Sulzberger Addresses 1943

Publisher, Speaking at Senior Banquet, Asks for 1930 Boundaries and International Assembly

The only formal junction attending thegraduation of the four hundred membersof the class of 1943 was a Senior Banquetheld in Thayer Hall on the evening ofDecember 12. The main speaker at thedinner was Arthur Hays Sulzberger, president and publisher of The New York Times. Following is the complete text ofMr. Sulzberger's address to the seniors.

PRESIDENT HOPKINS, GENTLEMEN: There is a story of a poor woman who was having the advantages of education for her children urged upon her. "Yes, indeed," she replied, "if you don't have an education, you sure have to use your brains."

Don't take that too seriously, for the two are not necessarily mutually exclusive. But, also, don't think that because you're leaving Dartmouth in a few days that your education is over. I'm not starting out with any platitudes about life being an education or reminding you that, like fish, education must be always fresh. I don't mean it in any general sense, either. I have in mind rather quite specifically that before long many of you will be in officers' and other military schools, where the grades when you are graduated will not be in A's and B's or C's and D's, but in the toll you take of the enemy and in the lives of your own associates who may be dependent upon the accurate performance of your task, whatever that task may be.

I happen to have been in the Field Artillery in the last war, and as a result all too frequently have been an obnoxious parent, for when one of the children has come home proudly with, let us say, a 90 in arithmetic, I have found myself saying: "It's a fine mark in history, philosophy or English, but in mathematics, translated into a Field Artillery barrage, it means killing 10 per cent of your own men. Is that good enough?"

This is scarcely the place to mention it, but do you remember about the professor who dreamed he was lecturing to his class, and woke up and found that he was? But why shouldn't he have slept if he was talking to a group who approached their work as I did? For I was a rotten student. I never did more than I had to to get by, until I joined the Army and realized what accuracy meant; that one could never forgive one's self if the essential, quick decisions of war were not formed on knowledge, real knowledge; and by real knowledge I mean not only knowing, but knowing that you know. Take it apart or put it together. Start in the middle and work out, or at both ends and work in. If you know it, whatever it is, it comes out the same, and if you know that you know it, you don't get rattled. It's a great experience when you find that out. I'd like the thrill of it again.

The other day in Detroit, General Motors gave a small dinner party to a British Tank Mission, and were kind enough to invite me. After dinner I, among others, was called upon to speak, but with all those experts present I took the talk away from tanks and spoke instead about things more in my present-day line. And I was glad I did so, because it induced Dr. Kettering, General Motors' Research Chief, to make this interesting observation:

He pointed out the difference between man and the wasp. When the new generation of wasps first crawl out of their mud nests, the older generation which produced them is gone; for the wasp recreates and dies, and each generation of wasps is therefore completely on its own. Heredity and heredity alone shapes a wasp's way of life. Instinct alone sends him to the wasp's Dartmouth, and he dies without ever knowing what his father's alma mater was.

Not so with man. He does learn by instruction or has the opportunity to learn that way over the years or the aeons. He is influenced by his environment, which is shaped by the generations that have gone before, each one of which has taught the next generation to follow, so that man is a creature of his environment as well as of his heredity.

Sometimes we're inclined to forget that. Sometimes without sensing its responsibilities, the older generation does a good deal of complaining about the younger. And sometimes the younger generation does a lot of complaining about the older one. Take, for example, the period we entered into at the end of the last war and the bond of youth then established. It was the old men who had brought on the war; it was the old bankers, the old munition magnates. We don't hear much grumbling today about the age of our leaders who will be making the peace some years hence, but as Simeon Strunsky pointed out the other day in his brilliant Topics of The Times, the average age of Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin and Chiang Kaishek is 61. Two years from now, when they may be gathered to determine peace terms (and I have not said that the war would be over in two years—l'm making no prophecies)—at any rate, if in two years, these men sit down for that purpose their average age will exactly equal that of those old "dodos" Wilson, Lloyd George, Clemenceau and Orlando who, because of their age—or so we are told—wrote the "iniquitous" Treaty of Versailles.

Of course you know that I have put that word "iniquitous" in quotation marks, but parenthetically I should like to add this: Far from being iniquitous, I believe Versailles to have been the first and only potentially just treaty that I know of. In so far as I am aware, it was the only treaty which provided a method for the modification of its terms. Treaties are written in anger and hatred, in sorrow and in blood. As such they cannot be either fair or enduring.

