The Wrangell sentinel., 1940-06-28

WASHINGTON. June 28-The foundation of a new Monroe Doc trine is buried in a simple but a. mazing joint resolution which went before Congress with almost incred- ible speed.
 It is simple because. on the sur face. it says so little and really is not binding at all. It is amazing because, in it's deep-rooted impliea- tions, it gives the President the green light to wield "the big stick in a sphere the size of which Presi- dent Monroe never dreamed.
 The resolution is simply this de- claration of foreign policy: That the United States would not recog- nize any transfer, and would not aequiesce in any attempt to trans fer, ANY GEOGRAPHIC REGION OF THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE from one non-American power to another non American power. (There's another paragraph about consulting with other American rel pubiics in event any such transfer seems imminent, but that's really not very importantly That's all there is to it. A simple statement, if there ever was one. In l that phrase, "any geographic region Of the western hemisphere, lies the subtlety and dynamite of what may be one of the most important legt islative acts of this and many an- other Congress.
 West Of What? It's no laughing matter, but there's one big laugh in it. Any second-rate map-maker can tell you that no one yet has been able to di- i vide the eastern and western hemi- l spheres to the satisfaction of all concerned. As s. w. Boggs, State l! Department geographer and a scho- lar of international repute, puts it, This question at once arises, east or west of what?" Most map-makers now, merely as a matter of convenience, start with | the 20th meridian west of Green wich, England, as the eastern | boundary of the western hemis- phere. and extend it 180 degrees west of the 160th meridian EAST of Greenwich If that's what Con- gress means by this extension of the Monroe Doctrine, get out your maps and get ready for gasp. Because that includes the Azores on the east, l practically all of Greenland. a third of Iceland-and on the west, Tahiti, | New Zealand, and more pinpoints of land in the South Pacific than you could shake a stick at. There's even a sizable hunk of Russia, beyond the l Boring Straits, in this area. But Congress, in it's resolution, doesn't say that those are the limits of the western hemisphere. Con- gress-woman Edith Nourse Rogers, 1 of massachusetts,, asked Mr. Boggs to define the western hemisphere, l and MT. Boggs, after long explana- tions of why it could not be done, said that "it seems better to regard this hemisphere" as extending from the goth meridian Chat includesl the Azores, mind you, but MT. Boggs ulu uOl luOhIlOn lhSIu0iOH OL ally portion of Iceland, though he did include Greenland) to the Inter national Date Line, which roughly runs along the 180th meridian, butt bulges east to miss New Zealand and Russia and west to include theI westernmost of the Aleutian Islands.
 It does not include Tahiti, which belongs to France. It also includes so many other French and British islands that list of them in small est type would take up more space than this column fills. It doesn't in clude Wake, Guam and the Philip pines and it doesn't include the Dutch West Indies, richest of all the Pacific prizes, but the Philippines are still ours until 1946 and Secre- tary Hull already has notified the world that the Monroe Doctrine goes for the Dutch West Indies.
 Canada Put In Recently
 Somebody's bound to stand up and say Well, the original Monroe Doc Urine Git was nothing more than a message to Congress) mentioned the western hemisphere twice." It's true But President Monroe and his cabinet were thinking only of the United States, Central and South America. Why, even Canada was so