Originally published in The Vidette-Messenger of Porter County on January 15, 1941.
Entered at Post Office, Valparaiso, Indiana, as second class matter Published every afternoon except Sunday by THE VIDETTE-MESSENGER COMPANY 163 Lincolnway
“It seems to have been reserved to the people of this country to decide by their conduct and example, the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not, of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions, on accident and force.”ーAlexander Hamilton
VALPARAISO, INDIANA, JANUARY 15, 1941
This Department is Set Aside to Reflect Editorial Interpretation of Men and Events Playing Paris in the Moving Drama of Daily Affairs and for Comment, Critical and Otherwise, Relative Thereto.
TRUE THEN AND TRUE NOW
In times like these, when emotionalism tends to dominate the thought processes of man, it is difficult to judge conditions or events in their true perspectives. Wars inevitably foster hate, fear, sympathy, distrust, sorrow and hysteria. As the black clouds of battle expand, issues are less easily discerned in clear outline; men’s minds change from day to day, facts give way to fancy and molehills assume the proportions of mountains. Under such circumstances any attempt to seek firmer ground inevitably leads to the pastーwhen passions were less violent and men’s logic was more lucid than loose.
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It was with this thought in mind that the following editorial was retrieved from the files. It was saved because it seemed to make sense when it was printed originally. It seems to make sense now, too. It was published in a metropolitan newspaper shortly after the peace of Munich had been signed by Messrs. Chamberlain of England, Mussolini of Italy, Hitler of Germany and Daladier of France. It is more than an editorial; it is the history of man’s baser nature in a column of type. Of the entire editorial we would call your attention, above all, to a most significant phrase: “the immemorial rivalries among the European nations…” Here is the editorial:
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HOW WE GOT WHERE WE ARE
Today it is fashionable to trace the peace of Munich no farther back than the treaty of Versailles; to exclaim that a more just settlement of the World war would have guaranteed perpetual peace, and then to stop there ー as if the immemorial rivalries among the European nations arose in 1914 by spontaneous combustion! Actually, the treaty of Versailles was hatched in 1871 by the treaty of Frankfurtーwhereafter a beaten France rearmed for the return of Alsace and Lorraine, and a victorious Germany surged into inevitable conflict with an overreaching Britain for world markets.
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All that had to happen by reason of the union of Italy in 1866, the thwarted democratic revolutions of 1848, and the repressive holy alliance of 1820ーall foreordained by the peace of Paris in 1815ーat which time Britain grasped a universal sellers’ market; the German states first imagined a fatherland: Russia swarmed upon Europe, and Napoleon lost his cast for world empire. But napoleon himself was created by the revolution of 1789, which declared war upon ancient privilege; and this brawling youth was the child of the American revolution, wherein France aided the colonies not for democracy, culminated that series of European combats called the Seven Years’ war and the War of the Austrian Succession, with Britain, France, Austria, Russia and Prussia as disputants for gain, and Spain and Poland as the victims.
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Previously, under Louis XIV, France had stolen Strasbourg, wasted the Palatinate, and pillaged Hollandーso that Britain befriended the Holland she had used as a cat’s paw against the sixteenth-century Spain, and smashed in two trade wars under the Commonwealth and the Restoration. At last Sweden, the ally of France, had gone down in 1709 against Russia; and, until then, Sweden had been the terror of Europe; first as the defender of German religious liberty in the Thirty Years’ War, ending in 1648; and later as the war drunk ruler of the Baltic states. Not one of these embroilments was born from a void. Right up to the Armada of 1588 Spain had overawed France and England; and Spain was a fief of the Holy Roman Empire, risen under Charles V, to European domination. But that empire of the Germans evolved from its having taken over the Roman Empire, which had invaded the north for the sole purposeーnever forgiven by the Germansーof selling them as slaves.
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No less created by war, Rome had burned Carthage and seized as thralls those ancient Near Eastern monarchies split asunder by Alexander of Macedonーthe first European ambitious to possess the Orient. But, even before Babylon or Egypt, no golden age of peace blessed mankind. Every primitive village, African or Asiatic, raided its neighbor for land cattles and slavesーonce man had conquered the animals and was ready for his brother man.
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Certainly the editorial sounds cynical, but only because the history of man is one great procession of cynicism, greed and lust for power. And throughout history the jealousies of Europe have epitomized the inability of man to live with his brother in peace. It is unto such a turmoil that some alleged patriots would have the United States of America embroiled. It is into this cauldron of hot and bitter intrigue we would dip our cups……..But we almost neglected to mention the name of the newspaper in which this striking editorial appeared. It is not courteous to print another’s work without giving due credit. In this case we are more than happy to acknowledge this contribution to solemn analysis of world conditions to the Chicago Daily News.
