strengthening the United Nations. More people from outside the town signed in stores, and so forth, than those underage in the town. In Richmond, Va., a Committee of the United Nations, under the chairmanship of Harry St. George Tucker, former president bishop of the Episcopal Church and chairman of the Federal Council of Churches, has just obtained 21,000 signatures of adult residents in a week, or 9 out of 10 persons contacted. This compares with the highest number of votes ever cast in an election in Richmond-32,000. In Cleveland, over 200,000 have signed a world government petition sponsored by church leaders and others, such as Governor Herbert and exGovernor Lausche. I might say that I have recently been in Mrs. Bolton's bailiwick and also Mrs. Vorys' and found very great interest in both of these places. Quick action to bring disarmament of nations under enforceable. world law is urgently needed. Yet this should be accomplished by education and voluntary agreement. The Congress and the executive branch should determine the general principles under which world law should operate. Negotiations should follow with other nations. When substantial support is assured, a review conference under article 109 should be held. Patient, persistent effort should follow until universal participation is achieved. I might add that that was written before I heard Mr. Dulles' statement this morning. It happens to be exactly on the order he suggested in connection with 109. I happen to be also on the Federal Council of Churches commission of which he is chairman, so I have known him many years. Just law, enforceable on individuals, is the only way durable peace has proved possible. Peace under just law is the heritage of our Judeo-Christian faith. Rapid establishment of such just law on a world-wide basis should be the core of American foreign policy. Such positive leadership for peace by the United States would unite the American people and raise a beacon of hope and unity for all mankind. Mr. VORYS. Thank you very much for your statement, Mr. Levering, and if you wish, we will have these statements by others incorporated in the record. Mr. LEVERING. I will appreciate that. Mr. VORYS (presiding). Mr. Jonkman. Mr. JONKMAN. You do not propose a remedy such as proposed by the Federal Union, Inc., and the World Federalists, in case your proposed amendment to the Charter fails, do you? Mr. LEVERING. I think we would feel that we must go ahead if worst comes to worst, with a partial federation under article 51. I think So. I do not believe it would be necessary, if this is a valid, fair, and just proposal and establishes real security for Russia as well as ourselves. I think if that is true, we can rally the people of the world behind us to the point where Russia cannot afford to stay out. That would be the last resort. I would not favor the Federal Union proposal because it seems to me that it means war because it splits the world right down the middle and it does not give us even the satisfaction in our consciences of having made an all-out effort to prevent the war. In other words, I think we should bring everyone who will come in on the basis of enforceable law in the narrow field of control of arma ment inside. We then are going toward peace. I believe the other way makes war certain. Mr. JONKMAN. I want to compliment you on a very sound and realistic statement. Mr. LEVERING. Thank you. Mr. JUDD. Thank you very much for coming and testifying before us, Mr. Levering. What would you say is the first thing we should do? Mr. LEVERING. I would say a statement by your committee of the principles and goals which the United States wants and it seems it would have to be in more detail than Resolution 59. I would agree with Mr. Dulles that the immediate calling of this convention in 59 should be knocked out and we should define the areas in which we would be willing to pool our sovereignty for the prevention of war. I think that would have tremendous moral effect, it would crystallize opinion in this country. Mr. JUDD. You do not think the time is yet ripe for the calling of this convention? Mr. LEVERING. I believe this is a matter of negotiation. In other words, if the goals are clear then it is a question of negotiation to find out when is the best time to do it. Mr. JUDD. You believe some reasonably firm agreements should be reached on certain basic issues, before we call the full-fledged conference? Mr. LEVERING. I think so. I think that is the part of wisdom. Mr. JUDD. Now, during this period, you do not think that we ought to go ahead under 51? Mr. LEVERING. No; I do not. Mr. JUDD. In that respect you disagree with Mr. Dulles? Mr. LEVERING. I do. I would agree with Justice Roberts there, that 51 is basically an establishment of military alliance which will prove as unreliable, unstable, ineffective as military alliances have in the past. Mr. JUDD. Would you object to trying to proceed toward partial federations under 51, which would be more than military alliances, while waiting for the