When wilt Thou save the people?

O God of mercy, when?

The people, Lord, the people, Not thrones and crowns, but men!

God save the people; Thine they are, Thy children, as Thy angels fair; From vice, oppression, and despair, God save the people!

Mexico's eloquent former Foreign Minister Ezequiel Padilla prefaced the Cleveland Council on World Affairs' 21st Annual Institute with the above verse, from (he said) a 19th Century English hymn.-

Through three days of meetings last week the Institute, of which TIME was a cosponsor, did not depart far from Padilla's keynote. The 23 speakers were primarily concerned with plain people--what they would eat and wear, how they thought and felt and worshiped, and what would happen to them if war came again.

The Institute was not only about plain people, it was for plain people. Some 20,000 Clevelanders attended the Institute's five sessions. Newspapers and radio chains carried the speeches to millions throughout the country. Cleveland high-school students in forums of their own discussed the questions raised at the Institute. Said TIME'S Editor Henry R. Luce: "A meeting like this is the commonest thing in the communal life of America --it is also the very core and pattern of our body politic, each of us, with due humility, a sacred individual, all of us, proudly, members one of another."

To talk to the Clevelanders and their fellow Americans came the Prime Minister of Italy, the Foreign Minister of Czechoslovakia, the Hungarian Minister to Paris, the head of France's second largest political party, the U.S. Secretary of the Navy. At the Cleveland Institute James F. Byrnes delivered an account of his successful stewardship as Secretary of State in a critical year of U.'S. history. From the same platform Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg redefined U.S. foreign policy for the first time since becoming head of the U.S. Senate's Foreign Relations Committee.

Brooks Emeny, president of the Cleveland Council who has helped carry out Newton D. Baker's dream of turning Cleveland's famed civic spirit to foreign affairs, presided at the Institute's sessions. The topic of the speeches was a twofold question:

What does the rest of the world expect of the U.S.?

What is the U.S. going to do about it?

THE FAR EAST AND THE PACIFIC

The U.S. relationship with China is, of course, the most important current problem in the Far East. The Institute at its first session heard a newsworthy restatement of that problem.

Koo. China's Ambassador to the U.S., Wellington Koo, was extraordinarily frank (for a diplomat) in explaining why the U.S. had a special responsibility for supporting Chinese sovereignty over Manchuria. He called attention to the new Russian position in Northeast Asia, which had been greatly strengthened by acquisition of the Kurile Islands, occupation of northern Korea and half-ownership and control of Manchuria's principal railroad. Said Koo:

"It is of course generally known that this [Manchurian] arrangement was conceived and agreed to by the participating nations at the Yalta Conference to which China was not invited. ... It was evidently a price paid for Soviet cooperation in the achievement of victory over Japan. But it remained a curious and practically unique instance of one ally asking a price of another at the expense of a third for cooperation in what was morally and politically a common cause. . . .

"Having formalized that [the Manchurian] part of the Yalta arrangement, China is determined to respect what has become her own obligation, and it is reasonable to assume that the same scrupulous respect will be accorded to the obligations which accrue to the other contracting party [Russia]. . . . Prompt restoration of Dairen, for example, to Chinese control--a matter which has just aroused the interest of the United States Government--will be much appreciated by China."

Koo concluded that Yalta placed on the U.S. "a responsibility for stability and security" in the Far East.

Then Koo turned with even more frankness to the report of George C. Marshall (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS) on China's internal division. Marshall had apportioned the blame about equally between the Communists and the "dominant group of reactionaries" in the Kuomintang. After expressing gratitude for Marshall's efforts, Koo said:

"While the Chinese Government accepted practically all the earlier demands of the opposition parties, including the Communists ... the Communists have not exhibited a like desire. ... On the contrary, they preferred to take advantage of ceasefire orders to launch attacks. . . . Invited by the Government to nominate candidates to join the State Council last April, they demanded the right of veto on important decisions. . . . Invited to join the National Assembly to draft a democratic constitution, they insisted first on its further postponement and later on its dissolution altogether.

