Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1946-03-14
Letters to The Star
Urges Federation in Place
Of Proposed Alliance
To the Editor of The star:

Of Proposed Alliance
| To the Editor of The STAR
| In his Fulton, Mo-, speech. it seems
to me, Winston Churchill neglected one
| important factor. So have his critics
refer to the relation of individual
freedom to peace. Mr.. Churchill, staunch
| champion of civil liberty, treated 1t as
thing to fight for. heartily agree.
but I would begin by stressing its value
as guarantee against aggressive use
of governmental power not only at
home, in tyranny, but abroad, In war.
1t is not perfect guarantee, but 1t is
the surest political one that mankind
has devised.
Why? Mainly because the philosophy
that gears government to individual
freedom puts the highest value on the
life, the dignity and the happiness OF
every person equally. 1t requires the
most publicity in all public affairs, and
the more publicity there Is, the more
slowly the government can act and the
less danger of its making q surprise in
vasion in time of peace.
The danger Of aggression, atomic or
other, lies not In the weapons them
selves but in the will of nation to use
them. The way nation makes up It's
mind depends on its political structure.
It is evident that the less individual
liberty a nation has, the more its
national will is then really the will of
one man with dictatorial power and the
more rapidly it can move. The more
the political institutions of nation
inculcate in the people blind obedience
to authority, whether by propaganda
or by terror, the easier 1t Is for that
government to attack others by surprise.
On the other hand, the more civil
liberty a nation has, the more its poll
tical structure thereby divides the
national will into a myriad equal in
dependent individual wills that can act
only by agreement. This structure
insures sharp division within the nation,
and slow decision. And the more the
people Of nation inculcate in their
government respect for the life. liberty
and authority of each citizen equally,
the harder it is for that government to
declare war without being attacked.
Thus the structure of dictatorship
makes for war, whereas the structure
Of government that holds civil liberty
supreme serves to guarantee the citizens
and the world alike against aggression
by it.
Sees Peace In Freedom.
1t would seem evident that the greater
the proportion of world power that the
free govern, the safer freedom and
therefore peace will be.
How can the freest peoples best in
crease their proportion Of world power?
Certainly not by continuing their pres
ent attempts to secure their share OF it
independently of each other. This policy
endangers liberty in each of them, both
from within and from without. 1t
leads them to nationalize power or CEN
tralize 1t in the executive, to develop
spying and secrecy, and to seek strength
by clinging to the evils of imperialism,
or by picking up few island bases.
In these and other ways, the present
policy undermines freedoms greatest
power-its moral power-and stains
liberty with hypocrisy.
Above all, it keeps the free divided.
Their division is bound to tempt die
tatorship to overcome them one by one,
beginning with the weaker and the
nearer.
Mr.. Churchill proposes to put more
power behind freedom by a military
alliance of the British Commonwealth
and the United States. His policy is
only less dangerous than the present
one. 1t obviously goes against the
democratic grain. 1t requires us to give
the British government, for all practical
purposes, blank check as regards its
foreign and colonial policy.
Alliances Held Unreliable.
The unreliability of alliances needs
no proving. Mr.. Churchill would have
been better advised to propose that we
begin with the British, not back where
they began with the French, in an
alliance, but where they left of when
that alliance crashed-with an offer of
full federal union-and that We extend
this offer to the French, too, and to all
the nations that practice civil liberty.
Only by union can free men tremen-
dously increase their defensive power
with no sacrifice of their individual
freedom, no loss of their control over
their government, no increase in the
powers of the executive or the military,
no blank checks to any one.
Only by decorating themselves can
they remove the temptation to agrees
sive expansion that their division in
sovereign states will always provide.
In no other way can they gain the sense
of security that encourages the elimina-
ton of imperialism.
The freest peoples are the worlds top
producers. Only by union can they
mobilize their men, their know-how and
their machines effectively enough to
bring the rest of mankind safely through
wars aftermath and rebuild shattered,
hungry Europe, Russia, Asia.
Only by union can the free gain
strength enough to meet humanity's
needs today and uphold-as the main
pillar in the UNO-the generous, peace
full policy they desire to follow toward
all nations, one that gives no nation
cause to attack them and gives every
people a growing incentive to gain
greater liberty. When the desire to
secure liberty and neace is strong