Can America Stay Out of War? REMOVING THE BREEDING GROUNDS OF STRIFE By REV. JOHN A. O’BRIEN, Ph.D., LL.D. Chaplain of the Catholic Students, University of Illinois New York THE PAULIST PRESS 401 West 59th Street Cover design has been adapted from a painting by Elbert M. Jackson , a contribution to the Emergency Peace Campaign PRINTED AND PUBLISHED IN THE U. S. A. BY THE PAULIST PRESS, NEW YORK, N. Y. DeaeWHted Can America Stay Out of War? REMOVING THE BREEDING GROUNDS OF STRIFE By Rev. John A. O’Brien, Ph.D., LL.D. Chaplain of the Catholic Students, University of Illinois "W7HAT are the causes of war? What are the pro- ’ " vocatives and frictions which disturb the friendly relations of nations and lead to the holocaust of war? If another great conflagration breaks out in Europe or in Asia, will the United States be able to stay out of it? These are questions uppermost in the minds of the people of our country. Let us see if we can answer them. Let us see if we can throw some light upon the conditions which lead to the hysteria of war while we still possess our national composure. For, more help- ful than a mere denunciation of the frightful conse- quences of war is the ascertainment of its causes and the taking of steps to remove them. At the present time the threat of war in Europe is more imminent than during the years immediately pre- ceding the World War. The governments of three powerful nations, Germany, Italy and Japan, are de- termined to change the status quo, to provide for popu- 4 CAN AMERICA STAY OUT OF WAR? lations straining their present boundaries and to secure more commanding positions in world affairs. Since they feel unable, in the present lack of any effective inter- national machinery for the allocation of unused terri- tory to nations urgently needing the same, to attain these ends by pacific means, they have turned to mili- tary and naval armament on a gigantic scale. Such a program requires the militarizing of the minds of their respective peoples. They must be im- bued with the conviction that their interests can be secured only by a bristling wall of armaments on land and sea. Other nations become alarmed at the threat to their own security. Under the pressure of such suspicions and fears, they enter into the tragic race to outbuild one another in armaments. Russia and France have kept step with the rearmament program of Ger- many and Italy. Great Britain, lagging somewhat be- hind, has now undertaken the most staggering rearma- ment program for peace time in all her history. This unprecedented expansion of her military ma- chine will run to $1,350,000,000 and will cost the Eng- lish taxpayer, already the most heavily burdened in the world, one-fourth of his entire income. By this show of might, Great Britain hopes to deter attack and to re- gain some of the prestige she feels has been lost as a re- sult of lagging behind the other nations in rearming. Speaking of the ugly necessity that pulled Great Britain reluctantly into the armament race, Alfred Duff- Cooper, war minister, said: “It is not beautiful or de- sirable; indeed, it is hateful and damnable to think that we have to shoot our fellow-men, but as it has to be done it had better be done well.” CAN AMERICA STAY OUT OF WAR? 5 International Anarchy Relying upon the might of the mailed fist, govern- ments place little confidence in treaties and are frankly skeptical of the effectiveness of pacific agencies of jus- tice. The demonstrated ineffectiveness of the League of Nations to prevent war constitutes one of the most ominous aspects of the world situation today. Inter- national anarchy is the fertile breeding ground of war. Intensely jealous of their unrestricted sovereignty, hypersensitive of their national honor, the nations are in the state in which individual citizens would find themselves if they were suddenly deprived of their courts of justice and their county sheriffs and had no other means of settling their controversies than by slaughtering one another. The partisanship of various nations in the Spanish civil war has increased the danger of a general European war. The internal strife in China has magnified the peril of armed hostilities between Japan and Russia. The spark of an incident is all that is needed to set the world aflame. Another assassination of an archduke at Serajevo or another sinking of a Lusitania would kindle the flames of a war that would peril the civilization of the world. The experience of the World War has shown how exceedingly difficult it is for the United States to re- main neutral when belligerents interfere with her ship- ping and subject her to many provocations. Wars now are waged not only against the soldiers in the field but against whole populations. The blockade of ports in an effort to starve the civilian inhabitants will lead to desperate measures to smash the blockade. The rights 6 CAN AMERICA STAY OUT OF WAR? of neutrals to trade with the enemy will be disregarded if a nation fighting desperately for its very