Evening star., 1939-07-10
GuIIibiIity CoIoring
Neutrality Debate
Real Danger Seen in Myths
Concerning Our Entry
Into World War
BY WILLIAM MANN.

BY WILLIAM MANN.
Before the recent debate in Congress
over the neutrality bill had gone very
far, 1t became apparent that the issue
under dispute was more than q mere
question of embargoing arms shipments.
Underlying and permeating the web Of
foreign policy, partisan politics and Sec
tional interests was evidence Of q state
of mind and doctrine that have been
growing stronger and stronger In this
country for over two decades. AS mid
night of June 30th neared, this doctrine
flared up to the greatest power it has yet
shown and struck with 200 votes in
the United States House Of Representa-
tives. Within an hour all the chancel-
leries of Europe knew that we had ad-
ministered crushing defeat to our an
cient principles of freedom of the seas
and neutral rights under international
law. The doctrine of guillibility, how
ever, had won another enormous victory.
Briefly and bluntly put, the doctrine
holds that we were gulled by domestic
and foreign propaganda into entering
the last great war. The House vote is
direct reflex of that belief, a protest
against our action in 1917 and slap at
"the same forces that are trying to rope
us in again." Many American writer's
and politicians, helped not little by
totalitarian influences, have subscribed
to this doctrine. The state of mind in
volved betrays extreme skepticism in the
good faith of our leadership in 1917.
Some very fine people have this skep-
ticism. 1t turns up in very surprising
places. Not long ago an important
younger State Department official asked
the writer whether he thought Ameri-
cans would be SO gullible again.
1t is as hard to understand this ques-
ton as it is to answer it. The ouestioner.
obviously an informed and honest man,
was implying that the political leader
ship of this country in 1917 had been
either maliciously or ignorantly disloyal
to American interests and had led us
into war with which we had no real
concern. The ubiquity of this view is
astounding. It has become a common
opinion that our press and pulpit de-
ceived us, our diplomats and statesmen
traitorously misled us, and even the
President Of the United States delib-
erately allowed American blood and
treasure to be sacrificed for the interests
OF aliens and a handful of bankers and
munitions makers. Members of the pres
ent Congress have repeatedly gone to
this extreme in their speeches.
The CHIN, r;v a ice,,n Il
can lives at sea had little to do with our
entrance into the war, says the doctrine:
we were committed to enter anyway. The
German program of deportations in
Belgium was not murderous atrocity: it
was merely a rough and ready attack
on the unemployment problem according
to this view. American newspapers
fraudulently made it appear something
worse. We are informed that France was
about to invade Belgium when Ger
many beat her to it. And as for con-
spiracies organized by the German gov
eminent against the United States in
dustry and shipping prior to 1917, the
whole thing was largely a newspaper
fabrication.
The writer strongly disagrees with this
version of what occurred in the war
years and is at 4 loss to explain its
popularity. He is almost tempted to
agree with former German Ambassador
Won Bernstorff's words, 1T is quite in
credible what the American public will
swallow in the way of lies If they are
only repeated often enough and properly
served up" Count Won Bernstorff said
this IN another connection soon after the
war. However, it appears that his own
efforts along these lines have borne fruit
20 years late, but still not too late to
be very useful to his country
1t cannot be too solemnly insisted that
1t is one thing to pass anti-entanelinp
neutrality legislation based on an anx-
lety to profit from past mistakes of
policy, and 1t is quite another thing to
pass legislation based on q doctrine i'm
plying fraud on the part of our former
leadership. If the charges of fraud are
not true, then the legislation mistakenly
based on those charges may well miss its
point. All countries experience a sharn
reaction from the emotional excesses Of
war after 1t is over. We have been
through this after every war in our his
tory. War is so unpleasant that after
1t is over the madness of it all comes to
the fore, and we see how much better
1t would have been to have avoided the
whole sorry mess. The War of 1912 was
bitterly called Mr.. Madison's War"
Some writers thought after the Civil
War that it would have been better to
have let the South establish a separate
republic in Richmond; but that view is
pretty rare now. After our war with
Spain it was proved" on a basis of
Spanish pre-war promises, that we need
not have made war, since everything we
got thereby was granted in advance,
overlooking entirely how many times
Spain had broken similar promises be-
fore. Twenty years from now, after the
next war, a similar type of proof, based
on Herr Hitler's speeches, will undoubt-
edly be brought forth to show that he was
essentially a man Of peace, and that the
British public was fraudulently misled
into challenging him.
One must avoid too much dogmatism
on this subject. All opinions are colored
by the relative values assigned to the
various points on which they are based.
But to the writer it seems clear, after
years of careful study, that we entered
the war in 1917 over the submarine issue,
and without that issue Mr. Wilson would