Evening star., 1939-09-13
Washington Observations
Some American Propaganda Would Have
Its Uses, Observer Thinks

and mails from Europe to the United
States over the week end, they can
also carry bombers and bombs. Nor
Is it to be forgotten that those as
sasstns Of the sea known as U-boats
can invisibly infest all waters, no
matter how remote from an ag-
gressor's home shores. Do Ameri-
cans suppose that the great Ger
man air marine, Lufthansa, has been
experimenting with nonstop and
round-trip trans Atlantic flights of
fast planes capable of crossing to
New York or Rio de Janeiro in "a
hours for mere record-making glory?
Is 1t imaginable that the war plans
sections OF the Nazi war, navy and
air departments do not possess de-
tailed schemes for attacking the
United States, the Panama Canal
and Latin American coasts, once the
French army and the British navy
no longer stand between the Ger
man war machine and Western
shores? For 13 years, from 1901 to
1914, was on newspaper duty in
Berlin. "Dollarica," as Germans
of the Kaiser's day called us, de-
spised Americans and our Mon
roe Doctrine even then. Con-
tempt became hatred when the
United States sealed the father
lands doom in 1917-18. Events of
the present are too vivid to require
any definition of what Nazi Ger
many thinks of us.
No A. E. F. for Europe.
The thought I would plant in
American minds Is that If there is
any real danger of our having to
fight Nazi Germany some day in
defense of the American way of
life, it might be better to do what
we can, while the opportunity is
afforded us, to ward of that danger
rather than wait to face it in war
without powerful allies. I do not
believe we would have to send q
man, a gun or ship of our own
to Europe to help the British and
French Empires smash Hitler, long
as it may take them to do so. They
possess ample resources in wealth
and manpower. They do not need
ours. I do not favor putting either
our dollars or our young men to
work for the European democracies.
I do not favor declaring war on
Germany. But do favor the aban-
donment of fictitious neutrality
which, in effect if not in purpose, is
not neutrality at all. Under exist
ing world conditions, it works for
autocracy and aggression and ham
dicaps our friends who are at war to
suppress them. would let Britain
and France buy anything here
which they can pay for and trans
port in their own ships.
Borah States the Issue.
Propaganda to make Americans
see things in some such light as
this-all too inadequately set forth,
I realize-seems to me the crying
need of the hour AS Senator Borah
announces he will fight to the bitter
Ciio dSdLiol III tlliS VIC al ilS Gil.
barge, will my longtime favorite
Senator permit me once again to
quote from his memorable mid-war
speech in March, 1918:
1T seems strange now and it
will seem more extraordinary to
those who come after us that we
did not recognize from the be-
ginning what the issue was >.
1t is the rule of fraud and force
with which we are at war. Shall
men, shall the people, be gov
erned by some remorseless and
soulless entity softly called the
state, or shall the instrument
talities of government yield alone
and at all times to the wants and
necessities, the hopes and aspira-
tions OF the masses? That is now
the issue. Nothing should longer
conceal 1t. 1t is but another and
more stupendous phase of the
old struggle, struggle as ancient
and as inevitable as the thirst for
power and the love Of liberty, a
struggle in which men have
fought and sacrificed all the way
from Marathon to Verdun."