SIX BRITISH PLANES REPEL EIGHTY NAZI RAIDERS. Lord Halifax soundly rejected Hitler's "last appeal to reason" in a radio speech last night, but perhaps a more fitting answer to the Fuehrer came over the English Channel this past week-end. According to the Associated Press account, six British Hurricane fighters attacked -- yes, attacked -- a fleet of eighty German warplanes Sunday afternoon and safely made it back home. The A.P. says the British planes shot down a Messerschmitt fighter and drilled holes in "many" of the others. More importantly, the British attack appears to have thwarted a bomber raid on a British merchant convoy sailing in the Channel.
James MacDonald writes in Monday's New York Times that the Luftwaffe has so far been unsuccessful in its attempt to close the Channel to shipping. What’s more, British planes on Monday bombarded "Nazi naval bases at Wilhelmshaven and Emden, oil refineries at Hamburg and...factories in the Ruhr and air bases in the Netherlands and Belgium."
The battle might not begin in earnest for a while, but stories like this offer hope that when it comes, the British military will give as good as they get.
IN MEMORIAM -- THE BALTIC STATES. Once again, some small, peaceful European countries are brutally seized by a big neighbor. This time, once again, the perpetrator is Russia, and the victims are Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. This round of aggression came in stages. The first came last month with one-party elections of new parliaments in all three countries, in which voters were ordered to "elect" candidates loyal to Stalin. According to Donald Day in the Chicago Tribune, the puppet parliaments met Sunday "in halls plastered with portraits of Stalin and draped with red flags. They followed identical procedure...At 3 p.m. they gave great shouts in favor of the petitions for union with Russia." And so, 5,500,000 more people have passed into totalitarian dictatorship.
And, according to the Associated Press, the Rumanians have been given a Russian diplomatic note urging King Carol to form a "popular," i.e., pro-communist, government. So another conquest may be in the offing, unless Hitler finds it expedient to stick up for his "rights" to dictate to Rumania.
BRITAIN IS THE WORLD’S "STABILIZING FORCE." New York Herald Tribune columnist Dorothy Thompson offered a very nice tribute to the British Empire Sunday night in a radio talk from Montreal --
"This remarkable and artistic thing, the British Empire; part empire and part commonwealth, is the only world-wide organization in existence, the world equalizer and equilibrium, the only world-wide stabilizing force for law and order on the planet....If you bring it down, the planet will rock with an earthquake such as it has never known. We in the United States will shake with that earthquake, and so will Germany....Around you, Winston Churchill, is a gallant company of ghosts. Elizabeth is there, and sweetest Shakespeare. Drake is there, and Raleigh, and Wellington. Burke is there, and Walpole, and Pitt. Byron is there, and Wordsworth and Shelley. Yes, and I think Washington is there, and Hamilton, two men of English blood who gallant Englishmen defended in your Parliament. And Jefferson is there, who died again the other day in France. All the makers of a world of freedom and of law are there."
It was the first program in a new C.B.S. series. A partial transcription was included inside Monday's Herald Tribune.
THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE ON HITLER’S "PEACE SPEECH". The Chicago Tribune gets things only partly right in an editorial on Hitler's peace speech --
"A compilation of the Fuehrer’s broken promises and of his downright unconditional pledges coolly repudiated would require a yard of type. Maybe he also first deceives himself. The common sense to which he appeals must take a common sense view of the man who speaks. That is tragic, because if a trustworthy German chancellor spoke as Hitler speaks the world might muster a bit of hope that the common-sense peace could be arrived at by negotiations between responsible men....The only thing which can change the condition of continental Europe is a complete British victory, with the overthrow of Hitler and the scattering of the Nazis. If the British could win that victory they then would say how Europe is to be organized and who is to rule it. To escape such consequences Hitler must conquer Great Britain. He expects to do that in short order. Mr. Churchill speaks of a war of several years. A peace which avoided either the finality of Nazi destruction, or of the elimination of British influence in world affairs might leave the empire untouched, but its days in continental Europe would be over until there was another readjustment in another age."