life finds it necessary to destroy such shipping to keep the enemy from winning. Thus at the start of the World War, a declaration of neutrality was issued. The effort was made to have the unratified Declaration of London accepted as a basis for determining the respective rights of belliger- ents and neutrals. The effort failed. Each nation be- came the judge of what constituted international law. Great Britain constantly increased its contraband list of commodities subject to seizure and confiscation. In vain did our cotton exporters protest. Senator Stone, as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, presented to Secretary Bryan a list of twenty types of flagrant violations of American rights by England. “Unfortunately no amount of diplomacy,” wrote Professor Seymour of Yale, “could remove the basic opposition of the two countries, which led Colonel House later to affirm that but for the murderous and equally illegal maritime methods of Germany, it would have been next to impossible to avoid war with Great Britain.” It is important for the citizens of our country at this hour of crisis to remember three important facts: 1. The rights of belligerents and neutrals still re- main undefined. 2. In case of a prolonged general war, each belliger- ent will again set itself up as a judge of its own acts. 3. When a belligerent has to choose between the starvation of its people and the disregarding of the com- CAN AMERICA STAY OUT OF WAR? 7 mercial rights of a neutral, it will choose the latter every time. War Slogans A further danger threatening to embroil the United States in war arises from the conviction of many ideal- ists that this country should take up arms against Fascism and Naziism in defense of democracy. This is strangely reminiscent of the slogans summoning us into the World War, to crush the autocracy of Prussian militarism, to wage a war to end war, and to make the world safe for democracy. How ominous is the simi- larity of the utterance of those Americans who now urge us to war against the Fascism of Italy, the Naziism of Germany, and the autocracy of Japan. Isn’t it high time for the people of the United States to remember that it was the World War which drove militarism deeper into the heart of Europe? Another world war will more securely enthrone dictatorships and destroy the last vestiges of democracy and liberty. If another great war breaks out in Europe and Asia, it is of the utmost importance that the people of the United States have one supreme and unshakeable conviction — to keep out of that conflict. Never again should the American people be deluded into entering foreign wars, to wage war to end war, to make the world safe for democracy, to crush Fascism, or to determine what form of government should prevail in Europe or any- where in the world. The determination to keep the United States out of a general war is not selfishness or lack of a reasonable solicitude for the happiness of other peoples. There should be cooperation with other nations in all reason- 8 CAN AMERICA STAY OUT OF WAR? able efforts to promote the welfare and peace of the world. But refusal to enter a war in Europe or in Asia is elementary common sense. It is patriotism of the highest type to sacrifice commercial interests to keep the United States out of all future wars. New Neutrality Legislation What is needed to keep our country out of a general war in Europe and Asia? Neutrality legislation which will keep us from making the mistakes of the past — insisting on the right of our merchants to sell ammuni- tion to the belligerents, insisting on the right of Ameri- can citizens to travel on belligerent ships in war-zones. Fortunately the need for such legislation is now gen- erally recognized. The neutrality bill as amended on February 18, 1936, contains the following provisions: 1. An embargo against exportation of arms, am- munitions and implements of war to belligerents. 2. Prohibition to American vessels to carry arms, ammunitions and implements of war to belligerent states or neutral ports for transshipment. 3. Permission is given the President to prohibit American citizens from traveling on belligerent ships. 4. An embargo against loans and credits to belliger- ent governments; with the exception that the President is given power to legalize the extension of certain com- mercial credits. 5. Power is given the President to restrict the use of ports and territorial waters by submarines. 