Innumerable books, pamphlets, and articles have been published trying to answer the question: What to do with Germany? The present remarks have a more modest aim. They attempt to consider the various possibilities which face a student of German politics in our time. Aristotle liked to practice a kind of discussion intended not to present solutions, but to point out the difficulties and the various aspects of a problem. I think a similar approach may be helpful for those who are bothered by the question: What after Hitler?

The mind of Franklin Roosevelt was young and spacious. There was a lot of room in it, room for imagination, room for the freshness of ideas and room for the future. He was not content to live by formulas or under the pressure of the routine and the antiquated. He was never deluded by the lies and phrases which try to conceal reality and deaden truth. He saw our dangers and our weaknesses and he pioneered to save us from them. For, among our various statesmen, he was a pioneer in the establishing of social and economic responsibility. He believed in the notion of community within our own nation and beyond in the entire world. From the moment of his taking office he revealed his own sense of responsibility towards the whole people, not to any single class or group. And he instructed—sometimes bitterly—the people of power and fortune so that they would recognize their obligations towards the less powerful and the less fortunate members of society. With grimness and reluctance this teaching was often received. Nevertheless it was instructive and it was inescapable. No man could fail to learn the great lesson—that he was not to be alone and self-concerned, that he was rather to be conscious of his responsible membership with other men in an American community.

So many books and articles have been written during the past several years about Argentina that there would seem to be little reason, at the present time, for adding another weight to the already over-burdened press. There is a phase, however, of Argentine development both of the past and of the present which has not received a great deal of consideration, and that is the relationship between Church and State in the republic of the South. Circumstances of the past help to explain conditions of the present. North Americans are inclined to judge of ecclesiastical conditions in Latin America according to a North American background. Such judgments cannot be correct because the background has been different. Perhaps then it will be an aid to clear thinking and just appraisal to try to throw a bit of light upon Argentina's ecclesiastical past that we may better understand Argentina's ecclesiastical present.

The American nation was born of the struggle between colonial legislatures elected by the people as their direct representatives and the executive power of the English king. It was to the colonial legislatures that the people of the Colonies looked for the defense of their liberties, and it was from their membership that most of the outstanding leaders of the American Revolution came. The Declaration of Independence was the work of the Continental Congress, an essentially legislative body, and until the formation of the Constitution the government of the American Republic consisted of that legislative body and of it alone. The deepest concern of the majority of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention, as well as of the people whom they represented, was that the Constitution might set up toe strong an executive. They feared that such an executive might, as executives had done so frequently in the past, rob the people of their liberties and take unto himself powers inconsistent with the ideals for which the Revolutionary War had been fought.

In The long history of economic highs and lows, of prosperity and depression, no single change seems to have played so great a political and ideological role as the Depression of 1929–1934. Our generation having lived through that period, cannot gauge its great significance, but future historians (casting a retrospective glance at these years) will probably dwell on the Depression as an astoundingly powerful factor in our psychology as well as on the great number of errors connected with it.

In 1798, three years after the third partition of Poland, George Washington wrote to a friend of Thaddeus Kosciuszko: “That your country is not as happy as her efforts were patriotic and noble, is a misfortune which all the lovers of sensible liberty and rights of men deeply deplore; and were my prayers during that hard struggle of any good, you would be now under your own vine and fig tree, to quote the Bible, as happy in the enjoyments of these desirable blessings as the people of these United States enjoy theirs.” These words of the first President of the United States are the best possible introduction to this article written in 1945, on Washington's birthday.

The full measurement of our late president must wait for the passage of time, but the continuation of his influence upon current politics must depend upon the immediate evaluations of his character and his greatness. Today's evaluation, despite the loyalty evoked by war time and the charitableness expected at death, must be colored by political feeling, personal prejudices, and previous attitudes towards his policies. Yet, all observers agree that he was the central figure of twelve momentous years of our history. In the fact of his death in wartime service he has been compared to Abraham Lincoln, and, like Lincoln, Franklin Delano Roosevelt assumed strong attributes of power to meet emergencies. But in his character, in his general policies, in his background, and, I think, sometimes in his own opinion of himself, Roosevelt can much better be compared with Thomas Jefferson.