opportune time for a general conference? I mean while trying to prepare for the day when a general council would be advisable. Mr. LEVERING. I think we might very well work simultaneously in both directions, recognizing that what we want is a universal federation, but laying the groundwork for the other, if it should prove in fact we could not get the universal federation. Mr. JUDD. Do you believe that if a degree of success is attained in working under 51 on the second objective, it would help the prospects of success under 109? Mr. LEVERING. Not if the 51 project is carried through to completion. If it is just preliminary discussion, yes, I think it might. Mr. JUDD. That is, assuming that in a conference under 109 Russia should refuse to agree to what was overwhelmingly wanted by the other members or wanted by the overwhelming majority of the other members, you think it might encourage her to come along, if she knew her refusal would mean more rapid movement by us under 51? Mr. LEVERING. I think that is right. You know we Quakers have had quite broad experiences with Communists all over the world in our relief work, and we have no illusions as to the motives which activate their minds. I think they are realists and if they come in, it will be because they think it is to their advantage. Mr. JUDD. We will not get them in by denunciations or persuasion. We will get them in if and when there is more to gain by their coming in than by staying out. Mr. LEVERING. That would be my judgment, sir. Mr. JUDD. Thank you very much. Mr. VORYS (presiding). Thank you very much, Mr. Levering. Mr. VORYS. Our next witness is Mr. Clarence K. Streit, the president of the Federal Union, Inc. STATEMENT OF CLARENCE K. STREIT, PRESIDENT OF FEDERAL UNION, INC. Mr. STREIT. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I wish to express my deep appreciation of your invitation to appear here and testify at your hearings on the structure of the United Nations and the relations of the United States to the United Nations. My approach to this problem, though shared by an impressive number of thinking people, differs so fundamentally from the prevailing one that I would like to begin by setting it forth in a statement. I shall try to crowd into it the results of both the experience I gained in covering diplomatic relations and the League of Nations for the New York Times and other papers for some 20 years, and the study of the underlying problem before you to which I have devoted most of my thought for the past 15 years. Not to tax your patience too much, I shall touch only the highlights in this statement. I shall be glad to develop any points which may raise questions in your minds. THE EAGLE DOES NOT NIBBLE AND GNAW None of us would take the mouse as our national emblem. Why, then, do so many Americans tackle momentus matters as a mouse does a piece of cheese, beginning with a nibble, and when that proves too little, taking another nibble, and another-until the trap springs shut? Cash-and-carry, selective service, 47 destroyers, lend-lease-never a measure bold enough to achieve the difficult feat of winning by meas ures short of war. Fulbright resolution, United Nations, British loan, Cabinet members testifying in January we must spend billions either on European recovery or on a restored draft, and already the draft is up for resurrection, and we are asked to double defense expenditure, prop up the Charter with amendments and alliances, prepare for military lend-lease. Again the policy of nibble and gnaw, when the only possible way to win without war is to be bold. The American emblem, after all, is the eagle. The eagle sees from afar, lives by strokes that are bold. We are not mice; we are men. We have made ourselves jaws that grind mountains to powder; we measure our bites in tons. What we have done mechanically we can do morally, and by so doing add greater glory to the meaning of man. I propose that we rise to this occasion. I trust I do not need to convince you that the American people are not getting the results they hoped for from the United Nations. One major reason, I believe, is that we were confused over what we really wanted when we built it. Let us begin at the beginning and see clearly as the eagle sees-what our objective is. FREEDOM COMES FIRST-PEACE FOLLOWS At first glance, peace seems to be the main objective, but, I submit, this will not bear second thought. Peace we all desire, but we shall not get peace by deluding ourselves and the rest of the world into believing that peace is our main objective. There is something-as Mr. Dulles said earlier today in answering a question-that Americans desire more even than that and that is equal individual freedom. We have sacrificed peace more than once to advance toward our ideal of equal individual freedom. We have never yet sacrificed it to secure peace. Twice already our generation, however, has left the world in doubt on this vital point. The result was to weaken those who were struggling toward our own ideal and to encourage the