Evening star., 1941-02-02
President Aims
at World Power
By OUen L. Scott.

the course of the United States toward
attempted world leadership. With equal
deflniteness. he is determined that a
| strong national urge toward isolation
| from the rest of the world shall not be
| permitted to prevail
| Congress will fail to defect Mr.. Roose-
velt from this course The reason that
Congress will fail is that the American
people, while apparently wanting isola-
tion, still appear afraid to live in a
world that would be dominated by Adolf
Hitler and by his ideas Of economic slav-
cry for all except those individuals who
are acceptable to his master race"
President Roosevelt is trying to guide
the American people back toward the
path to world leadership along which
| they started in 1917. The President, and
those about him, are convinced the peo-
pie OF this country must tread that path,
using their untried power to rebuild the
system of liberal world capitalism, or
else this country must accept a wholly
different political and economic organi-
zation fitted to isolation and a second
rate position in the world.
The lend-leaSe bill provides the ma
i chinery through which the United States
can make its influence felt in the world
without actually sending an American
| Army and an American Navy to do the
fighting. The plan is that this country
shall provide the weapons for others to
use in preventing Germany, Italy and
Japan from breaking through the bar
riers that now keep them from this hem
isphere and its riches. In fulfilling that
| plan there inevitably would grow up
something of merger of British and
| American intereStS-a merger that
would have continuing influence if Great
Britain should survive and it might make
Hitler victory rather empty if Britain
should not survive.
Two points. however, worry Congress
and are delaying action on the Presi-
dents plan. Both grow from an unwill-
ingness on the part of minority in Con-
| greSS TO trust Mr.. Roosevelt in the use
of broad new power.
First, is the expressed fear that the
| President might weaken the defenses of
this country by giving away weapons
needed by the Army and Navy at home
for training or for resistance to actual
invasion.
Second, is the expressed fear that the
President might use his new power to
get this country into an actual shooting
war by affronting the Germans or Japa-
nese through too generous aid to the
British
The answer to these fears given by
some of those who should know what is
! planned. is that the President by trans
ferring some weapons is better able to
/ prevent the need for a shooting war.
They point out that every President from
George Washington to Franklin Roose-
! welt has been charged with conducting
! the foreign relations of this country and
that every President has been COM
/ mander in chief of the Army and Navy.
! These are powers that enable any
7 President to precipitete military action
! if he SO desires. Many Presidents have
/ done SO. War declaration by Congress
I has at times been formality, or has
! simply not been resorted to as American
/ forces were directed by a President to
+ act without consultation with Congress.
/ President Roosevelt has refrained, more
/ than any modern President, from the
use OF the armed forces of this country
f to force compliance with American Gov
! ernment wishes.
However, without the lend-lease bill.
Nj. Roosevelt today could direct the
( American Navy to convoy merchant
ships to England and to shoot at any
/ German submarines that might inter-
/ fere. He possesses power to direct the
! Army and Navy to occupy the Azores or
! Cape Verde Islands or Greenland. He
could direct the American Navy. if Brit
/ ain agreed, to operate out Of Singapore
/ in the face of japanese warning that
this would mean war.
In other words, President Roosevelt,
/ like every President, is possessed of war
! making-as contrasted with war-declar-
/ ing-powerS, if he wants to use those
! powers. There is nothing Congress can
do to alter that situation
/ Mr. Roosevelt is described as convinced
/ that the best chance to avoid actual use
OF the American Army and Navy lies in
the assurance to the British that their
/ forces around the world will be ade-
/ quately supplied with weapons needed to
/ keep the an-Italian-Japanese
/ combination bottled up. If Germany
! can be held at bay by airplanes trans
ferred from American Army supplies,
with those airplanes operated by British
| pilots, it might be better than to have
those airplanes operated by American
pilots. In either case the number of
| planes in the United States would be
diminished. But under the Presidents
method, shooting war for this country
would be avoided.
The alternative to some action to help
the British while they resist and to pro-
vide machinery for merging British and
American world interests if Britain her
self falls, is acceptance by the United
States of isolation within this continent.
Most military and naval authorities are
convinced that this country could be-
come impregnable to military invasion
| if content to conf1ne its actions to North
America. But the American people,
through most Of their history, have in
sisted upon having voice in the destiny
of South and Central America as we'll.
The problem of maintaining this Ma
! tons influence in South America would
become extremely difficult in the event
of British defeat owing, first to the
distances involved which are as great