AWAKENING DEMOCRACIES

'It is difficult to measure all the results of these great meetings and of the countless personal contacts,' writes Professor Theophil Spoerri, Professor of French and Italian Literature at Zurich University. 'There is no doubt that for many it was the turning point in their lives. It could be described as a change of climate. It was almost as if something new was penetrating between the chinks of the shutters. A business man, alone in his office, would feel a faint sense of unease if he was planning to cheat his fellow citizens. The public conscience became more sensitive. The Director of Finance in one canton reported that after the national day of thanksgiving and repentance, 6,000 tax payments were recorded, something which had never occurred before in the financial history of the Republic.'3

The aspect picked out for comment by the Swiss press was the effect of the campaign on the political situation. It was a period of tension between parties and racial population groups, with talk of secession. President Minger, together with other members of the Swiss Federal Council, twice received colleagues of Buchman. Der Bund headlined the report of one meeting 'the hour of frankness in Parliament',4 while La Suisse, half humorously, half in earnest, compared the Group's coming to the historic appearance of St Nicolas von Flüe at the Diet of Stans which averted civil war in Switzerland in the fifteenth century.5

Fifteen months later, in its review of 1937, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung wrote, 'There have been two ideas especially on people's minds. The first is ... strict constitutionality. The other we may perhaps call the wish to reach a common understanding. People have tried to reach out to others and to explore. "Oxfordism" has been introduced into politics. And there have been results. Things are happening. The tendency to division and fragmentation of 1933 and 1934 has given way to an opposite trend.'6

To meet the interest aroused among League of Nations delegates, its President, Prime Minister Eduard Benes of Czechoslovakia, invited Buchman and his colleagues to address a luncheon on 23 September 1935. 'Two Prime Ministers, thirty-two Ministers Plenipotentiary and many other representatives of the political wisdom of the world,' reported an observer in The Spectator, 'sat down with a band of volunteers who claim the wisdom that God supplies to those who listen for it.'7 According to Berlingske Aftenavis, this luncheon 'filled Ludendorff with rage', especially because it was given by the Czechoslovak Prime Minister.8

The League was facing a major crisis. America and the Soviet Union had never participated, and Germany had just walked out. Italy, which invaded Abyssinia thirteen days later, was preparing to follow. Britain and France were showing little intention of giving the League teeth. Many politicians were looking for hope elsewhere.

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