6. The act does not apply under specified circum- stances to American republics engaged in war against a non-American state. CAN AMERICA STAY OUT OF WAR? 9 Some citizens have thought that in the new neu- trality legislation the embargo beyond a quota on such material as steel, cotton, oil, etc., as essential in the wag- ing of modern war as gunpowder, should not be made mandatory but that authority should be vested with the President to use at his discretion. This would subject the President to terrific pressure and would lead to the flooding of the country with propaganda by the parti- sans of the belligerents. It would occasion the playing upon racial sympathies and enmities and lead to the arousal of the hysteria and fanaticism always engen- dered by such propaganda. Even more dangerous would be a provision author- izing the President to apply an embargo to one or more of the warring nations while permitting shipments to another belligerent. Such a procedure would be con- strued as an unfriendly act by the nation discriminated against and would tend mightily to embroil us in the conflict. After all, we are not called on to pass judg- ment on every European quarrel. Let us remain abso- lutely neutral, and let all the world know beforehand that such neutrality is mandatory. By such a policy of rigorous unwavering neutrality we can keep out. The new permanent Neutrality Bill signed by the President on May 1, 1937, continues the present man- datory bans on furnishing of loans, credits, arms and implements of war to belligerents. It forbids United States citizens to travel on belligerent vessels except as provided by the President, and forbids the arming of United States merchant vessels. The bill’s prime new feature, down for a two-year tryout, is its provision putting all trade with nations at war on a “cash and 10 CAN AMERICA STAY OUT OF WAR? carry” basis, i. e., requiring the purchaser to collect and pay for goods in United States ports. Industries which are most severely injured by war- time embargoes might well be assisted by government subsidies. It seems only fair that the losses resulting from the restriction of foreign trade in the interests of the national welfare should be borne by all the people. Whatever such government subsidies might total, we know from the last war that they would be only a small fraction of the cost of our entrance into a world conflict. Change National Defense Policy The prevailing policy of the United States Navy is based upon the old conception of neutrality which considered the government under obligation to protect the lives and safeguard the property of American citi- zens in all parts of the earth. If the foreign policy of our government, however, is based upon the Kellogg Pact, the Good Neighbor policy and the neutrality legislation recently adopted, then the army and navy requirements should be determined in the light of the needs of adequate defense of our own territory and not the protection of our interests abroad. Certainly the naval policy should now be altered in conformity with the new policy of withdrawing armed support from American property on the ocean and in foreign lands. The late Admiral Sims thus presented the alternatives : “It is a choice of profit or peace. . . . Our trade as a neutral must be at the risk of the trader. Our army and navy must not be used to protect this trade. We cannot keep out of war and at the same time enforce the freedom of the seas ...” CAN AMERICA STAY OUT OF WAR? 11 “It is one thing,” points out the Emergency Peace Committee, “to ask taxpayers for funds with which to maintain a navy adequate to defend our own shores, but it is an entirely different thing to ask them to sup- port a navy powerful enough to fight in European or Asiatic waters. Naval experts point out that if the United States Navy were compelled to fight Japan off the mainland of Asia, the strength of the American fleet in action there must be twice the strength of the Japa- nese fleet, because of the handicap of distance from base of operations. But this argument is like a mule that kicks both ways. An invader of the United States would also require overwhelming superiority of strength. “Thus it is imperative that the official policy of the navy be changed basically. Congress and not the Navy Department should determine the foreign policy of the nation and decide the purpose for which the armed forces are to be used.” Economic Strangulation In addition to a new policy of national defense and neutrality, there must be other adjustments of an eco- nomic character to relieve the tensions that lead to war. While the requirements of national honor are most fre- quently alleged as the cause of war, the real cause lurk- ing behind the moral reasons assigned is usually eco- nomic—the need for raw materials, for markets, for territory and colonies. The growth of industrialism has increased the interdependence of nations. They can no longer live in isolation. Foreign trade with its demand for raw materials from other lands and its markets for surplus products is essential for prosperity. 