ROOSEVELT’S DEAL -- DESTROYERS FOR BASES. The story was rumored for awhile, denied more than once, and now it turns out to be true. Wednesday’s papers headline the Administration’s dramatic announcement that America will send fifty old U.S. Navy destroyers to Britain in exchange for eight strategic air and sea bases on British possessions in the Western Hemisphere. The action will not be submitted to Congress for approval. The bases will establish what Frank Kluckhohn in Wednesday’s New York Times calls a "new American defense line" that will extend 4,000 miles from Newfoundland to British Guiana. Other bases will be set up on Bermuda, the Bahamas, Jamaica, St. Lucia, Trinidad and Antigua. Another interesting tidbit in the agreement, says the Times, is a British pledge to not surrender nor scuttle the British Fleet "under any conditions."
The reaction is largely predictable. The Times’ Raymond Daniell reports in a separate story from London that "it would be impossible to overstate the jubilation" in Britain, where it’s seen as long-awaited proof that the U.S. is really willing to give the anti-Hitler cause "all aid short of war." But according to Chesly Manly in the Chicago Tribune, the isolationists think the move is an act of war itself. He says the fact that President Roosevelt did this without consulting Congress "will result in a storm of condemnation on the floor of the senate and may lead to an investigation by the naval affairs committee." The President claims it’s the most important agreement for the defense of the nation since the Louisiana Purchase. That may be overstating it, but I think if followed-up promptly with construction of proper military equipment and deployment of troops -- neither one a sure thing -- the it will go a long way toward achieving what the Times describes as calls its intent -- "to make difficult, if not impossible, naval and air attacks upon the United States and much of the New World."
WILLKIE’S TAKE ON THE DEAL. Wendell Willkie’s position makes the most sense -- in favor of the agreement, opposed to the secrecy and undemocratic means used to bring it about. "The people have a right to know of such important commitments prior to and not after they are made," he says. As Mr. Willkie argues, the Administration’s short-cut approach isn’t just a matter of convenience, but a danger to democracy around the world -- "It is the contention of totalitarian rulers that democracy is not effective. We must prove that it is effective by making full use of its process. Congress has constitutional functions as important and sacred as those of the Chief Executive." And frustrating as it is to put up with to the prattle of congressional isolationists, it’s irresponsible to refuse them the right to debate such a vital question. After all, this is Senator Nye’s country just as much as it is Senator Pepper’s.
The transfer of the destroyers, a fine idea in itself, does raise some important questions. Legal scholars have written that a World War-era statute flat-out forbids the transfer, and the statutory language itself seems clear in that regard. Even if the statute could be quickly amended, might it be an "act of war" to give Britain the vessels? Arguably, no, but as Mr. Willkie says, "That is one of the things debate and discussion would have completely clarified." It all just gives more support to Republican arguments that the New Dealers are concerned much more with ends than with means. And it may be a short-sighted course as well. After all, the Administration’s position on the peacetime draft prevailed in the Senate by only two votes. What effect will congressional outrage have the next time the President needs support on a critical defense issue? Next time he might not be able to sail by with a glibly-worded "It’s O.K." from Attorney General Biddle. He might have to actually follow the democratic process. And he may have just done great harm to his chances of prevailing over House and Senate isolationists the next time.
WHAT THE PRESS SAYS. The New York Herald Tribune gave over an entire inside page of its Wednesday editions to excerpt editorial comments on the destroyer-for-bases-deal from around the country. Some highlights --
Philadelphia Inquirer -- "The fact that this, in the words of the President, ‘is the most important action in the reinforcement of our national defense that has been taken since the Louisiana Purchase,’ makes it all the more necessary its establishment on a firm, undoubted, legal foundation....If the President had submitted this unprecedented proposal to Congress in advance, for its approval or rejection, it would have gone a long way toward preventing some of the criticism heard yesterday in Washington."
St. Louis Post-Dispatch -- "Mr. Roosevelt today committed an act of war. He also became America’s first dictator. Secretly, his Secretary of State, Mr. Hull, entered into an agreement with the British ambassador that amounts to a military and naval alliance with Great Britain. This secretly negotiated agreement was consummated yesterday, Sept. 2. Today Congress is informed of the agreement. Note well the word ‘informed’...He hands down an edict that may eventually result in the shedding of the blood of millions of Americans; that may result in transforming the United States into a goose-stepping, regimented slave state....If Congress and the people do not rise in solemn wrath to stop Roosevelt now -- at this moment -- then the country deserves the stupendous tragedy that looms right around the corner."
Newark Star Ledger -- "There will be debate concerning the novel methods employed by the President in settling the destroyer problem. In any event, the President should at the appropriate time explain to the people why he did not consult with Congress a month ago or earlier when, it is clear, he had not yet been assured by the Attorney General of his right to act without Congress. The President has done a magnificent thing in a doubtful manner."
Des Moines Register -- "What we have got is two things that we want. First is a strengthening of the British fleet at its weakest point, destroyers, which at least somewhat increases the chance that the war can be kept on the far side of the Atlantic. Second is the strengthening of our own position in this hemisphere, a strengthening in the very fundamental of naval and air operation, which will do more in any emergency to make us invulnerable clear down to the middle of South America....no American is likely to kick because we got the best of the bargain."
Portland (Maine) Press-Herald -- "Even if the majority of the American people actually believe that we should give away, at a time when we are struggling for national preparedness, more than a fifth of our destroyer fleet, a bigger majority may be expected to hold that, if this action is to be taken, it should be taken by their representatives in Congress and not under the imperial ukase of a single man. Those fifty destroyers may prove in fact to be destroyers of American peace."
Cleveland Plain Dealer -- "The question of method aside, most Americans will agree that the President’s securing of these base sites constitutes a major step in national defense. At the same time the act of turning the over-age destroyers over to Britain is a recognition of the truth that she is now fighting for the safety of American democracy, as well as her own, as she turns back wave after wave of Nazi bombers darkening the English sky. Frankly, we would like it better if some degree of co-operation on the part of Congress had been sought in spite of what the Attorney General says."
Los Angeles Times -- "It appears at least a fair inference that the transfer was made contingent, among other things, on Britain’s pledge that we shall not be left without prospective naval help from England in case she is forced to abandon the home islands. If that is the proposition, it would pretty well make us an ally in fact of Britain. It could be inferred that, if Britain so urgently requires 50 over-age destroyers, her situation may be considerably worse than is publicly admitted. A third possibility is that this and other similar steps are calculated maneuvers to ease us into the status of active belligerency. There is no doubt of the real necessity of the air and naval bases. Whether we have paid too high a price for them, in thus being brought nearer to war, is a question that only time can answer."
HOPEFULLY A SAFE DISTANCE. From the New Republic’s Bandwagon section, quoting Sidney Skolsky’s column in the New York Post -- "Leland Hayward has purchased 26 acres near Albuquerque and intends to move his wife, Margaret Sullavan, and their child there. He fears a Japanese invasion in California."
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