Dulles, Hull agreed on ‘experiment’
U.S. foreign policy to be ‘nonpartisan’
Washington (UP) –
Democratic and Republican Party leaders today placed their hopes of avoiding another bitter League of Nations debate, such as followed the last war, upon an unprecedented campaign-year experiment in bipartisan cooperation.
Foreign policy leaders of both parties – Secretary of State Cordell Hull speaking for President Roosevelt and John Foster Dulles speaking for Governor Thomas E. Dewey – have agreed on numerous aspects of the world security plan presented by the U.S. delegation this week to the Dumbarton Oaks Conference.
They have also agreed that the subject should be kept on a nonpartisan basis, thus asserting, if the policy is followed, united participation in the proposed world security organization whichever party wins the November election.
Dulles wants ‘discussion’
They have not agreed, however, on the degree of nonpartisan public discussion of the world security issue. Mr. Hull wanted it kept “entirely out of politics,” but Mr. Dulles insisted that the understanding on nonpartisanship should not preclude “full public nonpartisan discussion of the means of attaining lasting peace.”
Regardless of that reservation, the joint declaration is unique in American political history, especially if each candidate abides by it to the satisfaction of his opponent.
But the road ahead for the two candidates has many danger spots. Republicans have already accused President Roosevelt of using the war for political purposes. Mr. Dulles cited his recent Bremerton, Washington, speech made upon his return from the Pacific tour as an example.
Dulles gives his views
Mr. Dulles volunteered the following as his idea of nonpartisanship:
To my mind, a partisan discussion distinct from a nonpartisan one would be an approach where you take a position in which you do not believe but which you think will give you votes.
Democrats and Republicans will be watching every word of each other’s candidates from now on for what might be considered a breach of the Hull-Dulles agreement. Until official publication of the American proposals or an American-British-Russian agreement on a plan for world organization, Mr. Dewey would appear to be limited to generalities.
Will history repeat?
Mr. Dulles was confident that he and Mr. Hull had scored a great achievement – “something novel in American history” – but their joint statement itself conceded that “complete agreement” depended upon future developments.
Some political historians, hopeful that this would prevent another low-level partisan political debate on foreign policy such as occurred in 1920, recalled that during the early years of world War I there was also almost-unanimous approval of a league to keep the peace. Samuel Flagg Bemis, in his Diplomatic History of the United States, says:
The elder statesmen of both parties were for it: T. R. Roosevelt, Taft, Bryan, Elihu Root, Lodge and finally Wilson, although Lodge was to desert the idea when Wilson later coupled it with a proposed peace without victory. No one took exception to the proposal of a League of Nations before 1917 and then, among Republican leaders, only Lodge.