12 CAN AMERICA STAY OUT OF WAR? Nations which have a predominant control of raw materials and markets frequently use these advantages to shut the handicapped countries out from access to such needed resources. In this way they subject them to extreme economic privation. Thus unwittingly they are sowing the seeds of war. For in the national re- action against such economic strangulation are nurtured the antagonisms which breed the spirit of war. Take, for example, Germany, Italy and Japan. While highly industrialized, they are sadly deficient in essential raw materials. These needed resources abound in the territories of Great Britain, Soviet Russia, France and the United States. But they have been rendered largely inaccessible because of the high tariff walls erected by the favored nations to protect their ad- vantages. “To the extent,” points out the American Committee on World Peace, headed by Admiral Richard E. Byrd, “that the handicapped countries are unable to break down or climb over these partitions, they are subjected to economic strangulation. In this soil jingoism flour- ishes. Explosive emotions are released. Preparations for escape through armed action are accelerated. The utmost emphasis should be placed upon the fact that Germany, Italy and Japan cannot themselves by peace- able means bring about the required changes. Only the favored nations have power through pacific processes to provide release from economic strangulation. “Lowering of tariff barriers by Great Britain, France, Soviet Russia and the United States would af- ford substantial economic release to Germany, Italy and Japan. If these latter countries could sell favorably in CAN AMERICA STAY OUT OF WAR? 13 the former areas, with the funds thus secured they would be able to buy raw materials. If they were permitted to sell and buy favorably, they would be able to achieve a higher standard of living. The evidence is cumulative and convincing. Three powerfully armed nations will not much longer accept existing economic arrange- ments. If they cannot secure release by peaceable means, they will resort to war. And the war will be in- terpreted to their people as necessary in self-defense. For them the war will be a holy war.” War Does Not Bring Prosperity The fact is that the lowering of the barriers to inter- national trade, permitting the easier flow of goods from one to another, would not only render needed raw ma- terials accessible and thus lesson the frictions that lead to war, but it would ultimately make for greater eco- nomic prosperity for all concerned. The sanitation of policies on world trade, making them less narrowly na- tionalistic and showing more consideration for the eco- nomic welfare of other nations, is a step urgently needed to lift the nations from the international anarchy now prevailing. The experience of the last depression has clearly shown that the continued prosperity of any great nation is tied up with the prosperity of the other great powers. There is no longer such a thing as a nation en- joying great prosperity in isolation from the rest of the world. For good or evil, the nations now must swim to- gether or sink separately. Look for example at the economic considerations placed before the United States as inducements to enter the World War. On September 6, 1915, Secretary of 14 CAN AMERICA STAY OUT OF WAR? State Lansing wrote to President Wilson urging the abandonment of our “spirit of neutrality” to protect the enormous balance of trade in our favor. “If the Euro- pean countries,” he wrote, “cannot find means to pay for the excess of goods sold to them over those pur- chased from them, they will have to stop buying and our present export trade will shrink proportionately. The result would be restriction of outputs, industrial de- pression, idle capital and idle labor, numerous failures, financial demoralization and general unrest and suffer- ing among the laboring classes. Manifestly, the gov- ernment has committed itself to the policy of discour- agement of general loans to belligerent governments. The practical reasons for the policy at the time we adopted it were sound, but basing it on the ground that loans are ‘inconsistent with the true spirit of neutrality’ is now a source of embarrassment. . . . “We are face to face with what appears to be a critical economic situation, which can only be relieved apparently by the investment of American capital in foreign loans to be used in liquidating the enormous bal- ance of trade in favor of the United States. Can we afford to let a declaration as to our conception of the ‘true spirit of neutrality’ made in the first days of the war stand in the way of our national interests which seem to be so seriously threatened?” In similar vein Ambassador Walter Hines Page wrote President Wilson from London on March 5, 1917. “If the United States declare war against Ger- many,” he wrote, “the greatest help we could give Great Britain and the Allies would be such a credit. . . . A great advantage would be that all the money would be CAN AMERICA STAY OUT OF WAR? 15 Front-line Trenches Free Colloquy during arms inquiry between Senator Nye, chairman of the investigating committee, and the auditor employed by the committee: Mr. Brown: In regard to the trench-rent story, there is a more accurate account given in a letter from Mr. Crosby (assistant secretary of the treasury stationed in London to cooperate with the British treasury) to Secretary McAdoo, in which he has