DIVIDED AMERICA
ONE of the decisive results of the late war has been the rise of the United States of America to a position of almost unchal- lenged pre-eminence among the nations of the world. A war that has left her possible rivals, and even the greatest of them, im- poverished and exhausted has left her even richer and stronger than before. In material resources, in armed strength, in industrial equipment, in technical knowledge and skill, in standards of life, of health, of education, there is at the present time no country in the world that can compete with her. Even the Americans them- selves are not fully aware of the gulf that separates them from other and less fortunate peoples, of the New Year contrast between the destitution of the Old World and the abundance of the New ; though it is the needs of others and not their own strength and prosperity that they underestimate. To most if not all Americans the facts of their own power and riches are by now so clear that ;t seems to them that Providence has called them to inaugurate the "American century" which history is about to enter. It is impor- tant to realise that this belief in a new, " American," era of history is by now a matter of almost dogmatic faith to millions of Americans. It is equally important to realise that it is not merely another of those national myths of a kind with which we have become only too familiar recently ; it has a rational foundation in the over- whelming influence which the United States is capable of exerting in international affairs.
Yet those who look at America from the outside may be par- doned if they doubt whether in fact she will play in world affairs a role that corresponds to the facts of the situation. They cannot but be impressed by, and in many cases envy, the speed with which she has reconverted her industry from war to peace conditions, and by the enormous increase in the material wealth which now seems within her grasp. At the same time, they cannot fail to be equally impressed by what appears to be a failure in her govern- mental machinery, which threatens to undermine the whole struc- ture of her prosperity and deprive her of her proper influence in international affairs. At the moment the United States is on the eve of what may prove to be the most serious and the most violent industrial struggles in her history. The bitter conflict between General Motors and the United Automobile Workers of America continues ; this week 200,000 electrical workers and 350,000 meat packers are due to strike ; unless Mr. Truman can prolong the last minute truce he has been able to arrange, they will be followed next week by the workers in the steel industry. In all, some 2,000,000 workers may be on strike simultaneously by the end of next week. Numbers alone do not reveal the full significance of the struggle, for the strikes affect some of America's basic indus- tries, especially steel, where a hold-up will paralyse the whole pro- cess of industrial reconversion.
The strikes in themselves, however, are not surprising. They may even be inevitable, given America's determination to cling to the 'principles of free enterprise. The great industrial concerns are strong in accumulated profits, which the workers claim are large enough to permit a general increase of 30 per cent. in wage rates without any increase in prices ; the employers themselves admit they would allow an increase of io per cent. The unions equally are strong, in increased membership and in the large re- serves they have built up from increased union fees. Both sides, for various reasons, feel that this is a favourable moment which may not recur for a fight to the finish. What is more remarkable, however, than this attitude of unrestrained belligerency is that so far the system of industrial negotiation, immature though it is in the United States, has so far proved wholly incapable of effecting any compromise between the conflicting interests, and that both sides have so flatly rejected the fact-finding commissions which the President has proposed as a means of finding a solution. The truth is that while the industrial development of America has by now created vast combinations of employers and of employees whose interests are bitterly opposed, it has failed to create any impartial machinery through which their interests can be recon- ciled. In the absence of such machinery the industrial fortunes of the nation must be decided merely by the struggle of organised sectional interests.
It may be said that these struggles are merely the price America has to pay for an economy of free enterprise ; that the economy can more than afford to pay the price ; that the trial of strength will eventually force a decision, and that then America can once more resume her path of dizzy expansion. But the open struggle of interests is not confined to the industrial field ; it is repeated and reflected in the political field, where it induces a paralysis of govern- ment which may seriously damage American influence and prestige. At the moment it appears as a struggle between Mr. Truman and a Congress which resolutely refuses to pass any of the measures to which the Administration attaches importance. In his speech to the nation last week Mr. Truman gave a long list of measures which are being held up in Congress ; they include, among other measures, a Full Employment Bill, an emergency Unemployment Bill, a Fair Practices Bill to give industrial equality to the Negro, a State health programme and a minimum wage law. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this conflict is that it ignores the normal party alignments, which have become essential to the working of the American constitution. Congress has a Democratic majority and Mr. Truman is a Demccratic President ; and it was a pardon- able political trick of the Republican Mr. Taft to say that Mr. Truman's speech was an attack on the incompetence of his own party.
In fact, however, Mr. Truman is opposed by a majority composed of the conservatives both in the Republican and in the Democratic parties, who are resolutely determined to hold up any social legis- lation which will increase governmental " interference " in industry. Mr. Truman appealed from them to the nation, hoping no doubt that he will find, like Mr. Roosevelt, that he has everyone against him except the people. But it was only Mr. Roosevelt's extraordinary political genius and dexterity which enabled him to carry through his policies in the face of the same Conservative forces that now oppose Mr. Truman, and ai a result they pursu2d him with a hatred that is still unappeased. There is less hatred for Mr. Truman, because there is more confidence that he will be unable to master the social forces arrayed against him.
These are not matters merely of American domestic politics. They vitally concern other countries because they will decide the part America is to play in international affairs. They are of the most intimate concern to this country because thcy will decide wheth,zr Anglo-American co-operation is to be a genuine and fruitful reality, or a continuous and uphill struggle, thwarted by the same forces that are now thwarting Mr. Truman's Administration. For there can be no fruitful co-operation between the two countries. whatever the desires of the two peoples, if the Government of tile United States is unable to carry through its own policies lnd cannot speak with the full authority of the people of the United States. Recent weeks have given some striking examples of how far the conservative forces are willing to go in undermining the foreign policies of their Government. The Pearl Harbour enquiry was made the occasion for holding an inquest on the whole policy of the Roosevelt administration, for showing that Mr. Roosevelt deliberately provoked Japan into war, and indeed for showing that American participation in the war was unnecessary. In China, the United States Ambassador resigned in order to show that the State Department is a hot bed of Communism. On the eve of the United Nations Assembly, the Republican members of the United States delegation declare their inability to accept the Anglo-Russian- American agreement on the atomic bomb, unless interpreted in a sense wholly in accordance with their own conception of American security.
It would be unwise to assume that there is any coherent foreign policy behind such manoeuvres. They are designed, not to achieve any particular objective in foreign affairs, but to discredit the Administration, and they are inspired chiefly by hopes of suc- cess in the Congressional elections impending this year. Their prin- cipal effect, if successful, would be to prevent the Administration not from carrying out its present policies but from carrying out any consistent foreign policy at all. Such a result, at the present moment, would be disastrous. The peace of the world, for some time to come, depends on maintaining a world balance of power in which the United States has a predominant part to play. Unless she can solve her internal conflicts, she must fall far short of the hopes of her own people and of the many others who look to her for friendship; assistance and leadership.
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