Cummings: Nuernberg tribunal proof peace possible
By BETTY BLANCHARD
World peace and world order can be achieved if nations will realize that peace is indivisible, and that there is a marked difference between forfeiture of sovereignty and the forfeiture of nationalism, Philip Cummings, news analyst, geographer, and lecturer, told the Waterbury Women’s Club yesterday afternoon.
Asserting that both Russia and America, with its clashing ideologies, could overcome their national differences, and still retain their sovereignty, the right to govern the destiny of their peoples, the speaker pointed to the Nuernberg Military Tribunal as “living proof that nations can get along together under one government, and that such government, backed by an enforcement group, is workable.”
Opponents of world government who declare that participation in such organization would require the relinquishment of national sovereignty are ill-informed, the speaker said, since according to international law, sovereignty only authorizes the right of a nation to fulfill its own destiny.
Overthrowing prejudices
International unity demands, for most part, Mr. Cummings pointed out, the putting away of prejudices and pettiness, and the ability of nations to mind their own businesses as to the national policy of other nations. He further asserted that progress toward “one world” is dependent upon processes “slow in the making but necessarily so.”
As an illustration, Mr. Cummings pointed to American history which reveals that many of the delegates to the Continental Congress were doubtful whether the people of the various states could put away their differences and prejudices sufficiently to live peacefully under one government, and that only fear of the coming revolution forced them to ratify the Constitution.
“If our efforts in world organization of world peace appear to be slow in the making, we must remember that a fast-healing wound is dangerous,” he emphasized. “What the world needs today is not fear nor force, but a steadying influence and vision. We have grown to accept the process of war. We are beginning to believe that war is a preface or a planting for a future war. But we hope for something better.”
Political feuding
Once again referring to the statement that peace is indivisible, Mr. Cummings asserted if we are to be leaders in the effort for world peace, it is essential that we first settle our internal difficulties. Charging that political office-seekers often use foreign policy as a springboard to vote-getting, Mr. Cummings said: “The present stress in American-Soviet relations is not half so dangerous as the differences which exist between our President and our past Secretary of State. We fight our internal politics on whatever lines we find, and it is just as convenient to fight them on American-Russian relations as anything else.”
The first problem that America faces today, he continued, is the development of backbone and understanding of the position of this nation in world affairs.
He pointed to the fact that most Americans quiver when Pravda, the official Russian newspaper, makes a declaration in regard to American relations. Indifference, he said, will appear to be much more effective than fear. “Then it will be found that Pravda will stop making such assertions. We should have sufficient character to appear inviolable. But we get into a state of hypersensitivity. We should have the courage to tell Russia to mind her business, and we will mind ours.”
World peace first
Mr. Cummings emphasized the way to make peace with Russia, is to make peace the world first, and then included the Soviet. Since Russia will not change her ideology it is necessary for Americans to realize, he said, not merely that peace is indivisible, but we must include the Soviets in our peace plans, and that she holds more than one-sixth the world’s territory and has the largest frontier to defend in the world. He further asserted that Russia must be recognized as an imperial colonizing nation, as has been evidenced in her activities in Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and other satellite nations.
In conclusion, Mr. Cummings asserted that the recent verdict of the Nuernberg tribunal will prove a big factor in keeping world peace, because war-mongers and warmakers for the first time in world history were found not to be immune from judgment.
“It is the greatest step forward in the way of peace,” he said. “For no war criminal can today go free. And every leader, who violates human decencies, will suffer for his sins.”