Verhovayak Lapja, 1940. július-december (23. évfolyam, 27-52. szám)
1940-08-29 / 35. szám
August 29, 1940 Verhovayak Lapja Page 5 BOOKS Unfinished Victory, by Arthur Bryant, (Macmillan & Co. Ltd. London. 8s 6d.) Mr. Arthur Bryant’s recent book, “Unfinished Victory,” is more eloquent testimony to the British freedom of the press, independence of mind and craving for justice, than any theory, declaration or law. During the past two decades, there have been many British writers, statesmen and diplomatists who have pointed out the errors of Versailles, the humiliation of the Germans, the Calvary of the Hungarians, the senseless inclusion of Central - European territories in the Balkans, etc. but it is an exceptional sign of national greatness that a British author is able, in the midst of a war between his country and Germany, to analyse and justify the origin of present-day German foreign policy without being branded as defeatist or traitor. No pro-British propaganda could ever achieve a greater effect in Central Europe than the publication of such a book. And nothing could do more to disarm anti-British propaganda abroad than similar endeavours to find the key-stone of the peace of our century, Justice. What would happen to a writer in one of the new post-war States if it occurred to him to describe the crucifixion of Austria and Hungary which inflated them...? The tragedy of our age is that propaganda banishes Justitia, regnorum fundamentum. Apart from these considerations, the book in itself is an exceptionally valuable description of the social, political, moral, and economic developments of the postwar times and will always be a most useful guide to all those who wish to have an impartial view about the frame of mind of the defeated countries between 1919 and 1939, which were really no peace-years but integral parts of a longer war-period which started in 1914 and will finish — who knows? Certainly earlier writers, if analysts, like Mr. Bryant, study both sides of the great problems which move nations in their actions and reactions. Bitter wars and war-weariness in armistice-months necessarily handicap the - efforts of earnest statesmen to bring about just peace terms of the Castlereagh-type: but if the result is a failure, like Versailles, the wounds should be examined and healed in order to avoid the infection of the whole European body, as happened in September 1939. The great moral value of Bryant’s book is that it demonstrates with unassailable logic the farreaching consequences of peace treaties and appeals thus to the minds of those who will be called upon to frame the next Treaty. “Unfinished Victory” embraces three problems: one, the peacemaking, 1919, in general; two, the German problem which led this nation to National Socialism; three the Danubian blunder. About the Peace of Versailles, Mr. Biyant does not hesitate to say that it was a flagrant breach of the lofty principles of President Wilson, i. e. that the defeated countries were deceived when they received terms repudiating the Fourteen Points agreed upon in the Armistice Treaty. A remarkable chapter in the book examines the positive impossibility in the Covenant of the League of Nations to proceed to peaceful change for the repair of the mistakes of Versailles. The bulk of the book is naturally devoted to the study of the German developments. Clearness, impartiality, depth of thought, ’humane understanding, vastness of documentation, characterise the presentation of the case. The Austro-Hungarian murder is abundantly studied and plastically expressed in these final lines: “A formless void in the center of Europe had remained to be filled up. The grave of the dead past had to be dug and thg earth stamped down.” No wonder that this part of the continent became the immediate origin of the new European war. Mr. Biyant sees with the eyes of an historian the tragedy of Hungary. He does not believe that the Treaty of Trianon is an end after Hungary’s brilliant history. Just the contrary. He writes this: “It is the recollection of the past that keeps ancient communities together and inspires the spirit of patriotism and public service in their sons ” A. de Páka—Pivny (Danubian Review) A Mother's Plea By Stephen J. Rotz Branch 430 ---------------------She came forward quickly, expectantly, for all her years, and in her eyes, swollen and red from recent weeping, rose a curious light of mounting hope. Tragic in her old-fashioned black silk, wide in the hips, Mrs. Andrew O’Brien stood just inside the door, waiting, waiting she knew not for what. You have a kind face, she thought, in her trusting and simple way. You will help me. You must, God willing. You ... But the gray head behind the desk, drooped as though from the ponderous weight of his office, lifted slowly and the governor smiled at her. A tired smile, perhaps, but an encouraging one. God! Give me courage! she prayed. “Mrs. O’Brien, I believe?” he asked, and she nodded. “Please take a seat, Mrs. O’Brien,” and he waved to a straight-backed chair facing the desk. When she sat down stiffly, her eyes probed his gray ones with a searching, hungry look—tiying to find an answer to her prayer. But his