Yet this is plainly the kind of peace that the isolationists are still pining for. After all, in their eyes a British victory would only give London the power to decide "how Europe is to be organized," and therefore would be no better than a Nazi triumph. The isolationist illogic here is magnificent -- while alluding to Hitler’s terrible crimes, the Tribune wishes that a less unethical Nazi front-man ruled the roost so that a compromise peace could be brokered that rewards German murder and aggression. Of course, if a "trustworthy German chancellor" were in charge, the Reich wouldn’t have been busy over the past two years destroying the independence of seven different countries, and threatening to annihilate an eighth -- and therefore peace proposals wouldn’t be needed in the first place.
NO THIRD-TERM "THREAT". Sunday's New York Times carries a fine essay by Henry Steele Commager, professor of history at Columbia University, on the third-term issue. Contrary to Mark Sullivan's worried column in the Washington Post the other day, Professor Commager believes our democracy is in no great danger, regardless of how this election turns out --
"Whether the third-term tradition can survive the dual threat of the world emergency and the immense popularity of President Roosevelt remains to be seen. Undoubtedly during the next four months the country will resound with cries of dictatorship and huzzas of democracy. Let us reassure ourselves on one point. No matter what the outcome of the campaign, the nation will survive. The retention of the third-term tradition will not destroy democracy; it will merely indicate what is the will of the people and register that will. Nor will breaking of the third-term tradition destroy the American Constitution or demoralize American character. It will merely give an opportunity to the present President to carry through his program."
Saturday, July 23, 2016
Thursday, July 21, 2016
Sunday, July 21, 1940
"I SEE NO REASON WHY THIS WAR MUST GO ON." Hitler’s peace speech to the Reichstag on Friday came out of the blue, with only vague hints coming in the last week that a new Nazi peace offensive might be coming. But this appears to be less an "offensive" than a quick blitz -- the Fuehrer called this new bid a "last" appeal to reason. Lots of hoodoo about lots of things, like the alleged British bombing of "hospitals, schools, and kindergartens" in western Germany, and of Herr Hitler’s oh-so-pious "grief" over the husbands and sons on both sides who will lose their lives in the coming Nazi annihilation of Britain. Sigrid Schultz’s account in the Chicago Tribune plays up a quotation that well sums up the tone of Hitler's remarks --
"In this hour I feel compelled for the sake of my conscience to address one more appeal to the common sense of England. I believe I can do this because I am not asking for something as a vanquished man, but I am speaking as a victor for common sense. I see no reason why this war must go on."
Guido Enderis points out in the New York Times that the speech contained no specific ultimatums and was bereft of practical proposals for ending the war. But he writes that Hitler "left no doubt that the conditions under which he would consider a peace step from Britain presupposed some other spokesman than Mr. Churchill." The Fuehrer did warn that he would bring about the "destruction of a great empire," meaning Britain, if his words were not heeded.
BRITAIN REPLIES – NO! (I) Berlin’s Kroll Opera House had hardly emptied of the beefy Reichstag deputies when a reply came in a B.B.C. broadcast. And it was unambiguously, emphatically, no. William Shirer said in his C.B.S. talk last night that within minutes of leaving the building he heard the British radio denouncing Hitler’s honeyed words. However, he added, the Nazi press and radio wasted little time circulating the Britain’s first, unofficial negative replies, and letting Germans know their enemy was determined to struggle on to the bitter end.
BRITAIN REPLIES - NO! (II) Hitler is such a masterful orator that, listening to the speech on radio, you start feeling a twinge of fear that people in Britain (and the U.S.) will actually fall for it. But Saturday’s British papers, as quoted in the New York Times, weren’t hoodwinked one bit. Some examples --
Daily Telegraph -- "Not a shred of one constructive or conciliatory proposal emerges between the first word and the last. We are, in effect, to stand or deliver, or our blood be on our own heads....But we are not going to be intimidated by any raucous rodomontades from Berlin."
Times of London -- "Presumably any terms [Hitler] now proposed would be based on acquiescence and cooperation with the so-called ‘new order’ in Europe -- an order that is now exposed in practice, having been long ago defined in theory, as the reduction of most of Europe to serfdom in the interest of the hegemony of the self-chosen German race. That is the supreme violation of the dearest political principles held by the English-speaking peoples."