"During the past few months, they seemed to be more interested in launching invective against our American friends, accusing [them of] turning the country into an American colony. . . ." When the Communists, "true to their temporizing policy," demanded indefinite postponement of a constitutional convention, the Government went ahead without them, Koo recalled. The constitution drafted in the National Assembly "is, as General Marshall said in his recent statement, 'a democratic constitution.' ... It is indeed unfortunate that the Communists should again refuse to join ... in working this democratic instrument.

"For considerations of a national and international character, China cannot further delay her work of postwar reconstruction. The ideal plan would of course be to achieve national unity first and proceed to solve next a multitude of problems of rehabilitation and reconstruction. But with the recalcitrance of the

Communists, no complete unity is attainable today. . . . What they desire most appears to be a continued deterioration and chaos, so that they could discredit the Government . . . and improve their own chance of ... installing a Communist China. Owing allegiance to the Communist headquarters abroad, they are perhaps themselves not free agents. . . . The only alternative left open to the Government is to proceed with its plan of political unification and economic reconstruction . . . without perpetually waiting on the cooperation of the Communists."

Romulo. All Asiatic problems are pervaded by the question of how well the rising peoples of the East can govern themselves. General Carlos P. Romulo, Philippine delegate to U.N. and wartime aide to General Douglas MacArthur, related that question to one of U.S. responsibility and help. Said Romulo:

"If it is true that the Philippines is on trial before the world, testing whether it is equal to the responsibilities of independence, then it is no less true that the U.S. is on trial. . . ."

What can the U.S. do about the Philippines? Romulo had some specific answers:

"In the Philippines, the threat to peace and security for the present proceeds mainly from the survival of a feudal economic system which tends ... to stultify the development of the country's productive capacity. The agrarian problem . . . has time and again exposed the country to the menace of violent remedies ... to meet the demands of the peasants and at the same time enhance the country's capacity to produce the primary essentials of life. The Philippine Government requires the assistance of the U.S. and of the appropriate agencies of the United Nations. ... A first essential [is] a system of adequate financing that will enable the Government to purchase the large landed estates for redistribution in parcels to the farmers. . . .

"Our agrarian problem is, in miniature, the problem of all agricultural Asia, and its solution is the key to the future of democracy and freedom there."

After a plea for better U.S. treatment of Filipino veterans of the U.S. Army, Romulo succinctly stated the present U.S. position in Asia:

"It cannot have escaped the notice of the American people that the prestige of America in Asia was never more in need of buttressing than it is today. In the eyes of the peoples of Asia, American prestige reached its apogee with the recognition of the independence of the Philippines. America must endeavor by every means to maintain its prestige at that high level."

Forrestal. The Cleveland audience found especially to its liking Navy Secretary James Forrestal's tone of sturdy Americanism combined with honest internationalism. Forrestal made no attempt to reduce the essential U.S. responsibilities which Koo and Romulo had stressed. He said that the U.S. "cannot be indifferent to political aggression, whether it occurs on the Ganges or on the Rhine."

However, he had an important word of warning that U.S. material aid could not be unlimited. "Our contributions to relief and to world economic strength . . . must be within the limits of our capabilities and of our own economic strength. ... A strong and solvent and a busy America is one of the great, if not the greatest, influences to world peace.

"The U.S. proposes to remain militarily strong . . . until the United Nations is a going business. . . . The U.S. will not withdraw its interests or its influence from either Europe or Asia. It will do all it can ... to keep the lamps of hope lighted."

LATIN AMERICA

Spokesmen for Latin American countries urged the U.S. to step forward and assume her full responsibilities in world affairs.

Aranha. The U.S. role was strikingly expressed by Brazil's wartime Foreign Minister Oswaldo Aranha: "The people that disintegrated the atom has now the mission of integrating humanity. . . .

"We must realize that the United States has more than one-half of the world's income, to take care of only one-fifteenth of the world's population and one-nineteenth of the world area. This means that while your national income per capita is approximately $1,117, the average income of almost two billion other people is only $30 per capita. A steady yearly increase in the present world income, more equitably distributed and diffused, would . . . assist in the consolidation of democracy and the prosperity of all countries."

Padilla. At Cleveland, Mexico's former Foreign Minister, Ezequiel Padilla, noted as an orator in his native language, made his first try (successful) at extempore speaking in English.*He said:

"It is not enough to have wealth and comfort and money and credit. There is necessary something greater: spiritual wealth--freedom. ... An America half slave and half free . . . cannot prosper."

