them in a common purpose. The first hundred days of the Roosevelt administration were great days.

Why were they great?

Because Roosevelt, by the very magnificence of his courage, provided inspired leadership for a united people.

Partisanship was forgotten.

The appeal that rang out from the White House was to us all.

And a united and undivided country responded.

What hopes those first hundred days held out for a swift recovery!

How fair seemed the prospect that the United States was to lead an impoverished, discouraged, depression-ridden world back to normal conditions!. And then followed divided counsels. Partisanship reared its head. Popular unity was lost. Sharp divisions, even within the party of which the President was the titular leader, appeared. The promised recovery bogged down, and in that morass of dissenting opinion we have struggled ever since.

And now President Roosevelt again faces a grave national crisis.

A second great war has come to curse a war-sick Europe. Millions of men, armed men, have taken the field. Helpless women and children are being slaughtered in Poland by bombs from the air. Equally defenseless men, women and children are going down in torpedoed ships at sea. Great cities are blacked out, and their people scurry like rats for their holes at the sound of shrieking sirens. The ocean highways are sown with mines. And huge guns roar defiance over the heads of soldiers waiting in muddy trenches for the zero hour.

Over here we sit in dread lest again we shall be drawn into the maelstrom of death-and hate, that poisons all living.

We must keep out of this war. It comes first as a whisper of a half-believed hope in the hearts of millions.

We must keep out! It finds expression in the columns of the newspapers, on the air, and from the rostrum. This cry knows no partisanship.

We must keep out! It wells up from the whole people-North, South, East, and West. It comes from the factory and the farm. From the young and the old. From the poor and the rich.

And it thunders at the door of the White House, where sits the man in whose hands rests very largely the decision.

Last Sunday night that man, in reassuring, stirring terms, reiterated this universal hope when he said:

"I hope the United States will keep out of this war. I believe that it will. And I give you assurances that every effort of your Government will be directed toward that end."

You know, Mr. President, that this hope can only be realized if you have at your back the united people of the country. We know that you know this for two reasons. First, because in the same speech from which we have just quoted you urged that partisanship and selfishness be adjourned; and second, because it was precisely in this way that you met the crisis of 1933.

How can you get a united people behind you?

In the same way you did when you faced that first crisis of your administration.

You did not do that alone. You called for the unselfish cooperation of allDemocrats and Republicans; bankers and businessmen; farmers and workers; men and women, rich and poor, young and old. And you got it.

Nor can you meet this new crisis alone. It is even more difficult for you to act alone now than it would have been 6 years ago, for almost 6 years of acute partisan warfare have intervened. Even the party that gave you your leadership, and that was solidly behind you in 1933, is divided. The opposition party, then demoralized by devastating defeat, is now powerful and militant. No; Mr. President, you cannot do this alone. In Britain, when actual war made national unity imperative, Chamberlain summoned his harshest critics, Churchill and Eden to his council table. You should do no less.

Soon you must summon Congress into special session. That session will have to do chiefly, almost exclusively, with questions of international relationships. In the disposition of such questions partisanship should not, and must not, have any part. You have just said, wisely and truly, that we must adjourn partisanship. It is not sufficient just to say this. It must be done.

Senator ELLENDER. What is the date of that editorial again, Colonel Knox?

Colonel KNox. September 7.

Senator TYDINGS. 1939?

Colonel KNOX. 1939.

How?

One way would be to create instantly a joint congressional committee to sit frequently with you, whenever questions that affect our international relations are concerned, and to base subsequent action by Congress upon decisions reached by such joint counsels, representing the opinion, deliberately arrived at, of men who represent the three major divisions of the present Congress. That would give you unity, and with a united public opinion you can make your hope of keeping us out of a war a reality.

You cannot do it alone!

Along the same line I would like to read one that I published on November 3. Does this tire you men? I do not want to bore you with this.

Senator TYDINGS. It is very interesting. Go ahead.

Colonel KNOX. The title of this editorial is "The Time to Think Is Now," and it was published on November 3, 1939:

The revision of the neutrality law is now an accomplished fact. The United States has wisely returned to the historic policy of selling whatever it has to sell for export to whoever comes here and buys it and takes it away. We had always declined to discriminate between belligerents, when war came anywhere, until the unfortunate experiment in "predigested" neutrality in 1935, and now we have restored that sound policy that Washington himself established.

Quite the most effective argument employed by those who favored retention of the embargo was that repeal of the embargo constituted the first step toward war. The trouble with this argument was that it was not an argument at all— it was nothing but an unsupported assertion, the truth of which only time can test.

What can be demonstrated, in fact has been repeatedly, is that those who advocated repeal are as vigorously opposed to the United States entering the war as are the champions of an embargo. There is no war party in the United States.