Manchester Guardian -- "It would be fatal for the United States and the rest of the unconquered world if the spirit of appeasement and compromise were now to be allowed to raise its head. President Roosevelt’s courage in braving all prejudices of constitutional custom, and the equally sincere misgivings of many of his countrymen, is the best guarantee that in critical months ahead the greatest democracy will not falter in action."
Daily Herald -- "Between this man, eaten by lust for world domination, and the people who stand between him and his ambition there can be no peace. When he talks of peace he lies and prepares for war. The history of seven years is the reprover of it....We do not deceive ourselves. The struggle will be long, grim, and costly. We will go on until it is won."
DEMOCRATS RUMBLE WITH DISCONTENT. I would have thought that after the high drama and exultation of President Roosevelt’s not-so-spontaneous nomination for a third term, the Democrats would have left Chicago this week-end happy and confident. But not so -- an anti-third term movement is growing among Democrats, and it’s not just the heartily biased Chicago Tribune that’s saying so. Bruce Pinter reports in Saturday’s New York Herald Tribune that Senator Burke of Nebraska has bolted to Willkie, and he predicts "the formation of a national organization of Democrats to defeat the President." The movement has also attracted a former party chairman, Vance McCormick, and last year’s national commander of the American Legion, Stephen Chadwick. Meanwhile, an article in Friday’s Chicago Tribune by Chesley Manly lists no fewer than seven other Democratic senators who might refuse to back the third term. They’re all said to be as repulsed about the Administration’s string-pulling at Chicago as Republican Senator Vandenberg, who denounced the Chicago gathering as a "totalitarian convention."
It wasn’t quite that, judging from the rebellion that greeted the choice of Agriculture Secretary Wallace as the President’s running mate. Despite being Roosevelt’s hand-picked man, Wallace received only 624 delegate votes, not that much more than a simply majority (the President received just over 946 votes for his nomination). Arthur Sears Henning reports in Friday’s Chicago Tribune the astonishing story that Secretary Wallace sat through "storms of booing" during the nominating process, intent on giving an acceptance speech at the close of it. But one of F.D.R.’s men at the convention, Senator Byrnes of South Carolina, warned Wallace that "you’ll ruin the party if you do," by provoking a new round of boos and catcalls. Mr. Henning claims that this embarrassment "must have done Democratic prospects incalculable injury," though that sounds like anti-New Deal hyperbole.
BUT F.D.R. BROUGHT THEM TOGETHER. Administration men retort that the President’s acceptance speech Thursday night, broadcast to the convention from the White House, helped unify the party more than anything that could divide it. It was a great Roosevelt address, in which he portrayed a presidential draft as a "call to service" ("My conscience will not let me turn my back...If such a draft should be made upon me, I say, with the utmost simplicity, I will, with God’s help, continue to serve with the best of my ability and with the fullness of my strength."). In any event, the first Gallup survey of Roosevelt vs. Willkie two weeks ago put the President ahead, 53% to 47%. It’ll be interesting, to say the least, how the polls will be shaken by this topsy-turvy convention week.
DEMOCRATS IGNORE AN "ANCIENT SAFEGUARD." Mark Sullivan suggests in his Washington Post column Friday that the Chicago Democrats engaged in a form of mass hallucination, and dangerously so, in seeking to violate the third-term tradition --
"They were saying, ‘It is not true we must keep a limit upon the power of men we set over us – that is just an old wives’ tale.’ It was like men denying a primitive truth. It was like men saying ‘Fire does not burn,’ or ‘water does not drown.’ They were saying it very loudly, and in unison, so as to convince themselves. Each knew that if he said it alone, to himself, he would know it was not true. But they hoped that by saying it all together, they would believe it. Yet even as they said it, and tried to believe it, in their hearts they were a little afraid. They looked around at each other, and nudged up to each other and leaned against each other. They hoped that what was wrong for one to do might become right if done by all. There was being taken down, before their eyes, and by their consent and participation, an ancient safeguard, which had been built by their ancestors 150 years before. They saw it falling. But they said to themselves, ‘Oh, we do not need to guard the dike -- there is no danger -- the sea does not destroy."