Larreta. An interesting--and heartening--conflict of views on "sovereignty" v. "intervention" arose between Uruguay's Foreign Minister Eduardo Rodriguez Larreta and Sumner Welles, former U.S. Under Secretary of State. It was Larreta who urged that small nations, in the interests of a democratic Pan-American community, abandon their fears of U.S. intervention, and Welles who counseled restraint in interfering with the internal affairs of small nations. Said Larreta:

"National jurisdiction and 'internal affairs' are mentioned. In this world of constantly tightening interdependence, it is no longer a question of internal or external affairs. . . .

"A country which exploits her workers, paying them penurious salaries, reduces the standard of living of a community or of a continent. Devaluating currency disturbs or destroys the bases for international commerce. The installation of a dictatorship perils neighboring states and checks the realization of their social aims.

"In San Francisco, in Lake Success, we protest, as one voice, the veto. Yet each country, in its turn, reserves it for its own benefit, invoking intangible sovereignty. Are we going to build international democracy upon national dictatorship?"

Larreta concluded that the U.S., through Pan-American machinery, "can contribute to democracy in the Hemisphere with a disinterestedness difficult to imagine in other powers."

Welles. Before taking issue with Larreta, Welles made it plain that he had not lost any part of his faith in the Pan-American system he helped to build. "We would be unduly ingenuous," he said, "if we were overimpressed by the propaganda which is reaching our shores in ever-increasing volume, and which is designed to persuade us that our accomplishments are negligible, that our system is intended merely to benefit the strong at the expense of the weak, and that our form of Western democracy is an outmoded relic of a decadent past."

Welles refused to agree that "intervention" should be classified as a mere "fetish word." Referring to Larreta's attempt to force out Argentina's Peron by Pan-American action, Welles applauded the objective, but added:

"The nations of the Americas have . . . learned from the history of this Hemisphere that unless an insurmountable barrier is imposed to intervention by powerful states in the affairs of weaker states, the rights and liberties of independent and sovereign peoples may be violated. . . .

"So long as the United States retains a preponderant influence in the Hemisphere, its participation in any form of intervention in the internal affairs of another American state, even if such action was supported by a considerable majority of the other American Republics, would only result in new suspicions of the ultimate ambitions of the United States, and provoke renewed antagonisms. .. .

"For their own security, the American Republics cannot allow any American country to pursue domestic or foreign policies which endanger the legitimate rights of its neighbors or which threaten the peace of the Hemisphere. But ... I do not-believe that the decision upon the need for collective action in such cases should be made by the American Republics. This is the one contingency in inter-American affairs when I do not think the regional system of the Americas should exercise initial jurisdiction.

"Should any case of this kind arise--and I see no present reason to believe that it need arise--the charges should be brought in the first instance before the Security Council of the United Nations."

WESTERN EUROPE

Anxiety was the dominant note in the speeches by Western Europeans.

Cruikshanlc. The wartime head of the U.S. section of Britain's Ministry of Information, Robin J. Cruikshank, who is now a director of the London News Chronicle, strung together four Dickens titles to express British doubts about future U.S. policy: "Do we merely move from Bleak House to Hard Times, or does Our Mutual Friend intend to lead us to Great Expectations?"

Cruikshank reported on two schools of British opinion: "One demon of doubt . . . whispers . . .: 'Are you sure that America won't do again what she did in the 19205--build up high tariff walls and refuse to take the goods of other countries, so denying them the only means by which they can pay their debts. ... Be careful of getting tied up too closely with the U.S., because the U.S. is going to run into a big slump in the next few years.. . ."

The other school: "There are also a number of Britons who believe that through its recent financial and economic policies ... the U.S. has offered Britain a working plan for joint prosperity. . . . They see in it the foundation of a peaceful and prosperous world. . . . They say that America's prime interest today must be a world of customers. . . .

"Will Uncle Sam decide to take the expansionist way in the world, or will he draw back into his own economic tent?" Cruikshank declared that nothing could be of more consequence to the world than America's decisions at the International Trade Conference in April: "The first speech of the American spokesman at this meeting of the 18 nations will have all the force of an act, a decisive act."

