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Show PROBLEMS FACING STRICKENWORLD Shall Chaos or Reconstruction in Europe Follow the Great World War? HOPE FOR PERMANENT PEACE Those Who Fought, and Those Who Suffered at Home, Alike FkVor Some Form of a League of Nations. Article X. By FRANK COMERFORD. Europe was succumbing to exhaustion exhaus-tion when the war came to an end. The terrible waste was telling. Endurance En-durance had reached the breaking point. With peace one thought ran around the world : There must be no more war. The men who did the fighting fight-ing said it loudest. "I'm glad I had a chance to do my part I wouldn't have missed the 'show' for a million dollars, and I wouldn't take a million dollars to go through it again," is the way they put it. Everywhere in Europe I heard, "It is over, it is finished, thank God." The first thought of reconstruction was a plan to make peace permanent. The laboratory and the machine shop gave to this war a terrible meaning, mean-ing, new agencies had been introduced intro-duced to kill and maim men, liquid fire, mustard gas, high explosives, bombs from the clouds, torpedoes from the sea depths. The world was horrified. hor-rified. The length of the war, the nnmhpr nf Henri nnri prlnnlpri the min ing and bombing of defenseless cities taught the world that an end must be put to war if civilization was to live. So the people, particularly the working work-ing people, took heart when a League of Nations was suggested as a means of enforcing peace. They placed their hopes in it. They had suffered most from the war. The dead were largely large-ly their dead. The returning cripples were blood of their blood. As they put tt, they were from their class. Of course the sons of the other class fought, shared the hardships, paid the price, but they were few. The group from which they came is small, while the toll of casualties from labor's ranks was large. All men know that controversies between nations are Inevitable. In the absence of some scheme of arbitration arbi-tration there is but one way that these controversies can be settled. It is force War. It is not uncommon for individuals to have serious differences of opinion. Every lawsuit, and there are thousands of them in every city of every country, represents a difference of opinion. If we did not have courts providing a peaceful determination of these disputes, dis-putes, the litigants would be compelled com-pelled to settle their differences by force. Assault and battery would succeed orderly procedure. Nations have been without a peaceful means of adjusting their difficulties, and as a consequence they have been compelled com-pelled to resort to force. Until some scheme of arbitration is created, to talk peace is to waste words, to hope for it is idle dreaming. Peace Conference Fell Short. Tlie peace conference met in Paris. Labor watched it. At an arly stage In its proceedings intrigue was discovered dis-covered at work. Wrangling, bickering, bicker-ing, bargaining an i trading for commercial com-mercial advantage occupied the time and thought that the world expected would be devoted to the building up of a league that would at least decrease the chances of future wars. Statesmen States-men In their blind devotion to expediency ex-pediency lost sight of the great reason rea-son for the conference. They talked of boundary lines, discussed frontiers, and always from the point of view of financial and military advantage to their respective countries. It was noticed no-ticed that the territories over which they quarreled were rich in minerals or some other thing of great commercial commer-cial advantage. They squabbled over spoils. Then, too, these men who were supposed to be concerned In the future peace of the world, in arguing over frontiers urged their respective claims on the grounds that their respective re-spective countries needed these frontiers fron-tiers to make them secure In future wars. What future wars and why the discussion of future wars at a conference, confer-ence, the object of which was future peace? Working men watched, listened and thought. They construed these bickerings bick-erings and wrangling as evidence of the fact that there is an interest in the world which does not believe in giving up force. I am only reporting the truth when I add they suspect this interest Is Capital. If the League of Nations fails this suspicion will be confirmed. The movement toward an internationalism of the workers will be given great Impetus. The League of Nations failing, fail-ing, they argue there is only one o:her means of preventing war. It is for the men who make up the rank and tile of the armies in time of war. the millions recruited from shops, factories fac-tories and fields, to get together and organize an international labor authority au-thority to snve the working men from war. Such a movement would take away fro-n governments an important tid ueoessiiry function end give to one class In the world a power so great that political governments would be puppets in their hands, E".d yet in the light of the happenings of the last five years labor could not be blamed. The world is entitled to protection agauisl sueli slaughter as we have just gone through, and if t lie political governments gov-ernments fail to take the necessary stem's the plain people Will. World Now Closely Knit. Internationalism is coming in tact it is already here. Inventions have brought the people of the world close together. The wireless and the cable give us the happenings of remote parts of the world in a few hours. Distance has been destroyed. We are becoming becom-ing neighbors in knowledge of each other, whether we live on the same continent or not. Modern transportation transporta-tion is shortening the time between places. An air service is In prospect which promises to make London as near New York tomorrow as Chicago is today. We already have a successful internationalism inter-nationalism in finance and credits. Big business long ago obliterated national lines. The commerce of the world is already organized internationally. The important question at this time is what form will the new internationalism internation-alism take? Will it be an internationalism internation-alism of organized dollars? If so, the world is in serious danger of a financial finan-cial autocracy. Will it be an internationalism inter-nationalism of organized labor? If this happens it means the dictatorship of the proletariat. Both are equally undesirable. No part of the people should be permitted to enforce their will upon the rest. One kind of slavery slav-ery is as bad as another. The great majority of the human race wants freedom, not advantage. It is not ambitious am-bitious to dictate it will not be dictated dic-tated to. A League of Nations is the solution. It is a union of the nations of the world, and as the nations of the world represent all the people of the various states such a combination is democratic. demo-cratic. That it is necessary is plain- Rivalry for markets, competition com-petition for trade, are bound to lead to war unless we have an agreement agree-ment that these and other problems will be submitted 1 to arbitration. It is not necessary to submit questions involving national honor. Few of such questions ever directly provoke war. It is when nations fighting each other for markets reach a point of positive disagreement that they begin calling each other names. These insults wound honor, war results. Peace Table Proves Worth. A League of Nations is a continuance continu-ance of the peace table, and notwithstanding notwith-standing the wranglings of the present pres-ent peace table there would have been war in Europe before this if it was not sitting in Paris. Two cases serve to illustrate. The coal fields of upper Galicia, to be determined by a plebiscite plebi-scite between Poland and Germany would have been a cause of war If the peace table was not In existence. Poland had troops on the border. Germany Ger-many had her soldiers at the frontier. One thing, and one thing alone, prevented pre-vented war it was the fear of the peace table. The same facts described de-scribed the controversy between Poland Po-land and Czecho-Slovakia ; war has been avoided by the peace table submitting sub-mitting the Teschen question to a vote of the people of the territory. No League of Nations will have much effect upon the future peace of, Europe which does not include the United States. The nations of Europe do not trust each other. Every one respects the fact that the United States does not seek territory in Europe. Eu-rope. This gives our country the commanding place as the one disinterested disin-terested power in the world. With this moral force we can do much to maintain the peace of the world. The propaganda of revolution coming com-ing out of bolshevik Russia, urging the workers to organize an international dictatorship of the proletariat and seize the world, is not nearly as dangerous dan-gerous to the peace of the world as the political heckling against the League of Nations. (Copyright. 1920. Western Newspaper Union) |