The Waterbury Democrat., 1937-04-02

Federal Legislation, Existent
 and Pending, Leaves Neu-
 trality Act as a Guessing
 Game, With President and
 State Department Guessing
 How Best to Keep Us Out
 of War.
 Washington, April 2-Just where this country would be left if 8 Spanish government submarine should torpedo an American ship carrying munitions or other war materials to Italy is a question to which you can't get even a semi- omcial answer here.
 Speculation as to the conSe- quences of such an incident, how- ever, is bound to get one back to these facts:
 That neutrality legislation, ex- A istent and pending, leaves it entirely up to the president to de- termine whether state of war or civil war exists abroad.
 0-That no provisions of the neu- A trality bills passed by the two houses of congress, whether mandatory" or discretionary" can go into effect unless the presi- dent formally finds and declares such state of war to exist. Q-That the aggressive military O powers of the world are falling out of the habit of declaring war, preferring to wage war, when they can, under the pretense that they're doing nothing of the sort.
 I-That such powers thus leave F themselves free to brand as an unfriendly act any formal declara- tion by, this, or any other govern ment, that they are in state of war-especially when the declara- tion is an instrument for enforcing commercial embargoes or other re- strictions.
 E-That all this leaves operation O of the neutrality act a sort of a guessing game, with president and state department guessing how best to keep America out of war assuming that's what they want most. It also leaves wide field in which to play the game of international politics, which dip- lomats have been playing from time immemorial.
 Up to President
 So much can be said without ref- erence to the sections of the Pitt man and McReynolds bills, now being ironed out in conference, which confer other discretionary powers on the president. The Pitt man bill leaves it up to the presi- dent to decide which if any materials, in addition to munitions, American ships should be prohibited from carrying to a country he de- cides is at war. The president also must decide when and whether belligerent vessels should be barred from using American ports as sup ply stations. The McReynoldS bill is believed to be more satisfactory to the administration than the Pittman bill. It leaves it to the president to decide whether or not to require that title to all shipments to belligerent nations shall have been transferred to the foreign buyer, and whether or not Ameri- can citizens should be prohibited from travelling on belligerent ships.
 Munitions to Spain were embar-
 goed by a special act of congress early in January. This act stands
 until "in the judgment of the president" the conditions of civil
 war described il; the act have
 ceased to exist. The new general neutrality act will enable the president to prescribe its provi- sions when he finds 8 state of civil
 war to exist, but there is nothing in it to compel him to find" any
 such things or to find" that
 state of war exists between na-
 tiOnS.
 Just One Situation
 Italy has large army in Spain. Germany also has troops there, according to reliable reports. Ger many and Italy are permitted to buy airplane engines and other nlu- nitions and implements of war in this country.
 It is fairly easy for spectators to conclude that Italy and Germany are at war with the Spanish gov- ernment. The new neutrality law will permit Roosevelt to declare Italy and Germany at war with Spain and embargo munitions to them, as urged by Senator Nye. There is no indication that he will. Yet that hypothetical case of the torpedoing of an American vessel carrying munitions to Italy stands as an example of just one of the situations that may develop.
 There Is nothing in the pro- Spective neutrality statute which could prevent the state depart
 ment from going to such an ex-
 treme as it recently did i'm pro-
 hibiting American physicians ai;d
 nurses from accompanying ann
 balances to Spain and administer
 ing to mangled women and chill
 dren in Madrid. The fact that this
 order was rescinded only after
 some highly secret backstage
 lobbying and wire pulling is an in-
 teresting commentary
 Japan did not declare war on China when she invaded Manchuria and shelled Shanghai. Italy and Germany have declared no war on Spain. A law asking that the pres- ident decide whether such conflicts and others which will arise are states of war, brings to mind the recent statement of Senator Key Pitman chairman of the Senate Foreign Re- lations Committee:
 "There is not the slightest evil dence that Italy as a government is doing anything in the Spanish war. There is evidence that great num- bers of Italian soldiers are going in.
 A.~ IT.