Cosmopolitan Outsiders by Katherine Sorrels

Author:Katherine Sorrels
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan US, New York

In spite of the initial enthusiasm with which his proposal was received, it soon became clear that support would not be as categorical as Fried had hoped. Even the paltry financial backing he won for the project came with lukewarm endorsement. The Hungarian pacifist and feminist Ilona Zipernowsky, who was also elected as a Hungarian delegate to the committee of the International Peace Bureau at the Brussels congress, provided what appears to be the only funding Fried succeeded in securing. 77 In September of 1910, Zipernowsky reported to Fried that she and her husband, Károly, were willing to provide some financial help, but were skeptical about his pan-European proposal and would prefer that he use the funds to support one of his pacifist publications. However, she continued, “if you think that something can be made of the Pan-European Bureau idea, that would be fine as well.” 78

Fried also faced concerns from fellow pacifists about the possibility that a pan-European initiative could be a source of economic conflict with the United States and, therefore, stand in the way of world organization. 79 The issue was one Fried had previously tried to lay to rest. 80 But, unfortunately, he had been inconsistent on this issue. He had a record of objecting to proposals for regional integration that he thought would constitute stumbling blocks for continental or global organization. He particularly objected to Friedrich Naumann’s Mitteleuropa idea. 81 But his objection to regional proposals like Naumann’s had less to do with their regional nature and more to do with their ideological underpinnings, like the “pronounced nationalist views” Fried criticized in Naumann’s work. 82 It did not help Fried’s argument for Pan-Europe that he chose to mask such ideological concerns with arguments about the deficits of regional integration, since this very criticism could legitimately be leveled at a number of his own projects.

Such inconsistencies aside, Fried’s response to his colleagues’ concerns about Pan-Europe inciting tensions between regional and global integration hinged on his conviction that they misunderstood his proposal. He thus reemphasized that he was not calling for the creation of an organization, something that would indeed hinder the project of world organization. Rather, he emphasized, the Pan-American Union upon which the Pan-European Bureau was modeled was simply “a kind of commercial, sanitary, and scientific information office, a headquarters for the study of common American affairs dedicated to preparing for later agreements, a headquarters for exchange and documentation, news, etc.” 83 While a political organization of European states would, he contended, hamper increased cooperation with the Americas, the kind of information office he had in mind could only promote world organization. Moreover, by providing examples of the benefits of international organization, the Pan-European Bureau would help Europeans overcome the psychological obstacles that stood in the way of integration. Citizens of Europe’s antagonistic states would be awakened by the aspiration for international organization, which would position them to lead the effort toward world organization. 84 Fried was making a fine but important distinction. He was

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