Tuesday, July 30, 1940

INVASION -- "A MATTER OF DAYS." George Axelsson writes in Monday’s New York Times that a German invasion of Britain "may be only a matter of days, if not hours." The Times notes three signs of a coming landing attempt --

(1) an acceleration in "the process of ‘softening up’ Britain by means of dive bombers, submarines, and torpedo-carrying mosquito craft";

(2) An unexplained halt in all railroad service between the Nazi-held and unoccupied sections of France, as well as a ban on travel by road, recalling "similar German moves the day before the invasion of the Low Countries on May 10";

(3) Reports from Nazi sources of "intensified air attacks on British military airdromes, ports, and rail junctions, as well as ship convoys and armament factories...that sort of activity in this war has always been a sure forerunner of a big German onslaught."

Mr. Axelsson also passes along recent German claims of British shipping losses, which if true are terrifying -- 166,000 tons allegedly lost in a two-day period. This would amount to a loss of two million tons monthly if sustained, and it is hard to see how Britain could long endure that. The Nazis, of course, claim they will not only maintain this pace but will "substantially better" it, as dive-bomber attacks on British convoys continue across the entire south of England.

INVASION -- A "DELAY"? On the other hand, Edwin L. James writes in Sunday’s New York Times that the amount of time the Nazis are taking in trying to subjugate Britain can now be called a "delay" --

"For a month now the world has been waiting for Hitler’s much-heralded attack on Britain and it has not come. Whether it represents a phase of the German dictator’s war of nerves or whether it represents something else, the delay has become remarkable. There is still no answer to the question of whether the Germans can land in Britain a force capable of conquering the country with its more than 1,500,000 armed defenders....If another month passes without a German attempt to invade Britain with land forces, there will be, in view of the bad weather which prevails over Britain after the middle of September, room for asking if, after all, Hitler intends to limit his attack on Britain to air warfare."

Mr. James notes that "it is a military axiom that a country cannot be conquered by planes," and that R.A.F. defenders seem to bring down about ten percent of the German raiders each day. But he’s probably correct in saying that the Nazi air raids so far have done considerable damage to British factories, air strips, and ports, and that "enormous damage" could be done to Britain by all-out Nazi air raids. Yet here too there is a mystery. "It would appear that the number of German planes coming over daily varies from fifty to two hundred. Suppose ten times that number came? And immediately one asks why the larger numbers do not come. The answer is not known."

AN AGREEMENT IN HAVANA? OR NOT? The Associated Press reports Monday on Secretary of State Hull’s success in getting a unanimous agreement at the foreign ministers’ conference in Havana on what to do about "orphaned" colonies in the Western Hemisphere. The final version of the "Act of Havana," says the A.P., dilutes the U.S. proposal for collectively assuming control of European colonies in the Americas in the event that an aggressor tries to change their status. But it also approves Secretary Hull’s plan for a five-nation committee to administer a threatened colony on an interim status, while a permanent arrangement is being decided.

But is it really unanimous? Radio reports this morning say that Argentina is once again balking at the pact, after her delegates proclaimed literally at the last minute that their signatures on the document would have no validity until approved by the government. In practical terms, this gives Argentina the ability to back out of the agreement at any time. And it takes a fresh poke at the U.S. desire for unanimous consent to establish the trusteeship plan. Earlier at the conference, the Argentines had earlier submitted a rival resolution on foreign colonies, emphasizing self-determination over collective security.

A NEW SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR? It’s hard to believe, but that’s what some in Fascist Spain seem to be agitating for. Maurice English reports in Monday’s Chicago Tribune that propaganda posters distributed this week in Madrid show Spanish imperial ambitions as including "the region bordering Mexico, including Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, as well as Louisiana and Mississippi." Spain wants the U.S. to return the Philippines to her control, too. The posters quote Generalissimo Franco’s speech of two weeks ago -- "We have made one step forward in the battle but only one step forward. We have an unfinished enterprise. We have not completed the revolution."