"In this hour I feel compelled for the sake of my conscience to address one more appeal to the common sense of England. I believe I can do this because I am not asking for something as a vanquished man, but I am speaking as a victor for common sense. I see no reason why this war must go on."
Guido Enderis points out in the New York Times that the speech contained no specific ultimatums and was bereft of practical proposals for ending the war. But he writes that Hitler "left no doubt that the conditions under which he would consider a peace step from Britain presupposed some other spokesman than Mr. Churchill." The Fuehrer did warn that he would bring about the "destruction of a great empire," meaning Britain, if his words were not heeded.
BRITAIN REPLIES – NO! (I) Berlin’s Kroll Opera House had hardly emptied of the beefy Reichstag deputies when a reply came in a B.B.C. broadcast. And it was unambiguously, emphatically, no. William Shirer said in his C.B.S. talk last night that within minutes of leaving the building he heard the British radio denouncing Hitler’s honeyed words. However, he added, the Nazi press and radio wasted little time circulating the Britain’s first, unofficial negative replies, and letting Germans know their enemy was determined to struggle on to the bitter end.
BRITAIN REPLIES - NO! (II) Hitler is such a masterful orator that, listening to the speech on radio, you start feeling a twinge of fear that people in Britain (and the U.S.) will actually fall for it. But Saturday’s British papers, as quoted in the New York Times, weren’t hoodwinked one bit. Some examples --
Daily Telegraph -- "Not a shred of one constructive or conciliatory proposal emerges between the first word and the last. We are, in effect, to stand or deliver, or our blood be on our own heads....But we are not going to be intimidated by any raucous rodomontades from Berlin."
Times of London -- "Presumably any terms [Hitler] now proposed would be based on acquiescence and cooperation with the so-called ‘new order’ in Europe -- an order that is now exposed in practice, having been long ago defined in theory, as the reduction of most of Europe to serfdom in the interest of the hegemony of the self-chosen German race. That is the supreme violation of the dearest political principles held by the English-speaking peoples."
Manchester Guardian -- "It would be fatal for the United States and the rest of the unconquered world if the spirit of appeasement and compromise were now to be allowed to raise its head. President Roosevelt’s courage in braving all prejudices of constitutional custom, and the equally sincere misgivings of many of his countrymen, is the best guarantee that in critical months ahead the greatest democracy will not falter in action."
Daily Herald -- "Between this man, eaten by lust for world domination, and the people who stand between him and his ambition there can be no peace. When he talks of peace he lies and prepares for war. The history of seven years is the reprover of it....We do not deceive ourselves. The struggle will be long, grim, and costly. We will go on until it is won."
DEMOCRATS RUMBLE WITH DISCONTENT. I would have thought that after the high drama and exultation of President Roosevelt’s not-so-spontaneous nomination for a third term, the Democrats would have left Chicago this week-end happy and confident. But not so -- an anti-third term movement is growing among Democrats, and it’s not just the heartily biased Chicago Tribune that’s saying so. Bruce Pinter reports in Saturday’s New York Herald Tribune that Senator Burke of Nebraska has bolted to Willkie, and he predicts "the formation of a national organization of Democrats to defeat the President." The movement has also attracted a former party chairman, Vance McCormick, and last year’s national commander of the American Legion, Stephen Chadwick. Meanwhile, an article in Friday’s Chicago Tribune by Chesley Manly lists no fewer than seven other Democratic senators who might refuse to back the third term. They’re all said to be as repulsed about the Administration’s string-pulling at Chicago as Republican Senator Vandenberg, who denounced the Chicago gathering as a "totalitarian convention."
It wasn’t quite that, judging from the rebellion that greeted the choice of Agriculture Secretary Wallace as the President’s running mate. Despite being Roosevelt’s hand-picked man, Wallace received only 624 delegate votes, not that much more than a simply majority (the President received just over 946 votes for his nomination). Arthur Sears Henning reports in Friday’s Chicago Tribune the astonishing story that Secretary Wallace sat through "storms of booing" during the nominating process, intent on giving an acceptance speech at the close of it. But one of F.D.R.’s men at the convention, Senator Byrnes of South Carolina, warned Wallace that "you’ll ruin the party if you do," by provoking a new round of boos and catcalls. Mr. Henning claims that this embarrassment "must have done Democratic prospects incalculable injury," though that sounds like anti-New Deal hyperbole.
