The next one, if you will indulge me, is one of April 11, which brings us more nearly up to date. The title of it is, "The Scroll Unfolds." Am I reading too many of these? Senator TYDINGS. No. Go ahead and read them. Senator ELLENDER. Put them in the record. Colonel KNOX. "Denmark has gone the way of Austria,"- Colonel KNOX. April 11. Senator ELLENDER. 1940? Denmark has gone the way of Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland-it has become a province of the rapidly expanding German Reich. Sweden has been ordered to be neutral-"or else." She confesses her inability to do otherwise. She must be counted the unwilling but helpless tool of German purpose. Finland, after a gallant but hopeless fight against overwhelming odds, surrendered her only possible line of resistance to Russia, chiefly because Germany threatened to join in the attack upon her. Of all the Scandinavian Peninsula, only little Norway resists, and her resistance will be as hopeless as that of the Finns unless the British and French make good swiftly their promised support in sufficient force. Here in this single region of Europe, before the war, lived happily and prosperously four of the successful democratic countries of the world. The fair body of their common freedom today lies beneath the heel of the ruthless Hitler. To those lands millions of the best of American citizenship trace their ancestry. The Finns, the Norwegians, the Swedes, and the Danes came here imbued with a love of liberty and with an inherited instinct for democratic institutions. No other of the various blood strains that go to make the typical American fitted more perfectly into the American way of life than that which came to us from the Scandinavian countries. And now their freedom is being trampled upon, their democratic institutions are made the instrumentality of their subjection, their economic independence has been converted into an intolerable economic slavery! Is it possible that we do not care? Have we become so abject in our posture toward the rest of the world that we dare not speak Have we so far succumbed to peace-at-any-price dogma that we are afraid to tell the world just what we think of foul wrong done to peoples whose only crime was to believe in, and practice, liberty, rear their families in the fear of God, do justice among themselves and deal fairly and justly with all other nations What is this palsy of spirit that has come over us? Why do our public men, disregarding the multiplied evidences that American sympathy is overwhelmingly with those who fight against such dictatorships as those of Hitler and Stalin, seek after the applause of the timid few who tremble before the ruthlessness of a bloody-handed tyrant, and would shush every utterance that told in simple words of American abhorrence of the StalinHitler alliance, and its brutal inhumanity, injustice, and rapine, practiced at the expense of those who cannot defend themselves? We are not called upon to fight. We do not expect to have to fight. God grant that it is not because we are afraid to fight-that way lies war. But national self-respect calls upon us to speak, as we have always spoken, without fear, when our national sensibilities have been deeply touched. Has that fearlessness for the right gone out of us? And the end is not yet. Already Hitler has demanded an armed patrol along the banks of the Danube-that is, through Hungary, Yugoslavia, Rumania, and Bulgaria. These patrols, alleged to be for the defense of navigation of the Danube, could easily prepare the way for a new "blitzkrieg" in the Balkan states. Little by little, Hitler is subjugating the continent of Europe. How safe is Holland, or Belgium, or Switzerland? How long is it to be before we Americans face the realities of the situation that is unfolding before our eyes? We cannot continue to trust blindly in ultimate Allied victory over Hitler. We should begin to think of our own situation, in the entirely possible event that Hitler wins. That could happen! How can we be sure that Hitler will be satisfied with the conquest of Europe? What assurance can we have that we will not have to face a combination of Germany, Russia, and Japan? They all hate us, and covet what we have, and all regard South America as a fair and open field for their exploitation. It is high time for us to begin to think of our defenses, including our financial defenses, weakened as they are with nine annual deficits and a great burden of debt. We must build our sea power swiftly. It cannot be extemporized. We must create an adequate air force and expand our airplane capacity. We must make our small army, and our national guard, the most modernly equipped land force in the world. If we do these things-with our insular position-we can be safe. To do less is to play recklessly, and heedlessly, with the gravest danger to our future security. The world is on fire. It is none too soon to think about the fire department that will protect our national household if the conflagration spreads to our world. Do you want any more? Senator JOHNSON. Go an and