Cruikshank turned to politics: "You have heard a good deal lately of a group of Labor Members of Parliament who have not been happy about British foreign policy. They have felt uneasy because, so they say, Britain was being tied politically to the apron strings of the U.S. They don't like the idea of any military link with America, even the standardizing of arms. ... I would say that the instinctive feeling of the average Briton is that his country has to take a course true to its own nature between these two great fields of power and activity--the U.S. and Russia."

Cruikshank moved the audience with his conclusion: "The blood of the British and American peoples will not let them forget that they are both pioneer peoples. To both of them there comes out of the darkness of bygone years the voice of one of our great common ancestors, saying: 'My sword I give to him that shall succeed me in my pilgrimage, and my courage and skill to him that can get it. My marks and scars I carry with me, to be a witness for me that I have fought his battles who now will be my rewarder.' "*

Van Kleffens. A recent trip to California may have inspired a metaphor employed by Eelco van Kleffens, former Netherlands Foreign Minister and U.N. Security Council delegate. He said the U.S. was like a gigantic redwood tree, and: "It is clear that if ever evil befell that enormous tree, if it came crashing to the ground, either because it was hollowed out by insidious boring insects or struck down by outside force, the consequences to the smaller trees would be tremendous and disastrous."

He called for an immediate revision of British-U.S. occupation policies in Germany, to permit the resumption of trade between Germany and its Western neighbors. Said Van Kleffens: "We fully recognize that at present Germany is a burden to the American and British taxpayer, but we ask for recognition of the fact that we are no such burden, and also of the deplorable conditions of the Dutch, Belgian and Luxemburg taxpayer."

He hoped that in the writing of the German treaty the U.S. would help Holland obtain economic advantages and a rectification of the Dutch-German border (see map). Van Kleffens said that the 1,750 square kilometers claimed by the Dutch form "an infinitesimal part of German territory, but it would shorten our border by no less than one-third. . . . We do not want to drive out the German population [about 119,000]. They speak a dialect closely akin to that spoken in our frontier region."

De Gasper?. Italy's Premier Alcide de Gasperi recalled that his fellow native of Trento, the explorer-priest Eusebio Chini, had made a famous trip to California 300 years ago. "His trip was longer than mine. I took two days; he took two years." De Gasperi asked of the U.S.: 1) confidence in Italy's peaceful and democratic future; 2) support in future modification of harsh terms in the peace treaties; and 3) that the U.S. "show that nations financially sound should hold out a helping hand to those who are weaker; we expect the U.S. to lead the way to a reduction in tariffs" and to help relax immigration restrictions in sparsely settled countries.

Bradley. The man who may be the next U.S. Army Chief of Staff--General Omar N. Bradley, Veterans' Administrator--answered Western Europe's fear of a new U.S. isolationism: "Science has at last irrevocably stripped the American people of the treacherous notion that we can ever again find safety in the storm-cellars of isolationism. Our own atomic bombs have torn the roofs off those cellars. Long-range air weapons could turn them into graves. Out of the laboratories of science has come proof of this basic fact: there are no longer any safe hideouts from the world. Unless we walk this earth in company with other men from other nations, any refuge that we seek alone will become our tomb. . . . Non-involvement in peace means certain involvement in war."

Bradley did not believe that stockpiling of atomic bombs would insure U.S. security. On the other hand, unless the U.S. obtains international assurances of atomic inspection and control, "the U.S. has no choice but to keep its arms and to point its research toward the development of new weapons that may offer us at least a partial measure of armed security."

CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE

The voices from Eastern Europe differed greatly in tone toward the terms of peace, and toward Russia./- But the voices were in harmony on one chord: the hope that the U.S. would always be a member of the Big Four team--a hope born of fear of the consequences if that team, ever fell apart. :': From Pilgrim's Progress, spoken by Valiant-for-Truth Just before he goes into the river asking, "Death, where is thy sting?" and then, "Grave, where is thy victory?"

