Pillars of Peace

Other minds and imaginations than those of statesmen focused last week on the role the U.S. must play in a future world. Two years ago the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America set up a commission to study the bases for a "just and durable" peace./- Last week came the commission's findings--a six-point program which it hopes will be adopted by the Congress and Administration as the official policy of the U.S.

Urging American participation in an international alliance of all nations to pre-serve the postwar peace, the Council's program laid down these fundamentals:

>International political cooperation based on the present unity of the United Nations. ("Such collaboration should, as quickly as possible, be universal. But practically, the initial nucleus is the United Nations. . . . Europe particularly illustrates the need for regional collaboration. . . .")

>Control of economic and financial acts which may disturb international peace. (". . . All people are subject to grave risk, as long as any single Government may, by unilateral action, disrupt the flow of world trade. . . . The world requires that the areas of economic interdependence be dealt with in the interest of all concerned. . . .")

>Establishment of an organization to adapt the treaty structure to changing conditions. ("We must have an organization to promote changes in the treaty structure ... as may be needed to keep that structure responsive to future changes in underlying conditions.")

> Autonomy for subject peoples. ("There is a ferment among many peoples who are now subject to alien rule. That will make durable peace unattainable unless such peoples are satisfied that they can achieve self-rule without passive or active resistance to the now constituted authorities.")

>International control of armaments. ("Military establishments everywhere should be brought under some form of international control. . . . The economic and military power of the world community should be subject to mobilization to support international agencies which . . . serve the general welfare.")

>Religious and intellectual freedom. ("Wars are not due only to economic causes. They have their origin also in false ideologies and in ignorance. ... It is therefore indispensable that there exist the opportunity to fuller knowledge of the facts. . . . Spiritual and intellectual regimentation that prevents this is a basic underlying cause of war. . . .")

/- Some members of the commission, headed by John Foster Dulles, Manhattan lawyer and counsel to the American Commission to the Paris Peace Conference: Philosopher William Ernest Hocking, Yale Divinity School's Dean Luther A. Weigle, Sociologist Pitirim A. Sorokin, the Rev. Harry Emerson Fosdick.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.