Secretary STIMSON. We will have that number of men quite soon but it will not be an army. Mr. Fish, you have been a soldier, I have been a soldier. You know the difference between a crowd of men and an army. You have been a football man and you know the difference between 11 men and a football team. And you know that an army is a team. You know that an army has to be, in modern times, equipped with modern weapons, weapons the necessity of which we have only just learned since last May, and yet weapons which in many cases take a year to make. And you speak as if we could pass a conscription law and in 2 weeks have an army. I say you have not thought it out, sir.

Mr. FISH. I did not say that. I was only quoting the War Department, what they said when they would have the men conscripted, and they are not conscripted yet. I am in favor of your Army of 1,400,000 men and I am in favor of the greatest possible national defense and modern equipment. And I believe 1,400,000 is a sufficient number for defense in America against any possible force that can be brought over here.

Secretary STIMSON. I do not agree with you on that.

Mr. FISH. Does not the Secretary agree to that?

Secretary STIMSON. No; not any possible force that can be brought over; no.

Mr. FISH. Does the Secretary believe that any nation could land more than 50,000 men, have the transports to do it?

Secretary STIMSON. In time I do, but that is not the question.
Mr. FISH. I mean, at one time-

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Fish, please allow the Secretary to finish his answer to your question.

Secretary STIMSON. Nations do not act that way. Japan is not acting that way today in her movement down toward the Netherlands East Indies. They go little by little. They get bases. They get nearer and they get a preponderating power in the air and in the sea and they finally get themselves in a position where they can strike. But they do not commit the folly of trying to strike before they are good and ready.

Mr. FISH. Then I say to you, Mr. Secretary, that if the Secretary of War or the Secretary of the Navy, or this administration permits any foreign nation to get those bases, then they are not defending our country properly.

Secretary STIMSON. I think I would fully agree in that, and I would call your attention to the steps which we have been taking to get bases, sometimes I think under your criticism.

Mr. FISH. No, sir.

Secretary STIMSON. Then I beg your pardon.

Mr. FISH. That can go in the record.

Secretary STIMSON. Then we are agreed on one thing, anyhow, and I am very glad, sir.

Mr. FISH. Let me say, so that the record will be very clear, Mr. Secretary, that a long time ago, being a pan-American, I made perhaps the first speech insisting on getting bases in South America, and I agree with Mr. Lindbergh who made the same statement a long time ago.

Secretary STIMSON. I am very glad, sir, to hear it, and I am very glad to know there is one thing you and I can be hand in hand on.

I am always glad of that. But I regard this bill which is now before you gentlemen, and the prompt enactment of it, another step in that same direction of promoting our outer defense. The problem to me is not only the problem of keeping America out of war but perhaps more accurately the problem of keeping war out of America.

Mr. FISH. The only difference between us, as I see it, is that I believe strongly in maintaining the Monroe Doctrine, and you want to extend the Monroe Doctrine all over the world.

Secretary STIMSON. The Monroe Doctrine at the time it was mado, sir, was made in the days of sailing ships and not in the days of steam and electricity. You can understand that. You are a New Yorker. I am a New Yorker. Just let me give you an illustration of what I mean in regard to this national defense. At the time of the Revolution, where were the defenses of New York City? They were on Governors Island and the Battery. A little bit later, when guns got stronger and more powerful, they moved down to Fort Wadsworth and Fort Hamilton, halfway down the Narrows. A little bit later they went out to Sandy Hook and Fort Hamilton. They were following the development of modern war. Now the line of our defense runs out into the middle of the Atlantic. Everybody who knows anything about modern warfare knows that.

I fully endorse and believe in the Monroe Doctrine, and I say that it was established at a time when the defenses of New York Harbor were at Governors Island. If our military experts have found it necessary to put the defense further out, I am inclined to say that they are dead right.

Mr. FISH. Mr. Secretary, you have just said you endorse the Monroe Doctrine. You say you believe in it, that it is a sound. doctrine. So do I.

Secretary STIMSON. I believe in the principle that stands behind it. Mr. FISH. Is not our outer defense our Navy? Has not the Congress appropriated for a two-ocean Navy?