BUT F.D.R. BROUGHT THEM TOGETHER. Administration men retort that the President’s acceptance speech Thursday night, broadcast to the convention from the White House, helped unify the party more than anything that could divide it. It was a great Roosevelt address, in which he portrayed a presidential draft as a "call to service" ("My conscience will not let me turn my back...If such a draft should be made upon me, I say, with the utmost simplicity, I will, with God’s help, continue to serve with the best of my ability and with the fullness of my strength."). In any event, the first Gallup survey of Roosevelt vs. Willkie two weeks ago put the President ahead, 53% to 47%. It’ll be interesting, to say the least, how the polls will be shaken by this topsy-turvy convention week.
DEMOCRATS IGNORE AN "ANCIENT SAFEGUARD." Mark Sullivan suggests in his Washington Post column Friday that the Chicago Democrats engaged in a form of mass hallucination, and dangerously so, in seeking to violate the third-term tradition --
"They were saying, ‘It is not true we must keep a limit upon the power of men we set over us – that is just an old wives’ tale.’ It was like men denying a primitive truth. It was like men saying ‘Fire does not burn,’ or ‘water does not drown.’ They were saying it very loudly, and in unison, so as to convince themselves. Each knew that if he said it alone, to himself, he would know it was not true. But they hoped that by saying it all together, they would believe it. Yet even as they said it, and tried to believe it, in their hearts they were a little afraid. They looked around at each other, and nudged up to each other and leaned against each other. They hoped that what was wrong for one to do might become right if done by all. There was being taken down, before their eyes, and by their consent and participation, an ancient safeguard, which had been built by their ancestors 150 years before. They saw it falling. But they said to themselves, ‘Oh, we do not need to guard the dike -- there is no danger -- the sea does not destroy."
Monday, July 18, 2016
Thursday, July 18, 1940
IT’S ROOSEVELT ON THE FIRST BALLOT. Whew. Well, that was decidedly not suspenseful. For anyone who wasn’t listening-in, or hasn’t seen the early editions of the morning papers, President Roosevelt was renominated for a historic third term by the Democrats Wednesday night with slightly over 946 delegate votes. (He also received thirteen-thirtieths of one vote, through a procedure I’m not familiar with). The only delegations not casting votes for F.D.R. were Vice President Garner’s home state of Texas, and two territories, the Canal Zone and Alaska. Roosevelt’s nearest challenger, Postmaster General Farley, received 72 votes, plus seventeen-thirtieths of one vote. One of the biggest cheers of the night came just after the voting, when Mr. Farley, who also serves as chairman of the Democratic National Committee, moved to declare Roosevelt the candidate by acclamation.
THE PRESIDENT’S CLEVER DECLARATION. Roosevelt’s renomination looked like a sure thing after Senator Barkley’s surprise announcement to the convention Tuesday night of "a message I bear to you from the President of the United States by authority of his word." What followed made it sound as if President Roosevelt was modestly demurring any further political ambitions --
"The President has never had and has not today a desire or purpose to continue as President, to be a candidate for that office, or to be nominated by the convention for that office. He wishes in all earnestness and sincerity to make it clear that all of the delegates to this convention are free to vote for any candidate."
Confusing? Bert Andrews of the New York Herald Tribune thought so, writing in Wednesday’s editions that delegates "didn’t know what he meant or what they were expected to do about it." But according to Edward T; Folliard in Wednesday’s Washington Post, they figured it out pretty fast -- "He didn’t say no....and now the Democratic Party is convinced that since he didn’t say no, he must have meant yes." And it was, in fact, a sly move that caught the anti-third-termers flatfooted, and set off a tumultuous demonstration among the rowdily pro-Roosevelt delegates, as recorded by Robert C. Albright in the Post -- "A pause...and then the shouting and marching began. The ‘We Want Roosevelt’ chant mounted. Then came the loud cries into the hall’s loud speaker -- ‘The country wants Roosevelt!’ -- ‘New Jersey wants Roosevelt’ -- ‘The world wants Roosevelt’ -- Illinois, New York, California, etc., wants Roosevelt." In short, as James A. Hagerty of the New York Times wrote, the President’s was taken as an "implicit promise" that he would accept a draft. And so, apparently, it has turned out to be.
