Askov American. [volume] (Askov, Pine County, Minn.) 1914-current, 1940-07-18

stricken FRANCES 3$$ 5#&$
parliament signed II
the death warrant
of the democratic
Third Republic sS'sal ''z'zSs7
and gave Premier Marshal Petain full
and unrestricted power to write a
new totalitarian constitution.
Had anyone predicted a year ago
that France would abandon the demo-
cratic form of government he would
undoubtedly have been suspected of
suffering from mental alteration.
The few remaining democracies in
the world sympathize deeply with
France. They realize that she was
driven to that course by a series of
unfortunate events which statesmen
in other lands foresaW before they
occurred. The defeat of France was
prepared by Leon Blum and his pop
ular front government several years
ago. Like the New Deal, he expert
mented with social legislation when
he should have been preparing for
war.
There are those fatuous souls in
this country who believe that cit
can't happen here" AS a matter of
fact, we are much nearer totalitarian-
ism than many realize. Would it not
be tragic were American democracy
to be destroyed because of the in
difference of our people and the fail
ure of our leaders to read the signs
of the times.
Still Unprepared.
Today, we are badly unprepared
for war on land. While the Navy
is in better condition than ever,
the Army is woefully unprepared.
All told we have but ia combat
tanks; there are not enough anti
aircraft guns to protect the city of
Washington; almost our entire supply
of TINT has been sold to the Allies,
so we are practically without high
explosives. Even though we had
TINT, there are no shells. Well may
we ask, what has been done with the
1000 million dollars that Congress has
appropriated for preparedness the last
seven years. So far this year Con-
gress has authorized 5000 million
dollars for national defense, and on
Wednesday of last week the President
asked for an additional 5000 million
dollars.
Why the President should ask for
the additional 5000 million dollars is
not clear because both General Mar
shall, Chief of Staff, and Admiral
Stark, Chief of Naval Operations,
testified before the Appropriations
committee few weeks ago that the
5000 million dollars already author
lied would be ample.
Congress, as the agent of the peo-
pie, should demand to be shown plans
and specifications regarding our fu-
ture national defense policy. It isn't
enough to merely appropriate money.
The money appropriated must be
spent for preparedness in order to
be of any help. The President may
have all the plans worked out in his
head, but if so, he has not passed
them on to his subordinates as Cen
eral Marshall and Admiral Stark were
rather hazy in their replies to COM
mittee members as to how the money
was to be spent. Our motto should
be millions for defense but not one
cent for waste"
A Clever Message.
Again the President has demon
strated that he has no superior as a
skillful politician. In his message to
Congress last week he emphatically
declared that not a single soldier
would be sent to Europe. Of course,
| that statement made a tremendous hit
with the folks back home. The Pres
ident was perfectly safe in taking
that position because we are not pre-
pared to go to war, and if we were
| there is no place in Europe where we
could land an army. The Totalitarian
states would blow our transports out
of the water as fast as we could load
them, and no one knows that better
than the President. The message was
perfectly timed for the Chicago con-
vention, which is expected to re-
nominate him for the presidency. It
will enable the platform builders to
insert a plank that may be just as
successful in pulling the wool over
the peoples eyes as was the slogan.
He kept us out of war;" in the cam
paign of 1916. We must not forget
that several new crops of voters have
come on since then and how they are
going to react is problematical
My guess is that if we go to war
it will be with Japan. While the
newspapers cannot publish every
thing, they have already printed
enough information regarding the sit
uation over there to convince me that
it wouldn't take much to set off the
spark that would embroil us in war
with Japan. Such a war would
probably not be very unpopular as
it would be largely a naval affair.
However, it would be just as costly.