logical inclusion in the ban of cotton, oil, steel, and the other war essentials?

They will have opportunity to ponder upon all aspects of inflexible, mandatory embargoes during consideration of the administration's sensible compromise proposals, embodied in the Bloom bill. Without questioning the lofty ideals of the isolationists, they should recognize the fact that America cannot escape every conceivable type of international storm by hiding its head in the sand. In lieu of such a policy Secretary Hull proposes that America should face the problem of our foreign relations squarely, free to adapt ourselves to every changing condition and unhampered in meeting the particular exigencies of each new crisis.

The clamping of a mandatory embargo on arms to Great Britain and Germany, if they went to war this summer, would have the effect of alining us on Germany's side, as she is better prepared for war than England, who would need to buy materials from us. The Hull bill would open our arms and other trade to both sides but only England, through her control of the seas, would be in a position to avail herself of the opportunity. This trade, through operation of provisions similar to "cash and carry" of the 1937 act, could be carried on with a minimum risk of commercial or financial involvement of the type that helped to draw us into the World War. There is no absolute guaranty against war in law or diplomacy, but the Hull program comes closer to the goal than any proposal so far advanced by the so-called mandatory neutrality bloc.

[From the Journal, Providence, R. I., June 19, 1939]

WHO IS NEUTRAL?

Mr. Gerald P. Nye, the youthful Paul Revere of the Senate, is making ready to filibuster, "all summer if necessary," against the administration's neutrality bill. Already he has secured 21 senatorial signatures to a round robin opposing any revision of the existing law, and he hopes to add 8 or 10 more before the fight gets under way. This is his "Battalion of Death," ready to risk collapse in the jungle heat of Washington for the sake of illusions.

Mr. Nye has a patriot's right to do this, if it is his idea of patriotism, but the public also has the right to ask if he really is serving the Nation's interests. The filibuster is an ancient weapon of a legislative minority, firmly rooted in the Senate's rules permitting unlimited debate. It has its uses, sometimes good, sometimes bad. Not infrequently it is used, not as a means of protecting minority rights but of imposing the will of a minority on the majority.

If Mr. Nye's plan succeeds, less than one-third of the Senate will have talked to death an important and necessary measure which the public at large favors. This would be minority government with a vengeance, all the more disastrous because it would mean perpetuating a policy contrary to the best interests of the United States.

It is the isolationists' argument that the administration's neutrality bill is "unneutral" because it provides for the cash-and-carry sale of war and raw materials to all belligerents. This, they argue, would help only Great Britain and France, because they have the money

and control the Atlantic and Mediterranean. Consequently it is taking sides in the event of war. So they favor a mandatory embargo on all shipments, military and secondary supplies alike, overlooking the fact that they demand a policy which will give aid and comfort to the dictators.

So they propose to use the filibuster to veto the will of a majority of the Senate, which, in the final analysis, is the will of the American people. Is this real representative government?

[From the Journal-News, Hamilton, Ohio, June 19, 1939]

NEUTRALITY BILL DESERVES SUPPORT

The neutrality bill introduced into the House of Representatives by Bloom, of New York, acting chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, comes closer to being an instrument to permit the United States to use its influence for peace than any so-called neutrality legislation yet enacted or proposed.

The bill has the support of the administration because it aids in putting the conduct of foreign affairs back where it belongs, under the American form of Government-in the hands of the Executive.

Experience has shown that the present law and its predecessor in effect at the time of the Italo-Ethiopian war made this country an unwitting ally of aggression. The President does not dare find that "a state of war exists" in the Far East today, for to do so would make this country an even stronger ally of Japan than at present. Were the law applied, Japan could continue to buy raw materials here while China could not.

The handful of Senators who seemed determined to launch a filibuster against this bill should think twice. The American people now realize that they can help themselves most by doing everything possible to prevent aggression anywhere. They realize that this Nation cannot stay out of war merely by wishing to do so and passing a law to that effect. Peace has to be worked for. This bill provides for the accomplishment of that end. Congress should not adjourn until it is passed. The situation in Europe and the Far East demands it in America's own behalf.