Masaryk. Czechoslovakia's Foreign Minister Jan Masaryk quoted his own statement at the opening of the United Nations Conference in San Francisco: "If the Great Powers agree on fundamentals we shall manage somehow." There, he said, some thought that he was "selling out" the rights of small nations --"I did nothing of the sort." Now he felt exactly as he had then -- "and, thank God, my conception has been justified to a noticeable extent." He pictured his country as the junction point between the East and West; it is "a grateful and loyal ally of the Soviet Union." with a "very deep friendship for the U.S." What then did Jan Masaryk expect od the U.S.? for the His reply: "to remain a lasting, indispensable member of the mighty team leading us, leading the. world and its tired and worried inhabitants toward the green pastures of peace. Oh, let us have peace.* Yalman. The editor of Istanbul's Vatan (Fatherland) had also been at San Francisco, but as an observer. It had seemed to Ahmed Emin Yalman then that" the oligarchy of big powers established there was a twin brother of the Axis order. . . ." Now he found "a sound awakening" to "the major threat of insecurity and instability in the world -- the unaccountable ways of behavior of Russia." Turkey, he said, had received little credit for "manifesting before the eyes of a frightened and panicky world that one could dare to reject without the slightest concession unjust Russian demands, and withstand their seemingly terrible pressure." That defiance, he said, had helped to "enable the world to wake up and reach a turning point." Unfortunately, said Editor Yalman, there are still people in the U.S. "who believe that the alternatives in the case of Russia are confined to war or appeasement. . . . The truth is that war and appeasement are not two different alternatives . . .

because appeasement is sure to lead to a conflict or to a long period of chronic instability." His alternative: "to create such a sincere and firm moral climate in the world, and such a complete and unselfish ethical system with one single scale of justice . . . that Russia cannot afford to keep aside for long without appearing as a hypocrite and losing its standing with all the well-meaning people of the world. The real problem is not to resist, antagonize or humiliate Russia. . . . The outside world may hope to have real peace with Russia only in case the united front does not take a military or political form, not a division into two camps, but represents a circle of ethical unity in which the Russians would always be welcomed to take an honorable place."

Auer. Hungary's Minister to Paris, Paul Auer, voiced a note of bitter disappointment not alone in the United Nations, but in the Big Powers' peace terms for Hungary. The United Nations, he said, was a misnomer--the nations "did not unite, did not form one great allied United Nations, but only an alliance of states, a league of members all jealous of their sovereign rights." He emphasized that Europe's small nations are hurt by the fact that when the fate of Europe is discussed in international gatherings they have little to say. Said Auer: "The small nations ask the great powers to give them a hearing. . . . They do not want simply to be pawns moved here and there. ... All this is not in accordance with American traditions." His hope: that the United Nations General Assembly will give the small states a larger voice.

His expectation of the U.S.: that it will come to apply itself to "the adjustment of certain inequitable decisions of the peacemakers." His fear: that a division of Germany into two zones (economically or politically) would mean the division of Europe into two hostile camps. His recommendation: "What we need is a concert of powers and not a balance of power. Not two Europes under non-European guidance, but one Europe belonging to Europeans. . . ."

Scott. What about Germany itself, and how is U.S. policy working there? The Institute heard John Scott, TIME'S bureau chief in Berlin. Among his answers: the people of Germany have "very definitely decided against the Communist ideology."

"Russian policy, like the policy of any country, stems from the internal situation in Russia. The dominant characteristic of postwar Russia is its terrible poverty. ... As a result, when the Russian armies came into Germany. . . they took rolling stock, they took railroad rails, they took chickens and cows and pigs. They took doorknobs off the doors and hinges off the windows." The Russians have learned, said Scott, that "if they are going to carry on this kind of a reparation policy they are going to be politically unpopular--and they are politically unpopular." Now, politically, "they have begun to retreat, to adopt a defensive attitude. They have got to this attitude . . . because of the pressure of internal economic forces in Russia and because of the pressure of a positive American and a positive British policy which have begun to make themselves felt in recent months."

Scott reported that to bring U.S. policy to fruition would cost the U.S. taxpayer at least a billion dollars. "We cannot stay in Germany," said Scott, "and continue to operate as a virtual relief agency. We are feeding Germans at the rate of $200 million to $300 million a year. This will continue indefinitely unless enough money is invested to make a going concern out of the country.

"We believe in democratic capitalism. Capitalism functions on capital. . . . It'is going to take capital to make democratic capitalism work [in Europe], and we're the only people who can supply the capital."

