Sunday, September 15, 1940

CONGRESS APPROVES A PEACETIME DRAFT. Both the Senate and the House voted final passage Saturday of the Burke-Wadsworth bill, paving the way for 400,000 men between the ages of 21 and 35 to be conscripted this fall and winter in the nation’s defense. Another 400,000 will be drafted next spring, and around 800,000 each year following until 1944. Goal of the law is to give the country 4,000,000 trained men in the Army and reserve by 1945. The program will start with the registration of 16,500,000 men in the 21-to-35 group in about another month, on a day chosen by President Roosevelt. Happily, the Fish amendment voted by the House a week ago was dropped in conference, so the Army can get on with its critical work without delay.

I guess the isolationists just kind of gave up in the end. The final bill passed both houses of Congress by 2-to-1 margins. And after thundering for weeks about how a draft would mean the onset of totalitarian dictatorship in the U.S., the Chicago Tribune doesn’t even mention the upcoming final passage vote on the front page of its Saturday editions. It’s not that the last hours of congressional haggling on this issue didn’t produce news, either -- according to Harold B. Hinton in the New York Times, the Senate initially rejected the conference report 37 to 33, demanding tougher wording in the section on industrial conscription. As worded now, the section grants the federal government the authority to seize factories that do not cooperate with the defense program.

NAZI BOMBERS HIT BUCKINGHAM PALACE. Five times. And the House of Lords, too. The New York Herald Tribune reports that the King and Queen were forced to take shelter under the Palace to escape a midday raid on Friday. Correspondent Edward Angly writes that the Friday-early Saturday raid went on almost eight-and-a-half hours, although numerous reports say German bombers are having a tougher time now getting through the anti-aircraft fire. That’s good, but the Chicago Tribune headlined a bitter statistic yesterday – 1,200 dead in London during the past week, and 4,900 wounded. The only bright news about the raids, according to this morning’s radio reports, is that four Nazi raids early this morning were said to have been beaten off by the R.A.F and the anti-aircraft.

More worrisome are the reports of "barge and tank-boat concentrations" and "massed troops" around Calais, which the British bombed again last night. Will the Sept. 18 date mentioned by Ed Murrow on C.B.S. the other night turn out to actually be the invasion day? It’s at least possible that Hitler will trying something before the end of the month. Time is running out, if the Nazis want to have a chance at defeating Britain this year.

"HITLER HASN’T WON." In an editorial probably written before the latest round of mass air raids on London, the New Republic says it’s obvious now that "the German timetable has been badly upset" by Britain’s tough resistance --

"Apparently, the British aerial defense is so well organized that the Germans have been forced to modify their technique. Planes have been coming over in smaller groups and there is greater reliance on night bombing. German losses are thus reduced, but so is the damage to Britain. Undoubtedly great harm has been done to England, though it is apparently not much greater than the Royal Air Force has done in Germany and the occupied territory. Temporarily, time is on the side of the British; if they can hold out a few weeks longer, the weather will come to their aid, making bombing more difficult and invasion by sea almost impossible. Their manufacturing resources and their aid from America will steadily mount during the winter and they may be able to face the Germans in the spring on something like equal terms. That, of course, is assuming that the RAF can stand up under the heavier attacks it will soon be receiving. We do not know why Hitler did not attack with his full force immediately after France surrendered; but whatever the reason, it may prove to have cost him the war."

Again, that kind of optimistic speculation is awfully premature, and it’ll look pretty silly if German troops are fighting in southern England by this time next week. But it does raise an interesting question. If Britain holds on through the air offensive and Hitler doesn’t send in troops, at what point would we be confident that the Germans have decided to forego an invasion until next spring? It seems like if we arrived at that point, British morale would rise a hundredfold -- looking ahead to a renewed battle months from now, one fought on notably better terms for London.

FRANCE STANDS UP TO THE REICH? Astonishingly, Britain’s fierce resistance might be putting some backbone into a former ally. An Associated Press dispatch from Friday says that France has refused to accept Axis demands for more economic and military concessions --

"The Italians were said to have insisted on demobilization of all French troops in North Africa, estimated at about 200,000...Germany, these sources said, called on the Petain government to surrender 56 percent of the livestock in unoccupied France. The German plan was said to have been to send the livestock to Germany and slaughter it for meat. [But] the Petain government, faced with a food problem of its own in the unoccupied region and fearing that each concession would lead to still another demand, was understood to have rejected both the German and Italian demands."

The A.P. adds that negotiations might lead to the French giving more modest concessions -- or, alternately, the Nazis might force the Petain regime from power. In the meantime, a half-cheer to Vichy for turning away from its usual spirit of craven supplication, at least for the moment.