Atlanta Daily World

Selassie Must Smile

THE FELLOW WHOSE prediction is allowed by fate to come true, is never very popular with those who either failed to have sufficient foresight or chose to ignore the trend of events. But it is an entirely human tendency to say, "I told you so" after your earlier guess becomes a reality. And very few of us fail to remind those who did not at first heed us, that history is bearing out our forecast.

There is a sad-eyed bearded little dark-hued man exiled in London, who though he has not yet taken the opportunity to do so, could truthfully tell prostrate Holland, Norway, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Albania, Finland, Denmark, these people, who under the crushing might of a ruthless dictator, have lost their freedom just as did his people.

JUST FOUR YEARS AGO

That man is Emperor Haile Selassie. The wiry little King of Kings, though, is too much of a statesman, too much of a gentleman to say, "I told you so." Perhaps he will forgive me for saying it for him.

For it was but four historically-brief years ago, that Selassie in an impassioned speech to the indolent members of the rapidly deteriorating League of Nations, shouted in the light of present world affairs these memorable words:

"In betraying Ethiopia you are betraying yourselves, and history will prove your folly."

Present at the meeting and turning deaf ears to Selassie's plea for aid were representatives of every one of the nations, who today find themselves in the same predicament as was brave little Ethiopia.

Emperor Selassie must silently smile to himself when he thinks back to those days and sees before him the catastrophe that has overcome those who back then could not foresee the need of halting the onward march of aggression in its infancy.

STILL REMEMBERED

It still lingers in the memory of many how not only England and France denied Ethiopia help during her hour of peril, but even refused to sell her badly-needed arms, leaving the hapless black empire to defend herself against the most modern of weapons, with chiefly spears and a few fifty-year old rifles.

And again Selassie with the fall of a white nation which supposedly possessed the world's best army after only a 30-day blitzkrieg, must feel a sense of pride in the fact that his subjects, whose hearts burn with the spirit of freedom, after four years of Italian "blitzkrieging" are still able to plague the enemy oppressor no little.

It is indeed ironical that the English four years after the Italian rape of Ethiopia deem it advisable to rush equipment to Selassie's willing warriors in the hope that their revolt will distract the Italians from bombing British soil.

Selassie might pose the question why this help should come so late, but doubtless won't. To answer would be very embarrassing to the government of a nation standing on a brink of the most devastating and total warfare in its thousand-year history.

WHAT A WASTE

But what a needless waste of human lives this whole business has resulted in. It could be soundly argued that had the nations who now find themselves stripped of independence "ganged" up on the gangster Mussolini in 1935, they would not have had the super-gangster Hitler to face in 1940.

Looking back on "what might have been" however seldom gets us anywhere. The important thing is that the United States learn from the grim and horrible fate that has overcome France and seems likely to do the same thing for England.

England and France should have learned from Ethiopia. We should learn from Ethiopia, France and perhaps England to get ready for any militaristic dictator who might cast a covetous eye this way. The very fact that we are ready would be the single thing that would deter him from coming.

And the most important part of this preparedness is national unity--real national unity, not only of political parties, but of Americans, regardless of color.

LOWER SENSELESS BARRIERS

It entails the lowering of senseless barriers preventing a group of loyal Americans, solely because of color, from serving in the armed forces of their country. Waste of our resources must be halted and especially this greatest of national extravagance,--waste of loyalty.

Nothing would forge America into unity quicker than a turn to the practice of democracy--not just giving lip service to the word. The French motto kept alive here, since this great nation has fallen into bad days. Its three-worded definition of democracy, "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity," is one that America might well use for a pattern in these crisis-filled days.