WORLD EVENTS LIKELY TO DECIDE THE ELECTION. Columnist Ernest K. Lindley writes in Monday’s Washington Post that with the loss of the popular and respected Louis Johnson, Assistant Secretary of War ,the political morals of the Roosevelt Administration are now at their lowest point in four years. Democrats are also demoralized at the decision by Party Chairman Jim Farley to step down from that critical job, and to leave the cabinet as well. But all of that might not matter much in the long run --

"Anxiety concerning the world situation and its possible effects on us over- and under-lies the President’s thoughts on all other subjects. It makes what a Jim Farley does, or what happens to a Louis Johnson, seem less important personally and politically, than in calmer times. Even by the hard test of practical politics the President’s focus on foreign affairs and national defense may be correct. The impact of world events -- whether England goes down or stands, whether Japan strikes at the East Indies -- may within a few weeks submerge hurt feelings, bolters, and unhappy recollections of Chicago. What he does in response to such events probably will determine whether Roosevelt is elected or defeated. Consciousness of that accounts, perhaps, for the President’s relative calmness in the presence of what, by ordinary standards, would be a baffling political mess."

Assistant Secretary Johnson had been a Roosevelt loyalist during some very tough times and is "popular among regular Democrats, New Dealers, the Washington press corp, and the American Legion." But the newly-confirmed Secretary Stimson wanted a new assistant, and the President felt honor-bound to give him one. Roosevelt tried to make it up to Johnson by asking him to stay on as "administrative assistant in charge of defense," and was taken aback when Johnson said he wanted no part of it.

Sunday, July 28, 1940

NEW NAZI PEACE TERMS. Hitler’s peace speech of nine days ago didn’t offer Britain specific terms for an armistice. But according to Capt. M.M. Corpening in Saturday’s Chicago Tribune, the Germans have since communicated a specific set of peace proposals to Sweden’s King Gustav, to be relayed to the British. (This part of the story rings true, since Gustav issued an appeal two weeks ago calling on both sides to negotiate an end to the war). According to Capt. Corpening, the terms are --

"1. The British Empire is to stay out of Europe proper. 2. The Cameroons and the former German East Africa are to be returned to Germany. Former German Southwest Africa is to remain with the South African Union. 3. The Belgian Congo is to go to Germany. 4. Germany guarantees the British empire protection of its colonies from the ‘yellow peril.’ 5. Norway is to remain a German province. 6. Belgium is to become a protectorate under King Leopold. 7. Germany is to keep that part of France now occupied except Paris. 8. Holland is to be a protectorate with no molestation of the Dutch foreign possessions. [Also,] Italy is to have a free hand in the affairs of Spain and Greece under German supervision. In addition, Italy is to be given all of the Adriatic coast."

The Tribune quotes "sources close to the German high command" as saying if the Churchill government refuses this offer -- a sure thing -- than Germany will invade Britain "as soon as weather permits" and expects to conquer the British Isles within thirty days.

MORE FERMENT IN EASTERN EUROPE. According to the International News Service, Rumania has offered to cede a portion of Transylvania to Hungary, and hold a plebiscite to determine the status of the rest of the province. This bid of appeasement is being brokered by Germany in an attempt to settle the off-and-on crisis between the two Balkan countries. But at the same time, the I.N.S. says there’s now "acute tension" between Rumania and Yugoslavia, because the now shamelessly pro-Nazi Rumanian government has offered to aid Italy in event of an Italian-Yugoslav war.

And on top of that, C.L. Sulzberger reports in Saturday’s New York Times that the ever-expanding Soviet Union now wants to create a three-country bloc of Rumania, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia. It would be directed against the Axis and operated under Russian leadership, of course. But Mr. Sulzberger adds that "it would be difficult for Russia to accomplish any such manoeuvre, particularly in the face of Axis opposition. Rumania is distinctly unsympathetic both to Russia and communism and, if anything, would like to move even closer to the Axis. Bulgarians are increasingly Pan-Slavist and pro-Soviet, but the government is pretty much on the German side of the fence and would be more so if concrete results, such as the return of Southern Dobruja, should come out of the Balkan talks in Germany. More or less the same applies in Yugoslavia, where the Regency dislikes the idea of a preponderant Axis, but absolutely detests the idea of Bolshevism."