read. Colonel KNOX. This is one dated May 11, 1940, and is entitled "The United States in a World of Force." The CHAIRMAN. Are they of the general character that you have indicated? Colonel KNOX. They merely support the thesis I laid down in the speech in Cleveland. The CHAIRMAN. You may put in the record any that you wish. Senator JOHNSON. I would rather hear them, Mr. Chairman. The CHAIRMAN. He writes one every day. We would be here for a week if he read them all. How many have you that you would like to read? Colonel KNOX. The one I have just read was dated April 11, 1940. I have one dated May 11, 1940; another dated June 17, and another dated June 18. The last two are pertinent because they are very recent. The CHAIRMAN. Very well. You may read those last two. Colonel KNOX. This one is entitled "The United States in a World of Force," dated May 11, 1940: In a world where might makes right, there is neither pity nor mercy for a Nation unprepared. Who can doubt that we live in a world where force, and force alone reigns? The German invasion of Holland strikes the hour of decision for the United States. The greatest danger possible to this country is that of a combined attack from a Germany victorious in Europe and a Japan victorious in Asia. If we prefer, we can sit passibly and wait for the lightning to strike, as so many other countries have done to their cost. Or we can take sound preventive measures. In the way of preventive measures, there is no longer much we can do in Europe, beyond what we are doing in facilitating the sale of supplies to the Allies. The battle-perhaps the decisive battle-is on. In a few weeks or months, all may be decided, one way or the other. But there are things we can and should do here and elsewhere. In the first place, we should hasten the tempo of our own arms production and armament. The United States is unprepared. Incomparably the first concern of the American people must be to build its defenses against the spread of the war to the Western Hemisphere. The first responsibility of every American, from the President down, is the security of the United States from successful attack by predatory powers. Depending upon the outcome of wars now waging, such attack could come from the East, or the West. It might come from both directions at the same time. Provision for such defense is to be found in two ways. The first way, which we have neglected too long, is to augment swiftly our sea power so that we may enjoy the maximum security that our insular position provides. This we have begun-leisurely and inefficiently. We must become intolerant of delay. We must tear our way through red tape. We must pillory bureaucrats who stupidly sacrifice time in the pursuit of an impossible perfection. The American public should demand why our naval-building program is a year behind schedule. If it is due to dumb bureaucrats they must be supplanted. If it is due to crippling labor restrictions on output, labor leadership must be awakened to its patriotic duty. If it is due to lack of productive capacity in Government yards and arsenals, private industry must be called upon. It is intolerable that British shipyards can turn out a battleship in a year and a half, while we consume 3 to 4 years. We must have the most powerful fleet in the world as soon as is humanly possible. Auxiliary to such a fleet we must build air power-both Naval and Army air fleets. The stunning effects of German air supremacy in the European war to date gives emphasis to this vital branch of a defense system. In this realm of of preparedness, the actual size of the air fleet in being is secondary to the problem of production. We should have always a reasonable number of airships ready for instant use, but it is of greater importance to have capacity to build the very latest models faster than our enemies, so that we can maintain air superiority at all times. In this crucially important department of national defense we have made progress but at far too slow a pace. It must be accelerated, no matter what the cost, to a point where no possible enemy or combination of enemies could hope to outbuild us in the air. But it is of little use to build great fleets of planes if we lack the skilled pilots to fly them. You can build planes faster than you can train competent fliers and you must have twice as many pilots as ships. Finally, in this matter of defense, there is the land forces. If we have the strongest fleet of warships and the best fleets of airplanes, with capacity that cannot be equaled to replace them and add to them, we do not need a great army of soldiers. The provisions of the present National Defense Act, if fulfilled and you have since enlarged that— will give us a Regular Army of 300,000 officers and men (we have 227,000 now) and a National Guard of 420,000 officers and men (present strength about 235,000). This is an adequate land army for defensive purposes. But it must be equipped to the last man with the very latest and best weapons and be highly mobile. It must have ample field and antiaircraft artillery and