ROOSEVELT ENDORSES A MILITARY DRAFT. It looks like the conscription issue will get an airing in the presidential campaign after all -- sooner rather than later. President Roosevelt said at his Friday press conference that he considers a conscription bill "essential to an adequate national defense," unequivocally endorsing the idea for the first time. At the same time, according to Charles Hurd in Saturday’s New York Times, he said he won’t back any of the specific measures now before Congress or submit his own bill, "lest such action be interpreted as placing him in the role of Mr. Dictator." As if that would stop the isolationists from pinning this particular honorific on him.
Running right beside the Roosevelt endorsement in Saturday’s Times is a story by James C. Hagerty on Wendell Willkie’s cagey responses so far on the draft. On the one hand, he says he won’t get into a debate with "intermediaries," such as Senator Wheeler of Montana, who’ve called on Mr. Willkie to state his position. The candidate adds that "if the President wants to ask my views on any subject, I’ll be glad to answer him." On the other hand, he says he will "clearly and specifically" speak his mind on conscription when he formally accepts the Republican nomination in an Aug. 17 speech at his hometown of Elmwood, Indiana. I hope he does, and I hope he sides with the President. The immense job of making the U.S. defensible from invasion is too critical to put aside until the election is over.
And I hope Mr. Willkie disregards the temptation to capitalize on former Secretary of War Woodring’s denunciation of the draft. Wooding, who served Roosevelt for seven years in the job until he was shoved out on June 30, is described by the Washington Post as having "maintained that [a draft] is unnecessary at the present time." That’s putting his stand mildly. According to the Chicago Tribune’s story by Chesly Manly, Secretary Woodring said Friday he did not see any need for conscription unless "thru the influence of increasing tendency toward paternalism we have broken down the moral stamina and fiber of the American youth and made him a regimented automaton, rather than a free individual, and thereby broken down the voluntary instinct to serve in a patriotic way." It’s hard to imagine any politician endorsing the draft on the grounds that these particular criteria have been satisfied.
JAPAN WANTS TO RULE EAST ASIA. The talk from the Japanese Empire becomes steadily more ominous. Here’s Foreign Minister Matsuoka, quoted in Friday’s New York Herald Tribune -- "Some countries can be made friends, while others cannot. But henceforth the government will not make vain efforts to grasp the hands of countries who cannot be made friends. The government is through with toadying." There’s no doubt that Britain and the U.S. are at the top of the list of countries Mr. Matsuoka has in mind. And his government isn’t being bashful about its overall goals. According to the Herald Tribune, the Cabinet of Premier Prince Konoye has flatly announced "its decision to establish a totalitarian state for the construction of ‘a Greater East Asia.’" While the statement significantly omitted any mention of closer ties with the Berlin-Rome Axis, it pointedly mentioned French Indo-China and the Dutch East Indies as being part of the future Japanese bloc, along with the occupied areas of China and the vassal state of Manchukuo.
The Associated Press says this statement "followed by some hours an assertion by an admiralty spokesman that President Roosevelt’s ban on export of aviation gasoline was directed against Japan, Germany, and Italy." The A.P. also quotes Japan’s official news agency as reporting the Japanese ambassador to Britain will "certainly" protest Britain’s extension of her blockade to all of continental Europe, which is expected to "hurt Japan’s trade with Spain, Portugal, and other neutrals." Another A.P. story speculates that if Japanese-British tensions persist, Japan "might try first to oust the British from north China and then from Hongkong." Unless Britain has been largely subjugated by Hitler at that point, it’s hard to see how that could mean anything other than a general war.
And that would be a war the U.S. would have a hard time staying out of. I wish the press would ask former Secretary Woodring, or the isolationists in general, what America should do about being faced, on the Atlantic and the Pacific, by expansionist Fascist dictatorships that hate the United States and everything it stands for. Should we wait and see if the "volunteer spirit" brings enough men to the colors to save us from destruction? Or have a sufficiently large, trained army ready in advance to meet any threat?
NO INVASION TODAY. Both the New York Times and Time magazine have recently mentioned August 4 as a possible date for the German invasion of Britain. The thinking behind this is that today is the anniversary of the British declaration of war against Germany in the World War, and Hitler is said to be fond of "commemorating" anniversaries in such fashion. But judging from the radio news this morning, nothing much out of the ordinary has happened. There are impressive new British claims that R.A.F. bombers have left Hamburg’s port "practically in ruins" and done major damage to Bremen, Dusseldorf, and other cities in western Germany. And the Luftwaffe claims to have done "serious damage" along the Thames leading to London, and at the ports of Southampton, Hull, and Newcastle. But no invasion.
And contrary to the invasion-is-imminent reports that filled the papers in July, more stories are starting to appear indicating it might not be imminent at all. The Associated Press, for one, reports Friday that "German military observers insist that the ‘major attack’ on Britain is under way, indicating that increased pressure by sea and air is the present strategy -- rather than immediate land invasion."
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