ITALY OPENS AN AFRICAN FRONT. The Associated Press reports Wednesday that Italy has started a push to seize Egypt and northeast Africa from the British. Italy’s north African army, some 250,000 strong, has crossed the Egyptian border at Cyrenaica, "routing a British force sent to meet them and capturing two British tanks." Earlier this week, the Italians also sent three columns into British Somaliland from bases in Ethiopia, and have seized a small chunk from the British colony of Kenya. The Italian war plan also envisions a strike from Ethiopia and Eritrea at Khartoum and other strategic points in Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. The A.P. estimates Italy’s total force in the African campaign of a half-million white and native soldiers, including 100,000 white troops in Ethiopia and "150,000 native askaris in Eritrea, Ethiopia, Italian Somaliland and Libya." The British defenders are smaller in number, says the A.P., but these troops comprise "some of the Empire’s best."
It may sound like a side-show compared to the still-looming Nazi invasion of Britain. But the A.P. story points out that an Italian victory would have dire repercussions for the British war effort -- "Egypt, ancient pawn of conquerors, is the keystone of the Italian plan. Possession of that cotton-rich land would give Italy a complete semi-circle of holdings stretching from Tripoli to the middle of Africa’s east coast, a stranglehold on the Suez Canal, and an open road to India and all that that vast sub-continent offers to a conquering army." Italian control of British Somaliland would also give the Fascists "control of both the northern and southern entrances to the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. Bab-el-Mandeb is an important gateway for ships seeking to go through the Suez Canal from the Orient."
HOT DEBATE IN THE SENATE. The Senate hasn’t even started formal debate yet on the Burke-Wadsworth conscription bill, and already the fur is flying. An excellent account by Hedley Donovan in Wednesday’s Washington Post describes how a discussion on President Roosevelt’s proposal to mobilize 360,000 National Guardsmen turned into an opening salvo of ugly exchanges on conscription between a vocal isolationist and an interventionist colleague --
"Rush Holt (Democrat), of West Virginia, opened the stormy Senate exchange with a charge that the Burke-Wadsworth bill was drafted by ‘dollar patriots’ in Wall Street banks and law offices, who are ready ‘to sacrifice American boys, abroad if necessary,’ to protect their investments. Leaping to his feet in angry rebuttal, Senator Minton (Democrat), of Indiana, shouted that he is ‘tired of lectures on patriotism from a slacker family.’ He charged that Holt’s father had urged West Virginians not to grow food during the World War ‘to send to me and my comrades in France’ and that Holt’s older brother ‘was sent to South America to hide away from the draft.’ Holt stirred noisy cheering in the galleries when he branded Minton’s accusations ‘malicious lies.’....‘Whenever the Administration wants to get filth and gutter mud thrown, they have no trouble getting the Senator from Indiana to do it,’ Holt cried. ‘And whenever Hitler wants it done, he gets the Senator from West Virginia,’ snapped Minton."
The Senate votes later today on the National Guard proposal, passage of which is virtually assured. Then, it’s on to the formal opening of the conscription debate tomorrow -- and probably more unfortunate scenes like the one described above. It looks like the terms "isolationist" and "interventionist" have become the "Yankee" and "Confederate" of our own time.
LINDBERGH’S SWEEPING GENERALIZATION. Wednesday’s Washington Post carries a nice reply by columnist Barnet Nover to one of Colonel Lindbergh’s central assertions in his anti-war speech last week-end – that it would make no meaningful difference whether Europe is "dominated" by Britain or by Germany. Mr. Nover smashes this easygoing equivalence with plain talk and straight fact --
"When Col. Lindbergh talks of a ‘Europe dominated by England and France’ in the same breath with a ‘Europe dominated by Germany,’ he is putting utterly dissimilar circumstances side by side as though they were the same. In pre-Hitler Europe England and France may, in Col. Lindbergh’s understanding, have been the dominant powers, although that is subject to very considerable qualifications. But the other nations of the Continent were not inhibited thereby from exercising their full measure of independence. Neither Great Britain nor France tried to dictate their economies, force their governmental systems into a special political mold, compel them to think as London and Paris desired. This is precisely what is happening in the Europe which Hitler dominates and will to an increasing degree be the case if final victory is his....Despite Col. Lindbergh’s assurances, it will not be so easy the United States to deal, politically or economically, with that Europe. For should Hitler become the unquestioned master of the Old World the United States would become the sole remaining democracy, the last hope of freedom, a permanent challenge, by its very existence, to the Nazi system, and, let it not be forgotten, the richest of all prizes if overwhelmed."
PROTEST OF F.B.I. WIRE-TAPPING. The isolationists say they want to bolster America’s defenses in response to the current crisis. But they’ve fanatically objected in recent weeks to virtually every move proposed toward that end, including the rapid build-up of U.S. armed forces via conscription, and of meaningful aid to help Britain resist Nazi aggression. And now, some isolationists want to deprive the F.B.I. of a useful tool to get the lowdown on Axis spies. The House of Representatives adopted by voice vote on Tuesday a resolution giving the F.B.I. authority to tap wires of suspected spies who wish to "interfere with the national defense." Sounds prudent -- after all, last week U.S. authorities seized eighty-one foreign agents in the Canal Zone who were there illegally and almost surely up to no good. But that didn’t stop the Chicago Tribune from railing in a front-page news story Wednesday about another example of "dictatorship legislation." The Tribune extensively quoted Representative Schafer, Republican of Wisconsin, who rose to object during the House session --
"I, for one, won’t run to cover under this wave of New Deal propaganda designed to set up a dictatorship under a third term administration. For 10 years I’ve sat here in this house listening to other gentlemen orate on the evils of wire tapping. I was against wire tapping then, and I’m against it now. Under this law the burocrats will have the right to tap every wire in the land. This is a constitutional democracy. The people still have their rights. The government investigators will now be empowered to violate the laws in not less than 25 of our states."
But, as the Tribune sheepishly admits (in the very last paragraph), the F.B.I.’s new authority is highly restricted. It’s limited to use in investigations regarding national defense, and only "in cases where the attorney general himself finds probable cause." Yes, I agree that government wire-tapping isn’t a great thing, should be permitted warily and conditionally, and ought to be restricted to matters of national defense. But it’s far preferable to Nazi sabotage of America’s preparedness program. Do isolationists actually believe that we should worry less about the latter than the former? As Representative Cutler of the Judiciary Committee said Tuesday, foreign spies have been up till now "guaranteed use of public utility wires without surveillance."
IS A TRANSFER OF DESTROYERS ILLEGAL? The Chicago Tribune does seem to have a point after all, when it claimed in a news story on Monday that transferring fifty aging U.S. destroyers to Britain would be forbidden by federal statute. I had discounted the Tribune’s assertion without looking into it, since their pro-isolationist reporting lately has gotten unbelievably overwrought. But Wednesday’s New York Times reports on an editorial in the new issue of the Law Journal. It says that Title 18, Section 33 of the U.S. Criminal Code prohibits such a transfer, which has been advocated by General Pershing and many others. According to the statute, which was passed in 1917 -- "During a war in which the United States is a neutral nation it shall be unlawful to send out of the jurisdiction of the United States any vessel built, armed, or equipped as a vessel of war."
The Law Journal editorial states, "It is difficult to perceive, therefore, how General Pershing’s suggestion, however sound and wise and prudent, for the transfer of fifty over-age destroyers to Great Britain, could be lawfully carried out unless Section 33 of Title 18 of the U.S.C.A. should be modified or repealed."
Well, then, it’s time to do just that. And quickly, too.
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