must be supported by an air force flying the fastest pursuit ships and the most efficient bombers. We are sadly short of this objective now. Every facility to correct this shortage should be drafted at once. The cost is secondary. A few thousands of dollars spent now may save hundreds of millions if war should come. Preparedness is essential, but it is not enough. We must also make sure, without delay, that no French, British, or Dutch possessions in this hemisphere fall into German or other European hands. There is something else, too. We should not allow Japan to take the Dutch East Indies, a vital source of oil and rubber and tin. Mr. Hull has already warned Japan about this. It was with foresight of the invasion of Holland and possible Japanese attack on the Dutch Indies that our Pacific Fleet has been kept at Hawaii. But notes and warnings are of no use, and strategic fleet maneuvers are of no use, if we are not fully determined to go through with a thing, once we start it. We must face frankly the fact that to deny the Dutch Indies to Japan may mean war. It probably will not, if we show our determination at once. In any case, we shall be far safer from any eventual menace from Hitler, once we have made sure that there will not be a simultaneous menace from Japan, forcing us to face both ways at once. These are ways, and they are sound ways, to keep ourselves safe from devastating war. But there is still another step to be taken. It is to help in every way, short of war itself, those who are now fighting the bestial monster that is making a shambles of Europe, flouting every essential of international good faith, despoiling the lands and killing the men of weaker neighbors, reducing all European civilization to the level of a cave man's morality. This step we must take if we have good sense. Far better to help with our material resources now than to have to sacrifice our human resources later. And use them we ultimately must if the totalitarians emerge victor in the war now in progress. Let us not make the mistake that England made at Munich. Then was the time to have left no chance for Hitler to misunderstand. Continued aggression at the expense of weak neighbors meant war. That might have stopped him. Failure to act strongly then made war certain. We owe it to our own security to leave no doubt in the minds of Hitler and particularly right now in the mind of Mussolini as to our purpose to help the Allies in every way we can. That may keep Italy out and it will leave Hitler no illusions as to where we stand, especially in the matter of vital war supplies needful for Allied victory. Now that is May 11. The next one is June 17. This was provoked by the adoption of what I thought was a very isolationist and propeace plank in the Republican platform in the State of Illinois. Weeks ago the people of the United States abandoned the isolationist position. Senator Vandenberg, candidate for the Republican nomination, and the preeminent spokesman of the isolationist group, publicly recanted his isolationist views in favor of nonbelligerency, and all possible aid to the Alliesshort of war. Congress, by an overwhelming vote-both Democrats and Republicans gave official character to this attitude by approving the prompt sale of surplus war stocks for resale to the Allies. The Gallup poll, an accurate measure of public opinion, clearly reflected popular endorsement of this change in policy by a heavy majority. By every test the country revealed its abandonment of a neutrality that was a sham and a pretence, and its recognition that aid lent to those who were fighting Hitler, and all that he stood for, was aid in defeating an enemy-and a deadly and dangerous enemy-of American principles, American security, and the American way of life. And yet in the face of one of the most obvious and one of the swiftest changes in American sentiment in our whole history the Republican platform adopted at the Springfield convention tries to put the label of "isolationist" on the party in this State. The people of Illinois, particularly the Republicans of Illinois, are not isolationist. To exactly the same degree as the people of the other States of the Union, they abominate and detest everything that Hitler and his Nazis stand for-racial hatered, cruel ruthlessness, consummate faithlessness, diabolical cunning, cold-blooded murder and arson practiced at the expense of helpless women and children. Apparently we too have our Chamberlains, our Hoares, our Simons, our Bonnets, and our Daladiers, fatuous, timid leaders, who scoffed at unmistakable danger signals and thought to keep danger away by pretending that it wasn't there. France, beaten to her knees and bowing her neck for the yoke of bondage and Britain's fighting of a desperate battle against fearful odds to escape the same fate, should warn us against following after such misleaders. Even as these lines are written, decisions that make a mockery of a pretended isolation must be made. A part of the French Empire lies in the Caribbean, just east of the entrance to the Panama Canal. France