Dorothy Thompson – War and peace (10-1941)

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (October 2, 1941)

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DOROTHY THOMPSON SAYS —
War and peace

War

Before suspending this column for four weeks of vacation, it seems fitting to analyze a little more completely the basic issues of our day, which are war and peace. Actually, war and peace are part of the same issue, which is that of America’s role in the world of today and tomorrow.

We are in danger of timidly and conventionally going to war over incidents, instead of over fundamental issues. If we do so, we are likely to compromise the cause for which we fight, and confound confusion, both at home and amongst the peoples of the world.

The basic question is not whether the Nazis sink our ships carrying out goods in waters we have declared to be essential to American defense. The basic question is whether the United States can preserve its institutions, insure its prosperity, and maintain its equality as a great nation if the Nazis, allied with the Italian fascists and the Japanese, control Europe, Asia and Africa – that is to say, nine-tenths of the earth, and the strategic points on all the oceans and seas.

The question is whether, were Britain defeated or forced into a peace of collaboration, we could ever demobilize our armed forces, or be safe from blockade, and from political, economic, and eventually armed intervention in Latin America on the side of anti-American revolutionary movements there.

The answer to these questions cannot be awaited. The answer is a matter of judgment and statesmanship. If, on the basis of the existing evidence and in considered reason, the answer to these questions is that our institutions would be imperiled by a Nazi victory, that we would be exposed to blockade, that Nazi intervention in the Western Hemisphere, already vast, would become aggressive and virulent under the spur of victory over the Old World; if, in cool judgment it is foreseen that we should be unable to demobilize, unable to take the initiative, and be confronted by a hostile power and counter-revolutionary movement in possession of vastly greater material resources, industrial potential, ship-building and plane-building facilities, and trained manpower than we possess it could mobilize – if this is what is foreseen – then we should go to war and go under the best possible conditions, while we have Britain and Russia as allies.

And if we go to war, we should go to war because we foresee what would happen in case of a Nazi victory, and because we do not intend to allow it to happen. And we should go to war, not only in defense of the United States, but in defense of humanity, for the noblest of causes and the loftiest of arms.

No one, who is not able in his own mind to answer these basic questions, has the right to appeal to or harangue the people of the United States on behalf of this course or that one.

If there are those who believe, with conviction, that this country can live, prosper, engage with absolute equality in commerce and political relations with all countries, enjoy its historic freedom from militarism, maintain its traditional liberties, and pursue its destiny with the Nazis in control of the rest of the world – if there are those who so believe then it is their duty to counsel this country to keep out of war.

If there are those who believe that a Nazi victory over Russia and Britain, with the repercussions of that victory in the Far East, in Canada, and in South America, would put the United States in a position of disastrous isolation, then it is their duty to counsel the people of this nation to take up arms.

So far there are very few persons in public life who are willing to give a candid answer to these questions and draw the clear conclusion from it, one way or the other.

Mr. Hoover counsels us to keep out of war, not because he thinks a Nazi victory would be a matter of indifference, but because he thinks Britain, Russia, and the revolt of the subject populations of Europe will defeat Hitler without us. This seems to me to be the most pusillanimous and unrealistic of attitudes. The continuation of the British resistance against great odds, and the very revolt of the subject populations, is stimulated and maintained by the conviction that America will not let Hitler win. Should doubt arise on this question, the entire constellation of things would change, and a worldwide crisis of appalling dimensions would be precipitated immediately. Indeed, it is not outside the range of possibilities that the entire Old World achieve some sort of artificial unity on the basis of its hatred of the New World.

For the Nazis have always regarded the United States as their greatest ideological enemy, and the struggling and oppressed peoples would certainly be propagandized into the view that the United States had proved an unreliable, false, and craven friend.

Among the isolationists, only Mr. Lindbergh has, it seems to me, really faced these questions. He, also, has not raised or faced them publicly, but there are things in his speeches that indicate that the man who refuses to explain himself knows what he is doing. Unless I have utterly misread his speeches, and I do not think I have for they have always had a very familiar ring, Mr. Lindbergh wants us to buy our way into Nazi graves, and share the world with them under a Führer and an American Nazism of our own.

Leaving aside the fact that this would mean the end of the America of Jefferson and Lincoln, it is also, I believe, highly unrealistic. For in such a setup we should be a very weak junior partner, and weak junior partners become subservient or are liquidated.

At any rate, these are the questions that Americans must answer, and they must answer them courageously, regardless of whether the conclusion to which they come is pleasant, or likely to make them unpopular. The business of patriots in a moment like this is not to be popular, but to be right.

And if we fight, let us fight for fundamental things; let us fight for the basic issue of freedom and equality, as between persons and nations. Let us not fight over “incidents.”

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Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (October 4, 1941)

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DOROTHY THOMPSON SAYS —
War and peace

Peace

On Tuesday evening, John Cudahy, former Ambassador to Belgium, again raised the question of a “negotiated” peace, saying that:

…the only hope for a lasting world peace would be founded on an association of all nations.

