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Mr. TINKHAM. Let me say, Mr. Chairman, that I do not want to review my war experiences, and I do not intend to. But I was laying some ground for the competency of my question. But I will eliminate it.

May I put the question in this way, Mr. Secretary: If, under this bill, our resources are put behind England and behind China, which means in Europe and in Asia, and they are not sufficient, and China seems to be falling and England seems to be falling, is it not inherent, once having committed ourselves with all our resources, to send our manpower in order to maintain our dignity and our position. Secretary STIMSON. I do not see that it would be from anything now before me at all a consequence that would necessarily follow from that. I think, on the contrary, it is the best bet we can make to save us from sending our manpower. That is my view. I may be mistaken. But I am very strongly and clearly of that view.

Mr. TINKHAM. I take exactly the opposite position, Mr. Secretary. Now, if there is nothing in the bill to prohibit cargo convoys, would you object to having an amendment in the bill which forbade convoys by the American Navy to Great Britain, or to other countries?

Secretary STIMSON. I think the bill should stand as it does.

Mr. TINKHAM. In other words, you object to any such limitation? Secretary STIMSON. I prefer the bill as it is, on the same principle that I said before. I think this Government of ours, the United States, should not tie its hands, or even its finger, in the face of the emergency that exists now; and all of these little things are in the nature of shackles which you would have put upon this Nation in a great emergency. No one can foresee whether or not that might not be very dangerous to it in an unforeseen emergency.

Mr. TINKHAM. In other words, anything looking toward peace, toward the possibility of our noninvolvement in the war, you do not want in the bill.

Secretary STIMSON. I submit that that is a very grossly unfair perversion of my statement.

Mr. TINKHAM. Let me read a statement that you made 2 days before you were nominated for Secretary of War. You made a radio address, and this was published in the Wall Street Journal of June 21:

To put the matter concretely, my recommendation would be that the following steps should immediately be taken :

First, we should repeal the provisions of our ill-starred so-called neutrality venture which have acted as a shackle to our true interests for over 5 years. Second, we should throw open all of our ports to the British and French naval and merchant marine for all repairs and refueling and other naval services.

Third, we should accelerate by every means in our power the sending of planes and other munitions to Britain and France on a scale which would be effective, sending them if necessary in our own ships and under convoy.

Fourth, we should refrain from being fooled by the evident bluff of Hitler's so-called "fifth column" movements in South America. On the face of them, they are attempts to frighten us from sending help where it will be most effective.

Fifth, in order to assist the home front of Britain's defense we should open our lands as a refuge for the children and old people of Britain whose liability to suffering from air raids in Great Britain is a constant inducement to surrender to terms which she would otherwise resist.

Sixth, we should, every one of us, combat the defeatist arguments which are being made in this country as to the unconquerable power of Germany. I believe that if we use our brains and curb our prejudices we can, by keeping command of the sea, beat her again as we did in 1918.

The comment of the Wall Street Journal

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. Chairman, I object to the comment.

Mr. TINKHAM. Let me tell you this: that I am not going to be interfered with any longer. I am a member of this committee. If I want to read an article pertinent to this bill, I am going to do it and that is all there is to it.

Mr. JOHNSON. I make the point of order that the gentleman should not read the comment of the Wall Street Journal.

The CHAIRMAN. Members will kindly take their seats.

Mr. JOHNSON. The gentleman from Massachusetts asked the Secretary of War if he made a certain statement, and without giving the witness a chance to reply, he has undertaken to read a comment from the Wall Street Journal, to which I object.

The CHAIRMAN. The Chair is ready to rule. The objection is sustained. The Secretary, if he wishes, will answer the question, but outside comments are barred.

Mr. TINKHAM. As a member of this committee, I will read comments if I want to.

The CHAIRMAN. You may make comments, and there is no objection to your making comments, Mr. Tinkham. Please remember that you have occupied the floor now for about 40 minutes. The Chair has not objected to any pertinent questions, relevant to the bill. We are trying to finish and we hope you will ask the witness questions that the Secretary can answer. But we are not here to read comments from

newspapers.

Mr. Secretary

Secretary STIMSON. Do I understand the question to be whether I made such a speech at that time?

Mr. TINKHAM. Did you make that statement?

Secretary STIMSON. I did. And I am sorry to say that my judgment then as to what might come in the character of perils to this country with the advance of time seems to have been fairly accurate. The CHAIRMAN. May I ask, Mr. Tinkham, how much longer you wish to proceed?

