MORE LARGE-SCALE NAZI AIR RAIDS. The Associated Press says 400 German planes assaulted some 300 miles of England’s coasts Sunday. Radio reports this morning say over 500 Nazi planes attacked on Monday, and an undisclosed number have struck at Britain’s shores so far today. With air combat now in "higher gear," C. Brooks Peters writes in Monday’s New York Times that "the war appears to have entered its final and decisive stage." C.B.S. correspondent William Shirer said in last night’s broadcast that the Sunday air attacks had three objectives -- the naval base at Portland, a set of barrage balloons protecting Dover, and a convoy of ships east of Harwich. This morning’s reports say Dover has been hit again, along with the naval bases at Portsmouth and Southampton. The Nazis now claim to control the airspace over the English Channel.
Mr. Peters says in his Times story that "informed quarters in Berlin incline to the belief that the attempted invasion of Britain will not be long in coming. When it will come is any man’s guess. There are perhaps hardly more than a handful of men in the Third Reich who know. But it is almost the middle of August and the weather in the Channel is not usually good between October and March, when gales are common. Flying conditions over the British Isles, moreover, are unsatisfactory in the Fall, so neutral quarters here are awaiting with anxious expectation the events of the immediate future."
But there’s also some question whether the stepped-up air campaign is a prelude to an invasion or a substitute for it. Sigrid Schultz writes from Berlin in Monday’s Chicago Tribune that "Germany plans to force England to her knees thru the crippling of British shipping by submarines, speedboats, and bombers, rather than thru an invasion of the British Isles." She cites an article in Sunday’s Frankfurter Zeitung, an influential German paper "frequently used as the mouthpiece of the Wilhelmstrasse." Mr. Shirer also mentioned the Frankfurter Zeitung article, and wondered whether its message is that "the air force alone can do the job." If the Nazis really are starting to think this way, then something completely unprecedented in the history of warfare might be on the horizon. We will find out whether a country can be subjugated, or perhaps completely destroyed, by means of air attack. The answer could be terrible beyond words -- but fortunately for now, the British still have the means to fight back.
HOW TO SIFT THE WAR NEWS. In yesterday’s aerial fighting, the Germans claimed to have shot down eighty-nine British planes, while losing seventeen of their own. The British, by contrast, report to have destroyed sixty German planes, while losing twenty-six. The Luftwaffe also says it has wrecked the Portland naval base, and the British deny that in full. There were similar disparities in the reporting on last Thursday’s air attacks, and a Monday New York Times editorial offers some tips on how to make sense of these contradictions --
"What is the poor newspaper reader to believe as he reads the wildly conflicting claims of the British and German air forces? Yesterday’s furious air battles over the English Channel coast have produced official communiques which, at first sight, look misleading to the point of absurdity....One must not conclude, however, that the communiques of the two sides are wholly useless, mendacious and uninformative. The size of the rival claims gives some clue to the scale of the raids; a day when each side claims that it destroyed sixty or more planes, when the British admit that the raiders came in waves of 150 or more at a time, is obviously a day of intense warfare in the air. When the Germans announce attacks on British convoys in the Channel, it reveals to us that the British are still using the Channel for merchant shipping, in spite of all the German attempts to close it as a British waterway....We do not have to believe the semi-official British boast that Hamburg is in ‘ruins,’ or to credit the German claims that only a few chickens were killed at this place or that."
The editors close with a grim assumption -- "We can at least assume, with good reason, that both Britain and Germany are suffering severe damage; that millions of civilians on both sides are suffering mental terrors never before experienced in warfare, and that the worst is still to come." Tragically, that sounds like a pretty good guess.
EYEWITNESSES TO THE RAIDS. Monday's New York Herald Tribune offers side-by-side first-person accounts of the latest German raids --
Robert E. Bunnelle -- "From a balcony spattered with machine-gun fire and jarred by deafening bombardment I saw a new chapter in the battle of Britain written today in a sky thick with airplanes and spotted with mushroom puffs from anti-aircraft shells. Between attacks I rushed with other onlookers to gather shell fragment souvenirs. We found machine-gun bullets imbedded in the concrete a few feet from where we stood. Anti-aircraft guns thundered one hundred feet away. The raiders screamed down -- sometimes from 15,000 feet up -- pouncing on coastal barrage balloons. But from the ground and in the air the British gave them a hot reception....The raid began as a surprise attack on the balloons, but developed soon into fierce dogfights, and was followed by repeated attacks by larger and larger waves, finally attacking the town as well as the waterfront."
