Evening star., 1941-09-30
ConnaI|y Advocates
Neutrality Revision 10
Arm Merchant Ships
Combat Zones q Failure,
Senator Says in Radio
Forum Address

Proposed changes in the Neu-
trality Act were discussed last night
In an address by Chairman Con-
nally of the Senate Foreign Rela-
tlons Committee in the National
Radio Forum. The address, heard
locally over Station WMAL, was
arranged by The Star and broad
cast over a network of the National
Broadcasting Co.
The text of Senator Connally's
speech follows:
The cruel and brutal war now
raging in Europe and Asia, though
its land battles are thousands of
miles from our shores, has more
and more affected our people and
their interests as its bloody chap
ters have unfolded. The threat to
our national security. to the safety
of our territory, to the integrity of
our institutions and to the preserva-
ton of our international rights has
become clearer and more imminent
with each new conquest, with each
new enslavement of a once free
people.
Moved by the devotion Of the
American people to peace and their
adherence of war. the Congress,
in 1895. years prior to the invasion
of Poland. enacted an arms en-
barge resolution, mistakenly called
a Neutrality Act. 1t prohibited the
shipment of arms and ammunition
from the United States to any
nation at war. 1t was passed upon
the theory that such a course would
discourage armed conflict abroad
and prevent our involvement there
in. That act was not in truth
Neutrality Act. 1t limited our rights
as a neutral Nation. 1t denied to
our citizens rights to which they
were entitled by immemorial inter-
national sanctions. We laid upon
our citizens prohibitions against tive
exercise of rights guaranteed to
them by international law. 1t was
soon revealed that the original act
was unsound and in 1886, it was
amended. In 1887 Congress again
&4OOulcQ 4tS pIUN4SIclIS.
Premium to Conquerors.
After Hitler hurled his Nazi
legions into Poland in September,
1899, it became amazingly apparent
that the arms embargo operated to
deny to peaceful nations and to
peoples who had not armed to the
teeth and who had not builded up
great military machines, securing
arms and munitions from neutral
nations for their necessary self
defense. The continued existence
of such an act gave a premium to
conquerors, to totalitarian masters
who had, through the years, been
carefully arming in order to over
whelm and subjugate nations who
felt secure in their neutral and
peaceful lives. The Nazi powers,
equipped with all of the modern
weapons of war and all Of the me-
chanical equipment which ingenuity
and genius could devise for the
destruction of human life. did not
need to acquire arms or munitions
from America. The peaceful and
unoffenoing nations of Europe, who
were unarmed and defenSeleSS, did
need arms and munitions from the
United States and other neutral
nations. Under International law,
they had a right to procure. and
the United States had a right to
supply, war materials and munitions
for the defense of their homes and
their lives.
In the fall of 1899, the Congress
enacted the arms embargo repeal
resolution. 1t removed the prohibi-
ton against the sale and shipment
of arms to nations at war. How
ever, still in the interest of peace,
motivated by an extreme anxiety to
preserve the peace and to protect
the safety and the lives of the Amer
lean people, the act laid limitations
upon the freedom of our shipping
and upon the rights of our citizens
1t was required that nations at
war purchasing arms in the United
States should acquire title to the
arms and munitions secured before
the same should leave our shores
American ships we're denied the
right to transport arms and NUM-
tions. American ships were pro-
hibited from carrying on commerce
with any nation at war. The Pres
ident was authorized to establish
combat zones in belligerent areas
into which American ships could not
sail and into which American citi-
zens were not permitted to travel,
except under unusual circumstances.
Hope Became an Illusion.
These regulations were established
In the hope and belief that if
American ships did not sail to the
ports of belligerent nations and
we're not permitted within combat
zones. they would not be attacked
or sunk upon the high seas where
they had right to sail under inter-
national law accepted and recog-
nized by all civilized nations. That
hope and belief have proven illu-
sory. The brutal Nazi philosophy,
which on land conquered and sub
dued neutral and peaceful Holland,
Denmark and Norway and Bel
gium, who had committed no wrong,
unless the love of home and the de-
sire to live in peace be wrong, with
It's swarming submarines and sur
face raiders upon the seas, sank the
ships and murdered the citizens of
neutral nations. The same defiant
and truculent and ruthless spirit
that dominated the German govern
ment during the World War, en-
HANGED and brutalized by the Nazi
doctrines of Hitler, has recently at
tackled and sunk American mer-
chant ships, and Nazi submarine
attacked a United States naval de-
stroyer. These attacks we're not
made upon ship within combat