Machiavelli was a man of the Italian Renaissance; yet Mazzini shows no trace of Machiavellian thought, and Mussolini's attempt to revive Machiavelli in his homeland failed lamentably and ignominiously. Italy lacked the power and the hardness of character which Machiavellianism presupposes. Piedmont was an imitation Prussia, but only an imitation Prussia. Machiavelli's ideas bore real fruit in nineteenth century Germany. The German inclination to force ideas in the “free realm of the mind” to their logical and absurd conclusions without regard for the limitations of reality and common sense, combined with Prussia's power and hardness of character to implant Machiavellianism firmly in Germany. While German statesmen like Frederick II and Bismarck were its ablest disciples, its noblest teacher and prophet was Heinrich von Treitschke.

At his death Franklin Roosevelt's domestic program had long been subordinated to the demands of war, and the toils of establishing a world peace settlement were still to be faced. The relief, recovery and reform measures of the New Deal had been put into effect before the end of the second Roosevelt Administration, several years before he formally abandoned Doctor New Deal. Thereafter, the President's attention was overwhelmingly devoted to preparations for the defense of America, to the maintenance of possible allies, and to the even more difficult task of winning popular and congressional support for these and further measures. In a speech at Chicago, during the campaign of 1944, Roosevelt returned to the theme of social security, but it is hard to believe that even he in all his enormous confidence and vitality could have expected to live through the labors of war and a peace settlement to fight the battles of another New Deal.

Distrust and suspicion cloud the views of many on future relations with Soviet Russia. The perfunctory general praise of the Red Army and its successes cannot counteract or even eliminate this distrust which may, in the long run, exercise an important influence in world affairs. There are even some who believe that a war with Russia is at least probable, and whose minds are consciously or unconsciously obsessed by the fear of the Russian threat. They argue: in 1939 England went to war in order to prevent German domination in Europe; we were driven into the war by our help to England and by Japan's plan to dominate Asia—but what will be the result? The rise of a power, the USSR, which will try to dominate Europe as well as Asia—and perhaps even other continents. Prime Minister Churchill is simply not believed when he claims that we can trust the Soviet leaders. The causes of this lack of confidence in Russia must be frankly stated; for only considering first the proofs for that pessimism which does not believe in the possibility of a lasting cooperation with Russia, can a solidly optimistic attitude be justified.

“Expansion is everything,” said Cecil Rhodes and fell into despair; for he saw every night overhead “vast worlds which we can never reach,” part of the universe to which he could not expand. He had discovered the moving principle of the new, the imperialist era; and yet, at the same moment, he recognized in a flash of wisdom its inherent insanity and contradiction of human conditions. Naturally, neither insight nor sadness prevented him from expanding. He had no use for his flash of wisdom that had led him far beyond his normal capacities which were those of an ambitious businessman with a marked tendency towards megalomania.

The Origins and the development of the national idea in Europe have been in recent years, particularly since the first World War, a favorite topic of culturo-historical studies. These studies have traced the gradual movement of European peoples toward national self-determination, and have described as normal the development from a vague feeling of warring tribal solidarity to a more conscious patriotism which customarily crystallizes around the prince, the king, in brief, the sovereign. According to these studies, during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries national culture was more and more emphasized; the claims of national language increased and finally reached a culmination in the Reformation.

Social justice is that form of justice which impels men to promote the common good; that is, the welfare of the community as such, as a unified entity, and also the common good as comprising the welfare of all members of society. This was the meaning attached to the term by Pope Pius XI. In Atheistic Communism he declared: “It is impossible to care for the social organism and the good of society as a unit unless each single part and each individual member… is supplied with all that is necessary for the exercise of his social functions.”

Transition to a war economy is, in its very essence, a shift of economic responsibilities from business to government. This shift covers almost all activities: initiative, planning, execution, coordination. Still the change in our capitalistic structure brought about by governmental leadership and numerous diversified controls should not be overstated. The new frontiers drawn between the private and the public sector do not alter the dualistic character of our economy. It is not “the opposite of free enterprise” since successful entrepreneurs are still allowed to reap the profit of their venture, restricted only by taxation and by some of its efficient supplements, particularly renegotiation of contracts and war bond drives. War profits, moreover, have been so substantial in almost all social groups that the stream of private capital-formation flows broader and deeper than it did in peace time, broader and deeper at any rate than in the public sector where the government has been burdened with an unprecedented federal debt. Broadly speaking, our economy is a hybrid with a collectivistic head and an individualistic heart.

