Kankakee Valley Post, Volume 3, Number 5, DeMotte, Jasper County, 15 June 1933 — PEACE AND DEPRESSION [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

PEACE AND DEPRESSION

by LEONARD A. BARRETT

It will be a long time before all the benefits accruing from the economic

depression will be fully appraised. One of these benefits already apparent is the response of foreign governments to the late proposal of the United States government for international peace. Peace among the nations of the world is fundamentally a moral problem and can only be settled up-

on a moral basis. War is wrong and like slavery, it too must be abolished. A universal peace pact to be of permanent value must interpret fixed and unalterable moral ideals, and one of those principles is that war is ethically, economically and socially wrong. A realizing sense of the importance of these moral norms is one of the most important signs of the times, and may prove of great value in determining the character of our economic recovery. The sacrifices and suffering incident to the depression, in which every person has shared, revealed the utter futility of depending for the realization of our fondest hopes upon speculative methods of conducting business. Nothing artificial can endure. Selfishness always kills. No nation can possibly exist alone. We are all so dependent upon one another that where one nation suffers, all other nations suffer with it. This sense of interdependence upon one another, substituted for the theory that “might makes right,” will clear away many obstacles which hitherto stood in the path of international peace. The appreciation of the value of moral principles as the basis of settling disputes and misunderstandings is one of the great benefits growing out of the period of depression. Another benefit is the necessity for economy. The governments of the world, as well as the heads of every household, have already begun to economize. Wasteful extravagance can no longer be tolerated. Armaments are very costly. It has been estimated that $5,000,000,000 a year has been spent for destruction. Some nations spent more on weapons of war than it took to run their government. Economy and confidence are the pathways to peace. Every person is convinced of the importance of these factors in our struggle for recovery. If these two principles are applied in our personal as well as our national life, the suffering caused by the depression shall not have been in vain. ©, 1933, Western Newspaper Union.