He accused the President of refusing to undertake such a venture.

Now the President is not opposed to a peace based upon an association of all nations, and neither is Mr. Churchill. Indeed, such a peace is what we all look forward to. But just how can it be negotiated? With whom can it be negotiated?

At present there is not a single legitimate government on the continent of Europe, except the governments of Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark – which governments are not free – Hungary, Portugal and Turkey. Every other government is either one set up by a coup d’état, with foreign support against a majority of its people – such as Franco’s Spain – or is a government set up as a puppet by the armies of Hitler. The Queen of Holland, the Kings of Norway, Yugoslavia, Greece and Romania; the constitutional governments of Czechoslovakia and Poland are all in exile – most of them in London, and the King of the Belgians is a prisoner of Hitler. Should these governments be called to a peace conference, or should we “negotiate” with Hitler alone as the overlord of their peoples? Or should we call to such a conference for “negotiation” the various Quislings?

This question of who is competent to negotiate is primary. And the answer is that no government is competent to negotiate unless it has the support of the people. Although Mr. Cudahy and Mr. Norman Thomas don’t seem to realize, or welcome it, the front pages of every newspaper reveal the fact that this is still a world where the consent of the people is necessary to establish order. And I suppose that both of these gentlemen would agree without law and order there is no peace.

Hitler has won the war in Poland, Norway, Holland, Belgium, Yugoslavia, Greece, and by threat has forced the governors of the rest of the continent into active or passive collaboration with his new regimentation of affairs. But there is no peace. Because the popular will in no country agrees that this New Order is peace.

Hitler has about him nothing but disarmed nations. They are occupied by his armies, and by his Gestapo; their opress, radio, and assemblages must conform to his will, but he cannot keep peace. For the people do not accept his sovereignty. As Hitler, himself remarks in Mein Kampf:

If people but desire freedom, weapons will grow in their hands.

These weapons are sticks of dynamite, ca’canny work policies, kitchen knives, and seething hatred. The people of Europe continue to war against Hitler.

What are they fighting for? Communism? Certainly not!

Are they fighting for democracy? As an “ideology,” doubtful.

They are democratically fighting for constitutional government for the restoration of their legitimate institutions and legitimate governments and leadership.

Europe today is a chaos. But if the German armies left Holland, Queen Wilhelmina could ride into The Hague in an open car without an armed guard, and Edvard Beneš could walk into the Hradčany Palace among flowers, arm in arm with Jan Masaryk, without fearing a Czech shot. Hitler cannot even walk freely in Germany!

So where is peace? On which side is law and order? Where is the possibility of an “association of nations”? The association of real national governments is in London.

There can be no peace without the consent of the people of all nations, and no association of nations without nations that can associate themselves. So the first essential step for a peace of any kind, and an association of any kind, would be that Hitler take his armies off every inch of non-German soil, that the chancellors and sovereigns who have the constitutional right and the popular support whereby they can speak for their people, be returned.

And that is what Churchill and Roosevelt are fighting for; that along can bring peace; and that cannot be achieved without a British victory, or the fall of the Hitler regime and its substitution by a German government which the people of Europe will trust, and with which they would be willing to associate themselves.

Hitler cannot make peace in Europe, and no compromise with Hitler can bring peace to Europe. That is not a matter of guesswork; it is a matter of daily record. Not all the power of a corrupted and servile ruling class in France, plus the German armies and plus German offers of collaboration, have brought peace to France. Because the people do not accept Hitler or Hitler’s collaborators. Nor do the people of Czechoslovakia accept Hacha, nor of Norway Quisling, and so ad infinitum.

The Polish peasant is not a warmonger; the Dutch burghers were not warmongers. They want peace. They are not even “idealists.” They want, merely to lead a tolerable and decent life.

The ideals that are growing into passion and fury have not come from ideologies, but from experience. Experience of Hitler’s New Order. Experience of Gestapos and Stormtroopers and SS men. Experience of pillage and humiliation. Experience of being pushed around as “subhumans.” A Czech peasant from Pilsen has not less common sense than Mr. Cudahy, nor even a broader mind or more vision. Only he knows what he’s got, and he can’t stick to it. It isn’t peace.

Suppose the President negotiated a peace that fastened Nazism on Europe? What does Mr. Cudahy think would be the reaction here, after the first stunned moment? Does he think the American people would accept either the administration that did such a thing, or the persons that rugged it? People can be confused in debates over policies, but they can never be confused about the results of policies, for the results are tangible. The Polish peasant accepted the defeat of Poland fairly philosophically when it came. He does not accept it at all today, because he knows what it means. So would it be with Americans.

No peace in the 20th century can be “negotiated” with illegitimate or even legitimate governments with Hitler at the table, because such a peace would have to be enforced forever with guns against mass risings, and, therefore, would not be peace.

The peoples of Europe are fighting for peace. They know what peace is. It is constitutional government, civil liberties, and law. Whether under kings or prime ministers, it is democracy.

Dorothy Thompson is on vacation. This is the last of her columns until Nov. 3.

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