Had the League of Nations, however, received the support which it should have had from others, and primarily from us in this country, you would not, in my judgment, be spending this particular Saturday night in any less pleasant manner than is your custom. And hearts at "Hamp" and other places would be enjoying their weekly flutter.

YOUTH NOT TO BLAME

It would be equally wrong, however, for one to say that it was the youth who came after the war who should be held responsible for this war. I am unable to say that it was their youth movements, their peace movements, their debunking of national heroes, their isolationism, their Oxford groups in England and highly patron- ized bodies in our own country, that were responsible.

A good many years ago an uncle of mine was holding forth on the Younger Generation and making himself pretty objectionable. Finally, unable to take it any more, I asked him: "What is this younger generation you are talking about? It's your flesh and blood, reared in the environment that you've created. If you don't like it, the best thing you can do is shut up about it." Not very polite, I admit, but my manners, I trust, are improving.

For it should not be argued that any one generation is wholly responsible for the last war or the present war. Young men and old men held pacifist views between the wars. Young men and old men were isolationist or, if you prefer, non-interventionist. Young men and old men held on to the illusion that we Americans were necessarily the children of destiny and could maintain peace by hiding from the world and concentrating on the strength of our moral will.

No, the essential conflict in the world is not, as I see it, between your generation and mine, although a certain amount of such conflict is, of course, inevitable. More than that, it is necessary and desirable, for unless each succeeding generation is dissatisfied and, therefore, critical of each previous generation, you might just as well be wasps. There will be no change and therefore no progress.

But the essential conflict in the world today is not between Age and Youth. If you will look closely at the present war, I think rather you will see that it is between the ideas which have inspired the youth of Germany and the ideas which have inspired the youth of the United States.

I don't think there is any basic difference between the ideals which motivated the action of my generation in this country and the ideals which are motivating you today. We both want to be free to develop our own talents to the best of our own ability; we both want to live in peace and security, without dictating to other people or being dictated to by other people, either at home or abroad. Your generation and mine may differ about political, or social, or technical methods of attaining the ends of life, but I do not think we differ on the ends, on the fundamental principles of how we are to live.

That, however, is not true of the youth of Germany. It may be that they, in that country, also want security, but outside of that I don't suppose there have ever been two groups whose ideals were more divergent and contradictory. But what was the source of their ideas and ideals? In most things Hitler was devious and deceptive, but in his appeal to the youth of Germany he was perfectly clear. He said to them: "You are the master race. You have been downtrodden by the rest of the world. The only way to right wrong is by the force of arms. Come, then, and follow me; discipline yourselves to my will and Germany shall rule the world." Into this philosophy he packed all the prejudice of centuries of German-Prussian history: the ridiculous myth of race purity and racial supremacy, the ancient law of force, the negation of God and the monstrous fable that man is made for the State and not the State for man. The important thing about this philosophy is not that it exists (for it has existed since the Neanderthal Man), or even that it conflicts basically with the philosophy of this country. Its importance lies in that it was believed by some 20,000,000 members of your generation in Germany, who put their whole energy and genius behind it and carried the whole world to war because of it. The survivors of this group constitute your problem for the rest of your lives.

I am not long back from England, and they are still talking there of the spirit of the German pilots who have been shot down by the RAF. Their stories do not support the theory that the German Army or the Luftwaffe is composed of a generation of carnivorous sheep, dragooned into war against their will by one evil man. They tell of these young pilots rising to give the Nazi salute no matter how badly they were battered, and ranting at the British intelligence officers who were assigned to question them. Incidentally, these British officers got so tired of seeing and hearing the young Nazis "clicking their heels" that they now have an order that all captured Germans must remove their boots before entering the room where they are to be questioned. It seems that a Nazi salute without the heel-click is about as effective as a soldier without his gun.

Two PHILOSOPHIES

It is of interest to recall that in the great debate which preceded the founding of this country, two divergent points of view were expressed. Edmund Burke, the British political philosopher, argued that one generation of Englishmen had bound "themselves, their heirs, and posterities forever" to certain express terms, and that neither in law nor equity did any future generation have the right to change those terms except by consent of both parties. Opposed to this philosophy, which was used against the right of the colonies to claim independence, Franklin, Rousseau, and finally Thomas Paine, placed the doctrine of the reaffirmation of natural rights. "Every age and generation," wrote Paine in the Rights of Man, "must be free to act for itself in all cases, as the ages and generations which preceded it. The vanity and presumption of governing beyond the grave is the most ridiculous and insolent of all tyrannies. * * * Every generation is, and must be, competent to all the pur poses which its occasions require." I quote that for this reason: Our forefathers went to war in 1776 to prove that you had the right to settle your own fate, but they were also conscious of the fact that that right entailed a great responsibility. It was clear to Paine and it must be clear to us that no generation has the right, even if it were possible, to live on liberty borrowed from previous generations. Each must be prepared to meet the obligations which its rights demand.

