Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 January 1919 — Why Polish State Must Rise [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Why Polish State Must Rise

Future of Europe Is Dependent on Reconstruction of Ancient Nation / / w F Germany had a • .-natural I eastern frontier —as She has I natural boundaries to west I and south—the establishA ment of permanent peace might not require sqch extraordinary safeguards. But, Germany lying where she does and her people being what they are ' the future of Europe depends on one thing l —the reconstruction of Poland.” The speaker was no less a person than Roman Dmowski, for twenty years a leader of the submerged western Slavs in their aspiration toward a renewed national life, long the representative of the city of Warsaw in the Russian duma; today, by virtue of bis position as president of the Polish national committee, recognized by the governments of Great Br’taiu, France, Italy and the United States as the official representative and spokesman of thirty-five millions of people. ——- “To take up the German-ness of Germans first,” he went on in the course of an interview with Rowland Thomrs appearing in the New York World, “they are a people capable of talking about their drang nach osten —their expansiveness toward the east—as if ft were something scientifically inevitable and sacred, like the law of gravitation or the budding of trees In springtime. No such peculiar and specific force, of course, now exists. Nature no more drove the Germans to the expansive eastward than up or down tn any other direction. What did drive them was an allurlnc opportunity. Whereupon they invented a mystical force* which was supposed to be above even their own ideas and emotions— just as they later invented a special and sacred kultur when they felt the need of justifying overweening ambition in their own eyes nnd the sight of the world, and srill later conjured up an ancient German Gott to make expediency and morality mutually self-supporting. “Such worship of mental straw irien —such confusing of formulas with forces, the sound of worfls with verities, exculpations with .justifications— Is the natural refuge of sentimentalists who shrink from looking their own impulses in the face.' “By a special drang nach osten, then, Germans have sanctified for themselves their cupidity of territory and trade in certain directions. Many such canonized phrases will confront and trouble the peace builders In their coming work, for an orthodox formula may be a deadly thing. Witness what was justified in revolutionary France by the cry of liberty, equality and fra* teroity —what Is happening under the same watchword now in bolshevistic Russia. To guard the future against the force of the ancient and heloed dogma of a drang nach osten is therefore vitally necessary. _ Would Safeguard Future. “And,” interpojated Mr. Dmowski, a faint smile hovering about his flnn-set lips, “if a certain step is taken the future will be effectually guarded. Germans hereafter will have to take their drang nach osten out in plain drang-ing. They will find themselves butting their heads against a wall, to be colloquial. And that wall will be Poland—the strong P-oland which can and must be constructed, not easily, perhaps, but surely and firmly, if sufficiently intelligent and foreseeing statesmanship is used at this time. “That brings us to the second standing menace to permanent peace in Europe—the fact that Germany for gen* erations has had no natural eastern boundaries, that a tantalizingly easy way to aggression-and conquest has lain always open before now that Russia is chaos, is easier than ever before. “If this w’ere not the case, if Germany faced to the east some welldefined physical obstacle, as she faces the Rhine gorge, the"Alps* .the Bohemian and Carpathian highlands to the west and south, the potentialities might not be so .grave. But as it is. Asia, through Russia, lies open, unguarded and dangerously inviting to Germany’s thwarted ambitions. —— “Let us hot in this exhilarating moment of victory permit ourselves *o become, unduly optimistic;, ar too cred ffious. psychologies flo not