Secretary STIMSON. No, sir; only in one sense. Our first line of defense is our diplomacy, if you will permit me to say it, by which we try to keep as many enemies away from us, and to get as many friends on our side as we can throughout the whole world. Then the Navy is another line, and the line of bases is another line. The Army is the last line to be used, the continental Army, in a situation which will never occur, I hope; namely, when an enemy has got its foot on our soil and is ready to do to us what the Germans did to the countries of Europe last spring.

Mr. FISH. Mr. Secretary, if our Navy is not our first line of defense, then some foreign nation must be our first line of defense. And if Great Britain is our first line of defense, then it is our war, and it would be craven not to be in it. But I believe the American Navy is our first line of defense, and always will be, and we do not have to depend on anyone else.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you wish to reply to that, Mr. Secretary? Secretary STIMSON. I do not see any question there. I heard a statement of Mr. Fish's opinion.

Mr. FISH. I will ask you point blank if Great Britain is our first line of defense, are you in favor therefore of going to war?

Secretary STIMSON. I am in favor of assisting Great Britain to maintain her fleet. I am in favor of that. At present she, being at

war, is providing, for the defense of the North Atlantic, and we are vitally interested in that defense.

Mr. FISH. Is it not rather cowardly of us, if England is fighting our battle, not to go into the war?

Secretary STIMSON. I am not going to pursue this line of argument. We are not concerned with it in this bill.

The CHAIRMAN. Have you finished, Mr. Fish?

Mr. FISH. I am through, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. CHAIRMAN. Mr. Eaton?

Mr. EATON. As a mere layman, I feel I cannot add anything to the general confusion which has been created on this subject so far this morning. But there is one question that is very fundamental, in my opinion. We have at this present moment two great forces arrayed against each other in the world, one the force of despotism, the other the force of democracy. The chief democracy now engaged in active combat is Great Britain and the other one, standing behind Great Britain, is the United States of America. We are assisting Great Britain and have had her pay so far 100 cents on the dollar for all assistance rendered, and we are assisting Great Britain on the ground that if Great Britain falls, then we will be attacked.

Now, under those conditions I would like to ask the Secretary, if they are fighting our defense, is it giving away anything for us to help Great Britain?

Secretary STIMSON. I do not think it is, sir, if we help them effectively.

our war.

Mr. EATON. My leader here, Mr. Fish, wants to know if this is I would like to ask you if this is not our war, what are we doing here today? What is all this fuss about armies and navies. and airplanes? What is it all about? Up to that point does it not seem that this is our war?

Secretary STIMSON. It is.

Mr. EATON. Then I wonder why it is necessary to follow so many rabbit tracks and not stay on the main line. So I would like to ask just one question with reference to this bill. I am in favor of all aid to Great Britain in the interest of defending this nation from inevitable lonely conflict if Great Britain is defeated. Now, that being so, the thing that worries me in this bill is that it is apparently adopting the totalitarian method of placing all power in the hands of one Is that, in your judgment, absolutely necessary?

Secretary STIMSON. I do not think that we will adopt all of the totalitarian methods; no, sir. I do not think so. But experience has shown, in the life of this Nation, many times, that to defend ourselves against war or the danger of war, it is necessary temporarily to concentrate our means of self-defense and make them more effective than we are accustomed to do in time of peace. And that is all, as I understand it, that we are trying to do today.

There is one thing that has been brought up, that I should like to mention here, if I may move into the cerulean atmosphere of international law. I notice that in some of the things which Mr. Fish has mentioned, in speaking about war and nations being at war, and that in some of the questions that were asked of Mr. Hull yesterday, there was brought out the matter of whether or not it was an act of war for us to do certain things in the defense of Great Britain. Mr. Hull answered it by a good, common-sense statement, as reported in

the press, that the actions of the Axis Powers had so torn up international law that it had reduced us-I am speaking roughly, I am not trying to quote the Secretary-it had reduced us to the law of self-defense. But I want to put on record the fact that we do not have to go even that far. We do not have to say that we depend only on the law of self-defense, although that is the fact that stares us in the face.

Even if we should assume--which is not the fact that international law still existed today, after these attacks on it by the Axis Powers, then even under that international law as it stood before these hostilities in Europe began we would be rightfully authorized to act with regard to what it has been proposed do do in the defense or in the assistance of Great Britain. That is a thing which has not been understood, because the original fountain of the change has been so comparatively recent.