THE DEMOCRATS’ PEACE PLANK. The most disturbing news to come out of the convention is the strongly pro-isolationist peace plank in the party platform, which is so extreme that it repudiates some of the Administration’s own policies. As summarized by Jack Beall in the New York Herald Tribune, the plant "bespeaks sympathy for the democracies of Europe, [but] it recommends only private aid ‘within the laws’ of this country -- that is to say, within the terms of the Neutrality Act and the Johnson Act. By that use of the term it declares against government aid of the type recently given by the Administration, such as sending to Europe planes and other implements of war which had once been a part of the American defense system." Like the Republican platform, the Democratic resolution is too bashful to declare support for Britain by name, but its pledge to support "peace-loving and liberty-loving peoples" is even squishier than the G.O.P.’s words on the subject. You keep hearing that both Mr. Willkie and the President see eye-to-eye on the need for vigorously aid Britain’s struggle against Hitlerism. So why have they both so far given their opponents such a large say in their parties’ declarations of principle?
I suppose it’s in large part because, as Dr. Gallup pointed out in last Sunday’s Washington Post, so many voters ignore what goes into a platform. According to Gallup’s latest survey, only 27% of those polled believe that "many voters pay attention to political platforms today," and only 31% of Republican voters have bothered to read what their party’s resolution says. Thus, it’s a cheap concession to give the isolationists.
But at some point both candidates need to make strong declarations letting the British know in this critical hour that we’re four-squarely on their side, by name. Governor Lehman of New York has urged the President to support "a declaration to give Great Britain and other countries fighting the dictatorships all material help possible within the law." Both the President and Mr. Willkie should do so.
AN INVASION OF BRITAIN TOMORROW? The Associated Press picks up Wednesday a report from a French newspaper claiming that "zero hour" for a German invasion of Britain will come on Friday night, "if weather permits." The report claims 600,000 Nazi troops are now ready for an assault on the British Isles. The Chicago Tribune offers an insert to the story negating it as "German inspired propaganda," but the B.B.C. has also mentioned the Friday-night prediction, citing the official Rome radio.
Meanwhile, the A.P. says in another report that "Adolph Hitler’s decision for a mass onslaught on Great Britain might come any time now," but that there are "indications it would be prefaced by a ‘last chance’ peace offer." Larry Rue writes in the Tribune Wednesday of "predictions in diplomatic sources of a powerful German and Italian ‘peace offensive’ as a prelude to a mass attack on the British Isles." Mr. Rue also cites a report from the Daily Telegraph’s diplomatic correspondent that "the German attack on Britain can be expected within six weeks."
THE JAPANESE CABINET FALLS. Wilfried Fleisher writes in Wednesday’s New York Herald Tribune that the Japanese Army has forced out the cabinet of Premier Yonai, paving the way for the establishment of "a completely totalitarian state" in Japan along Fascist lines. That would probably kayoe at the outset tentative British moves, made public earlier this week, to mediate a settlement in the Sino-Japanese war. And the British offer to Japan to partially close the Burma Road’s flow of supplies to China for the next two months might be in jeopardy, too -- the New York Times says Secretary Hull has announced U.S. opposition to the plan.
It sounds like British strategy to contain Far East tensions is getting nowhere so far, and that could mean a war crisis in the Pacific sooner, not later.
THE PRESIDENT’S CLEVER DECLARATION. Roosevelt’s renomination looked like a sure thing after Senator Barkley’s surprise announcement to the convention Tuesday night of "a message I bear to you from the President of the United States by authority of his word." What followed made it sound as if President Roosevelt was modestly demurring any further political ambitions --
"The President has never had and has not today a desire or purpose to continue as President, to be a candidate for that office, or to be nominated by the convention for that office. He wishes in all earnestness and sincerity to make it clear that all of the delegates to this convention are free to vote for any candidate."