autocrats, the Kaisers, Hitlers, Mussolinis, war lords of Japan. The result was world warwith ourselves involved, twice, when the danger to freedom grew great enough to bring out our true values. Now we again confront dictatorship. Its power has but expanded while we made believe again that our chief aim was peace. Let us be confused no more about our main objective, and leave no doubt at all about it anywhere on earth. Let us again "proclaim liberty throughout all the land," and keep on not only proclaiming it but guiding our policies clearly and directly toward this beacon. This was never more important than today. Confronted with the dangers of economic collapse and war, we strangely overlook the two best reasons for reasserting now our faith in freedom: (1) It is the strongest stimulus to production and prosperity, and (2) it is the foundation required for peace to endure. Individual liberty is no mere heritage; it is the sine qua non of world recovery and world peace. In conditions requiring the utmost vigilance, liberty was born. It grew up in poverty and war, in mountains, marshes, at many a Valley Forge. Peace and plenty were not its parents; it raised them with it as it rose. Prosperity and peace are highly desirable, but they have in them a danger we must guard against. They dull the vigilance we must have to keep the liberty that brought them. They make us forget that freedom does not root in peace and prosperity but rises from union of the free and produces peace and plenty. We must see this ourselves, and make all the world see it, if the world is to recover from War No. 2 and avert No. 3. FREEDOM IS THE BEST BREADWINNER One of our first assignments as a correspondent was to cover Mussolini's rise to power. He rose by calling liberty a luxury that only rich nations could afford. But the nations he found rich began with freedom, not with wealth. To the autocracies of the Continent, England was poor during the centuries when it developed representative government and the other institutions that made it the freest of the European monarchies. Its political revolution preceded and made possible its industrial revolution. From Australia and America to Switzerland and Sweden, individual freedom began with nothing but deserts and wilderness, mountains and fjords. Yet everywhere, invariably, freedom has given the highest standards of living to the masses who believed in it, and put liberty above security, or life itself. Where would humanity be now if the United States had practiced the principles of individual freedom no more than Russia? Or been no freer than the Latin-American Republics? The Fascists and Communists alike sloganeer: "You cannot eat freedom." What is the world eating now, what stands between millions and starvation-what but the freedom of the United States of America, Switzerland, Sweden, Canada, a few other democracies the war left intact? Equal individual freedom is the best breadwinner man has ever found. FREEDOM KEEPS THE PEACE BEST Freedom is also the best safeguard against aggressive use of national power. In this jet-atomic age it seems to me utter madness to keep saying that the way a great power governs itself concerns no one but itself. For the danger to peace lies not in the weapons a nation has, but in its will to attack with them in peacetime. How a nation's will is formed depends on its political system. The more powerful a nation becomes, the more all the world needs to study its political structure. Never was this so important as now, when power is divided as it is between the freest republic in history and the most totalitarian of dictatorships. The institutions of individual freedom divide the national will into a myriad equal sovereign individual wills that can act only by majority agreement. Free press, free elections, opposition parties, budget control, independent courts and the other free institutions are designed to permit each citizen to keep tab on his government. They insure sharp division, slow decision. By forcing the national will to be formed ponderously and publicly, they give the strongest human guaranty against a nation attacking another by surprise. The opposite is true of the institutions of dictatorship. They center the national will in the will of one man. They keep the people blindly obedient to the dictator, with secrecy maintained by constant terror. Dictatorship facilitates to the nth degree the kind of surprise in peacetime that atomic weapons have made so dangerous. Always we Americans have put freedom first, and world recovery and world peace depend today on our clearly keeping freedom first. UNION OF THE FREE KEEPS FREEDOM FIRST If freedom is our chief objective, then the common-sense test for any policy must be: Does it keep freedom first? If we really believe that freedom brings peace and prosperity, then the more freedom we develop in the world the more peaceful and prosperous we and the world will be. If we believe that civil liberty is the best guaranty against governmental military power being used ag |