AN AMERICAN PEACE MISSION? A pair of announcements from the Roosevelt administration are creating a stir on two continents this week-end. First, the President said at Friday’s press conference he’s sending Undersecretary of State Welles to Britain, France, Germany, and Italy to study and report on “present conditions in Europe.” And Secretary of State Hull said in a statement two hours later that the U.S. is engaging in “diplomatic conversations of an informal character” with neutral nations in Europe. The purpose, he says, is to work with the neutrals on building “a sound international economic system” after the war’s end and planning a “world-wide reduction of armaments.” Arthur Sears Henning of the Chicago Tribune describes the administration’s actions as “a peace offensive on a wide front.”
It does sound like a two-pronged peace mission, a last-chance attempt to reconcile the seemingly-irreconcilable interests of Germany and the Allies. As Felix Belair Jr. put it in Saturday’s New York Times, “Apparently the President felt the effort was worth making now, in view of the fears that heavy fighting will break out in the Spring.” And the Washington Post’s William V. Nessly cites official sources as saying the two moves are “closely intertwined with the President’s eager desire to further the coming of peace whenever such a condition is practicable.” But the Roosevelt announcement emphasized that Secretary Welles will discuss no proposals or communicate any kind of “peace plan” to the belligerents.
LONDON AND PARIS ARE WARY. A “peace plan” of another kind is what the Chamberlain and Daladier governments are concerned about, according to Ralph W. Barnes in Saturday’s New York Herald Tribune. “It is thought,” he writes, “that in the ‘peace talks’ with neutrals, or in the course of Welles’ visit to Berlin, a Nazi ‘peace plan’ might appear which would fall far short of British requirements, but might find widespread favor in neutral eyes.” Officially the British say that the Welles mission will receive a “very cordial welcome.” But Chamberlain government officials say Britain has stated her conditions for peace plainly, and those conditions aren’t going to change. Germany must give up Hitlerism, and renounce aggression. Nazi peace conditions are almost a mirror image of this, demanding that the Anglo-French “abandon their proclaimed intention of smashing the Reich.”
So what good is the Welles visit, then? London sees it a bit cynically, says Mr. Barnes -- “There is a tendency here to believe that American domestic politics in an election year played a considerable role in both of the developments in Washington today.”
THE TIMES AND THE POST APPROVE. It’s at least gotten President Roosevelt some favorable press notice. A New York Times editorial salutes the news of Secretaries Welles and Hull -- “Mr. Roosevelt undoubtedly knows how slight is the prospect of immediate peace, but this does not prevent him from thinking about the world that must emerge from the present tragedy. We are not participants in this war; we have no right to tell those who are bearing the strain and grief of the struggle what they must do to end it. But we and other neutral nations face identical problems....If the neutrals can face their common troubles with something like a common outlook, the next peace may be something more than an armed truce.”
And the Washington Post editors see only pluses -- “No false hopes must be built upon the mission which Mr. Welles is about to undertake. No discredit whatsoever will attach to him if it leads to nothing, for only information is sought. The beauty of the project is that while it may not succeed, it cannot fail. And it is wholly in line with the deeper obligations of our neutrality policy to ascertain what helpful action, if any, the United States can take at this stage of world disaster. The Welles mission is a positive assertion of the American will for peace.”
BUT THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE DOESN’T. There’ve been no editorials in the Chicago Tribune as yet on the President’s latest diplomatic moves. But one paragraph from the paper’s “news” coverage makes it clear the Tribune sees it as just another dastardly plot to get the U.S. into war --
“The President’s dispatch of Mr. Welles to the belligerent governments as a ‘peace envoy’ parallels President Woodrow Wilson’s commission of the late Col. Edward House to execute a similar mission during the world war. House failed to find a basis for peace between the allies and the central powers, but he negotiated the secret agreement of 1916 between Mr. Wilson and Sir. Edward Grey, the British foreign secretary, providing that the United States would enter the war if necessary to save the allies from defeat. Critics on Capital Hill immediately dubbed Welles Roosevelt’s ‘Col. House.’”
OUTGUNNED FINNS FIGHT HAND TO HAND. The latest Russian attack on Finland’s Mannerheim Line is turning into a hideous spectacle of slaughter. An Associated Press dispatch by Thomas F. Hawkins, published Saturday, says the Russians came at the Line in such numbers Friday night that its Finnish defenders temporarily ran out of bullets -- “their troops are resorting to bayonets and hand grenades.” Still, the Russians die, and the Finns’ defenses hold. And still, more Russians come.
Quoting Finnish sources, Mr. Hawkins reports that “Red army dead, running into the thousands, were sprawled in the snows in front of the line and that hundreds of wounded were left to die because of an apparent breakdown in the Russian transportation system in the rear.” They were happy to die such ghastly deaths, no doubt, in support of Joseph Stalin’s ice-cold determination to make Finland pay for daring to defend herself.
FRANCE WARNS THE RUSSIANS. A Friday Associated Press story says France has given Russia a “warning glimpse” of the French forces in the Near East, now put at 275,000. A French government source told the A.P. that the soldiers, commanded by General Weygand, are on hand to “prepare for all Russian or German threats in the Balkans or the Caucasus.” France got in a couple of more digs at the Soviets in the last few days -- they “turned down a Soviet protest against seizure of Russian documents in a Paris police raid” and helped transport a Polish expeditionary force to Finland to battle the Russians there.
U.S. AND BRITAIN FAVOR AID TO FINNS, BUT... A new Gallup survey published Friday in the Washington Post shows a vast number of Americans and Britons sympathize with Finland. Sizeable majorities want to aid the Finns in their right against Soviet Russia. That’s the good news. But then, an equally large majority in the U.S. opposes selling Finland war supplies, and the British oppose sending troops.
The results on American sympathies in the northern war are as lopsided as it gets -- 88% of U.S. citizens say they sympathize with Finland, and a grand total of 1% sympathize with the Russians. Americans feel we should lend money to the Finnish government by a margin of 58% to 42%, while the British overwhelmingly favor sending arms to the Finns, 74% to 18%. But Americans also oppose use of those loans for war supplies, 39% yes to 61% no. And British sympathies don’t go quite as far as sending troops, with only 33% favoring the idea and 50% opposed.
Unfortunately, it seems that the attitude of “let’s help the Finns, but not enough to make a real difference” might be widespread.
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