(Hutchinson's Report)

EUROPE'S DEATH

Europe is writhing in its death throes. It has been wounded beyond hope of recovery. Its end is at hand. When I say "Europe" I mean, of course, not the geographical but the cultural entity. I mean the liberal civilization that emerged out of the Renaissance, emancipating the political force that succeeded the provincialism of feudalism and the mechanism of world markets and rising living standards that were the capitalist contribution to that elusive achievement called progress. . . .

Moral Collapse. The physical destruction, one soon discovers, constitutes only a secondary--almost a minor--problem. After all, there are bulldozers and concrete mixers and prefabricated building methods. . . . But what will repair the inward damage, the spiritual destruction? . . . Nothing. Something has happened to Europe's ideas of honor, of morality, of faith, hope and charity which goes so deep that no restorative power now in evidence will measure up to the task of restoration. . . .

Consider the spiritual implications of the agonizingly slow awakening of public opinion in England to the Government's slave trade in German war prisoners. . . . Now, on what ground has the British Government--a Labor Government!--justified this brutal business? And why has the public for so long so complacently accepted the Government's policy? "Without the labor of the war prisoners, we shall never be able to harvest our crops." True, perhaps, but what different justification did pagan Rome give for the slave system which finally did so much to destroy her? . . .

But the spiritual calamity in England is not to be compared, in the extent of its ravages, with what has befallen the rest of Europe. Europe today is peopled by millions who have been brutalized by a war waged with the ferocity of the jungle, other millions torn up by the roots and thrown out on the roads to live by their wits. . . .

Political Confusion. Where is recovery coming from? From politics? European politics has become just one vast area of frustration. The tory parties are finished, though it is characteristic of individual tories that some of them haven't yet found that out. The traditional social democratic parties are old and tired and timid. . . . Everywhere in Europe, the Communists are the party with what driving power there is. They at least seem to know what they're trying to do. They act like men who really believe in their offer of salvation.

But Communist salvation is something that still appalls a large part of Europe--almost certainly a majority of the people of western Europe. So there have arisen these "Christian" parties, mainly Catholic but some Protestant and some a mixture of both. One would like to believe that "Christian" politics would resurrect Europe to sanity and stability. . . . But I am leaving Europe convinced that few are going to last long, and that none will render much service of a constructive nature. They have come into being for only one purpose, and that negative--to fight the Communists. ... As a result, they draw into their ranks every sort of conflicting interest that wants to fight the Communists, with consequent paralysis when the time comes for any other sort of action. . . .

And in the midst of all this political futility we stumble and fumble about--we, the conquerors, the most futile factors in the whole mess. . . .To have giant strength and not to know how to use it without making bad matters worse is the ultimate frustration in international politics.

Religious Frustration. Here I reach the point I dread, where the objection is raised: of course, politics will never save Europe. Who ever thought it would? Basically, the problem is spiritual. How about the moral reinvigoration of Europe by religion? Well, that is what I have been looking for over here, and there isn't any. That statement could be made more diplomatically. . . . But it is true as it stands.

At the Vatican . . . something else . . . will as effectively keep Roman Catholicism from bringing about the moral revival of Europe. That is the obsession with the Communist threat. ... I know that the Church of Rome has constructive views on the ways to achieve social justice and a moral reconstruction of Europe. But when these remain largely matters for academic discussion while the whole weight of the church is thrown into the Pope's holy war on the Kremlin, the Roman Church is running the great risk of finding itself in a few years fighting with the Russians for the possession of a moral corpse. It is also certain, in the struggle, to gather a lot of allies who will almost surely make it seem to Europe's masses a champion of reaction. . . . Unmitigated Gloom. What is going to happen in Europe? One can only wonder--and dread. Will Communism overrun the Continent? At the moment the chances seem to favor that. If the Communist advance becomes too rapid, we may try to stop it. If we do, and Russia by that time has the bomb (say 1950), then no mind can imagine to horrors that will follow. . . .

To summarize: it is no longer realistic, I am fully convinced, to talk about Europe's recovery. The old Europe will not, cannot recover. It has been destroyed. Most of its people will live, for all the rest of this generation, in misery and fear. They are becoming creatures of despair or apathy or desperation. If the First Atomic War then follows to keep the Communists from unifying the Continent, the desolation will persist for many generations. And if the riches of America are finally exhausted in that struggle, the America we know can hardly survive.

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