Evening star., 1939-09-20
A Vital MESSAGE


say that the neutrality message to be
delivered by President Roosevelt to
the special session of Congress to-
morrow will be one of the most i'm
portant addresses of his career. To
very considerable extent his future
position as an authoritative spokes-
man for this country in its foreign
relations will depend upon the force
fulness and the logic of his argu-
ments for repeal of the arms en-
barge. But a great deal more than
the Presidents personal prestige is at
stake.
The embargo, in the opinion of The
Star, is plainly inimical to the best
interests of the United States and its
retention necessarily will imply an
immediate as well as remote threat
to our national security. 1t is dan
gerous as of this time in that it
affords no real protection against
our involvement in military sense
in the European war. To paraphrase
one of the favorite contentious of the
isolationists, it leaves us ninety per
ceSt in the war and ten per cent out,
for, while we may not sell arms, am
munition or implements of war to any
belligerent, the embargo does not
forbid the sale by this country of
essential raw materials-said to con-
stitute 80 per cent of a nations fight
ing strength. And, under existing law,
these raw materials may be trans
ported to war zones in American
ships, thereby exposing our vessels to
the danger of being sunk. Those
Senators who support the embargo
say that its repeal would aid the
European democracies to the detri-
ment of Germany, placing this coun-
try in the perilous position of being
half in the war and half out. But
they neglect to say that the United
States, in the sense that they use the
phrase, is already more than half in
the war, while lacking the protection
which would result from adoption of
the cash-and-carry plan.
This immediate menace-the pos
sibility of being drawn actively into
the war through retention of the
embargo-has been thoroughly dis
cussed and the arguments pro and
con are relatively we'll understood.
But the more remote threat, the
danger to what Colonel Charles A.
Lindbergh called "our western civili-
cation" that would arise if we should
ultimately be drawn into the conflict,
or If the British and the French
should be decisively defeated by Ger
many or the threatened combination
of totalitarian forces, has not been so
clearly defined. Yet this danger is no
less real than the immediate threat
to our security, and in the years to
come it may assume even more for
midable proportions. If America is
to supply the democracies with i'm
portant raw materials, and there has
been no protest from the isolationist
Senators as to that, there would
seem to be more folly than logic in
a policy which simultaneously with
holds from them such essential
equipment as combat planes when
they are fighting war which we can
Ill afford to have them lose
In discussing these matters, the
President, of course, must speak with
restraint. But at time when the
welfare of the Nation may depend to
very considerable extent on the
things he says and the way in which
he says them, clear duty devolves
upon Mr. Roosevelt to deal with the
real issues as he understands them,
and not to eschew plain speaking for
fear of offending the sensibilities of
those whose sincere devotion to the
1egalistic aspects of neutrality and
international law appears to have
blinded them to the welfare of their
own country.