Dan Campbell – "All day long the sky has been filled with Nazi planes. It seemed that they would never stop coming over. Anti-aircraft guns threw hundreds and hundreds of shells at them, and British fighters fought with them in the powder-blue sky. I was told that ten raiders had been shot down. From a hotel roof I watched the first four raiders come from over the sea. The sun struck their black and silver bodies. As they roared in at 400 miles an hour anti-aircraft guns began firing at them....The raiders ran the gauntlet of fire for ten or fifteen minutes and then streaked back towards the French coast. For thirty minutes there was quiet and then the air gunners went into action against a new batch of Nazi raiders. The fire rose like a symphony of kettledrums interspersed with the trap-drum rattle of machine-gun blasts. Tracer bullets flashed upward, making pink splashes against the blue sky."
THE ELECTION WILL BE CLOSE. James A. Hagerty passes along in Sunday’s New York Times an analysis of the electoral vote by "one well-informed political leader." It shows President Roosevelt as being able to count on 167 "safe" electoral votes, and Wendell Willkie as having a good expectation of getting 212 electoral votes, which are considered to be "safe" or "probable" for him A total of 152 electoral votes from eleven states are considered "doubtful". They are -- Illinois (29), Kentucky (11), Maryland (8), Missouri (15), Montana (4), New York (47), Nevada (3), Oklahoma (11), Utah (4), West Virginia (8), and Wisconsin (12).
Surprisingly, the President’s supporters fear that national defense could be the issue that defeats the Democrats this time -- "[Party leaders] have little doubt of Mr. Roosevelt’s re-election if the people can be shown by October that a good beginning has been made in the manufacture of airplanes, warships, artillery, tanks, armored cars and rifles necessary for the defense of the United States and the Western Hemisphere. Failure to get a reasonably good start on production would be damaging to the President." Mr. Hagerty doesn’t point it out, but the early signs aren’t good -- such as War Secretary Stimson’s admission to Congress that the government has only contracted for 33 warplanes so far out of over 4,000 budgeted two months ago. A few more stories like this fall could well sink the Roosevelt campaign.
Dr. Gallup didn’t have anything new on the presidential race in Sunday’s Washington Post, but his survey one week ago did show a race as close as humanly possible -- Roosevelt over Willkie in the popular vote, 51% to 49%, but Willkie ahead in electoral votes, 304 to 227. If the election were held now, Gallup says, Willkie would win 24 states, and Roosevelt would win 24 states.
This is going to be a bitter campaign.
Saturday, August 13, 2016
Thursday, August 11, 2016
Sunday, August 11, 1940
800 GERMAN PLANES ATTACK BRITAIN. Is Germany’s full-scale assault on Great Britain finally underway? The big news Friday was that, instead of sending twenty-five or fifty warplanes on bombing missions over the British Isles, the Nazis sent 800. The Associated Press says the attack produced "14 hours of almost constant fighting" over the English Channel, and the shooting down of fifty-three German craft. The Luftwaffe’s objectives appear to be to deal a punishing blow to Britain’s coastal ports and wreak massive destruction on Channel shipping. According to the Chicago Tribune’s Sigrid Schultz, Berlin officials profess to be quite happy with the results -- they claim it’s the "greatest aerial victory since the capitulation of France." The Nazi kill claims are twelve merchant vessels and thirty-four R.A.F. planes.
The intensity of this attack apparently wasn’t repeated on Saturday, but the racheting-up of the air war does make one wonder if Hitler is now going to do what so many speculated he would do early this spring -- try to knock out Britain with a series of unprecedentedly violent air raids, instead of an invasion. It’s conjures up the chilling possibility of England’s great cities being turned entirely to ruin, with untold numbers of civilian casualties left unattended as essential government services struggle to function. But Prime Minister Churchill has made it clear that no amount of bombing will force Hitler’s last remaining enemy to seek peace. The Churchill pledge may be tested to its limits.