[From the St. Louis (Mo.) Star Times, June 20, 1939]

REALISM ABOUT NEUTRALITY

If Congress adjourns without adopting necessary revisions in our neutrality laws, it is possible that the brave attempt, 4 years ago, to write legislation making less likely our entanglement in Europe's future wars will be viewed within a decade as the most miserable of failures.

There are definite advantages to laws, drafted in advance of conflict, to notify the world and our own people that certain practices which helped involve us in the war in 1917 will not again be tolerated.

As Secretary of State Hull has suggested, the laws should be expanded to give the President power to designate "war zones" in which American citizens and vessels could not travel. The cash-and-carry provisions of the old law, which expired May 1, should be renewed, so

as to require belligerents to buy American goods, if they choose to buy, for cash only, with transportation in their own ships. If they do this, our ships can't be torpedoed and American investors can't finance the fighting of other people's wars.

But the present prospect is that Congress is less likely to enact these proposals than to waste its time in impassioned debate over another of Mr. Hull's suggestions-that the present law, prohibiting the sale of arms to any nation at war, be amended to allow any belligerent to buy munitions, as well as other products, on a cash-and-carry basis.

Here is where the fireworks will fly. Here is where the so-called neutrality bloc will concentrate its energies, seeking to prevent the change that Hull and the administration propose. And here is where the whole principle of neutrality may break down, if this minority is successful.

It is easy to see that the minority is unrealistic in seeking to maintain this general arms embargo at the expense of every other consideration. If all we have in the way of neutrality legislation is an arms embargo, it would not tend in any important way to keep us neutral. Shoes, wheat, copper, steel, and an enormous variety of goods, fully as vital to Europe at war as munitions, would still be sold. And to imagine that tremendous sales of these products is "neutral," while sale of munitions is "unneutral," is sheer fantasy.

Further, we know from experience that it would be extremely difficult to maintain the arms embargo after war broke out and the American people realized as they would realize that it was seriously damaging Britain and France and clearly assisting Germany and Italy. Changing the law at such a time, when a European conflict was actually being fought, would be the very opposite of neutrality-virtually an act of war in itself. Yet the pressure for such a change would be

enormous.

Do the members of the neutrality bloc recognize these facts? Perhaps, fundamentally, they do. But they represent one of the most stubborn of American misconceptions-the isolation is tradition, the delusion that this country doesn't really have to worry about what happens in Europe. Though European wars have become American wars, with monotonous regularity, for more than two centuries, they are still unwilling to admit that preservation of American peace-permanent peace-depends on something more than a general arms embargo.

Secretary Hull's proposed neutrality law revisions would fit the needs of the day, when Rome, Berlin, and Tokio are bound on creating a "new world order" and when America, while determined to keep from being dragged into war by stupid and avoidable incidents, must also take into account the Fascist drive.

The most encouraging news out of Washington, in these circumstances, is the announced determination of congressional leaders, at the insistance of the administration, to stay in session as long as necessary to pass a new neutrality bill embodying Hull's proposals.

It would be a confession of congressional bankruptcy if the majority, undoubtedly supported also by the majority of the people, were unwilling to fight the isolationist minority as long as necessary to pass the administration's bills. And it might mean the doom of all neutrality legislation in the future, when disillusion comes.

[From the Christian Science Monitor, Boston, Mass., June 21, 1939]

A CONGRESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITY

The administration's insistence that a revised neutrality bill be passed by Congress at this session is expected to precipitate a long debate among legislators who would rather go home. This is perhaps the strongest argument against undertaking the passage of the bill at this time. And it is not a very strong argument at that.

As neutrality legislation stands now, the President is hampered in the conduct of foreign policy by the existence of a pointless remnant of previous legislation. An arms embargo remains mandatory, but no restrictions now exist to control shipments of commodities to belligerents, for the cash-and-carry feature of the 1937 law has expired. Passage of a new law should reinstate the cash-and-carry idea as applied to commodities. This is much more important as a measure to keep the United States out of war than is an automatic arms embargo, which, indeed, is of itself negligible as a safeguard.

Unless legislation is passed at this session, several months must elapse before Congress again tackles the question-months which promise no particular diminution in that pressure of government upon government which has made the last few years critical for peace.

[From the Evening Star, Washington, D. C., June 21, 1939]

A FIGHT FOR PEACE

President Roosevelt is reported to have told congressional leaders of his earnest desire that both Houses of Congress dispose of the neutrality problem before there is any serious talk of adjournment. Mr. Roosevelt's anxiety over this pressing issue is shared by many persons-in and out of Congress-who foresee the possibility of grave threats to the peace of the United States if the present automatic embargo on arms, ammunition, and implements of war remains on the statute books. The administration-sponsored Bloom bill, favorably reported by the House Foreign Affairs Committee, seeks to end this peril through repeal of the embargo provision and enactment of a more flexible law, adaptable to developing emergencies.

There are good prospects for passage of the Bloom bill by the House, but battle lines are being drawn for an uncompromising fight against the administration plan in the Senate. The battle will be led by a bipartisan minority constituting the so-called mandatory neutrality bloc, led by Senators Nye, Republican, of North Dakota, and Clark, Democrat, of Missouri, and several other devotees of the isolationist theory in American foreign relations. This minority is strong and vociferous. Rumors of a filibuster have been circulated. The outlook is anything but encouraging to Senators who have been giving thought to a mid-July adjournment and attendant vacation pleasures.

Congress should realize that among the more interested spectators at this battle will be two well-known European dictators. They are undoubtedly perfectly satisfied possibly quite delighted-with the existing Neutrality Act. It insures for them the kind of "neutrality"

for the United States that they would need most in the event of war between the Rome-Berlin axis and the European democracies, a neutrality that would discommode the axis aggressors to the least degree, while crippling the democracies to an almost fatal extent. Is Congress by its inaction willing to give this sort of encouragement to international disturbers of the peace? It should be remembered that aid, however indirect or unintentional, to the aggressors menaces the peace of the world—and hence the peace of America. By wiping the aggressor-favoring embargo provision from the books and substituting for it a law which, while adhering to fundamental rights of neutrals under international law, would have the coincidental effect of discouraging the plans of ambitious dictators, Congress can perform a vital service to the United States and to the world as well. The program outlined recently by Secretary Hull and incorporated in the Bloom bill, would be an effective deterrent to aggression and therefore a powerful influence against one of the major threats to world peace today. The national interest demands that the battle for repeal of the dangerous embargo law and enactment of saner, more flexible legislation be fought to a conclusion, if it takes all summer.

[From the New York (N. Y.) Daily News, June 22, 1939]

OUR NEUTRALITY LAW THAT ISN'T

With Hitler reported cooking up another of thsoe crises that might explode into a European war, the question of our attitude in such a conflict becomes pressing again. At present, we have a statute which we call a Neutrality Act, but which isn't.

THE ARMS EMBARGO

This statute's most important part is the arms-embargo provision. As soon as the President should find that a state of war existed, the arms-embargo clause would prevent us from shipping war supplies to any of the fighting powers.

It looks like genuine neutrality. In some cases it would be. But in the case of a war between England and its allies on one side and Germany and its allies on the other, this law would make us anything but neutral in fact.

The British navy would clap a blockade on Germany, as before. Hence, as long as the blockade held, Germany couldn't send for American war supplies, law or no law. But neither could Britain, even though British ships came to get them and cash payment were offered. The arms embargo would stand in the way.

We think the sensible thing to do would be to go back to the old custom of selling any and all war supplies to any fighting power that would buy them, but to drop the old "freedom of the seas" doctrine obligating our Government to protect any of our citizens in this kind of business.

IT FAVORS GERMANY

Congress may not want to go that far in revising the Neutrality Act. But at least we think the arms-embargo clause should be repealed. As it stands, it is legislation in favor of Germany in anticipation of the next probable European war.