Evening star., 1938-10-21
URGED FIRMER STAND
ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Writer Says U. S. Interests
Hinge on international
Policies.

1t was With q warm feeling OF grat1-
tude that I read your editorial on
the dangers of delay" In setting our
course in the present European crisis.
It was written with high appreciation
Of the function Of great paper; to
counsel, instruct and inform the public;
not merely to voice the opinions OF the
readers as interpreted by the editor.
That attitude may be excused in the
politician who must keep his ear to the
ground to hold his Job. A nice example
Of editors acting as cheer leaders was
afforded recently when the leader writers
who had loudly applauded Mr.. Roose-
velts Chicago speech in which he an
nounced that his country would be
among the first to join in punitive meas
ures to be invoked against nation that
undertook to despoil its neighbor, and
then, even more loudly applauded when
the President signaled to Hitler to go
ahead in the spoliatiop of Czechoslovakia
by declaring that the United States
would not be involved in any European
controversy That statement alone in
tereSted Germany. The accompanying
platitudes were merely mildly amusing
Only today I read III circumstances
should produce threat" against Euro
pean and American democracies) there
Will be time enough for consolidation
OF resources in the meantime, each
OF the two nations has the obvious duty
OF looking after its own interests" Should
We not recoil in distrust from counsel
which is identical with that which is al
ways falling from German lips and which
is calculated to divide those nations
whose ideals are the same, and opposed to
that Of the predatory nations? Not day
passes without, as result of our inaction
and worse 50 far as recent executive
action is concerned-the cause of Ger
many being strengthened and the power
Of Britain being impaired. Within the
week Czechoslovakian diplomat in
Washington stated that when the matter
Of new President being elected to re-
place Benes was mentioned to Hitler,
that gentleman replied: There is no
hurry about that. My plans are not yet
completed" Prague is now a vassal
capital Of pan-Germany. Balkan states,
whose affections were certainly not with
Germany. are now hurrying to get aboard
the Hitler band wagon. German money
which vigorous and righteous American
policy would have exacted from that
country as redemption fund for the
bogus marks with which she swindled us,
is being sent into Turkey to help arm
that country in the approaching and
inevitable conflict and to enlist her as
Germany's aide.
The ink was not dry upon the Treaty
OF Versailles before Germany and her
unaware confederates began their cam
palgn to separate those whose interests
must always be opposed to Germany's
professed aim of world domination The
most shameful lie of the propagandists,
and the most potent for evil in spite of
the fact that its refutation is childishly
simple, is that we gained nothing from
our participation in the war. That lie
Keeps dripping from the lips of those
who at the beginning of the war an
nounced that Brazil would be a German
state and offered to divide Mexico with
Japan as an inducement to that country
to keep aloof in the conflict. Later, our
entry into the war was precipitated bv
the interception of the Zimmerman tele-
gram urging Mexico to foment a war be-
tween Japan and the United States. If
at the conclusion of the Great War a
victorious Germany had not seized the
canal and all our island possessions she
would have violated the pledges she made
TO her own people before we entered the
struggle. Our participation made the
keeping OF those promises impossible, for
the time. Had we followed Ehe path of
duty, which invariably is that of interest,
we should have embarked upon courses
which would have insured the fulfillment
OF the covenants of Versailles and all
the slaughters of China, Spain, Ethiopia
and those with which we are now threat
ened would have been avoided and today
thls world would be a comparative Eden
instead OF reeking slaughterhouse.
Even so, our gains through having pre-
vented German victory in the Great
war are as enormous as they are i'm
ponderable. We have had 20 years of
freedom from German molestation. The
lndeclslve naval battle of Jutland shows
now narrow was our escape. What
would our position have been today if
Germany had crushed Britain and added
England's fleet to her own?
Germany's megalomania makes It i'm
possible for her to keep her loud mouth
shut. Through her mouthpieces, Hirst
and Bernhard, she announced that her
div1nely planned destiny involved her
possession of the mouths of the Rhine
Holland and Belgium-and that to at
tain that end she must have the helm
OF Austria, and that such help would
never come to Germany if she started
an aggressive war, and hence her DESTINY
required that Austria be encouraged to
start war of her own. That done, Ger
many would come to the assistance of her
ally. and the war started for one pur-
pose could be utilized for far different
ones.
Thus, the Kaisers statement that he
would not counsel the senile Frans Josef
to accept Serbia's concessions-abiectlv
humiliating as they were-under the
doctrine of 'last fair chance" in the law
Of negligence fixed Germany's RESPONSE
bility for the war and enabled me to
write in 1915 that if it were true that
Germany was driven" into invading
Belgium, at least she was driven in the
direction she wished to co.
Those who seek to mask their present
cowardice by loud talk of what they
would do to any nation attacking
America a1thOuoh dopooro,,c - -. .,J;