At least in the meantime, according to the A.P., Britain's bombers still giving back in kind -- "Late tonight radio stations in 10 German and German controlled cities, including Berlin and Hamburg, fell silent -- a normal indication of the presence of hostile airmen."
THAT’LL IMPRESS THE NAZIS. The headline in Saturday’s New York Herald Tribune says it all – "1st Army Tanks, All 4 of Them, Mass for Battle." Correspondent Homer Bigart writes that the 1st Army was out on maneuvers near Winthrop, New York, with the four tanks and 300 infantrymen creating quite a din in Farmer John O’Connell’s clover patch. The picture accompanying the story is priceless in itself. It shows one of the four "real" tanks advancing while several trucks with "TANK" scrawled on their sides roll along beside it. It seems the army had more fake tanks than real ones, though only temporarily – the trucks were rented from area ice companies and had to be given back.
Mr. Bigart says the maneuvers did offer some high drama -- "There was even some simulated dive bombing, provided by three planes of the 97th Observation Squadron which roared overhead from time to time, dropping bags of flour. A five-pound bag of flour is not a harmless missile when dropped from 400 feet and each appearance of the ‘bombers’ caused considerable nervousness among the generals, colonels, and majors who drove out to witness the show. One bag dropped within twenty feet of a group of officers nibbling ice cream sticks on the sidelines. A contingent of Good Humor salesmen broke ranks and fled for the shelter of trees."
God help us.
WHERE ARE OUR ARMAMENTS? For once the Chicago Tribune’s outrage is justified. John Fisher has a startling story in Saturday’s editions on War Secretary Stimson’s testimony Friday before a joint congressional tax hearing, where it was admitted that only 33 warplanes have been contracted so far -- despite the fact that Congress allocated $400,000,000 in June for a total of 4,081 planes, engines, and accessories. The Tribune story also cites testimony at a joint hearing on excess profits tax legislation, where it was said that "the present program to equip a potential army of 2,000,000 men will not be completed before the middle of 1944." The question, of course, is whether we can afford to wait until then.
A story in Friday’s New York Times says that government investigators are concerned enough about the "bottleneck" in production that they’re hearing testimony before a grand jury, which was launched on July 11. Thurman Arnold, head of the Justice Department’s anti-trust division, is quoted as saying that "the United States is facing the same situation that England faced -- a startling inadequacy of production."
A follow-up story in Saturday’s Times says Administration spokesmen, most prominent among them Secretary Stimsom and Treasury Secretary Morgenthau, claim that "the defense program had been slowed as a result of the 8 per cent profit limitation of the Vinson-Trammell act, and uncertainty over the rate of taxes to be levied against profits." Well, at least the Senate voted 71-7 ths week to authorize President Roosevelt to call up members of the National Guard to protect any Western Hemisphere country in an emergency. Now, all we have to do is find them some real guns.
THE NEED FOR DISCIPLINE. Walter Lippmann lays to rest a main tenet of the isolationist argument in his New York Herald Tribune column on Saturday --
"It will be a great pity if in discussing the the organization of the military power of the United States the objectors and the skeptics take to calling any measure ‘totalitarian’ if it applies to every one, ‘dictatorial’ if it applies compulsion, ‘Fascist’ if it provides authority, ‘Communist’ if it equalizes burdens, and so forth and so on. They are doing no service to the cause of freedom and democracy when they make it appear that only the sworn enemies of liberty can provide the discipline, the order, and authority and the sense of universal obligation which are indispensable to the survival of a nation. Nor is there any scintilla of historical truth in the assertion which is so frequently heard that free nations transform themselves into totalitarian states when they recognize the need for organization, discipline, and authority. Quite the contrary. In every instance -- Russia in 1918, Italy in 1922, Germany in 1933, France in 1940 -- it was feeble government, undiscipline, disorganization, impotence, calamity and defeat which lead directly to the loss of liberty."
The intensity of this attack apparently wasn’t repeated on Saturday, but the racheting-up of the air war does make one wonder if Hitler is now going to do what so many speculated he would do early this spring -- try to knock out Britain with a series of unprecedentedly violent air raids, instead of an invasion. It’s conjures up the chilling possibility of England’s great cities being turned entirely to ruin, with untold numbers of civilian casualties left unattended as essential government services struggle to function. But Prime Minister Churchill has made it clear that no amount of bombing will force Hitler’s last remaining enemy to seek peace. The Churchill pledge may be tested to its limits.