In conclusion, Scott reported a novel idea which some Europeans, including Germans, are discussing: to make a beginning on worldwide limitation of national sovereignty, why not turn over some of the sovereign functions of the defeated countries to the United Nations instead of giving them back to the new governments? "People in Germany are saying to themselves: 'Can't we do something which will break this pattern of national sovereignty and national war? Can't we do something to establish a precedent for international government which will be able to eliminate war permanently?' "

Carey-Europe and the rest of the world should expect something more from the U.S. than relief passed out on a "paternalistic and charitable basis." Young (35) James B. Carey, secretary-treasurer of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, called such a policy "beneficent imperialism" and as false a doctrine as isolationism. He called for the export of U.S. skills and industrial know-how to raise the production capacities of other countries.

What could U.S. labor contribute to peace? Carey offered the C.I.O.'s formula "for improving the welfare of the American people": 1) full employment at a guaranteed annual wage; 2) industry councils in which management and labor share in responsibility for efficient production; 3) a just division of profits; 4) Government measures to insure justice between employe and employer. Labor is convinced, said Carey, "that in that formula lies not only the solution of difficulties between workers and employers in America, but in all other countries as well."

EDUCATION AND RELIGION

Throughout the Institute, speaker after speaker, foreign and U.S.; departed from material and political considerations to state the U.S. relationship to the world's cultural and spiritual needs. Three speeches in particular were almost exclusively devoted to nonmaterial aspects of the world situation.

Morton. A credo for Americans was stated by Dr. Mildred McAfee Horton, President of Wellesley College:

"We believe in people; we believe in truth; we believe in justice; we believe in mercy; we believe in kindness; we believe in the power of love and the essential weakness of hate. We don't always practice what we believe. We vary widely in our reasons for believing it, but we believe that such belief is a contribution to a world, and a world in which we want to belong fully and freely and acceptably."

Dr. Horton, who commanded the WAVES in World War II, compared the U.S. today to an adolescent who has become aware of his relation to the rest of the world, but has not yet adjusted himself to it. Discussing the need for clear-cut American convictions, Dr. Horton said:

"American educators are loth to indoctrinate young Americans, but in our zeal to avoid indoctrination I sometimes think we have deprived young citizens of a foundation for the faith that is in them. They believe in democracy enough to die for it, but they don't always recognize it when they see it, nor distinguish it from its enemies when it is attacked.

"A great many American young people have had almost no experience in thinking out their personal or national philosophy. Meanwhile, our fellow citizens in the world community are very articulate, explicit, and definite in their plan of action. We don't like the way they have achieved that definiteness by indoctrination from the top of a totalitarian government, but we owe it to our fellow citizens and to our convictions to use our free method of education to accomplish a result which can match the well-though-dictatorially-formulated opposition. If we really have the truth, we ought to be able to express it."

Van Dusen. A note that ran through many of the speeches was clearly struck by Dr. Henry P. Van Dusen, president of Union Theological Seminary: "The knowledge and skills of modern civilization have outrun the moral and spiritual resources for their direction and control." Speaking of world Protestantism, Van Dusen said: "Inevitably, global war put the World Christian Movement to its severest test. What possibility was there of maintaining a world program of expansion amidst world-severing conflict? . . . What reality could be preserved by a universal spiritual fellowship, by a World Community?

"Here is the answer: under the impact of the most sanguinary and divisive conflict in history, the World Christian Movement not only stood, strained but unshattered; it has gone forward--slowly, painfully, but steadily, surely . . . and in its every aspect. All over the world, the Christian Church has been discovered in unexpected strength and significance. In Europe, the Church has been discovered as the one indomitable champion of justice and truth, defender of the persecuted and oppressed. . . . The quisling press of Norway paid its reluctant tribute when it declared: 'The Christian Front is the most difficult to conquer.' "

Spellman. Speaking for Roman Catholicism, His Eminence, Francis Cardinal Spellman, delivered a wholly nonpolitical address with the title, "In God Is Our Trust." The Cardinal said he had been asked to give the meeting an answer to these questions:

"What moral principles can and should guide governments and nations? What must morally responsible individuals and groups do to help guide the world to peace? Above all, what is the mission of the Church?