There has been a tendency since our invasion of Africa to assume that because we can begin to see the pattern of that victory is assured and cannot be long delayed. I hope this is right, but several facts should be remembered. President Roosevelt and Mr. Churchill have made it clear that we are now fighting in Africa merely to get into position to wage the real fight on the Continent of Europe. Also they told us that the African invasion was planned over six months before it took place, and clearly this action required less men and transport than it will take to wage the great European offensive. Furthermore, as the Prime Minister has indicated, even after the desperate campaign to crush the military power of the Axis in Europe has succeeded there must be a second campaign to crush Japan. All these things can and shall be done, but they will take time and sacrifices far beyond anything we have yet faced. The notion that this is a shortterm crisis is dangerous for another reason. It is not only going to take a long time to smash the military power of the Axis, but it is going to take a much longer time to win victory, which is a totally different thing. We are not fighting the Axis as a test of military strength any more than one prizefighter fights another as an academic test of who is the better fighter. We are fighting for a specific stake—the greatest stake ever put up in any fight in the history of the world. That stake is peace, not for twenty-five years but for a century; that stake is security, not for a few people for a short time but for all people for a long time. We would think a prizefighter a very foolish man if, after winning his fight, he didn't go around to collect his prize; but this time it would be worse than folly, it would be an act of unprecedented shame if, after all the sacrifices of this war, we didn't stay on the job long enough to give full opportunity to all the people of the world to collect the real stake of this war.

Again let me draw on personal experience. At the end of the last war I came to The New York Times convinced that peace lay in a League of Nations and a World Court. I still hold that conviction although it may be desired to call the rose by another name. But I didn't realize then that moral force was not enough! I resigned my commission, got out of the reserve and tried to form the pattern of my children's thinking by providing no lead soldiers for them to play with.

SACRIFICE FOR PEACE

Well, gentlemen, that's folly. Peace is not merely the absence of war—a static situation as compared with a dynamic one. We are never going to get a real peace until we are as ready to sacrifice for peace as we are for war. We spill our blood and spend our treasure, disrupt our lives; what for? To beat an enemy? No! To secure an opportunity to enjoy peace. To lie in the sun. To work and play and love. Yet as soon as the conflict ceases our guard is down and we're back to our petty jealousies and animosities. We must recognize now in war that when we talk of great peace aims we acquire great obligations to maintain them. It is meaningless to talk about security for all men as a path to peace unless we recognize that that means a revolution in our thinking about tariffs and ways of conducting business and government. It serves no useful purpose to speak about cooperating with other nations to put an end to war unless we understand that to do so we must maintain a strong army and accept compulsory military service at the same time that we limit our nationalism and help maintain that peace all over the world. We must face the paradox of being prepared to go to war to preserve peace; we must know the folly of just wishing for peace, and prepare ourselves to work for it not for a few years but all our lives until gradually we stamp out this terrible curse of war.

When you go into the service of your country, I urge you, therefore, not to think of this crisis as a short-term proposition. We did too much of that last time. The "Let's-Get-It-Over-In-A-Hurry" philosophy is all rght for the actual fighting but that's just the beginning of our problem. People ask me when we shall win this war and I reply to them that I shall never know. I shall not know whether we have .won because not until we have had at least two generations of peace will the world know whether we've attained the desired end. And I urge you not to despair over the magnitude and complexity of the task. There is no more ridiculous argument than the one which says we failed to secure peace last time, so why try a similar pattern again. How many times did man fail in his attempts to sail the seas and fly the oceans and wipe out disease? And where would we be today if we had followed the advice of those who said: "It's no use!" or "It won't work!"

Let's not hesitate to try it again, but let's place the emphasis differently this time. In the period of armistice which is to follow this conflict it would be well for us to concentrate not on the creation of detailed new national boundaries, but rather on the building of the international machinery which will permit changing boundaries in time of peace. Some of us are familiar with Articles 10 and 16 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, which defined the obligations of all members in the event of an act of aggression, but not nearly enough of us are familiar with Article 19 of the Covenant, which was designed to remove the causes of war by readjusting in time ofpeace the legitimate grievances which lead to insecurity and to fear and, finally, to war. We would do well now to recall the lesson of Article 19. When it was originally proposed, by Lord Robert Cecil on behalf of the British delegation, it stated specifically that "the Body of Delegates (of the League) shall make provision for the periodic revision of treaties which have become obsolete, and of international conditions the continuance of which may endanger the peace of the world."