this to say: “Contrary to widely prevalent rumor as to the payment of rental for trenches, Lord Gains- ford tells me no such charge has been made in the actual fighting zone. His government has paid rental for trenches constructed several years ago ap- proximately twenty miles in the rear of the fighting zone. These "were likened in principle to training camps. . . . ” The Chairman: In that connection, Mr. Brown, what were the rentals paid for trenches? Mr. Brown: There is no possible way of estimat- ing — The Chairman: In analyzing the charges, is it true that while we were charged for our occupation of the secondary trenches, second-line trenches, the French let us use the first line or front-line trenches without any charge? Mr. Brown: Oh, certainly. 16 CAN AMERICA STAY OUT OF WAR? kept in the United States. We could keep on with our trade and increase it, till the war ends, and after the war Europe would purchase food and an enormous supply of material with which to re-equip her peace industries. We could reap the profit of an uninterrupted and per- haps an enlarging trade. ... It is not improbable that the only way of maintaining our present preeminent trade position and averting a panic is by declaring war on Germany.” Through sad experience we have learned the monu- mental folly of seeking to build prosperity upon the basis of war. It destroys but it does not create. It tears down but it erects nothing but jealousies and ha- treds that smoulder and flame for generations. If Used for Peace . . . President Nicholas Murray Butler of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace made public its report, in which he cited the appalling cost of the war and pointed out what could have been done for mankind with such resources. After quoting the Congressional Record of January 13, 1928, that the World War cost 30,000,000 lives and $400,000,000,000 in property, he added : “With that amount we could have built a $2,500 house and furnished this house with $1,000 worth of furniture, and placed it on 5 acres of land worth $100 an acre and given all this to each and every family in the United States, Canada, Australia, England, Wales, Ire- land, Scotland, France, Belgium, Germany and Russia. “After doing this there would have been enough CAN AMERICA STAY OUT OF WAR? 17 Talburt, in the Washington (D. C.) Daily News. "THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT" money left to give to each city of 20,000 inhabitants and over in all the countries named a $5,000,000 library and a $10,000,000 university. Out of the balance we could have still sufficient money to set aside a sum at 5 per cent interest which would pay for all time to come a $1,000 yearly salary each for an army of 125,000 teach- ers, and in addition to this pay the same salary to each of an army of 125,000 nurses.” 18 CAN AMERICA STAY OUT OF WAR? Dr. Butler quoted the 1914 values of France and Belgium and the property therein at less than 75 billion dollars and declared: “The price which the leaders and statesmen of the Entente, including the statesmen of the United States, made the people of the world pay for the victory over Germany was equal to the value of five countries like France plus five countries like Belgium. These figures are of well-nigh astronomic proportions. Even they, however, do not tell the whole story. No account is taken of the stupendous additions to these losses which have been and are the result of the economic interna- tional war which is raging today with great violence. Today the United States is cooperating more openly in the fuller utilization of the League of Nations ma- chinery than ever before. “I believe that I express the views of my country- men when I state that the old policies, alliances, combi- nations and balances of power have proved themselves inadequate for the preservations of world peace. . . . Back the Paris Treaty “I have said to every nation in the world something to this effect: Let every nation agree to eliminate over a short period of years, and by progressive steps, every weapon of offense in its possession and to create no ad- ditional weapons of offense. This does not guarantee a nation against invasion, unless you implement it with the right to fortify its own border with permanent and non-mobile defenses; and also with the right to assure itself through international continuing inspection that its neighbors are not creating nor maintaining offensive CAN AMERICA STAY OUT OF WAR? 19 weapons of war. If we are to arrest the return of those very conditions which led to the catastrophe of 1914, we must put fullest faith in the significance of the Pact of Paris, build upon it as a foundation, and call upon governments everywhere, including our own, to keep their plighted word.” < Machinery for Peace There is an urgent need for the establishment of an international tribunal which will solve by peaceful adjudication the disputes of nations. Law is as essen- tial among nations as it is among individuals. It is a strange irony