Evening star., 1941-10-11


from the advan- David Lawrence.
tages of the measure was stricken
out by large majority.
Congress is apparently committed
to the lease-lend policy and this in
evitably brings up the corollary-
will the United States allow the
cargoes it has shipped to be sent to
the ocean bottom?
Repeal or revision of the Neu-
trality Law provisions has become
a part of the administrations pro-
gram of insuring delivery of the
billions of dollars worth of Amer
lean production and it is rapidly
being demonstrated that Congress
will appropriate virtually unlimited
funds for the cause of democracies
and for those who, though possess
ing autoCratic governments, may be
ranged on the military side of the
democracieS.
Representative Woodrum, Demo-
crat. of Virginia, and one of the
leaders in the House, epitomized the
whole trend of sentiment on Capt.
tol Hill when he said in his speech:
II have no more love for Com
muniSm than you have. I do not
like rattlesnake and I am not
going to get close to one if l can
help it. but if I could get hold of
one of them and had a fair oppor-
tunity would like to slip it up the
pants leg of Adolf Hitler"
A Military Consideration.
There is in Washington a distinct
feeling tnat there are handicaps ga
lore in having Stain as an ally but
Prime Minister Churchill crossed
that bridge the very day Hitler at
tackled Russia and the disposition
here has been to look at the prob
lem strictly from a military stand
point. Russia has unquestionably
slowed up the Nazi drive and intro
duced complications that give Axis
foes more time and America more
opportunity to increase her defense
production for the use of the de-
mocracies.
But there's another and far more
fundamental reason why Congress
shows readiness to appropriate
billions upon billions of dollars and
virtually hand the production of
Americas mines and factories to the
British or the Russians or the
Chinese or the Turks, as the case
may be. That reason is the grow
ing hope that if dollars will do the
job of stopping Hitler, the neces-
sity for entering a shooting war or
sending an expeditionary force will
be removed.
This may not be a commendable
position for the United States to
take alongside of her sister foes of
the Axis, but that's the political
motivation for the big votes which
the lease-lend bills are getting. The
average member of Congress is able
to say that he voted whatever was
asked in order to keep the war over
In Europe and that, having started
with the lease-lend policy, the,a is
no sound political reason for stop
ping it.
Clears IsOlatiOnists.
While most of the iSolationiStS
doubtless will fight the revision of
the neutrality law to permit arming
of merchant ships or to send Amer
lean ships into belligerent ports,
there is, strangely enough, DISPOSE
ton to support lease-lend appropria-
tionS so that the isolationiSt may
say he stood back of every item
asked for in behalf of defense itself.
1t makes possible stronger stand
later on when policy changes are
made that might imply war.
Furthermore, the NaZi government
has never made any open repriSals
against the lease lend program, and
II 1t had been intended by Hitler to
declare war on the United States as
an answer to Americas aid to Brit
ain, this would have come on the
first leaSe-lend measures of last
April. 1t is considered here that
the extension of the policy itself is
not likely to be provocative of
further friction.
This may not be true of the re-
vision of the neutrality laws, be-
cause Germany has not yet an
nounced whether she will insist on
the right to fire on vessels flying the
American flag without giving warn
ing or putting the crews into posi-
tionS of safety.
Though the Presidents program
involves the risks of war, the ten
dency of the Congress is to take
that risk with him and hope against
hope that the war somehow will be
won without the need for active
participation by an expeditionary
force.