"To all who will listen I answer: It is the mission of the Church to bring the light of God into man's life, to teach God's love, to serve and to save mankind; and today--in this age of demoralization and brutalization--the mission of the Church is exactly the same as it was two thousand years ago and ever shall be. To help bring peace . . . but to mankind. . . .

"To a wavering, death-sick world, America can offer a path of hope, a road to sanity, a way to safety, prosperity and world peace. . . . Harassed as we are by domestic strife, some may be tempted to retort, 'physician, heal thyself.' It is true that the American way has at times failed lamentably, but when it has failed it has been because the moral and spiritual factors have been rejected or ignored. Denying God, rejecting God's way, pursuing power and abusing it ... these are the dangers threatening the peace of America, the peace of the world."

THE U.S.

To hear the final session, about 12,000 Clevelanders and others filled the huge, hangar-shaped Public Auditorium. They heard and cheered the two men most responsible for the now bipartisan foreign policy of the U.S.--Michigan's Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg and retiring Secretary of State James F. Byrnes.

Vandenberg. The Senator's mellow voice carried the deep significance of his first policy pronouncement since he became the majority party's spokesman on international affairs. He was foreshadowing his new role in the shaping of policy; in his lines could be read significant shifts of emphasis on Some phases of existing policy, clarifications on other debated points. The Senator's speech made news--about U.N., trade policy, China, Latin America, The Bomb.

But first he made clear that there would be no change in his efforts to keep partisan politics out of what he believed should be called a "united American foreign policy." Said the Senator: "Partisan politics, for most of us, stopped at the water's edge. I hope they stay stopped--for the sake of America. . . . We should ever strive to hammer out a permanent American foreign policy, in basic essentials, which . . . deserves the support of all American-minded parties at all times."

The "heart and core" of U.S. policy would remain the United Nations, and the Senator believed that this would be true "no matter what Administration sits in Washington." But he was not unmindful of the weakness of U.N.: "The excessive use of the veto . . . can reduce the whole system to a mockery." He posed as a test of international good faith this proposition: let "all the Great Powers voluntarily join in a new procedural interpretation of the Charter, to exempt all phases of pacific settlements from [this] stultifying checkmate."

Senator Vandenberg firmly repeated his hope of disarmament as "our dearest dream." But: "We shall not disarm alone. . . . We shall take no 'sweetness and light' for granted in a world where there is still too much 'iron curtain.' We shall not trust alone to fickle words. Too many 'words' at Yalta and at Potsdam have been distorted out of all pretense of integrity." (Jimmy Byrnes, listening, frowned deeply.)

Vandenberg held up Bernard Baruch's atomic control plan as an example of U.S. willingness to disarm. Said the Senator: "The price [continuous international inspection and control] is simply continuous protection against treachery. But it is a fixed price . . . and the price must be paid."

He had a price tag also for multilateral trade agreements by the U.S. Whether these would continue would depend on "the type of competition we confront from foreign state monopolies and from a growing habit abroad of making bilateral agreements for political as well as economic purposes. These habits could force us into defensive tactics which we would not voluntarily embrace."

Senator Vandenberg was insistent that the long-deferred Pan American conference be called. He said: "There is too much evidence that we [Western Hemisphere nations] are drifting apart--and that a Communist upsurge is moving in. We face no

greater need than to restore the warmth of New World unity. . . ."

Then he turned to the U.S. policy by which General George C. Marshall, the new Secretary of State, had vainly tried to unify China's Nationalists and Communists.

The Senator expressed his hope that the new Nanking charter would weld China together. Said he: "It is my own view that our Far Eastern policy might well now shift its emphasis. While still recommending unity, it might well encourage those who have so heroically set their feet upon this road, and discourage those who make the road precarious."

Thus did Arthur Vandenberg give notice of possible changes in U.S. policy. But its tenets, he emphasized most strongly, would remain: the U.S., "in enlightened self-interest, will do everything in its power to sustain organized international defense against aggression, to promote democracy and human rights and fundamental freedoms. ... We plot no conquests. We shall neither condone nor appease the conquests of others.

