Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1939-04-06
Assisting Aggression


Former Secretary of State Henry
L. Stimson adds both to his stature
as a statesman and to his large con-
tributions to the public service in ap-
pealing for changes in the Neutrality
Act that will relieve the United States
of the embarrassing and perilous
shackles in which that ill-considered
legislation places this country.
1t is, in fact, pseudo-neutrality
which the government is now COM
PEELED to observe-pseudo because
the law, in the words of Senator
Thomas of Utah, whose proposed
amendments Mr. Stimson favors,
makes no distinction between the
nation that respects its treaties and
the nation that violates them" Such
law, as Senator Thomas points out,
ignores and defies the principles OF
international morality which the
nations of the world have been build
ing through the years"
President HooverS Secretary of
State, who was at pains to emphasize
before the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee that in times like these,
'partisanship in the zone of foreign
affairs should be limited considers
that the existing neutrality statute
not only alignS us on the side Of ag-
erosion, but actually invites attack
on the United States. Narrating the
fate that has successfully overtaken
Manchuri2, North China, South
China. Ethiopia, Spain, Austria,
Czecho-Slovakia and Lithuania, Mr.
Stims0n argues that the revolution
airy change with which we are now
confronted" must persuade even the
most reluctant that this new sys-
tenn" Of ruthless disregard of prom
iSeS, treaties and codes of law lis not
a matter of domestic government or
ideology but a reversal OF the whole
system of international practice in
the world"
Pillorying Germany. Italy and ia
pan, three of the seven most power
full nations" Mr. Stimson accuses
them of rejecting accepted interna-
tlOnal behavior with Scorn and con-
tempt The consequent problem is
by no means an academic one, for
they occupy strategically very favor
able positions for attacks upon most
of thoiy.
Then the former chief of the State
Department alludeS to a condition of
direct concern to this country. IF
there were only one of these powerful
nations" he says, ''tfe problem for
the whole world would not be so
serious. But the three are acting
skillfully together, and geography has
placed them with such relation to
the lines Of communication and the
resultant national defense of the
other nations as to make common
action in such defense practically
Imperative" That is advocacy. in
effect, of that Quarantine" against
world laWlessness proposed by Presi-
dent Roosevelt at Chicago in 1887
and at this very moment finding
expression in Prime Minister Cham
berlain's stop-Hitle coalition.
Mr.. StimSon thus snatches the
neutrality issue from the realm of
the theoretical and places it where it
belongs-in the domain of cold up
to-the-minute realism. In pleading
for a neutrality law which will give
the President-any President-gr great
er discretion in its application, The
Star believes Mr.. Stimson echoes
preponderant volume of American
public opinion.
AT no point OF his remarks at the
Capitol yesterday was he more con-
Vincing than when he reminded SEN
ators % that American history is
not blenlshed by the action of any
war President" who was not peace
minded to the uttermost limit, and
CD that Congress in enacting the
neutrality law in 1885 and amending
it in 1887 could not possibly have
known exactly the course the peo-
pie of the United States would wish
their government to follow in 1880"
Events in Europe during the past
thirty days, in The Stars opinion,
have made it clear to the American
people that every dictate of interna-
tional decency and of enlightened
national self interest calls for neu-
trality law which will no longer make
it mandatory for this free people to
"lSSiSt in arnraccint, -