eyes were grave and steady, baffling in their intensity. She started. “You know why I came?” she asked, and the fear in her voice caused it to tremble. “It— it’s about Jerry. He—he’s my only son.” She leaned forward eagerly. “Yes, I know. I visited him this morning.” “Will he—I mean, about what it says in all the papers They say that he is a bad one; that'he deserves to die Is he—?” She lifted a crumpled handkerchief to the corners of her filling eyes. Then, as though ashamed of her brief show of motherly weakness, she smiled wanly. With visible effort she braced herself. “Can’t you do something for my boy?” she begged. A mist seemed to float between the desk and her chair, shutting out the face of the man before her. A tear glistened like silver as it rolled down her faded cheek, then another, and another. “You won’t let them put my son in jail. You won’t— you can’t send my boy to the chair. He didn’t do anything bad. He’s only a boy; only twenty-two years old Why, Jerry wouldn’t hurt anyone intentionally. I know he drove the car that night when the others killed that storekeeper; but Jerry didn’t know where they were going.” “I’m sorry, Mrs. O’Brien,’’ came the governor’s voicr through the mist. The air in her lungs seemed like fire, scorching them and she struggled for breath. She straightened up, calm and rigid now. “But he didn’t kill anyone. You know that. Still you—still you want him to go to the chair!” God, if You ever answered my prayers, please answer this one. Please, God. don’t refuse this—for my sake. I’m old now, and I need Jerry. Just for such a little while. Don’t take him away from me. He’s all I have, God. Is this the reason I worked so hard, washing and ironing, and scrubbing? Is this why I dreamed, believing that someday my dreams would come true? No, God, no. Please don’t let this end in such a terrible way. Please. “It’s the law, Mrs. O’Brien, the law. It says that anyone accompanying the killers and aiding them in any way is also considered a murderer. I’m sorry,” he repeated She rose slowly, as though there were a great weight upon her round shoulders. Her eyes became strangely bright, staring ahead fixedly. She placed her hands upon the desk—hands which were reddened and roughened by dish water, and from scrubbing, and the wind and rain, and they were wholly out of place on that polished desk. Her face was tired and full of pain when she spoke. “He—he’s such a good boy, Jerry is. All he made was one mistake in his young life, and you—you’re going to make him die for that one misstep. One mistake and he must die!” She swayed a little, then caught herself. Her eyes dimmed and she seemed to stare beyond the governor, back upon the past—the irrevocable past. “He was such a good boy; such a happy boy. And we used to sit together in the evening and make plans, and dream. He wanted to go to college to become a doctor. So that he could help people, he used to tell me. But that”—she sighed heavily—“That’s all over now. Over because the law says he must die.” Oh, God, can’t You see? They won’t kill one person, but two. Two lives they’ll take. Oh, God, don’t do such a teiTible thing to Jerry and me. You are good and kind and just, God. Please smile upon us in this great hour of need. Please forgive me, God, but what have we done to deserve this? You---------Homestead, Pa. don’t mean it to happen, do You? This is only a horrible dream, isn’t it? The governor waved his hand, but she parted her lips to speak again. “You can say the word that will bring my boy back to me. Why don’t you say it?' Oh, why don’t you say it? You’re the governor. You know that he didn’t kill. Say it, and make a heartbroken old woman happy for a little while. Make this all a bad dream. Please! But the man behind the desk rose with alarm, and the action calmed the sobbing mother somewhat. He opened his mouth to speak. “Don’t say it,” she cried. “Don’t say ‘I’m sorry, Mrs O’Brien’ again. I couldn’t stand it.” She sobbed with anguish, trying to smother her cries in her handkerchief. You’re not sorry, not really. For if you were you would help me. You are safe behind your desk, and you are smug, and satisfied because you represent justice. And you are proud because you took an innocent boy and branded him a killer. You don’t know how you are tearing a young boy’s hfeart —and mine. No, you don’t know. And if you did, you wouldn’t understand. Oh. God! Her figure, dejected and forlorn, turned, and she pushed open the office door and went out, not as she had entered, with a burning flame of hope in her heart, but as a pitiable mother, haunting sorrow twisting her face, and despair in her heart! Slowly, the door closed behind her.--------------O-------------THE FISH'S HEAVEN OH! never fly conceals a hook, Fish say, in the Eternal Brook, But more than mundane weeds are there, And mud, celestially fair-; Fat caterpillars drift around. And Paradisical grubs are, found; Unfading moths, immortal flies, And the worm that never dies. And in that Heaven of all their wish, There shall be no more land, say fish. —Rupert Brooke. --------------O-------------FRATERNALISM is more and more each year destroying the cause of pauperism and crime.
