Evening star., 1940-12-13
1t Is Up to Us

Ill 1llS lllldl dppCdl w UllC 1hiliCAiSoA
people, you will not be backing a
gutter. The issue now depends
largely on what you decide to do.
Nobody can share that responsible
ity with you"
The first reaction of many persons
who heard or read the late British
Ambassadors statement was: But
we are already backing Great Brit.
ain" Had Lord Lothian been less Of
a diplomat, he might have explained
in blunt language what he probably
was trying, in polite phraseology, to
make the American people under
stand about their country's and Brit
aims common crisis.
Perhaps he was trying to tell us
some of the things which current
headlines reflect about the state OF
our preparedness, but which too few
of us seem to regard with more than
casual interest: That while the Nazi
war economy is operating at the peak
of totalitarian efficiency, we in Amer
lea still talk about preserving social
gains at all cost, about superimpos-
ing our national defense production
on our peacetime industrial Setup,
about maintaining in time of extreme
emergency the labor standards of a
normal way of life; that while
Goering's bomberS are blasting Brit
aims plane factories, we are revising
downward instead of upward our
estimates of plane production for the
year, due to labor, material and
other "bottleneckS"; that while Hit
ler's U-boats and surface raiders are
breaking through Britain's terribly
thin" convoy lines, we hesitate about
extending further aid in the form of
destroyers and merchant ships; that
while England holds off our enemies
and gives us precious weeks in which
to strengthen our defenses, we quib-
BILE about loans and credits to help
her hold the ramparts of democracy
for us.
In the same newspapers which car
ried Lord Lothian's poignant appeal
for an American awakening to the
realities, reports from War Depart
ment sources told of serious delays in
the Army cantonment construction
program and of shortages in almost
every kind of equipment Little
comfort is to be derived from Secre-
tary of War Stimson's statement
that he never had been oversanguine
about the building schedule, because
of recollections as to similar delays
encountered in 1917 and 1918. There
was no official explanation of the
three month delay in invoking a
congressional authorization permit
ting the Army Engineers to aid the
overburdened Quartermaster Corps
in rushing the huge construction job.
The engineers have just been or
dered to take over construction work
at all Air Corps stations.
And we still have a National De-
fense Commission which has only
advisory powers of coordination and
which has no head but the President.
serving as ex officio chairman, and
none at all when he is away from
Washington.
1t is not improbable that these
were among the things which the late
Marques of Lothian had in mind
when he, in effect, conditioned Brit
aims survival, and democracy'S, on
our capacity to decide what we in
tend to do-whether we will back
Britain as she must be backed to
achieve victory, with a total effort
that comprehends fully the dire peril
to us of Nazi triumph in Europe,
or whether we will continue to blind
ourselves to the necessity for tre-
mendous eXertion and sacrifices by
all of us in this dark hour of history.
Lord Lothian was entirely correct in
declaring that the responsibility for
making that decision is ours alone,
which is just another way of remind
ing us that we can remain masters of
our own fate; if we act promptly and
decisively now.