Evening star., 1941-11-02
Then-und Now

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There are striking parallels be-
tween the realities of this country's
position as they exist today and as
they existed on April 2, 1917, when
President Wilson asked special Ses-
sion of Congress to declare the re-
cent course of the imperial German
government to be in fact nothing less
than war against the Government
and people of the United States"
In 1917 as President Wilson point
ed out, the German government had
announced that its submarines would
sink every vessel that sought to ap-
proach either the ports of Great Brit
ain and Ireland or the western coasts
of Europe or any of the ports con-
trolled by the enemies OF Germany
within the Mediterranean" The
government of Adolf Hitler has an
nounced that any vessel coming be-
fore the torpedo tubes of its Subma-
rines will be sunk if it is engaged on
q mission useful to GermanyS enc
mics, and this edict is being enforced
not merely along the coasts OF Eu-
rope, but across a vast expanse OF
the Atlantic which the Nazis have
arbitrarily defined as war zone.
The destroyer Reuben James was
sunk while defying this edict. Two
merchant ships flying the American
flag have been sent to the bottom
while outside this zone. Two other
American WarShlps have narrowly
escaped the fate of the Reuben
James.
On April 2. 1917, President Wilson
pointed out that American ships had
been sunk and that American lives
had been lost, as well as those of
other neutrals. 1T is a war against
all nations" he said. The challenge
is to all mankind" And what is the
case today? Once again American
ships and American lives, as we'll
as those of other neutralS, are being
sacrificed. And Hitler himself is
authority for the statement that
there is not room in the world for
his totalitarian concepts and the
democratic way of life-that the lat
ter must CO. Is this not more, rather
than less, of a challenge to all man.
kind?
OF neutrality, President Wilson
said: Neutrality is no longer feasible
or desirable where the peace of the
world is involved and the freedom of
It's peoples. " We have seen the
last of neutrality in such circum-
stances" Neutrality is no less dead
today, but here the parallel ends.
The Congress of 1917 moved speed
lily to comply with the Presidents
request that it formally acknowledge
the existence of state of war with
Germany, that it formally accept
the status of belligerent which has
thus been forced upon it." But the
Congress of today is engaged seri-
ously in a discussion of the merits"
of our legislated neutrality and the
extent to which it should be modi-
fed, If, indeed, it should be modified
at all.
Out on the Atlantic the guns of
the Navy are in action and men are
laying down their lives for their
country. Every American - every
member of Congress-knows in his
heart that this is war, yet the con-
gressional debate deals only with the
dead issue of neutrality, with the
foolish question of whether we shall
deceive ourselves a little more or
little less.
This, it seems, is the tragic price
that we must pay for a long period
of self-deception-a strange inter-
lude that began when we scrapped
our Navy in exchange for non
existent security based on solemn
treaties, and which finds what we
may hope is its final expression to-
day in a blind effort to escape the
consequences of war by clinging to
the tattered remnants of a law
which says we are neutral.
The debate, no doubt, will 60 on.
But whatever the outcome, however
the final vote turns, the result will
be the same Congress cannot pre-
serve or abandon neutrality in any
realistic sense, for neutrality is gone.
This is a fact. There may be those
who wish to persist in denying it, but
their denials soon will be lost in the
war which already has engulfed us.