“PEACE! PEACE!” WHEN THERE IS NO PEACE
We are farther from peace than we were in 1922. The French occupation
of the Ruhr and the passage by Congress of the Japanese Exclusion Act
were blows at the very heart of world peace. Hate has been growing in
Europe. Militarism has been given a new lease of life in Germany and in
Japan. The question of race equality has been made a permanently living
issue to be coupled in future years with the problems raised by white
domination over peoples that want to be free.
New Alsace Lorraines――such as the Polish Corridor――have been created
by the Versailles Treaty. Religious and race antagonisms, kept acute
by the economic imperialism of the white race, stir the awakening
Mohammedan world.
Militarist and narrow nationalist groups in every country flood the
press with propaganda breathing fear or hate. A new race in armaments
has started. Our Monroe Doctrine, in view of the growing importance
of the immigration question, contains dangerous possibilities insofar
as it may be regarded as a commitment to go to war for Latin-American
policies. Taken in conjunction with certain acts of aggression on our
part and with the utterances of our jingoes, which are reprinted from
the Rio Grande to Cape Horn, it injects poison constantly into our
relations with Latin America, so that our military guarantee of two
continents brings us no gratitude but only suspicion from our grown-up
and unwilling wards.
The Dawes Plan is a fleeting ray of sunshine in a dark and ominous sky.
We are not drifting into permanent peace.