Evening star., 1940-12-22
An lrreconciIubIe Conflict

The fundamental character of the
clash now being fought to bitter
finish on the other side of the At
lantic has long been evident to those
willing to discriminate between fact
and fiction, Certainly, this truth has
been clear enough to Adolf Hitler
and we have his word for it that this
is a war between two vastly different
worlds-a war in which one of these
worlds must break asunder. But in
this country there have been fire.
quent attempts to camouf1age the
real issues at stake; to nurture the
belief that we can afford to be indif-
ferent to the outcome of the war;
to spread the false doctrine that our
vital interests would not be adversely
affected if Great Britain should be
wiped out as a major power and a
rampant totalitarianism left free to
direct the destinies of Europe, Asia
and Africa.
Fortunately these preachments of
appeasement have been rejected from
the beginning by this administra-
ton and they have been generally
condemned by the American people,
but there is no gainsaying the fact
that their advocates have had some
success in minimizing the gravity of
the situation in the public mind and
in binding many people to the deadly
implications of this war. Because of
the fact that these apostles of ap-
peasement' have been particularly
active of late, the statement issued
yesterday by William S. Knudsen on
behalf of all four members of the
newly created Office OF Production
Management is both timely and of
vital Importance.
Mr.. Knudsen minced no words in
what he had to say Referring to
the origin of what has been called
the super defense council, which he
will direct, Mr.. Knudsen declared:
1T is born out of the consciousness
of the heightened gravity of the
world situation and recognition
that the contest which produced this
crisis is irreconcilable in character
and cannot be terminated by any
methods of appeasement Both the
future security of the United States
and the total defense of our demo-
cratic principles in this worldwide
contest demand that every resource
of capital and management and
maximum efforts on the part of labor
shall be ceaselessly employed to pro-
vide the means of defense against
attack"
That warning, sanctioned by the
entire membership of our supreme
defense body, is as plain as the Eng
lish language permits. Mr.. Knudsen
and his associates recognize and do
not hesitate to say that the great
issue of democracy versus totalitar-
lanism, from our standpoint, can be
resolved satisfactorily only by the
defeat of Hitler and his allies. But
that is task-and again the defense
spokesman is frank-which calls for
the utmost effort of which all Ameri-
cans are capable. The old days of
rearmament by easy stages are gone.
From now on it must be war-indus-
trial war-to the limit of our
national capacity.
1t is impossible to overstress the
Importance of a literal acceptance
of Mr.. Knudsen's plain spoken warn
ing and wholehearted compliance
with his appeal for cooperation
from the people Of the United
States. We may be assured that the
grim significance of his remarks will
not be lost upon the war lords in
Berlin, Rome and Toxic, who are
bending every effort to smash Great
Britain before the tremendous mill
tary output of which we are poten-
TALLY capable can turn the tide
against them. But potentialities are
not enough; wars can be won only
with finished guns, planes, ships and
tanks. 1t is for this reason that the
next few months will bring us into
a fateful race against time, race
between the already armed aggres-
sors and American capacity to pro-
duce which will decide the future of
our world. We cannot afford to lose
u -
we are sufficiently resolved that, this
time, democracy will not be too late.