We shall have world government, whether or not we like it. The question is only whether world government will be achieved by consent or by conquest. (Jewish Banker Paul Warburg, February 17, 1950, testifying before the U.S. Senate).

STATEMENT OF JAMES P. WARBURG OF GREENWICH, CONN.

I am James P. Warburg, of Greenwich, Conn., and am appearing as an individual.

I am aware, Mr. Chairman, of the exigencies of your crowded schedule and of the need to be brief, so as not to transgress upon your courtesy in granting me a hearing.

The past 15 years of my life have been devoted almost exclusively to studying the problem of world peace and, especially, the relation of the United States to these problems. These studies led me, 10 years ago, to the conclusion that the great question of our time is not whether or not one world can be achieved, but whether or not one world can be achieved by peaceful means.

We shall have world government, whether or not we like it. The question is only whether world government will be achieved by consent or by conquest.

Today we are faced with a divided world—its two halves glowering at each other across the iron curtain. The world’s two superpowers—Russia and the United States—are entangled in the vicious circle of an arms race, which more and more preempts energies and resources sorely needed to lay the foundations of enduring peace. We are now on the road to eventual war—a war in which the conqueror will emerge well nigh indistinguishable from the vanquished.

The United States does not want this war, and most authorities agree that Russia does not want it. Indeed, why should Russia prefer the unpredictable hazards of war to a continuation of here present profitable fishing in the troubled waters of an uneasy armistice? Yet both the United States and Russia are drifting—and, with them, the entire world—toward the abyss of atomic conflict.

SUPPORT OF SENATE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION 56

Mr. Chairman, I am here to testify in favor of Senate Resolution 56, which, if concurrently enacted with the House, would make the peaceful transformation of the United Nations into a world federation the avowed aim of United States policy. The passage of this resolution seems to me the first prerequisite toward the development of an affirmative American policy which would lead us out of the valley of death and despair.

I am fully aware that the mere passage of this resolution will not solve the complex problems with which we are confronted. Our recognition of the inadequacy of the present United Nations structure, and our declared determination to strengthen that structure by Charter amendment, will not alone overcome the Russian obstacle. But it will, at long last, chart our own goal and enable us to steer a straight course toward a clearly seen objective. Moreover, it will unite us in purpose with the vast majority of the peoples of the non-Soviet world.

Until we have established this goal, we shall continue to befog and befuddle our own vision by clinging to the illusion that the present structure of the United Nations would work, if only the Russians would let it work. That has been our position to date.

Until we establish this goal, we shall continue to ask other peoples to unite with us only in the negative purpose of stopping Russia. Fear-inspired negative action makes poor cement for unity.

Once we shall have declared a positive purpose—once we shall have cemented the united will of the free peoples in a common aspiration— we shall be in a far stronger position to deal with the obstacles presented to the realization of that purpose.