This country was one of the authors of one of the greatest changes in international law that has ever taken place when it was in 1926 and 1927 and 1928 the initiator of what has been called the Pact of Paris, or the Kellogg-Briand Pact. Now, it has not been recognized, even by us, by these Houses of Congress here that were the parents of it, what a vital change was made in the system of international law by that action. However, the international lawyers all over the rest of the world and in this country have recognized this important change, and I want to bring before this committee what they have found.

You will remember that that great treaty, the Pact of Paris, was joined in by some 63 nations. We joined it. Great Britain joined it. France joined it. Germany joined it. Italy joined it. Japan joined it. All the Axis Powers did. They all agreed to renounce war and they agreed in the second provision of that agreement that they would never seek the solution of any controversy except by peaceful means. Now, as I say, that treaty was ratified, I think, by practically the unanimous vote of the United States Senate-by practically a unanimous vote. It was instigated by our Secretary of State, Mr. Kellogg, and has been known as the Kellogg-Briand Pact.

Now, when these troubles began to arise, when these lawless nations thereafter began to make attacks upon the fabric of international law, the oldest and the most authoritative body of the international law in the world, the Association of International Law, a European organization, met in 1934 to consider what the effect of such an attack as Japan had made upon China would be, or as Mr. Hitler was even then threatening, on Austria. They had a meeting in Hungary. I might say that the membership of that association is composed of the most distinguished international lawyers from all over the world; Americans, British, Frenchmen, Germans, Scandinavians, Italians, Japanese-all of them. And they considered what the effect would be of an attack in violation of the Kellogg Pact by one signatory upon another, and what effect it would have upon the rights and redresses of the other members of the great family of nations which had entered into that treaty under international law. And the conclusions which they reached are the most authoritative statement of international law on that subject which, so far as I know, has ever been published. And this is what they said, and I would like to have it on this record very carefully so that when our friends say that to help Great Britain at

I would like to call to the attention of this Committee the fact that this bill is not a radical departure from existing legislation. It follows very closely the pattern of law which the Congress just preceding this one has enacted. Under the so-called Pittman Act (Public Resolution No. 83, 76th Congress), enacted on June 15, 1940, and for which, if I am not mistaken, my friend Mr. Fish voted, the President may do for American Republics, the republics in this hemisphere, substantially all the things that are proposed to be authorized in this Act for the democracies whose defense is important

to us.

Under the Pittman Act the President, for example, may authorize the manufacture in government factories and arsenals of coast defense articles, anti-aircraft material and ammunition therefor for the benefit of American republics, and thus do for the benefit of those countries the things which are authorized in this bill to be done for democracies whose defense is important to us.

Again, for the benefit of American republics he may authorize the procurement or sale of such material, and may use Government officials to test, prove, or repair it, and he may also authorize the construction of their vessels of war in our shipyards, the manufacture of armament and equipment for such vessels in Government arsenals, as well as other acts of this nature, including the communication of Government plans and specifications and information relating to such defense articles. These very items are covered by this act for the benefit of the democracies who are fighting for us. Now, I just ask you in all fairness whether today, at this hour, the defense of Great Britain is not of at least as great concern to us in the United States as the defense of Paraguay. And, this bill undertakes to do for Great Britain what we have already said we would do for any one of the twenty-one South American republics.

To summarize: I feel that the proposed bill is a forthright and clear grant of power which will enable the President to place in operation the best and simplest plan to carry out a national policy many times s ated and endorsed. It substantially assists us in the job of caring for our own needs and the needs of those whose defense is a matter of vital importance to us. But it leaves in our hands the power to determine at the time when the munitions are completed the country which shall receive them, and thus to insure that this vital decision is made solely in the interest of the defense of the United States. therefore urge that it be given prompt and favorable consideration by your committee.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Fish.

Mr. FISH. Mr. Secretary, at the conclusion, or near the conclusion of your remarks you referred to the Pittman bill.

Secretary STIMSON. Yes.

Mr. FISH. I would like to correct the record to say it was the Bloom bill, so that the real sponsor would be given credit for it.

The CHAIRMAN. May I state further for the record that it was the Bloom bill sponsored by Mr. Fish and myself so there will not be any question about that.

Mr. FISH. The reason I voted for that bill, Mr. Secretary

Secretary STIMSON. I do not want to get into any discussion about its authorship, as long as we agree on what the bill was. I am very