Tuesday, July 16, 1940

MORE TOUGH TALK FROM CHURCHILL. The Prime Minister’s Sunday radio talk, according to Edward Angly in the New York Herald Tribune, "cheered the British people and their well-wishers" with a stern message that Hitler, for the first time, "faced a great nation whose will was equal to his own." The dig at France wasn’t meant to be subtle. Churchill noted that a number of countries trampled by Hitler "have been rotted from within before they were smitten from without. How else can you explain what has happened to France?" After giving that fitting Bastille Day greeting to Marshal Petain’s gang of ersatz fascists, the Prime Minister bravely reiterated the difference between what the French government refused to do and what the British are irrevocably pledged to do --

"Should the invader come to Britain there will be no placid lying down of the people in submission before him...We shall defend every village, every town and every city. The vast mass of London itself, fought street by street, could easily devour an entire hostile army, and we would rather see London laid in ruins and ashes than that it should be tamely and abjectly enslaved....We must show ourselves equally capable of meeting a sudden violent shock, or what is perhaps a harder test -- a prolonged vigil. But be the ordeal sharp or long -- or both -- we shall seek no terms, we shall tolerate no parley. We may show mercy; we shall ask none."

To raise so realistically the possibility of a destroyed London must pain the hearts and chill the bones of ordinary Britons. But what alternative is there? The Nazis give their opponents only two choices – submission or ruin. Britain is seeking to survive long enough to add a third choice -- destruction of the German war machine. And according to the Herald Tribune account, Mr. Churchill predicts "that by 1942 the British forces would be ready to turn from the defensive and begin an attack which one day would lift from the earth what he called the ‘dark curse of Hitler.’" This sounds like a measured, serious expression of cool confidence in the face of great odds. And whether or not this forecast actually pans out, it is indeed the talk of somebody whose will is equal to Hitler’s own.

WILL HE OR WON’T HE? (III). As the Democratic Convention in Chicago starts its second day, it appears clear that the party is either (1) splintering into pro- and anti-third term factions, or (2) preparing to draft President Roosevelt for a third term by near-acclamation. It depends, as it has in the last several days, on which papers you read. Robert Albright writes in Monday’s Washington Post about a "growing rift" in the "ominously quiet convention" which might bring four names to the fore on the first ballot Wednesday night -- Vice President Garner, Postmaster General Farley, Senator Wheeler, and the President. According to the Post, the New Dealers managing the draft-Roosevelt plan hoped "there would be no first ballot competition for Mr. Roosevelt from any other candidate." But Mr. Farley, chagrined over the aggressiveness of the draft-Roosevelt machinery, says now he’ll "definitely" be a candidate, and a Post story by John B. Oakes says that Senator Wheeler will carry his fight for a strongly isolationist peace plank to the floor of the convention.

On the other hand, according to Arthur Sears Henning in Monday’s Chicago Tribune, the Roosevelt faction has a "daring, spectacular plan" to nominate the President for a third term while dispensing with small technicalities -- such as actually placing Roosevelt’s name in nomination or making nominating speeches on his behalf. Mr. Henning explains, "The beauty of this plan, according to its authors, is that Mr. Roosevelt would not seem to be seeking renomination and his choice would have the appearance of a commanding call to the party’s leadership, the two term tradition to the contrary notwithstanding." And James A. Hagerty’s story in Monday’s New York Times appears to accept the President’s renomination as a sure thing. Mr. Hagerty says in his opening paragraph that the draft-Roosevelt backers have decided "to leave the Vice-Presidential nomination open for the present in the belief that after his renomination Mr. Roosevelt will be able to name his running mate with little opposition."

Incidentally, if you were listening to the convention’s first night on the radio, you might have noticed a curious thing. Not only did House Speaker Bankhead’s keynote address defending the last eight years of the New Deal not mention anything about the third term issue, it barely mentioned the President’s name at all. It was as if the New Deal had just sprung up out of the mud. Odd.

DEMOCRATS ON THE THIRD TERM. "We declare it to be the unwritten law of the Republic, established by custom and usage of 100 years and sanctioned by the examples of the greatest and wisest of those who founded and have maintained our Government, that no man should be eligible for a third term of the Presidential office" -- from the Democratic Platform of 1896. It was adopted at that year’s party convention, which nominated William Jennings Bryan. The convention was held in...Chicago.

WHAT PROGRESS ON PREPAREDNESS? In Sunday’s New York Times, Hanson W. Baldwin takes a detailed look at America’s "titanic effort to rearm" and finds that the plans haven’t yet caught up with the emergency money appropriated for them --

"Two months ago...the President stood before Congress, warned of the ‘necessity for the protection of the whole American hemisphere from control, invasion or domination,’ and asked for the appropriation of $1,182,000,000 for strengthening the national defense. That message was followed, as the German victories increased in scope, by another request for funds on May 31, and last Wednesday, citing ‘the grave danger to democratic institutions’, the President made his third and largest request to strengthen the Army and Navy....The potential defense bill of the nation has reached the staggering sum of $20,000,000,000 since Jan. 1, most of it made available or authorized since May 16....The urge for action was immediately translated into action...more ships, more planes, more guns, more men....[But] some military observers here find it difficult to escape the conclusion that we are attempting to prepare against anything and everything, and that the specific measures now being taken are not yet clearly implementing any one basic military, naval, or national policy. Hemisphere defense is still the ostensible goal, but the primary requirement of hemisphere defense -- to acquire bases outside the present continental and territorial possessions -- has received no Congressional attention....Many military observers here are inclined to feel that we had better abandon hemisphere defense for something more practical."