(Diana West) Some things never change, it’s true, especially in the affairs of nations. But if we forget, or never knew, or never understood the immutable nature of the fundamental debate over our character and destiny — of the fundamental threat to our character and destiny — we certainly are at risk of losing both.
By chance, I came across a remarkable editorial from the Chicago Tribune, back when probably it really was “the world’s greatest newspaper.” It is titled “Nationality and the Yellow Campaign” and I have posted it below.
I confess I have not looked up the “Yellow Campaign.” In the long-running war between globalism (socialism) and the nation-state, which President Trump re-introduced to us in his “America First” presidential campaign, the Yellow Campaign is clearly home to globalists (socialists). While the editorial is compatible with “America First,” it appeared long before 1940-1941, when the grass-roots movement of that name flourished. It was published on November 7, 1916. So much — everything — has changed since then. But the central, animating theme, also its warnings, are directly relevant to the life of our nation in 2019.
In 1916, this final year before communists began to seize political power for the first time in Russia, the Tribune describes the main foe of the nation-state as “internationalism.”
As in: “Internationalism seeks to make a nation a mere geographical expression. It is an anemic, bloodless, soulless conception of life decorated with idle phrases regarding humanity and justice.”
Today, we usually use the word “globalism.” Today, those “idle phrases regarding humanity and justice” have massive, coercive organizations masquerading in their name, aiding neither “humanity,” nor “justice,” but rather forcing the “internationalist” or “globalist” — read “socialist” — agendas against free citizens of sovereign nations. Indeed, as the 1916 editorial and, one hundred years later, President Trump have made clear, the one powerful foe of this “internationalism” is nationalism, as rooted in the vibrant, resilient nation-state. This explains the relentless attack on it, on us, now much longer than one century old.
Here is entire editorial below.
From The Chicago Tribune, November 7, 1916:
