Mr. DENNIS. That was from 1906 to 1910, and then thereafter for a number of years during my practice in Washington, I represented the Government on numerous occasions in international arbitrations, at the Hague Court, a number of times, and various other places. Mr. MUNDT. You say that you are a college president?

Mr. DENNIS. Yes; I am; but I was not always.

Mr. MUNDT. You are opposed to war?

Mr. DENNIS. Yes, sir.

Mr. MUNDT. I am glad to hear you say that, because for a number of enjoyable years I was a college professor, and I would hate to have the opinion get out that all college professors were trying to put us into war.

Mr. DENNIS. I am sorry for that, too.

Mr. MUNDT. I would like to commend you on that.

Mr. RICHARDS. Doctor, I want to thank you for coming here. I for one am convinced that you are conscientious and want to help us and our country out. If we could arrange this so as to help Great Britain by constitutional paths, would you agree for us to do it?

Mr. DENNIS. You mean by constitutional and legal means?

Mr. RICHARDS. I mean granting that the bill is not constitutional, it would be legal if it was constitutional.

Mr. DENNIS. With regard to international law, I want to be sure that we have that in mind. I would not be willing to violate international law to save the British Empire.

Mr. RICHARDS. There is not much international law left around here, is there?

Mr. DENNIS. Yes; but I think that there is; I realize that many great men have told you that, and have said it in many places, but as one American citizen, I think that there is international law, and that we will live to profit by it if we observe it.

Mr. RICHARDS. The existence of international law is entirely theoretical; it is not actual, is it?

Let

Mr. DENNIS. No; I do not think it is theoretical right now. me show you one instance. This happened in the last war, but it might have come just as well from this.

We represented the interests of Great Britain and Germany during the years of our neutrality. That meant that we looked after the British prisoners. International law and The Hague conventions governed the treatment of those prisoners. There is immense correspondence, all during that war when our ears were filled with the stories of atrocities; there was an immense correspondence, about the details of the treatment of those German prisoners, those English prisoners in German prisons, and at one time a German officer went there with a dog and the dog bit a British officer. Now it has happened before that a dog has bitten a man, but I doubt if ever there was as much written on paper about a dog bite as there was as a result of that German officer's dog biting a British officer. That shows that international law was in force.

Mr. RICHARDS. I do not want to get into too much detail in that field. Here is my international lawyer over here to my right. All I can do is to keep up with those little laws around here. What do you think is the best thing for the United States to do so far as the United States is concerned? Is it to help Britain if we can do it by

constitutional means, and if you want, legal methods, and under international law?

Mr. DENNIS. I want the United States to keep neutral, to keep out of this war, and not to go over the line of neutrality.

Mr. RICHARDS. You mean to not help either one.

Mr. DENNIS. Not if it means crossing the line of neutrality. Now, I admit my ancestors were all British, I am a member of the Mayflower Society, and emotionally I would like to have Great Britain win the war.

Mr. RICHARDS. Now wait right there. You say you would like to have Great Britain win because you think it would be best for this country, do you not?

Mr. DENNIS. And for the world; I think sentimentally-it is a great deal of sentiment concerned with it.

Mr. RICHARDS. And you do not think it would be worth while for us to take any steps to help Great Britain to win the war?

Mr. DENNIS. I do not think it would be worth while for us to violate international law, and endanger war, to help Great Britain. I meet that issue squarely. If we cannot save the British Empire without doing unneutral acts, I would let the British Empire go.

Mr. SHANLEY. As a practical matter, there is not anything that we can do under international law to aid the Allies, is there?

Mr. DENNIS. We can do what we did in the last war, let them buy their supplies.

Mr. SHANLEY. I mean after the mere fact that we changed the Embargo Act, which was illegal, it would just simply prevent us from doing anything now that is not legal, Mr. Dennis?

Mr. DENNIS. If it is true that to change that act now, for the purpose of helping Great Britain, would be a violation of international law, that is right; but as I say, that violation is so much less than so many of these other violations that I would certainly resort to that before anything like this.

Mr. SHANLEY. You disagree with Mr. Castle's answers to my questions, do you not?

Mr. DENNIS. I do not think that you can change your present neutrality law.

Mr. SHANLEY. Except to strengthen your defense.

Mr. DENNIS. Yes; but not for the purpose of helping Great Britain.

Mr. SHANLEY. The motive is important.

Mr. DENNIS. Mr. Jessup's article, that you are doubtless familiar with, in the Harvard Research Magazine, collects all of the authorities, and while there is some doubt, of course, as there is in most legal questions, I think the clear answer is you cannot change the rules of the game while the ball is in play for the purpose of aiding one of the parties, and still be legal.

Mr. SHANLEY. Except to strengthen neutrality.

Mr. DENNIS. Of course, to do it for the purpose of strengthening the neutrality of the United States-we could do that.

Mr. SHANLEY. That is right. Thank you.

Mr. JONKMAN. I wanted to ask you this question: You said that you heard part of the testimony of Mr. Castle. I asked him a question whether it is not true that the passage of this act by the Congress would in itself be an act of war.

Mr. DENNIS. I hardly think so, because I have tried to determine that for sometime, in company with J. Rubin Clark; I visited him out in Utah; I tried to get a good definition of an act of war, and it is strange, but it is hard to find. I imagine an act of war would probably have to be an act of force. But this is a hostile act, to which the natural answer is war. And so I do not think it is very material whether it is a technical act of war or not.

Mr. JONKMAN. The reason I would like to develop the questionMr. Castle responded by saying that the transfer of destroyers was one act of war, and that this was another act of war. Now my conclusion is that we then have an act of war, at least there is some controversy as to whether it was authorized by the President, and then we will have another act of war by the Congress, and isn't it true that we then have created a state of war?

Mr. DENNIS. In the first place, the President did an unneutral act, clearly an unneutral act, and clearly in violation of international law, in my judgment, and now Congress is asked to give the authority for a complete series of unneutral acts, and of course this is very much more serious than that one act on behalf of the President, and Congress is the power which could declare war, but I should doubt whether a man had a chance to prove that, whether this is really an act of war. Mr. JONKMAN. Considering that the President has been given the power, or it has been stated here by members of the President's Cabinet that the President would control the power of distributing the articles of war, that would be of some importance.

Mr. DENNIS. It would be of immense practical importance; yes; there is no question about that, this bill is a war bill; there is no doubt about that; but on the technical question-Is the passage of this bill an act of war?—I would be in some doubt. That is because it is not an act of force. It authorizes an unlimited number of unneutral acts. Mr. JONKMAN. That is all.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Dennis, for appearing, and it is really unfortunate that it is so late, because I know that all of the members if they were here would have enjoyed the opportunity of questioning you, on the subject that you are so well acquainted with. Thank you again, and the committee will recess until 10 o'clock tomorrow morning.

(Thereupon, at 7:30 p. m., an adjournment was taken, to reconvene the following morning, January 25, 1941, at 10 a. m.)

LEND-LEASE BILL

SATURDAY, JANUARY 25, 1941

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS,
Washington, D. C.

The committee met at 10 a. m., Hon. Sol Bloom (chairman), presiding.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will kindly come to order. The committee has under consideration H. R. 1776. The first witness this morning is Ambassador William C. Bullitt.

STATEMENT of Hon. WILLIAM C. BULLITT

The CHAIRMAN. You may proceed, Mr. Bullitt. Have you a prepared statement?

Mr. BULLITT. I have.

The CHAIRMAN. We shall be glad to hear you.

Mr. BULLITT. I have tried to express as briefly as possible my convictions on the present situation and the bill under consideration: 1. We are determined to maintain the independence of the United States and our Government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

2. We hate war. Therefore, we desire to protect our country and our liberties without going to war.

3. Germany has drawn Italy and Japan into a league directed against us and other free nations by a treaty signed in Berlin on September 27, 1940.

4. We cannot appease Germany. It is impossible to appease the unappeasable. And the Western Hemisphere is the juiciest morsel before the dictators.

5. The earth has been so contracted by the airplane that for the first time in our history the war machines of Europe can reach the Western Hemisphere in a few hours.

6. The Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans remain formidable obstacles to invasion of the Americas so long as both are controlled either by the American Navy or by the navy of a power friendly to us.

7. We have a one-ocean navy and shall not have a two-ocean navy before 1946.

8. So long as the British Navy continues to hold the Germans and Italians on the other side of the Atlantic, while our fleet watches in the Pacific, we have and shall have the practical equivalent of a two-ocean Navy.

9. If the British Navy should be eliminated, we would still have a one-ocean Navy but we should have two oceans to defend. 10. A one-ocean navy cannot cover two oceans.

11. Without the British Navy we could not protect both the Pacific coast and the Atlantic coast of the Western Hemisphere. We could not lock both the front door and the back door. of our national home.

12. An ocean without a fleet is not a defense but a broad highway for invasion.

13. There are strong totalitarian elements in many states of South America.

14. The elimination of the British Navy and control of either the Atlantic or the Pacific by a totalitarian navy would be the signal for totalitarian government to be installed in one or more states of Latin America. The movement of totalitarian control toward the Panama Canal would be rapid.

15. The experience of cities in England has shown that it is impossible to prevent bombardment of the Panama Canal by planes based on the northern portion of South America, or on Central America, or an aircraft carriers.

16. If the Panama Canal should be closed by bombardment from the air or sabotage, our one-ocean Navy would be fixed in one ocean and the other ocean would become a pathway for invasion.

17. We are not prepared today to meet an attack by the totalitarian states that are leagued against us. We must buy time in which to prepare.

18. We can buy that time only by making certain that the British Fleet will continue to hold the totalitarian forces in Europe while our fleet watches in the Pacific.

19. If we should permit the conquest of the British Isles, the officers and men of the British Navy would be threatened with the starvation of the entire population of Great Britain if they should continue to hold the Atlantic for us. It is improbable that they could or would do so for long.

20. Should the British Navy be eliminated and should the Panama Canal be blocked before we are prepared, invasion of the Western Hemisphere would be almost certain. It is entirely certain that the shipbuilding facilities in the hands of the totalitarian dictators would be at least four times as great as our shipbuilding facilities, and what we had planned to be a two-ocean navy would turn out to be only a one-ocean navy after all. More than 90 percent of the human race would be controlled by the dictators and be organized both militarily and economically against us. A Japanese iron_ring around Asia and Australasia and a German iron ring around Africa and Europe, including Great Britain and Ireland, would cut us off from trade with so great a portion of the earth, that we-in a mutilated stump of the Western Hemisphere-would be thrown into economic disorder. The standard of living of even the poorest American would be gravely reduced. And we should have to try to support with our crippled economic system armaments colossal enough to resist the whole world. We should have to organize our American life on a military basis from top to bottom and maintain it on a military basis throughout years of misery and years of totalitarian propaganda directed against our democratic form of government. How long, under those conditions, we could maintian the liberties that have been the birthright of every American since the birth of our Nation, no man knows.