Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1937-11-14
FASCIST FOOTHOLD
|NBRAz|L SECUTED
Apprehension in Washing
ton Is for Other Outbreaks
In Latin America.
By KIRKE l.. SIMPSON,
Associated Press Staff Writer.

Associated Press Staff Writer.
Informed opinion here views Brazils
sudden leap into full dictatorship with
some Fascist verbal trappings as pri-
marily maneuver in domestic politics
rather than definite foothold in
Latin America for Italo-German gov
ernmental theories.
There is no disposition to challenge
Brazilian spokesman who describe the
move of President Vargas as neither
Fascist nor Communistic in trend; but
designed to restore ultimately a demo-
cratic basis of ratification of the new
constitution.
What chiefly concerns Government
experts at the moment in watching
developments in Brazil is apprehension
that the Vargas coup might inspire
similar tactics elsewhere in Latin
America.
Doubt Brazil May Join Pact.
implications that the bitter clash in
Europe and Asia between Fascism and
Communism has intruded into pam
American affairs are discounted. There
is small fear that any realistic align
ment of Brazil with the German-Ital-
tan-JapaneSe anti-CommuniStic pact
may follow. And short of such a de-
velopment in a form that meant a
direct threat to the Monroe Doctrine,
President Roosevelt's good neighbor"
policy prescribes a present role of in
terested onlooker for Washington.
That is striking departure from
the policy laid down by President Will
son of non-recognition by Washing
ton of Latin American governments
&pringing to power by unconstitutional
means. The effort of the Wilson ad-
ministration. growing chiefly out of
the prolonged Mexican revolution, was
aimed at coercive preservation of DEM
ocratic constitutional methods in Lat
in America. Many governments to the
south. duly recognized by the United
States. have been tablished since
then with complete disregard of con-
stitutional procedure. No problem of
recognition arises for Washington,
presumably, in connection with the
ABrazilian coup.
Doctrine Basis of Policy.
In President Wilson's day, the Mon
roe Doctrine represented a cause for
which the world was on definite no.
tice that this country would fight as
a matter of self-defense. 1t was
enumerated by the Wilson admins
tration in 1856 as one of the two
abiding" national policies on which
national defense plans should be
based. the other being avoidance of
entangling alliances.
That was the basis of the billion
program of Army and Navy
expansion which President Wilson
drove through Congress in 1916. 1t
is no less an abiding policy under
President Roosevelt's good neighbor
doctrine. Washington diplomats have
little doubt that all world capitals
understand that and have no will,
whatever diplomatic gesturing goes on
in Rome, Berlin or Toxic over the
Bra! ;lian developments, to do more
than exploit the situation for their
own propaganda purposes.
BraziIs Situation Different.
In any event, Brazil's situation is
distinctly different from that of the
have not group of nations joined
In the ti-Communistic pact. She
has no problems of excess population
or lack of raw material resources
within her own borders to push her
toward alignment with the German
1tallan-Japanese grouping. Her
troubles are essentially domestic and
what she needs most, as President
Vargas has previously contended in
his political campaigning, is the aid
of foreign capital to develop her re-
sources. The most probable source
OF that capital is the United States.
however Immediately upsetting to the
market in Brazilian outstanding Sc
curities the first effect of the Vargas
coup may be-
All of which influences the official
If unpublicized view in Washington
that the Brazilian dictatorship is
merely manifestation of a new and
as yet bloodless revolutionary tech
nique borrowing phraseology from Eu-
ropes troubled clashes and not a
Western Hemisphere plunge into the
Fascism VS.. Communism conflict itself