At The present time, reason is not held in any too great esteem; “rationalism” is deprecated in most intellectual circles. “To believe in reason” is to be behind the times, to give evidence of a mode of thinking that is out of date, out of contact with what today is called “progress.”

The “belief in reason” is now replaced by all sorts of psychological and sociological sciences: the psychology of the unconscious, of the subconscious, of behavior, of suppressed desires and conditioned reflexes. The variety of sociologies is no less disconcerting—not should we forget the sociological psychologies and the psychological sociologies. Formerly man was considered to be an animal rationale, a rational being; now he has become simply a vital being, not further qualified. Since man lives in community with his fellows, it was formerly the practice to inquire into the structure and organization which society ought to have in order to correspond to the rational and human nature of its members. But today no such question is raised; it is taken for granted that man, as a social animal, must adjust himself to his environment or suffer the consequence to his well-being and his happiness. It is no longer a question of whether one may or one should adjust oneself to certain social conditions: it is now only a question of what is the most effective means or technique of adjustment.

In America, as elsewhere, Catholic effort to reform the modern economic order antedates by some years Rerum Novarum, Leo XIII's masterly encyclical on the condition of labor, issued in May, 1891. For a full generation Catholics in France and Germany had been organizing to ameliorate social conditions, and in all industrialized lands the more progressive members of the Church insisted that a sincere attempt to apply Christianity to the social order must be made without delay. The reformers, nevertheless, needed aid and encouragement from the Pope, preferably a reasoned analysis of the industrial situation showing the desirability and means of bettering labor's condition. Everywhere, the few Catholics who championed labor's cause in the Church's name met unyielding resistance from highly placed Catholics intent on protecting vested interests or sincere in thinking that social reform meant social convulsion. As for American Catholics, if their leaders, ecclesiastics for the most part, had not, in many instances or to a conspicuous degree, deferred to great wealth, as a group they had seen in the struggling labor movement little more than a revolutionary uprising, a projection on these shores of the Socialist and Anarchist movements of the Old World.

Not Many years ago most political scientists accepted the proposition that it is the spirit and tradition of a political system rather than its structure that informs and governs its operation. We may regard such a proposition as a truism; yet its acceptance came in the wake of what might be called the “second era” of democratic reform in the United States. That era had seen the destruction of the old system of making nominations and the rise of party regulation, the adoption of direct primary elections, and of other devices for direct government, such as the initiative, referendum and recall. It had seen, likewise, the enactment of corrupt practice acts, the growth of the merit system in the choice of civil service personnel, the turn to the popular election of United States senators, attempts at administrative reorganization and other devices for increasing the voter's control over his government.

History has again been playing one of its tricks that end in tragedy. This time the victim is the Emperor of Japan, Hirohito, unspeakably sacred to his loyal subjects. In our age any emperor would be a controversial character; Hirohito is doubly so. In fact we have been witnessing the beginning of controversy and argument concerning him. We may not see the end of it for a long time to come. The process is already well along. What it may become later we can only surmise. The stage is set, the plot unraveling, the finale may be tragic.

This question may be answered by “yes” or “no,” according to one's point of view. Mussolini's Fascism—that of the black shirts, of banners bearing the skull and bones emblem, of the so-called Roman salute, of parades, punitive expeditions with muskets, clubs and castor oil, of the East African Empire and the Albanian Kingdom—may be called dead, even buried. But the Fascism that ante-dates Mussolini, the Fascism of all times and all countries—that brand of Fascism never dies. It adapts itself, instead, to all climates and all temperatures; it dresses according to the fashion, disguises itself and hides. That brand of Fascism has not died because it is deathless.

Is There a philosophy behind what we call Nazism? Humanists addicted to progress will resent this question as a sacrilege against the dignity of the human spirit. H. J. Laski seems to speak from the heart of the majority of anti-Nazis by refusing to look at Nazism and Fascism as anything else than a spiritless system of oppression in the service of monopolistic capitalism.