At least in the meantime, according to the A.P., Britain's bombers still giving back in kind -- "Late tonight radio stations in 10 German and German controlled cities, including Berlin and Hamburg, fell silent -- a normal indication of the presence of hostile airmen."
THAT’LL IMPRESS THE NAZIS. The headline in Saturday’s New York Herald Tribune says it all – "1st Army Tanks, All 4 of Them, Mass for Battle." Correspondent Homer Bigart writes that the 1st Army was out on maneuvers near Winthrop, New York, with the four tanks and 300 infantrymen creating quite a din in Farmer John O’Connell’s clover patch. The picture accompanying the story is priceless in itself. It shows one of the four "real" tanks advancing while several trucks with "TANK" scrawled on their sides roll along beside it. It seems the army had more fake tanks than real ones, though only temporarily – the trucks were rented from area ice companies and had to be given back.
Mr. Bigart says the maneuvers did offer some high drama -- "There was even some simulated dive bombing, provided by three planes of the 97th Observation Squadron which roared overhead from time to time, dropping bags of flour. A five-pound bag of flour is not a harmless missile when dropped from 400 feet and each appearance of the ‘bombers’ caused considerable nervousness among the generals, colonels, and majors who drove out to witness the show. One bag dropped within twenty feet of a group of officers nibbling ice cream sticks on the sidelines. A contingent of Good Humor salesmen broke ranks and fled for the shelter of trees."
God help us.
WHERE ARE OUR ARMAMENTS? For once the Chicago Tribune’s outrage is justified. John Fisher has a startling story in Saturday’s editions on War Secretary Stimson’s testimony Friday before a joint congressional tax hearing, where it was admitted that only 33 warplanes have been contracted so far -- despite the fact that Congress allocated $400,000,000 in June for a total of 4,081 planes, engines, and accessories. The Tribune story also cites testimony at a joint hearing on excess profits tax legislation, where it was said that "the present program to equip a potential army of 2,000,000 men will not be completed before the middle of 1944." The question, of course, is whether we can afford to wait until then.
A story in Friday’s New York Times says that government investigators are concerned enough about the "bottleneck" in production that they’re hearing testimony before a grand jury, which was launched on July 11. Thurman Arnold, head of the Justice Department’s anti-trust division, is quoted as saying that "the United States is facing the same situation that England faced -- a startling inadequacy of production."
A follow-up story in Saturday’s Times says Administration spokesmen, most prominent among them Secretary Stimsom and Treasury Secretary Morgenthau, claim that "the defense program had been slowed as a result of the 8 per cent profit limitation of the Vinson-Trammell act, and uncertainty over the rate of taxes to be levied against profits." Well, at least the Senate voted 71-7 ths week to authorize President Roosevelt to call up members of the National Guard to protect any Western Hemisphere country in an emergency. Now, all we have to do is find them some real guns.
THE NEED FOR DISCIPLINE. Walter Lippmann lays to rest a main tenet of the isolationist argument in his New York Herald Tribune column on Saturday --
"It will be a great pity if in discussing the the organization of the military power of the United States the objectors and the skeptics take to calling any measure ‘totalitarian’ if it applies to every one, ‘dictatorial’ if it applies compulsion, ‘Fascist’ if it provides authority, ‘Communist’ if it equalizes burdens, and so forth and so on. They are doing no service to the cause of freedom and democracy when they make it appear that only the sworn enemies of liberty can provide the discipline, the order, and authority and the sense of universal obligation which are indispensable to the survival of a nation. Nor is there any scintilla of historical truth in the assertion which is so frequently heard that free nations transform themselves into totalitarian states when they recognize the need for organization, discipline, and authority. Quite the contrary. In every instance -- Russia in 1918, Italy in 1922, Germany in 1933, France in 1940 -- it was feeble government, undiscipline, disorganization, impotence, calamity and defeat which lead directly to the loss of liberty."
Monday, August 8, 2016
Thursday, August 8, 1940
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.
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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