that with all the development of agencies to enforce law and order among the individuals of a nation, we are so lacking in effective agencies to en- force peace and order among the larger and more im- portant units—the nations themselves. In such rela- tions each nation acts as though it were a law unto itself. A condition of anarchy prevails. The chief effort to break through this anarchy has issued in the League of Nations and the World Court. It is unfortunate that the victors in the World War have regarded the League as an instrument to keep the con- quered nations in economic subjection and to preserve the status quo. Chafing under political and economic arrangements which were regarded as intolerable, the dissatisfied nations have come to look upon it more as an agency of coercion than of peace. If the dominant powers would shift the emphasis from Articles 10 and 16 to Article 19, which opens the way for peaceful changes, the League would become an instrument of power for peace. I 20 CAN AMERICA STAY OUT OF WAR? The citizens of our country could help mightily in transforming the League and the World Court into effective agencies for peace by abandoning a policy of isolationism and cooperating whole-heartedly with the other nations in their efforts to outlaw war and to settle all disputes by judicial process. The American people are called upon to cooperate in abolishing international anarchy and in strengthening the League of Nations and the World Court, through their membership there- in, and through the correction of its present defects. In the long run international security will be found in greater degree behind such tribunals of justice and arbi- tration than can ever be found behind high tariff walls and bristling fortifications. Membership in League On May 7, 1935, Senator Pope of Idaho introduced a resolution in the Senate providing for the acceptance of membership in the League of Nations on the follow- ing terms: “(1) That the obligation of the Pact of Paris not to resort to war as an instrument of national policy is recognized as the fundamental and guiding principle of the Covenant; and (2) That the provisions of the Covenant of the League of Nations relating to cooperation in the prevention of war shall not be inter- preted as obligating the United States to adopt measures which might involve the use of armed force; and that the decision as to what action shall be taken by the United States in case the peace of nations is threatened or violated shall rest with the Government of the United States according to the Constitution.” CAN AMERICA STAY OUT OF WAR? 21 Courtesy of the Emergency Peace Campaign. "AND WE FOUGHT FOR DEMOCRACY!" It is difficult to see why we should not enter under such terms. Our continued refusal constitutes a vital weakness in the League and an obstacle to the efforts of humanity to substitute law and order for the anarchy that has so long prevailed. Likewise our membership in the World Court, that is, the Permanent Court for International Justice, would strengthen it and increase its effectiveness as an agency for solving problems by 22 CAN AMERICA STAY OUT OF WAR? reason and intelligence instead of by the age-old method of slaughter. “It is the anarchy of sovereign states,” points out the Marquis of Lothian, “not race or language or cul- ture, which is the dynamic fountain of nationalism, the factor which stresses the separateness of every citizen from his fellow men elsewhere, which encourages him to look at international problems only from his own national point of view—to view with fear and suspicion every act by another state which may affect his own state’s security or prosperity, to confuse national selfish- ness and self-consciousness with the great virtue of patriotism. . . . Economic nationalism, the characteristic expression of state sovereignty, has gradually turned the traffic lights into toll bars. . . . The basic cause of war is that there is no authority to decide international problems from the point of view of the world commu- nity as a whole. i ' “It is my purpose to attempt to establish three propositions. The first is that war is inherent and cannot be prevented in a world of sovereign states. The second is that the League of Nations and the Kellogg Pact, however valuable they may be as intermediate educative steps, cannot end war or preserve civilization or peace. The third is that peace, in the political sense of the word, that is the ending of war, can only be estab- lished by bringing the whole world under the reign of law, through the creation of a world state, and that until we succeed in creating a federal commonwealth of na- tions, which need not, at the very start, embrace the whole earth, we shall not have laid even the foundations for the ending of the institution of war upon earth.” CAN AMERICA STAY OUT OF WAR? 23 Nationalize Munitions Industry The investigations of the United States Senate and the British Parliament has revealed the shocking prac- tices of munition