"ECONOMIC WAR" WITH JAPAN? The United Press reports Saturday that Japan is taking President Roosevelt’s virtual embargo on export of oil, petroleum products, and scrap metals as an "unfriendly act" and has threatened quick retaliation. The U.P. says that Japanese retaliation could include "cutting off this country’s main source of rubber and tin in the Dutch East Indies." The Administration’s act doesn’t directly target Japan -- its stated purpose, as described by the U.P., is "to conserve national defense essentials."

But a Friday New York Herald Tribune story notes that this move comes almost exactly one year after the U.S. announcement abrogating the nation’s 1911 commercial treaty with Japan -- a circumstance surely noted by Japanese militarists. But then, there’s a larger purpose, as the embargo is "taken as a further indication that the United States intended to continue its firm policy toward Japan in the Far East as well as being a severe blow to the German, Italian, and Russian war economies." And it’s starting right now. In fact, it started several days before the President’s formal announcement, when Treasury Secretary Morgenthau told the press that the sailing of two American oil tankers to Spain had been held up, and said that from now U.S. tankers would not be permitted to travel to Spain or Japan.

It makes perfect sense not to sell essential war materials to the dictators, while embarking on a crash defense program to protect ourselves from those very same dictators. But watch the isolationists bawl that we shouldn't take such a common-sense step because it is "un-neutral."

WHAT ABOUT THE ORPHANED COLONIES? (I). Harold H. Hinton describes in Saturday’s New York Times a bottleneck at the Havana conference. There, Secretary of State Hull is said to be trying to work out a compromise with a number of Latin American delegations, led by Argentina, over a multilateral trusteeship plan for "orphaned" colonies in the Western Hemisphere whose owners have been, or will be, subjugated by Axis aggression. The U.S. wants to set up a pan-American trusteeship if a colony’s status is threatened, while Argentina calls for "self-determination" by the colony’s population.

Meanwhile, a Washington Post editorial takes issue with the Administration’s position in Havana --

"There is much that is very hazy about the scheme...[It] is evidence of some rather befuddled thinking on the part of experts in the Department of State. As the draft convention is worded it can be said to envisage a collective mandate over, for instance, the British colony of Newfoundland. Nobody seems to have inquired whether the sturdy people of that ‘oldest British colony’ would acclaim the prospect of being governed by a mixed commission from, shall we say, Guatemala, Haiti, and Peru....Bermuda, to cite another possible development, might also come to be governed by a group of Latin American countries. And if the stories of ‘Fifth Column’ activities in some of these countries are to be believed, some of these governments might have a political complexion which we ourselves would not welcome on territory close the coast of the United States."

WHAT ABOUT THE ORPHANED COLONIES? (II). But in Friday’s Washington Post, columnist Barnet Nover endorses the original Havana proposal and says it’s definitely better than suggestions that the U.S. simply seize the colonies before the Germans can get their hands on them --

"Unilateral action by this nation...whether justified or not, and on whatever grounds justified, would be used by other nations to excuse past and future acts of aggression.... The idea of trusteeship for [orphaned] colonies has taken root....The mandate system established under the covenant of the League of Nations and operated under League supervision had much to recommend it. Such a mandate system as is now being discussed at Havana would have most of the advantages and few of the disadvantages of the League type. Aside from the circumstance that it would meet an increasingly serious strategic danger head on it would, if put into effect, bring into being the most far-reaching and constructive system of inter-American cooperation ever devised. Events are moving fast here at Havana."

