Evening star., 1948-01-09
MorshuII on Europe

MorshoII on Europe
Secretary Marshall, in his appearance
before the Senate Foreign Relations Com
mittee, has testified SO eloquently and so
convincingly for the projected European
recovery program that it Is difficult to
understand why favorable congressional
action should be seriously delayed.
Unfortunately, however, judging from
the remarks of Senator Taft and others,
there appears to be real danger that pre-
cious time will be lost through legislative
foot-dragging. Worse still, there are signs
that shortsighted effort viii be made
to economize where economy could mean
of chance-taking with our own security
and the peace of the free world.
All this seems the more Incompetent
sible because the substance and purpose
of the four-year European recovery pro-
gram are self-evidently sound and impera-
tive. For months past the subject has
been discussed nationally and interna-
tionally in the most searching manner,
and it has received as concentrated and
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before submitted to Congress. AS result,
this much has become Enthusiastically clear:
That although there is room for debate
over details, the meat of the measure is
Yitally essential to save Europe's inde-
pendent nations from disintegration and
collapse of kind that could lead to these
consequences: Cd Force them under the
dominance Of Soviet Russia (2) bring
western civilization to its knees through
out the entire continent; 80 make Asia
the next easy prey to the Kremlin's police
state totalitarianism; and finally ~,
wholly apart from hitting us hard in an
economic sense, leave us 80 alone and
friendless in an ideologically hostile world
that our land would have to become an
armed camp governed by regulations and
controls doing violence to all our cherished
traditions and liberties.
It is for these reasons that Secretary
Marshall has solemnly appealed to Con-
gress to regard the European recovery
program as project involving the "high-
est considerations of national interest"
wholly above and beyond the realm OF
partisan politics. It Is for these reasons,
too, that he has warned rs earnestly as
possible against action of piecemeal or
too-little-too-late nature. Our aid, he has
said, must be adequate. It must be
prompt. It must be effectively applied"
To be adequate, it must amount to
$500, 900 900 for the first fifteen months
To be prompt, 1t must be made available
by April or soon thereafter. And to be
effectively applied, 1t must be admins
tered by 4 special new agency like the
one advocated by the President-an
agency subject to the State Department
on decisions affecting foreign policy.
On all three Of these counts-especially
as regards the money and timing -Secre-
tary Marshall has advanced powerful
arguments. They can be brushed aside
only at the risk Of 50 weakening the whole
program that Congress, In his Judgment,
might just as well not undertake it. Yet
nothing could be clearer than that 1t
must be undertaken. Sixteen free Euro
pean nations are joined together to help
themselves and each other under It,
Russia. on the other hand, together with
Its satellite Communist governments, is
self-admittedly out to wreck it. If we do
not adopt it, therefore, II we do not put
1t into effect promptly and on the large
scale required, the Kremlin will have an
open invitation to take over the continent.
or course, as Secretary Marshall has
said, there is nothing easy or sure about
this historic and unprecedented enterprise
to make Western Europe self-supporting
by 1852. It involves "a calculated risk"
but 1t Is risk that we cannot afford
not to take. The alternative of doing
nothing, or doing too little, would entail
far more dangerous gamble-a gamble
with the prosperity, security, freedom and
peace of the United States and all like
minded nations.
Literally, in Secretary Marshalls words,
our way of life is at stake The European
recovery program is not something
dreamed up by woolly-headed altruists. It
is urgently needed. II it Is not brought
into being, most of tomorrow's world is
likely to belong to the Red totalitarians.
and our own country will find itself in
grave danger. Congress must act accord
ingly. The threat is too clear and press
ing for vacillation, politics, penny pinch
ing or pusillanimity.