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Show WHO IS TO BLAME? In looking over the tragic and complicated mess that the peoples of other nations have made of their own affairs, it often seems to us that they all have one characteristic in common. Every one, or almost every one, ot the leaders lead-ers and "peoples involved in the present war, blames somebody else for his troubles. That is a pretty broad statement, but it is the impression that most of the news and comment from the other side creates. England blames Germany, Germany blames France, France blames Russia, Italy blames everybody and Poland, Finland, Denmark and the rest of the threatened nations are trying to find reasons outside of themselves why they have been, or expect to be, badly treated. We are in no position, and we doubt it anybody on this side of the Atlantic is in a position, to judge the rights and wrongs of the whole European mess. But nobody who has read history and drawn intelligent intelli-gent conclusions from the acts of peoples and nations in the past few thousand years can have much doubt that practically all of the nations and groups which are being threatened or imposed upon today have chiefly themselves to blame. We had some of the same kind of troubles between the different Colonies before our founding found-ing fathers finally got sense and worked out a scheme to tie thirteen little nations into one big one. This is the only nation that has kept going on its original basis for the last 150 years. There is only one answer to Europe's troubles and that is to adopt the same plan. The United States of Europe could be made to work if everybody approached the problem with honest good-will. It would be a great thing for Europe, a greater thing for the rest of the world, but it's Europe's problem and Americans ought not to try to take any hand in it. |