Herbert Adams Gibbons

“ Surrounded by a plethora of this world’s goods, we see no reasons for the fear of the Frenchmen who wonder how they are going to make both ends meet. All they have to do is to get back to work! Safe from attack in our Anglo-American geographical isolation, we are impatient with the French for keeping their army mobilized, for attempting to make Poland a strong ally to replace Russia, for raising African armies to fill the gaps caused by the hecatomb of the nation’s youth, and for drawing the claws of a beast whose attack would be fatal were he given another chance. ”

“ We feel that Germany’s merchant marine is crippled for a long time, and that the lessons of the war will enable us to prevent a revival of German political and economic propaganda outside Europe. As a result of the war we have attained the things men fight for, security and prosperity. If we still felt insecure or if we believed that Germany was still in a position to threaten our prosperity, our attitude toward Germany would be different. Until we were the victors, no matter what the cost, we could never have been persuaded to lay down our arms. ”

“ If one could persuade the French to forget their history from 1870 to 1918, to believe that their industries and mines put them in a position to compete on equal terms with Germany in world markets, that budget deficits did not need to be met, that the Lorraine frontier was as good a defense as the English Channel or the Atlantic Ocean, and that a nation of fewer than forty millions could raise as strong an army by a levée en masse as a nation of over sixty millions, we should find them as “reasonable” as ourselves. ”

“ They cost a lot; but the people ask themselves: What else can we do? We have no right to ask France to sheathe her sword until we are prepared to offer a practicable alternative to the compulsory collection of the indemnity. Since we know that Germany cannot pay without injury to British and American commercial interests and without involving Great Britain and the United States in intervention in the affairs of Germany, it is our duty to give some constructive help to France in her financial impasse. To denounce Germany is futile. To scold France is shameful. ”

“ Consequently there was a determination that crying “Kamerad!” was not going to enable Germany to avoid the disagreeable consequences of losing the war. There was far more hatred, bitterness, resentment, than there would have been had the Allied armies beaten the Germans in the field, chased them back to their own country, and secured an unconditional surrender on German soil. The very fact of so much hatred after the armistice indicated that the military superiority of the victors had not been sufficiently demonstrated. For hatred is born of fear and nourished by fear. ”

“ To the Anglo-Saxon mind naked motives are like nude women; we know there are such things but our modesty clothes them!
The French look at the freedom of the Straits as something akin to the freedom of the seas. It is a comfortable formula without any meaning. For is not freedom that which one enjoys through the exercise of superior strength? And is it possible to enjoy freedom without denying it to others? The seas are free to the British, and the affirmation of this freedom for themselves is the negation of it to others. ”

“ American public opinion, while sympathetic to France and Belgium in the Ruhr occupation, feels that debts should be paid all around, and is unwilling to accept as valid the contention of contingent payments or to realize that our European friends have the right to expect us to let up on them if they let up on Germany. Europeans ask: “Why should the conquerors pay, while the conquered go scot-free? Are we not the victims? Were they not the aggressors? It is incredible to expect us to forgive our enemies when you are unwilling to forgive your friends?” ”

“ In Germany, ever since the armistice, and much more so during the last two years, the governing class has had a desperate fight on its hands simply to prevent the German people from embracing one or the other of the mad alternatives of despair, extreme Nationalism and extreme Socialism. The governing class has been successful in appealing to the instincts of order and conservation of property. But the policy of the Allies has given the capitalists no incentive or encouragement to make tremendous sacrifices. Good faith has been lacking on the side of the victors. ”

“ In every discussion the assertion of what Germany might have done is based upon the assumption that there existed ability but not the will to do it. Just as on the Allied side reparations demands have never been based on an impartial expert estimate of German capacity to pay, and the Reparations Commission has been political and not judicial in all its decisions, on the German side the budget has not taken into account treaty obligations, and enormous sums seem to have been spent on railroads and other public work and on shipping. The industrial life of Germany was not harmed by the war. ”

“ When you speak to them of the Flemish language movement being “pro-German” or of “playing Germany’s game,” they grow impatient with you and declare that you refuse to understand. They claim that they are fighting the great battle of democracy, that their record during the war should free them for ever from the charge of pro-Germanism, and that the triumph of their movement will not disrupt Belgium but will bring about the kind of solidarity we Americans have attained by organizing a state in which there is equality of opportunity for all men. ”

“ THE NEXT MOVES IN THE INTERNATIONAL GAME Out of the Peace Conference and the welter of policies that followed it students of international affairs have learned one thing, if nothing else: to distrust the efficacy of formulas to improve relations among nations. Despite the sacrifices and the heroic deeds of countless millions of civilized human beings, despite the educational propaganda of the war years, despite the high ideals for the triumph of which we believed that we were fighting, there was a scramble for spoils immediately the war was ended. ”