We ask nothing for ourselves except reciprocal fair play. . . . Our 'reply to the world' is a challenge to match us in good works." The Senator paid a parting tribute to Jimmy Byrnes: "I salute him with affection and profound respect; [he] has been an able, efficient, courageous Secretary of State in the finest American tradition."

Byrnes. It was a sentimental moment for the retiring Secretary. He grasped Vandenberg's right hand with both of his own, and they talked earnestly for several minutes. Jimmy Byrnes received another tribute--his big audience rose to a thunderous ovation when he was introduced.* Smiling widely, he said: "I am glad I came to Cleveland."

Byrnes's valedictory was a sober factual review of the progress of U.S. foreign relations in a year when U.S. policy--and the hopes of lasting peace itself--emerged from the shadows of confusions and doubts. Grave difficulties, he said, had arisen at the very outset of efforts to make a peace, "but we refused to abandon the principles for which our country stands. And we served notice that we would not retreat to a policy of isolation."

But he had a note of caution against "excessive optimism and excessive pessimism ... in the never-ending struggle for law and justice." There was another note of warning: "If we are going to build a regime of law among nations, we must struggle to create a world in which no nation can arbitrarily impose its will upon another nation. Neither the United States nor any other state should have the power to dominate the world. . . . As a great power ... we have a responsibility, veto or no veto, to see that other states do not use force except in defense of law. The United States must discharge that responsibility.

"In the past, international law has concerned itself too much with the rules of war and too little with the rules of peace. I am more interested in ways and means to prevent war than in ways and means to conduct war."

He listed specific progress in setting up the rules of law: these, he said, "must carry clear and adequate safeguards to protect complying states from the hazards of violations and evasions. ... If a nation by solemn treaty agrees to a plan for the control of atomic weapons, and agrees that a violation of that treaty shall be punished, it is difficult for me to understand why that nation cannot agree to waive the right to exercise the veto power should it be charged with violating its treaty obligation."

On one immediate point he was specific; he hoped, as did Vandenberg, "to proceed with a negotiation of a mutual assistance treaty in accordance with the Act of Chapultepec at the projected Rio Conference. But we do not wish to proceed without Argentina, and neither our Ambassador nor any official of the State Department is of the opinion that Argentina has yet complied with the commitments which she as well as the other American Republics at Chapultepec agreed to carry out."

Jimmy Byrnes admitted that there were times when "our repeated efforts to achieve cooperation in a peaceful world seemed to be meeting only with constant rebuff. But we persisted in our efforts with patience and with firmness. Today I am happy to say that I am more confident than at any time since V-J day that we can achieve a just peace by cooperative effort if we only persist 'with firmness in the right as God gives us the power to see the right.' "* He also had a large radio audience (estimated at 15,000,000) on the National Broadcasting Co.'s network.

* It was written by ''the Corn-Law rhymer" Ebenezer Elliott, in the 18405. After he had lost his wife's money in business, Elliott sang wrathfully of unwise tax and trade laws. *All the speakers at the Institute spoke in English, although some of them (Uruguay's Larreta, Italy's De Gasperi and Turkey's Yalman) did so with difficulty. Padilla explained his linguistic temerity in a characteristic introduction: "Many years ago I arrived at Paris, and I met and had a very nice friendship with a girl from Hungary. She did not at that time speak a word of Spanish or French, and I did not speak a word of Hungarian or French. We improvised and we found very soon that we were very happy: nobody understood us and we could not make ourselves understood. I am now creating a special dialect of Spanish-English, and hold this out as the manner in which to speak both English and Spanish." /- The most important country of Eastern Europe is Russia, which was not represented at the Institute because Soviet officials ignored several Invitations to send a representative. The Communist Party in Cleveland circulated a pamphlet calling the Institute part of a "Hitlerite dream of world conquest." The Chicago Tribune was also annoyed, although it seemed to have the opposite objection: "One Worlders Stress U.S. as a Global Santa," said the Tribune; it also called the participants "lickspittle members." * U.S.-educated Jan Masaryk spoke the word peace in several tongues: paix (French), paz (Spanish), pace (Italian), bcke (Hungarian), vrede (Dutch), baris (Turkish), mir (Czech) and ping (Chinese). /- A misquotation from Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address. Lincoln, less conscious than Byrnes of "power," said: "With firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right."

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