Evening star., 1939-01-01
Presidents Defense MESSAGE
To Congress This Week Due
To Stir Up Heated Controversy
Critics See Program q
Red Herring to Cover
New Deal Errors
BvG GOULD LINCOLN.

President Roosevelt will throw
into the lap of the Seventy sixth
Congress a new-and according to
administration spokesmen-burning
issue, increased national defense,
when he appears before that body
in joint session Wednesday.
Despite the patriotic appeal, the
administration program of in
creased armament gives promise of
being hotly contested. The Presi-
dents appeal will be made to Con-
greSs directly-and, over its head
to the country, as well.
The administration point of view
was expressed yesterday by Senator
Key Pittman, chairman of the Sem
ate Foreign Relations Committee.
Replying to a question, do world
conditions call for increased arma-
ments in the United States?" he
said:
What did England find? What
did France Finland both too late.
This country has for years urged
the nations to limit armaments and
even to disarm. Instead of follow
ing this advice, some of the great
nations have increased their arma-
mentS tremendously.
After Next Year, What?
England and France found, in
comparison with other nations,
they were not prepared for war or
national defense The dictator
nations had their way.
This problem of national defense
for the United States should be
considered from the point of view
of what may be the situation five
years hence. We can only surmise
what may be world conditions then.
I am not at all afraid of war this
year or next. Nations in the East
and in Europe are engaged in fight
ing each other. But after those
wars are over what then?
Three countries are ruled by die
tators or governments that amount
to dictatorship. They have been
taught by these governments that
the way of advancement is through
war. They have prepared themselves
for war and. with or without fight
ing, they have had their way re-
Gently.
THE United States cannot build
up its defense overnight The best
insurance against war, as I see it,
under world conditions today, is to
be prepared to resist any attack"
Personnel Planes Needed.
Senator Pittman said American
authorities are fully informed re-
garding the armaments of other ma
tions-and that some of this infor-
nation is startling. The naval pro-
gram of the United States, voted by
the last Congress, goes long way
toward improving this country's sit
uation-particularly if it is speeded
up. But what the country needs
particularly, he said, is an increase
In trained personnel and increased
facilities for the production of air.
planes and other vital arms.
Against this administration posi-
ton is the demand of many mem
bers of Congress that any program
for increased armaments be care
fully eXamined-by congressional
committees-to determine whether
they be actually needed for de
fenSe."
There is, too, a declaration by
some administration opponents that
the present demand for increased
armaments is a political move on
the part of the New Dealers, de-
signed to take the mind of the coun-
try off the failure of the farm and
recovery programs and the scan
dal" of the w. P. A. and its use in
politics, not to mention the defeat
of New Dealers in the last elections.
This is a view emphetically ex-
pressed yesterday by several Demo-
cratic Senators who have opposed
the New Deal-and who have been
opposed by the New Dealers. At this
time they did not wish to be quoted.
Political Defense, Hints Barton
Representative Bruce Barton of
New York, Republican, who returned
to Washington yesterday, however,
was outspoken. He predicted the
new Congress would not allow the
country to be stampeded on the
question OF national defense. issu-
Ing a formal statement in which he
said:
How much of this program really
(See DEFENSE, Page A-4.)