Thursday, July 25, 1940

THE RIDDLE OF JAPAN. Time magazine’s cover story focuses on the increasingly aggressive nature of the Japanese Empire -- provoking a senseless crisis with U.S. Marines in Shanghai’s International Settlement, making noises about "protecting" French Indo-China, threatening to attack Hongkong if Britain doesn’t close the Burma Road. Part of the problem for Western diplomats seems to be figuring out who to deal with --

"Nothing is what it seems in Japanese government. The Emperor is a Divinity, and yet Japan is not an absolute monarchy. The Constitution is democratic, but the people are ruled, not rulers. Every general is responsible to the Emperor – yet the Army can do anything it wants – yet Japan is not a military dictatorship. There are five political parties, but there is no such thing as politics in the usual sense of the word: the science of government. In the last three years Japan’s Government has seemed totalitarian, but it has actually been unmitigated chaos. Japanese realize this, and have wistfully desired to do something about it. Since the Emperor, the Army, and the Constitution are in varying degrees inviolable, it was concluded that the first chaotic element to unify should be the political parties."

And according to Time, that’s where Japan stands now -- "hell-bent, with a flag in one hand and a rifle in the other, for total government, total economics, total war, total politics, total everything." Currently, the movement to combine the five parties into a single, Nazi-style organization wants to put Prince Fumimaro Konoye, a member of one of the Empire’s five oldest families and a former Premier, as the nation’s strongman. This movement, says Time, is "a terribly dangerous thing. Its formation, and its almost certain collapse, would hasten that last extremity from which all sensible Japanese have cringed -- putting the whole bloodstained mess squarely in the Army’s hands. When that extremity comes, the chaos of the past three years may seem nothing compared to the New Disorder in East Asia."

THE NAZI INVASION MIGHT BE NEAR. The Associated Press cites neutral sources Wednesday as reporting "greatly increased activities" in Dutch and Belgian dockyards. Also, say A.P.’s sources, "the Germans were apparently concentrating military supplies in the western Lowlands -- a logical jumping-off place in a mass attack." Britain is doing more than waiting for the inevitable -- War Minister Anthony Eden says the nation has prepared 1,300,000 Home Guard troops to fight for every inch of British soil, plus has re-outfitted and re-equipped French, Belgian, Czecho-Slovak, Norwegian, and Polish military units for the upcoming battle. The British claim that Germany’s current attempts to set up a "starvation blockade" via attacks from warplanes and commerce raiders have so far been for naught.

"PROTECTIVE CUSTODY" OVER COLONIES. The second Inter-American Conference of Foreign Ministers has produced the rough draft of a plan to prevent "orphaned" European colonies in the Western Hemisphere from being placed under Axis rule. According to Harold B. Hinton in Wednesday’s New York Times, the proposals under consideration at the Havana Conference provide for a "system of collective control" exercised by three trustees appointed by a committee representing the signatories. The committee would act "in case of a threatened transfer of sovereignty," and member countries would back up the trusteeship with military and naval support, where necessary.

Twenty-one nations representing North, Central and South America are working on the trusteeship plan, and ,Joseph Barnes in the New York Herald Tribune says "these proposals have already received the support" of many of the nations gathered in Havana. It’s expected that a treaty declaring "this multilateral version of the Monroe Doctrine" will in time be crafted out of these talks, for signature by the American republics.

It certainly sounds more inviting than the scheme promoted by some isolationists and trumpeted some time ago in the Chicago Tribune that the U.S. invade French and British possessions in the region, seizing them as "payment" for World War debts. Thus, we’d supposedly enhance our security by making war on Hitler’s enemies. But one troubling aspect of the multilateral plan is whether it would tie the U.S. to a long, cumbersome process for responding to Axis aggression in the Americas. Hitler and Mussolini won’t be inclined to grant us lots of time to confront a threat from them.

WHAT BRITONS (AND AMERICANS) PAY IN TAXES. The British House of Commons has just voted to raise the nation’s standard income tax rate to its highest peak ever, from 37-1/2% to 43-1/2%. Britons will also pay a new 33-1/2% luxury tax and a 16-2/3% hike on most necessities. The New York Herald Tribune offers an interesting comparison in Wednesday’s editions of how much more the British are paying in taxes these days than Americans, even with the new "super-tax" passed by Congress to fund the crash preparedness measures. Note this, and count your blessings --

A married man with two children and an annual income of $1,600 would pay no tax in the U.S., and the equivalent of $63.35 in British taxes.

A married man with two children and an annual income of $4,000 would pay $35 in U.S. taxes, and a whopping $844 equivalent in British taxes.

