The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1941-11-20
THE GREAT
GAME OF
POLITICS
Copyright by The Baltimore Sun and
reprinted in The Republican by per-
mission.
Lessons OF The Vote
By FRANK R. KENT
Washington, Nov. Is

Washington, Nov. Is.
1t is possible that the Axis powers
will take great comfort from the mar
rowness by which Mr.. Roosevelt's re-
quest for revision of the Neutrality
Act escaped defeat Certainly, it is a
startling exhibition of disunity when,
despite the earnestness of the Presi-
Dental appeals, forty-four per cent of
the House oppose the President in his
effort to free the nation from the
handicap which a mistaken piece of
legislation imposed upon the effec-
tiveness of a foreign polity to which
we are overwhelmingly committed.
But, if Mr.. Hitler and his friends
read into the vote the meaning that
in such proportions the American
people are divided in their desire to
crush the Nazi regime, they will be
making a very stupid mistake. The
reverse of that is true The fact is
that the sensational vote against re-
vision was the result of a stand by
men whose hostility to Hitler is fully
equal to that of Mr.. Roosevelt, whose
eagerness to aid the British and the
Russians is in no way less and who
were supporting what is Called the
Roosevelt foreign policy before Mr..
Roosevelt made it his own.
Certainly, defeat of neutrality re-
vision would have had very bad
psychological effect upon our allies,
and an explanation of the opposition
of members of Congress, generally
sympathetic with all-out aid to the
British and anything to beat Hitler,
is needed. The explanation is as SIM
pie as it is significant. 1t should be
said in advance, however, that the re-
joicing of the isolationists over the
vote is absurd. No one knows better
than they how little they had to do
with it. Those really responsible are
no more isolationists that Mr.. Roose-
welt himself. What they wanted to
do was not to comfort Hitler with a
demonstration of disunity but to force
Mr.. Roosevelt to action that will uni
fly the nation against Hitler and per-
nit us to exert our full strength.
= 80
Conceding that defeat of the bill
would have been a major disaster, it
is still easy to understand the point
of view of the strong intervention
/ lists who opposed it, chief among them
being Senator Byrd, of Virginia. Ac-
tually, the whole revolt stems from
/ his statment two weeks ago that,
while he had supported to date every
item of the foreign policy, he did not
propose to go one step further to-
fard war until Mr.. Roosevelt had done
something to end the defense strikes,
adopt a decent labor policy, establish
a head of his defense organization
and remove the incompetents from the
key positions.
Beyond question, Senator Byrd's in
dictment, which was elaborated and
documented in magazine article,
made a deep impression. 1t voiced
what many a man in Congress had
in his heart. 1t was another way of
asserting that our dangers from with
in are as great as those from with
out; that our foreign policy cannot
be strong if our domestic policies are
weak; that we cannot be effective
abroad if we are ineffective at home.
Every effort to get Mr.. Roosevelt to
stand up to the labor professionals
had failed, Personally, he had killed
two bills-one of them Senator Byrd's
that fifteen months ago would have
made defense strikes illegal. 1t was
his attitude that has made it impos-
sible to get even a hearing from the
Senate Labor Committee on more re-
cent bills.
In addition, it has been found i'm
possible to induce the President to
deal squarely with the initiation dan
ger; to adopt sensible price-control
policy; to formulate tax policy; to
move one step toward retrenchment
in non-defense expenditures; to heed
the teachings of experience. Every
effort to move him in any of these
directions had been entirely futile.
Coupling all this with the failure to
face firmly up to John L. Lewis in
the coal strike, the result was a swing
of number of Senators, such as Tyd
ings, of Maryland; Adams, of Colo
RADIO, and others, to the Byrd view
to-wit: that important as was neu-
trality revision, it was even more
vital to make some sort of stand that
would compel the President to
straighten out the mess into which
the defense program has gotten.
So long, it was commended, as Con-
gress gave him everything he asked
by overwhelming vote, there was no
chance of making Mr.. Roosevelt lis
ten to reason and stop playing New
Deal and labor politics. The only
chance was to make it plain that moth