Evening star., 1939-02-02
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Member Of the Associated Press
Frontier in France"


The question whether this country
Is serving it's own best interests by
aiding the rearmament program of
the European democracies was posed
In the Senate yesterday by Senators
Hiram Johnson, Bennett Clark and
Gerald Nye in their attacks on the
Presidents advocacy of qualified
support for France and Britain.
To members of the Senate Com
mittee on Military Affairs sum-
moned to the White House Tues
day, the President conveyed the i'm
preston that he would go to every
possible length, short of war, to help
the British and French withstand
Fascist attack. Some members Of
the committee returned to the Cap
ttol with reports that Mr.. Roosevelt
painted truly alarming" picture OF
European conditions. Others repre-
sented him as having said the situa-
ton is so grave, in its implications
for this country, that the committee
was urged to regard France as ''the
actual frontier of the United States"
in an apparently inevitable show
down between democracies and
relationships.
Ensuing debate in the Senate was
precipitated not only by Mr.. Roose-
velt's admonitions to the Military
Affairs Committee, but by earlier
disclosure that he approved of large
scale French purchases of American
war planes. The President defended
this approval on the joint grounds
that the United States could thus,
''by methods short Of war;" not only
bolster the menaced democratic
cause, but succor our own depressed
aviation industry and keep it at the
peak of capacity for American air
craft needs.
The administration, in the opin-
ion of The Star, is on unassailable
ground. No violation of neutrality
Is involved. France is not at war.
She is straining every nerve to keep
out of war. She seeks merely,
through replenishing her own made
quate aircraft facilities, to render
herself more capable Of resisting
attack, especially by Germany or
Italy, whose joint power Of intimida-
ton, because of superior air strength,
was demonstrated at Munich. To
sell France or Great Britain aircraft
for cash on delivery-is not only
sound international policy, If our
devotion to democracy is more than
lip service. It is no less logical an
American economic and preparedness
measure.
Senator Johnson, denouncing the
secrecy" of the French airplane
ransaction-which came to light
after the crash of an experimental
ship in California, in which French
aviation observer was a passenger,
asserts that "the American people
have the right to know II they are
being taken down the road to war"
The Californian, one of the leaders in
the fight to keep this country out of
the League of Nations, considers that
"the fundamental question of wheth-
er we shall be eased into war" is
involved in the sale of planes to
France.
In these columns attention was re-
Gently called to a proposed bill to
embargo the export of American
scrap iron to countries which have
been importing it in heavily in
creased quantities for conversion
into munitions, especially countries
engaged in aggression. Japan, Ger
many and Italy were among the
principal importers of this raw ma
terial of war. 1t is strange that
voices now raised against sale of air
craft to our sister democracies re-
manned silent while a sinew as in
diSpensable as scrap iron was ex-
ported in hundreds of thousands Of
tons annually, in two cases, to powers
actually at war.
It seems far-fetched to portray
sale of airplanes to France as taking
us down the road to war;" Such
talk is on all fours with the shrieks
of the Nazi press that President
Roosevelt "has placed himself at
the head Of war agitators, finally
broken with Americas neutrality pol
Icy, and made Washington the center
Of war-inciting hatred against totali-
tartan states"