Under this wording the members of the League would have been obligated at specific intervals to take action on the legal, economic and social factors which helped produce this war. They would have been obligated to bring up in an orderly manner and in a reasonable atmosphere the question of mandates and colonies, the question of the Sudetanland and Austria and Danzig. But instead the wording of Article 19 was changed to read that the Assembly may consider grievances instead of the Assembly must consider grievances, and the result was that when Bolivia and Chile sought to have the League settle their boundary dispute at the Second Assembly, it was eventually ruled that the League could not "of itself modify any treaty." I suggest that the United States (which played an important part in changing the wording of Article 19 from must to may) should not only accept all its responsibilities in joining with the other nations to help solve these international problems, and should not only see to it that the new League be given the authority of arms to enforce its decisions, but that we must also support this time Lord Cecil's original premise: that the nations of the world must periodically consider the revision of treaties. Change is one of the first inevitable laws of nature and justice is the first prerequisite of a lasting peace. I suggest that we do not ignore that important fact again.

I suggest further that it might be wise now to reaffirm United States' policy as enunciated by this and previous administrations that we will not recognize geographical changes brought about by aggression, and that we extend the interpretation of that policy to mean that, as a result of war, boundaries will not be altered, even by those of us who were not aggressors. Let us go back to the world as it was drawn prior to the first Japanese attack on Manchuria in 1931 and make that our base upon which to build. For no one, no matter how inspired, can reconcile all the conflicting national aspirations o£ the world, and it will be no more possible, with satisfaction to all, to settle all boundaries by treaty this time than it was in 1919.

During the long Armistice period which I trust we will have after this war, we can not only complete the disarmament of those who have proved themselves unfit to be trusted with weapons but also set up the machinery capable of dealing with boundary and other issues by peaceful and judicial means. At the peacetable, let us concentrate together on the economic and social issues; let's work out the system of handling territories previously mandated; let's set up our international force to keep the peace and carry out the orders of our new international agency. But let's leave to the agency and to the days after the peace has been written the details of determining boundaries and say once and for all—you may appeal for boundary changes by legal means but you cannot, and we will not, take advantage of conflict for that purpose.

Finally, I want to point out that the rewards of winning the peace are equal to the sacrifices you are asked to make, if only you will look forward and not behind. Now, as in 1776, we are faced with a revolutionary problem. In order to save our lives we have had to twist the old world out of shape, and we might as well make up our minds to it that we cannot put it all back together again in exactly the same way. That does not mean that we must scrap all that was good in the past. In fact, it was never more true than it is today that the cure for the evils of democracy is not less democracy but more democracy. What I am trying to suggest to you, however, is that so many things are different today and will be even more different after the war, economically, industrially and politically, that we cannot hope always to reach correct answers in the future merely from precedents of the past. "When precedents fail to assist us," Paine said, "we must return to the first principles of things and think as if we were the first meti that thought." You young men who have had the opportunity of a good education have a special obligation and chance to carry that idea into practice. You are starting now on a new experience that will carry many of you into the corners of the world. What I am urging you to do is to look at the new places you see with unprejudiced eyes. Put away your old conceptions about other peoples of the world. Look and see if the men of England, or China, or Russia, or Australia, or Africa are really basically so different from your classmates; look and see if they are less eager or worthy of a job of work and security and peace than we are in America. See if you can learn in this new life of yours to enlarge your sense of fair play, to broaden your own thinking and thus in some way attain the purpose of this war, which is security and peace for all mankind.

If you can do that, then a great and worthwhile life can open up to you. I heard the other day a striking illustration of what I am trying to define. In China the word "crisis" is written not with one character but with two. The first character means "clanger," which is the definition of crisis we are most familiar with. But the second character means opportunity. The danger ahead of you is undoubtedly great, but so is the opportunity. You can win what I and my generation failed to win if only you will sacrifice for peace as now, with such high courage, you are prepared to sacrifice for war. Good luck to you.

ARTHUR HAYS SULZBERGER"We are never going to get a real peaceuntil we are as ready to sacrifice for peaceas we are for war."