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Show Presidential Peace Plan Linked With Lend -Lease Advances Made by America Looked Upon As 'Contributions to a Common Pool' Instead of Loans. By BAUKHAGE AWa Analyst and Commentator. 'It ; Liu of the principles of the Atlantic Charter which in turn lists the four freedoms. One of the four freedoms is freedom from want which at once involves economics and the most intimate in-timate interest of man, his personal welfare. At the Flag day celebration celebra-tion at the White House for the first time since we entered the war the President offered to the German and the Japanese people, over the heads of their governments the hope that they might share the benefits of an Allied victory. For the first time there has been a direct official contradiction con-tradiction of the charge continually dinned into German ears by Herr Goebbels that defeat means their destruction. The President offered them the opposite. He said in his Flag day speech: "We ask the German people, still dominated by their Nazi whip-masters, whip-masters, whether they would rather have the mechanized hell of Hitler's 'new order or in place of that, freedom of speech and religion, freedom from want and from fear." He made an identical appeal to the Japanese people. Without attempting to attack or defend the practicability of the President's Presi-dent's clan or the theories UDon WNU Service, 1343 H Street, N-W, Washington, D. C. President Roosevelt has completely complete-ly reversed the ancient slogan: "In time of peace prepare for war," to make it read, "In time of war prepare pre-pare for peace." Because it is an axiom that the man behind the gun has to keep his mind on the gun, and the man behind be-hind the man behind the gun has to keep his mind on the man behind the gun, it isn't safe for people as a whole to look too far beyond the barbed wire. That is why there hasn't been much talk about the plan. A nation in the death grip finds it risky to turn its attention from the brutal needs of the moment mo-ment to humanitarian hopes Sor the future. But a formula is being worked out that has the astounding purpose of using the very fires of war to forge a weapon for peace. Hints of the program were revealed, re-vealed, partly between the lines, in a 42-page document which made up the President's last quarterly statement state-ment on the lend-lease operations, and partly in the President's address ad-dress to the assembled representatives representa-tives of the United Nations on Flag rtnv Roth references hark back to which it is based, it is significant that an effort is being made: First, to use a war weapon (lend-lease) to blaze a trail to peace; second, to provide an economic basis for the post-war restoration and, third, to make use of both of these factors in driving a wedge between the enemy peoples and their governments by offering them hope of something better than what they have. Meet Rags II, STARS and STRIPES Mascot Recently I interviewed a war-dog who probably will become familiar to all of you because the exploits planned for him are such as no dog ever had before. He is "Rags n," mascot of the new army newspaper YANK which is the successor to the STARS and STRIPES, the army paper fcinted in Paris during the last war. Rags II is a "successor," too to the original Rags, who would have been mascot of the STARS and STRIPES if he hadn't been so thoroughly devoted de-voted to one of the staff, Corporal "Tip" Bliss, his master. Rags grew to be a tradition and he is perhaps a solar myth by this time. He could understand English, French and Elizabethan in which he was usually addressed by his master mas-ter who was a scholarly person. After marching over most of France and learning some of the less polite corners of Paris, Rags came back to America with his master. Neither ever completely settled down. Tip worked on newspapers news-papers and wrote pulp fiction. Rags lived out his cycle as carefree and disheveled as his master. Tip acquired ac-quired Rags who was a curly black spaniel of some sort at some French port when he landed. The two never an idea set forth in an article which appeared in these columns long before be-fore we entered the war. That article arti-cle said that Secretary Hull had a "peace machine" oiled and ready for use when the moment arrived. "Secretary Hull," it stated, "believes "be-lieves that the roots of war grow in the soil of evil economic conditions, that war cannot be prevented unless nations indulge in mutually profitable profit-able trade." Mutually profitable trade, the secretary believes, can only be achieved When there are mutual concessions and mutual benefits in other words, the basis of world trade must be reciprocal trade, to be brought about by means of the famous Hull reciprocal trade agreements. agree-ments. The President in his last lend-lease lend-lease report to congress clarified the meaning of ' "benefit," a meaning which of course has changed since America entered the war since military co-operation with our own fighting forces has now become a very real factor. The President made it plain that now that "we are at war" the lend-lease principle as it develops "removes the possibility pos-sibility that a condition of finance will affect the full use of all material materi-al resources" because the advances made by America are not loans but "contributions to a common pool with which the common war is being be-ing waged." So much for the part lend-lease is to play in war. Now to its role in the peace plans. The President said: "If the promise of the peace is to be fulfilled, a large production among nations must be restored and sustained. This trade must be founded on stable exchange relationships rela-tionships and liberal principles of commerce." parted, until the end. Rags was never formally inducted into the army and he got very little publicity but his shaggy, waggy memory lives green in the heart of every STARS and STRIPES man. When YANK was given its send-off send-off at a banquet in New York a few of the old STARS and STRIPES staff were present, among them "Wally" (the cartoonist, Walgren), buddy of Tip and Rags. A part of the ceremony cere-mony was a presentation by Wally of Rags II to youthful Captain Spence, who is executive head of the new paper. Afterward when I slipped up to get a few comments from the new Rags who is even raggier than his namesake for he is part poodle, he was finishing off part of a steak right up on top of the main banquet table. He was friendly, in fact most affectionate, af-fectionate, but not loquacious. I couldn't get a word out of him as to his plans. But I figured he had just gone hush-hush like all army people and was afraid that enemy ears might be listening. However, from other sources, usually considered reliable as the papers say, I found out that Rags II is about to travel to Australia, Iceland, Ireland and perhaps other fronts as yet undisclosed. For YANK will follow the troops and Rags II will follow YANK. He will probably be the most traveled army I dog in history. "Liberal principles of commerce" can only refer to reciprocal trade and the President concludes that the lend-lease settlement will rest on "a specific and detailed program for achieving these ends" which are the "material foundation of the liberty and welfare of all peoples." Practical Peace Machine That word "material" is important impor-tant because in it is the promise of a practical peace machine which will supply the very quality, the lack of which doomed the League of Nations from the start. All the experts ex-perts agree that no matter how effective ef-fective the covenant of the League might have been had it been carried out, it could not possibly have worked because it in the main ignored ig-nored economic relationships. It was a political machine and you can't eat or wear politics. The lend-lease policy, therefore, although a dynamic part of the war efforts of the United Nations, contains con-tains in the belief of its authors, the basis for an effective post-war reconstruction re-construction plan. And now we come to the second evidence that its supporters believe make it a two-edged sword, striking for peace and victory at the same time. The recently promulgated Russo-British Russo-British 20-year mutual assistance treaty and the Roosevelt-Molotov agreement both contain affirmation |
