The Sauk Centre herald., 1941-11-27


less to oppose. Leaders, in all goot
faith, may promise that there will
be no boys sent over. But leaders
themselves are caught in the back
wash of emotions where promise:
have no value.
The inevitable end of this con
slant preaching of war and inflam
ing of fear and hate will be thu
demand that we hurl huge armie!
into Europe.
It is therefore not too early t.
| debate this next step of an ex
peditionary army. We must exam
inc it in the realm of cold reason
and intellectual honesty, not OF
hot emotion. For in these decisions
we are pledging the destiny OF
America and possibly the fate OF
civilization.
The first necessity in such deci.
sion is coldly to appraise the mill.
tary situation and the forces in mo-
ton in the world. For war is made
of hard realities.
Truly the situation will shift and
we must weigh it again and again
And let me say that in giving q
short appraisal am advised, not
only by some experience in the high
problems Of such national action
but also by the views of competent
military and naval experts.
Germany's overpowering strength
is in land armies. It lies on land
Obviously the Germans dominate
the whole continent from near Mos
cow to the English channel.
Every person of common sense
will agree that they can conceiv'
ably prevail wherever they car
march by land.
They can conceivably isolate Stal'
in from any consequential Ameri
can supplies. They might ever
eliminate Russia as a determining
military factor in this war. They
may conceivably invade Persia and
Egypt.
But the critical thing for the Ger
mans is that they cannot take theii
armies overseas. They can moi
reach England. They failed ever
to cross the Channel.
Thus these victorious German
land armies cannot bring the wal
to conclusion.
Germany has failed to bring
England down by submarine ant
air blockade.
Thus the Germans cannot bring
the war to a conclusion by sea
power.
In this war air power has mul
tiplied it's strength as an adjunct
to armies and for attack upor
ships.
But for the past year it is stead
lily weakening as an effective at
tack upon civilians and upon indus
trial production. The defense o.
the land from bombers has made
great gains.
| Extensive daylight air raids are
I too inaccurate to destroy industry
And night attacks are less effective
than a year ago.
They result mostly in barbaric
killing of women, children and civ
ilians in the hope of breaking NOR
ale.
Thus Germany has no way to
bring the war to a military con
clusion either by land, sea or air
AS the situation stands today Hit
Ter cannot be victorious. We were
genuinely thrilled to hear from Mr.
Churchill last week that the peri
to Britain has passed.
And we may look at this situa
ton from the English side. The
British obviously cannot successful'
ly attack Germany by land armies
Their sea power has proved unable
to deprive the Germans of vital
supplies.
The Germans will not be starved
out for food or munitions. The
British air attack has not stopped
the Nazi production of war wea-
pons.
Thus there is no promise that
Britain can bring a military con-
clusion to this war, either by arm
les, ships or planes for years to
come.
The primary question before us
is the weight Of the United States
in these military scales.
We can dismiss at once the bogie
that Hitler can invade the western
hemisphere against the modern de-
velopment Of the airplane and our
navy either now or ten years hence.
But could the United States
break this military stalemate in
Europe by adding our military pow
er to that of the British?
We can now observe that Russia
could not overcome the German
army with her 10 million men, 20