Evening star., 1936-02-27

These four leading questions were
put to Senator James Hamilton Lewis
of Illinois, veteran of the upper
house and member of the Foreign
Relations Committee.
Was Opponent of War.
Senator Lewis was born in the Old
Dominion, and in his youth was
member of the State Legislature of
Washington. and was first sent to
Congress from there. Later, as an
attorney in Chicago, he was elected
to the Senate in the Democratic tri-
umph of 1912, and served the Wilson
administration through the war as
legislative leader in the upper house,
although at heart he was opponent
of war and of American participation
in the World War.
."Our friends, the British" he said,
"were compelled to retreat from the
drastic program of economic non-in-
tercourse and isolation of Italy, as
enyisaged by Mr.. Eden and provided
In Article XVI of the League OF Ma
tions. They retreated not so much
because of the failure of the United
States to collaborate with it as be-
cause of the protests from the COM
mercial interests of the British coll
onies and the City of London. I can
tell you that, because I journeyed to
Geneva and met number of the
influential statesmen assembled there
last Autumn on my return from Rus
sia. The British colonies, to whose
views the British Government must
give large weight and credence, re-
sented being asked to make heavy eco
nomic sacrifices in their trade with
Italy, so long as Britain was not actu-
ally at war"
War Sacrifices Resisted.
Moreover" he continued, mot
merely Canada and the Dominions,
but also the merchants, exporters and
even some of the farmers of France
protested to the Chamber, the poll
ticians and the chambers OF COM
merce against making the sacrifices
OF war when they were not actually
at war. For these reasons primarily,
and only secondarily because OF un-
certainty as to what American export
ers of raw materials of war and the
American Government would do, great
and sincere motives of political ideal
ism at Geneva and in England had to
be surrendered"
Then, in substance, do under
stand you to say" asked, that the
business interests, and especially the
exporting interests, we're unwilling to
pay the economic price of peace, or to
let the sincere statesmen and politl-
clans pay it, preferring to gamble on
the illusory prosperity of war?"
"In substance that is So" Senator
Lewis replied, because preparations
for war are highly profitable to cer-
tain influential interests, particularly
as long as a semblance of neutrality
can be preserved and the war post
poned. 1t is the same unhappy story
of 1914-17 in the United States be-
ing unfolded again. 1t is, as you sug-
gest, the war system in action, on the
principle of laisseZ-faire. Nobody de-
sires war, or intends war, but all pre-
pare feverishly for it; and business
prosperity seems to arise from the
preparations.
Finances Drew America In.
"You do not directly charge the ex-
porting interests with desiring war,
now, or in 1917, do you?" Lewis asked.
GAS for ourselves, there is no doubt
that our deep financial involvements
with the Allied governments, to the
ture of 1000 100000, was primarily
what brought us in to the maelstrom.
The business interests who demanded
war-like preparations and belligerent
utterances in the newspapers did so
because they thought that the threat
of war was necessary in order to main
tain the fiscal credit Of the Allied
governments in New York. They did
not, at first, intend really to go in;