manufacturers in coining the blood of their countrymen into exorbitant war profits. During the war, the price of DuPont stock, for example, rose from $20 to $1,000 per share. In 1917 Bethlehem Steel paid a dividend of 200 per cent. Statistics of the United States Treasury show that 69,000 men made more than $3,000,000,000 over and above their normal income during the war, producing 21,000 new American mil- lionaires. The nationalization of the munitions industry would eliminate profiteering and that other sinister practice of the merchants of death in planting suspicions and fan- ning war fears among rival nations to sell more arms. Among all the measures to lessen the provocatives of war, this is one of the most urgently needed. War Profiteering Average Net Average Net Profits 1910-13 Profits 1915-18 United States Steel $105,331,000 $239,653,000 DuPont 6,092,000 58,076,000 Bethlehem Steel 6,840,000 49,427,000 Anaconda Copper 10.649.000 5,776,000 11.566.000 34,549,000 Utah Copper 21,622,000 American Smelting 18,602.000 17,548,000Republic Iron International Mercantile 4,177,000 Marine 6,690,000 14.229.000 21.700.000General Motors 6,954,000 24 CAN AMERICA STAY OUT OF WAR? Industrial Mobilization Plan One of the striking disclosures brought about by the Senate Munitions Investigation was the existence of the War Industries Mobilization Plan. It was devel- oped by a commission of sixty experts working through a period of sixteen years and had received the ap- proval of the Secretaries of War and of the Navy. Briefly, it provides for universal conscription of all man-power and the detailed regimentation of the entire productive mechanism of the nation. Lowering the draft age from twenty-one to eighteen, it specifies no upper limit. The conscription of the entire male popu- lation is to take effect “during any national emergency declared by Congress to exist, which in the judgment of the President demands the immediate increase of the armed forces of the United States.” It deprives them of the civil process and places them under the iron control of a military dictatorship. In Section 3, it subjects them to military service not only for the duration of a war, but until six months after, unless the military superior sees fit to discharge them sooner. It deprives civilian labor of all freedom of action, placing all workers of eighteen and over under military control and subjecting them to court-martial. It authorizes the rigid censorship of the press by an Administration of Public Relations whose function is “to make known in an authoritative manner such in- formation as it is right and proper that the public should have.” The Industrial Mobilization Plan is a distinct threat to the freedom of our citizens and seems well calculated to carry our nation far along the road to a military dictatorship. CAN AMERICA STAY OUT OF WAR? 25 "Never Beyond Borders Again" In contrast to this dangerous plan, the Senate Muni- tions Committee recommended that “Congress put a limitation upon its powers and submit a national ref- erendum at the election in 1938 on the military draft of men for service outside continental America.” This is a step in the right direction. It is surely high time that the power be taken from Congress and from the govern- ments of all nations to conscript the bodies of men for service in foreign lands. “I’ve been a soldier all my life,” said General Smedley Butler. “They can put me in jail or do anything they want with me, but I’ll never carry a rifle beyond the borders of the United States again.” Such is the sentiment not only of the overwhelming majority of the people of our country but of every nation in the world. It is high time that we carry out the suggestion of President Roosevelt to regard the nation that sends its soldiers across the boundary line into another country as the “aggressor,” the violator of its sworn oath in the Kellogg Pact, and the common enemy of the civilized world. Essential Unity of Mankind There is need for a recognition of the essential unity of all peoples and of the sanctity of the human person- ality. God is the Father of us all and we are all brothers. It is surely not the will of the Father that any of His children should be exploited by their brothers. The division of the human family into sharply differen- tiated categories called nations should not dim the rec- 26 CAN AMERICA STAY OUT OF WAR? ognition of our deeper unity, nor permit the exaltation of the interests of any group above the welfare of humanity. The sanctity of human life and the inviola- bility of personality are not lessened by differences in race, color and nationality. Church and synagogue stand united in proclaiming the fundamental truths of the Fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man, and the essential unity of the human family. Together they proclaim that jingoistic nationalism and the institution of war deny these truths and threaten every value which religion seeks to con- serve. With a common voice they cry out