Confusing? Bert Andrews of the New York Herald Tribune thought so, writing in Wednesday’s editions that delegates "didn’t know what he meant or what they were expected to do about it." But according to Edward T; Folliard in Wednesday’s Washington Post, they figured it out pretty fast -- "He didn’t say no....and now the Democratic Party is convinced that since he didn’t say no, he must have meant yes." And it was, in fact, a sly move that caught the anti-third-termers flatfooted, and set off a tumultuous demonstration among the rowdily pro-Roosevelt delegates, as recorded by Robert C. Albright in the Post -- "A pause...and then the shouting and marching began. The ‘We Want Roosevelt’ chant mounted. Then came the loud cries into the hall’s loud speaker -- ‘The country wants Roosevelt!’ -- ‘New Jersey wants Roosevelt’ -- ‘The world wants Roosevelt’ -- Illinois, New York, California, etc., wants Roosevelt." In short, as James A. Hagerty of the New York Times wrote, the President’s was taken as an "implicit promise" that he would accept a draft. And so, apparently, it has turned out to be.
THE DEMOCRATS’ PEACE PLANK. The most disturbing news to come out of the convention is the strongly pro-isolationist peace plank in the party platform, which is so extreme that it repudiates some of the Administration’s own policies. As summarized by Jack Beall in the New York Herald Tribune, the plant "bespeaks sympathy for the democracies of Europe, [but] it recommends only private aid ‘within the laws’ of this country -- that is to say, within the terms of the Neutrality Act and the Johnson Act. By that use of the term it declares against government aid of the type recently given by the Administration, such as sending to Europe planes and other implements of war which had once been a part of the American defense system." Like the Republican platform, the Democratic resolution is too bashful to declare support for Britain by name, but its pledge to support "peace-loving and liberty-loving peoples" is even squishier than the G.O.P.’s words on the subject. You keep hearing that both Mr. Willkie and the President see eye-to-eye on the need for vigorously aid Britain’s struggle against Hitlerism. So why have they both so far given their opponents such a large say in their parties’ declarations of principle?
I suppose it’s in large part because, as Dr. Gallup pointed out in last Sunday’s Washington Post, so many voters ignore what goes into a platform. According to Gallup’s latest survey, only 27% of those polled believe that "many voters pay attention to political platforms today," and only 31% of Republican voters have bothered to read what their party’s resolution says. Thus, it’s a cheap concession to give the isolationists.
But at some point both candidates need to make strong declarations letting the British know in this critical hour that we’re four-squarely on their side, by name. Governor Lehman of New York has urged the President to support "a declaration to give Great Britain and other countries fighting the dictatorships all material help possible within the law." Both the President and Mr. Willkie should do so.
AN INVASION OF BRITAIN TOMORROW? The Associated Press picks up Wednesday a report from a French newspaper claiming that "zero hour" for a German invasion of Britain will come on Friday night, "if weather permits." The report claims 600,000 Nazi troops are now ready for an assault on the British Isles. The Chicago Tribune offers an insert to the story negating it as "German inspired propaganda," but the B.B.C. has also mentioned the Friday-night prediction, citing the official Rome radio.
Meanwhile, the A.P. says in another report that "Adolph Hitler’s decision for a mass onslaught on Great Britain might come any time now," but that there are "indications it would be prefaced by a ‘last chance’ peace offer." Larry Rue writes in the Tribune Wednesday of "predictions in diplomatic sources of a powerful German and Italian ‘peace offensive’ as a prelude to a mass attack on the British Isles." Mr. Rue also cites a report from the Daily Telegraph’s diplomatic correspondent that "the German attack on Britain can be expected within six weeks."
THE JAPANESE CABINET FALLS. Wilfried Fleisher writes in Wednesday’s New York Herald Tribune that the Japanese Army has forced out the cabinet of Premier Yonai, paving the way for the establishment of "a completely totalitarian state" in Japan along Fascist lines. That would probably kayoe at the outset tentative British moves, made public earlier this week, to mediate a settlement in the Sino-Japanese war. And the British offer to Japan to partially close the Burma Road’s flow of supplies to China for the next two months might be in jeopardy, too -- the New York Times says Secretary Hull has announced U.S. opposition to the plan.
It sounds like British strategy to contain Far East tensions is getting nowhere so far, and that could mean a war crisis in the Pacific sooner, not later.
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