“ Germany must know that this continuation of war into peace is possible if she refuses to give the reparations and pledges which the law demands. There are economic methods of breaking the arrogance of the German agrarians. There are economic methods of breaking even the new prosperity of the German peasants. There is a way of checking for ever the forward impulse of German industry and of curbing the great industrial capitalism, in coalition with the junkers and, at the same time, the German working-people who have demanded their share in the casting of the net attempted by big industries. ”

“ The controlling idea of French policy toward Germany was simply this, that a strong, united, prosperous Germany would never be a changed Germany. The proof demanded of a change of heart on the part of the German people would be their willingness to become again “the modest Germans of 1848.” The political unity of Germany must at all costs be destroyed. This was a sine qua non of security for France, as we have explained elsewhere, and the execution of the treaty had as its principal object to prevent the economic rehabilitation and the political unity of the German peoples in Europe. ”

“ It has assumed that Italy can be relied upon never to allow an independent Austria to become a military menace, and that France is vitally interested in preventing the union of Austria with Germany. An Austria impotent militarily but still able to exist independently is what Czechoslovak interests demand, and it is comforting to realize that two great powers are natural allies in the attainment of these two objects. Because Italy mounts guard against a recurrence of Austrian militarism, Czechoslovakia can afford to see Austria flourish economically. ”

“ The premier of Italy, conscious of his strength, believes that parliamentary government has caused a general nausea in the country. Giving liberty to a few, he says, destroys the liberty of all; and he asks when it has happened in history362 that a state has rested exclusively upon the consent of the people without the use of force. Consent is as changing as the shifting sands. Take away armed force from a government, leaving it only its immortal principles, and it falls a victim to the first organized group bent upon overthrowing it. ”

“ We express our belief that France’s apprehensions are exaggerated. We warn the French that indeterminate detention of the Rhine provinces will create a new Alsace-Lorraine and lead to another war. We repudiate the thesis of French nationalists, that the only safe frontier for their country is the Rhine. We wonder why there are no statesmen and publicists in France to oppose the propaganda of militarists, imperialists, and extremists.
Such statesmen do exist. Briand, Painlevé, and Caillaux see France’s future in peaceful coöperation with Germany. ”

“ In the future, even if Bolshevism has to sustain the grave charge of having reduced Russia to extreme misery by its experiments in Communism, it will have the glory of having defended the liberty of the Russian people, and of having renounced every offer of credit rather than forfeit or curtail Russian liberty in the face of the foreigner. ”

“ As an economic problem, the reparations issue boils itself down to three questions: How much is Germany’s surplus per annum? How much of that surplus can be taken for reparations? How can the amount taken be transferred abroad? This is the practical side of the reparations question. To find the answers it was necessary to take into consideration basic economic laws and internal conditions in Germany. Only a healthy goose lays golden eggs. Only a strong government can tax adequately a nation that has representative institutions. ”

“ After six years, the Russian people, from Lenin down to the humblest peasant, know that the Government does not function when private and personal ownership of the machinery of production is not acknowledged and safeguarded. Brains and arms alike are used only when their possessors know that their efforts bring them some tangible reward. There will be no surplus over the day’s needs unless there is an assured title to that surplus. ”

“ Had it not been for the bloody history of massacres, in which the Kemalists shared, the stand of the Turkish delegation at Lausanne would have met with sympathy and wide support in the British and American press. The capitulations, the Turks asserted, were unjust and a source of weakness, making the rehabilitation of Turkey impossible. How could the new constitutional Government develop a strong and progressive national life so long as foreign business houses and foreigners individually enjoyed extra-territorial privileges and immunity from taxation? ”

“ In connection with the various clauses throughout the treaty, which, in their ensemble, cut Germany off from the rest of the world and make her a pariah for ever among nations, an interesting dilemma faces those who hope to profit by the treaty. If they are able to enforce its provisions, do they still expect to have large reparations from a Germany bound hand and foot in the matter of her foreign trade, while enjoying the advantages in their own foreign trade of having her no longer for a competitor? ”

“ The Fascisti movement, which began as bourgeois, now has become syndicalist, but syndicalist in the national sense, taking into account the interests of workmen and those of employers and producers.
It is always true that power sobers a man and that the possession of governmental responsibility makes things take an aspect different from the one they bear to the political candidate, the agitator, the reformer. Had Mussolini not changed when he became the Government, he would have been an amazing exception. ”