change very quickly. In the throes of her defeat Germany may seem —-will undoubtedly deem herself —disenchant-’ ed with the fruits of her national ambition. But what man experienced • ,t, _ ___ _ _i, ;_ ~~ K.nmcill 11liIttl 111 111 v WO i 111 -S ilitj uiiii iu u iiiiii'* would venture to risk the possibilities of another war like this one on the chance that Germany’s disenchantwill be permanent, that the final outcome of the defeat, in German minds, will not be discontent, humiliation. angry or sullen, and persistent determination to recover at least part of what has been lost; or, failing that, to seek recoupment and expansion and domination in fresh directions? No ,inan of probity and experience will risk so fateful a gamble. It must be made impossible for Germany to be unsafe to the democracies of the world. To do that It is vitally necessary To have a strong, trustworthy non-German state on Germany’s eastern marches. And the one region capable of becoming such a state is Poland. “For it. is idle, worse than idle, to dream of constructing such a new state in Europe for these specific purposes unless the work is done along surely effective lines. The requirements are extremely definite. A small state will not do. Who would set a pygmy watchman to guard a fullgrown desperado? A state incapable of full economic development will not do. The chance of entanglements are too great. It must be self-contained as regards natural resources. A state artificial racially will not do. It must be one, as far as possible, racially cohesive. A state wherein irresponsible visionaries play the demagogue over an unleavened lump of peasantrv will not do. It must be a state capable of having a real citizenry, as the United States has —composed of a people of established and developed civilization, racial culture and traditions, practical abilities, proved liberalism. Poles Best Fitted. “I believe you will find nowh.re in central and eastern Europe a race more fitted than the Polish people to be the citizenry of such a state. And I can state without fearing contradiction that nowhere else in that region will you find another race with «o unclouded a moral and historical title to the territory which will be needed. “Just what is Poland, aside from being the region from which many immigrants came to the United States? Where is it? “To see real Poland you will have to make a map of Europe in your mind. On that map note how Germany lies th a great alluvial drainage basin, with the central mountain masses of the continent walling it to the south and with five rivers running down from them to the North sea and the Baltic. Westernmost ,is the Rhine. Next comes the Weser, with its port at Bremen, and the Elbe, with Hamburg. Fourth is the Oder, with Frankfort and Stettin. Last and easternmost the Vistula, which rises tn the Carpathian ridges, flows down by Warsaw and empties into the No-th sea at Dantzig in West Prussia. “In toe Vistula valley and its drainage areas live the thirty-five million people of the submerged Polish nation. That region is Poland. Part of it is still marked ‘Poland’ On the maps, but most of it needs identification since the ‘partitions,’ when the autocrats who then ruled-Germany, Russia and Austria each took: his helping. “Germany’s slice you will find on rhe west, extending all the way from the njountains to the Baltic. Silesia

farthest south, then Posen, then West Prussia with its Baltic port of Dantzig—all are Prussian provinces now. They once were Poland. The population still Is Polish. To the south of -map Poland—is an ■ Austrian - province. Its chief city Is Cracow, the ancient capital of Poland. Other cities are Lemberg and Przemysl. The population of the province is predominantly Polish. To the east, in Russia, lies Volhynia. That, too, was part of Poland once, and today, although, the peasant population of the region Is Ruthenian, its civilization and almost all its middle-class population—its professional men and merchants, the intelligent, educated citizenry who are the necessary pillars of a true* democratic state- I—are 1 —are P.olish. The same thing is true to the north, in Lithuania, which also was once part of* Poland. Three Reasons for Action. “There are three reasons,” Mr. Dmowski continued, “why the reconstruction of national Poland is so vital an issue. “The first, already touched on. Is the necessity of setting an Impassable boundary to Germany on the east. Poland Is the only country so situated, geographically,’ as to be able to provide this service, the oifly natural obstacle between German scheming and Russian disorganization. “The second reason is the Baltic. Even before Russia collapsed that body of water was becoming a German lake. Now that Russia Is gone Germany is the only nation of large population having Baltic ports. Give reconstructed Poland again her ancient outlet’ to the seas through her old port of Dantzig and the company of democratic nations will have its own entryway. to the trade of all northeastern Europe. _ “The third reason is the breaking up of Austria, which is as serious a menace to permanent peace, unless provided against with intelligent foresight, as even the German-Russian boundary situation. Leave central Europe a group of small, weak, halfdeveloped nationalities, and the Balkan question, which has all along been largely a question of Teutonic pressure toward domination of the Black sea, Asia Minor and the Persian gulf, will remain acute. What solid antl-German barriers will stand there? Bohemia the new Czecho Slovak state? But that will have only twelve million people. Restored and reconstituted Roumanla? She will have at least fourteen million citizens and around her will stand Huhgary. Bulgaria. Russia. What could Bohemia. Roumanla or both of them avail against Germany, with her compact, sixty-five million population? ’ Effective Barrier Seen. “But add a national Poland and the situation changes. You have then t® the east and southeast of Germany, cutting her off from Hungafry, Bulgaria and Turkey, three thoroughly non-German states with a population of sixty-one million liberal democrats —a mass and spirit with which aspiring autocrats and bolspevist visionaries alike must reckon. “For tiJafift^Ujßs^purposes —to save Russia and Asia froi® encroachments; to preserve the freedom of the Baltic; to end forever the Balkan question and'the possibility of a fresh Ham-burg-l’ersian Gulf obsession in those worshipers of mentals straw men and ancient tribal gods, reconstituted, Poland is the one natural and trustworthy peace structure. It is vital."

Poland and Its Historical Territories, From Which, Mr. Dmowski Says, the New Democratic Polish State Must Be Reconstructed.