Mr. TINKHAM. I want to proceed as long as it is necessary, Mr. Chairman. I want to say in relation to that, that if I am to be hampered in my questions-apparently there is a desire on the part of this committee that I do not proceed further, then I will stop here and now.

The CHAIRMAN. I do not want that statement to remain in the record without an answer. The Chair has not in any way interfered with the gentleman from Massachusetts when he proceeded in order. There has been objection made to certain parts of questions on which the Chair has ruled. But if the gentleman does not wish any further time, I will recognize the lady from Massachusetts, Mrs. Rogers. Mr. TINKHAM. I am through.

The CHAIRMAN. Mrs. Rogers.

Mrs. ROGERS. Mr. Secretary, I am extremely glad that you are appearing before us today.

Secretary STIмSON. Thank you.

Mrs. ROGERS. You have had a very vast experience in international affairs as Secretary of War, then as Secretary of State before this, and now again as Secretary of War. Certainly, your views should be given great consideration, and I earnestly plead with the chairman and the committee that I may be allowed to complete my questions to you, and that the gag rule be not applied.

The CHAIRMAN. The Chair objects to that.
Mr. TINKHAM. Well, I do not object to it.

The CHAIRMAN. The Chair wishes to state that he has not interfered in the matter of time allowed members for asking questions. The Chair further wishes to state that there has been nothing done by the Chair to show that there is any disposition to have a gag rule. If the members will proceed in order and ask questions pertaining to the bill, the Chair will allow as much time as he possibly can. There are 22 members yet to ask questions of the Secretary. Mr. Tinkham has occupied approximately 50 minutes. If that is an application of a gag rule, then the Chair does not understand what a gag rule is. Mrs. Rogers, kindly proceed in order.

Mrs. ROGERS. A parliamentary inquiry.

The CHAIRMAN. The lady will state it.

Mrs. ROGERS. Does it not seem fair to give every one of the 22 members plenty of time for asking questions? The Chairman has stated

The CHAIRMAN. That is not a parliamentary inquiry. The Chairman has already stated many times that he is going to give all the time necessary if you will only speak about the bill and ask questions on the bill. If statements are going to be read that have been published in newspapers, and if an objection is made to that the Chair will sustain the objection.

Mrs. ROGERS. I would like to state that I did not ask to read any statements.

The CHAIRMAN. The lady referred to the Chair's decision as being a "gag rule" and the Chair objected to that. There is no desire on the part of the Chair or the committee to have a gag rule and the Chair objected to the statement. The lady will proceed in order.

Mrs. ROGERS. Mr. Secretary, of course you realize just as I do that in questioning you we may take up 50 minutes or even a longer time. But you realize, Mr. Secretary, that if we get into the war more completely than we are in today, we may occupy the floor of battle for 20 to 30 years.

Secretary STIMSON. Mrs. Rogers, may I say in my own defense that I have not objected to the time that has been taken.

Mrs. ROGERS. I know that, Mr. Secretary.

Secretary STIMSON. I have tried to be patient, and I think I have succeeded.

Mrs. ROGERS. I know you wish to answer every question, and that you want us to have most complete and full information.

Mr. EATON. Mr. Chairman, may I register an objection at this point?

The CHAIRMAN. If the lady will yield.

Mrs. ROGERS. I yield, very gladly.

Mr. EATON. I want to protest against this intercommittee warfare being substituted for a discussion of the greatest crisis that has ever

confronted the world. I would like to see this warfare within the committee itself reduced to a minus term.

The CHAIRMAN. The Chair objects to the term "warfare." The Chair has been very fair, and we will proceed in the same way. But the Chair must insist, in the protection of the witness as well as in the conservation of time, that members proceed in order and ask questions that pertain to the bill.

Mrs. ROGERS. Mr. Secretary, do you not feel that the President's message to the Congress, plus the provisions of this bill, if carried out as the bill is written, and assuming the President's recommendations are carried out-do you not feel that we would be embarking on a program of policing the world in defense of the so-called democracies?

Secretary STIMSON. Why, Mrs. Rogers, quite to the contrary, I think it would have just the opposite tendency. I think it would tend, so far as it has any influence, to keeping the control of what we did, as I tried to explain yesterday, down to the single question of our own national defense. I am speaking with all seriousness, because I have no more desire to have this country get into war than you have. I think that it would tend in the direction of the greatest safety of this country, and a greater prevention of the danger of war. I think that is all I need to say.

