Henderson daily dispatch., 1939-02-03
AS In 1917


Relations of the United States with
end its attitude toward Europe today
are very similar to the situation that
preceded our entrance into the World
War twenty-five years ago. At that
time Germany had the Allied nations
licked, and il was a question of who
would be next on the list if ano
when the democracies were final y
disposed of. Today, with a new Ger
many. risen from the ruins of the old,
and led by a man whose threat to
destroy civilization is none the less
real than was that of the kaiser, the
United States has suddenly realized
it is again in about the same predi-
cament as before.
Despite the. pooh-poohing of the os-
tri9h-like wise heads who say we
weat. to war to save Wall Street, the
hafd cold fact is that we fought Ger
many in Sc f-defense while there was
yeti Some strength left in our demo-
cra4ic friends of western Europe and
before we found ourselves facing Ger
NAH might single-handed. Woodrow
Wilson's idealism and his dream of
aN world concord of nations to the
contrary, .notwithst landing, the men
acefto our own n ational freedom was,
in fhe final analysis, the real motive
fqra our. belligerency, and don't let
any one tell you differently.
! m, this year 1889, the potential
threat to our liberty is no less omin-
ogb ,and scarcely less manifest than
inl1917. In those days there was no
such thing as is known today as to-
talitarian nations. There was no
threat then of an economic invasi IN
of Latin-America, with the mailed
fist in the background, as a cha lenge
to the Monroe Doctrine in the West
ern Hemisphere. There was no pos
sibility then of airplanes winging the
Atlantic IS they do almost at will to-
day, and no such thing as aircraft
carriers that could transport whole
fleets of planes to within striking
distance of our shores.
All these things are realities today.
The world has shrunk in the two de-
cades since the last war more than
1t did in two centuries prior to
1914. Peace-loving nations took too
much for granted when they beat
Germany to her knees in 1918. They
thought they had made the world
safe for democracy and that Utopia
was a mere matter of time. Thew
went to sleep and for twenty years
enjoyed pleasant dreams.
Today they have been rudely awak
ened to find that while they slumber
ed the once impotent Germany has
re-armed and become strong and is
again threatening the peace of the
world. The tab es have been turned
and the victorious Allies who in 1918
compelled Germany to accept a humi-
liating peace at Versailles looked on
helplessly few months ago as Cham
ber.ain and Daladier, in the role Of
suppliants, walked on their knees TO
Berchtesgaden to ask of the now
powerful Hitler what his terms of
peace were.
This and more, if we but knew the
alarming realities of the hour, is the
explanation of the readiness, even
anxiety, with which Mr. Roosevelt
consented to forego for the moment
our own national defense program
to furnish great quantities of fight
ing planes to France. It is, in the
end, as much a matter of the defense
Of America as of France and Bri-
tain. Let no true American find
fault with the move on that basis.
We are being told that we are wav-
Ing the red fag before Hitler and