The

The truth is that the disposition of the embargo has no relation to the question of war involvement. No one is seriously trying to get us in the war now. British and the French are anxious for access to our markets for vital materials and equipment, particularly for aircraft purchases. But thus far the war has made no demands for manpower that the Allies cannot meet. With the entire western front in a military stalemate

this was written last November

the question of manpower is not acute. What is acute is the need of accelerated production of aircraft and mechanized equipment, including antiaircraft and heavy guns. This need can be met without American participation in the war. But, let us not make the mistake of thinking that, because there is no pressure to get us into the war now, there will be none in the future. That will depend upon two things-the length of the war and a possible change for the worse in Allied prospects of victory. If the war is of long duration, we will doubtless be subjected to a torrent of propaganda, designed to enlist us, so that we might bring preponderance of manpower to the Allied armies. Or, if the legions of Hitler find a weak spot in the Maginot Line, and surge through with their mechanized divisions, overrunning France, and threatening the channel portsas in 1918-so in 1940 we will be called upon to fight with the Allies or face a Germany dominant in Europe.

That is the possible prospect ahead. It is none too early to begin taking careful counsel on the policy we will adopt in the face of such contingency. Our action should not be determined in a moment of hysteria. We should not wait to make up our minds in the midst of a tornado of propaganda, and in the presence of an acute crisis in Europe.

Nor is the situation met by a summary declaration that, under any circumstances, no matter what the provocation, we will not fight. That ignores both our national temperament and our history. In addition, this is one of the surest ways to invite the very aggressions out of which war comes.

NOMINATION OF WILLIAM FRANKLIN KNOX
TO BE SECRETARY OF THE NAVY

JULY 2 AND 3, 1940

Printed for the use of the Committee on Naval Affairs

LIBRARY

242706

UNITED STATES
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

WASHINGTON: 1940

JUL

19

1940

What would seem the wiser course would be. to take careful stock of the probable situation we may have to face. Such a course would first summarize the results of our intervention in a European war in 1917, and coldly calculate whether the fruits of that departure from our traditional aloofness from Europe's wars justified its repetition.

What are some of the features of such a review? We unquestionably went to war in 1917 because Germany was sinking our vessels on the high seas, and killing our people. By helping to win the war we stopped that.

But we had other objectives. We fought to end military autocracies and foster the democratic ideal. We hoped by defeating Germany, to promote adjustment of international disputes by peaceful methods, instead of resort to force. We aimed at substituting the rule of reason and law, between the nations of the world, for the rule of the sword. In all these we were bitterly disappointed.

But this is not all. We contributed decisively to the victorious conclusion of the war. But our proposals for a just peace were flouted so outrageously we were compelled to make a separate treaty with Germany. We stood helplessly at Versailles and saw Britain and France impose a ruthless and impossible peace, which we knew contained the seeds of the war that now has come. We gave more than generously of our means to our allies; accepted settlements that meant repayment of about a third of our advances, and then saw these promises to pay repudiated, the while we were called by our former Allies a Nation of money-mad Shylocks. We made a Nine Power Pact for the Pacific and then when we sought to prevent Japan from breaking her word, we were abandoned by Great Britain and France. We deliberately abandoned our primacy in naval power, sinking nearly a million tons of warships, to prove our devotion to the principle of peaceful negotiation as a substitute for war, only to witness a cynical world renew its costly race in armaments.

These things we have seen. They are a part of our certain knowledge. They ought to weigh heavily with us in making a new decision-and they will.

We have also come better to understand and appreciate the priceless advantage of our insular position. We know that, if we make ourselves strong enough in sea power, we can be safe from successful attack. We know a powerful fleet gives us a chance to live as free men, preserving our free institutions behind that bulwark.

We know that we do not need to fight in Europe in order to be secure from the brigand powers that prey.

These are the things that should engage our thoughts and influence our action when the time for action comes-if it does come. These are some of the things that demand the consideration of those who carry the responsibility of national leadership in the days that lie ahead.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you still entertain those views?

Colonel KNOX. I certainly do, and you will find nothing in any of my platform speeches or in my editorials contrary to it.

Senator JOHNSON. Nowhere have you revised them?

Colonel KNOX. Nowhere. Let me read a third one at the great risk of boring you.

Senator TYDINGS. Colonel Knox, in order to make the record complete, you say you have never revised them by writing or by public utterances. Have you ever revised them by private utterance?

Colonel KNOX. No, sir; may I inject this, Senator: As a boy out of college I had a part in a little war, and I saw men from Senator Walsh's State go into the firing line with black-powder guns and make of themselves a target of every Spanish soldier in the South. I had the privilege of service in the World War and I saw my own men gassed because they did not know how to get on their gas masks. You know that; you know how it happened. All my life since that time, since a boy, I have been a proponent of national preparedness always. That is why, perhaps, my sentiments here seem to be perfervid, extreme. I have seen, as you have seen, the lack of adequate preparation.