Mrs. ROGERS. Did not the gentleman in reading the opinion of certain international experts yesterday before the committee prove that he felt that we were justified in entering the war?

It was very difficult to hear everything yesterday, Mr. Secretary, and to grasp the full intent of your remarks.

Secretary STIMSON. Certainly nothing that I read could, I believe, be so construed. What I read was the interpretation of the Kellogg Briand Pact by a body of eminent lawyers whose efforts have been in the support of international law and took that direction in the direction of peace.

I read it because so many people have been saying rather loosely that whatever might be done by a group of nations who have disregarded international law and recently have disregarded this great treaty, the Kellogg-Briand Pact still leaves them surrounded and protected by international law. Now these lawyers in Budapest had just the opposite opinion, and I wanted to show it to you. Mrs. ROGERS. They have the opinion that the Kellogg-Briand Peace Pact is in harmony with aiding Britain?

Secretary STIMSON. I did not get the question.

Mrs. ROGERS. That the Kellogg Pact sanctions aid to Britain? Secretary STIMSON. That is the matter of such aid was not an infringement of international law; that is right.

Mrs. ROGERS. And in this case, so far as a declaration of war was concerned, England and France declared war, did they not?

Secretary STIMSON. Yes; but they declared war for the particular reason of the aggression against Poland, and the action taken by the British was thus in accordance with the law.

Mrs. ROGERS. Is it not true, Mr. Secretary, that since the Kellog Pact, the so-called Kellog-Briand Peace Pact, or the Pact of Paris, that wars are not declared any more; few wars have been declared since that time; nations just fight without a declaration.

Secretary STIMSON. I think that is true. That is why, I think, Mrs. Rogers, a great deal of this discussion of rules, the old rules of international law, has rather lost its savor. As Mr. Hull said the other day, recent events have made paramount the laws of self-defense, and I said, as you probably remember, that I fully agreed with what Mr. Hull said in that respect. But I said that even if international law had not been thus subordinated, violator nations had no right under the Kellog-Briand Pact to wrap themselves in its tatters for protection and to claim that other nations were fettered by it.

Mrs. ROGERS. Mr. Secretary, do you not feel that Hitler's action in transferring Germans from the territory of Alsace and Posen proves that he knows that he cannot assimilate other people, and surely not Americans?

Secretary STIMSON. Mrs. Rogers, I do not know, and I do not see that it has anything to do with the bill.

Mrs. ROGERS. I think it has to do with our national defense and as to what may happen to us later, Mr. Secretary. You have stated that you thought that Germany could invade this country.

Secretary STIMSON. I am sorry, Mrs. Rogers. Perhaps, I did not catch your question.

Mrs. ROGERS. May I read my questions again?

Secretary STIMSON. Yes.

Mrs. ROGERS. Do you not feel that Hitler's action relative to transfer of Germans from Alsace and Posen proves to you that he knows he cannot assimilate other people, and surely not Americans? Therefore he would never try to assimilate us and would not go very far invading this country or attempting to do so.

Secretary STIMSON. What have I said, Mrs. Rogers, to deserve bringing on myself that accusation?

Mrs. ROGERS. It was not intended as an accusation.

Secretary STIMSON. I know you never intended it that way.

I never intended to say yesterday that I thought that Hitler was going to try to assimilate us.

Mrs. ROGERS. But you did say he was going to—

Secretary STIMSON (interposing). I said that he might attack us. Mrs. ROGERS. Would you be willing to state again why you thought he would attack us, or could attack us? I understood you to say that it was possible that you would be willing to tell the committee why you thought it was possible.

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Yes, Mr. Johnson.

Mr. JOHNSON. I think the witness went into that very carefully, and on the ground of repetition I further object.

The CHAIRMAN. The objection is sustained.

Mrs. ROGERS. Mr. Secretary, are you satisfied with the progress of the defense program?

Secretary STIMSON. Do you mean the program or its fulfillment? Mrs. ROGERS. The progress of it.

Secretary STIMSON. The progress of the program?

Mrs. ROGERS. Yes.

Secretary STIMSON. No; I am not satisfied at all. I wish we were all through now and ready, but we cannot be.

Mrs. ROGERS. Do you feel that as much has been done under the circumstances as could be?

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