against divisive nationalism, against racial enmity and against the meth- od of war with its harvest of suffering and death. They point out that the method of war has been tried since the race began, and has always failed and always will fail. Problems, difficulties and disputes cannot be solved by force and violence but only by the reason and conscience of mankind. How long will it take human- ity to learn this simple truth? “No longer is it possible,” points out the Committee on World Peace, “to distinguish between belligerents and non-combatants. War is now an armed conflict of population against population. If the United States should be drawn into war with Japan, no differentiation would be made between men, women and children. The blockade is a respectable weapon of war and starves women and children as readily as armed men. Long range bombardment and air raids and chemical war- fare kill indiscriminately. That is the inherent nature of modern warfare. CAN AMERICA STAY OUT OF WAR? 27 “Participation in another world war is not only stu- pid, it is wrong. Wholesale massacre of God’s children cannot be reconciled with high religion. To proclaim the Fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man, the inestimable value of human personality, the duty to overcome evil by doing good—to proclaim the Gospel and at the same time sanction and support war is sheer mockery.” It is high time for churches, schools, press, cinema, and for all lovers of peace to fight the propaganda that war is inevitable and the struggle for permanent peace through international machinery for justice and arbi- tration is futile. The worst enemy of world peace is this spirit of pessimism and defeatism. Steps—Urgently Needed To keep the United States out of war and to pre- serve the peace of the world there is urgently needed: 1. Radical limitation of arms by all the nations. The effort to outstrip one another in armaments is a form of mass insanity. History shows that it leads with tragic inevitability to the holocaust of war—on a vaster and more frightful scale. 2. Establishment of a World Court with authority to decide every controversy among nations and with power to enforce its decisions. This is a necessary step to replace the anarchy prevailing among nations with the agency enforcing law and order among individuals. It will render possible the observance of the same code of ethics among nations which now obtains among indi- viduals. It will substitute the law of the Court for the arbitrament of the sword. 28 CAN AMERICA STAY OUT OF WAR? 3. Nationalization of the munitions industry. This will prevent the merchants of death from coining the blood of their countrymen into dollars, and eliminate the sinister practice of planting suspicions and spread- ing war scares to sell more arms. 4. Establishment of a new policy of national de- fense. The adequate protection of our home territory does not entail the vast military outlays necessary for protection of foreign investments and for fighting in European and Asiatic waters. Our army and navy re- quirements should be determined in the light of the reasonable needs of national defense, not aggression in foreign lands or waters. 5. Neutrality legislation that forbids supplying arms, funds, or the raw materials for arms to any bel- ligerent. The legislation should render neutrality man- datory. Citizens who wish to pull our country into taking sides in every war should remember that God Almighty has not surrendered His prerogative of pass- ing judgment on others to the United States. 6. Front-line trenches for war provocateurs—jingo- ists, militarists, superpatriots, diplomats and statesmen who insist upon settling differences by ordering other people to slaughter one another. 7. A new concept of national sovereignty which will enable each country to take its place in a common- wealth of nations instead of acting as a law unto itself. Above any nation is humanity. We are first mem- bers of the human family and secondarily citizens of a nation. 8. Awakening of the common people to a realiza- tion that war is the worst crime against humanity and CAN AMERICA STAY OUT OF WAR? 29 they are always its real victims. Maimed and crippled, blinded and gassed, bled white, slaughtered like cattle by the millions, cutting the throats of people against whom they have no real grievance, suffering the agonies of hell, gaining nothing, losing all, the masses are the innocent and tragic victims of the holocaust of war. When this realization finally grips the masses, their hatred and horror of war and their determination to stay out of it will place a much-needed brake upon the hair-trigger judgment of kings, dictators, rulers, parlia- ments, and statesmen who through the centuries have sent the masses of their people into a living hell instead of settling their differences with the only means with which humanity can ever settle any problem—the rea- son and intelligence of mankind. 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