A married man without dependents and an annual income of $12,500 would pay $848 in U.S. taxes, and the equivalent of $5,312 in British taxes.

A married man without dependents and an annual income of $40,000 would pay $9,552 in U.S. taxes, and the equivalent of $24,452 in British taxes.

MORE DEFECTIONS FROM ROOSEVELT. I had thought the Democratic Convention was a huge success for Roosevelt -- silly me. The papers this week continue to be full of news that should alarm New Dealers. William V. Nessly writes in Tuesday’s Washington Post that no fewer than eighteen Democratic Senators will bolt the party this year to support Wendell Willkie, and "others will contribute no efforts to his defeat." Other rebels among the ranks of life-long Democrats include the President’s first Director of the Budget, Lewis Douglas, and a former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, John W. Hanes. They wired Mr. Willkie a blistering condemnation of the Administration’s third-term effort --

"The developments at the recent Democratic Convention in Chicago...constitute the first organized effort in American history to keep the same national Administration in public office beyond the historic two-term period. No matter how grave the national emergency, the continuation in authority for three terms of this political machine, clothed as it is with tremendous political power, is a still graver menace to America. We submit that this effort should be resisted without regard to partisan politics by all who would preserve democracy in the United States."

Another startling departure from the President’s ranks is Vice President Garner, whose photo made the front page of Tuesday’s Post as he and his wife prepared to board a train home to Texas -- possibly to stay. He says only that he was going home to vote in the Texas primaries. But when a reporter asked him if he was ever coming back to Washington, he replied, "I’ll reserve my decision on that."

CONSCRIPTION AND THE ELECTION. Ernest Lindley writes in Wednesday’s Washington Post that the conscription issue is a political hot potato for both parties, but that it can’t wait until after the election to be confronted --

"Conscription...was shunned by both national conventions. At Philadelphia, Senator Lodge, of Massachusetts, fought for a pledge to compulsory military training, but he was able to muster on a meager handful of supporters. At Chicago no serious effort was made to commit the Democratic Party to conscription. If it had been made it would have failed or, at least, would have provoked a bitter floor fight and perhaps impelled several influential Democrats openly to bolt the party....Some form of compulsory service seems to be necessary....Weeks and days count in rearming the country. The politicians would be relieved if the conscription question could be postponed until January, or even until mid-November. But if it means a delay of from four to six months in getting an adequate Army, the Nation can’t afford to appease the politicians. At present the man power for our Army is not even ‘on order.’"

NO NEED FOR CONSCRIPTION? On the other hand, the Chicago Tribune argues editorially Wednesday that compulsory service would hurt the nation’s defense, perhaps "fatally" --

"Nothing could be worse than to concentrate millions of young men in training camps now. They would lack arms. They would lack even uniforms. Their time would be wasted and they would not unnaturally become disgruntled at the waste. Mr. Roosevelt says that when we get our arms we must have soldiers ready already trained to use them. This is silly. Without arms, what training does he propose to give a drafted army? Calisthenics? We need a highly trained army, it is true, but we cannot train soldiers to use modern weapons until we put the modern weapons in their hands. Conscription would inflict a disastrous blow to the present program of providing those weapons. At a time when our national economy is being put to the most severe strain in history by the effects of the Roosevelt depression combined with the demands of the rearmament program, it is proposed to add to that strain by withdrawing some millions of workers from productive activities. Such a course would help to build up the war hysteria that President Roosevelt has fostered so assiduously, and that is why the President is for conscription. It would not aid our defense. It would hamper it seriously and perhaps fatally."

Gracious. You’d think that compulsory service was some kind of Hitlerian plot to destroy our ability to resist invasion. It will make young men "disgruntled," while simultaneously somehow filling them (and the rest of us) with "war hysteria." And it’s simply impossible for the United States of America to build modern weapons if we also draft men simultaneously. It must be one or the other. Is the U.S. really that frail a nation? Do the Tribune editors actually read the things they write? And do they see the slightest irony in accusing others of fomenting "hysteria"?