF conflict must not be allowed to
dominate the minds of men and
tear asunder a world which God
made one.
1t is that idea of the inevitability
OF conflict that is throttling the
economic recovery of Europe. It is
that idea that is causing artificial
tensions between states and within
states.
The United States stands for free
dom for all nations and friendship
among all nations. We shall con-
tinue to reject the idea of exclusive
alliances. We shall refuse to gang
up against any state.
But We stand with all peace loving
laW-abiding states in defense of the
principles of the Charter Of the
United Nations.
Any nation that abides by those
principles can count upon the
friendship and cooperation of the
United States, irrespective of ma
tional difference or possible conflict
of interests.
No country desires unity among
the principal powers more than we
or has done more to achieve it.
But 1t must be unity founded on
the Charter and not unity purchased
at its expense.
We deplore the tendency upon the
part of the Soviet Union to regard
states which are friendly to us as
unfriendly to the Soviet Union and
to consider as unfriendly our efforts
to maintain traditionally friendly
relations with states bordering on
the Soviet Union.
We deplore the talk of the en-
circlement of the Soviet Union. We
have it from no less authority than
Generalissimo Stain himself that
the Soviet Union is in no danger of
encirclement.
Not 4 Dispossessed Nation.
During the war the Baltic states
were taken over by the U. S. S. R.
The Polish frontier and the Finnish
frontier have been substantially
modified in Russia's favor. Koen-
igsberg, Bessarabia, Bukowina and
Ruthenia are to be given to her. In
the Pacific, the Kuriles, Port Arthur
and Sakhalin, have been assigned tc
her. Certainly the Soviet Union is
not a dispossessed nation.
We know the suffering and devas-
tation which Nazi aggression
brought to the Soviet Union. The
American people came to the sup
port of the Soviet Union even before
the United States was attacked and
entered the war. Our people were
allies of the Soviet people during
the war. And the American people
in time of peace desire to live on
terms of friendship, mutual help
fulness and equality with the Soviet
people.
Before the Paris Peace Confer
ence, the United States spared nc
effort to reconcile its views on the
proposed peace treaties with those
/ of the Soviet Union. Indeed it was
the Soviet Union which insisted
that our views be reconciled On all
questions which the Soviet Union
regarded as fundamental before the
Soviet Union would consent to the
holding of the conference.
II. therefore, in the conference
we differed on some questions. they
were not questions that were funda-
mental from the Soviet viewpoint.
While there were many issues
which attracted little public atten-
ton on which the Soviet Union anG
the United States voted together, il
was regrettable that on many issues
which did command public atten-
ton the Soviet Union and the newly
established governments in Centra.
and Southeastern Europe voted con.
sistently together against all the
other States.
Whatever considerations caused
this close alignment OF the Soviet
Union and her Slav neighbors on
these issues, other States were not
constrained to vote as they did by
any caucus or bloc action.
Cleavage Based on Conviction.
It requires very imaginative
geographic sense to put China OF
Ethiopia into a Western bloc. And
it was quite evident to discerning
observers at Paris that not only
China and Ethiopia, but Norway
and France were particularly solic-
itous to avoid not only the fact, but
the suspicion, of alliance with any
Western bloc.
If the voting cleavage at Paris
was significant, its significance lies
in the fact that the cleavage Is not
between the United States and the
Soviet Union, or between a West
ern bloc and the Soviet Union. The
cleavage is based upon conviction
and not upon strategy or hidden de-
sign.
I should be less than frank if I did
not confess my bewilderment at the
motives which the Soviet delega-
ton attributed to the United States
at Paris. Not once, but many
times, they charged that the United
States had enriched itself during
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