is defeated and awaits the victor's terms. French possessions on this side of the Atlantic will be a part of the spoils. But a few days ago we decreed there shall be no transfer of sovereignty over territory on this side of the Atlantic from one European power to another. Even if we had not renewed this pledge under the Monroe Doctrine, we could not tolerate for an instant the seizure by Germany of island bases on this side of the Atlantic or even their retention by a puppet French Fascist government dominated by Germany. We must act, and act at once, to take over the control of the French West Indian Islands. We may not regard that as an act of war. But Hitler could. No one but a man who shuts his eyes to realities because they are hateful and dangerous can regard Hitler and Mussolini as anything but determined and resourceful foes of the United States, its people and its institutions. We do not need to guess. Both of these power-drunk dictators have told us we were a part of the system they propose to annihilate. There is only one possible way in which we can prevent the war coming to this side of the Atlantic. That is by making ourselves so strong, militarily, they will be afraid to attack us. To make ourselves strong will take time. Every hour that Britain can lengthen the fight against Hitler and Mussolini in Europe weakens their power to fight us and gives us that much more time to build our defenses against the attack when it comes. Recognition of this truth is why that swift change came over the thinking of the American people in the last few weeks-this is why Congress has foresworn even the pretense of neutrality-this is why the overwhelming majority of the people want to lend all possible assistance to those who are fighting Hitler in Europe. It is not primarily because we want to help European nations to fight their wars, although we do sympathize with the Allies and abominate Hitler. Fundamentally, we want to help the Allies as much as we can because to do so is to help ourselves in one of the most dangerous and menacing periods the people of this country have ever faced. Just one more and I am through. This is on June 18, 1940, entitled "One Way to Deal With French Possessions in the Caribbean." Apparently Germany intends to impose upon striken France terms that approximate unconditional surrender. Equally plain is it that France can do no otherwise than accept. That means that French possessions in the Western Hemisphere will fall under the direct, or indirect, but non the less effective, control of Germany. This presents to the United States, not a question of policy, but an actual condition that must be met-and met at once. Shall we permit the practical transfer of political and military control over islands in the Caribbean Sea to pass from French into German hands? The Monroe Doctrine, about the only clearly defined foreign policy we have, negatives such a change. The safety of the Panama Canal, the uninterrupted operation of which is vital to our national defense, forbids it. Congressional action, not 10 days ago, specifically declares against such a change in sovereignty. It is clear that we must act-and act promptly. How shall we act? The safety of the western world from invasion by European or Asiatic powers is not the safety of the United States alone. There are 20 other nations whose safety is just as much involved as is the security of this country. Prevention of any attempt by predatory nations to gain bases for military operations on this side of the Atlantic is of as grave concern to the nations of Central and South America as it is to us. Our defense to be effective must be hemispheric. If this is true and no one denies it-why then should not the measures we take for the common safety of the Americas be representative of the 21 nations that comprise the Americas? This would mean that the United States, acting as a sort of trustee for the whole western world, would take over French possessions and set up a government for them with say three, or five, of the American governments given representation. Such a device would certainly avoid any possibility of the charge that we were acting selfishly, with imperialistic designs in the matter. And if Germany thought to challenge such action she would have to defy, not the United States alone, but the entire western world. This she might be loath to do. Practically, as the most powerful of the American nations, we would have to supply the most, if not all, of the military means to make the trusteeship a reality, but we would surround our action with moral justification in the eyes of the world. Furthermore, in the New World created by new and undreamed of dangers, we, here in the Americas, must begin to think hemispherically. Our danger is a common danger and our defense must be a mutual defense. In what better way could be begun this new mode of thought than meeting the first tangible danger by common action? The CHAIRMAN. Does that complete the editorials that you wish to present? Colonel KNOX. That concludes these editorials, Senator. |